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Aria wakes up to sunlight streaming in through the wooded slats of Spencer’s barn. Last night’s storm must have blown itself out, which is great for their flight to Reykjavik probably being on time this afternoon, not so great for the present moment of the light making her eye sockets throb with pain. She puts a hand to her temple, flinching at the feel of her friendship bracelet brushing against her forehead.
She hears shuffling noises in the corner, manages to turn just enough to see Emily blushing furiously, as she zips up her blue Sharks hoodie and stuffs her bra into one of the pockets. Alison’s yellow tank top is crumpled in the corner, and Ali herself is pulling the t-shirt that Em was wearing last night over her head with a smile like the cat who ate a whole flock of canaries on her face.
Aria can’t be bothered to wonder about whatever they’re up to. Not when she’s groggy and her head feels like it’s been replaced with a bowling ball full of sand. And there’s no use trying to figure out Alison anyway. The Queen B is her own law, and secrets have always been her favorite currency.
Spencer moans as she gingerly stands up, then staggers over towards the hot plate to try and make coffee.
“What was in those drinks last night?” Aria asks, her voice cracking and a little hoarse. “I feel like I was drugged.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Alison breezes. “You gals just can’t hold your liquor.”
“Seriously,” Hanna groans, her face a delicate shade of green. “I feel like I got hit by car.”
“I woke up like three times,” Spencer yawns. “I thought I heard a scream.”
Emily starts coughing, her face bright red, as Alison pats her smoothly on the back.
“No one screamed,” Alison scoffs. “You were probably having that anxiety dream about your French final again.” She casts a sidelong look at Emily as she says it, batting her eyelashes and leaning towards her a little. Emily gives her a shy smile in return and scoots towards Ali just enough so that their shoulders are touching.
Aria feels a tingle of deja vu, a murky sense that she knows something, she’s just not sure what.
There’s a loud buzzing from underneath her pillow. She reaches for her clumsily for her phone. As she blurrily tries to focus on the text from her mom, it hits her in a flash. A nightmare landscape of anonymous text message and faceless stalkers and Alison missing and an underground bunker and long lost sisters and red coats and black hoodies.
“Aria, are you okay?” Spencer asks, a concerned look on her face.
“I’m fine,” Aria tells her, shaking her head to clear out the residual strands of panic and fear. “I had a really crazy dream.”
--------------------------------
II. Boys Will Be Boys
“You?” Hanna exclaims, stunned. “You’re dead!”
Wilden laughs as he grabs her by the hair. “Have you forgotten where you are, little girl? This is Rosewood. Guys like me don’t go easy.”
“You killed Charlotte,” Alison says, spitting in his face as he checks the ropes binding her wrists.
“She outlived her usefulness,” he says, coldly.
“Why?” Spencer asks, still pleading for answers. “Why would you do this to us?”
His face contorts into an ugly sneer. “You still haven’t figured it out? After all this time?”
He kicks Emily’s unconscious body into a hastily dug grave in the Hastings backyard, then looks at the bound and gagged Aria appraisingly. He tosses her in on top of Emily, apparently deciding she’s small enough to fit.
“Don’t keep us guessing,” Spencer says, goading him. “You want to tell us. You won’t let us die without telling us the reason.”
“The reason?” He moves closer to her, until the tip of his nose is almost touching hers. “A detective to the end.” His voice drops to a hiss. “Little Sister.”
“No,” Alison says. “No. What are you saying?”
“Oh, is it finally falling into place now?” His voice is dripping with sarcasm and contempt. “You girls don’t know everything after all! How else do you think all that evidence got planted against you? How could someone have access to every single security feed in town? A badge and a gun and a smile will get you some truly amazing things. Did you think I helped Jessica cover up all of her dirty work out of the goodness of my heart? Because I didn’t. It’s who I am. I was born to it. I’m Charles.”
“Are you crazy?” Hanna scoffs. “I mean, obviously yes - you’re cuckoo for CoCo Puffs! But Charlotte was Charles. We know that.”
“Charlotte was a patsy. We never imagined anyone would believe that ridiculous story! It had more holes than a colander made of Swiss Cheese.”
“I don’t understand,” Alison tells him. “If you’re Charles, who was she?”
“An old friend of mine. From Radley. Your father did lock me up and throw away the key. Just because I tried to kill you a few dozen times when you were a baby. But boys will be boys, right? No need to ruin my life over a squalling little girl!”
He’s so intent on his story, he never sees the shadowy figures sneaking up behind him. Melissa Hastings shoves him to the ground as Mona Vanderwaal pounces on him with a rock in hand. She bashes him over the head repeatedly, until the back of his head is smashed in, and he’s thoroughly and unquestionably dead.
Melissa is already untying Spencer and the others, as Mona hops into the freshly dug grave to haul Emily and Aria out. Once that’s done, Melissa uses the toe of her Tory Burch boots to roll him over until he flops unceremoniously to the bottom of the hole.
“I brought shovels,” Mona offers, brightly. She hands them out and everyone slowly gets to work heaving the nearby mound of dirt over him. Melissa makes a call and Jason shows up half an hour later with three large rose bushes which they use to make the whole thing look like an intentional planting project.
“It’s over,” Mona declares, brushing the dirt off her hands when they’re finished. “For good this time.”
“And since he was already supposed to be dead, no one’s going to come looking for him,” Melissa nods.
“But what about Archer?” Spencer asks, her face white and pinched. “Tanner was breathing down our necks, she has evidence -”
“Had evidence, Sweetie,” Mona responds, patting her on the elbow.
“Dad got it tossed,” Melissa explains. “And the police just discovered an extra key to Lucas Gottesman’s car at the Kahn cabin. Along with a bloody sweatshirt with Archer’s blood and Noel’s DNA all over it. And Archer’s missing credit card. Even Tanner can follow that trail. So it’s case closed.”
“What do we now?” Emily asks, still a little dazed.
“We get on with our lives,” Alison answers, a smile slowly breaking over her face. “Who’s up for a sleepover?”
-------------------------------------------
III. Double Vision
“This is it,” Spencer says, barely able to suppress her excitement. She’s sitting elbow to elbow with the others in a black van that Mona has rigged up for mobile surveillance.
“I don’t like this plan,” Emily protests. “Why can’t we just go to Tanner with what we know?”
“Because we have no proof,” Hanna says, throwing up her hands. “And she’s never going to believe that some rando is walking around town wearing Spencer’s face.”
“Shh,” Aria says, motioning for quiet. “She’s on the move.”
They watch in silence as Spencer’s doppelganger leaves the Radley and hurries to a silver SUV. It’s an identical match to Spencer’s own car.
Mona follows her from a distance, headlights off, as they head towards the Lost Woods resort. Not-Spencer gets out of her car and looks furtively over her shoulder as she steps quickly into Room 2.
Mona parks out of sight, gliding soundlessly to a stop, as they all pile out of the vehicle.
“Ready?” Alison asks.
“Ready,” Emily confirms, clutching a taser in hand.
Aria nods, unclipping a can of pepper spray from her belt.
They swarm towards the room and Mona rigs a small explosive charge to the lock. At the push of a button, it explodes with a flash.
The six of them move into the room under the cover of a cloud of smoke. There’s instant confusion as they’re attacked from all sides by what seems like a small crowd of unseen foes.
As the smoke clears, Hanna finds herself with her hands around Spencer’s throat.
“Hanna, what are you doing?” her assailant gasps. “It’s me!”
“It’s not,” Spencer shouts, from where she’s tussling with Aria. “I’m the real Spencer!”
“Wait,” another Aria protests, “Who’s that?”
“Oh my god,” Alison says, looking around in shock. “We all have twins?”
“Isn’t it great?” Charlotte asks, clapping her hands with glee. She puts a hand to her mouth and does her best Oprah impression. “You get a twin! And you get a twin! And you get a twin!”
“You’re not the real Aria,” Emily cries, pointing to the one fighting Spencer. “You have beef jerky in your pocket!”
“And this Hanna’s roots are badly done,” Mona shouts, kicking Hanna’s twin with the lesser dye job to the ground.
“Em,” one of the Alison’s says, crouching behind her girlfriend. “We need to get out of here. All this violence, it’s not good for the baby!”
“That’s not me,” the other Alison shouts as she trades blows with a possibly fake Mona.
“Emily,” the first Alison says, “you know me. You know every inch of my body.” She grabs Emily and kisses her hard. The moment they break apart, Emily tasers her, knocking her to the floor.
“She opened her mouth,” Emily says. “And I knew.”
Lights and sirens flash outside, and Detective Tanner appears in the doorway. “I have arrest warrants for all of you!” she declares triumphantly. She gasps and her eyes go wide as she takes in the sight in front of her.
“Arrest her,” the Spencer’s say simultaneously, pointing at one another.
“And her,” the Arias and Hannas and Alison’s and Emily’s and Mona’s echo, all pointing wildly around the room, from which Charlotte has already disappeared.
“No son Lindas,” a new voice says, as an identical Tanner twin emerges from the middle of the fray.
Tanner’s eyes roll back in her head and she faints dead away.
-----------------------------------------
IV. Season 60b
“I think ‘A’ stole my bifocals,” Spencer grumbles, making her way slowly over to the rocker on the porch of the Radley Nursing Home.
“They’re on your head, Hun,” Alison tells her. “But Emily got a threatening hologram about her orthopedic shoes.”
“And they took the jello off my dinner tray last night,” Hanna complains.
“Are you sure you didn’t eat the jello and then forget?” Aria asks, looking up from the orange and pink zebra print afghan she’s knitting.
“Hanna’s never wrong about jello,” Emily replies.
“I’m just saying, it’s hard to keep track,” Aria says, counting her stitches. “Most days, I can’t even remember who I’m supposed to be in a love triangle with anymore.”
“I have a plan,” Spencer declares, setting down her large print Agatha Christie novel.
“You’ve been saying that every day for the past fifty-five years,” Alison points out. “I’m not missing bingo.”
“Last time you led us on that wild goose chase through the kitchen, we knocked over all those juice carafes! I had glass in my hair for a week!” Emily shakes her head.
“And he was wearing those gloves because he’s the dishwasher,” Hanna reminds them.
“It’s going to work this time,” Spencer promises, brandishing her cane like a weapon. “We’ll stake out Emily’s locker when she goes to water aerobics. If ‘A’ makes a move to steal her shoes, we’ll be there!”
“Can we get my jello back?” Hanna asks.
“Yes!” Spencer promises eagerly.
“Then I’m in,” Hanna sighs. “I’ll ask Mona to help us.”
“Why?” Spencer huffs.
“Because she’s my friend,” Hanna replies. “And besides, she has a mobility scooter.
----------------------------------------------
V. Mr. Nice Guy
A masked figure is sipping whiskey with a gloved hand, watching several live feeds on a wall of monitors in front of him.
In the loft, Hanna is preparing for bed. Aria is up late at Fitz’s, typing on her computer. He types a few keystrokes and calls up a screen that mirrors her laptop. She’s working on revisions for the book. Boring. Spencer is at the barn, reading The Art of War. Emily and Alison are at the DiLaurentis house, cuddling in front of the television. Mona is spying on Caleb, who’s standing in a doorway across the street from the loft, trying to keep Hanna safe.
He should do something, make a move. Menace someone with a car. Erase the whole hard drive of Aria’s computer. Send a cryptic text. He yawns. Or maybe he’ll just hang out and play Minecraft.
There’s a loud bang, and the door to the lair flies off its hinges. All the Liars plus Caleb, Mona and Detective Tanner burst in.
He presses a button to set off the tear gas canisters, give him time to jump out a window during the smoke. But they don’t go off. He hits another button, one that should activate a plank of hidden spikes to fall on them from the ceiling. Nothing.
“Give it up,” Mona tells him. “We traced the signal.”
“And we hacked your feed,” Caleb adds.
“We disabled all your little party tricks,” Spencer says, leaning against the door frame.
He’s too stunned to move.
“Lucas Gottesman,” Tanner says, pulling out a pair of handcuffs. “You’re under arrest. You have the right to remain silent-”
“I don’t understand,” Hanna says, her face pale and drawn. “You were my friend.”
“I just wanted you to notice me!” he exclaims. “I didn’t want to hurt you! I thought - I thought I could make you really scared and then rescue you! But you kept rescuing yourself! So I had to keep going if I ever wanted to break myself out of the friend zone!”
“You’re insane,” Aria says, putting a protective arm around Hanna’s shoulders.
“She made me this way,” he protests, gesturing at Alison with his cuffed hands. “She made fun of me!”
Tanner gives him a shove in the small of his back. “Get going. You can tell us all about it at the station.”
“No one made you do this,” Emily says as they head for the door.
“How can you say that?” he asks, insulted. “I’m a nice guy!”
-----------------------------------------
VI. Everybody A
“It was me all along,” Jason DiLaurentis says, scowling. “I sent those text messages. I needed to make sure you weren’t going to rat me out to Dad about the NAT stuff.”
“But it was me who started following you around in a dark hoodie,” Wren Kingston declares, shoving Jason out of the way. “It was my idea to do psychological experiments on you all! Just for a bit of fun.”
“Idiots,” Melissa Hastings snarls. “I perfected it. I turned the whole thing into a game.”
“I was better than any of you,” Ezra scoffs. “I had the most cameras.”
“Actually,” Lucas mutters, “I had more. Plus I had sound.”
“I got the closest to actually killing them,” Shana Fring shrugs. “That oughta put me on the top of the pile.”
“Um, I locked them in an underground torture bunker,” Charlotte snarks. “For months.”
“But I tricked Alison into marrying me,” Archer Dunhill laughs.
“I shot Spencer,” Jenna counters. “And they shake in their fashion boots whenever they hear my cane.”
“I faked my own death to drive Spencer insane,” Toby laughs. “God, that was fun.”
“You’re all amateurs,” Mona says, flipping her dark hair over her shoulder. “Accept no substitutions. I clearly set the tone.”
Eddie Lamb pats her on the back. “You sure did, little lady. But you couldn’t have kept it up if I wasn’t smuggling you in and out of Radley.”
“And I helped with the spiritual elements of the game, considerably,” Pastor Ted admits. “God loves putting people through trials. So motivational.”
“I helped, though,” Sean adds. “I wanted to punish them for their loose ways.”
“I just like to watch,” Holden grins. “It’s nothing personal.”
A fistfight breaks out between Garrett, Lorenzo, and Holbrook over who planted more evidence, and the Liars use the argument as a distraction to cover them sneaking out of the Fitzgerald Theater through the backstage exit. Once they’re out, they double back to lock everyone else inside.
“Mona’s got it all recorded,” Hanna says with a big smile.
Alison rolls her eyes as she dials 911.
-----------------------------------------
VII. Everybody Gay
“Everybody get down!” Emily shouts, as a round of gunfire shatters the front window of the Brew.
“Whoever this is, they aren’t messing around,” Hanna mutters as a Moltov cocktail skitters across the floor in their direction.
Aria kicks it away and leads them on quick retreat to barricade themselves in Ezra’s office.
There’s the sound of an explosion from outside and smoke starts to waft under the door.
Spencer picks up the landline on the desk. “The phone line’s been cut.”
Alison clutches Emily’s hand as Mona calmly rolls up her suit jacket and shoves uses it to seal the door.
There are heavy footsteps approaching. They’re almost here.
Just then, the bookcase behind the desk swings forward, revealing a secret passage.
They hurry into the passageway as Paige locks the entrance behind them. She shepherds them down a flight of stairs and into an underground electrical tunnel where Talia Sandoval is waiting with a fleet of ATVs.
“What is this?” Alison asks, suspiciously.
“Are you serious?” Paige asks incredulously. “It’s the Queer Women’s Underground Escape Network. This town is brutal when it comes to burying its gays.”
“I’m not complaining,” Aria says, climbing on the back of Spencer’s ATV. “But I’m actually not-”
“Please,” Alison scoffs. “Like we haven’t been watching you make moony eyes at Spencer since we were all in tenth grade?”
“What about you?” Emily whispers to Hanna.
“What?” Hanna replies, indignantly. “You think Mona and I never -”
“Shush,” Mona cuts her off. “A lady doesn’t kiss and tell.”
Talia leads them on a wild ride for at least twenty miles of tunnel. They emerge by climbing up through a manhole in the back of the Radley parking lot.
Samara signals to them from behind a tree, and the run through the woods after her until they get to a large clearing with a small plane running and at the ready.
Alison hops into the cockpit and the others strap themselves in. They follow the flight plan, landing in an abandoned industrial park on the outskirts of Atlanta.
Sabrina tosses them the keys to her car. There’s a map in the glove compartment with a rendezvous point marked for a dock off the south coast of Florida.
They get there at dawn, to find Maya St. Germain lolling on the deck of a sailboat. “Well, well,” she says, batting her eyelashes in Emily’s direction. “Look who finally turned up.”
She welcomes them aboard, then casts off the line, setting a course for a small island off the coast of Cuba.
“This really isn’t so bad,” Spencer grins, lounging on the deck and running a hand slowly down Aria’s side. Emily and Alison are holding hands and sitting in adjoining deck chairs. Hanna and Mona aren’t in sight, but judging by the noises coming from below deck, they certainly seem to be enjoying themselves.
The island appears on the horizon, a lush paradise of waterfalls and beaches. Alison squints at the shore, trying to make out the face of the two women waiting on shore to greet them.
It’s Charlotte DiLaurentis, waving happily with the hand that isn’t resting on Melissa Hastings hip.
------------------------------------------------
VIII. Nobody
Aria kicks the masked figure off the balcony. He falls like a sack of bricks, but lands on top of Spencer and Hanna. Spencer tases him, as Hanna claws at his face.
Mona flings herself on top of the pile, hitting him in the back of the head with a weaponized heel spike. Hanna takes advantage of the distraction and manages to pin his wrists long enough for Spencer to slap a pair of Marco’s handcuffs on him.
Alison hauls him to his feet as Emily covers him with her dad’s gun.
Hanna smacks him across the face, hard enough to knock the hood down. Mona reaches over and pulls down the bandana covering the bottom half of his face.
Ben Coogan spits in her eye.
”You?” Alison says, coldly. “You’re nobody!”
Emily’s face is a mask of shock and confusion. “Why?” she says, with genuine pain in her voice. “Why would you do this?”
“You think I didn’t know?” he says, bitterly. “All those times you bailed on our plans at the last second, because Alison needed something? You were supposed to be my girlfriend! Mine!”
“So find a new girlfriend!” Hanna suggests. “Don’t spend seven years on some weird homophobic vendetta against all of us!”
“You’re all just as bad,” Ben announces, sounding unhinged. “You lead guys on, you break their hearts for fun! You don’t care about anyone but each other!”
“Can you believe it?” Spencer deadpans. “When we could have had our pick of predatory Rosewood men?”
“Wait,” Aria says, having just made it down the stairs. “It’s Ben? But - he’s nobody! I haven’t even thought about him in years!”
“I’ve thought about you,” he says, darkly. “All of you. The way Hastings always blew the curve in Trig. The time I changed a flat tire for you, Aria. And you didn’t even let me get to first base.”
“Because you were dating my best friend,” Aria replies, sounding disgusted.
“Who was sneaking off to the Kissing Rock with her perverted little girlfriend.”
“Give it a rest,” Hanna tells him. “I can’t believe we spent all that time being scared of a stupid little boy who’s obviously spent way too much time on Reddit.”
The sound of sirens approaching is getting louder. The police will be arriving any moment now.
“You’re a bunch of emasculating bitches!”
Alison shrugs. “At least we’re not mushy squash.”
----------------------------------------
IX. Sometimes the Villain Wins
Emily still cries when she thinks about it. Two days after the blow up, after they caught Aria red handed and black hoodied in the woods, she walked up the stairs to Ezra’s apartment to find the whole place empty. Cleaned out. Blank walls. Like no one had ever been there.
They were gone. Ella said maybe to Italy. Aria called her from the airport to say they were eloping.
They’d all been so angry. Emily could still feel the white hot rage that tore through her at the thought of Aria throwing blood on their beautiful white crib. Of her wrecking the mobile Emily’s dad had made when she was a baby.
But the anger wasn’t permanent.
Something else would happen. Some new crisis would rear up. They’d all have to work together and be friends again.
But the only thing that happened was Aria and Ezra being gone.
The game stopped.
The batteries ran out and it triggered a self-destruct that singed Mona’s eyebrows, left a black scorch mark on the ceiling of her apartment.
The case against them for Archer Dunhill’s disappearance went away. Mary Drake set a fire in the evidence room on her way out of town, and Peter Hastings dug up some dirt on Tanner. Emily never finds out what it was, but it was enough to convince her to declare Sara Harvey the likely perpetrator. Case closed.
For the first year, they’re all waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It never does.
A is gone.
And so is Aria.
“It was him,” Spencer declares. “It was him all along.”
This is the thought that twists Emily’s stomach into knots at night. If they’d told someone, anyone. If Ezra had been led away in handcuffs for sleeping with an underage student. If that could have prevented everything else that came after. If Aria would have been standing there with the rest of them in the delivery room when Joy was born. If. If. If.
“It was him,” Spencer says, every time they see her. She says it over coffee. Over drinks. When they’re out running early in the morning. It’s burned into consciousness, a mantra of self-reproach.
They all feel it, more or less, even if Spencer is the only one who can’t shut up about it.
They should have known. They knew Cece was working for him. They knew he had cameras everywhere once. That he kept files on everyone. That he didn’t think laws applied to him.
“It was him,” Spencer says, over Thanksgiving dinner.
“Unless it wasn’t,” Hanna says, bitingly. She’s been drinking straight vodka since noon, has drowned all the fucks she has left to give.
Everyone at the table freezes at her words.
“It wasn’t her,” Alison says firmly, putting a restraining hand on Spencer’s arm.
“I’m just saying,” Hanna says, waving her arms emphatically. “We obviously didn’t know either of them as well as we thought.”
“She was our friend,” Emily insists, quietly.
“Well they’re gone and we’re here and one way or another it’s over!” Hanna says, her words slurring a little. “Believe whatever you want! That she didn’t know! That she didn’t choose him! Maybe they’re both innocent little lambs and the day they scampered off, a piano just happened to drop out of the sky on the real A’s head! But I’m done, Spencer! I’m done talking about it and theorizing about it and tearing myself to pieces over it!”
“It was him,” Spencer repeats, coldly. She walks out of the room and out of the house and out of Hanna’s life for good.
She tells Emily the first time she hires a private investigator. She doesn’t mention hiring the second or the third or the eighteenth.
Alison tries to discourage her from recruiting Mona to blue snarf Ezra’s brother. It’s a dead end. They’re not in touch with him either.
Spencer refuses to believe it.
She gets arrested breaking into Wesley’s apartment, spends a week in jail before Peter can grease enough palms to smooth the whole thing over. A month later she gets caught trying to infiltrate the offices of the Fitzgerald Foundation with a stolen security badge.
Mike gets married. Byron gets sick. Ella’s face is thin and haunted.
Aria never comes back. Never even calls.
Spencer hires a forensic accountant. She goes undercover at the publishing house to find out where the book royalties go. The answer is nowhere. They build up in an unused account in the Cayman Islands. Spencer flies down there, tries to pay Caleb to hack the bank’s mainframe. He calls Veronica. Veronica sends Spencer to rehab, hoping the fourth time will be the charm.
When she gets out, she’s wild eyed. She believes Charlotte is alive. She wants to go back down to the Doll House and search for clues they might have missed.
“She might be his prisoner,” Spencer says, her voice breaking. “She might be dead. He could still be playing the game with her! Torturing her! She might be married to him and never know!”
They read about Hanna’s third marriage in the tabloids. She’s divorced from both Caleb and Lucas, and Emily caught her stumbling out of a room at the Radley with Mona the last time they were supposed to meet for brunch.
Emily watches Alison tucking in the girls at night and feels grateful that all the drama, all the pain, somehow led them here. This house. This family. This steady love.
One day, she’s standing on the bed, balancing with one foot on the window sill as she tries to hang a new curtain rod. The sunlight streams in with the curtains temporarily down, glinting off something small and metallic, embedded in the fancy scrollwork above the antique dresser mirror.
She stands perfectly still, tries not to look directly at it. Continues with her curtain project and pats the duvet until the bed looks smooth and undisturbed. She calls Ali, who calls in Mona, who traces the satellite feed to a remote cottage in the south of Iceland.
It’s the best lead they’ve had in ten years.
They take Hanna’s plane.
Spencer is vibrating with nervous energy as they hike across a lava field with a compass.
There’s no one there when they reach the darkened house. It’s dusty and abandoned, but with a bank of screens still running a video feed. The DiLaurentis Fields bedroom. Spencer’s barn. Hanna’s penthouse. Mona’s townhouse. The Radley.
Spencer finds a newspaper wadded up in the fireplace that’s only six months old.
She turns to Emily, her eyes bright and shining with tears.
He’s still out there.
Maybe she is, too.
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X. What Lies Beneath
Mona is dressed in a fashionable white lab coat, studying a vial of clear liquid. Leslie Stone adjusts her glasses and uses an eyedropper to draw a sample, which she drips carefully onto a litmus strip.
She studies the results carefully before turning to Mona.
“Oh my god,” Leslie mutters. “Does this mean what I think it means?”
“The Carissimi Group,” Mona observes. “They’ve been contaminating Rosewood’s water supply for years! Hallucinogens! Poppers! Bath Salts! The entire ‘A’ game is nothing but a mass hallucination!”
“But these other compounds,” Leslie says, putting some of the water onto a slide and studying it closely under the microscope. “ I’ve never even seen before. This chemical cocktail, over time, in conjunction with the mind altering serotonergics - this has the be the root cause.”
Spencer bursts into the room, flanked by Hanna, Emily, Alison, and Aria. She yanks a clipboard out of Mona’s hands and quickly scans the results.
“It’s a toxic stew,” she declares. “Phosphorus. Astatine. Rhenium. Argon. Carbon. Hydrogen. Ytterbium.”
“Speak English,” Hanna requests. “Not Chemikawhatsit.”
“Altogether, these trace elements would bond into a poisonous mucky goo,” Mona explains.
“So this is it?” Emily asks. “This is the reason for everything that’s happened to us?”
“It tracks,” Spencer declares, as she begins feverishly writing out the chemical formula on a whiteboard.
P At Re Ar C H Y
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XI. Sharked
“We need to figure out who AD is,” Spencer says, spreading a diagram of the Radley on the countertop.
“It’s me,” Sara Harvey exclaims, as she bangs a gloved fist against the window. “Haven’t you learned anything? I’m behind everything in this town!”
“Did you hear something?” Emily asks.
“I don’t know what happened,” Hanna mutters. “I got so bored for a second, my eyes just glazed over.”
“I know,” Alison yawns. “But we have to solve this somehow.”
Sara storms into the house. “It’s me,” she shouts. “I’m AD! I wanted to show you all! That I’m still relevant!”
Her reveal is met by the sound of group snoring. At the sound of her voice, all the Liars have fallen asleep.
“Fine,” she snarls. “That’s just fine!”
She stomps off towards the bathroom to leave a menacing mirror message. As soon as she’s done with her shower.
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XII. Normal Again
Alison is writing her name on the chalkboard.
Mrs. Rollins.
Her friends burst into the room. “It’s too late! He’s here!”
Spencer grabs Alison roughly by the shoulder and propels her out into the school hallway.
“Go!” she shouts at them. “Get her out. I’ll hold him off!”
She sees Aria’s leopard print heels careening around the corner, sees Emily grab Alison’s hand as they hurry after her. Hanna alone stops and looks back at her for a long moment before she, too, breaks into a run.
Spencer hears their footsteps echoing as they sprint at full speed towards the exit to the faculty lot. She turns to face the hooded figure moving towards her.
“Spencer!” a familiar voice calls, sounding muzzy and distant. “Spencer!”
In a white padded room at Radley Sanitarium, Spencer tears the sleeve of her hospital gown as she knocks over a metal tray of pills.
“It’s you,” she yells, frantically. “You’re A!”
“You’re safe,” Wren Kingston promises in his most patient voice. “There’s no more A.”
“I need to warn the others!” Spencer shouts. She holds her empty hands in midair and makes typing motions with her thumbs. She looks around the room, her eyes wild. “Why won’t they answer? They never answer!”
“They can’t answer,” he says, gently. “You know they can’t. Some part of you knows it. Think, Spencer. You remember. There was a fire. Thornhill Lodge burnt to the ground.” He taps the wedding ring on his finger. “Melissa barely managed to pull you out in time.”
He looks at the white burn marks that cover most of Spencer’s right arm. Thinks unwillingly of the lighter Melissa found clutched in her hand. They disposed of it, of course. Peter Hastings discreetly bribed the fire marshall for a verdict of faulty wiring.
“No,” Spencer whispers as she rocks back and forth in her chair. “No. No. No.”
Wren shakes his head and makes a notation on her chart. Every day, the same note.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Mona asks. “Because once it’s done, there’s no going back.”
Spencer looks around at her friends. “Anyone not feeling sure?” She smiles a ghost of her old smile, a sad echo from the time before.
“I’m all in,” Hanna says, raising her hand. “What about the rest of you?”
The other girls raise their hands, a look of grim determination on each of their faces.
“This is it,” Alison says. “This is how it ends.”
Mona types a code into a device she’s attached to the base of the cell tower they’re standing under. Below them, the town of Rosewood is silent and still. An electromagnetic pulse is loosed over the town, triangulated with two other towers where Caleb and Melissa are stationed.
“That’s enough to wipe out any hard drive, flash drive, cell phone, or security camera down there,” Mona announces. “The servers at the police station will be fried. The power grid is sparking.”
Any final traces of evidence about their involvement with Rollins are erased. Dust motes in the cybernetic universe. The stand together quietly, watching for the next signal.
Finally a red flare streaks across the sky, launched from Melissa’s position.
“She’s made contact with my mom,” Spencer says, relieved. “Get ready for Phase II.”
Twenty minutes later, the Pennsylvania National Guard rolls into town and starts evacuating residents per the governor’s order. With the Rosewood section of the power grid failing, no emergency services available, and rumors of a gas leak beneath the Radley - they waste no time in getting the populace out. They move house to house, knocking on doors and shuffling people into emergency buses to shuttle them to a temporary Red Cross shelter over in Ravenswood.
They watch everyone being hustled out of town with a fascinated detachment, like watching the tunnels of an ant farm.
“It’s going to be a new beginning,” Alison says firmly, seeing Emily staring out at the room of her old house.
Five hours later, the troops declare the evacuation complete and roll out, erecting road blocks around the perimeter. A flare shoots up from Caleb’s location.
“Phase Three, Motherfuckers,” Hanna says with a smirk.
The whir of a drone cuts through the darkness. It lowers itself towards the ground, hovering at waist height. Aria pulls out a package of fireworks and fastens them to the underside of the machine.
“I love you guys,” Spencer says, as they light the fuses together.
They don’t waste any time once the drone is airborne. They pile quickly into Spencer’s SUV and tear off at top speed towards the Philadelphia airport.
They see the fireball flash reflected in the rearview mirror, feel the ground shake under their wheels as the town explodes.
It’s all behind them now. The bodies. The blackmail. Sometimes the only way to win the game is to blow the entire board off the face of the earth. Leave nothing behind but a crater where the underground bunker used to be.
Jason has the Carissimi jet fueled up and waiting for them. Emily and Alison want to get married in Paris. Start fresh in a place that smells like baking bread and champagne. They’ll stay there for a few months, maybe a few years. Mona already has a space picked out for Hanna’s design studio. Aria will write a few novels. Spencer’s planning to rendezvous with Melissa in London, then head to Morocco to track down Mary Drake.
It’s time to look forward, now. Not back.
Ash from the blast rains down on their windshield.
Spencer meets Alison’s eyes in the mirror as she flips on the wipers, turns the radio up.
The "Welcome to Rosewood" sign is blackened and charred from the heat of the blast, but the red paint is still wet, still faintly visible.
The final words stenciled carefully by A's gloved hand.
Goodbye, Bitches!
There's a metallic clang as Spencer runs it over.
The ash drifts down and covers the final 'A' message.
The Liars tail lights fade into the distance.
Notes:
I can't believe it's almost over.
(Also, I do know how to correctly spell PATRIARCHY, but there's no periodic element Ri.)
Within the show itself, the word predator / predatory has now been used to describe Ezra Fitz and Emily Fields an equal number of times.
The show is continuing its really fucked up messaging around this stuff. Remember the scene where Noel gets busted with the answer keys in his locker, and the audience is supposed to feel this big sigh of relief? That sigh is predicated on the idea that no one will believe him now. (Even though he'd be telling the truth about Ezria!) The idea that even if you tell, no one will believe you is exactly how abusers cow their victims into silence.
(And false accusation plots, and the promotion thereof, train people to doubt the accuser and give the benefit of any doubt to the possible perpetrator.)
That sigh of relief is the same one we're supposed to breathe when Paige doesn't believe Addison. Yes, Addison is a cretin (and I hate her name being Addison! Oh, are you trying to signal that she’s a mini-Alison? I had no idea, you were just so subtle!) But Paige's reaction is based on her personal perception that Emily is a nice / good person.
When someone says, "This person hurt me," it is never the right thing to counter, "That can not be true, because they never hurt me." That’s not evidence. That's actually the exact attitude that lets men like Ezra and Ian and Wren and Holbrook and Lorenzo and Garrett and every single adult Rosewood man on this show get away with their endless bullshit!
So it's an irresponsible story in general and then it leans hard on homophobia and homosexual panic to do its heavy lifting. It implies that LGBT teachers and coaches are more vulnerable to these accusations because as queermos in a locker room full of same gender people undressing, the possibility always exists that we could be looking at you in an unsavory way! Cue ominous music!
(If this line of reasoning seems familiar, that’s because it’s the older cousin of the trans bathroom panic sweeping Republican legislatures in a state near you!)
It equates Emily's potential guilt with her lesbianism, since Addison's story relies on the mechanical equivalence where one part is true of the lie is based on the truth (Emily is gay), so the other part is more likely to seem true (she hits on teenage girls). It feeds into the long standing idea that gay people are more likely to be pedophiles. And it doesn't do any work to refute any of that!
The story goes away because Addison is a liar, and Emily is a good guy. It's tagged as messed up that Addison did that, but it's messed up because she was trying to fuck with Emily, who is a Good Gay Person -- not because of all the ways her story is perpetuating negative ideas about gay people.
Like, if Addison was the secret kid sister of one of the Liars and the gay coach was a Nefarious Gay Character like Sara Harvey or Shana - I think the show would/could use this exact same plot point, because they're giving no indication that it's inherently bad. All the badness of it revolves around the moral positioning of Emily and Addison.
Compare that to when Spencer told Coach Fulton about Paige's homophobic comment about the breast stroke. Coach Fulton's response and Spencer's immediate reaction were entirely on the side of homophobia is bad. This plot, it's like lying is bad and doing bad things to Emily is bad, but homophobia is a morally neutral plot device.
This plot line is like the Trump administration. I hate it so thoroughly, and it's being awful in so many directions it becomes hard to know what to rally against. I choose all of it!!!!
This plot is also the ultimate nail in the coffin of OG Alison DiLaurentis. They defanged her. They had an entire episode full of sex take backsies for her. They took away her plane. They had her make soup for Lorenzo during his terrifying tennis ball elbow injury. They married her off to Rollins and had her sign herself into a mental institution and then topped it off with an unplanned pregnancy. And now, now - she doesn't even have enough of her old mojo to help Emily Fields best a tenth grade wannabe mean girl? SERIOUSLY?!?!
Also, the show was bending over backwards to push this Addison is the new Alison parallel, but does it really work? Alison was consistently shown using her sexuality and her brains and her instincts to bring down adult men. Yes, she manipulates the other liars, and I'm sure Addison manipulates whatever pseudo liar group she is the leader of, but Alison (back then) had complexity. She did bad things for good reasons. This little twerp appears to have no agenda except being terrible and skipping swim practice to make out with her boyfriend? So making her the stand in for teenage Ali is yet another retcon oversimplification of who Alison was back then.
Finally this whole thing MAKES. NO. SENSE.
What is Addison's motivation? That she doesn't want to be benched? Okay. I mean, if swimming is so important to her, why did she skip practice? If she's a top shelf liar, why didn't she come up with a better cover story when Emily asked her about it the first time? If she overheard Paige and Emily talking, which she certainly did, she heard Emily talk about her "intense history" with both Paige and Alison. So why would she even spin that story for Paige? Doesn't it seem like she should have known that Paige wouldn't buy it? Or was she randomly trying to cause trouble for the Paige/Emily/Alison love triangle by activating Paige's jealousy towards Alison? But why? Because Chaos Theory?
Or is she - this new character who we have never seen prior to the ninth-to-the-last episode - somehow mixed up in the 'A' game, as the possible Jenna text and board game video suggest? (She was ten years old when the Liars were being messed with before. As Austin Carr would say, "Get that weak stuff outta here!")
In addition, what on Earth is AD getting out of this? What do they care if this girl is benched from a swim meet? Why are they trying to help Emily out of trouble? Why didn't Emily take the AD video to Paige instead of confronting Addison? Was AD's big plan to make Emily yell at this girl?
OOOOOHHH! They've engineered Spencer visiting Toby in the hospital and Emily shouting at a kid! What will this dastardly genius do next?!?!
Although the "get in touch with your darkness" quote was mildly interesting, but darkness is Spencer fake kidnapping Malcolm. Darkness is Mona draining her own blood every night for months and storing it in a mini-fridge in order to fake her own death. I get that Emily is not generally a dark character, but raising your voice in a heated way at a tenth grader is just not on anywhere near the same level.
Maybe I wouldn't be as worked up about it if the track record of the show post jump didn't include the deaths of Charlotte and Sara Harvey and Jenna’s involvement putting another queer woman as one of the final villains.
And now, in the final episodes, we get this story that's a throwback to The Children's Hour. Boo x 1,000,000.
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It seems like everyone is always assuming they're a couple. A story where Paris and Rory begin to realize that everyone, in this case, might just be on to something.
A/N: I wrote this fic as a holiday gift for my friend lco123
Spoilers through the end of the Netflix revival.
Richard Gilmore’s funeral is a stately and dignified affair.
When Digger Styles makes a pass at a woman who turns out to be Christopher Hayden’s latest piece of arm candy, Paris hustles all three of them outside before their raised voices attract attention. She helps Christopher into his coat and turns him over to his chauffeur with a jaunty wave.
When Aunt Totsy arrives smelling like she bathed in a vat of Eau de Bordello, it’s Paris who pretends to admire her dress while two maids discreetly Febreze her from behind.
When Cousin Marilyn is making her way towards the door with a purse stuffed with bar glasses and a pilfered humidor in her cleavage, it’s Paris who meets her at the door, arms folded over her chest and a take no prisoners look on her face.
“I’m sorry - who are you again?” Marilyn asks, in a tone of high dudgeon. “Because, you see - dear Cousin Richard always meant for me to have these.”
“I’m the woman who is two seconds away from calling the police,” Paris responds, just as Rory appears at her side.
“Paris,” Rory says, “you have got to call off the dogs.”
“Dogs?” Marilyn repeats, sounding alarmed.
“A terrified caterer named Sammy just tried to follow me into the bathroom because someone threatened him with bodily harm if his tray of pop tart kebobs and cheese sticks got more than three feet from my right elbow.”
“I’m not sorry,” Paris says flatly. “You have to eat.”
“Oh, I see,” Marilyn says, with a nod. She inserts herself between Paris and Rory, taking each of their elbows as if they’re about to pose for a vintage postcard. “Lorelai - the original Lorelai, I mean - had a female companion herself. All those years she was in London. Far be it for me to name drop, but Philippa was a Trefusis on her mother’s side, and her grandmama was a mistress to Edward VII.”
She steers them all towards the front door as she continues, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial tone. “She stayed abroad to keep it from Richard. The boy lionized his father. But the two of them were quite happy together, sharing good scotch and great literature in their flat off Russell Square. As comfortable as a pair of house slippers.”
She drops their arms and turns to Rory. “You have her spirit. Richard always said so, even if he didn’t know the half of it. Now give me a kiss goodbye, child.”
Rory hugs her goodbye and kisses her obediently on the cheek. Marilyn floats out into the night, giving them one last jovial wave over her shoulder.
“She’s a mess,” Rory says, shaking her head. “But she has good stories.” She closes the door and stands with her back against it, closing her eyes.
Paris stares at her for a long moment, taking in her pale features, her simple black dress, the exhaustion in her posture. She puts an arm around Rory’s waist, and Rory responds by resting her head gratefully on her shoulder.
“I have to go soon,” Rory says.
Paris nods and rubs her back. “I’ll drive you.”
It’s only after Rory is out of the car, after she and her overstuffed leather bag have melted into the mass of people inside the terminal that Paris thinks about Marilyn again.
Realizes she got away clean.
-------
Paris has lived in this staircase prison of a house for seven years, and has never - not once - smiled one of her neighbors. This block, like everything, is a battle for dominance of limited resources; parking spaces, swings on the playground, the last jar of lavender infused jam at the farmer’s market. Doyle used to smile and wave. Which means, of course, that all the neighbors are on his side.
Rory shows up on her doorstep the first week in December. She’s wearing a light sweater that probably hides the baby bump from most people well enough. But Paris isn’t an amateur. She looks over Rory’s shoulder at her car, parked on the street and stuffed full of boxes.
Amber, the bad dye job from across the street, looks at them curiously when she gets back from Pilates and sees Paris carrying everything inside. Paris glares, but Rory smiles and actually introduces herself.
Five minutes later, two hulking teenage stepsons appear to help them unload.
It’s nice having another adult at the dinner table. Especially when the adult is Rory, a person who never wants to talk about Michael Bay in as a serious artist. Plus Sookie St. James keeps overnighting insanely delicious pregnancy foods - veggie burgers made from couscous, cauliflower and kale mac and cheese, sweet potato and salmon tacos. Luke Danes drives up once every two weeks with bizarrely healthy versions of diner fare. Emily Gilmore offers to hire them a private chef for the duration of the pregnancy, but settles for inviting them up to her new guesthouse over Christmas and covertly having an elevator installed while they’re away.
Paris doesn’t miss sharing a bed with Doyle at night. She’s perfectly content to take a sleeping pill and sprawl across the length of the king bed, taking up all the space without remorse or regret. But lately she finds herself stopping in the doorway of Rory’s room once the kids are asleep. They talk about the work Paris is doing at the clinic, or Rory reads excerpts from her novel out loud for feedback. Sometimes they watch old black and white movies together until they fall asleep. Paris doesn’t let herself think that it means anything. They’re good company for one another. Always have been.
One morning she wakes up with Rory’s head pillowed on her breast. Doyle was a fitful sleeper, he always had to wear a little mask and usually kept a pillow propped against his back, making the bedding into a boundary wall between them. It’s shocking. Not the presence of a body against hers that’s warm and soft, but the realization of how it makes her feel. Kind of fizzy and delighted. It gives her pause. Enough pause that she finds herself thinking about it all day. In client meetings. On the drive home.
She imagines what Terrance would tell her. Center your emotions, Paris. Feel your feelings, Paris. Although it seems a bit absurd to take life advice from a guy who’s doing his second stint in minimum security over a fake prescription ring.
That night, she stays in her own room, tucked under her own Brooklinen sheets, rereading The Iliad. She’s about twenty pages in when she hears a quiet knock against the doorframe. Rory is there, wearing her pajamas that have little pictures of sushi on them.
“I want to read to the baby,” Rory says, instead of hello. “Why do I want to read to the baby? It doesn’t even have ears yet!”
“Pregnancy and logic aren’t always compatible,” Paris tells her. She pats the space next to her for Rory to sit down, and flips back to the beginning of the book.
“Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles…”
The morning of the first snow, Rory and Paris take the kids to the park. Rory makes snow angels with them and Paris supervises the construction of a small snowman. The kids are dodging behind trees having a snowball fight when Rory brushes off a park bench and pulls out a thermos of coffee. She takes a long drink, then hands it to Paris, who takes a sip and wraps her hands around the mouth it to warm them before handing it back.
Jocalyn from across the street is jogging by pushing one of those gargantuan baby strollers.
She smiles and waves. “You two are the cutest.”
-------------------------
Paris spends Rory’s last trimester stocking the freezer with twelve kinds of ice cream, making pickle and peanut butter sandwiches, with tater tots and a dusting of crumbled Captain Crunch smashed in between the bread for good measure.
“Want some?” Rory offers, as she chews.
Paris shakes her head. “You probably eat that even when you’re not pregnant.”
Rory grins at her in between bites. “It’s like you know me.”
The baby arrives in June. An adorable towheaded bundle whose birth certificate reads Lorelai Emily Gilmore, with a blank where the father’s name normally goes. Rory plans to call her Lora and to consider Logan Huntzberger more of a ghost writer than a dad - an uncredited contributor.
Paris takes three months off work. Her underlings can manage to not completely run the company into the ground. There are baby monitors installed in the nursery, the master bedroom, and the guest room, but the three of them generally end up sleeping in the same place. Paris runs her fingers through Lora’s fine blonde hair and watches her eyelids flutter. Rory is sound asleep next to her, her mouth open just enough to drool a little on the goose down pillow. Paris brushes a lock of hair behind Rory’s ear and feels a charge of tenderness shoot through her. She flops back on the pillows and stares at the pink hyacinths in the vase on the bedside table.
They go to Stars Hollow for Halloween. Hector is a pirate and Helena couldn’t make up her mind between being a doctor or a dinosaur, so Rory asked Lorelai sew up a doctasaurus costume that looks like a T Rex in a white lab coat, with a stethoscope and a headlamp to boot. She’s thrilled. Lane’s husband takes them trick or treating with Steve and Kwon.
Paris sits with Rory on Lorelai’s porch as the entire town troops by to see the baby, cute as a button in her black dress and lace handkerchief bib.
“Oh thank god,” Babette says. “I heard you were gonna name her Lorelai, and I said to Maury, I said - I can barely keep my sugar and salt straight these days. Havin’ three Lorelais would make my head spin. Which wouldn’t help with the sugar and salt situation.”
“We call her Lora,” Rory explains. Paris smirks and hands out candy.
“Is Lora short for Ruth?” Babette asks Miss Patty. “Cause Ruth only has four letters. Seems unnecessary.”
“It’s short for Lorelai,” Paris says, shortly. She sets the bowl of candy next to Rory and takes the baby to burp her. “Ruth Baby Ginsberg is her costume.”
“Mmmmm,” Miss Patty says, giving Paris a long look up and down. Her eyes linger on the leather jacket, the stylishly short hair cut. She makes a sweeping gesture towards Paris with her silver cigarette holder. “So this is your mystery man?”
“This is Paris,” Rory tells her, eating a Twix. “You’ve met her. Many times.”
Patty shakes her head. “Of course, dear. But I didn’t know she was the father.”
“Do I look like I have a penis and a weak chin? I’m not the father,” Paris snaps.
Rory shoots her a look as two startled looking kids veer off in the opposite direction. “Your loss,” Paris yells after them. “We’ve got premium candy! Brand name full size chocolate bars!”
“Stop scaring the small children,” Rory chides her.
“It’s Halloween,” Paris sniffs. “They’re supposed to be scared.”
“Just darling,” Miss Patty beams. “I mean, I don’t know exactly how the science works, but it’s amazing the things they can do these days!”
“So she is the father? Oh boy. I’m gonna be sugaring the meatloaf and salting the pancakes for sure,” Babette laments.
“Come on honey,” Miss Patty says, waving at Paris and Rory as she leads Babette off the porch. “Let’s go see about finding you a sugar bowl.”
“Oh, I got a sugar bowl. We keep our keys in it, so we don’t lose ‘em.”
------------------------
It’s been a rough December. Hector got sick and kicked off a plague in the house that took everyone down in turn. And the moment Hector and Helena were better, it was time for Doyle to swoop in and take them for the holidays.
The brightest spot was a moment when Rory was too ill to get out of bed, but tried anyway when she heard Lora wailing in her crib.
“Stay,” Paris ordered. “I’m on it.”
Rory looked up at her, her face pale and sweaty, and gave her a weak smile. “How about that? You want a doctor who makes house calls, all you have to do is live in a house with a doctor.”
Paris rocked the baby on her shoulder as she went into the bathroom and ran a wash cloth under cold water. She came back out and laid it gently on Rory’s forehead.
“It’s those Garfield twins,” Paris fumes. “Their mom is always wearing hippie dippie skirts and making her own soap. It smells like sandalwood and anti-vax sympathies to me.”
“It’s just a bug, Paris. A bad one, but mandatory vaccination policy--which I completely support--has nothing to do with it.”
“I should subpoena their medical records.”
“Paris,” Rory said quietly. “You don’t have to take care of me.”
Paris didn’t say anything, but she took Lora over to the changing table and pulled a new diaper out of the stack. Rory watched her toss the old diaper into the pail, wipe the baby, secure the new diaper, and then touch noses with the baby and smile.
“Honestly, I don’t know how my mom did it,” Rory said. “I couldn’t do this on my own. I couldn’t do it without you.”
“Good thing you don’t have to,” Paris replied, as she felt her stomach drop in a fluttery way that seemed completely out of place for a thirty-two year old executive.
Now it’s New Year’s Eve and Lane’s band is playing a big event at The Secret Bar. Paris isn’t thrilled about the idea of going, but it feels way too long since they’ve been out of the house to do more than run to the drug store or the pediatrician’s office.
She calls the Dragonfly and gets ahold of Michel.
“For Rory? But of course,” he says in his thick French accent. “We are fully booked, but I can bump the Baptiste’s from the Cloisters Annex. Terrible people. They stole many robes from the Independence Inn.”
Paris arranges for Clementina to stay overnight and they make plans to have dinner with Lorelai and Luke at the diner. Lorelai hand delivers their room key and presents them with front row tickets to the Star’s Hollow Musical Extravaganza, which is becoming a regional legend. “So bad, it’s good!” is the slogan emblazoned on posters and billboards all over New England.
“The bad is so bad,” Lorelai tells them. “Think of the worst song you can imagine, and make it a hundred times worse. Then add incest jokes!”
“People heckle the performers,” Luke chimes in. “Viciously. It seems mean, but it’s a part of their whole - what was the word you used?”
“Gestalt,” Lorelai declares.
“Yes! They’re so bad, they’re bad in German!”
“Thanks for doing this,” Rory says, putting a gloved hand under Paris’ arm as they cross the green to the theater. “I know a Stars Hollow Rockin’ Eve isn’t exactly your idea of a good time.”
“It’s no Times Square, but it’s alright.”
“They drop a replica of the Gazebo at midnight.”
“You’re joking.”
“Maybe. You’ll see.”
The musical is every bit as cringeworthy as it promised to be. Brad Langford was actually supposed to be playing the male lead, but he squeaked with terror at the sight of Paris and ran off stage in the middle of the opening number. The rest of the show is performed with Kirk and Taylor and Miss Patty trading off his songs.
There’s a line outside The Secret Bar, but Lane ushers them through the backstage entrance and leads them to a reserved table.
“I saw your husband’s picture in People Magazine,” she says.
“Ex-husband.”
“He was on the red carpet as the plus one of a model.”
“I know. She has one name. Elmira.”
“And she’s the kind of girl who gets cast when they can’t afford the girl who looks just like Scarlett Johansson,” Lane agrees. “A total drip. And he was wearing a Skid Row t-shirt! Is he serious?”
Paris buys the first round. When she gets back to the table, Lane and Rory are deep in conversation.
“I don’t think it happens to everyone,” Lane is saying. “No one ever assumes you and I are a couple. Speaking of which - Taylor wants me to ask you if you’re available to be the Grand Marshall of the Pride Parade this year.”
“I am not joining Taylor’s parade.”
“If you refuse, he says he’s under pressure to import some gays from Woodbury.”
She sets their drinks down, and immediately hears a familiar squeal inches away from her right ear.
“Madeline?” Rory says, in disbelief. “Louise! What are you doing here?”
“We’re always looking for the hot spots, remember?” Louise chuckles. “A secret bar? Very hot. Hot enough to host the launch party for my new fragrance line.”
“That’s you?” Lane asks. “You’re Secrete Parfum?”
"Secrete?” Paris repeats. “Like, liquid that oozes from your glands?”
“No, like a love letter you secrete inside your bra,” Madeline explains.
“But they sound awfully similar,” Rory points out. “Identical, actually.”
“Whatever,” Louise drawls, with a wave of her hand. “I needed a shell company to stash the cash from my divorce settlement.”
“You’re divorced?” Rory asks, trying to keep up. “From Marco? I’m so sorry.”
“Marco is ancient history,” Madeline giggles. “His money is all in socks.”
“Sex?” Lane asks, confusedly. "Or did you say stocks?"
“Socks. Louise has a luxury sock line. Very high end.”
“How many ex-husbands do you have?” Rory asks.
“Marco,” Louise says, counting on her fingers. “Judson. Marco, again. Then Pierre. Does it count if it was less than 24 hours?”
“If Britney has to count it, so do you,” Madeline nods.
“Well. Then Kenneth, and now here we are.”
“The perfume smells really nice,” Madeline offers, holding out her wrist for Paris to sniff.
“Smells like alimony,” Paris tells her.
“Exactly what I was going for,” Louise nods. “Alimony, with an undertone of lavender and mint.”
“Well, we’d better get going, we need to work the crowd,” Madeline says. “But call me! Let’s do lunch!”
“Brunch,” Louise corrects her. “Brunch is the new lunch.”
“I love a meal that ends in ‘unch’,” Rory promises gamely.
Lane heads off to get ready for Hep Alien’s first set, leaving Paris and Rory alone at the table.
“There’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you,” Rory says.
“That sounds serious.” Paris feels a ball of worry in her gut. What if Rory wants to move back to Stars Hollow? To be close to her mom and have a whole zany village to help raise her child?
But then the band is on stage and there’s a cascade of noise crashing over them, making conversation impossible.
They stop at two minutes to midnight, to give everyone a chance to grab some champagne.
With thirty seconds left in the year, Rory tries again.
“It’s just -” Rory continues, “this year has made me think about my life in a whole new way.”
“Because of motherhood?”
“And because of you,” Rory clarifies. “Because of us.”
Paris doesn’t know what to say. She’s maybe stopped breathing.
"TEN,” everyone shouts, as Louise holds up a giant clock.
“You’ve been so generous. You took me in with no questions asked. You treat Lora like your own. And at first I thought what I was feeling was gratitude.”
“NINE!”
“Gratitude,” Paris says, the word sounding hollow and flat.
“EIGHT!”
“But it’s not. It’s deeper than that. There’s a reason I went to you. Everyone else thinks you’re so tough, but I knew - I knew I could always could on you to take care of me. To be there for me.
“SEVEN!”
“And I know that because I feel the same way about you. Maybe I always have.”
“SIX!”
“God, I wish they would stop counting!”
“FIVE!”
“You were saying,” Paris says, moving closer and taking Rory’s hand. There’s a pounding in her ears that might be her heart.
“FOUR!”
“That maybe I’ve always felt this way. Since you were stalking me through the halls of Chilton whispering Shakespeare and trying to intimidate me.”
“THREE!”
“Love is not love if it alters when it alteration finds,” Paris whispers. “Or bends with the remover to remove.”
“TWO!”
“Or maybe since Yale or since Spring Break - or since, I don’t know when, but as long as I can remember - Paris, I can’t imagine my life without you. And I don’t want to.”
“ONE!”
“What I’m trying to say is- oh, to hell with it,” Rory says, cupping her hands around Paris’s face and kissing her hard.
Cheers explode all around them, and balloons full of Secrete fall from the ceiling. Paris kisses Rory back with intensity as Lane’s band starts to play a punk version of Auld Lang Syne.
“You owe me five dollars,” Madeline tells Louise.
“Pfft. I called that in eleventh grade,” Louise laughs. She leans over and gives the band a request, and soon enough, they fumble their way through an impromptu version of Eternal Flame.
Paris barely notices, because Rory is still kissing her and there are hands everywhere and too many clothes, except they’re still in public, so they should maybe do something about that, but then Rory’s tongue dances against hers and she moans with how much her whole body is hungering for this.
Somehow, they stumble back to the Annex and eventually make it into the room.
Paris would almost laugh if she wasn't otherwise occupied. But Rory is licking a pulse point on her neck and she feels like she might explode if they aren't both naked in the next thirty seconds. Still, somewhere in the back of her mind, she's planning to send Michel a thank you note.
The room has a two person hot tub and one giant king bed.
Hi there! Were the Gilmore Girls fics I found on Ralst yours? They were great!
Thank you! Yes, that's me. I had two Rory/Paris fics over there, and I also wrote a third one for a challenge that I have in the archives here. I just finished watching the revival, and there's a pretty good chance I am going to write a new post Fall story with the two of them. :)
Expectations for The DArkest Knight: How Low Can You Go?
Here we are, the last mid-season finale of ever! The last time we’ll ever hear Marlene promise us all the answers are just around the next corner! The last time we’ll hear about how many wonderful and romantic and dramatic and mysterious things are no-really-I-am-not-fooling-this-time deAd AheAd!
I really want to enjoy this episode. I do. I’ve loved this show for a long time. I love the characters, I love the complexity of their relationships with one another, and the way their bond shapes the entire story.
So I’m making a list of things I want from tonight’s episode. No grand hopes and dreams. No last lingering wishes for it to be that one magical codex of an episode that will finally make sense of everything that has happened. No hoping that Ezra will be trampled by a herd of elephants ridden by animatronic dolls.
This is me, trying to set the bar as low as I can, in the hopes that it will increase my ultimate chances of happiness:
- I want the episode to entertain me more than it annoys me. Ideally by a ratio of at least 70/30 entertainment. But I’ll settle for 60/40. Or even 51/49, tbh.
- I want all the queer women to make it to the end of the episode alive. This means Emily, Alison, Sabrina, Paige, and Jenna and Sabrina’s ex-girlfriend who she was having lunch with and all the rainbow bridesmaids that Pam is having book club with, okay? This is especially important as it seems clear there could be some stray bullets whooshing around.
- I want BAMF Mona to be kicking ass and taking care of business.
- I want some good ensemble interaction with all the Liars in the same place.
- I want a scene that reminds me of all the reasons why I want Emison to be endgame.
That is all.
Plus bonus points if no one has been impregnated with Emily’s eggs.
Anyone Can Die vs. Bury Your Gays: PLL by the Numbers
Let’s take a quick look at the idea that PLL doesn’t really have a problem with killing off queer ladies because it’s one of those shows where anyone can die. It’s a battle of the tropes! Except not, because the Gay Reaper has got this one hands down.
The show, to date, at this moment has had 64 straight cisgender characters, and 11 LGBT characters. (I’m counting only characters who have appeared in at least three episodes, and who I think were significant enough that fans would remember them without having to rewatch anything.) That’s 75 characters in all, of which 14% are LGBT and 86% are not.
Out of 75 characters total, the following have died: Garrett, Wilden, Jessica, Ian, Rollins, Wayne, Nicole, Cousin Nate, Maya, Shana, Charlotte, and Sara Harvey.
See? Anyone can die! And they’ve killed off eight straight, cisgender characters, which is twice as many as the four LGBT characters! No problem here!
Except no. We’ve got 12 total deaths out of 75 characters. If you are a PLL character, and we don’t take any other variables into account, you have an overall 16% chance of dying.
Except no again. If you’re a straight, cisgender PLL character, death has come to 8 of your 64 fictional souls. Congrats! You have only a 12% chance of dying!
But if you’re an LGBT character on PLL? Get your affairs in order! Your death rate is 4 out of 11! That’s a 36% chance of ultimate doom!
Looking at it from a strictly representational stand point, LGBT characters are 14% of the total cast, but make up 33% of the overall death rate.
If you take things from the first episode of the time jump, it’s even worse.
Counting all characters who’ve been alive on screen since the time jump as of right now (so eliminating Nicole and Wayne, as well as people who are coming back later on like Paige and Jason), there are 30 characters. Of those, 24 are straight cis characters and 6 are LGBT characters.
That’s an 80/20 split. But since the time jump kicked off, the LGBT characters have been two corpses out of the three - 66% of the deaths!
The full metrics post-time jump give an average Rosewood resident a 10% chance of death, which drops to 4% if you’re a straight cis character and jumps to 33% if you are not.
It’s like climate change, denying the facts doesn’t mean it’s not happening.
This isn’t Anybody Can Die. In the world of PLL, death discriminates.
If you want the full list:
For the purposes of this list, I’m considering everyone as straight and cisgender unless the show canon has explicitly stated otherwise. Also, the 3 episode rule cuts out straight characters like British Colin and the pilot / courier guy, as well as the queer girls who dropped in to play poker at Emily’s that one time. Another note: Bethany isn’t accounted for in these calculations because she hasn’t been in 3 episodes as a character. It also excludes Tippi the bird, because who am I to judge the zoological orientation of a parrot?
Straight, Cisgender
1. Spencer *
2. Hanna *
3. Aria *
4. Caleb *
5. Toby *
6. Ezra *
7. Mike
8. Melissa *
9. Byron *
10. Ella *
11. Veronica *
12. Peter *
13. Ashley *
14. Tom
15. Jessica X
16. Mary *
17. Kenneth
18. Jason
19. Pam *
20. Wayne X
21. Lucas *
22. Mona *
23. Wren
24. Noel *
25. Sean
26. Isabel Randall
27. Garrett X
28. Wilden X
29. Rollins * X
30. Jordan *
31. Liam *
32. Yvonne *
33. Andrew
34. Jake
35. Travis
36. Tanner *
37. Ian X
38. Holbrook
39. Lorenzo *
40. Dr. Sullivan
41. Sydney
42. Holden
43. Johnny
44. Jackie Molina
45. Maggie
46.Vice Principal Hackett
47. Eddie Lamb
48. Alex Santiago
49. Clark
50. Zack
51. Grunwald
52. Malcolm
53. Kate Randall
54. Pastor Ted
55. Barry Maple
56. Detective Marco *
57. Sober Dean
58. Nicole X
59. Lesli Stone
60. Cyrus
61. Wesley Fitzgerald
62. Jamie Doyle (Caleb’s Uncle/Dad)
63. Ben Coogan
64. Cousin Nate X
LGBT
1. Emily *
2. Maya X
3. Paige
4. Alison *
5. Samara
6. Jenna *
7. Shana X
8. Charlotte * X
9. Talia
10. Sara Harvey * X
11. Sabrina *
* = still alive on screen at some point after the time jump
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Sara Harvey (yes, even Sara Harvey) Deserved Better
This is not a post about mourning the death of Sara Harvey. This is a post about mourning the Show That Was. The show that was about a group of young girls growing into strong ass women in a world set up to break and devour them. The show that had Emily Fields and her Magnetic Lesbian Super Powers front and center, where queer women came and went and had complex identities outside of their sexuality.
To paraphrase Buffy: We’re not looking at that show anymore. We’re looking at the thing that killed it.
The death of Sara Harvey is, I fear, the latest sign that my beloved show is not poised to go out on the kind of high note that I've been hoping for all these years.
It feels like a punch in the face, after sticking with the show post-Charlotte's death, that - in spite of the increasingly mainstream discussions about the deaths of queer women on television - PLL would just go ahead and kill Sara Harvey off so casually.
Considering that she was barely around this half season, there doesn't seem to be any reason in the world that they couldn't have simply written her out. She was never super important to the plot - despite trying to shoe her in as Black Widow and Red Coat and Emily's duplicitous former love interest and the spiritual heir of Jenna but with useless hands instead of blinded eyes. For that matter, they didn't really need her around in 6b, I can't think of a single thing that she did post 6a finale that couldn't have easily been handed off to a different / more interesting character. And death is literally the least interesting thing that you can do with a character! Now she's dead and it seems like our chances of ever getting more information about her motivations have died with her. Weak!
The worst thing about it, in my mind, was the way her death was set up. Maybe it seems like a small point, and I'm sure they did it as a wink to the fans, but having her dead body in the bathtub with the shower running? They were playing it for laughs! They were actually encouraging us to get a nice chuckle over her death. It's true that her character was loathed by the fans - but that's because her reveal as BW/RC was so unsatisfying and her story arc over all was nonsensical. To be fair, it may also have been because the actress wasn't a super strong choice - but doesn't the responsibility for the writing and the casting fall squarely at the feet of the show itself?
Like, what is the message here? Haha, we created this queer character, made everyone loathe her, and now want you all to laugh and cheer at her bloody demise! Fuck. That. Noise.
I had no love for Sara Harvey as a character, but she deserved better from the show all the way through. Of all the deaths on the show - Ian, Wilden, Garrett, Maya, Shana, Charlotte, Bethany, Jessica, etc - I can't think of any others that were played out in such a mean spirited way. It's stupid and cruel on the same level as making 'A' a trans woman and then promptly killing her off to kick start the next mystery.
Sara Harvey is not Lexa. She’s not Tara. She’s not even Bridey from The Family. But she’s dying on the exact same hill they did, the one that’s made up of 40 years worth of buried gays. She deserved better.
I’m running a Bring Them Back fic challenge over at AO3 as a counterpoint to the idea that any of these LGBT women had to be sacrificed on the altar of television narrative necessity (or, lets be real, expedience). However much you might have disliked Sara Harvey on your screen, every time they kill off a queer fictional character, they’re reinforcing the idea that queer lives are expendable in the larger world. Which they are not. Our lives are not expendable. Our stories are not springboards. Representation matters. Sara Harvey deserved better. As do we all.
Help bury the Bury Your Gays trope! I’m running a Bring Them Back challenge over on AO3!
Ever since Julie chased her love interest into traffic on Executive Suite, queer women on television have been dying in droves. From Xena's beheading to the stray bullet that took out Tara Maclay - we've been shocked and saddened. We've endured years of LGBTQ women appearing on our television screens only to serve as cannon fodder, falling victim to poisoned needles, serial killers, house fires, and even the occasional ax-wielding puppet.
The body count has been climbing for 40 years, and 2016 has seen the Gay Reaper strike women on sixteen different shows. This trope has claimed so many characters - Lexa, Mayfair, Root, Poussey - not because their deaths were the only way to advance the plot, but because far too many writers seem to view queer female characters as expendable.
This challenge is being set up as a fannish counterpoint to the idea that these deaths were creatively necessary. It's a place for stories that turn the narrative around and explore what could have happened if these women had lived.
If you’re a fic writer, I’d love for you to head over there and claim one of the prompts. (See the FAQs for instructions on how to claim if you don’t have an AO3 account yet.) If you’re not a fic writer, but you’re excited about the idea of the challenge, I’d love for you to reblog this post to help get the word out. (And check out the challenge page as it picks up steam and stories start to get posted.)
Bring Them Back Fic Challenge!
Because representation is important. Because violence against queer fictional characters contributes to and encourages a climate of real danger that queer women face every day in the actual world. Because writing fics where these characters survive helps. Because the creativity of fans is the best antidote to the idea that these deaths were inevitable or necessary to advance a particular story line. Because there are one zillion things that an author can do with a character who is lesbian or bisexual or transgender woman that are more interesting than killing her.
I think it’s a nightmare and it’s Alison dreaming of Uber A. Because the girls are saying we came back for you. But they have been in Rosewood for awhile now.
She talks the plan over with Hanna. She hates not telling the others, but she’s desperate and doesn’t have time for debate.
“You’re right,” Hanna agrees. “I’ll make the call.”
Emily waits in the car outside the hospital, hoping she’ll catch sight of Rollins leaving. The night shift nurses start pulling in, and Emily steels herself, not wanting to miss her chance. She wipes her palms on the white skirt of her uniform and adjusts the nurse’s hat on her head. She falls in behind a group of three women heading into work. The receptionist is busy gathering her things, getting ready to leave for the day now that visiting hours are over. She doesn’t even look up as they pass, and Emily catches the door after the nurse in front of her swipes her security badge.
She checks her watch and strides purposefully towards Ali’s room. A nurse is about to inject something into Alison’s IV.
“No,” Emily says, louder than she intended. The nurse turns around. “I mean, Dr. Rollins sent me. To tell you that he’s changing her dosage. This one is cancelled.”
The nurse shakes her head. “About time. You ask me, he’s trying to put her in a coma with all these sedatives he’s got her on. Poor thing.”
Emily thinks about what kind of biting remark the old Alison would make to that, but it’s hard to imagine the old sharp tongued Queen B when confronted with Alison strapped to the bed. Looking all puffy and barely conscious. Her eyes seem to be having trouble focusing, but they snapped open at the sound of Emily’s voice.
“Em?” she says, her voice a little slurry. With the slightest motion of her head, Emily tries to signal for quiet, tries to use her eyes to convey that there’s a plan in motion that hinges on Alison not calling her out right now.
The other nurse looks at Alison, questioningly. “What did she say?”
“Em,” Alison repeats. “I’m thirsty.”
Emily nearly doubles over with relief, as the other nurse fills a cup with water. “Of course you are, dear,” she clucks sympathetically.
“I can do that,” Emily offers, taking the cup and placing the straw gently in Alison’s mouth. “Don’t worry,” she mouths, as she crouches closer to Ali.
Alison’s eyes are still glassy, and the look she gives Emily is completely unguarded. Emily’s heart starts to beat a little faster, either because of anticipatory plan-related adrenaline or because the look on Alison’s face is the same one Spencer had when Toby showed up alive with Dr. Sullivan in tow. The same one Hanna had when Caleb came back from Ravenswood. Like a black dress they’ve all worn in turn, but only to fancy occasions. Only when someone’s in love.
Emily gulps and winds up fumbling with the water, spilling a little on the front of Ali’s paper gown. She feels herself blush a little as she tries to wipe it off with her hand, and could swear that she sees the ghost of one of Ali’s old smirks quirking at the corner of her mouth.
And then an alarm starts to sound from another corner of the building. Emily’s startle is genuine, she’d gotten so caught up she completely forgot about the diversion. The other nurse is peering out the doorway as people run past in the hall.
“Fire!” someone shouts. “Fire in the East Wing!”
“Go,” Emily says, as calmly as she can. “I’ll take care of her.” The nurse nods and takes off without any further hesitation.
“You came back for me,” Alison says, still a little woozy as Emily pulls out her dad’s old pocket knife and slices through the leather restraints.
“I never should have let you sign yourself in here,” Emily says, putting an arm around Alison’s shoulders to help her sit up. “You’re not crazy, Alison.”
Alison moves her arms as if she’s about to stretch, maybe flex her fingers and try to get circulation back after so many days of being pinned down. But instead she wraps them around Emily’s neck and kisses her.
The kiss still a trace of Ali’s old confidence, even though Emily can feel her trembling, can taste the salt of actual tears running down Alison’s face. And Emily lets herself imagine, just for a moment, that the two of them are in one of those terrible romantic comedies that Aria loves to watch. Finally here at the part where there are no more obstacles left and the music swells and they get their happily ever after. It could happen, she thinks, as Alison runs her tongue along her bottom lip. Even if it’s been a horror movie for the past eight years, all they have to do is make it out alive.
“I am crazy,” Alison says, when they finally break apart. “Crazy for not doing that the second you got back to town.”
Emily smiles. “We can talk about that later. We have to get you out of here, now.”
“If you could have held off on the make out session, we’d already be gone,” Mona Vanderwaal snarks, shooting them a look that’s half-amused, half-exasperated. She’s leaning against the doorway with her arms folded, wearing horn rimmed glasses and a white lab coat, a stethoscope dangling around her neck. “Now get her undressed.”
Mona tosses Emily a ball of clothes she had concealed in a black medical bag, and Emily quickly helps Ali take off the paper gown and change into jeans and a black tank top.
She snaps a foldable wheelchair open and motions for Emily to help Alison into it.
“Any sign of Rollins?” Emily asks.
“Stuck in his office in the East Wing,” Mona replies, with a wave of her hand. “Where, with any luck, the fire marshall will eventually find a pack of cigarettes and a lighter with his fingerprints on them in the supply closet.”
“You started a real fire?” Emily asks, horrified. “You were just supposed to pull the alarm!”
“I like to improvise,” Mona responds, as she tosses a blanket around Alison’s shoulders. “Keeps things interesting.”
Emily wheels Alison through the crush of people running in all directions through the hallways, Mona keeping a sharp lookout at their side. Alison reaches up and clutches Emily’s hand as they make it through the front doors.
A silver jag lurches forward to meet them, Hanna Marin grinding the gears as she skids to a stop inches from Emily’s right foot. Mona opens the passenger side door and pushes the seat forward so that Emily can help Alison clamber in the back.
Emily tosses Mona the keys to her car. “Thanks for everything,” she tells her.
“Anything for a friend,” Mona grins. “Good luck.”
And then she’s gone, ditching the lab coat in a trash can as she melts into the darkness. Hanna screeches away from the curb just as the fire trucks arrive.
“When did you get a Jag?” Alison asks, blearily. “I might be hallucinating. And the meds are doing weird things to my stomach.”
“That’s not the meds,” Emily grimaces. “It’s Hanna’s driving.”
“Rude,” Hanna breezes, taking a hand off the wheel and turning around to look at them. “Who wants a boring getaway driver? Besides, I’ve been wanting to take this puppy out for a spin. Lucas has plenty of lawyers. He won’t mind!”
Hanna careens onto the entrance ramp for the highway to Philadelphia when blue and red lights start flashing behind them.
“Oh my god,” Emily says, panicked. “We’re being pulled over!”
“We’re not,” Hanna says. “Don’t be mad, okay? I just - I knew you wouldn’t want to leave without seeing them.”
Emily peers out the tiny back window of the sports car and sees Spencer behind the wheel of a Rosewood police cruiser with Aria at her side. Aria gives her a jaunty wave, which Emily returns in spite of her confusion.
“How-”
“She fed Toby a whole batch of pot brownies,” Hanna says, unconcerned. “He’s so out of it, he won’t even notice it’s gone until next week.”
The speed with impunity thanks to their police escort, and Alison snuggles against Emily’s shoulder sleepily while Hanna gives Emily last minute instructions on the apartment that’s waiting for them, owned by a model she knows who’s working in LA this year, trying to break into movies. She keeps talking a mile a minute all the way to the airport, telling Emily about the best bakeries and which boutiques have the high end lingerie. She’s offering to make a map of which restaurants have the cutest waiters as they approach the passenger drop off area and Emily puts a gentle hand on her shoulder.
“I’m going to miss you, too.”
Hanna stifles a sob. “Be careful over there, okay?”
“You be careful over here,” Emily tells her. “Really careful. Like, wrapping yourself in a ball of bullet proof bubble wrap careful.”
“I’ll try,” Hanna promises as she throws the car into park. “And we’re all coming to visit as soon as this is over, okay? Lucas has three jets and I’m pretty sure he’s giving me one for my birthday.”
Then they’re out of the car, Alison leaning on Emily for support as Spencer and Aria run over to hug them both.
“I talked to my dad,” Spencer says. “They’re coming back tomorrow and we’re all going to go to the police. Who knows if they’ll be able to figure it out or not, but we can’t give this ‘A’ anymore power than they already have.”
“Call me,” Emily says. “As soon as you’re done. Let me know what they say.”
“As long as you call me as soon as you get there,” Spencer instructs her, hugging Alison hard. “I love you.”
“I love you, too,” Alison says. “All of you. I can’t believe you did all this.”
“All in a day’s work,” Aria says, smiling and wiping her eyes. “Take care of each other, okay?”
“I want a galley proof of the book,” Emily tells her. “Send it while the ink is still wet.”
“And autograph it,” Alison adds. “It’ll be worth big money some day.”
Hanna pulls both of them into a final hug. “We’ll always be friends,” she promises. “No matter what.”
“Best friends,” Emily replies.
“Now go. Get out of here,” Spencer chides them, loading their luggage onto a baggage cart and handing Emily their passports and plane tickets.
Emily nods, a lump in her throat as she takes them and moves with Alison towards the terminal.
She turns around and waves once they’re inside, grinning at the sight of the three of them, still standing by the stolen police car and waving like mad. Hanna is wearing a beret, and Spencer is waving a small French flag. Aria holds up a handmade sign with a picture of the Eiffel Tower that says, “Bon Voyage!”
“I’m pretty sure I’m dreaming,” Alison says, planting a soft kiss on the nape of Emily’s neck. “But if I am, I don’t want to wake up.”
“No,” Emily tells her. “It’s real this time.”
Soon enough, they make it through security and hurry down to the gate, where their plane is already boarding. And then they’re being ushered into first class, thanks to Hanna’s frequent flyer miles, and then it’s wheels up and the lights of Rosewood and Pennsylvania and the East Coast are fading into pinpricks behind them.
Emily kisses the top of Alison’s head as she drifts off to sleep again. She wakes up with a start three hours later. The cabin lights are dimmed and there’s nothing visible outside the window but the darkness, nothing below but the choppy waters of the Atlantic. But Emily is right there beside her, stroking her hair soothingly as she flips through a magazine. Alison closes her eyes, then opens them again. The scene doesn’t blur or change shape. She can feel the fuzzy wool of her sweater sleeve, the warmth of Emily’s body next to her. There’s a fruit plate on the tray in front of her and she takes a tentative bite of a strawberry, which tastes fresh and juicy and amazingly real. She blinks again, looking over at Emily.
“You came for me. After everything that -” she stops, not trusting her voice not to break if she continues. “Please tell me this isn’t just a really good hallucination.”
Emily kisses her, and her lips are soft and the kiss is sweet and slow and unhurried, like they have all the time in the world. “I keep telling you,” she whispers. “It’s real this time.”
“I thought we missed our chance.”
“No,” Emily says, squeezing her hand. “It just took us longer to get here than we thought.”
“I kept having the same dream. We couldn’t find each other. We missed our flight.”
“It’s okay,” Emily says, soothingly. “We’re here now. We're on the next one.”
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the writers are so gross i am so upset with them. after seasons of ezra taking advantage of aria they finally address the obvious - that he was an adult, her teacher, when they got together. that he went after a minor. and that it was wrong, he’s a predator, aria was manipulated, etc
but they spin it to make liam look like he’s the bad guy. that he shouldn’t be saying what he is, that he’s just trying to ‘come in between’ ezra and aria and ruin their book. they frame things as if since aria is an adult now that it’s fine how their relationship started
ezra LITERALLY manipulated her IN THIS EPISODE. it is not a thing of the past! their relationship was and always has been toxic and abusive. he is a predator, he did take advantage of her as a minor, and he is still manipulating her now and he is still an unhealthy presence in her life
he makes liam seem like the bad guy to aria, makes it seem like he ‘can’t work with liam’ if liam is 'going to be like this.’ he makes it seem like liam is 'attacking’ the book, aria’s work, ezra’s work. that ezra 'can’t see’ where liam is coming from and liam is just absolutely out of left field with his claims
they addressed it just so they can’t say they didn’t. they had aria’s monologue to liam at the end to make everyone sleep at night with 'if aria is okay with it then it’s fine.’ their relationship is a power imbalance. this was not the right way to handle any of this and the writers using this as an excuse to 'discuss’ ezra’s abuse and pedophilia and using it as a way to sweep it all under the rug before the series ends is disgusting
like everyone saying it’s fine because aria is of age now like, it’s not fine. their relationship still started with ezra preying on a minor that does not disappear because aria hit 18
in addition to that, ezra is STILL abusive to aria. he is and he always has been and their relationship will ALWAYS be like that. there is no variation of them that will not include abuse
Rollins turns out to be not a British guy secretly pretending to be an American psychiatrist, but actually a Russian guy impersonating a German guy who is faking being a French guy who is acting like he is a British guy who is secretly pretending to be an American psychiatrist. And he’s actually after Alison because of, like, Putin.
‘A’ has actually spent this whole time plotting ways to raise the dead and kick off the zombie apocalypse, forcing the Liars to flee from Bethany, Ian, Mrs. Potter, Maya, Garrett, Wilden, Shana, Jessica and Charlotte - all of whom are super interested in eating their brains.
turnnoffyourmind
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