A/N: Bet you all thought I'd forgotten about the alternate ending. Well, surprise bitches, I'm back with it! I had it sitting and waiting to be edited for the longest time after I completed the Epilogue. At the time I had a hard time going through and stomaching the darker material because of things I was dealing with in my own life. So I shelved it for a bit. Then when I came back to it, I knew I needed to rework it to make it make sense. It was still a bit choppy, so I had to flush it out and round out the story. It's a long one, because what I did in several chapters with the original story, I had to wrap up in one with the alternate ending.

It picks up right when Del Toro is attacking Lily and Emily in the alley outside the gun range (see Ch. 31: A Shot in the Dark). There are some parallels to how the original chapter in the story was written. It stays fairly true to that scene, but it's more flushed out with bonus material and it leans heavier on the allusions of a tragic end. After the scene in the alley, you'll notice a huge shift in how the original story went, but there are some elements that shadow its original counterpart.

Without further ado, I give you…my "Still Waters Run Deep" alternate ending (and Noura, consider this your trigger warning).

I can finally hit the "complete" button on this one. Truly the end of an era.

Outtake:

Alternate Ending

Emily was somewhat cognizant of Lily scrambling to help her off of the ground. The would-be mugger was out cold. Emily should have been relieved, but something about it felt off to her. She got a strange feeling as she climbed to her feet. The whole situation seemed too…staged. That's when the wheels started turning in her head. It was a slight of hand. Suddenly, she heard Maurice's warning in her head:

"There's always one more gat pointed at you than you think."

By the time she realized it was a set-up, it was too late. She spun around and saw a gun aimed at her and Lily. She recognized it immediately. It was the gun she'd lost in the explosion. It was her gun. The person wielding it was wearing a mask that was covering most of his face, but she could see the whites of his eyes. Something about them was hauntingly familiar. Her eyes scanned the gunman.

The gun toggled between Lily and Emily as he tried to decide who he was going to kill first. He couldn't leave any witnesses. The gun stopped on Lily. Emily's eyes widened.

"Mom!" Lily cried out.

And suddenly, Emily was back in the car. Back with Grace. The twisted metal, the shattered glass, the water pouring in. She saw the flash of the muzzle. There was a crack in the air and Emily knew this time it wasn't just a car backfiring or distant thunder. She knew it wasn't just a champagne bottle cork or her mind playing tricks on her. But that didn't stop her.

All she could picture was Grace's last breath. All she could picture was losing another daughter. She pushed Lily back with her arm, and took a step to the side to make sure she was fully in front of her.

She felt the bullet strike her, ripping in to her. It was hot, like molten lava. She felt like screaming, but nothing came out. Her adrenaline was taking over. She wasn't going to stop until Lily was safe.

She dropped her ring. It clinked when it hit the cement. She quickly spun around and wrapped her arms around Lily, pulling her down the sidewalk away from the danger. She could feel the warmth of the blood drenching her shirt. She glanced down just long enough to see the tiny red stain blossoming into a crimson rose on her clothing.

Another shot rang out. A bullet whizzed by them, clipping Lily's arm. She yelped in surprise. There was a third shot that went off. Emily took in a breath. The air felt cold in her lungs. She could feel her blood rushing away from her extremities. She pushed forward, sending them toppling into an alley, pushing Lily until she was tucked behind a dumpster.

Lily slid to the ground, trembling, not realizing her mother had been hit. Her face was white in shock. Seconds later, Emily dropped to the ground next to her. Lily's eyes widened when she saw the blood.

She opened her mouth to ask her if she was okay, but Emily gently put her hand against Lily's mouth to try and keep her quiet. She pushed her other hand up against the hole the bullet had left in her stomach. She didn't feel blood on the back of her shirt, so she knew there wasn't an exit wound. The bullet was lodged somewhere inside of her.

Del Toro started to chase after her, but stopped when he saw headlights rounding the corner. He looked at his guy against the ground slowly coming out of his unconsciousness. He glanced at the gun and uttered out a string of profanities and then decided he needed to call it.

He'd shot her. She'd looked right into his eyes and he'd shot her. He'd hit her abdomen. He'd seen the look of pain on her face. She was as good as dead. And he'd hit the kid, too, so that would serve as a deterrent for any retribution. Because he'd shown that he would finish the job. He hated loose ends, but instead of going for the head shot like he really wanted he grabbed the things Emily had dropped to keep as a souvenir and then hauled his downed warrior to his feet and they took off in the opposite direction.

Emily heard their footsteps fading. She looked over at Lily and slowly pulled her hand away from her mouth. Her eyes landed on the blood oozing down Lily's side.

"Hey, let me see your arm." Emily gently pulled her arm out to look at the wound.

"Oh." Lily blinked in surprise. "I didn't even feel that. We were running so fast and I…" Her face twisted into confusion. "Am I going to die?"

Emily observed the injury. It had caught Lily on the meat of her bicep. There was an entry wound and an exit wound. It was through and through. All she needed was stitches.

"No. No, you're going to be fine." Emily felt a bolt of pain in her side, but she tried to hold back her pained grunt.

She reached back, moving her arm so she could peel her jacket off. She felt the heat of her injury pumping into her stomach with every little motion she made. But that was nowhere near as important as taking care of her child. She tied her jacket around Lily's arm and then quickly put her hand back over her stomach. She looked Lily over for other injuries.

"Mom…" Lily blinked sadly. She had always looked so pitiful when she was afraid. Even as a little girl her eyes were powerful. "I don't want to die."

Emily could tell she was going into shock.

"You won't, baby."

She would see Lily through to survival if it was the last thing she did. She moved her hand away from her injury and Lily saw the blood seeping through her shirt.

"You're hurt." Lily realized.

"I'm fine, Lil."

But she knew she wasn't fine. She could feel it. Sweat was pooling on her body, but she felt cold. Her muscles were tense, tweaking, and everything in her body felt like it was on fire. But all she could concentrate on was her daughter. She tried to hide her pain.

"Are you hurt anywhere else?" Emily asked.

Lily didn't answer. Her eyes were fixed on the blood coating Emily's fingers.

"Lily, are you hurt anywhere else?" Emily pushed her palm against Lily's neck with her free hand, forcing her to look into her eyes.

Lily shook her head, tears in her eyes.

"You're bleeding really bad." Lily could see it.

The young girl reached out to her mother, her fingers hovering over the bullet wound in her stomach. She wasn't sure what to do. Emily was doing her best to try to hide her pain from her daughter, but she couldn't hide the sweat that was building up all over her body. She couldn't hide the growing red stain on her shirt. She wanted to lift her shirt and look at the wound, but she didn't want to scare her daughter any more than she already was.

"It's okay." But her hands were shaking and the color was already starting to drain from her cheeks. "It's…" She held in a quiet gasp, "…it's not as bad as it looks."

"You're lying."

"No. I'm okay. Just stay calm." She rubbed her daughter's cheek.

"Don't lie to me." Lily shook her head in tears. "You're not okay. You…you need a doctor." She grabbed her arm, the motion sending a surprising amount of pain through Emily's body. Lily stopped moving her when she saw the pain on Emily's face. "You…you have to get up. Mom, you have to…" She put her hand against Emily's arm. "I don't want you to die."

"I'm not going to die."

She made a motion to try and stand up to make sure they were clear so they could find Ali, but it sent a painful jagged sensation shooting up her spine. She fell back against the wall when the gravity of the injury hit her.

"Oh…" she muttered out a surprised gasp.

She slid down next to Lily again. For a split second she felt herself blacking out. But then she heard Lily exhale a terrified breath, and that was enough to jolt her mind back to life. Her child was afraid. Her child needed her.

She looked over and saw her daughter biting her lip to fight back tears. Emily felt like she was looking in a mirror at her teenage self. Her instinct was to reach out to her. She saw the blood on her arm and had a flash to Grace in the car, begging for help. She tried to pick her hand up to put pressure against where she'd tied the jacket around Lily's arm, but she was losing feeling in her limbs.

God, no. Not again. She thought to herself. She'd lost Grace because her body had shut down. She couldn't let it happen again.

Her eyes started to flutter, but she fought the impending darkness. Lily saw the blank stare on her face and she realized what was happening. She crawled in front of her mother, desperate to help. Emily's hand was falling limp against her side. Lily carefully pulled her shirt up and saw the injury. It was gory and bruised and bloody. Not even seeing violence in movies could have prepared her for the real thing. She saw a large clot of blood and a stream of fresh blood running down her stomach.

"Oh, shit. That's really bad." Lily's eyes widened.

Emily was too dazed to answer at first. She blinked rapidly several times, in between a strange reality of what was happening and a nightmarish twilight state.

"Mom?" Lily saw her fading. She dropped her shirt and gently shook her.

It shook Emily out of her trance.

"Lily…"

"What do I do?" Lily asked. She saw that the blood stain was growing. "Tell me…tell me what to do." She grabbed Emily's hand and squeezed it, smearing blood on both of their palms. "Just hold on. There has to be something…I have to be able to do something…"

"Hey, don't panic." Emily said, her breathing becoming labored. "We'll be fine, honey. Your mom is on her way. She'll be here any minute." Emily tried to calm her down. "We'll be…"

Suddenly a searing pain tore through her body. She bit down on her tongue to keep from screaming. She could taste the blood where her teeth had ripped into her tongue. She felt a gentle pressure against the wound and then heard a frustrated grumble.

"I can't…I can't stop the bleeding." Lily stuttered. "It won't stop. Tell me how to stop it. I want…I want to help. Please." She frantically bunched Emily's shirt up and pressed her hand against Emily's injury.

"Just…just keep holding pressure." Emily nodded, though it pained her when she felt Lily following her instructions.

Lily didn't miss that holding her hands against it was making her mom's pain worse.

"I'm sorry." Lily swallowed hard.

"You're doing fine, sweetheart."

"But it's hurting you."

"You have to push harder, Lily. You have to…" Her lips suddenly felt limp, and she couldn't speak.

Lily did what she was told and Emily bit back a grunt.

"This is all my fault." Lily growled angrily at herself.

"No." Emily suddenly felt a spark jerking her back to life. She couldn't die letting Lily think that.

"You were out here because of me. I never should have run away. If…if I had just stayed home none of this would have happened. This is my fault."

"Lily, listen to me…" Emily put her hand on top of where Lily's fingers were holding pressure against her wound, both of their hands covered in blood. "Don't you dare blame yourself. Those people were after me. And they would have found me regardless of where I was. This isn't your fault. It's mine. I'm your mother. I'm the one who is supposed to protect you."

And she had failed at that. She'd failed Lily and Alison just like she'd failed Grace. Del Toro had been waiting on her. He'd drawn her in. She'd fallen for it, and Lily had been caught in the crossfire. That never should have happened.

"I'm scared." Lily's voice was quiet and shaky. She grabbed Emily's hand and squeezed it. It felt cold.

Emily closed her eyes and tried to take a deep breath and Lily almost had a full blown panic attack.

"Mom!" she cried. "Mom, don't die. Please don't die."

"I'm right here." Emily opened her eyes. "I just needed to catch my breath. I'm right here," she assured her.

In the distance they heard a familiar voice.

"Emily? Lily?"

"That's mom." Lily shot up from where she was sitting.

Emily grunted. She tried to get to her feet, but faltered. She put her palm back against her injury and nodded to let Lily know to go ahead. But Lily wasn't waiting on her mother's approval. She was already tearing out of the alley and running towards Ali's voice. All she knew was that her mother needed help and she needed to find her mom, because her mom would know what to do.

Ali was crossing the street a few doors down from where the alley was. She'd parked the car because she hadn't seen Emily and Lily anywhere and she wanted to look for them. She heard fast footfalls approaching and when she turned around she saw Lily running towards her.

Ali saw the panicked look on her daughter's face and ran to meet her. She saw the blood on Lily's shirt and on her hands. There was even a small smudge of red on her cheek. She felt her heart pounding. She grabbed Lily's face with her palms and looked her over for injuries. She saw Emily's jacket tied around her bloody arm.

"What happened?" She brushed her thumbs under Lily's eyes to wipe away her tears.

Amid her flurry of reactions: fear, panic, desperation…it was her anger that was most apparent. Because her child was hurt and terrified, and that brought out a wild animalistic rage in her. She felt like a feral jungle cat ready to rip out the throat of whatever had hurt her baby.

Only a split second had passed, though it felt like decades. And then she realized something. Lily was alone. Emily would never leave their daughter alone, especially if she was hurt. She'd just as soon die first…

Ali's eyes widened in horror.

"Lily, where is your mother?"

Lily opened her mouth to speak, but all that came out was a sob. It was a cry that made Ali's stomach lurch. Her throat started to close. Yet despite her body shutting down she was able to ask again.

"Honey, what happened? Where is your mom?"

"She's hurt." Lily managed to squeak out. "There were these two guys and one had a gun and when he started shooting mom pushed me out of the way." When she started talking it all seemed to just spill out. "She pushed me away." She repeated with a cry. "She pushed me away and we ran."

The shock had finally set in. Lily was screaming at herself in her head 'Help mom! Please help her!' But her mouth wouldn't form the words.

Ali started looking around frantically. She saw movement from behind Lily. A shadow was rounding a corner, coming out of an alley. Ali instinctively pushed Lily behind her, ready to rip apart anything that dared come for her daughter.

When the figure came into view it took a moment for Ali's eyes to focus in the streetlight. It was Emily, leaning up against the wall. She'd managed to pull herself off of the ground and was holding herself up with her palm against the brick wall near the dumpster.

She looked like she was having trouble standing. She had her other hand pressed firmly over her stomach. Ali could see something dark seeping out between her fingers. Upon a second glance she could see that Emily was drenched in blood.

"Oh my God." She gasped. "Emily." She swallowed a lump in her throat.

"She's hurt really bad, mom," Lily said with a quiet hushed tone.

Ali spun around to face Lily.

"Lily, I need you to do exactly what I say."

She knew that Lily shouldn't watch this. She'd seen enough for one night. Not to mention they needed to get Emily to a hospital.

"Our car is right across the street. I need you to go get in the car, lock yourself in, and call 911 with my phone."

"Is she going to die?" Lily tried to move towards Emily.

Ali stopped her. Not just because they needed an ambulance, but because she knew that seeing Emily like this would traumatize her further.

"Lil." She clutched her daughter's cheeks. "I know you're scared, but I need you to do what I say. We need to help your mom. She needs an ambulance. She needs us."

Lily nodded tearfully. Other than the graze and the shock she seemed to be okay. She raced towards the car. The second Lily took off Ali raced towards Emily. Emily tried to take a shaky step towards her, the whisper of Ali's name coming from her lips. She staggered forward on her feet and started to lose her balance. Ali reached her just in time to catch her in her arms. She fell forward with Emily's weight, cradling her head so it wouldn't smash against the concrete.

Emily's jaw fell open like she was trying to say something, but then her head rolled to the side as her eyes started to flutter close.

"Emily…"

Emily was somewhat aware of Alison jostling her, trying to keep her from slipping into unconsciousness. But she couldn't see her. She could feel her though. She could feel everything. She could feel where the bullet was ripping her insides to shreds. In her mind she could see that bullet being fired at her. And she saw those eyes. Those unmistakable beady little eyes. The hatred in them hadn't changed since high school.

"It…I didn't…I wasn't sure, but now…I know. I know it…it's Ben."

"It's been what?" Ali was having trouble making sense out of her jumbled words. "Emily, talk to me, honey…what happened?"

Emily's brain registered her voice, but she couldn't reply. A wave of severe pain rolled over her body. She arched her back, but when she did it made her feel worse. She heard a scream, and then she realized that it had come from her. She cried out and then screamed in agony again.

"Oh God, Em…" Ali had tears in her eyes. She'd never seen Emily like this. "Emily…"

But Emily couldn't answer her. She felt disoriented. Her vision went black. She heard Ali saying her name. Her voice was like a song being sung in the distance, a sweet melody to Emily's ears. But then it faded. And she was alone. She blinked and stared into the open void in front of her.

Her gaze was fixed on the night sky. It really was a beautiful night. She could see all the stars. It's like they were hovering right over her face.

It wasn't a terrible way to die…looking at the stars. For a few split seconds she felt alone in the universe, unable to register Ali's presence.

Then the pain returned. It was so intense that she thought she was going to throw up. She felt bile in her throat. The hot burning substance came to a standstill and Emily was certain she was going to choke on it. She wanted to cry, but she didn't have the energy. Her vision blurred and she muttered something under her breath that Ali couldn't hear. She was drifting in and out.

God, what had become of her? How had she let it come to this? She glanced down and saw the blood seeping through her hand. Here she was again, bloodied on the ground and dying. It took a second for her to register that someone was with her.

When she blinked she realized that Ali was staring down at her, tears in her eyes. Emily swallowed, her brain firing neurons that she could barely comprehend. And as wonderful as the memories past were with her family, she couldn't help but grieve for the tomorrows she would never get with them. But it was too late for her. She knew it. She could feel it.

"Ali?" Emily muttered.

"Right here." She tried to get Emily to focus on her.

"You have to get Lily away from here. It's not…she's not safe here. Is she…she was hurt. Is she…is she okay?" Emily tried to sit up, tried to verify that her daughter was okay, but Ali gently held her shoulder down.

"Em, don't. Sweetie…" Oh God, that's so much blood…

"I'm sorry." Emily choked out a sob. She'd put Ali and Lily in danger. Her daughter had been shot tonight because she had put her grief before theirs. "Please…" Emily muttered. Please forgive me. Her face scrunched in confusion again. "Ali?"

"I'm here, baby." Ali took her free hand.

"I'm sorry," Emily repeated. "I was just trying…I was trying to protect you, and I…" She struggled to catch her breath.

Her eyelids fluttered closed.

"Emily, no, don't you fucking dare. Don't fall asleep, do you understand me?" Ali pushed her hands against Emily's cheeks. She was burning up, but her skin was pale. "You stay awake, you hear me? You stay awake for…for me, for Lily…"

Emily responded to her voice, pushing her eyes open and looking into Ali's eyes. She nodded to let Ali know she heard her. Emily squeezed Ali's hand tightly when she felt the pain again.

Ali swallowed a cry, because she knew Emily was getting ready to die right in front of her. And she could feel her pain. Emily reached up with her free hand, pulling Ali's face closer to hers until her lips were just centimeters from Ali's ear.

"Lily needs…" She swallowed a knot in her throat, "…she needs to get to the hospital. She…she's hurt, Ali. She…"

Emily tried to push herself up again to make sure that Lily was still safe, but Ali stopped her.

"Hey, easy. Easy. Stay still."

"She needs stitches." She huffed out a grunt.

"Emily, you're bleeding out on the ground here. Our daughter's stitches can wait."

"She's already been through too much. I don't…I don't want her to see me die." I don't want YOU to see me die.

She closed her eyes and silently begged for Ali not to witness her death. She couldn't stand the idea of Ali living with the image of it. She knew what it did to someone. Because watching Grace die had torn out a piece of her soul.

"Please, Ali. Please get her out of here."

Emily knew what it was like to watch the life drain from a loved one's eyes. It was something she'd never forget. As it was, Lily had already had a gun pointed in her face tonight and she had a bullet wound in her arm. The last thing she needed was to see her mother suffering.

"Hey, you are not going to die," Ali's voice came out as a soft whimper. "You've made it through worse. You're not going to die, Emily. You're going to be fine."

She wasn't sure that was true, but she wasn't going to give up on her wife. Emily had never once given up on her.

"Ali…" Her voice was shaking in a resolute sympathy.

"No." Ali clenched her jaw angrily. "You're going to be fine." She had to be.

"Oh, honey…" Emily said with a huff. She exhaled a pained breath through her teeth. She knew she was dying. "I'm not walking away from this one." She tasted bile in her throat. "I am going to die."

She could feel it creeping up on her like a shadow in the darkness. She'd felt it many times before, but never like this. And all she could hear in her head were Ali's pleas for her to stop before it was too late. All she could see was the pain on Ali's face when she cried about losing her.

"I'm not interested in becoming a widow, Emily!" She'd shouted not hours ago.

And here that was, coming to fruition.

"Ali, I'm not going to make it. And I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Tears leaked from Emily's eyes. She blinked and the tears fell backwards down her face. "There's…there's nothing anyone can do. I w-won't make it to the hospital. But Lily…you can still help Lily…"

A sharp pain reverberated against her stomach where the bullet was lodged. She clenched her jaw and tried to contain her screams. Ali could see the agony in her eyes. She saw Emily's back arching off of the ground in pain. She held in a scream, turning her face away to hide the pain. Ali forced her to look at her again for fear she would lose consciousness otherwise.

She looked down and saw that Emily's shaky hand was still pressed against the large saturated blood stain on her shirt. Her breaths were unsteady and uneven. Ali gently tried to nudge her hand away, but Emily was holding her right hand firmly against her stomach, blood trickling through her fingers. Her entire shirt was drenched.

"Honey, you need to move your hand," Ali said. "You've got to let me see," she gently put her hand on top of Emily's hand and pulled it away from her shirt.

Emily couldn't have fought her if she tried. She didn't have any strength left. Emily's palm was soaked in blood. Ali couldn't see the damage through the bloody shirt, so she carefully lifted it. A hole was gushing blood from her abdomen. The area around the wound was already swelling and bruising. Her stomach was rigid. There was no doubt in Ali's mind that she was bleeding internally. She felt around her back and realized there was no exit wound, which meant the bullet was still inside of her. And if it was a hollow point bullet her insides were ripped to shreds. Emily was right. She was dying.

"I told you…" Emily grunted, her forehead and cheeks drenched in sweat. Her bloody hands were up in the air above her chest, violently shaking. "…it was bad."

"No, it's…"

"Don't. Ali, we've been together for fifteen years. You can't lie to me worth shit anymore." Emily groaned.

Fuck. Oh, shit. Oh, fuck. She's bleeding internally. What the hell am I supposed to do? She's going to die. She's dying.

"We just need to get you to the hospital and they can patch you up." God, this can't be happening. I can't lose her.

"I'm sorry. I am so sorry." She took a breath and she felt like her stomach was erupting in flames.

Emily squeezed her eyes shut and opened her mouth in a pained grimace, drawing Ali's attention away from Emily's injury. She dropped Emily's shirt and put her hands on Emily's cheeks. Emily closed her jaw and started taking short quick inspirations through her teeth. It felt like something inside was shifting and ripping her apart. She held back a scream. She could feel sweat dripping down her body, but she felt cold. Her lips were turning white. A cry got caught in her throat.

"Hey, you're okay. You're going to be okay. The ambulance is on its way." Ali choked out.

Emily grasped Ali's arm loosely. She started to say something, but another wave of pain rolled over her.

"Hold on, baby." Ali brushed her fingers against Emily's cheek. "Just hold on a little bit longer."

"The…the estate stuff is all in order. And I…" Her head drooped forward. She was really starting to feel the loss of blood, "…there's a trust set aside for Lily. The paperwork is in the gun safe."

"What?" Ali whimpered out a cry.

She'd known about the will and the estate, but she hadn't known about anything other than their savings they had for Lily. They'd discussed setting up a trust for her and Grace years ago, but never got around to it. Ali knew things were bad, but things had gotten bad enough that Emily knew this was coming?

"The people I was working with…they did shifty stuff, but they were good people. They did good things. I knew…" She choked back vomit. "I knew what it was getting into it. I wanted to make sure you and Lily were taken care of. It's all in the safe." She repeated. She looked at Ali pitifully. "I know you're mad…"

"No." Ali stroked Emily's cheek. She had been angry when she found out the truth. She'd been livid. But she loved her. And she didn't want her to die thinking she hated her. "No, Em, I could never stay angry at you…"

Emily's lips twitched into a quick smile that told her she wasn't entirely buying it. She coughed and then gasped for breath because the pain in her stomach seized her lungs so she couldn't move. She nearly bit through her tongue. Her face twisted into a pained grimace.

"Slow easy breaths, sweetie." Ali tried to keep her composure.

Emily nodded and kept her eyes focused in on Ali's face. Her pain wasn't as intense when she was looking into Ali's eyes.

"How are you doing?" Ali tried to keep her awake.

"Fucking fantastic." Emily groaned again and then forced a weak smile on her face. "We should probably just stop celebrating milestones in this family, huh?"

Anniversaries, birthdays. They all seemed to end in bloodshed.

"Let's skip my birthday next month. I don't mind pretending it doesn't exist," Ali sniffled with a weak smile.

It made Emily laugh unexpectedly, sending a ripple of pain through her body. Emily's vision started to blur, and then fade completely. Ali saw her consciousness waning.

"Em?"

Emily didn't respond. The blood loss was making her woozy. Ali knew she had to do something.

"Babe, this is going to hurt." She reached down, grabbing Emily's knees. She pulled them up.

Emily cried out, her eyes popping open in surprise. She felt a tight painful tension in her stomach when Ali moved her, but she knew what she was doing. She was trying to slow the shock, to keep the blood pumping to her heart by elevating her legs as best she could. Emily groaned. Ali ran her hand over her sweaty forehead.

"Hey, you've got this. You're the toughest person I know."

"No," Emily said quietly. "I'm just good at faking it." In reality she was terrified. Of herself. Of who she'd become. Of what she was capable of. "The only reason I made it this long is because of you. You are the strongest woman I know, Alison."

"The only reason I was able to be strong was because of you." Ali admitted. "You kept me going, Emily. It was all you. I got my strength from you. I can't…I can't do this without you."

The fact of the matter was that neither one of them was nearly as strong without the other. Their strength lied in their bond. Emily understood that now. They were stronger together. And she was obliterating that strength by dying. She hated herself for it.

"You can." She reached out, her arm almost too weak to support, but she lifted it until her fingers were on Ali's cheek, leaving a thin trail of blood on her skin.

"Emily." Ali couldn't help but cry. Her touch was glorious and painful at the same time. "You've always been the better part of me. You loved me even when I didn't deserve it."

"You made me want to love you." Emily lowered her hand, unable to hold it up any longer.

"No. No, don't give up." Ali reached out and grasped her fingers.

"I'm losing too much blood. I can f-feel it." Her nose crinkled and her forehead tensed. There was something important needling her brain. She was having a hard time concentrating, but she knew Ali needed to know. Her face tensed and she suddenly saw those cold dead eyes from behind the mask. "Ali, I think…I think I…" Focus. She was screaming at herself internally. She needs to know. He can't get away with this. "He…he shot me. But he…" Her brain felt muddled. "Del Toro, he's…it's…"

"Don't push yourself. We can go over all of this with the police after you've been taken care of…"

"No," Emily uttered weakly. "I have to…" Fuck, come on, remember. You know him. You know those eyes. You have to make her see…you're dying, you have to give her this… "Ali, please…I…"

"Emily…you need to stop talking. You're losing way too much blood, sweetie."

"I'm circling the drain here, babe. The police…they need to know. They…it can't be Lily." She shook her head. "She…" She stopped, a painful breath catching in her chest. She grunted in pain, "…all she's going to remember is the gunfire. She…he shot her. He shot our child. And we can't let him get away with this. We can't let him…we can't let what happened to Grace…the wreck. It can't happen with this. I…I remember. I remember this time. I saw…" She gasped for breath. "I didn't see the night of the wreck. But I saw him tonight."

"Who?" Ali uttered through her tearless sobs. Who had done this to them? To their family?

"It's Ben. Coogan. Del Toro is Ben."

"Ben is dead." Ali shook her head.

"I know…I know what I saw." Emily shuddered. "He was wearing gloves and a mask. But it was him. He…he's different." Her face tightened. "He looks…"

Ali swallowed hard, because she was certain Emily was hallucinating, and that was not a good sign.

"He's bigger now. Maybe…maybe two hundred pounds. He's a few inches taller than me." She squinted, thinking hard about everything she'd seen during those terrifying seconds when he'd had the gun pointed at her child. "I think…I think I knew in my subconscious. When he…after he attacked me in the park." That attack had felt so familiar, because he'd attacked her before when they were kids. "It's him, Alison. I know it. It has to be. Tell the police. Tell them. He has a scar on his left wrist. And he'll have one on his arm from where Jett bit him. And he had a face tattoo. And…his eyes." Those eyes had haunted her since high school. She knew the maliciousness in them, but she couldn't think straight. "So much rage…"

"Em…" Ali cried quietly. "You're not making any sense."

"Please, Ali. Please listen to me. You have to remember this. You have to make sure…" She squeezed Ali's arm when a wave of pain ripped through her. "Zane…"

She finally realized where she'd seen those eyes before. They belonged to a certain teenager. He had the same steely gaze.

"What?" Ali jerked in surprise. "He's the one who shot you?"

"No. He knows everything. He...we know he was in the car that night, too." Emily shook her head. "Find him. Make him tell you..." She exhaled a shaky breath and started muttering. "He knows everything. He has the same eyes. They have the same eyes and…"

Something inside of her shifted again. This time she couldn't contain her scream of agony. A loud cry pierced the air.

"Hey, hey, look at me." Ali gripped her cheek.

"I see you, honey. I…I always have. I'll spend the rest of my life looking at you." She tried to reach for Alison's hand, but she didn't have the strength.

"Just hang on."

Emily nodded weakly, though she knew what was happening. She could feel it happening. Her insides felt both hot and cold at the same time. Her organs were shutting down. Her body was failing her.

"God, I would have to go and get myself shot after all of this…after everything we've gone through to get here." She swallowed a cry. "Fuck, this hurts." Emily craned her neck back. She looked at Alison, wide-eyed. "I should have listened to you. You were right. You were always…" Her train of thought was getting foggier. She was having a hard time trying to vocalize what was in her head.

"Shh, just focus on your breathing." Ali's voice cracked. "Don't move. Don't talk. Just breathe."

Emily's head started to feel heavy. Her eyes flickered closed. Her face was devoid of all of its color.

"Emily, don't…" Ali begged. "You have to keep fighting, honey. Stay awake."

Emily's chest was moving in quick heaving bursts. The pain in her body was so bad that she could barely breathe. But she forced herself to focus…because of Alison.

Her legs slid down against the pavement, her muscles too weak to support holding them up anymore.

Emily reached up and put her hand on Ali's arm, smearing blood on her forearm. Emily's mouth opened like she wanted to say something, but then she closed it again. After a few seconds she tried again.

"A-Ali, I…I'm cold." Emily shuddered.

Ali very carefully slipped her arms underneath Emily's shoulders and pulled her into her lap until her head was resting against her ribs. She snaked her arm across the back of her shoulders. She wrapped her arms around Emily's front and put her hands over the wound in her abdomen while simultaneously trying to keep her warm with her own body heat. Emily huffed out a groan when she felt Ali pushing her hands against the wound.

"Ah." Emily shivered out a pained cry. "Fuck." She slammed her eyes shut. "Fuck."

"I'm sorry." Ali pressed down. It killed her to see Emily in pain, and it hurt even worse knowing that pushing against the wound was exacerbating that pain. "I know it hurts, but we have to slow the bleeding."

Emily opened her eyes, breathing fast. Ali could feel Emily's stomach clenching underneath her touch every time she took a breath. Emily saw a blinding white light, and for a split second her pain disappeared. She saw a wobbly apparition.

"Mom?" She heard a familiar voice.

Emily narrowed her eyes, trying to focus. She knew that mischievous little voice.

"Grace?" She muttered.

"Mom, you have to…"

"Emily…" Ali's voice cut Grace off.

Emily saw another flash of light, then heard the screeching sounds of tires, the crunching of metal, the pain of her stomach being impaled. She jumped, jerking in Ali's arms.

"Mom!" She heard Grace's cries.

"Emily, come back to me." Ali squeezed her fingers with her free hand. They were both covered in blood. The air was thick with a heavy copper smell.

Emily blinked, staring up at the sky. She knew Ali was with her, but she felt a pull, an internal desire to respond to Grace.

"Baby…" Emily uttered.

"Right here. I'm right here." Ali thought she was talking to her.

"We're gonna be okay." Her arm moved weakly as she reached for the mirage of her daughter. "Everything is going to be fine…"

Ali saw her reaching her hand out, her fingers stretching towards nothing. She gently pushed her arm down, getting no resistance from Emily at all. But her touch did spark something in Emily. The illusion was gone and she was staring at her wife again. At first she was confused. Her body felt like she was back in the sinking car. But her mind was replaying Lily having a gun pointed at her.

Emily's entire body felt cold. The blood on her clothes felt like ice water against her skin, but the wound felt hot. The pain she felt in her abdomen was a blinding hot stabbing sensation not unlike the one she'd experienced after she'd been impaled in the wreck. And it was in the same place, too.

"It's in the same spot," she whispered.

"What?" Ali asked.

"The bullet. It's…" She took a quick breath, "…it's where the shrapnel was that night."

Maybe fate was catching up to her. Emily squirmed in discomfort, but when she moved she felt like something in her stomach was exploding. Her eyes filled with pained tears.

"Maybe…maybe this is where it's supposed to end."

She had vowed to avenge her child. She had vowed to bring the person responsible down, regardless of the cost. And now that they had a name…they could get him. They could bring him to justice.

"Don't fucking talk like that." Ali hissed. "Just don't. We have gone through too much…"

Emily groaned. Her eyes started to roll upwards.

"Emily Catherine DiLaurentis-Fields, I swear to God…"

"It h-hurts." Her body started shaking involuntarily. "Am I dying? I'm dying, aren't I?"

"You better fucking not."

"I don't want to die." Her face was a mixture of acceptance and fear. "It…it's getting worse."

Ali saw Emily's eyes widen as she sucked in a gasp. Her eyelids fluttered shut again.

"Emily, don't. Don't fall asleep, baby. Hey, focus. Stay with me."

She moved one hand away from Emily's blood-drenched shirt, wiping the blood off on her own shirt, and then she pressed her palm against Emily's cheek, trying to keep Emily focused on her. Emily felt Ali's warm palm against her skin and she forced herself to open her eyes, to concentrate on her wife, on her family. Suddenly, all she could think about was her daughter.

"Lily…" Her eyes darted around, looking for her.

"She's safe. You saved her, Em." She tried to calm her down.

"But she's hurt…"

"We'll take care of her. We will." Ali nodded. "But first we need to take care of you."

"She's safe?"

"She's safe." Ali repeated.

Emily nodded weakly. She hadn't been able to save Grace. But at least she'd been able to save Lily. She glanced towards the car.

"Hey, eyes on mine, baby. Just stay here with me." Ali pulled her cheek back to face her. "She's okay. Lily is okay."

"Are…are you okay?" Emily choked out. "Are we?"

"What?" Ali blinked in surprise, a stray tear running down her cheek.

"I…I don't want to lose you. I'm sorry. I'm s-sorry. For every – for everything. Don't…d-don't leave me. I don't…I don't want you to leave me. Please don't hate me…I'm sorry…"

"It's okay. I promise. We're going to get through this. We're going to get through this together." A tear dripped down her cheek and fell against Emily's face.

"Hey…don't…" Emily tried to tell her not to cry, but she couldn't find the words.

"I could never leave you, Em. Never. All that stuff I said…I didn't mean it. I was…I was just angry and upset. I didn't mean it. I'm not leaving you."

At first Emily didn't respond. Her body was trembling so much that Ali could feel it in her bones.

"I'm not…I'm not feeling too w-well." She shuddered. "I don't think I c-can…"

"Just hang on for a few more minutes." She brushed her fingers through Emily's hair, "After all this, you owe me that much."

Emily laughed, a strained grimace appearing on her face. Ali had put up with so much of her bullshit.

"I've been such a pain in the ass."

"You're my pain in the ass, and I wouldn't trade you for anything."

"Mom."

Emily blinked and saw Grace huddling next to her, holding her hand.

"I…" Emily mumbled. She could hear Ali talking to her, but couldn't hear what she was saying. "I can see…"

"What?" Alison asked.

"Mom, I'm here."

"I can see her, Ali. Grace. It's…" She reached up, once again grabbing at something Ali couldn't see. She brushed Grace's cheek.

Ali's eyes welled up with tears. How could she tell Emily to ignore their daughter? How could she tell her not to look at her?

"Hey…" It was the hardest thing she'd ever had to do in her life. "It's not real, Em. She's…she's gone. Focus on me. I'm what's right here. I'm right in front of you."

Emily's eyes flickered closed again.

"Emily, come on." Where the fuck is the goddamn ambulance? Why the fuck aren't there people helping? Where the hell is everyone? "You have to stay awake."

Ali's words registered in a part of Emily's brain that she couldn't get out of.

"You have to stay awake."

That's what she'd said to Grace the night of the wreck. Emily shivered, but she couldn't tell if it was because she'd had a flash to the wreck or if it had to do with the gunshot wound.

She screwed her eyes shut and then opened them back up. She stared at the sky. She felt something warm brush her hand and she started seeing Grace with more clarity.

"She's here."

"No, baby. No." Ali vigorously rubbed her cheek, trying to keep her from slipping away. "You're hallucinating…"

"I got lost. I got – I got so lost." Emily cut her off. "I shouldn't…I shouldn't have…" Her eyelids fluttered shut, but she forced herself to pry them back open. "I got lost," she said again.

"Hey, it's okay. We bring each other back. It's what we do, right?" Ali asked. She thought she saw Emily nod, but it was so subtle she couldn't tell.

"I don't…I don't want this to be the last time I see you." Emily choked out. "I'm scared."

Was this what Grace felt like?

"It's going to be okay, mom." Grace assured her.

Emily smiled sweetly at her little girl. The motion scared the hell out of Ali.

"Don't be scared. I'm right here." Ali reassured her. "You're looking right at me…" She saw Emily's eyes closing again, "Emily…Em, keep looking at me…" Ali saw Emily fading and she panicked, though her voice came out strong and steady. "Baby, don't do this." She raked her fingers through Emily's hair. "Just keep fighting."

Emily pried her eyes open and looked up at her.

"There's my girl," Ali said tearfully.

The air was thick with a quiet tension for a few seconds. It was Emily's voice that cut through the silence.

"I didn't know it w-was going to…I n-never wanted it to…to end like this. I never wanted…I didn't want to die like this, to put you through this…"

"It's not over." In the distance, Ali could hear a siren. God, hurry up!

Emily nodded weakly, a lump climbing up her throat. She opened her mouth to talk again, but all that came out was a squeak. Ali huffed out a quiet sob, because she knew Emily wasn't going to last much longer. Emily knew it, too. Her eyes darted to Ali's car.

"Don't…don't let her blame h-herself, Alison," Emily said, her voice coming out in strained hiccups. "B-because she got that from me. And she will…she'll…she…"

"They're coming. The ambulance is coming…" Ali interrupted her, trying not to panic.

Emily lifted her arm, her hand searching for Ali's. Ali took it. Emily weakly closed her fingers around Ali's palm.

"I c-can't – I can't f-feel…m-my legs," she half whispered, half cried through her broken breaths.

"Help is coming." She could see Emily slipping away. She could actually feel the warmth draining from her body. She'd lost Grace. She couldn't lose Emily, too. She wouldn't survive it. Lily wouldn't survive it. "Just hold on. We need you. Lily and I need you."

"I – I'm the one who ne-needed you. No – no matter where I went, I always…I…" She closed her eyes and grunted in pain. "You…you gave me a life. A family." She grinned through her agony. "My girls." She tried to reach up, but she was too weak. "My…b-beautiful girls…" Her eyelids fluttered. "I…" Her voice was trembling as she took in a quaking breath, her voice hitching as she spoke. "I love you and Lily s-so much. M-make sure…make sure she knows that."

"Hey, you're going to be fine. The ambulance is almost here." She could hear the shrill sound of the siren getting closer.

"Mom, you have to tell her. Tell her now. Before it's too late."

"I have to tell you." Emily's voice was trembling. "You have to know…"

For a few fleeting seconds Ali was all she saw. Their lifetime. Their love. Every memory they'd ever made played in front of her like clips in a movie reel. Their first kiss. Their first "I love yous". The first time they'd slept together. Ali's ridiculous marriage proposal. God, she'd loved every second of it. The birth of their children. Their family. Their undying devotion to each other. The last image that flashed across her mind was their last night in Paris. It took away her pain.

"I love you."

"Don't you dare say goodbye to me. Don't you dare."

"Ali." She huffed out a breath. She could see the crystal blue irises in Ali's eyes. "Alison, I'm going to die. They can't…they can't do anything. It's too late. So you tell me. You tell me you love me."

"No." Ali refused.

"You're…so stubborn." Emily smiled. "You…you keep fighting. You have to keep it together. Keep it together for our little girl. She needs her mom."

"She needs both of us."

"In a perfect world." Emily huffed with a pained smile.

"I can't do this alone." Ali cried. "I don't know how."

Emily could see the tears in Ali's eyes and her initial response was to comfort her.

"Hey, it's going to be okay. You still have Lily. And as long as…as long as you've got her you've got me. She's…Lily is the only thing that matters. You…and Lily. You're the only thing that's ever mattered. I wish…I wish I had seen that before. I wish I…" Emily heaved out a breath. Her eyes darted over to Ali's car. "When the ambulance gets here stay with her. Stay…stay with Lily. She…she needs you more." Ali felt an undertone of gravitas to it. "You take care of our girl, okay? You take care of Lily. And I'll…I'll take care of Gracie."

Ali felt her heart clench in her chest. She'd barely survived a world without Grace. How was she supposed to survive a world with Emily?

"I love you…" More than Ali would ever know. "Alison, I love you so much."

It was Alison's love that had kept her going on the days she felt like giving up. It was her wife's dedication that had kept her alive this long. And if love was enough to miraculously heal fatal injuries, she was certain Ali's love would do that for her.

"Emily, stop it. You-you're going to be okay…"

"I need…I need to hear you s-say it back to me."

"You know I do." Ali squeezed her hand. "Of course I do."

"I need…I need to hear the-the words. I h-have to know that I didn't f-fuck everything up. I have to…of all the things I messed up, I have to know that…that I didn't fuck us up. Please…"

Ali looked up, the cold air and her tears burning her nose as she fought back the urge to scream. She looked back down at Emily.

"You didn't fuck anything up. I promise you you didn't. You and I…we're okay. We're going to be okay."

"Please just tell me you l-love me." She squeezed Ali's hand as a wave of pain ripped through her body.

"I do. I love you, Emily." She squeezed Emily's hand back. "I have always loved you. From the moment I met you I knew I loved you. I know it took me some time to come around to it then, but I always loved you. You are the only person I have ever loved." She was the only person she would ever love. "You've always been my soulmate." She swallowed a knot in her throat. "I love you…I love you so much. Emily Fields, you are my one and only. I love you."

"We'll always have Paris. Remember…that." Emily had a faint smile on her face. "I'll always love you, Alison." Please hear me when I say that.

Emily's body shuddered, her hand shaking roughly against Ali's. After a few seconds, the shaking slowed down and then stopped when Emily faded out of consciousness.

As Emily slipped away she felt the same sensation she'd felt the night of the wreck. Ali grasped at the sides of her neck.

"Hey, no, don't you dare…"

Emily heard Ali talking to her, and suddenly, she was hearing everything she'd said to Grace that night. Everything about the night of the wreck was coming back to her. But it didn't hurt anymore.

"Em, listen to me. You have to wake up." Ali begged.

"Grace, Gracie…listen to me. You have to stay awake."

"Hey. Come on. Sweetie, come on."

"Come on, sweetie."

"Don't…"

"Don't do this to me. Don't you give up here."

"Wake up." Ali shook her.

"Wake up, Grace."

"Emily, wake up!"

Emily's hand went limp, sliding away from Ali's. Ali saw her chest go slack. She felt for her pulse and found it very weak. She'd already stopped breathing.

"Oh no you don't. You don't get them both." Ali growled at the sky. "You already took my daughter. You do not get her, too." She gently laid Emily down.

She tilted Emily's head back and blew air into her lungs, watching as Emily's chest rose with her breaths.

"Em, breathe baby."

"Grace, breathe baby."

"Don't you fucking dare…" Ali huffed.

"Don't you dare do this, Grace."

"…I came back for you. All those years ago, I came back for you. You are the reason I am still here today. You are the reason we're a family. So don't you fucking leave me now, Emily. Not after all of this. Not after everything. Come on. You were supposed to be the one person in my life who stayed. I invested everything in you. I bet on you…on us. We have gone through too much. This is not over. Not like this."

They had been through hell and back and Ali wasn't ready to let Emily disintegrate in the flames. She had watched Emily slowly slip away from her in more ways than one, and it killed her. Emily was the one dying, but Ali felt like she'd lost her entire life. She'd always believed that they would make it because she knew that Emily was too stubborn to give up. She thought back to their conversation about whether or not they were going to make it through the rough waters.

"We're going to come out the other side of this." Emily had assured her.

"Promise?"

"I will always fight for us. As long as I'm alive I will always fight for us. I promise."

"You promised me, Emily. You fucking promised. Come on, we are not done yet. I have decades of yelling at you left in me. We have years of fighting left. Come on, for fuck's sake." Ali grabbed her cheeks frantically. She groaned angrily. "God damn it, Emily, I swear to God if you leave me all alone with our heartbroken daughter…" Ali huffed. "I can't do this without you. I won't." She pushed another breath into her. "Breathe, damn you."

But Emily couldn't hear her anymore. What she heard instead was a soothing familiar voice talking in a low whisper, slowly gaining volume. It was a voice that immediately warmed her up.

When she opened her eyes she was standing in a backyard where she'd spent years playing as a child. The sun was shining, beating down on her skin like the touch of warm comforting hands rolling over her skin. She didn't know it, but Alison's hands were still on her face as she fought to keep Emily alive until the paramedics got to them.

Emily felt a gentle breeze in the distance and then she heard the voice again. She felt a great sense of comfort as she followed the voice. When she walked out into the open she saw a tall dark-headed figure dancing around with a baby in his arms. When he turned around Emily smiled.

"Dad," she said under her breath.

"Hey, baby girl."

For a split second she thought it was a dream, or a memory. But then she realized that the child in his arms was not her. It was Grace. Her baby girl…giggling, her chubby cheeks pink, her eyes vibrant and happy. She looked directly at Emily and smiled.

"Mom." She heard Grace's voice with more clarity than she'd heard anything before.

She felt a warm hand close over hers and she looked to her side and she saw her first born, as vibrant and as alive as she'd last seen her before the wreck had ripped her away from them.

"Grace." She reached up with her other hand to stroke her cheek. "Oh, baby…I've missed you."

"I missed you, too, mom." She wrapped her arms around Emily and nuzzled against her.

Emily felt a warm sensation flowing through her body. All of her pain and grief and anger had faded away. She couldn't remember anything but the good. She closed her eyes and let the feeling of love flow through her. She felt Grace's arms around her, squeezing her.

"I'm so sorry," she breathed quietly. "I'm sorry I couldn't save you."

"It wasn't your fault."

"I'm here now." Emily felt a strange sensation tugging at her.

Her heart was torn. She opened her eyes. The wind started to pick up. Emily looked around and saw leaves swirling around in the sky. She could see the moon painting a quiet luminosity in the distance. When had the sun started to set? She felt as if the Earth was moving underneath her feet. And she felt unsteady. Unbalanced.

Her brain felt muddled. Suddenly, she understood the pull that was keeping her grounded. She heard the echoing noise of a gunshot. She struggled to remember.

She saw a fleeting image of Alison's face. For a second, she could actually feel her touch. The warmth of her soft silky lips against hers. The determination of her fingers pressed hard against her face. Her hands pushing hard against her chest, desperately trying to keep her blood pumping.

Her stomach started to hurt. It was so severe she almost doubled over in pain. But after a second it faded. She blinked, feeling groggy. She felt conflicted in every way. She felt Grace take her hand and it centered her.

"Emily…" Alison's voice became distorted.

She flickered, like a mirage. Emily reached out to her, to touch her cheek, her hand stopping short of actually making contact. The surrounding area started fading and Emily knew what was coming.

"I love you, Alison."

Alison stopped in her motions for a few seconds, looking directly at her, as if she could see her. She felt her presence.

"Em, please don't go," she whimpered. "Please don't leave me…"

She snapped out of it and quickly went back to administering first aid to her wife. As Emily was fading away, Alison was fighting for her every last breath.

Ali pulled back and checked her pulse. It was rapidly fading, but she refused to give up. She knew as long as her heart was beating she had a chance. She clamped Emily's nose closed and blew another breath into her mouth before pulling her lips away again.

"You are not fucking dying. I don't give a shit if I have to force you to breathe for the rest of my life. You are not leaving us. You get away from that bright light and you get your ass back here." She leaned over her and blew another breath into her lungs. "Open your god damn eyes."

Nothing happened, so she pushed another breath into her, desperately trying to get her back. She blew another breath into her. Emily's lips were cold against hers. She felt an aching feeling in the pit of her chest. There was no color left in her cheeks. Her skin was white and cold.

"You…you promised." Ali wheezed.

She heard the ambulance approaching and she screamed for help. Minutes later two paramedics swarmed her, moving Ali back to get a look at Emily. One of them saw the blood covering Ali and asked if she was okay.

"I'm not hurt." Ali replied, her eyes still on Emily. She was broken in a lot of ways, but she wasn't hurt.

The other paramedic had taken over CPR. The second paramedic grabbed something from their bag and the two of them shared a look. Her body was cold. They knew it was no use, but they also knew that they couldn't stop working on her until a doctor officially called it.

They quickly got her on the transport gurney and rushed her towards the ambulance. Ali was on autopilot, but she stopped short as they were loading her into the back.

"My daughter." Ali glanced back towards her car. She looked at the paramedics. "My daughter is hurt, too."

"Where is she?" The paramedic who was squeezing the bag over Emily's mouth asked.

"My car. I told her to hide until it was safe. She…her arm is hurt. She was grazed by a bullet…" She blinked and looked at Emily's limp body. "My wife stopped the bleeding."

Of course that would have been Emily's last act. All she'd been able to talk about when she was dying was Lily and making sure she was safe.

"She's alert and responsive?" The paramedic asked.

"She's the one who called 911."

"We can radio another rig if she's stable. I'd advise she not see this…"

"I think she'll be okay if I drive her," Ali said, her voice shocky. "Oh, but…I shouldn't…should I go with my wife? I don't…" She wasn't sure what to do.

"Stay with Lily." Emily had begged.

And of course it was never a choice. It was never an option to leave their daughter alone. That didn't mean that Ali wasn't struggling with leaving Emily alone.

"We have to get moving." The paramedic who was doing chest compressions glanced at his partner.

"Are you okay to drive?" The second paramedic asked.

"I have to be, right?" She'd meant to say it in her head, but it came out of her mouth. "Yes. I'm okay to drive."

"Go grab your car. Follow us. I'll have our driver radio the police to let them know. Stay close to the rig, okay?"

Ali didn't know what else to say, so she just nodded. She reached out to touch Emily's arm, tears streaming down her face.

"You better fucking survive somehow, Emily." She clutched her fingers.

Her skin was like ice to the touch. Ali felt a heavy weight in her chest as she flashed back to seeing Grace in that horrible dark hospital room. Her skin had been so cold. She remembered focusing on her little fingers. She'd had Emily's fingers. Smooth, delicate, loving. She lifted Emily's hand, which was dead weight in her palm. She wanted to smother her face in kisses, but since they were trying to keep her breathing she had to settle for what she could get. She pressed a hard kiss against her knuckles, watching as her tears dribbled against her skin.

Then, she did the hardest thing she'd had to do since she'd left Grace behind in that hospital room. She turned around and left her. She had to. She had no other choice. Lily was her priority. There was nothing she could do for Emily now.

She rushed to her car. When Lily saw her coming she jumped out of the front seat to meet her.

"Where's mom?" Lily looked around, tears in her eyes. "Is she okay?"

"Get back in the car, Lil. We have to go," Ali said hastily.

Lily quickly climbed back in. Ali jumped in the driver's seat and revved the ignition. She pulled behind the ambulance. She followed them, speeding through the streets that would normally get her a speeding ticket.

The car was silent. They were halfway to the hospital before Ali remembered she wasn't alone.

"Lily, are you okay?"

Her daughter didn't respond at first. She blinked through her tears, her eyes on the flashing lights ahead of them.

"She saved me," Lily said quietly. "She pushed me out of the way."

Not a surprise at all to Ali. Emily had nearly died for Grace. It didn't shock her she'd done the same for Lily. Their little girls meant the world to her.

"Mom, she's going to be okay, right? She has to be…" Lily choked. If her mother died, it would be her fault.

Ali could hear the pain in her tone. And she knew, she knew she was already starting to blame herself. She was Emily's child that way.

"Don't let her blame herself." Emily had begged.

"Whatever happens, this is not your fault. Do you understand me?"

"But she…"

"No. It's not your fault, Lily."

Lily held back a strangled cry, but she nodded. The car was quiet again. Lily stared at the ambulance in front of them.

"She's dead, isn't she?" Lily nearly bit through her lip.

Ali reached over, running her fingers through Lily's hair. She could still see some blood caked in her fingernails…and in Lily's hair.

"Your mother is a fighter."

"She…she was dying in that alley." Lily started to cry. "I could see it in her eyes."

"Oh, honey…" Ali didn't know what else to say. She didn't want to give her false hope.

She was so focused on the road in front of them and the flashing lights of the ambulance that she missed Lily's movements. Her little girl reached over and put her fingers against her mother's hand on the steering wheel.

"I love you, mom."

Ali's sight went blurry as tears filled her eyes. Her sweet baby girl. She loved her so much.

"I love you, too, honey."

"I should have told mom." Her expression tightened. "She knows, doesn't she? She knows that I love her, right?"

"She knows." Ali moved to put her hand on top of Lily's.

They didn't say much else. By the time they got to the hospital Lily was starting to succumb to her shock. They'd barely gotten through the door before she started faltering on her feet. She uttered she thought she was going to pass out.

Everything after that happened so fast. Nurses took her back to be treated immediately, Ali staying by her side the whole time. She never completely passed out. She was just in a daze from the shock and her injury.

Ali called her friends…her family. Emily's family. She was a complete wreck when she called Pam. Somehow, her mother-in-law had managed to do the impossible and calm her down.

After she got off the phone with Pam, she called Spencer. She was shaking so badly that she could barely speak. She just told Spencer she needed them.

Surprisingly, it was the boys who got there first. They'd come straight from their camp site. They weren't supposed to have their phones on them, but Levi had secretly packed his so he could play games after lights out. And when his sister texted him when Lily had gone missing, Caleb called Hanna. They'd been on their way home when Spencer called Toby to tell him about the shooting.

Toby found Ali pacing the waiting room floor. Lily was resting, and she still hadn't heard anything about Emily. She'd changed out of her bloody clothes thanks to the kindness of a nurse who brought her some apparel from the gift shop. But Ali could still feel Emily's blood coating her. She'd washed her hands a dozen times and she could still see flecks of it in her fingernails. She looked up and saw Toby, Caleb, Ezra, and their sons. Relief flooded her, because at least she wasn't alone anymore.

"Hey, any news?" Toby asked.

"Nothing on Em."

"And Lily?" Caleb asked.

"She's shaken, but she's okay." Ali nodded absentmindedly. "They gave her something for the anxiety and the pain."

"Can we see her?" Eli questioned quietly.

The softness in his eyes told Ali that Emily had been right about Lily and Eli liking one another. What else had her eyes been completely closed to when the world around her was moving forward without her?

The guys looked at their sons and then at each other. They hadn't exactly told them that Emily was dying.

"Uh, boys, why don't you go get something to eat?" Ezra grabbed his wallet and handed some cash to Kai.

"I'm not hungry." Levi sulked.

That struck Ali harder than she was expecting. The kid had an appetite of an African Elephant. The fact that he was so distraught that he was turning down food hurt her. It was a strange thing to get upset about given that Lily and Emily had both been shot. But she nearly broke down over it. Toby ushered her away to give her a little breathing room while Ezra and Caleb wrangled the kids.

"Hey, take a second to breathe, Ali." He moved her towards a chair.

Ali couldn't stop the tears from flowing. He had just gotten her calmed down when Aria, Spencer, and Hanna walked in.

"What happened?" Aria asked as she sat down next to her.

"I don't…I don't know. I'm still trying to process it all. We were just trying to find Lily. I never thought something like this would happen." She leaned down and buried her face in her hands. "I can't believe I didn't see this coming…"

"How could you possibly know some psycho was going to mug them?" Hanna reached out to Ali and gently touched her arm.

"Not that." Ali glanced up at them. "Emily has been involved in some underground stuff the past few months…"

"What do you mean underground?" Spencer questioned.

"She basically ran off and joined a gang." Ali blurted it out.

"Whoa, whoa…hold on a second. We're talking about Emily here right? The same Emily who got teary-eyed when she watched my kid in 101 Dalmatians?" Hanna couldn't wrap her head around it.

"We all know she has a dark side." Spencer pointed out.

"It wasn't like that." Ali shook her head. "It's…it was complicated. Mona filled me in on everything…"

"Mona knew?" Hanna asked in shock.

"She was trying to help her. Apparently Emily went to her after Grace died. It led her to meet this group of people who deal with this kind of stuff…professionally." She briefly explained everything that had happened to her shocked friends. "Mona said they were doing all the wrong things for the right reasons. They…they were all killed. One day Emily came home completely battered and bruised with some bullshit story about sparring at the gym. I couldn't get her to talk to me. But she's been out there putting herself in danger for this…"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Spencer gawked. "That's why she's been acting so weird?"

"She was doing it to avoid her grief. And to catch Grace's killer." She felt a heated ball of anger in her stomach. Her face turned red. "Fucking Zane Jacobs."

Ali took a moment to process her rage, because she had every urge to go out and hunt for that little weasel and throw him through a wall.

"That idiot orchestrated all of this?" Toby frowned in confusion. "How? He couldn't even break into a burger joint without getting caught."

"I think he was small fish compared to who Emily really was after. But it all started with him. He was the driver that night, or at least that's what Emily told me."

"I am going to kill that little bastard." Toby bit through his teeth.

"She said he confessed. But this…this person she was after...this guy who calls himself Del Toro…the person who shot her…" Her eyes suddenly brightened and she thought about what Emily had told her about Ben. "Toby, is there any way to see if someone could have faked their death?"

"Uh…what's that got to do with…"

"She told me it was Ben Coogan." She didn't even let him finish his question. "At first I thought she was just delusional, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that death is never permanent in this town. She was so sure."

"I mean, I can look into it…"

"Emily said Zane is the key to all the answers. She told me he knew. We get him and we can get this Del Toro dick."

"That I can definitely sink my teeth into." Toby nodded. "How is Zane even connected to all of this?"

"I don't know." Ali swallowed a lump in her throat. "I don't know anything." She ran her fingers through her hair. "This is such a fucking nightmare."

The boy had known the whole time. And that very boy was closer than any of them realized. The one thing he'd gotten from his father was how to exist in the shadows. He'd been watching them. He'd been sent by his father to observe, to confirm that Emily was dead. But he had other plans. He'd been trying to figure out a way to get into Lily's room. But someone else had beat him to it.

The fucking Cavanaugh kid had slipped away from his friends and was sitting by her bedside, like a big dumb guard dog, keeping an eye out while she slept. So instead of slipping into her room, Zane was hiding out and watching the adults talking.

"Is Lily going to be okay?" Aria asked.

"Physically she'll be fine. She just needs rest." Ali's voice was shaking. "Emotionally…mentally…I don't know." Tears flooded her eyes. "She was attacked, assaulted, shot. She watched her mother dying out there."

"We don't…we don't know that for sure yet." Aria pushed it away, like it was impossible, like they were indestructible after everything they'd gone through.

"I think we need to prepare ourselves…" Spencer mumbled.

"Spencer." Aria cut her off harshly.

But before she could launch into a lecture they saw the doctor approaching. Ali shakily climbed to her feet. The look on the doctor's face was hard to read.

"Mrs. DiLaurentis?"

"DiLaurentis-Fields." She corrected the doctor.

There was a quiet pause in the air. Ali didn't like it.

"We've done everything we can…"

Ali reached out. She felt two hands steady her. Aria and Hanna. Spencer grasped Toby's arm.

"When your wife came in she wasn't breathing on her own and her heart had stopped. We were able to get her heart started again, but the bleeding from her injuries was catastrophic." And just like that, Ali was thrown back to the day she'd been told about Grace's catastrophic injuries. She hated that word. It was stupid. And it didn't sound real. "The bullet caused massive hemorrhaging and it also went through her stomach and her intestines, which opened her up to septic shock. We put her on a ventilator to regulate her breathing, but I'm afraid there is no brain activity and with the blood loss her heart won't last for long. Does she have a directive order or a living will…"

"Shut up." Ali hissed. She didn't want to hear it. "Stop it. Just…stop it."

"I'm afraid the only thing keeping her alive is the machines. She'll succumb to the infection within hours, if not sooner. There's nothing more we can do for her. I'm so sorry."

Ali huffed out a shocked breath. She'd known Emily wasn't going to survive, but that still didn't stop her from hoping she was wrong. Because Emily had defied the odds before. Ali moved back, unsteady on her feet, and collapsed into the chair she'd been sitting in.

"Um, can you give us a few minutes?" Aria asked.

"Of course." The doctor replied.

She walked off, leaving them to soak in the shock of the loss. Or impending loss. Ali felt like screaming and crying and pulling her hair out. She could see her friends' mouths moving, but she wasn't listening to what they were saying. She heard words of grief, words of comfort, and words of support. But she couldn't comprehend any of it. She saw Hanna crying. She heard Aria choking back odd strangling noises as she sobbed. She saw Toby and Spencer wrapped tightly together as one of them…or both of them…shuddered from their cries.

Every noise around her felt amplified. Her thoughts were screaming at her. Yet all she could do was sit there in shock. After several minutes she got to her feet, her friends standing with her.

"Ali?" Aria asked in uncertainty.

"I um…I should talk to Em…"

"I think she's in shock." Spencer glanced at the girls.

"Ali, the doctor said…"

"I know what the doctor said, Aria," she snapped angrily. "I fucking heard her. But somewhere deep in her brain she'll know I'm there. She'll hear me…" Ali blinked away her tears. "And I need her to hear me. I have a lot I need to say to her before…"

That's when the girls and Toby realized that Ali didn't mean she wanted to talk to Emily in a sense of conversing, but rather as a cathartic need to be at peace before she died.

"I'll um…" She looked at her friends, words beyond her comprehension. "I'll say what I need to say and then you guys can come in and say goodbye…"

She heard Hanna quietly fight back a sob. She reached out and gently touched her arm. It wasn't just her wife who was dying. Their best friend was dying.

"I think she'd want us all there," Ali said. "Go find Ezra and Caleb. And let the kids go sit with Lily." She had no idea that Eli already was with her. "Hanna, can you…do you mind trying to get in touch with Pam? She should be here by now." Ali faced the other blonde.

"Yeah." Hanna wiped away her tears.

"I'll come get you in a bit," Ali said.

She'd somehow found the strength to take charge. It left her friends in awe. She walked over to the front desk to let them know she wanted to see her wife. Seconds later she disappeared behind two doors. A nurse led her through the quiet halls of the ICU. She was so familiar with the place that it made her physically feel sick.

She knew seeing Emily was going to be hard, but she was still unprepared for the shock that rushed through her when she walked into her room and found her lying in bed with her eyes closed, a tube down her throat, the machine next to her bed hissing and pumping air into her. The movements in her chest matched the robotic pumping of the machine. It didn't look real. It didn't feel real.

The rest of her body was covered by large heavy blankets. There were other machines around her beeping and making annoying noises that made Ali want to take a golf club to them.

The nurse quietly told her she'd give her some time and then walked away.

Ali moved next to Emily's bed. She took her hand. It was still warm. How could she be warm and dead? It didn't make sense.

She reached up to brush some hair out of her face. She was so pale from all of the blood loss. She didn't look like the same Emily she'd fallen in love with all of those years ago. But maybe it's perhaps because that Emily was already gone…or at least her soul and her consciousness. Ali finally understood what people meant when they talked about machines keeping humans alive. They were alive medically, but they were dead in every other sense of the word. Still, Ali knew that there had to be a part of Emily, no matter how small, still there. So she was going to talk, and Emily was going to listen.

Normal people would have blathered on and on about how much they loved the person dying. But Ali and Emily weren't normal. They'd never been normal.

"God damn it, Emily." She gripped her hand, tears falling down her face.

Her mind flashed to the last will and testament Emily had recently amended. One thing that hadn't changed…one thing Ali knew for certain was that Emily didn't want to be kept alive by machines. And yet, here she was, only alive because of the artificial air and the medical intervention.

"I have…I have so much I want to say to you."

Ali stroked her fingers. Her warm delicate fingers. It crushed her to know that it was just a chemical reaction in her body, that her wife wasn't really in there. She hoped that she could still hear her wherever she was.

"You are so stupid and reckless and I…I'm so fucking pissed at you." She lowered her head against Emily's forehead. She inhaled a heavy sob. "But I forgive you, Em. I forgive you."

She couldn't let her go without letting her know that she still loved her, despite everything they'd gone through since they lost Grace.

"You piss me off in the best way. Because being mad at you…I still know that no matter how angry I am at you, I will always love you. We promised never to go to bed angry." She sniffled. "But I am…I am so angry. I feel like I'm never going to not be angry again. Because you were…"

A pang seized her chest when she realized she'd already started talking about her in the past tense,

"…you are my center. You promised me it was going to be okay. Thirteen years ago in our vows you promised me a lifetime. We were supposed to grow old and gray together. And we barely got started in that lifetime. But somehow…you still managed to give me so much in that time." Her body shuddered as she sobbed. "So thank you. Thank you so much for that time. I treasure every second. Thank you for believing in me and never giving up on me. And thank you so so much for our girls."

The pain in her chest returned. Her poor daughter. Lily had barely been able to cope with losing her sister. Losing her mother was bound to crush her.

"What about Lily? What am I supposed to tell her?" Ali cried. "How…how am I supposed to do this without you, Emily? You're going to miss so much. You won't get to see our little girl grow up. Learning to drive. Prom. Graduation. You won't get to see her change the world…fall in love, have kids." Ali sucked in a breath. She'd stopped trying to restrain her tears. There was no use. "You're not going to get to play with our grandbabies, Em."

She leaned over, careful not to disturb the surrounding machines and wires. She pressed a kiss against her forehead, watching as her tears fell against Emily's skin.

"Say hey to Gracie for me." She cried. "Take care of her, Emily." She could barely breathe. Her tears were rolling against Emily's cheeks. "Take care of our baby girl. I'll take care of Lily. I promise."

"As long as you've got her, you've got me."

That's what Emily had said to her. And it was true. Lily was every bit like her mother. Ali saw it in her every day. From the day she was born and she looked up at her with her big doe eyes to the determination she'd seen in her tonight. As terrified as she was that this was going to break Lily, she knew that she was stronger than she looked. Because she was Emily's child.

"I love you, Emily. I always have. I always will." She lifted Emily's hand up and delicately kissed her knuckles.

She stood next to her bed for a good solid twenty minutes, just trying to feel her essence. She knew these were their last moments. It was hard to stomach.

She knew she couldn't waste time though, so she kissed her knuckles again and told Emily she'd be right back, that she was going to get everyone else. She stepped out of her room and started walking down the hallway, but when she got halfway towards the exit she heard several erratic beeping noises followed by a nurse calling for assistance and loud heavy footsteps all going in the same direction. A doctor whizzed by Ali as she was turning around.

Ali quickly followed him and found a crowd outside of Emily's room. She tried to get in, but a nurse stopped her. The same doctor that had told Ali that Emily was put on the ventilator stepped out of the room.

"What…what's happening?" Ali asked, already knowing the answer, but not willing to accept it.

"She's in cardiac arrest." The doctor replied. "I'm afraid the infection has reached her heart."

"No." Ali cried. "No, my daughter and our family…they…they haven't had a chance to say goodbye yet."

"We can continue CPR, but I'm afraid at this point, there is nothing more we can do to get her heart started again. But it's your call, Mrs. Fields."

Ali stared at the doctor blankly. This was not how any of this was supposed to go. Then again, Emily had never been one to stick to the plan. She'd held on just long enough for Ali. And that's something Ali would always appreciate.

Ali glanced down the hallway and then back at Emily's room. She could go get her friends, and then what? They'd watch her die? Emily wouldn't want that. She'd tried her damndest to get Ali away from her deathbed. She wouldn't want their friends to watch her die. And so the hardest decision in Ali's life came to fruition. Emily had fought long and hard. It was enough. Her fight was done.

"Let her go," Ali's voice came out quietly, her chest feeling like it was submerged in icy water.

The doctor nodded to acknowledge her. She quickly disappeared into the room. Ali started to follow her, but then she realized there was no point. Emily had died out there in the alley. She'd felt it. There was a quiet moment when all she'd been able to hear was the whispering of the wind. She'd felt a cool breeze, but something warm had flushed through her cheeks. It was something that only Emily's touch did to her body. She could have sworn she'd heard her calling her name.

She sat down in a chair a few feet away from Emily's room, listening as the noises quietly died down. A few minutes later the doctor came out to talk to her.

"I'm sorry. Despite our best efforts…"

"I don't care. I don't want to know. Just leave me alone." Ali cried, like if she got the doctor to stop talking it wouldn't be true, like she could reverse it somehow…keep it from coming to fruition.

But the doctor had an oath and they knew the importance of saying it out loud.

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Fields. I truly am. Your wife has died."

Ali nodded. Hearing it really hammered the last nail in the coffin for her. The doctor expected a huge scene, a breakdown. But Ali calmly got to her feet.

"I have to talk to my family," she said. "They'll…" She bit her lip. "They may want to say goodbye."

"Of course."

Ali dragged her feet as she walked out of the ICU and back to the waiting room. She stopped when she turned the corner. She peered across the lobby. All of her friends were huddled with their respective significant others. There was a moment that she felt angry that they all still had their loves. But that quickly faded when she saw Pam. At some point, she'd made it to the hospital. She felt terrible that Pam hadn't had the opportunity to talk to Emily before she died. She knew how it felt to talk to a dead child. It was going to wreck Pam in ways that Ali understood all too well.

She walked towards them, wobbly on her feet. Pam was the first one to see her coming. She met her halfway, Ali nearly falling into her arms. She didn't have to say anything. Pam could see it in her eyes. She knew that her daughter was gone. The older woman let out a guttural sob and gripped Ali tightly. The two of them wept. Their friends gathered around them. Being with them was the only reason Ali didn't go completely off the deep end.

She could feel their grief, and it hurt, but the thing that pained her the most was knowing that she still had to tell her daughter. She pushed it to the back of her mind for a few fleeting moments and just left herself feel her own grief.

It was only when they heard timid footsteps approaching quickly that they all came crashing back into reality.

"Mom? Dad?"

Everyone looked over to see Levi staring at them with tears in his eyes.

"Is it true?" he asked. "Kai and I went to get some snacks for Lily for when she wakes up and we heard a nurse telling a doctor that Aunt Emily was…" His lower lip quivered. He couldn't say the word.

"Levi…" Caleb took a step towards his son, anticipating a meltdown. But though the little boy looked brokenhearted, he was fairly composed. He looked like he was in shock.

"Levi, wait! It was probably just a misunderstanding." Kai came jogging up behind him. "We probably just heard wrong and…"

He glanced at the adults. And one look told him that they hadn't misheard the information. He quietly walked over to his parents, falling into Aria's open arms. Levi blinked back his tears. He rubbed his eyes and then wrapped his arms around his dad and cried.

"I…I have to go. I have to make sure this isn't how Lily finds out." Ali looked around frantically.

She knew they'd understand. She quickly made her way to Lily's room. To her relief, her daughter was still sound asleep in her bed. The pain meds they'd given her had knocked her out. Eli was softly snoring in the chair next to her. They looked so young and innocent. It was hard to believe that the world had ripped their childhood away from them. She quietly watched them from the hallway.

She heard soft footfalls approaching and then a soft voice whispering.

"Ali?" It was Spencer. She turned around to face her. "Hey, um…Pam went to…" She chose her words carefully. "…she went to see her. And Caleb and Ezra are taking Levi and Kai home." She looked in the room at their sleeping children. "Toby and I can take Eli if you want to be alone with Lily…"

"No." Ali stared at the kids. "Let him stay."

Spencer nodded. She didn't say anything about Emily for fear that Lily or Eli might wake up and overhear.

"Did you know they like each other?" Ali questioned quietly.

"Of course they do." Spencer laughed softly. "Eli is Toby's son and Lily is Emily's daughter. There is no world in which they wouldn't love one another. If Emily had been straight you know they would have ended up together. I'm a little jealous of how close they are sometimes."

Ali looked at their children again.

"She's going to need him." Ali wasn't blind to the fact that Eli seemed to be the only one that Lily opened herself up to.

She'd watched time and time again when Lily reached out to Eli and Eli alone, because he understood her in a way that their other friends didn't. He'd been there for her every step of the way after Grace died. He'd been her saving grace.

"And he'll be there." Spencer assured her.

"Of course he will. Because you raised him." Ali took Spencer's hand.

A set of nefarious eyes watched them from down the hallway. Zane cursed under his breath. Getting to Lily was going to be virtually impossible now that Emily was dead. Everyone who knew the kid was going to be hovering.

And as the night wore on his theory proved to be true. Ali paced the outside of her room for a while. Then she went to check on Pam. She knew how much it hurt to lose a child. She knew she was going to have to split her time between Pam and Lily. That still left Eli with Lily. Toby and Spencer sat with them for a while. Zane watched them leave without Eli in tow and got annoyed.

Eli was still curled up in the chair next to Lily's bed. He was gripping her hand. He wanted to be the first thing Lily saw when she woke up so she'd know she wasn't alone.

"He really needs to go home and get some rest." Toby frowned as they walked down the hall.

"You want to try and pry him away from her, be my guest." Spencer shrugged. "He's our boy, which means defiant, stubborn…"

"Protective as hell." Toby nodded. "Yeah, I get it."

They turned a corner. For a while it was just Eli and Lily. He'd set up shop next to her bedside and nothing was going to pull away.

Nothing except the call of nature.

Zane caught a lucky break when Eli woke up and had to go to the bathroom. Zane watched him glance down the hallway towards the bathroom and then back at Lily. He hated to leave her, even for a second. He scurried down the hallway, trying to minimize the amount time he'd be away from her.

The second Eli scooted by the small empty room Zane had been hiding in, Zane slipped out of the cover of the shadows and walked towards Lily's room. He quietly crept towards her bed, using the cover of darkness to pull something out of his pocket. He clutched the hard object firmly, his hands shaking. Once he did this there was no going back.

His plans went awry when he tripped over a leg of the IV pole next to her bed. The loud clanging noise startled Lily awake. She smashed her finger against the small "light" button on her bed, turning on a small overhead light above the bed. She saw Zane scrambling off of the floor next to her bed. She started to scream, but he quickly shoved his hand over her mouth.

"Don't." He warned her.

She bit his hand and he firmly pulled it back with a hiss. She scowled at him.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Lily scooted up against her bed.

"I didn't mean to wake you. I'm so sorry, Lil…"

"Don't fucking call me that. You're not my friend. Only my friends can call me that…"

"Look, I came here tonight to set some things straight. I…"

He glanced towards his foot, where he'd dropped the recorder he was carrying. He'd taped a note around one side that said "for the police" and had fastened a Velcro strip to it with a plastic bag that had a burner phone with Ben's location on the other side and Emily's wedding ring, both of which had Ben's fingerprints on them.

"I owe it to you…and to Grace…"

"Grace hated you and the ground you walked on."

"I know that. Everyone does." He shrugged. "But that doesn't change the fact that she didn't deserve to die that night." He watched Lily's eyes get wide. "It was an accident. I told your mom everything…"

"You…" Lily gasped. "You were driving the car that hit them?"

"It's all on my confession." He leaned over and picked up the recorder. "Including the set-up of that Ryan kid. My dad…" He paused and then clarified, "…my biological dad…he had a grudge against your mom. He's been pissed at her since high school. He was with me that night. And he's been covering it up ever since. He shot you and your mom tonight. He wanted me to come here to finish the job. He wanted you both dead…so your mom…your other mom, could suffer."

"That's so fucked." Lily felt tears of anger burning her eyes.

"It probably doesn't mean shit coming from me, but I'm sorry. I really am. After what happened to your mom tonight…I just…I couldn't watch you die, too."

Lily didn't miss the too at the end of his sentence.

"What?" Her voice came out breathless and confused.

"Oh…" He was surprised no one had mentioned it to her. He didn't realize she'd been asleep the whole time he'd been watching her room. "I...I thought you knew."

"Knew what?" Lily felt her chest tightening.

"Um…Lily, your mom...she...she uh…"

The tone in his voice confirmed her worst fears. He reached towards Lily to try and put his hand on her arm. But he was thrown against the wall before he could make contact.

"Don't you fucking touch her, Jacobs."

"Fuck." Zane realized Eli was back.

He didn't even get the chance to turn around and face him before he felt the blocky little shit knock him into the wall again. Eli spun him around.

"What the hell are you doing here?" Eli growled. "Haven't you harassed her family enough?"

"You have no idea." Zane glared darkly at him.

"Lily, you okay?" Eli asked without looking away.

"He killed Grace," she uttered quietly, still in shock about her mother.

"What?" He jerked his neck back in surprise to face her.

The second he looked away Zane threw a blow into his stomach that knocked him back on his feet. Eli quickly faced him again, but Zane shoved him backwards and they both went stumbling towards the other side of the room with Zane having the upper hand now.

"Stop it!" Lily exclaimed. "Get away from him!" She grabbed a small metal tray next to her bed and hurled it at Zane's head.

The hit knocked him for a loop. The tray clanged against the floor.

"Eli, what's going on in here?" Ali came rushing in. She'd been on her way back to Lily's room when she'd heard the sounds of the struggle. "I…"

The moment she saw Zane her anger took over.

"You…" She jerked him back away from Eli and threw him up against the wall again.

All Zane could do was laugh at his luck. She shoved her arm against his throat and held a heavy pressure against his windpipe.

"Eli, go find your dad." Her voice broke.

"Okay, but you should know he…"

"Now!" She ordered.

He scurried out of the room. Ali stared at Zane for a second. He glanced towards the door, trying to figure out if he could make it.

"Don't even think about it." She warned him. "What the fuck are you doing in my daughter's room?"

"I ain't tryin' to start nothin." Zane threw his hands up in submission. "I just…I wanna help."

Ali was furious. Her wife was dead and this low-life weasel was still breathing. She felt like snapping his neck.

"Mom?" Lily's voice was meek and shaking. "Is she really dead?"

Ali turned around and saw Lily's face flooded with tears. And suddenly she was torn between whether she should rush to be next to her child or if she should choke the life out of the little shit who had killed her other daughter.

"You told her?" Ali growled angrily at Zane.

"It was an accident…"

"That's your excuse for everything, isn't it?" She raised her hand, ready to throw a heavy blow his way.

She saw him flinch, but he didn't fight it. He was resigned to it, like he was used to it. Suddenly, all the times he'd been battered and bruised made sense to her. She'd always assumed he'd run his mouth to the wrong person like he always did, but there was more to it than that.

"This isn't the first time someone has come at you like this, is it?"

"My dad knocks me around sometimes when he's drunk." He paused and frowned. "And when he's sober. And…just whenever he feels like it in general."

"His biological dad." Lily interjected.

She was still crying, but she was trying to keep it together. She was trying to be brave. Her mother would want her to be brave.

"What is she talking about?" Ali asked.

"You know him as Ben, apparently," Zane explained.

"Ben Coogan is your fucking father?" Her eyes flared in anger.

Of course. That's what Emily was trying to tell her. His eyes. They had the same eyes. Seeing into them did something to Ali. She felt an animalistic rage. Because those eyes had permanently closed the eyes that she loved most in the world. Everything about the night came back to her in a huge flash of blinding light. Seeing Emily stumbling out of the alley. Holding her as she bled out. Begging her to live. Being covered in her blood. Her daughter sobbing in her arms and then collapsing when they got to the hospital. Seeing Emily in that hospital bed for the last time. Hearing the sounds of the machine monitoring her heart stopping. The pain and the grief of her family. Pam's keening cry. Hanna's sobs. Levi's pitiful little face when he found out. And worst of all, the pained cries she was listening to coming from her daughter. It was all too much.

All of it was because of a chauvinistic fucking asshole who hadn't gotten past high school bullshit. And she decided, or rather, her adrenaline and grief decided, she wasn't going to let him get away with it. She finally understood Emily's drive to take down the person hurting her family. And she knew…she just felt that she had to finish what Emily started. Because this couldn't be in vain. And criminal justice wasn't good enough for him. He deserved a fate much worse. He deserved to look into her eyes and see her broken soul as she was watching him die.

"Where is he?" Ali shoved Zane roughly.

"He…he bounces around a lot. And after tonight…" He thought about it. "If I tell you he won't let it slide this time. That's why I was going to give Lily the tape. I just wanted to disappear…"

"WHERE IS HE!?" She screamed this time.

"He's packing up a warehouse. The one that used to house those fancy cars that came into town before going to the dealership." Zane cracked.

She grabbed Zane by his shirt collar and held him tightly. She glanced at Lily, reaching out with her free hand to wipe the tears from her face. She quelled her rage long enough to cradle her cheek.

"Everything is going to be okay, baby," she said. "I'm going to take care of this."

Lily nodded, a pained expression on her face. She was having trouble processing the fact that her mother was dead. And Alison could see the pain on her face. But she also knew that unless she did something about Ben, he would make it his life's mission to destroy her, too. And Ali was not going to let that happen. Lily was all she had left. And she would kill to protect her.

And she was going to do exactly that.

She roughly yanked Zane towards the door, getting out into the hallway just as Toby and Spencer came rushing around the corner. Eli was hot on their heels. They saw Ali and Zane. Toby automatically went into "cop" mode.

"What's he doing here?" Toby growled. "Is Lily okay?"

"He's Ben Coogan's kid. Ben is the one who shot them."

Eli lunged forward, aiming his fist directly at Zane's nose. The direct blow landed so hard that it knocked him out of Ali's grasp and on to the floor. Zane moaned and then scowled up at Eli.

"Eli!" Spencer grabbed him and pulled him back.

"What? Now you have blood for a DNA test." Eli snapped back.

Spencer normally would have yelled at him for giving her an attitude, but given the night they'd had she let it go. She also despised Zane, so seeing her kid hit him wasn't that big of a deal.

"Still got one hell of a left hook, huh, Cavanaugh?" Zane held his palm over his bloody nose.

"You want to see it again?"

"Okay, that's enough. Go check on Lily." Toby ordered.

Eli stared angrily at Zane as he walked by him into Lily's room. Toby hauled Zane off of the floor.

"You're coming to the station with me."

"Under what charges, officer?" Zane snorted sarcastically.

"Watch it, son. I'm the one who taught Eli how to throw a punch."

Toby started to walk Zane down the hallway. Ali watched them go. She spun around and looked into Lily's room. Eli had crawled into bed with her and was holding her as she cried against his shoulder. She felt Spencer put her palm on her shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

Ali didn't answer. She turned around and started walking in the opposite direction.

"Ali…Alison, where are you going?" Spencer chased after her.

"Stay with my daughter." Her voice was icy and detached.

She quickly made her way out to the parking lot to get her car. Unlike when she was following the ambulance, she was completely focused and driven. Emily's death had ignited a fire she'd put out long ago. And she wasn't going to let it stop. She was going to burn every fucking thing that got in her path.

She drove home, running inside to find the key to the garage and the code to the gun safe, which she'd never even opened. She'd been to the firing range with Emily a few times just so she could get a feel for the weapon and learn how to aim. But she wasn't really a 'gun' person. Not normally. But tonight she was.

Jett followed her around, the normal pep in his step completely gone. It's like he sensed what was wrong. He sensed her grief. He whined the entire time he followed her. She stopped long enough to pet him and tell him it was going to be okay. She watched as he crawled up on their bed, on Emily's side. He sniffed at her pillow and then sighed heavily and plopped his big blocky head down.

Ali finally found what she needed and she rushed out to the garage. The first thing she noticed was that there was a gun missing. She didn't know it, but it was the gun Ben had used to kill her wife. She picked up one of Emily favorite guns. She loaded the magazine and then snapped it in place. Then she sped towards her destination. On the way she considered it might be a trap, but she didn't give a shit. Nothing was going to stop her. She stopped half a mile from the warehouse and walked the rest of the way in the cover of darkness.

She expected to see a huge crowd of gangsters doing something shady and illegal. But all she saw was a couple of guys chatting as they loaded some boxes into a van. Neither one of them looked like the description of Ben that Emily had given her. So she waited until the warehouse was quiet. She slipped in, hoping to catch him with his back turned so she could call out his name and then let him see her when she pulled the trigger. The place seemed empty. She walked around for a few minutes, and quietly cursed herself for showing up too late.

What she didn't know was that she was right on time. She heard something that sounded like an elevator ding. She quickly hid behind some shelving and watched a big brawny guy step off of a box elevator. He was chatting on his phone to someone.

"And I said I don't give a fuck what it takes…this is what we're doing."

She recognized his voice and it made her skin crawl. It was deeper…more gravelly. He'd probably been smoking. But the unmistakable cockiness and the entitlement of his tone was there.

"Right. Right, I didn't kill that bitch for this shit to happen…"

Ali's free hand tightened into a fist. She curled her finger around the trigger. He deserved to die. He deserved to choke on his own blood, to suffocate and drown in it.

Ali waited until he'd hung up the phone. She toyed with the idea of just shooting him from the cover of the stacks. But something inside of her needed to see the light go out in his eyes. She needed him to know she was the one who killed him.

When he put the phone away she quietly slipped up behind him.

"One more fucking step and I'll blow your brains out…"

Ben knew who it was immediately, but he didn't turn around to face her. He grinned to himself.

"That little shit ratted me out." Ben laughed sadistically. "Fucker has balls after all."

"You flatheaded sadistic fuck. You killed my little girl. You tried to kill her sister. And you took her mother away from her." Ali was shaking in rage.

"So, what are you here with me for? Look at you, leaving a kid with a bullet wound in the hospital. That's not gonna win you any mother of the year awards…"

"Look at me…"

"Why? So I can stare at the plastic face affluent little bitches like you end up with?"

"I said LOOK AT ME!" She raised her voice this time.

Ben slowly turned around. Ali watched his hand movements to make sure he wasn't pulling out a weapon of his own. He was big and bulky. And he looked completely different. Emily had been right about everything. His sleeves were rolled up. Ali saw the scar on his wrist and the large dog bite scar on his arm that Emily had told her about.

"Good for Jett." She thought to herself.

"Hey. Long time, no see, DiLaurentis."

"DiLaurentis-Fields." She hissed.

"Yeah, not so much anymore from what I've heard tonight." Ben shrugged indifferently.

"You fucking asshole." Ali held the gun out. "You killed her. Why? Why did you do this? Because of some stupid fucking high school bullshit? This is my life, my daughters…it was…it was our life. You took that from us."

"Your wife was the one who couldn't let it go. She was obsessed with me."

"She was obsessed with seeing you brought to justice."

"Really?" Ben lifted his big furry brows with an amused laugh. "That what you're here for? Justice?"

"No." Ali shook her head. She answered simply. "I'm here to kill you."

"Come on, DiLaurentis. We both know you're all bark and no bite. You're not going to shoot me."

"No? Really?" Ali turned the safety off. "I wasn't in the mood to murder anyone when I woke up this morning. But you pushed that button. You crossed a line. You hurt my little girl. You murdered my wife in cold blood. You flipped a switch inside of me. And I'm going to go nuclear. So enjoy the fucking fallout, you bastard."

They heard footfalls approaching. Ben looked towards the direction of the noise with an amused smile on his face. Ali didn't take her eyes off of him. She waited for the inevitable barrage of gunfire. But her last act was going to be to take out Ben Coogan. The gunfire never came. Ben got a red angry look on his face.

"Did that little turncoat tell everyone?" Ben snapped hatefully.

"Ali?" She heard a familiar voice.

Out of the side of her eyes she saw Toby on the railing on the second floor. He was rushing to make his way down to the confrontation.

"Oh, well, the more the merrier. My men will be back in about…" Ben looked at his watch, "180 seconds. And then you two are their problem."

"Not if we're not here when they get back and find you dead in a pool of your own blood." Ali threatened.

Ben rolled his eyes, but Toby knew she'd come unhinged. He knew she had it in her. She was irate about Lily and Emily. And grief made her very angry and impulsive.

"Alison, don't do this. You'll go to jail for murder." Toby tried to reach her.

"He killed her." Ali's hand was shaking.

"Look, Zane told me everything. He'll testify against him. Let me handle this. Let me take him in."

Ali stood completely motionless as she considered Toby's offer. That's not what she'd come out here for. The wry smile on Ben's face really pissed her off, and it reminded her that people like Ben didn't deserve to live in this world. He was destroying it.

"Fuck the justice system." Ali aimed. Ben's eyes widened when he realized she was actually going to go through with it. "No one will convict me."

She pulled the trigger. The bullet struck him in the stomach. He gasped in a breath and stumbled over backwards. Ali calmly walked over to the injured man, who was wheezing out blood. She put her foot over the injury and pushed down hard so she could hear him scream. She wanted him to feel every bit of pain that Emily had felt. Between the jumbled mess of words and the swears he was shouting he had a plea in there begging her to stop. But he didn't deserve mercy.

Instead, she doubled down. She aimed the gun at his chest and fired. His entire body jerked. Toby watched in complete shock. He'd seen Ali be ruthless before, but never like this. It's like she'd completely disregarded her humanity, though Toby couldn't blame her. He just didn't want her to go down for this.

"Ali, that's enough." Toby made his way over next to her. "Give me the gun."

"With all due respect, Toby, I'll say when I'm done." She aimed for Ben's head. She spit at him hatefully. "I hope you end up rotting in hell with your flesh being ripped away from your body, set on fire, tortured, maimed…you deserve every horrible thing that happens to you. Remember me...my family...when your balls are being ripped apart. The brimstone and fire…god I hope you are crushed by it all."

"F-fuck…y…" He couldn't quite get the words out.

She put her finger against the trigger again.

"This one is for Emily." Ali pulled the trigger. The third bullet struck him in the head and it killed him instantly.

She stood there for a few seconds, shaken, her hands trembling. She lowered the gun and let out a sob. She'd thought that once maybe she'd gotten the pain out it wouldn't hurt so much. But it had just been a distraction. Because the pain was worse than ever.

She walked over into Toby's open arms and started to cry. She'd never killed anyone before. It was a strange feeling. She felt like she should feel guilty, but since Ben was such a horrible person she didn't feel any guilt at all. But even though he was dead, it still didn't bring Emily back. And that was what crushed her heart.

"You need to get back to the hospital," Toby said calmly. "You've been seen by so many people there. And no one saw you leave. It's a solid alibi." He looked around the mostly empty warehouse. "Did you touch anything?" he questioned.

Ali had to think about it. After a few seconds she shook her head.

"No." She reached up and wiped her face.

"Good." Toby nodded. He gently reached for the gun. "I'll get rid of the gun. You need to get your car as far away from here as possible. I'm going to wait fifteen minutes, see if anyone calls it in. If no one does, and I suspect they won't…these kinds of gangs have their own traditions and ways of getting rid of a body, then I'll go in on my own, saying I'm acting on information I got from a source that he'd be here and that I needed him for questioning at the station. I'll "stumble" upon the crime scene that way, okay?"

"Are there…are there cameras?"

"Considering the products they are moving are illegal, I doubt it. But I'll check. You just go. Get out of here. Go be with your daughter. She needs you."

That was all Toby had to say to snap her out of it.

Something about going back to the hospital made the whole thing feel like it was coming painfully full-circle. The girls were still there, lying in various uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area. Spencer saw her coming. Hanna and Aria were half asleep.

"Hey…" Spencer was surprised to see her.

"Hey, is Lily okay?"

"Eli has been with her ever since you left. They both fell asleep about twenty minutes ago." Spencer explained. "Where did you go?"

"I needed some air…"

"Uh huh." Spencer didn't buy it.

But she knew better than to push it. Whatever Ali had done tonight would go to the grave between them. She put her hand on top of Ali's hand to let her know that she stood with her. Aria and Hanna nodded in agreement. No one would ever know she left the hospital. No one would ever know what she did that night.

And no one cared. Because Ben was just another dead gangbanger. Just as Toby had suspected, the body was gone when he went back to check on things. All evidence of the shooting had been scrubbed away.

The next few weeks went by in a flash. It felt like life was moving at warp speed, but at the same time it felt like they were standing still.

They had a ceremony for Emily to celebrate her life, but there would be no plot or grave-site for them to visit. Emily had specified in her will that she wanted to be cremated. She made a note that she didn't want her death to be etched in stone. She wanted it to be in the beauty that people saw every day.

They said their final goodbyes on a Tuesday. Ali and Pam took Lily to Paris so they could scatter Emily's remains to the wind as a family. The weather had been beautiful, not a cloud in the sky. They had found a private spot that allowed the service. It was overlooking the city.

Lily stared at the skyline for the longest time. She seemed fine for a while. But when they went to get something to eat she stopped and stared at the Eiffel Tower, and she started to sob.

Ali did the same thing that night. One glimpse of the landmark that night had sparked every single memory they'd made in the city. She had crumbled to her knees on her balcony and wept as she thought of Emily's last words.

"We'll always have Paris."

Emily's friends and family moved forward in the following months, not that moving forward and living were the same thing. But they found the new normal and they adjusted. Ali knew that the only choice she had in the matter was to be strong for her child. So that's what she did.

Ali and Lily made time for breakfast with each other every morning. Sometimes it was filled with joy and laughter. Sometimes it was filled with pain and sadness. They never hid their emotions from one another.

One morning in late September Lily was being particularly moody. Ali saw a lot of Grace-like qualities in her as she got older. She was getting sassier and she was branching out on her own, unafraid to explore. She'd gotten the best and the worst parts of her sister. And of her mother.

"Did you do your English assignment?" Ali asked.

"I'm just going to wing it. I'm convinced I know more than my teacher." Lily took a sip of her coffee and shrugged, staring at her mother with a smug smile on her face.

"Yeah, give me that lip in class and see where that gets you." Ali warned her.

"What are you going to do? Give me detention? That means you'd have to stay late, too."

"Alright, listen here you little shit…"

"Solid parenting, mom." Lily gave her a hard time, biting into her bagel.

Ali shook her head with a laugh. Lily reached over and handed Jett a piece of her toast. She scratched his head as he devoured it.

"You still thinking about cross country try-outs?"

"Had my physical done last week. Eli took me." She saw the look on her mother's face. "Relax, mom. He's a more neurotic driver than you are. I'm as safe as I can be with him behind the wheel."

"Well, I'll be your driver this afternoon…"

"But we have plans with Harper and Levi. Levi finally got off restriction for donating all of Iris's favorite clothes to Goodwill."

"I thought he was grounded for setting a fire in their living room."

"That was three weeks ago."

"You can hang out with your friends another time. You have therapy this afternoon, remember?"

"I don't want to go." Lily's face hardened.

"Lily, you have to…"

"Why? You're not."

Ali had stopped going to her regular therapy sessions. They were too painful. But Lily fought her every step of the way. She knew that was going to have to change, so she'd called Ruby to set up a new appointment.

"I have an appointment for next week. Next argument?" Ali challenged her.

Lily relented. She angrily shoved some scrambled eggs in her mouth. Ali left her to stew in her rage and she went upstairs to change for school.

As she was going through her drawers her fingers landed on a fabric she recognized immediately. Emily's old worn nightshirt. Somehow it had gotten tossed in with Ali's undergarments. She pulled the shirt out and walked over and sat down on the edge of her bed, of their bed. She strummed her fingers over it for a few minutes and then brought it up to her face. It was soft and it still had traces of Emily's scent on it. Ali felt her eyes welling up with tears. She closed her eyes and pictured Emily in the bed next to her. She could see their teasing smiles, their loving glances, and their sensual touches.

When she opened her eyes back up and fell back into reality she felt a heavy weight against her chest. She'd gotten used to the heartbreak, but it still hurt.

She heard Lily rustling around downstairs and she realized that if she didn't finish getting ready they were going to be late for school. Ali gently folded up Emily's shirt and walked to the closet. She reached above her hanging clothing on to a shelf that had always been just a little too tall for her, something Emily had teased her about relentlessly. She felt around until her fingers hit a box. It was a keepsake of important things that Ali had put together after Emily died. She pulled the box down and then put the folded up shirt inside.

She put the box back, though she met some resistance. When she pushed it to the back of the shelf she heard something fall and hit the ground behind the hanging clothing. She got down on her hands and knees and felt around for the object that fell. She pulled out a phone she didn't recognize. She hit the power button and a plain background popped up. She checked the contact numbers, but there were none. She checked the incoming and outgoing calls and messages, but they'd all been deleted. Finally, she checked the images folder. There were no photos, but there was a single video.

Emily's face was the screenshot of it.

Ali's eyes widened. Her hands started to shake. Part of her wanted to watch the video. The other part of her thought it might rip her heart to shreds. She stared at Emily's image on the screen for what felt like an eternity. Finally, she gathered the courage and pressed the play button. She heard a muffling sound on the phone's recorder as Emily steadied the front-facing camera on her face. Ali couldn't quite make out what was in the background, but she could see a dark navy blue shirt and a sporty black jacket…one of Ali's favorites. It had so many pockets and zippers. Ali loved it because when they went places as a family Emily would just toss things into her coat and they'd have everything they needed.

Emily looked at the camera with a conflicted expression on her face. At first, Ali thought that maybe she was just going to turn the camera off. Instead, she sighed,

"Hey, Alison."

Ali stiffened up, her heart aching at hearing her wife say her name again.

"There's no easy way to say this, so I'll just skip right to the point," she sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I have been lying to you. I…made some stupid choices and I did some stupid things. But the last thing I wanted was for you and Lily to pay the consequences. I know that I messed up. Okay? But I…I'm going to fix it. I AM fixing it. You and Lily are the most important people in the world to me."

Ali thought she could see tears glazing over her eyes.

"Listen, if you're watching this it means one of two things. One, you've been snooping and you found this and now you're angrily scowling at me as you play it. If that's the case, you should know that I find it incredibly difficult to resist you when you're angry. You get this little crease in your forehead and your dimples get red and hot and your eyes…" She sighed. "They burn with this fiery passion that I fell in love with when we were kids."

There was a pause and then she continued,

"But more than likely…if you're watching this, it's for the second reason. Something went wrong…went sideways. And if that's the case…I just want you to know that none of this is on you. And that you can be pissed at me. It's okay to hate me. I hate myself for getting into this mess. But the most important thing about all of this is that I want you to know that through all of this, through everything we've been through…I have never stopped loving you."

Ali felt a tear dripping down her cheek, followed by a steady stream of them flooding her face.

"We may have drifted around when we were younger, but in my heart you were the only choice for me. I am so fortunate to have been able to call you my lover…my wife for all these years. I wanted to tell you…that no matter what happens…no matter how this turns out, I love you, sweetheart."

Ali watched the video fade to black and she thought about Emily's dying words,

"I'll always love you, Alison."

Ali took a shaky breath and lowered the phone into her lap. She leaned back against the wall of the closet, gently resting her head against it. She gripped the phone like it was the last lifeline she had to Emily.

After a few minutes she composed herself. She got dressed for school and then met up with Lily in the living room.

She kept the phone with her all day. Every time she had a moment alone, she would play the video again, just to hear her voice. She played it so much that by the end of the school day, the phone was dead.

She went through the motions the next few days.

By the time the next week rolled around she was ready for her appointment with Ruby. Ali mentioned the video, though she kept the contents of it vague. She didn't want anything to incriminate Emily. Even though she was gone, the need to protect her was still written into Ali's DNA. She just told Ruby that she'd run across a video of Emily and she'd had a hard time focusing on anything but the video ever since.

That opened the door for her to talk about some of her favorite memories with Emily. She revisited several, both good and bad. Ali explained that it's just who they were as a couple. They waded through the difficult times and came out with even more love and respect for one another.

Ali was playing with a folded up picture that she kept in her billfold. It was from when they were teenagers, younger than Lily was now. It was from a sleepover. Ali was wearing her favorite spaghetti strap shirt and clinging to a fancy red throw pillow. Emily had on a purple top that Ali had picked out for her. Their faces were nearly touching and they were both beaming for the camera. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Ruby noticed her staring at the photo.

"If she was here, what would you say to her?" Ruby asked.

Ali stared at the picture of them for the longest time. They were so young in it. She remembered when it had been taken. They still had the whole world ahead of them. But it also reminded Ali of a time in her life in which she hadn't been very kind. Yet Emily still loved her.

"That I miss her…"

"Speak as if though she was sitting right next to you." Ruby interrupted her.

Ali looked up. If she closed her eyes she could almost feel her. She knew Emily was there. She could sense her presence.

"I miss you. Lily and I…the girls, the guys, the kids, your mom. We miss you so much." She swallowed a knot in her throat. "You gave us an incredible life. You were a light in the darkness. And you still are."

The first thing Ali did every morning was look at a picture of her wife for strength.

"We think about you…every day. We're doing our best. It's not always easy, but we try," Ali said. "Lily is doing well. You'd be so proud of her. Her grades are fantastic. She's trying out for the cross country team and she's gotten active in her after school art club again. She's really talented. She's…she's an amazing kid, Emily. I see you in her every day, and it gives me more pride than I know what to do with. She's been dating Eli for a couple of months now. You were right about that. He's good for her. The rest of the kids…they're adjusting. They all have amazing parents, who also miss the hell out of you. We lean on each other."

She played with the picture in her hands. They were just kids.

"I think about Grace a lot. Probably more than I think about you. I hope that's okay. I'm sure you're taking care of her…that you're taking care of each other."

Ali paused to think about how even though Emily had survived the wreck, a part of her had died with Grace. A part of her had never come back. She hadn't understood that until she lost Emily. But she understood it now. Because it was like someone had carved a portion of her heart out and replaced it with burning hot wax that never cooled. It was a sensation that was always there.

"I know what you went through, Emily. I understand it. I don't like it, but I understand it. I was angry at you for the longest time." Ali ran her fingers over the picture. "But I understand the drive you had. I understand what it did to you." She sighed. "You can finally rest now, Em. You can finally be at peace."

She let her fingers linger over Emily's image on the photo. After a few seconds she looked up at Ruby with tears in her eyes.

"Very good, Ali." Ruby nodded.

She leaned across the table, extending a box of tissues for her. Ali took one. She let Ali take a moment to catch her breath. Ali smiled at her appreciatively.

"You've made a lot of progress. I know it doesn't feel that way, but you have. The loss of a child is perhaps the most painfully harrowing experience one could ever face, but add the loss of a spouse…and I know it might not feel like you'll ever be whole again. You've been through a tremendous amount of pain. But facing the feelings that you have is the first step in this long journey. And I won't say to "recovery" because the truth is, that's not what grief is about. This is about learning to carry our loved ones with us even when they are gone. There is no recovery when it comes to death, I want to make that perfectly clear. This isn't cut and dry. It's different for everyone."

She took her glasses off and rubbed them with a cleansing wipe as she quietly considered what else she wanted to say to Ali. She put her glasses back on and then read her notes.

"My job is to help you open up your heart in a way that allows you to both accept the pain of loss and to appreciate the memories you have without the two contradicting each other. The grief that we have for those we love is a part of who we are. We carry it with us for the rest of our lives, but that weight gets lighter over time. Because love is stronger than any other force on this planet."

Ali nodded, unsure of how to reply. They finished up their session, and truth be told, she did feel lighter. She thanked Ruby before she left.

She walked out into the parking lot. The sun was beating down on her. She closed her eyes and lifted her chin into the air. She bathed in the light for a few seconds, and she felt a breeze roll over her. And if she listened really hard she could hear a whisper in the wind. A familiar voice.

It was the love of her life calling out her name. She let it wash over her, like water trickling in a stream.

"I love you, Alison."

She could feel it. Because love transcended everything. Emily was in every living thing around her. Not just their daughter, but in everything beautiful in the world. Alison knew in her heart that there had to be more to life than what they saw. There was more beneath the surface. The depths of their world were far beyond anything the human mind could comprehend. And she knew that eventually she would one day navigate the deepest uncharted waters to emerge on the other side, where she would be in Emily's arms once again.

Final A/N: There were times I'd look at this ending and worry it was too much like "Matters of the Heart" in terms of Emily dying, but the more I flushed it out and looked at the surrounding circumstances I saw significant differences and it hit me that it was two completely different incarnations of Emison and the situations were uniquely their own. I also went back and forth on whether to have Emily survive the initial hail of gunfire (as she does in the original story) only to have her be killed tragically when there is a face-off with Ben, who would be using Emily as a human shield. Much like in the original ending where Ali shot him, I had a concept written up where the bullet she fired didn't only kill Ben, but Emily, too. That one was tougher to write.

In the end I hope my brain gave you all a cohesive easy-to-follow alternate ending. From the minute Emily took the bullet for Lily to Ali flat out killing Ben in cold blood and then having to deal with her grief, I knew the importance of showing that journey that grief isn't something that just goes away. I also knew the importance of Ali getting to say goodbye, and as tragic as it was that no one else got that opportunity, it wouldn't have been right for this story...not only from a medical standpoint, but from a characterization standpoint. I also had always planned from the beginning for Lily and Eli to fall in love and for Zane to come forward and do the right thing, albeit, it was too late. I had to incorporate those plots in this ending as well. There was a lot to round out. I did my best to keep it true to the characters I developed.

I know I get all sappy near the end and everything, but I really do mean it when I say it means so much to hear your thoughts, comments, and reviews. I feel like I've gotten to know so many of you as more than just readers over the years. I look forward to many more adventures to come!