Chapter 80*

Ella's POV*

Everything clicked. The way that Aria had shutdown so much about what had happened to her. Insisting that she couldn't talk about it. I had known that Aria wouldn't come out of whatever had happened to her in the weeks that she had been taken by that monster unscathed. But it hadn't occurred to me just what he had done. That she had fallen pregnant because he raped her. That he would take pictures of my sweet little girl suffering through horrendous torture and put it out for the world to see. That anyone could be so callous was hard to come to grips with. But it was so much worse when it was your child. The one that you're supposed to protect.

Regret came too. With hindsight all the signs had been there. Not just after the bunker, but before that. The way that Aria had become jumpy and secretive. It had happened before when Mona had bullied her and her friends their junior year. But I had really thought that they had moved on since then. That Aria would have realized that she could just tell us and we would make sure that she was safe. I would believe anything that her daughter said. Hadn't I promised myself that after all that had taken place?

How did we keep ending up in these situations? What was it about Aria that seemed to attract people to hurt her? She was such a beautiful, kind girl. Sure she was a little eccentric, and the whole thing with Ezra Fitz had sort of put a target on her back in some ways. I had heard the rumours that circulate Rosewood High about my daughter even while Fitz was teaching there. And being the trusting mother I was, thinking I had raised my daughter right, to have the skills to handle her problems and know that she had support if they got too big, I had ignored it all. It was just student gossip. The kids had seen Aria and Fitz together during the short period he was working at Hollis, and were just extrapolating from there.

And that man had known that my daughter had terminated an unwanted pregnancy. I tried not to feel resentful of that fact. Aria had said he ran into Jason and her outside the clinic. Which meant that the only one that Aria had told had been Jason. Alison's reformed older brother, who had offered help when Mike was having issues. Helping to get my son back on track, not as a guidance counselor or therapist, just as someone who had been down the wrong path in high school and was doing better now.

And maybe that had been why I had been so comfortable with him taking Aria out all the time, though I hardly heard everything. Only seen the way that she had relaxed and opened up around the older boy. I had seen them having coffee together at the Brew more than once as I had driven past heading into work. It had seemed like a great solution at the time. Jason was far more age appropriate than Ezra, and if Aria was willing to lean on the slightly older boy, rather than go back to her ex, that was a win in my mind.

Even after I had found out just who had kidnapped Aria, her friends, and Mona. Not to mention that Harvey girl. Well, Jason hadn't been any more culpable than Alison, actually given the blonde girls behavior she was probably more involved than her brother who was so determined to turn not only his but others' lives around too.

That had been before I had seen the pictures. Seen the look of hopelessness that came from my baby's eyes in every photo. No matter how much pain he had been putting her through, the way that her sweet face had pinched and twisted in agony, that look had been the same. And it destroyed me.

I hated that I had seen my baby girl like that. The little dark haired angel that I had cradled so close as an infant. That had crawled into my bed in the night with her little Pigtunia puppet and snuggled between Byron and me when she had a bad dream. That I had watched over the years make sense of the world. Tilting it through her lens and giving it back to the world, through her writing, her pottery, her photography, even through her clothing and hair. That I had personally painted the bright pink highlights into that dark hair, telling my little girl about my own fun hair adventures in college.

It was bad enough that my baby girl had gone through those atrocities. But that he had put her naked body on display, covered in nothing but the bruises and cuts that he had given her. It turned the world red in my eyes. I wanted to rip everything that even smelled of Charles DiLaurentis from the world, and burn it to the ground.

And my little girl, who had once confided everything to me, sharing her dreams and fears, even the location of her candy money, hadn't said a thing. She had come out of that bunker a pale sunken version of herself. Her already thin frame too skeletal for my liking. And vomiting any time I dared cook anything resembling meat. Maybe that should have been a sign. But I had just assumed it was because her stomach was having trouble adjusting to the richness of food. They had explained it was possible at the hospital. It was a common side effect of starvation survivors, I had been told. And that had been bad enough to hear. It eclipsed whatever secrets Aria was still keeping. That my daughter had been starved. The mystery of her bruises had faded to the back of her mind when I saw Aria try so hard to smile again. Despite the fact that she was constantly covering herself up and shaking whenever she got upset.

I never could have guessed what had actually been done to my little girl.

And yes, maybe it had been jealousy I had felt when Aria had flinched away from my comforting touch, and straight into Jason's arms. But at the end of the day, what I wanted more than anything in the world was for my daughter to be safe and happy. Eventually she would outgrow curling up on the sofa with her mom, or the way that she wrapped her arms around my shoulders and leaned her head in. Even those last lingering affections would fade away over the years. But I would still always be Aria's mom. And that meant that my job was to protect my little girl from the dangers of the world.

Something that I had so clearly failed at.

To the point that Aria didn't even recognize me as safe anymore. She turned to Jason, even over her friends. It was like a knife to the chest. But he had been kind about it. Offering to stay behind and talk to the police so she could go to the hospital with her daughter. Reminding me why I had liked him so much, even when I really didn't want to let anyone near her.

But it wasn't enough. It all felt like it changed when Dr. Roberts had said it was just a complication of her pregnancy. The world had frozen. On a night of already world-altering revelations, I realized that Aria had lied to me. Not just refusing to talk about what had happened, I could live with that. Knowing that in time, maybe she would open up. But Aria had told me it was just her period. Hadn't said anything when I had talked about the lack of birth control. It should have hit me sooner, that this was a possibility. Especially how cautious the police had been about sharing things with me. But somehow trusting my daughter not to lie to me again had overridden my logic. The hurt of Aria covering up Byron's infidelity for more than a year coming back. Mixing with my shock and horror.

And then she had told the FBI agent that Jason had taken her to the clinic. It had been the last straw, the severing of my last rational nerve. I never wanted to hear the name DiLaurentis again. The idea that one brother raped and impregnated my 17 year old daughter and the other took her to the clinic to get rid of it. It was disgusting. Worse than just Aria telling him and not me. Worse than realizing that the lies that my daughter had promised she wouldn't tell anymore had never stopped.

That Aria had been covering up so much over the last year. I could barely keep my anger contained through that interview and the car ride back home with the cops. Aria didn't deserve any more of her business shared with the rest of the world, which was about the only reason I hadn't already exploded in a flurry of accusations and anger already. I would concede that, but I wasn't going to just let this go.

I had made my way into my old home, standing in the living room, in exactly the same place that I had first read the letter from Mona, saying that my seemingly faithful husband was cheating on me, and that our daughter had hid it from me for the last year. I found my feet were rooted to the ground, unable to move any further, as the door opened and closed behind Aria.

Byron and Mike weren't home at least. The inside of the house had still been dark, and I had needed to turn on the light in the entry way, though Byron had left on the porch light to at least have a brightly lit porch to walk up to.

"I'm going to go brush my teeth." Aria informed, her voice calm, like the foundations of the world hadn't shifted in the last three hours.

I couldn't hold it back though. Not even enough to let my daughter go upstairs and wash the taste of vomit from her mouth.

"Were you ever going to tell me?" I knew my voice came across as cold. I was trying to contain the fountain of anger that was bursting up through me.

"Tell you what?" Aria asked, and her voice came across as completely sincere. The lie so automatic and easy that I never would have spotted it if I hadn't already known. This was so easy for Aria. So easy to lie to me. Hide things from me.

"Don't do that." I turned to look at her, not able to let her get away with continuing to lie to me. "Don't pretend that nothing is going on."

Her mouth opened and closed once, eyes widening. Like she was actually surprised that she was being called out for lying. That I wouldn't fall for it again. How much had she lied to me in the last few years that she just assumed that I would buy it again. What else was she hiding? Were there other things out there trying to hurt us that she was hiding from me still?
"Sorry. I just…"

I couldn't let her finish that. "Were you ever going to tell me?"

I offered it as a second chance to start this conversation off with honesty. Needed her to know that it had to stop. She had to finally be honest with me about what was going on. I needed to know. I watched her face shift as she thought for a minute, before she made eye contact and responded. "No."

I couldn't believe that she would answer so brazenly. Couldn't understand how she thought that was an adequate response. Or even an option. Hadn't I raised her better than this? Hadn't I taught her that honesty was important, especially when it came to safety. That I wouldn't be mad at her so long as she was honest with me?

"No?" I questioned, unable to hide my confusion.

"No, I wasn't." she shrugged, like it wasn't a big deal. That this wasn't a huge breach of my trust.

"Why not?" I had to know why she thought this was okay? Just where everything had gotten off track.

"You didn't need to know."

She was so calm. That made it so much worse. Like she had already cut me out of her life. That I wasn't part of any of the decision making here. It wasn't the normal anger that I saw flare in her sometimes, the way she looked when she really lost it. When her face twisted up with her anger. When she had dared to threaten her father if we didn't let her continue seeing Ezra. This was completely rational. Like she had justified this all long ago and didn't even need to think about it anymore. I could feel my own anger rising higher from just how calm she was. Desperate to help protect her in any way that I could.

"Of course I do." I snapped back, tone too sharp. "I'm still your mother. Don't I deserve to know what's happening to my daughter?"

"Mom, it's not that." she looked like she was trying to calm me down, like somehow I was being the unreasonable one here.

"I'm trying to protect you, Aria." I felt like I was pleading or shouting, it was hard to tell the difference anymore, I just needed to get reason back into her. "How can I do that when you never tell me what's going on? I need to know what to protect you from."

I could feel my desperation rising, the way that she had looked cradled in Jason's arms as he caught her when she stopped breathing tonight, so breakable. How fragile she still looked. It broke my heart. I wanted to pull her close and keep her safe. And the fact that I couldn't even do that. Because it would only scare her more. That I wasn't someone safe for her anymore, it broke my heart. I needed to know all I could. To try and protect her. If I couldn't just hold her and make everything better like I had when she was a little girl who fell and scraped her knees, then I at least needed to know what threats loomed outside the safety of our home. So I could take care of them.

"Don't do that." she snapped at me, anger twisting her face to that of a stranger. One that I had only seen a few times before. "That hasn't been your job for a long time."

It felt like a physical blow. Like she had just punched me in the gut with the way that the air knocked out of my lungs. How could she think that? That I wasn't always going to be there to protect her. That it wasn't my job anymore to make sure she was safe and happy. I wanted nothing more than to still be the one who picked her up when she fell, brought the smile back to her face. That she whispered her fears to, curled up under the covers in winter because she was afraid if she said them too loud they would all come true. Instead she had closed up, her lips sealed tightly, only shared with her friends as she grew more and more distant from me. The loss of our relationship was hitting me harder than it ever had before. The distance that had grown since before I moved out of this house. I couldn't keep down the frustration that I could have done something if only I had known about it. That's what moms do. They protect their children. But I didn't know what was out there. Because she hid it all from me.

"Because you never tell me anything." I could feel my throat scratching with the desperate scream that came out as. Anger and frustration mixed with the tears that burned my eyes. "I don't know when to look out for danger. You disappear into your room. And shut down any time we try to talk to you about what happened."

"Because you don't need to know!" she shouted back. "It's my life. Not yours."

I couldn't believe what she was saying. She had so obviously been in over her head for so long that she had apparently forgotten that I would be there to help her. Instead, she had closed the door between us. Shutting me out. Taking everything that made up her life, the good and the bad, and hid it away. She didn't want me in it. That was clear. I had never thought she wouldn't want me in her life. The close relationship I thought we had, that had changed shape over the last few years as she moved closer to adulthood, was another lie. Would she just walk out the door the day that she turned 18? Never come back? What had I done to push her away? That made her want to leave so badly.

"What did I do, Aria?" I asked, needing to know what had brought us here. How I could fix this? How I could keep her safe and still know that she was loved? "What could I have possibly done?"

I could feel the tears sliding down my face now, everything had come crashing down tonight. Pieces of our lives that I had thought were stable, braced for whatever might come even after my separation with Byron. Even after starting a new relationship with Zach that crashed and burned. How long had we been falling apart? How had I not noticed any of it?

"You left!" She screamed, the accusation catching me off guard.

What? Did she mean Vienna? When she had told me to go? To chase my bliss? When only Mike had really seemed interested in keeping me around? That she had literally pleaded with me to leave. She had brought this up once before, but I didn't realize the impact that this had on our relationship. How big of a deal me listening to her and leaving had been. And still was.

"You sent me away?" It came out as a question, not understanding at all where this was coming from. "You basically packed my bags and sent me to Vienna. How can you keep holding that against me?"

"Because I was trying to protect you!"

I stopped breathing. What? That wasn't right. There wasn't anything that she needed to protect me from. She was the one always getting into trouble. Her and Mike in their rebellious teenage phases. Why was she saying that? Why was she still lying? And then it clicked, she had been seeing Ezra again. It had been when she was separated from him, I had thought. But it was the only thing that made sense. She had seemed to think that me being around when she was seeing Ezra was the thing hurting me. It was the only thing that made sense at least. I wanted to scoff at that.

"Sending me away wasn't to protect me." I countered, if it was why wouldn't she have said anything about it at the time. "You just wanted me gone."

As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized just how true they were. She didn't want me in her life anymore. And apparently hadn't for a while. My heart hurt, like I had been stabbed. Worse than finding out Byron was sleeping with one of his students. Worse than finding out he had made our teenage daughter hide it from me. Or coming to terms with the women that Zach slept with on the side. The ones that made me realize that I wasn't enough for him. I had thought I would always have my kids. That no matter what happened with romantic partners, they would always be in my life. The ones that I loved more than life itself.

And she didn't want me around.

"Really?" she questioned, dragging me back to the moment and away from the crushing spiral that I wanted to fall down. "Did you forget about the bees in your car?"

I had. My forehead creased. I had completely forgotten about the nest that had been made in my engine and when I had first turned on the vents first one and then a swarm of bees had come out and begun attacking me. What did that have to do with anything? But she was continuing.

"Or about how someone drove a car into Emily's house?" I wanted to shake my head, that had been a drunk driver, totally unrelated. "Or Ashley Marin going to jail?"

It sunk in. Charles, or whoever had been harassing her for the last year, had tried to hurt me. Had tried to hurt all their mothers.

"Aria," I started, suddenly understanding her urgency to get me gone. It wasn't that she didn't love me or need me anymore.

But she kept going. Wound up too far and now it had to get released. "Sending you away was the only way to protect you."

The air had fallen from my lips, whooshing out in a sigh that I barely recognized. The relief that she didn't hate me that much buoying hope and combined with the sorrow that she had taken it upon herself to keep me safe.

"Why didn't you tell me?" my lips felt numb as I asked the question.

"To keep you safe!" her voice practically shrieked at this point, frustration that I just wasn't understanding. "Don't you get that?"

"It's not your job to keep me safe." I explained in a soft voice, trying to calm the raging feelings that were between us.

The guilt that she had tried to take on so much resurfaced. That she had needed me and I hadn't been there for her. That she hadn't been able to tell me what was going on. It cracked through me with a sharp pain that I didn't have time to address. She needed me more right now, and I had to put myself aside to take care of her.

"Really, mom? It's not?" her words were sharp and acerbic, splashing brutally into my emotional wounds like lemon juice and searing me with the intensity. "Cause as far as I remember, whenever I don't you take off. You left us when you found out about Meredith."

Her mouth did a cruel imitation of a smile. Too sharp on her once familiar face. It felt like talking to another person entirely. The anger that she held so tightly to her, that she had buried for so long twisting her words.

"That's not fair." I tried to rebut, but it was useless.

"No, what's not fair is that I have to hold this family together. I have to be the one who takes Mike to school on days that you and dad forget about his practices. Or you get too caught up in your lives to even remember that we're your children. And need you."

Her voice choked a little at the end. Her hurt breaking through the anger for just a moment. And I realized just how much I had failed my daughter. That I had abandoned her when she needed me. Hadn't been able to put up with my own suffering long enough to take care of her. And when she had been buried under her own torments and stress, she had taken up my job. How had I not realized what she had been feeling? That this was the path that we had headed down? What had made her so much better at hiding everything from us than me?

"Aria," I wanted to apologize.

Wanted to make up for all the ways that I had failed her. That I had dumped my responsibilities as a mom onto her. She had been doing it for so long, it just felt like how our family worked. Her taking Mike to his various practices, or watching out for him. Taking over the household chores, even running to the store and getting groceries when my life got busy. Making me smile on a bad day, distracting me from my pain and frustrations over the years.

"No! I'm tired of this. Tired of pretending that we're a happy family when you're desperate to just drop us and leave." Her face twisted up as though she was about to sob, holding back the pain as she spoke. "I saw you tonight. You left me alone. If Jason hadn't basically forced you to go with me you would have left me tonight too."

I shook my head. Immediately arguing against her accusation. I hadn't wanted to leave her. I just needed a few moments to process. And it was hardly fair to compare me to her friends who were already aware.

"I didn't leave you though. I came with." I tried to soothe.

"Oh yeah?" she asked, shoving down the tears again and back to anger at the forefront. "Is that why I had to do the EKG alone?"

I wanted to argue, she hadn't been alone. The nurses and technicians had been there. It wasn't like they would have let me hold her hand through the procedure. Surely she hadn't actually wanted me to go with her. But I knew that was a lie. She had already expressed that she didn't feel safe. Didn't want to have to deal with a male doctor. And Dr. Roberts had assured her that I could go with her to everything. I had just needed a minute. To understand what had happened.

"Stripped half naked in a room with strangers." her voice was wavering, the tears streaming down her face unable to be held in check like she was her sobbing. "Shivering in the fucking cold. Completely alone."

Of course it had been awful. I could try and argue that I didn't know what an EKG entailed, but I should have done better. Stayed by her side. Done the one thing that she asked me to do. And after she had already been so exposed tonight.

But didn't I deserve a chance to understand and talk to the doctor about what she had been hiding from me. I hadn't known about the abortion. Had needed to know if there were other things that I needed to keep an eye out for. Even pushing down the defensive need to step away, take the space I needed to understand.

"I needed a few minutes to process." I tried to explain, but she was shaking her head at my response.

"You needed time to process? You?" she re-iterated and I realized how inadequate it sounded. "Did you think that maybe I didn't want to be alone. That I'm terrified everytime I get left alone somewhere."

"No, because you never tell me what happened!" I barely managed to not shout it at the top of my lungs. The frustration that this all came back to her not telling me anything. Refusing to let me help her.

"I was raped." She snapped. "Is that what you want to hear? That he strangled me when I didn't do what he wanted? Or that if I said that I loved you more than dad he would call me a liar and shock me until I screamed?"

Her words were blunt and harsh. Putting it in the most straight forward and simplistic terms possible. Breath coming out in ragged pants as though she was about to hyperventilate from the stress of sharing it all.

"Or how about how I was locked in my own room for weeks. Separated from the other girls with the only human contact when he came in and fucked me? Or beat me if I dared to make a noise?"

I didn't know what to say. Had felt like I needed to know so I could help her. But it was brutal. I wondered how she had tolerated me sleeping in her room with her. Realized just why she was so quiet. Why the humming that had used to fill the air when she had been happy had just been gone for so long.

"Of course not, sweetie." I tried to comfort and calm her down. Wanted to hold her in my arms. Make it all go away.

"No, you don't want to hear about that? Or how about how he gave me a bottle of pills to kill myself? Is that what you want to know? What you need to protect me?" she snapped it off so blase that I thought I was going to collapse.

Her words the other day about how it had almost killed her. I had thought it was about the hand shaped bruises that wrapped around her throat when she left the bunker. But with dawning horror realized that she had wanted to die. That he had given her an out. And all the fears about Mike's depression reared so much worse. The risk of losing my little girl screaming into focus. I couldn't form words. Didn't know how to fix this.

"Or how when I woke up on that autopsy table and I felt like every part of my body was frozen, I thought for a minute that I was with you? Waiting in the cold and dark in Iceland again, curled up safely with my family, watching for the Northern Lights? And then I opened my eyes to a nightmare that just wouldn't end."

I wanted to cry. To gather her to me and hold her tight and tell her that the world could never hurt her again. Because I wouldn't let it. It didn't matter what I had to do. I needed to keep her safe. And there was nothing in the world that was going to stop me. She looked so small, the anger fading away and leaving nothing but a shivering, trembling 17 year old. One who had seen too much horror and needed someone to protect her.

"Or that when I made it back to my room after waking up in nothing but a sheet it was so cold that I thought I was going to freeze to death as I tried to get across broken glass to get to my bed? That when I couldn't handle the pain in my feet anymore, couldn't support my weight one second longer, I collapsed and had to crawl across it?"

I couldn't take hearing this. Didn't want to see her tear herself apart just because I had said I needed to know. She could stop. It was enough. I would fix this. My hands itched to reach out to her, cradle her close.

"Aria," I tried to get her to come to me, not daring to reach for her.

"Or how I'm still cold all the time. And I can't stand to have my skin exposed?" she looked so tired, so ready to be done with this all.

"Sweetie, why didn't you tell me?" I asked, it wasn't the right question. It wasn't that I needed to know all the horrors that haunted her. That left her sobbing and shivering in fear. But I wished that I could have prevented all this from happening in the first place. "We could have done something."

She shook her head. Dismissing the offer straight away. And though I knew it was myself that I was mad at, I couldn't help the way that the anger burst up through me. "Don't you want me to help?"

"It wouldn't have made anything better." she dismissed, so assured that there was nothing I could have done to prevent this.

"Before this, why didn't you say anything when this started up again? I could have helped." I tried to reassure, but I needed to understand how we had gotten here.

"I couldn't tell you." she tried to argue, and I shook my head.

"I would have believed you. I will always believe you." I tried to soothe and she just shook her head more.

"You can't stop Charles. It's just not possible." she sounded so defeated, and annoyed that I didn't understand what she did.

"Aria, he's just one man. If I had just known, I could have done something."

"It wouldn't have mattered." she repeated.

"Why do you keep saying that? Of course it would have mattered." I wanted to scream in frustration. "Maybe we could have caught him ages ago."

"It's not like that. You can't catch him." she scoffed, rolling her eyes at my ignorance.

"We could have tried." I offered again, hoping she would understand. "Maybe it would have been different."

"It wouldn't have made anything better." she asserted with so much assurance that I was tempted to believe her. "Because I still have to keep you safe. Protect you, and dad, and Mike. That no matter what I go through, that's still my job."

"No," I corrected, hurt that she didn't think I would protect her. "It's my job to protect you."

She looked like she didn't believe me. I needed to make her understand that I would be there. That I could help. That I could be there for her. "It's just every time I try to help you, you pull away. Act like I'm what you're afraid of."

"You're not what I'm afraid of." her voice sounded hollow, another lie meant to protect and comfort me.

"I'm not?" I argued, needing to point out how false that just rang, when everything pointed against it. "Cause tonight when I tried to help you, you backed away. Flinched into Jason DiLaurentis."

"Leave Jason out of this." all emotion dropped from her face, dead serious as she set about protecting that boy from my anger.

"How can I?" I spat back, anger rising and able to be directed at a safe target. "He's part of that awful family. The ones who hurt you, his brother kidnapped you."

I twisted the metaphorical knife in, making sure she remembered just who they were. Needing her to understand why it wasn't safe to turn to him. How she should feel safe to come to me instead.

"Jason is my friend. And has been helping me. He actually cares about me. And makes me feel safe." Unlike you. The subtext was clear. "And I thought you liked Jason."

I shook my head, dismissing that argument. Sure I liked him better than his sister, or Fitz, but that didn't mean that I thought he should be as large a part of my daughters life as he was. Especially not with how much she had been through. And how much she would still go through if she continued to associate with them.

"That doesn't change the fact that if you weren't friends with his sister, this never would have happened to you." I could see clearly the series of actions that had led us up to this moment. And it had all started with Alison DiLaurentis befriending her. That had been the first domino. That girl was dangerous. Too aggressive and calculating to go near. Like how she had threatened Byron. "I always thought it was just Alison that was trouble, but it's that whole family."

I never wanted her to go near that house again. That family was cursed. Shakespearean drama looked normal compared to their secrets.

"You can't blame Ali and Jason for what Charles did." she tried to argue, but I could. And did. "This had nothing to do with them."

It had everything to do with them. We had been so happy in Iceland. A redo of our family, where we didn't have to deal with the drama of living in a small town. Instead it had been us against the world. I wished we had never left Reykjavik, coming back had been a mistake. Broken the miracle that had been that year. The close feeling and intensity of our family's love.

"How can you say that, Aria? When Jason was the one who took you to that clinic? How is he not involved in this?"

That wasn't even getting started on how this had all been Alison's fault.

"He took me because I asked him. And so I would have someone there to support me." she snapped at me, eyes burning with vindictive anger. "Someone who understood that I needed support and not to do the supporting for once."

Like I wouldn't? Did she really think that I would have made it all about me if I had taken her to the clinic. That I wouldn't have held her hand and cradled her through the following pains?

"I would have supported you." I shouted back, desperate for her to understand. "But you didn't even tell me you were pregnant."

It all came back to that. She hadn't told me. She never told me things anymore. Cut me out of her life.

"How could I have been there, when you don't tell me?" I questioned, turning it back on her so she would understand just where I was coming from.

"I didn't want you there."

And there was the crux of it. Though she had tried to distract and rebut it earlier. I had known it was true. She didn't want me there. Would choose Jason and her friends over me and her family any day.

"Of course you didn't. Just like you didn't want me there tonight." I had read that clear enough tonight. "I saw it in your face, Aria. If the option was me or Jason going with you, you would have preferred he go with you."

"I wanted you both!" she shouted, louder as though that would make me believe it.

"No, you wanted Jason." my voice dropped low, accepting the truth of it. I had lost my little girl's trust. "Because you obviously trust him more than me,"

"Of course I do!" she returned, just like I knew she would.

"Why, Aria?" I begged for an answer, needing to understand what had brought us here. "Why do you trust him more than your own family?"

"Because he actually knows me." she accused.

"I know you!" I shouted back, hoping desperately it was true. "You're my daughter."

"Stop saying that." she sounded so cold, like she would change it if she could. "That doesn't change anything."

"No matter what, you will always be my daughter." I promised, as though that would make things better. Promising to be there for her. When I had already failed so many times. "Don't you know that?"

"No I wouldn't." she answered, her voice changing to something not even close to anger. Something more akin to fear, or acceptance. "If you actually knew me, you would run."

I shook my head, knowing that there was nothing on this earth that would make me want to leave her. Never again. I had done enough of that. It didn't matter to me what it took, I wanted to protect her. She and Mike were the most important things in my life. And tonight had made me realize just how much I had failed them.

"Aria, there is nothing you could do that would make me stop loving you." I promised her, meaning it with every fibre of my being.

Resolve was settling in, she had taken on so much strain over the last few years. Been there for me when she had really needed me to be there for her. I thought my moment of clarity had been her arrest, or maybe when I had heard she had been kidnapped by some psycho. Or when I had met her at the hospital after the doctors and police had finally let me in to see her. But it was clear that I hadn't actually responded and changed. The talk Byron and I had with her to see what she needed hadn't been enough. We needed to push more to protect her, not just trust that she would speak out about what she needs. What she thinks is safe to tell us everything.

"We blinded Jenna." she interrupted my thoughts, swinging out of left field with that one.
"No, you didn't. That was Toby." I responded automatically, realizing instantly that I had already failed in believing anything she told me.

I mentally shut my denials down. Had to be someone that it was safe for her to share things with. No matter what she said I would believe her. I had to. It was the only way to move forward to protect her. About to respond and apologize for my immediate breach in promising that I would believe her, she cut me off explaining.

"No, it was us. Ali threw the stink bomb into the shack and blackmailed Toby into taking the fall for us."

It made sense, disturbing as it was. That Alison had basically ruined that boy's life to avoid responsibility. But I could hardly say that I was surprised. Aria had threatened to blackmail her father if she didn't get her way to continue dating her adult teacher boyfriend. I believed her. Understood that I needed to accept what she was saying no matter how hard it was to hear. How disgusting of an action that had been.

"Aria," I tried to soothe, acknowledging that I understood and still loved her.

"I trashed dad's office and blamed Meredith." she reiterated, like it was a surprise. Not something that I had already known.

"I know, sweetie." I acknowledged her anger, she had always been serious in her rage. It was balanced with her normal patience, she had a very high tolerance even as a small child. But once it was passed, it was like a switch had flipped in her and someone else was in control.

"I killed Shana."

The words broke through the calm that I was trying to keep. Taking a few seconds to register exactly what she had just said. And with sheer terror torn between the serious expression on her face and the fact that I knew there were still cops parked outside the house. And worry that someone might have come up to the door to hear us arguing, it wasn't like we had been quiet.

I could feel the business card of that FBI agent that I had met at the hospital burning in my pocket. He wanted her to be completely honest with him, said that was the only way that he would be able to catch the monster who hurt my daughter and her friends. And the fear that someone else would take her away from me again surged up through me.

Distantly I was aware of the fact that she was talking. Her body dropped into the familiar pattern of fear and stress. Shaking right before me. And I knew that just trying to hold her would never be enough again. I needed to do more to protect her. To keep her safe. And knowing that she didn't want me to hold her anyway. Knew that I wasn't a safe harbour for her to turn to anymore.

Veronica. I realized. I had to call Veronica. Maybe the rest of the moms too. Had to get this all over with so that the police never asked her another question again. She wouldn't be able to handle an interrogation. Getting worked up during a fight with me and blurting that out was bad enough. I had to keep her safe.

Mind spinning so fast. Calculating everything that had to be done to keep her safe. There wasn't a moment to lose. The roots that had locked me in place frozen in the living room snapped away, broken by the need to protect my little girl.

And I raced out the door. Desperate to ensure her safety as quickly as possible.

End Chapter*

So this got a bit long, but I really wanted to show Ella's POV on this. And that just because Aria believes something, doesn't mean it's true.

And a note on ages, for various reasons, Ezra is a few years older than Jason is.

Hope you enjoyed this one, let me know what you think