Sunday afternoon, Aria was arguing with Elliot over what costume he would wear for trick-or-treating the next night. Elliot couldn't even understand the holiday and yet here he was, refusing both costumes that had been selected. Her parents had purchased a Barney costume, which Aria detested. She had never been a fan of the show, and Elliot never seen it. Why her parents had even thought it was a good idea absolutely muddled her mind. Friday, after Aria had received her first paycheck, she promptly drove to Philadelphia to the nearest Toys R Us and had hunted high and low for something more appropriate. Considering that Halloween had been only 2 days away, Aria felt like she'd hit the jackpot when she found a lion costume in Elliot's size.

The previous year, Elliot had only been seven months old and Halloween wasn't really a holiday in Iceland so Aria hadn't bothered with dressing him up. This year, she was taking him trick-or-treating whether her parents liked it or not. If only Elliot would let her dress him in his costume. She had even gone to a thrift store and found a fairly inexpensive Dorothy Gail costume and had every intention of wearing it. She had initially wanted to dress Elliot as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, but at least this way they could wearing coordinating costumes.

"Elliot, we're going to dress up, see?" Aria held up her own costume against her body to demonstrate that she had a costume of her own for the night. "We're going to get candy and-"

"Candy!" Elliot squealed, balling his hands into fist and pumping them repeatedly into the air. Aria hadn't let him have anything of the sort until recently and she was already regretting it. For a week, anytime she wanted him to pick up his toys he would say 'candy, please?' and Aria wanted to bang her head against a wall each and every time. She knew she wouldn't even let him eat too much of the candy he would get tonight, but she wanted him to enjoy dressing up and trick-or-treating like every other child did.

"You have to dress up if you want candy." Aria argued, hands on her hips. It was kind of ridiculous that she was arguing with a toddler, but sometimes things couldn't be helped. The argument was won, however, because Elliot began to scramble for his costume, trying to figure out exactly how he was supposed to put it on. Aria shook her head and let out a laugh. "Here, Handsome let Mama help you."

After she'd zipped him into the outfit, she took a step back to admire the boy. He crossed the room to look at himself in the mirror. Pleased with what he saw, he began to growl at his reflection and raised his hands as if they were paws. Aria quickly pulled out her phone and snapped as many pictures as she could before she turned on the camcorder feature.

"Elliot! Elliot look at Mama!" She called until he turned to face her, smiling broadly when he saw that she had the camera going. "Say 'roar!'" She instructed with a laugh.

"Rawr!" Elliot snarled, baring his teeth and 'claws' to her. "Me Simba!"

"Yeah," Aria agreed, continuing her recording. "You're a lion, like Simba!"

"Rawr!" Elliot returned to the mirror, now making faces at himself. Aria turned off the recording and immediately synced the phone to her laptop, copying the photos and video to her hard drive. A knock on her door frame pulled her from her concentration.

"You were right." Ella said, watching Elliot playing with a small smile. "That is the most precious Lion costume. I don't know why your father chose Barney."

"Yeah, me neither." Aria agreed. "What time will you guys be back? I don't want to be in Philly too late."

"I would think by eight o'clock or so." Ella said. "But, Aria, please do not push your father today. He's still not one hundred percent on board with you taking Elliot trick or treating by yourself."

"As long as people see you two around town with him, what's the difference?" Aria questioned. She and her mother had come to a mutual understanding recently, and Aria didn't want to rock the boat. As long as Ella didn't try to put herself between she and Elliot more than was necessary, Aria could tolerate her father. "You said it was fine."

"I'm fine with it, yes." Ella walked into the room, closing the door behind her and then perching herself on the edge of the bed. "Aria, you know your father. He's set in his ways. I'm not saying I agree with his ways all the time, but let's not rock the boat."

"You know what, Mom?" Aria joined her mother on the bed, watching as Elliot moved from the mirror to one of her floor-level bookshelves and began to flip through pages. "It's not my place to say anything. Just like, according to Dad, it's not place to be in charge of anybody else's life, but I cannot keep my mouth shut anymore. So if you're worried about rocking anyone's boat, maybe you should talk to Dad about some of the skeletons hiding in his side of the closet. He's the one that's making everything so shaky, not me."

*PLL*

At eight o'clock on the dot, Aria was putting Elliot into her back seat, preparing to drive out to Philadelphia. If she got there before 9, they could trick-or-treat for at least an hour before she had to come back home. On the way out of town, Aria stopped by the Fields' house and picked up Emily. Spencer and Hanna were meeting them in Philly so that Aria wouldn't have to take Elliot by herself. She had wanted to invite Ezra instead of the girls, but they still weren't in the clear. Ezra had sent her a text the night before telling her that the police were doing extensive research of his past to make sure there were no indicators of pedophilia. She knew better than to even respond to the message.

As Emily buckled herself in, she looked over her shoulder at the toddler in the back seat and grinned. Of the three girls, she had been the most accepting of the fact so far. Spencer was mostly annoyed that Aria hadn't said something sooner and Hanna thought Elliot was cute, but wasn't much of a kid person. Emily was the only one that seemed really interested in getting to know Elliot as her son. "It's crazy how much he looks like you." She commented. "I still can't believe you have a baby."

"Me neither, sometimes." Aria agreed, pulling away from the curb and heading towards the freeway. "I look at him, and I see a little version of myself. He's exactly like me, Em, but sometimes I look at him and I just can't believe he's mine."

"I can't believe he's Ian's." Emily blurted out, the name rolling off of her tongue in distaste. Almost immediately upon seeing the look of plain and utter hurt on Aria's face Emily clamped a hand over her mouth. "I'm so sorry. I did not mean that the way it just sounded."

"No, it's ok." Aria gritted her teeth. Her friends hadn't said or asked much when she admitted to Elliot's true parentage, but she hadn't anticipated that lasting very long. "It is what it is. I can't believe it, either."

"It's just… I always thought you had a thing for Noel back then." Emily tried to explain, turning around in her seat completely, staring out of the windshield to the road ahead. "Even Jason wouldn't have been such a shock."

"Jason?" Aria said, shocked at the accusation. "Why would you say that, Em?"

"Well, he always had a thing for you." Emily said nonchalantly. "You can't tell me you never noticed."

"I didn't notice anything like that." Aria said quickly. "And besides, I didn't have a thing for Ian; it just happened. One time and one time only."

"But why him?" Emily implored and Aria simply didn't know how to answer. There was nothing she could say in response because she didn't really know why.

"Call it a crime of passion." She said after a few beats. "Honestly, Em, can we not talk about this? Spencer's already acting really weird about it, I don't need it from you and Han, too."

"I'm sorry, Aria." Emily said as turned just slightly in her seat to face her friend as she drove. "But, I mean, come on. It's kind of a lot to take in. We haven't seen you in two years, then not only do we find out you have a son but he's Spencer's would-b brother-in-law's child? It's-"

"A lot. Yeah, I know." Aria replied sarcastically, not enjoying where Emily was heading with this. She knew it would take a while for her friends to adjust, she hadn't expected them to welcome the news with open arms. Still, though, she wished that they would just drop it.

"Can I just please ask you one question?" Emily implored. "You don't have to answer if you don't want to, but can I just ask you one thing, please?"

Aria chose to not respond. She wanted to tell the girl that she could ask her anything, but truth be told she wasn't sure she had an answer for everything just yet. After several beats of silence, Emily spoke again.

"Why didn't you tell Ian about Elliot?"

Aria thought she might crash when the words escaped Emily's mouth. She had an answer for this question, but would giving up that information be worth the judgment she would receive? She wasn't sure, so instead of telling the entire truth, she opted for something less complex.

"My dad wanted to report it as a rape. They didn't even know that it was an older guy, but Byron believes it's better to say I was raped than to just say I made a bad choice. If they had found out it had been a legal adult, Ian would have gone to prison. Why ruin his life? We did a stupid thing, but I'm not rotting in a jail cell over it and neither should he."

"You could at least give him the option to be in his own son's life." Emily said quietly. "How do you think he's going to feel in five years when he finds out about all of this? And what about Elliot? Doesn't he deserve to have both parents? I mean-"

"Emily." Aria warned. Of course all of this had crossed her mind. Every minute of every day she wished Elliot could have that, that there was a way for it to be that simple. Emily didn't understand that she was protecting her son the best way she knew how. It wasn't as though Ian thought she was innocent their one time together, if she told him he wasn't the father he'd probably believe her.

Emily didn't say anything after that until they'd reached the coffee shop that Hanna and Spencer had agreed to meet them at. It wasn't even until Aria was standing with all of them together that she noticed what they were wearing. Emily had dressed as a Scarecrow, Spencer as a Tin Girl and Hanna as Glinda the Good Witch. There was a tension in the air up whenever they were together until that point. The moment Spencer and Hanna laid eyes on Elliot, Aria could see any judgmental thoughts that might have been secretly carrying melt away.

"He is s cute!" Hanna gushed, bending down to become eye level with Elliot. "Hi!"

"Who?" Elliot said, pointed to Hanna and looking up to Aria.

"That's Hanna." Aria explained, ruffling his hair. "And there's Spencer, you remember her right?"

Spencer smiled, but still hung back a few feet. It was as if she were scared to get too close. Aria wasn't expecting her to suddenly bond with her son, not even close, but the fact that she was dressed up and even out here with the rest of them made her feel better about opening up to the girls. Spencer had made it no secret that she was far from thrilled to know that Elliot was related to her sister's ex-fiancé, but ultimately they all had agreed that what was done was done and nothing could be done about it now.

"Come on, guys." Emily said as she took hold of Elliot's free hand, his other clutching tightly to his candy bucket. "We're off to see the Wizard."

Aria smiled at the gesture, Emily holding Elliot's little hand in her own, and the four of them made their way into the night.

*PLL*

After returning home and putting Elliot to bed, Aria set up at her computer desk and opened up her French text book. It was one of the classes she was taking through independent study and the only class for which she hadn't completed the work for the entire week. She had to take her mid-terms I three days and she needed to be sure she was prepared.

It was just after one in the morning and Aria felt ready to drop when her phone buzzed. Without a thought, she reached across the desk and tapped the screen to read the desk. She'd had such a good time taking Elliot out and had felt more relaxed around the girls than she had since she'd been back that she wanted to roll her eyes at the irony of what she was seeing. If only what she was seeing wasn't so completely terrifying.

When she opened the attachment, her face blanched. A had somehow snapped a picture of the four girls walking through Philadelphia. Each of them could be seem very clearly, Except for Aria, whose face was just slightly covered by her hair as she bowed her head and kissed the top of Elliot's. The next picture was one of Ezra holding Elliot on their trip to the zoo. Then another came in of she and Ezra kissing in his classroom, though it was clearly taken from outside the classroom window. The last picture that popped up on her screen terrified her. It was fourth of July the summer Ali had gone missing. In the picture, Aria was seated in the passenger seat of Ian Thomas' car, and the older man was leaning over, kissing her neck. They had been in the middle of nowhere when it happened, she should have seen whomever it was that was taking the picture, but that entire night was a blur. Aria felt the tears streaming down her face as another message popped up onto her screen.

"Help your mom dig up those skeletons, Aria, or I'll dig up yours where everyone can see. - A"

Aria quickly dialed Ezra's number. After the first three rings she realized what it was that she was doing and hung up, opting to call Spencer instead. It was almost one thirty and she knew Spencer tended to stay awake most nights until two or three in the morning. When the phone was finally answered, Aria choked out a sob so loud she was afraid she'd wake her parents.

"What's wrong?" Spencer asked frantically. "Is Elliot ok?"

"He-he's fine, but," Aria had to breathe deeply for several minutes before she could speak coherently. "A has pictures of me and Ian and pictures of me and Elliot and," Aria paused and took another breath. "A wants me to tell my mom that my dad's been having an affair."

"I'll be right over." It took Spencer seven minutes flat to pull up in front of the Montgomery house. Aria had crept down the stairs and was sitting on the front porch swing by the time Spencer had parked and jumped out of her car. Running up the stairs and standing in front of Aria, she demanded breathlessly, "What happened?"

Aria simply handed over the phone. Spencer looked at the message and her eyes grew three times in size. Aria knew it probably wasn't smart to reveal her relationship with Ezra, or perhaps now lack thereof, to anyone but what could she lose at this point? As it was, when she'd gotten home her mother had practically iced her out and her father was completely clueless. She had to tell her mother the truth, once and for all, or she would find out everything from the last person anyone wanted a secret to be revealed by.

"Is that- he- what the hell?" Spencer stammered, completely perplexed by what she was seeing. "That had better not be who I think it is!"

"Who do you think it is?" Aria asked sarcastically, finally looking up to meet Spencer's eye.

"Oh, my God." Spencer sat down. The look of shock was slowly being replaced with one of pure anger. "You and a teacher? Aria!"

Her voice was laced with fury and condescend and betrayal. Aria opened her mouth to respond, but thought better of it and simply nodded instead. Spencer glared at her and Aria's eyes dropped to her hands that were folded in her lap. Aria could see in her peripheral vision that Spencer's hands were balled into fists and they were visibly shaking. "Let me explain, Spence."

"Explain what?" Spencer said, letting her emotions run wild. "Explain that not only did you keep the fact that you had a baby from us, but now you've been screwing a teacher, too?"

"It's not like that!" Aria insisted, standing from the porch swing and pacing in front of her friend. "We haven't actually done anything, just kissed."

"And apparently playing house at the zoo!" Spencer remarked, crossing her arms over her chest.

"We didn't plan that." Aria rolled her eyes. "I took Elliot and he happened to be there so we hung out." She stopped, squarely facing the other girl and locking eyes with her. "Spencer, I met him before I knew he was our teacher. I let him think I was in college and we connected. Then I realized that he was teaching English and we tried to end things. Then at the zoo it was obvious that ending things wasn't going to happen. Now that the police are getting involved I'm pretty sure things are over."

"As they should be!" Spencer spat out. "I'm sorry, Aria, but I don't know how I'm supposed to react to this. First you have a child with Ian that you don't tell us about, then you have an affair with a teacher and you don't tell us about."

"I promised Ezra!" Aria refuted. She wasn't sure what exactly she had expected she would get from Spencer, but something about her reaction was off. "We weren't even really dating, exactly. We've kissed a few times and spent one day together at the zoo but that's it. I wouldn't even call it an affair!"

"Well obviously it's more than just kissing or you wouldn't be risking his career and neither would he." Spencer stood from the bench.

"That's not fair."

"It's plenty fair, Aria." Spencer held a hand up to quiet her. "It has to be a hell of a lot more than just kissing to him if he's risking the life he has for the one he would have with you."

The words were out before anything could be done to stop them and Aria's hand was across Spencer's cheek before she knew what she was doing. The girls stared each other down, Aria feeling terrible for slapping Spencer while Spencer resolved to hold onto her anger. They said nothing as Spencer stepped off the porch and headed back to her car. Spencer didn't so much as raise her eyes to Aria as she pulled away from the house and headed back home. Aria wrapped her arms around herself and stormed back into the house. No doubt that whoever was behind the madness was out there watching, pleased with their handiwork. Aria decided then and there that she and her mother would be having a very serious discussion regarding her father the next day.

*PLL*

Ella sat on the couch in the family room with Aria standing in the foyer, Elliot on her hip. Her mother was holding in her hands a letter and a printed copy of the picture of Aria and Ian that fateful night. When Aria had come home from work and discovered that her dad was staying late at the college, she decided she needed to speak up. She had just stepped into the foyer when she saw her mother with the letter in one hand and a picture in the other. Aria didn't have to ask what her mother was looking at.

"How long have you known?" Ella said hoarsely, her voice caught in her throat to hold back the emotion. "How long have you been keeping this from me, Aria? After everything I've done, how long have you kept this from me?"

Aria set her son down and told him to head into the den to play with the toys he had set up in there. She waited until her mother finally looked back up at her before speaking. "Ali and I caught him with… her three years ago."

"Three years?" Ella shrieked. "You knew about this for three years and you have said nothing?"

"Dad said it was a one-time thing." Aria tried to explain, knowing that it was truly futile. She was losing an uphill battle and she deserved the ramifications. "He told me that he was going to tell you that night." This was not a lie. "You never mentioned it, and you guys never split up, I thought I could just forget it ever happened."

"Well, it wasn't just a one-time thing." Ella spat. Standing from the couch, she crossed the room and handed the letter to her daughter. "Never, not even when you were coming to me and telling me that you were pregnant, have I ever been so disappointed in you, Aria Nicole. I have stood by you, supported your decisions, caused more tension between your father and I then ever should have been necessary to discover that you were lying to me? For him?"

"It wasn't for him. And I wasn't lying to you." Aria attempted to find an answer that would make this easier for her mother to handle. "I just didn't…"

"Tell me the whole truth?" Ella finished for her, ticking an eyebrow as she handed over the photograph. "I would say that's the understatement of the millennium." Ella looked past Aria and made her way down the hall to the master bedroom, returning several minutes later with the suitcases in her hands. "I've rented a room for the next two weeks. When your father comes home, you can tell him the whole truth. I don't know when I will be back, if at all. Tell him to thank Meredith."

"Mom," Aria tried to argue, reached for her mother as she walked past her and out the front door. Elliot stood up from where he had been playing and rushed into the foyer, looking after his grandmother sadly.

"Nana bye bye?"

"For a little while, Handsome." Aria said, running a hand through his hair and holding him close to her side. She hated this. She hated that she had single-handedly destroyed everything around her. Her mother hated her. Her father was ashamed of her and in a matter of hours would hate her, too. Elliot, whom she'd been trying to protect, was getting more confused by the day. Mike was getting the ass-end of it all, everything around him changing without his consent or consideration. And Ezra… his world was about to fall to pieces because the picture Aria held in her hand was not that of Ian and herself, but one of she, Ezra and Elliot smiling and enjoying a warm September day at the Philadelphia Zoo. It was as if nothing good could possibly come from visiting that city. Finally, Aria brought herself to read the letter that had been the cause of today's destruction.

"I thought you had learned to keep closer tabs on your daughter's extra curricular activities. Teen pregnancy not enough controversy? Guess that's why you're husband's been straying; you give them both too long a leash. Don't believe me? Just ask Aria.

-A."