As Paige leaned into the turn where the track curved, Emily held on a little tighter. It wasn't so much for stability through the turn; it was just what Emily felt at that moment. Behind the darkened visor on her helmet, her face bore a huge smile. She rested her head on her girlfriend's shoulder. She sensed that the smile on Paige's face was just as wide.

It felt as if everything were happening in slow motion. Perhaps it was just the way that her mind wanted to savor that moment; to hold onto it as tightly as she was gripping onto Paige.

Emily's mind searched for a word to describe how she felt at that very moment. The word that it came up with was "Content."

The last year had been amazing. The summer had been incredible.

When her dad got back from Texas, they all went down to Cape May for a long weekend. Paige stayed in Emily's room, as her friends had done since she was little, whenever she invited one of them along on family trips. Pam and Wayne trusted that nothing would go on with them in the same room. Nothing did go on, but she and Paige were happy for the chance to be able to fall asleep together for a few nights.

Emily divided her time at Cape May among her dad, her mom, and Paige, making sure that her mom had plenty of one-on-one time with her dad. But the best times were those that they all spent together, taking leisurely walks along the beach, riding up and down the boardwalk in a rented surrey, or just relaxing in the hotel playing games or watching TV.

Back in Rosewood, Emily enjoyed watching Paige bond with her dad.

Paige was the mechanic's assistant that her dad had always wanted, genuinely excited about puttering around in the garage with him. He poked good-natured fun at the car that Paige had bought at Stanford; it might be okay for California, but the East Coast demanded a machine with more muscle.

Paige ran PTs with him early in the morning, decidedly without the kid gloves that she used when she went running with Emily's mom. There was a lot of posturing and trash-talking, and a lot of joy, when they returned home, at having a worthy opponent to push them on their runs.

And then, there was the gun range. Wayne Fields had taught his daughter how to handle a weapon responsibly, and she dutifully paid attention. Paige, for her part, wasn't just listening out of obligation. She enjoyed the experience as much as he did. On their "Runs and Guns" mornings, they sandwiched breakfast with Pam and Emily between the two activities. Breakfast was filled with animated conversations ("foreplay," as Emily called it, much to her mom's chagrin) about things like muzzle velocity, stopping power, and spread accuracy. Then it was just the two of them again, headed out to the range.

But these bonding experiences were only runners up to the ultimate prize: Wayne's '02 Indian.

Wayne Fields was fanatical about gun safety, and he made damn sure that Paige knew what she was doing before he allowed her to hold a gun on his watch. The hurdles that he made her go through before he would take her to the gun range were nothing compared to what he put her through before he would let her ride his Baby. (He immediately blushed at that choice of words.) He was concerned about Paige's safety and about the bike, but, above all, he was concerned because Paige was determined to take Emily riding with her.

Pam was with him on that count. She had never been a fan of the motorcycle to begin with, much less of having a teenager at the throttle with Emily on the rear seat. It took a good bit of convincing on Wayne's part to get her to come around. After he watched Paige handle the bike and saw that she wasn't reckless or negligent, he agreed that it would be safe.

"But she's not even twenty years old!" Pam protested. "And that thing isn't safe!" Paige, whose head was swiveling back and forth between the two as they hashed it out, recalled when Emily made a similar argument about motorcycles.

"Oh, Momma," Wayne said, "I was riding motorcycles at that age. And they're only going to be going on the track; it's not as though she'll be taking Emmy for a cruise on the autobahn at rush hour!"

"I hate that thing!" Pam exclaimed, not bothering to refute her husband's argument, but getting down to her real point. "I don't know why you bought it."

"You used to love it, Pam!" he reminded her. "Remember how you used to love going out with me on my first bike, giving it a little gas and seeing what she could do?"

"Well, I was a lot younger then, Wayne," she conceded.

"So are Paige and Emmy."

"I don't know, Wayne. I don't know." Wringing her hands, she turned her attention to her daughter. "Emmy, do you want to get on that thing with Paige? You trust her?"

Oh, yes! God, yes! Fuck yes! Emily thought. "Sure, I trust her," she said, fighting hard not to show how highly she was anticipating it. "I mean, she took the class and got the certificate, and we all know how responsible she is."

Pam still had her doubts, but she remembered what it was like to be young.

And so it was that Emily found herself seated on the back of her father's motorcycle, holding on as tight as she dared to the woman whom she loved.

Paige slowed the bike to a halt, and she and Emily dismounted. Paige removed her helmet and shook her hair out, and Emily took in the full spectacle. Emily had been right about the expression on Paige's face: Her smile stretched as wide as the width of her face could accommodate. After Emily got an eyeful of Paige's dismount and of the way that she shook out her hair, the expression on her face became much more serious. She was grateful that she still had on her helmet, and that the shaded visor shielded the lascivious look on her face from her father's eyes.

When Emily removed the helmet she wrapped her arm around Paige's shoulder. She loved her father dearly, but, at that moment, she really wished that he were somewhere else – so that she could feel free to put that arm much lower behind Paige. She gave Paige a kiss, and, soon, they had both dropped their helmets and forgotten all about the presence of Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Fields. Something about the ride – the adrenaline rush, the smell of leather, the feel of Paige's body against hers, the power of the machine that had been vibrating beneath her – had gotten to Emily. But it was more than that. It was the feeling of freedom; of potential. They were young and in love, with the road stretched out infinitely before them. This was all that she wanted in life: To hold on tight to Paige as they navigated the road of life together.

Epilogue

As their summer drew to a close, Paige joined Emily and her Rosewood friends at Spencer's family's shore house. The whole gang was there, and they wondered how many more times all of them would be able to get together like as time went on and their lives diverged.

On one otherwise forgettable moonlit night, with a light breeze blowing salty air through the open curtains of their bedroom, and to the sounds of the gentle tide pushing in and out against the shore, Paige and Emily earned the X through the outline of New Jersey on Paige's map of the United States.

Spencer and Aria, separately, each found an opportunity to get Paige by herself and ask her what her intentions were with Emily. It was along the lines of her conversation with Hanna back in Stanford: She really loves you, you could really devastate her if you treated her wrong, but I know that you wouldn't do that. Aria took it a step further.

"Do you see the two of you married?"

Paige didn't have to tell her face to smile. The smile came on its own as she nodded vigorously. "I mean, we've never discussed it in so many words, but we both know that that's where things are headed."

After their chat, Paige went to find Emily. She found her lying on their bed, reading. Paige lay down behind her and threw an arm across her waist, drawing herself in close. She pressed her face onto Emily's, chin on her shoulder, and said, "I really love your friends."

Emily reached back and cupped Paige's face, smiling, but not looking up from her book.

"They're really protective of you," Paige added, and Emily put her open book down and turned around to look Paige in the eyes.

"Why?" she said, scrunching her eyebrows in concern. "Did they say something?" She put her hand behind Paige's neck, stroking her cheek with her thumb.

Paige reached out an arm to Emily's shoulder. "I was just noticing the way that they look at me now, compared to the way that they looked at me at Thanksgiving, when we were first going out. Back then, they were scrutinizing my every move, trying to see whether or not I was really serious about us. Now, they look at every move in that 'Aw, isn't that adorable?' kind of way."

Emily relaxed and rolled back over, not picking up her book. "Pru called me, you know?"

"Really?" Paige asked, not knowing that Emily was continuing the conversation. "What did she need?"

Emily smiled and turned over again. "It was right after we got back to Rosewood. I guess it was the same conversation that you and Hanna had back in Stanford, when I was in my meeting with Coach Meehan."

Paige confessed that Spencer and Aria had also had the talk with her. "Aria even asked me whether or not you and I were going to get married!" she admitted, trying to laugh it off.

Emily moved her head back a little, so that she could see all of Paige's face. "What did you say?" she asked, concerned. She was worried that Paige had told Aria that she hadn't given it any serious thought, and she was almost equally worried that Paige was about to jump off the bed and propose."

"I told her that we haven't really talked about it, but that we both know that it's where this is all leading."

"Mmm. Good answer," Emily said with a kiss to Paige's lips.

Emily rolled over and idly stroked the arm that Paige had wrapped around her waist. "What about kids?" she asked. They might as well keep going, now that they were on the subject.

"Definitely!" Paige replied. "Right?"

"Oh yeah, definitely." A moment later, Emily probed further. "Boys or girls? Both?"

"Yeah, sure." Paige replied. "Anything, really. Just as long as they look like you. Or me. Or not. I just want to raise a family with you, Emily."

Emily turned over and gave Paige a long, deep kiss. She put her arm behind Paige's back, and her arm started to ache from pulling Paige closer and closer.

Paige pulled away from Emily long enough to get up, kick her sandals off, and lock the door.

On their last night at the shore, the friends built a fire in the pit in the backyard and sat around reminiscing about the past and planning for the future. With the wind blowing in off of the ocean, it started to get cool when the sun went down, and Emily grabbed Paige's hand in both of her own and led her inside. She sat Paige down at the kitchen table and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich that they shared. They weren't really talking. They were just enjoying each other and the moment.

Paige couldn't take her eyes off the unfathomably beautiful woman across the table from her. Nor could she control the smile on her face. A smile made its way across Emily's face, too. "What?" she asked Paige, at last.

"We just have the best life, don't we?"

"I know, right? Everything is just so… perfect. It's as if we're characters in someone's movie."

"Someone who loves us very much."

"And someone who loves happy endings. Like, a Hallmark Movie Channel movie, or something."

"Do you think that life's always going to be like this?"

Emily thought it over before she opened her mouth to speak. "I don't know, Paige. But I know that, wherever life takes us, whatever the circumstances, we'll be together. So it's going to be perfect."

A/N – Thanks so much for devoting some of your precious time to this story. Special thanks to those who favorited and followed it, and big hugs to everyone who posted a review. You were kinder to me than my writing deserves.

About midway through this story, I set a goal of posting a chapter a day for a month, and, with your help, I made it.

So, we'll call this one complete with an asterisk – or, if you prefer, we can call it "on hiatus."

I'm giving serious thought to writing a sequel, but not for a while. I need to figure out what to write (a quick survey of their remaining three years at Stanford or a time jump to their senior year or to early career and married life), and I need to be sure that I can do justice to a new story (updating it regularly and finishing it).

Feel free to follow me or to check my profile for the new story, if you're interested in reading it. If you're not, that's fine. There's a ton of great Paily fan fiction out there, and the thought that people are reading it, reviewing it, and encouraging its authors to keep writing makes me happy.

Thanks again.