THANK YOU SO MUCH for the reviews I have gotten! I'm so sorry for taking so long, that's the number one request I always get is to update quickly.. I had this almost finished and honestly life just got in the way. You guys are always so sweet and I really don't deserve it.. But, I do appreciate it!

The drive from their house to the Old Hollis movie theatre was filled with a comfortable silence. Aria knew that, without words being exchanged, all had been forgiven. She didn't like arguing with her parents, but sometimes it just felt like they were taking things much too far and she hated it. She hated everything about their current situation. And more than she could say, she hated that her mother still didn't know about her father's affair. If she did, things might be very different.

After they had parked, Aria and her mother made their way to the theatre, chatting idly along the way.

"So, are you excited to be starting a new job?" Ella asked.

"Yeah, I really am." Aria replied, happy that she could talk about this. "I mean, Elliot's in day care anyway, so at least this way I spend the same amount of time with him and I get to make money to at least pay for his daycare."

"You know your father and I are doing this to benefit you, right?" Ella folded her hands together as she walked, clearly unsure of herself. "You have to know that."

"I do. I know." Aria agreed. "But I'm doing this to benefit me, too, Mom. I don't want to go against you, or Dad, I'm just trying to get my life together. For Elliot. I really, really appreciate that you guys want to protect me and give me the opportunities every other teenage girl has, but I haven't lost any of that. I mean, since I've been a mom I don't want any of that stuff high school kids want. I don't want to go to parties or go out with boys," I'd much rather go out with men, Aria thought to herself cheerfully. "I just want to take care of Elliot and finish high school and go to college so I can provide a good life for him on my own. And hopefully teach him better than to repeat my actions because this is not the life I want for him."

Ella studied her daughter carefully. She didn't quite know how to take the honesty in her daughter's voice. Just when had her little girl grown up? "You're a great mother, Aria. I don't want to take that away from you, but you must see your father's reasoning behind this arrangement?"

"Yeah." Was all Aria could say in response. She understood her father's reasoning, but her mother must see that his reasoning was flawed? She wanted to tell her mother that her father was much better at keeping secrets than Ella thought, but she knew what the outcome would be. After all, she'd been the one assisting in keeping her father's secret for so long.

"Oh, damn." Ella stopped abruptly in front of the theatre. "I left the tickets in the car."

"I'll walk with you."

"Oh, no, that's fine." Ella protested, walking from Aria as she did so. "I'll just be a minute!"

Aria glanced around the street, taking in her surroundings. This Old Hollis neighborhood was full of vintage shops and colonial buildings that had the charms of life in the early 1800s. Aria loved everything about this neighborhood. It was nice to be out with just her mother, she decided. They really hadn't had a mother-daughter day since before Alison had gone missing. Sometimes she missed days like this. Another reason she was completely dreading Elliot turning into a teenager. She loved spending time with her mom, and she knew Elliot adored spending time with her, but that wouldn't always be the case. In the blink of an eye, going anywhere with Mommy would be the last thing on his mind.

"Aria?" Aria turned to the sound of the familiar voice, unable to resist the smile spreading across her features when her eyes finally rested on Ezra.

"Hey." She breathed out. She noticed that his eyes shifted to somewhere behind her and turning around, she saw that her mother was already back with their tickets for the show. "Uh - Mr. Fitz, hi! This is my mom, Ella."

"Mr. Fitz the new English teacher?" Ella extended her hand in greeting.

"Yes." Ezra smiling that charming smile Aria adored and shook her mother's hand. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Montgomery."

"Oh, please, call me Ella." She corrected him with a grin. "We're a very informal family."

Aria could feel the awkwardness radiating off of Ezra as he chuckled at Ella's statement. She knew she looked like an idiot, but she just couldn't wipe the smile she knew was plastered to her face, so wide that her cheeks were beginning to get sore.

"Are you going to see the movie?"

"Yes, I am." Ezra looked up at the title on the theatre billboard, as if he had forgotten what movie he had even been coming to see. "It's, uh, it's one of my favorites."

"Aria's, too." Ella said, narrowing her eyes slightly and Aria noticed the way she took the sight of Ezra in. "She's told us a lot about you."

The smile immediately removed itself from Ezra's face and she could see the absolute terror that filled his eyes. She tried to signal with her eyes that he looked guilty and her mother would notice, before Ella gave a slight tug on her arm.

"Although she forgot to mention," Ella said, returning her attention to her daughter for a brief moment. "the 'you're very young' part."

"Yeah, well" "I, uh, I'm" "We'd better get inside." Aria and Ezra spoke over each other, Aria attempting to change the subject and Ezra completely unsure what to say.

"We'll see you inside." Ella waved as she allowed Aria to steer her inside the theatre. "You also forgot to mention the 'really cute' part." She added under her breath.

"Mom!" Aria scolded while they were in line for the concessions stand. "Way to embarrass the guy!"

"Embarrass the guy?" Ella chortled. "I think you're more embarrassed than he was! How old is he? 25? 24?"

"I don't know!" Ella ticked one brow at her indicating that she knew Aria wasn't telling the truth and Aria rolled her eyes. "23. He just graduated Hollis."

"No wonder you like him so much." Ella teased and Aria could feel the color drain from her face. "I bet every girl in that school has to fan themselves when he walks by."

"Mom!" Aria groaned, completely embarrassed by this point but glad that her mother was making a joke of it rather than taking it seriously. "Can we just go sit down now, please?"

"Oh, alright." Ella paid for their popcorn and drinks and followed her daughter into the theatre. The opening credits were already over by the time she noticed Ezra walking in out of the corner of her eye. "Mr. Fitz, why don't you sit with us?"

Aria's eyes grew wide and she silently pleaded with him to sit anywhere but with her and her mother. Of course, her mother was at the end of the aisle, so he would have to sit next to her, but there was no way Aria could make it through this movie without dying of mortification. She honestly wanted to strangle him when he agreed and took the seat beside her. For the briefest second, his hand grazed hers and it was like having a jolt of electricity shot into her hand. Immediately they both shifted their hands so that their hands wouldn't be touching. Ezra shifted his legs so the very corners of their knees just barely tapped one another.

Aria had to focus every ounce of her willpower to focus on the screen in front of her. More than once, she caught Ezra stealing glances at her and she knew he could see that she was doing the same. About halfway through the film, Ella excused herself to go to the restroom. The second she was out of the theatre, Aria could feel Ezra reach over and caress her knee with the back of his knuckles. The gesture was so small, so steady, that even if her mother were there it would have gone unnoticed. Even so, her mother wasn't the one who would have felt the jolt of electricity surging through her body. They were the only two in the theatre at the moment and Aria silently thank God, or whoever was up there, that they had been the only people in Rosewood interested in seeing this movie.

"So…" Ezra whispered.

"So." Aria agreed, the corners of her mouth lifting just slightly. "What do you think of my mom?"

"Your mom isn't really what I want to be talking about right now." Ezra said, his eyes cast downward at the exposed skin of her legs. Aria grinned mischievously. She wouldn't actually let him try anything in the theatre, but she wasn't completely above teasing him just a bit.

"Oh yeah?" Aria questioned. She turned herself towards him and then crossed her legs in a way that caused him to bring his eyes level with hers. "What is it you want to talk about then?"

Ezra stared at her intently. He didn't say anything for a while and it wasn't far from Aria's mind that they didn't have all the time in the world, as much as she wished they did. Hesitantly Ezra reached a hand up, cupping her face and brushing the pad of his thumb over her cheek. She held his hand to her face, leaning into his touch. They stayed just like that, comfortable enough that they didn't need to speak. The only thing that caused them to break apart was the sound of Aria's phone vibrating in her bag.

Oh lala, Aria. All alone in a dark theatre with Fitz… wonder how that's going to look in the police report. –A.

Just as Aria was closing the message and checking her surroundings, she saw her mother entering the theatre and the two turned forward, assuming the positions they had been in just before Ella had left. Perhaps A had been warning her that her mother was returning to the theatre. But how had A known that? The bitch was really starting to creep Aria the hell out.

*PLL*

Aria and Spencer sat beside each other on Aria's bedroom floor, propped up on the side of her bed with their math books open in front of them. After switching to part-time independent study a week ago, Aria found herself lagging in pre-calculus and had called Spencer that morning for help on the chapter's assignments. It was Sunday, and though Spencer was spending much of the day with her family, her parents had agreed to let Spencer spend the night as long as they were getting work done. Now the two girls were solving equations together, Spencer more rapidly than Aria.

"Have you still been getting messages from A?" Spencer said, not once taking her eyes off of the book in front of her.

"Have you?" Aria quirked an eyebrow. She hadn't spent a ton of time with any of the girls outside of school, a part of her still wanted to push them away for fear of judgment should any of them find out about Elliot. Except for Emily, they hadn't mentioned being harassed by A so Aria had assumed she was the only one.

"I kissed Wren." Spencer blurted out instead of answering the question. "You know, Melissa's fiancé? I kissed him. A threatened to tell Melissa, but she caught us before they got the chance. And A knows other stuff, too, stuff not even Ali would have known because she's dead."

"A knows stuff about me, too." Aria said quietly. Pushing her books away, Aria drew her knees to her chest and cradled them in her arms. She didn't dare look Spencer in the eye. "At first it was just something only Ali and I knew, but now they're threatening to tell this whole town something else entirely, things that happened after Ali. I just don't know how this person could possibly know anything."

"Well, what does A-"

"Aria." Ella knocked on the frame of her daughter's door, causing Aria to start before looking up. It hadn't occurred to her that she had left her door open in case her mother or Elliot needed anything.

"Yeah, Mom?" Aria's eye flitted back over to Spencer, the two silently agreeing that 'A' was not something to discuss with their parents.

"I know you girls are busy, buy I need you to take Elliot while I go pick something up for dinner." Ella stepped into the room, leading the toddler by the hand as she did so. Elliot immediately let go and ran towards Aria, who scooped him up with a broad smile on her face. "Mike's off with friends and your dad is staying late at his office."

"OK." She agreed readily. At the back of her mind, she found herself curious of her father's whereabouts, but the forefront was just happy to spend time with Elliot. "I think we could use a break, anyway, I'm starting to get a migraine."

"Alright." Ella spared a glance at Spencer, who appeared oblivious as she had continued to work out her equations on her sheet of scratch paper. "I won't be long."

"Bye, Mom."

"Bye, Nana!" Elliot called after Ella, waving his slightly pudgy arm in the air enthusiastically. Aria looked towards Spencer, still seemingly deep in thought. "We play?"

"Yeah, we can play." Aria giggled as Elliot pulled her to her feet and began to lead her out of her bedroom. "Spence, do you want to come play with us?"

"Sure…" Spencer drug the word out as she slowly closed her textbook and rose to feet. Aria tried not to notice the suspicious look in her friend's eyes as she followed them across the hall into Elliot's bedroom. He and Aria were emptying a giant tub of Legos onto the ground and Spencer found herself watching from the doorway as Aria helped Elliot put them together to build a tower. "Did Elliot just call your mom 'Nana'?"

Aria froze. Spencer could see her shoulders tense, and though her back was to her she knew that her petite friend had a deer in the headlights look in her eyes.

"Aria?" Slowly, agonizingly slowly, Aria rose to her feet and eventually turned to face Spencer. All the color had drained from her body and quite frankly, she looked as if she might heave right in the middle of the room. "Are you ok?"

"I- I mean… I'm – He's - He just-" Aria stammered, cutting herself on when she saw Spencer's eyes grow wider by the second.

"Are you serious?" Spencer exclaimed, lowering her voice so as not to alarm Elliot who was still happily stacking his legos. "Aria, you can't – I mean. Jesus, we were fourteen when you left for Iceland!"

"Yeah, I remember." Aria spat back. She didn't mean to get ugly, but she didn't know how else to be. "It just… happened. Spencer, you cannot tell anyone! You can't!"

"It's your secret." Spencer replied warily, eyes going from Aria to Elliot and back to Aria. "Do what you want with it. But why didn't you tell us a long time ago? I mean, geez, you've been back for almost two months already! Halloween is next week! Why didn't you tell us while you were in Iceland? You could have written us."

"Spencer, I wasn't even fourteen yet when I got pregnant, I was a little freaked out! And coming back here has been Hell for me!" Aria kneeled back down to her son, and kissed him on the side of his head. "Elliot, Spencer and I are going to be across the hall, ok?"

"Kay." Elliot didn't even look up from his blocks, just continued to stack one onto another and another. Aria walked straight past Spencer and across the hall into her bedroom, holding the door open for her friend. After Spencer had followed her, she closed the door save for a couple of inches, allowing her to still keep an eye on Elliot.

"Look, I didn't know what I was doing, ok? My parents didn't take it well, clearly. My dad wanted to force me into getting an abortion, for God's sake! And when my mom convinced him that that was a terrible idea he shipped us all to Iceland." Aria covered her face with her hands. "I couldn't tell you guys. I couldn't."

"Wait a minute… you were pregnant before you left for Iceland?" Spencer's eyes practically popped out of her face. "You got pregnant here?"

"Yes." Aria admitted. "I didn't hook up with some random guy in a foreign country, Spence."

"Well, apparently you hooked up with some random guy in your own hometown." Spencer replied sarcastically. "Who was it?"

"What?"

"You know what. Aria, you can't just drop a bomb like this and expect me not to have questions!"

"I can't tell you…" Aria muttered, crossing the room and dropping onto the bed.

"Why not?" Spencer joined her, now anxious to find out as many answers as she could. "Were you-"

"No!" Aria was so tired of people assuming that if she'd had sex it had to have been rape. "I wasn't raped. I wish people would stop assuming that that's what this is."

"People? So who else knows?"

"No one." Aria rolled her eyes, hoping that projecting an attitude of sorts would keep her from crying. "Look, Spencer, I'm not proud of the choice I made to have sex that young; I wasn't ready. Hell, I'm still not ready. But I love Elliot, more than I love anything or anyone and it's my job to protect him. I can't do that if people find out about his sperm donor."

"What's so bad about him if it wasn't rape?" Spencer questioned, her tone shifting to a softer one upon seeing Aria's distress over the situation. "If I guess will you tell me?"

"Believe me, you could name every single guy at our school and you still wouldn't guess." Aria said softly. "If word gets out, Spencer, there will be a trial and he will go to jail. When I stress out, it stresses my son out and I can't put him through all of that and traumatize him for the rest of his life."

"So he's older?"

Aria glared at her friend. "Don't, Spence, please?"

"Aria-"

"NO, Spencer." Aria sprang from the bed, wrapping her arms around herself and pacing the length of her bedroom. "You do not understand. I've hurt my parents enough. My parents don't want anyone to know about this, so please just stop asking questions."

"Fine." Spencer quickly began to put her books into the messenger bad she had brought along with her. After she had secured the bag's strap across her chest she rose from her crouching position and stood with her head held high. "Don't tell me anything. I don't know what I really expected, considering we didn't hear from you for two years. Call me crazy, but I figured since we all have this crazy stalker out to get us, you'd trust me just a little bit."

Spencer didn't give her the chance to say much else, she simply turned on her heel and stormed out of the room. A few seconds later, she hear the front door slam and only then did she let the tears fall.

*PLL*

The next morning at school, Aria made sure to arrive early so she could talk to Spencer privately. She had spent much of the evening the night prior debating whether or not she should call; it wasn't really a conversation she wanted to be having at all, much less over the phone. She had already bathed Elliot and put him to bed before she resolved to just meet up with Spencer at school the next day.

She had just rounded the corner into the hallway where she and Spencer's lockers were located when a new idea entirely crossed her mind. She spotted Spencer easily, with Hanna and Emily hovered around her. She hadn't seen the three of them hanging out too terribly often, but then again she hadn't paid much attention to anything except for Elliot, school, and now work. Hastily, she ducked into Ezra's classroom, shutting the door softly behind her.

"Aria." Ezra said, his voice shaky. "What, uh, what can I do for you?"

"Ez-" Aria snapped her mouth shut as she turned around and saw that she and Ezra were not alone. Mrs. Welch stood, clearly having been in the middle of a sentence, with her hands hovering in the air in front of her. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but is there anyway I can talk to you privately?"

"Is everything alright, dear?" Mrs. Welch asked and Aria began to filter through her brain for anything that she would need to talk to Ezra about that she wouldn't want someone else to hear. It hadn't gone unseen by Aria that the older woman had quite a crush on Ezra. Part of her found it humorous, but another part of her found the woman's quirkiness to be a threat.

"It's about… that writing competition." Aria was quite proud of herself for the recovery she'd just made. "I was hoping we could go over something I've been working on?"

"Yes, yes." It was then that Aria realized that Ezra was holding two tickets in his hand. She couldn't see from where she was what the tickets were for, and Ezra didn't give her much opportunity as he popped his briefcase open and slid them inside. "So, Mrs. Welch, I guess I'll speak to you at lunch regarding tonight?"

"Yes, at lunch." The woman was clearly not amused by the interruption. I'll see you in the teacher's lounge."

As she passed she gave Aria what could only be described as an evil eye and if Aria hadn't felt do intimidated, she would have laughed. This older woman held so much power, though, and Aria knew that. She couldn't risk pissing her off more than she already had. After Aria was certain the woman was out of earshot, she walked over to Ezra's desk and let everything come tumbling from her mouth before she had time to stop herself.

"Spencer found out about Elliot. She found out about Elliot and now she thinks I'm a whore and shes probably out there telling Hanna and Emily and I'm not really worried about Emily but Hanna will tell Mona and Mona will tell everyone. Feel free to stop me any second now because I am freaking out."

Ezra only stared for a few minutes, shocked that she had managed to fit all of that into one breath, and unsure how to take in all of this new information. "Stop."

"Okay." Aria pressed a hand to her chest, finally able to catch her breath. It felt marvelous, absolutely thrilling that she could just let it all out.

"How did Spencer find out?"

"She was helping me with Pre-Calc last night at my house and she just figured it out." Aria shook her head, unsure exactly what she was supposed to be feeling. Part of her wanted to be elated, she finally could talk to someone besides Ezra about her son, and not her brother. Another part of her knew that she couldn't have hoped to hide something so monumental from the girl with the genius I.Q. But, the biggest part of her was still upset that Spencer had figured it out.

"What are we going to do?" Ezra wasn't looking her in the eye when he asked, but he furrowed his brow and she could see him internally struggling with the question. She almost didn't realize that he had used the word 'we'.

"We? Wh-what are we going to do?" Aria felt foolish, stumbling over her words like this.

"If you'd still like this to be a 'we' situation, then yet." Ezra finally looked up and though his mouth was neutral, his eyes were smiling. They looked scared, petrified even, but they were smiling. "What are we going to do?"

If Aria could have known that someone was standing just outside of the door, listening intently to the entire conversation, she might have said something to dissuade them interpreting this as exactly what it was. However, having no clue that they had an audience, she replied simply with "I don't know."

I'm going through and editing some things from previous chapters. In order for continuity within my story to be accurate, I have to alter some things… Trying to stay true to PLL timeline while creating my own is a pain! But I will post a list of the timeline so far at the start of the next chapter, which I PROMISE will be up by Sunday at the latest. If I get 10+ reviews, I'll update within 24 hours, if that's any motivation ;) Hope you all are doing well! I'll be replying to each of you first thing in the morning! LOVE.