A/N: Something in this chapter may come as a surprise to some of you... :P
Disclaimer: I do NOT own PLL!
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"Well are you two alright?" Aria's voice demanded from the other end of the line. Ali and I exchanged looks that confirmed to both of us that neither of us were alright.
"We're too scared to leave her room," I answered. We'd both put on clothes since the incident, and even though we should just be laying together and feeling elated after what we just did, we were sitting here hoping that whoever had been trying to get in was now gone.
"Do you want me to come and get you guys?" Aria asked. "Just to make sure they're not like standing outside Ali's door or something."
"Yes, please," Ali piped up, and I locked gazes with her. She looked absolutely terrified, and seeing her like that made my face twist up into a pained expression. Seeing Ali scared made me want to protect her, but I didn't know how to protect her right now, and it was killing me.
"Okay, I'll be there in a few," Aria said, and then the line ended.
Ali looked at me with concern. "Are you okay?" I wet my lips and shook my head.
"I just wish that there was some way we could stop this," I said, aware that my voice sounded defeated. "I'm just so scared. And it sucks seeing you scared and knowing that I can't do anything about it."
Ali reached for my hands and squeezed them, she pulled me back down against the pillows on her bed, so that we could lay next to each other. "Do you think A has cameras planted around this room?" Ali smirked as she quirked up an eyebrow.
My cheeks flushed red. "That bitch will probably watch what we just did over and over," I joked, wiggling my eyebrows.
"Too bad we can't contact A and ask for a copy," Ali teased, smiling at me. I couldn't help but smile back at her. She had always had that over me. I couldn't not smile at her.
"We'll have plenty of times to get our own," I said, raising an eyebrow at the blonde. Ali's cheeks turned pink, and I stole a kiss from her while she was still recovering from what I said.
We just laid there and held each other until we heard a knock on the door. "Hey, guys, it's me!" came Aria's voice. "It doesn't look like anyone's here."
We hopped off of Ali's bed and hurried to unlock the door. "Hey," I greeted as soon as I saw Aria's face.
"Hey," Aria returned, glancing between me and Alison. We hadn't really elaborated on what we'd been doing here, but I was pretty sure that Aria knew. I cleared my throat awkwardly, running my hand through my hair. "So, yeah, I didn't see anyone here."
We walked downstairs, Alison clinging onto my arm the whole time as if she thought A would pop out with a yellow scarf. "Thanks for coming, Aria," I said once we'd left that stupid house.
"Yeah, you were the only one who picked up," Ali agreed, still clinging to me even though we'd left her house. I didn't really mind it, though, so I didn't stop her from holding onto my arm.
"Don't worry about it, guys," Aria insisted. "I would've been just as terrified too."
"Doubt it," Ali muttered, and Aria and I both gave her confused looks. Ali just shrugged, and Aria looked between us suspiciously.
"Well, I have to get home. Are you guys going to be okay until tomorrow?" Aria asked.
"We'll be fine. See you tomorrow," I said, and Aria nodded in agreement. Then she got in her car and drove off as Alison and I headed for my car. "Why don't you think Aria would've been as scared?"
"We were completely naked, Em," Ali reminded me, and my face flushed. That was true.
"Come on," I said, getting into my car, "I don't think I ever want to come to this place again."
For the rest of the day, I expected me or Alison to get an A text about the earlier incident, but nothing came. It was almost like there was a chance that it hadn't been A in Ali's house earlier.
I tried not to dwell on that, though, because thinking of all the people that could have heard me and Alison getting it on didn't help ease my nerves at all. We had a relatively uneventful day after the incident. We watched movies and cuddled and talked about things that didn't make us feel absolutely terrified.
We fell asleep without really realizing it once it got late, and I woke up at around ten in the morning on Sunday with my legs tangled with Alison's and my hands intertwined with hers. It definitely wasn't by any means an uncomfortable position, though.
I carefully removed my hand from Ali's and brushed a piece of hair out of her face. She stirred slightly, and I just watched her carefully. Finally, her eyes slowly and tiredly flickered open and those beautiful blue irises locked their gaze with mine. "Good morning," she whispered, her voice coming out with a bit of a rasp in it.
"Morning," I returned, smiling at her. Ali pulled me closer to her, so that our noses were practically touching.
"I wish we could lay together like this all the time," Alison whispered to me, and I sighed.
"Me, too," I agreed. "I feel safest when we're laying together."
Suddenly, mine and Ali's phones beeped simultaneously. We exchanged nervous looks as we carefully pulled away from one another to grab our phones. The minute we both looked at our screens, we sighed, relieved. "Spencer," we said at the same time.
From Spencer- Aria told me what happened to you two yesterday. I'm moving our coffee up an hour! Be at my place at eleven!
I groaned, looking at the time and realizing that we only had like half an hour to get ready.
"Leave it to Spencer to ruin our morning," Ali muttered, getting up. "I call shower first!"
I just watched her rush out of the room and toward the bathroom, before groaning again and pulling myself up and out of bed.
In half an hour, Ali and I knocked on Spencer's front door, and a few seconds later, Spencer opened it up.
"Hey guys," Spencer greeted us as she let us in. We all started toward the kitchen, where Aria was already sitting at the bar. "We're just waiting for Hanna now."
"Did she say she was coming?" Alison asked, concern lacing her voice. I knew what she was worried about. She still thought that Hanna was the one who had her stuff, and I was still a little suspicious about it, too.
"Yeah," Spencer answered, shrugging. "Are you two okay, by the way? After what happened yesterday…"
"We're… okay," I answered, frowning. "I mean, we're scared, but we haven't gotten the A text we figured we'd get."
"Yeah, we thought that A would follow up his or her walking into my house with some threatening text to make the point come across," Ali expanded, sighing. "But nope. It's almost freaking me out a little more that we haven't heard from A."
"Are we sure that it was A?" Aria asked. "I mean, whoever that was could've just barreled the door down if he wanted to."
Alison shrugged, and then we heard one of Spencer's back doors open. We turned our heads to see Hanna walking in with a slightly larger than usual purse. "Hey," Spencer said. Hanna didn't return it, and I thought she looked a lot more flustered than usual.
Hanna didn't sit down either, and we all watched her with suspicion as she dug around her purse. Suddenly, she procured two journals and a key, tossing them onto the counter. All of our eyes widened at Hanna, but before we could question her, she was talking.
"I can explain," she insisted.
"Please do!" Spencer exclaimed. I glanced at Ali, but she looked the least surprised out of all of us. She'd been right.
"I might have acted all fine and dandy about you being back, Ali, but really, it's been driving me insane. I hate the way I feel about myself when I'm around you. I feel fat again, and I feel like if I do one thing wrong, you're going to jump on me for it," Hanna ranted. "When I took you to your place last week so you could grab that journal, I wasn't really concerned about what was in the other ones. You said that it was just the same stuff pretty much, so it didn't seem like a big deal.
"But when you told Aria and Spencer and me about giving that one journal to Emily and you said what was in it, I realized that if you kept something that important in that drawer, the other ones must've been that important too. I almost thought that maybe you had one for each one of us in there," Hanna admitted.
"Wait a second," Aria interrupted, "it was you who stole Ali's journals?"
"I went to Spencer's house that night, and she and Ali weren't there. But your mom, Spence, let me in. I told her that I had to grab something that I'd let you borrow. I went upstairs and saw Ali's stuff all just sitting there and I remembered that she'd put the key in her purse so I took it.
"Then I went to your house, Ali, and of course no one was there so I just took the journals, the ones with a lot of stuff in them. After that, I went to your house, Em. I wanted to talk to both of you, but I wasn't even sure what I was going to say. I guess by the time I got there, you two were asleep, though, and I used the same excuse I used on Spencer's mom on your mom. So I went up to your room and just grabbed the book," Hanna admitted.
"What the hell, Hanna?" I growled.
"Look, I wanted to see what was in them for myself, okay?" Hanna snapped. "I was okay with you guys thinking it was A until yesterday. I slipped into Ali's house yesterday and I was going to return the journals. Then I was going to slip the key back into your purse or something. The place was silent, so I figured no one was there. I tried to get into your bedroom, Ali, but I heard you say something in there and I freaked out and left."
Ali and I exchanged wary looks. All of that worrying, and it had been Hanna. Ali grabbed the two journals on the counter and opened them. I noticed that neither of them were the one about me. "You read these?" Alison asked.
"Yeah, and you were right, they're almost the same as the other ones," Hanna said, sighing. "I'm really sorry for not believing you, Ali. It's just, after everything, it's really hard to trust you."
"It's okay," Ali insisted, but then she looked back up at Hanna. "What about the other journal?"
Hanna shamefully pulled the last journal from her purse. "I only read a little of it," she promised. "It was the last one that I started to read, and I just skimmed through it. I just… I saw some things that made me realize just how personal this thing was to you. I realized that it was totally stupid for me to have taken it. You wrote it for your eyes, and it was probably hard for you to even give it to Emily. I was a horrible friend for taking it. I'm really sorry."
She handed the journal over to Alison, who took it and set it with the other two, but she didn't open it. "I accept your apology, Han." Ali stood up and wrapped Hanna in a hug. The two blondes held onto each other for a few seconds, and then released one another again.
"I accept yours too," Hanna answered, and Ali smiled. She sat back down next to me and took my hand.
"So…" Aria said, looking around at all of us. "I guess that eliminates what we were here to talk about."
"A might not have these journals," I said, "but he or she still wants to make everyone hate Alison."
Ali sighed. "That's something that we're just going to have to wait for." I nodded, even though I hated not having any control over this horrible situation. I squeezed her hand in my own and sighed. One mystery solved, one even bigger mystery still completely hidden.
I know this chapter wasn't totally exciting or anything. The next couple of chapters are mostly focused on the PLL plot instead of the Emison plot, but I will tangle in as much Emison as I can!
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Funny story time! So, my sister reads this story, and when I sent her this, she started to read it like any other chapter. But here's the thing, when I sent her chapter 17, she hadn't ever gotten the email. So she thought she must be reading chapter 17, and then she was like "ummm what incident and what they just put on clothes?! what did I misss?" and like she checked the last email she had and realized the numbers were off and I sent her 17 again or wahtever... but like... imagine reading the beginning 18 without having read 17 XD I dunno I just it made me laugh a lot hahahaha XD
Have a great day or night lovelies! Please review c: