Whispers in the Dark

- Chapter Twenty-Four – Tied Together With a Smile

With a groan Cory sat up on the side of her bed and looked around trying to find her phone but the search came up empty. A look of confusion spread over her nearly makeup-free face when she realized she didn't even remember getting home the night before or going to bed.

The last thing she remembered was Wren helping her through a panic attack and offering her a ride home.

Her socked feet lightly padded against the floor as she opened her bedroom door and walked out into the upstairs hallway, after finding her dad's bedroom was empty she headed down the stairs coming to an abrupt stop at the landing when she saw something she never expected to see. Jason was sound asleep on the couch with his jacket over the top half of his body as a makeshift blanket.

Slowly she started to remember him showing up at the hospital to check on her and then giving her a ride home, but she didn't remember anything at all past getting into the car with him.

The prior day had taken every last ounce of energy she'd had and after the panic attack she was both so mentally and physically exhausted that she considered she might have fallen asleep on the drive to her house.

Instead of waking Jason up, she wandered into the kitchen where she found her dad sitting at the island drinking his morning coffee. When Austin heard someone enter the room he looked up from his computer tablet and greeted, "Hey, how are you feeling?"

"Confused." She admitted, her eyebrows lowering as she nodded towards the doorway and quietly asked, "Was Jason here all night?"

Looking back down to his tablet, Austin darkened the screen and finished off the last of his coffee before he nodded and explained, "Yeah… he was."

Seeing the look on her face he added in more detail, "You passed out when he was driving you home last night. He carried you to your room."

"I'm shocked you let him stay." She admitted, her voice a little hoarse from sleeping as she walked over and got some juice from the refrigerator.

"Well, I kind of got the feeling he wasn't going anywhere. He said you had a panic attack and he was worried about you." Pausing for a minute he added, "So am I."

Not wanting to recall the events of the day before she replied with a weak laugh, "You're worried about me? I'm worried about you, there must be something wrong if you actually had a conversation with Jason and let him crash on the couch."

Pulling in a deep breath her dad spoke in a serious tone as he said, "You're the one who keeps swearing he's changed."

"He has." She defended without missing a beat.

"Maybe… maybe not."

When she let out a heavy sigh and shot him a look, her dad admitted to her, "I know you think I'm too strict but Cory, you have to understand that everything I've done is just to try and protect you –to keep you safe. Things are so different now than when I was a teenager. God, I can't even imagine having to deal with some of the things you've gone through at your age."

Taking a small drink from her glass, she nodded and her eyes met his wondering where the conversation was headed.

"You're strong, Cory but sometimes I think you act so tough that I don't see past it to how much everything has affected you, especially because you don't talk to me about things-"

"There's really nothing to talk about. I'm okay, dad." She cut him off.

"That's a lie." Austin argued, but his voice was calm as he thought back and said, "The other night… before you took off, you said something. You said that you feel like you're suffocating, is that true?"

"Everyone is always watching me." She shrugged, "When people look at me, they don't see me, not really. They see the best friend of the girl who was killed, they see the girl who's brother died and mom went missing or they look at me like I'm still some kind of teenage druggie."

Pulling a deep breath she softly added, "People are always watching, always judging… even my friends. It's exhausting."

His eyes scanned over her somber face before he looked down to the tile flooring of the kitchen and pulled in a deep breath as a pang of guilt made his chest hurt when he realized he couldn't have made things easier on her.

"And it doesn't feel like that around Jason?" He finally brought himself to ask her.

"Not at all." Cory admitted with a soft smile, "I can breathe around him. He's never been judgmental or-"

"Not like he's in any place to judge anyone." Austin muttered under his breath before he could stop himself.

"Well, not everyone can be perfect like you dad." She replied in a gravel laced tone, feeling like he was verbally attacking Jason.

"I don't want to fight." Austin said, "I'm trying to be more understanding and fair when it comes to you. We're all the family that each other has and we've got to try and fix things around here or we're not even going to have that."

"I know." She agreed, nodding.

"Which we can't do with you lying and hiding things all the time."

Her head dropped feeling like he was blaming her for everything that had gone wrong but then something happened that surprised her to her core, he took some of the blame himself when he added, "And it's also not going to happen when I'm not listening to you and banning you from seeing someone who apparently means a lot to you."

"What are you saying?" She questioned with raised eyebrows.

"I'm saying that… maybe I passed judgment on Jason too quickly. He did bring you home safe last night, and as much as I hate to admit it… I can tell he does care about you. I guess what I'm trying to say is that you've had a hard life with more heartbreak and loss than people twice your age and if he makes any of that easier on you, than I can at least try to get to know him now. See if he's really as changed as you swear he is."

When he saw her eyes light up he quickly said, "But you have to make some changes too. The lies have to stop and Cory, I want you to continue seeing Dr. Sullivan-"

Cory shot him a look to show her complete and utter disdain for the situation and what he was asking of her and his sentence drew to an early close as he sighed and stared back at her.

"What good is that going to do?" She questioned, avoiding his eyes.

"Give you a chance to talk to someone?" He replied with a shrug.

"Who says I want to talk to anyone?"

"I think it's more a matter of you needing to talk to someone. I think after we lost your bother, I was too devastated to notice how much it affected you. And Cory, you never talk about Ryan... you don't even talk about your mom, I don't even hear you say much about Alison either." He pointed out.

Swallowing hard she continued to avoid his eyes. There was a reason she didn't talk about her bother; she didn't feel like she had the right to mourn his loss. It was her fault he wasn't there with them and because of that she didn't think she deserved to miss him. Some days she wasn't so sure she deserved to be alive.

"Talking about them won't bring anyone back, it won't change anything."

"Maybe not." He agreed, and she turned to leave the room but he stopped her as he played devil's advocate and added, "Or maybe it would change everything."

Once Austin had his daughter's attention he continued, "It might not bring anyone back from the dead, but you're also never going to heal to you don't start to deal with everything you've been through."

"Are you saying that as my dad or as a doctor?" She asked with a small laugh, both trying to lighten the moment and get him to change the subject.

Dealing and accepting what had happened might be the healthy way to cope, but most days she felt like if she even let thoughts of everyone she'd lost creep in that it would crack her in two –possibly cause her to shatter into pieces.

"I'm saying that as your dad and a knowledgeable doctor." He replied, as he picked his tablet back up and eyed her from under his brows when Cory left the room calling over her shoulder as she went, "You can't be both all of the time."

As she made her way back into the living room, she saw Jason was sitting up rubbing face as he tried to wake up the rest of the way.

"Hey." She greeted, giving him a soft smile when he looked up at her with his tired eyes and messy morning hair, "Morning." She continued her greeting.

The slightly lost look in his eyes quickly gave way to one of concern as the events from the day before flooded back and he questioned, "Are you okay?"

"A little late to school, but other than that yeah." Her words hung in the air with a smile on her face to try and sell the same lie she told every single day of her life; that she was fine.

Jason stood up, his eyes tracing over her face and trying to pick up on any tells to show she wasn't being honest with him but all he had was a gut feeling that she was holding something back.

His eyes dropped to the floor with the thoughts of how entirely unnerving it was that she could lie so well, in ways it reminded him of his sister and how easily she could sell her lies like they were the god's honest truth.

"Are you okay?" She repeated his own question back to him when she saw him focusing on the hardwood floor and trying to look anywhere but at her.

"Worried about you." He admitted, glancing at her.

"Because of the panic attack?"

"That's a big part of it, yeah." He remarked, intending to leave it there but before he could stop himself he said, "Also because of the way you were acting the night you showed up at my house and why you think you need to hide things all the time."

She wasn't entirely sure if it was because her panic attack had scared him or if he was mad about feeling lied too; possibly a combination of both but she could hear the anger in his voice when he spoke.

Swallowing hard he shook his head at himself, knowing that wasn't going to get them anywhere –if anything it would cause her to close off even more than she already was. He'd been asking her less and less questions lately because it was easier to just not ask then to wonder if she was lying to him with the response.

"I'm sorry." He breathed. Despite his anger; he was first and foremost worried about her.

Lowering her head, she admitted, "I don't want to talk about the panic attack, okay? I don't want to think about yesterday and…" Her voice trailed off stopping herself before she said too much.

Pulling a deep breath; she shook her head back and forth, "I'm embarrassed, okay? I mean honestly how many people have panic attacks in hospital elevators..."

When she finally looked up at him, their eyes locked and he gave a small shrug as he answered, "I'm guessing people who have been through too much in their lives, too fast to handle it."

"But that's exactly what I'm doing, right? Handling it… every single second of every single day that my brother's not here and my mom is still missing and knowing that Alison isn't ever coming back. I mean, I manage to pull myself out of bed and get through the days… what else am I supposed to do?" He heard the attitude in her voice, his guess was it was an attempt to get him to drop the whole conversation. But it wasn't the tone of her voice that caught him off guard, it was the broken look in her eyes as she spoke.

He bit down on the side of his tongue as he stared at her in silence. He was starting to think what she'd asked him was an actual question she needed the answer to versus a bitchy comment to counter his own angry remarks.

"Oh my god." She breathed, rubbing her hands over her face in disbelief at herself. "I'm so sorry. You stayed here all night to make sure I was okay and that was so sweet." Her voice was muffled against her hands as she spoke.

"Hey, hey, hey." He quietly said as he gently grabbed onto her hands and pulled them from her face not only so he could look at her, but to make her look at him. He tried to catch the same look in her eyes he'd seen moments before, but it was gone. Either the feeling had passed or she'd expertly concealed it –he wasn't sure which one. Even though seeing her looking so distraught and broken hurt him, it was also one of the most honest expressions he'd seen in a while from her.

They stood in silence for a moment before his expression softened and he said, "You know you can tell me anything, right?"

"I know." She smiled, as she raised up on her socked feet and pressed a kiss to his lips. When his arms wrapped around her, she smiled against his lips –internally wishing that she could just stay like that with him instead of having to face the day or see anyone else.

But it was only a fleeting dream. She was already late for school and needed to see if her friends had located the missing page of Alison's autopsy report. Just the thought of what she'd read in the file the night before made her heart pick up speed and she moved closer to Jason, leaning her body against him, wanting the comfort he always seemed to bring her.

She wasn't sure if she had the strength to face the rest of the day, but knew deep down that she'd had to find that strength and pull through. Her friend's needed her and she'd already missed meeting them at the hospital to return Alison's file back to the morgue.

With that thought, her fingers curled around some fabric from his shirt as she pulled him closer to her. He matched her movements and keeping her body pressed against his with a hand on the small of her back and for a moment Cory started to let herself believe that maybe she wouldn't have to go to school that day, tricked herself into thinking her friends really didn't need her –that was until her hopes were dashed and the moment with Jason brought to an abrupt stop with the sound of someone loudly and dramatically clearing their throat.

Pulling back from Jason, Cory looked over to her dad who had just stepped out of the kitchen as he gruffly said, "You're already late for school."

"I know, dad. I was just saying bye." She sighed, rubbing her forehead and staring him down until he finally stepped back into the kitchen.

"Sorry-" She started to apologize but Jason smiled as he cut her off and said, "Don't be. He let me stay so I could be here when you woke up to make sure you were okay."

His eyes drifted back to the kitchen doorway before he looked back to Cory and said with a half-smile, "And he talked to me like I was a human being."

"Small victories?" She laughed.

"Small victories." He nodded, with a chuckle of his own as he leaned down and pressed a quick kiss to her lips. Pulling back he asked, "Hey, you need a ride to school?"

"Oh, no thanks." She declined, "I'll have my dad drop me off on his way to work. I have this theory that he'll eventually get sick of having to be my chauffeur and get me a car of my own."

"Plus… aren't you supposed to be at the high school talking to students today, anyways?"

His forehead lined with a confused look as he reached into his pocket and pulled his phone out to check the time. With a groan he nodded, "Yep. Looks like you're not the only one who's late."

~()~

Stepping out of the crowd in the hallway between classes, Cory leaned into a small alcove next to a bank of lockers to read the text that just came in from a blocked number.

Taking a deep breath she opened the text which contained a picture of someone dressed in black hunched down beside Jason's car, she then realized it was taken the night they'd seen the movie and his tires got slashed. Another text came through as she staring at the picture: 'Looks like someone else is out to get you. I know who it is, do you? I'll give you a hint… it's not me. –A"

She couldn't think about her anonymous enemy, she needed to focus on getting through the day and now that she had a picture of someone slashing Jason's tires maybe it was finally time to open up to Jason. If he was going to be in her life than he should at least know what he was getting himself into, but before she could form a plan on how to open up to him, her phone went off again.

'Let's play a game. Do what I say and I'll tell you who's been following you, if you don't… I'll start spilling your secrets. Dealer's choice on which ones and today I'm the one dishing out revenge. –A'

A line of sweat peppered across her forehead which she quickly wiped away. She was finally starting to consider really opening up to Jason, along with starting to feel like maybe her and her dad had a shot at being a functioning family unit again. A couldn't have picked a worse time to start back up with her but then again A always seemed to have impeccable timing when it came to ruining their lives.

"Hey, there you are. Where were you this morning?" Emily asked as she found Cory in the hallway at school.

"Yeah, sorry for bailing on you guys." She apologized, quickly tucking her phone away and keeping A's latest threats to herself. "I overslept and then had a talk with my dad about somethings."

"Vague enough?" Aria asked with a small laugh as she joined her friends.

"Good morning." Cory greeted, causing her friend's face to fall as she countered, "Maybe without the good part."

Blowing out a heavy breath she admitted, "My parents keep looking to me for answers on what's going on with Mike, and I have nothing to tell them."

"Did you ever find out why he broke into my garage?" Emily questioned, as they trio made their way down the hallway.

"No, he won't talk to me… he won't talk to anyone, won't even return calls to his best friend."

"What is going on with him?" Emily breathed as she shook her head back and forth.

The conversation was cut short as Jason walked past them, giving a smile and wave to Cory who returned the gesture and felt a little more at ease after seeing him.

"What is he doing here?" Emily whisper yelled once he was out of sight.

"He's sort of counseling students here on substance abuse and helping them to realize that there is life after high school… life beyond Rosewood." Cory explained, as she beamed a proud smile and gushed, "I think he could really help some of them."

"Yeah, that's really great, Cor. Except for the fact that he could be a killer." Emily said as they started out into the courtyard on their way to the cafeteria for lunch.

"Jason is not a killer, Em." Cory hissed.

"You can't prove that he isn't." Emily retorted and Cory narrowed her eyes as she shot back, "And you can't prove that he is."

"Guys, stop!" Aria demanded as they neared the cafeteria and stopped just outside of the doors.

"Jason is no more dangerous than we all thought Toby was months ago." Aria backed Cory. She always tried to help her out, knowing the rest of the group was against her and Jason's relationship.

"Yeah and for the record, when you guys told me about that… I didn't think Toby was guilty either and guess what, I was right." Cory called over her shoulder as she walked into the cafeteria and headed for the lunch line

After getting her tray of food and getting a water bottle from the cooler, she took a seat across from Spencer.

"Did you guy's find page five of the autopsy report?" Cory questioned, keeping her voice quite in case there were prying ears around them.

"No!" Spencer exclaimed, roughly stabbing her fork through some green beans on her plate, "I even checked the computer but it was all password protected. Someone got to the file before we did and removed the page."

Cory opened her mouth, but didn't get the chance to speak as Hanna sat down and said, "Yeah, but that's not the only thing we found out."

Opening her bottle of water Cory raised her eyebrows at her blonde friend, waiting for an explanation but Hanna went about putting the dressing on her salad as if she hadn't just opened up a new conversation.

As Emily and Aria both took their seats at the table, Spencer picked up where Hanna left off as she explained, "Jenna is getting tested to see if she qualifies for a prosthetic cornea transplant."

With horrified expression Cory choked down her bite of pudding and questioned, "Like they're going to remove part of her eyes…"

"It's just a flap over the pupil." Spencer quickly added.

With a sigh, Emily dropped her spoon on her tray with a clank as she questioned, "Can we not talk about eye flaps while we're eating please."

Ever since the discovery of her ulcer and not being allowed to swim yet, Emily had been doing good to be able to keep food down. The last thing she needed was some stomach turning talk about the dissection of someone's eyes while she was trying to eat.

"But do they really think this can work?" Aria asked, looking to Spencer to find out the latest news her friend had gotten from Toby about his stepsister.

"I don't know." She shrugged, "Toby says she still needs to take more tests to see if she's really going to qualify… but it's possible."

With a look verging on relief and excitement Hanna asked, "Wait, so if it works does that mean we're off the hook for the Jenna thing?"

"Guilt-wise maybe." Emily shrugged.

"We blinded her… I don't think we'll ever be off the hook guilt-wise." Cory sighed shaking her head. Jenna wasn't at the top of her list of favorite people, but she certainly never deserved to be have her eyesight taken from her over some stupid prank Alison had talked them into.

"Yeah." Aria nodded.

Seeing the confused look on Hanna's face, Spencer tried to explain the legal aspect of it as she said, "It's like this; if you break someone's leg with a baseball bat, even if that leg heals you could still be charged with assault."

Trying to calm her own nerves Emily said, "She wouldn't come after us, she still thinks we have that tape of her and Toby-"

"But we don't and that's going to be a lot easier to see if she's not blind." Spencer countered.

"No." Cory shook her head back and forth, "Jenna can never know that we don't have the videos anymore. Especially when we don't have anything else on her right now."

"What are you saying?" Aria asked, turning sideways in her seat to get a better view of her friend.

"I'm saying that maybe we need to start digging around in Jenna's life before she gets her eyesight back. We need a back-up plan, some kind of safety net."

Hanna nodded in agreement, knowing their role in Jenna's blindness could land them in jail if the truth was discovered.

"No. We can't do that. Not only are we guilty enough when it comes to her but haven't you noticed that when we go digging around A makes sure that we can't wash the dirt off our hands." Emily reminded them.

"Okay." Cory conceded as she pushed her lunch tray away from her and said, "Change of subject then…are we thinking it was A who took the page from Ali's autopsy file?"

"Maybe… or someone who wouldn't want it to be seen by anyone. You know, like someone who had access to the field hockey stick that Toby dug up. Someone who was in the house the summer that Ali went missing…" Spencer's words hung in the air with every indication that she fully believed what she was implying; that Jason was the one who'd killed Alison.

"Don't start." Cory sighed, but barely got her words out as Spencer started in, "We have every reason to think that he's dangerous and we're all worried about you spending so much time alone with him, Cory."

"Wait!" She cut in, looking around the table at her friends as she asked, "What the hell do you guys do? Sit around and talk about me and my relationship with Jason when I'm not around? Come up with all these reasons on why he's dangerous and I should be staying away from him? That's a really crappy thing to do someone you call a best friend."

"It's not like that." Hanna called out, her blue eyes full of concern as she tried to explain, "I know you don't want to believe it… but even you have to admit that something is off about him coming back to town, digging up the yard and throwing out everything that reminds him of his sister."

"Really? That seems off to you?" Cory asked with a dry laugh, "Do you know what it's like to lose a brother or a sister? Because I do, Hanna. I can't even handle seeing family pictures with my brother in them, I can't imagine trying to live in a house where the basement was piled up with all the items people left at the house when Alison went missing. Do you guys even get that? We're not the only ones who lost her."

"We're not trying to gang up on you. We just want you to be safe." Aria quietly said, unable to stomach anymore of her lunch either with all the fighting.

"If your only proof of Jason being guilty is that he was in the house that summer than that is a really weak theory. I was in the house a lot that summer too, Spence. What are you going to do next, accuse me?" Cory said as she angrily as stacked her trash on her lunch tray and slid her chair out from the table.

"That's not fair." Spencer yelled back louder than she meant too causing everyone to look at their table. Lowering her voice, she tried to stay calm as she asserted, "I would never do that."

"Why? Because you think you know me? Well, I know Jason more than any of you and I'm telling you he didn't hurt her… he wouldn't have and I'm really getting sick of having to defend him to you guys. The fact that I know and care about him should be enough for you to back off. Even my dad is trying to see how much he's grown up and changed." Standing up, she picked her tray up and didn't care who was listening to them as she angrily said, "You know Spencer, for someone so smart you can really be an idiot sometimes."

Avoiding all the stares and whispers about her and her friends, she cut through the rows of tables and dropped her entire tray into the trashcan and left the cafeteria, using every ounce of strength and energy she had to stay in control until she was out of sight in the girl's bathroom.

Rushing into a stall, she slammed the door shut and locked it behind her as she leaned against the door and pulled in a deep breath. Her surroundings started to blur and her throat felt like it was closing up on her, not letting any air down into her lungs and keeping what air was in painfully trapped with no escape.

Reaching down she pinched her arm as hard as she could, trying to force herself to stay in control –to stay in that moment and have another episode like she had the day before at the hospital.

It wasn't until she was finally able to take a breath and her rapid heartbeat started to slow that she even became aware of the pain she'd caused from pinching herself. Quickly letting go of her skin with a gasp she saw a bruise already starting to form around the fire red spot she'd been clutching onto.

With a sigh of relief at being able to breathe again, she rested her head against the stall door and nearly jumped when her phone went off from her pocket. Assuming it was Spencer or someone else wanting to check on her she took it out and looked to see but it wasn't her friends, it was a message from a blocked number; 'Feeling like the odd girl out? Don't worry, you've still got me. –A'

A/N- Thank you all so much for reading! The next chapter is gonna be an emotional one and I can't wait to share with you all.

I wanted to take a moment to thank everyone who has added this story to your favorites and/or subscribed for update alerts. Thank you all so much for the support you've shown me with this story.

I also owe a huge thank you to xxXWolfsLullabyXxx, xxxRena, RHatch89, sarahmichellegellarfan1, Momsen-xxxx, ChristinaAguileraFan, SmellYourScentForMiles, Lucy Greenhill, BloomingBlueMoon85, Amazing, LittleLiar, Guest, DancingDorisDay and Heart of Emison for reviewing the last chapter. ^_^