Eight months later…

"Alison." Pam Fields opens the door with a smile on her face, stepping aside to let the blonde into the house – she has to dodge the cardboard boxes the litter the floor, many more than had been there the last time Alison had been here. "Excuse the mess."

"It's fine," Alison replies with a smile of her own. "Do you need any help?"

"Nah, we're fine." Wayne Fields appears at the top of the stairs with another box held in his hands. "Go see your girl." Alison grins as she passes him, darting up the stairs and into Emily's room. Inside it is bare, the walls stripped of all their photographs, her wardrobe and cupboards sitting in the hallway outside, her bed now just a mattress on the floor, which she finds the brunette sitting on the edge of, attention focused on her laptop.

"Hey, beautiful," she murmurs, after pausing to watch Emily for a few moments, leaning her shoulder on the doorway – she looks up at the sound of Alison's voice and smiles, her eyes lighting up as they meet her girlfriend's before she reaches out a hand towards her, tugging Alison down beside her when she takes it.

"Hey yourself." Emily's lips press against her cheek as arms wind around her waist, her chin resting on Alison's shoulder.

"You know we're still here, right?" Alison's eyes land on Emily's laptop screen and she grins when she sees the faces of their friends staring back at her, hadn't realised that the noise she'd heard from the brunette's computer had been a skype call.

"Hey, guys," Alison replies, as she relaxes back in Emily's arms. "How's UPenn, Spence?"

"Amazing," she gushes, practically glowing, and Alison smiles, remembering the look of complete shock and joy on her face the day that she'd been in the Hasting's kitchen when Spencer had gotten her acceptance letter. "Everything I always dreamed."

"And how's your internship, Aria?"

"Still kicking my ass," she says with a slightly wistful sigh. "But it's been incredible, and I can't wait to see you guys next week. It's been so long." Aria had spent the entire summer in California after she'd won a photography competition, and it's been months since any of the other girls saw her in person, though they have a weekly skype date that they've all promised to keep up throughout the college year.

"You excited, Em?" Hanna asks, and Alison knows that she's going to miss the brunette the most – she'd gotten a fashion internship in New York, and had moved to the city a few weeks ago. They still see her at least once a week, but with Emily starting college at Stanford in just under two weeks, it'll be a while before they see each face-to-face for a while.

"Yes and no." She tightens her arms around Alison's waist reflexively, and Alison knows that she's thinking of the three months that they're going to spend apart. Summer school and working her ass off has meant that Alison will have enough credits to graduate in January, and she's already been accepted at Stanford to start at the beginning of the year. "It's going to be weird knowing that when I leave this house, I won't ever be coming back."

Without Emily and her ties to keep her in Rosewood, Emily's Mom is moving down to Texas to be closer to her Dad. They've been packing up their stuff all summer – it has led to she and Emily having a dozen excuses to take long road trips – and are moving the last of it tomorrow, after Emily's started the long drive across to the other side of the country.

Alison's going with her, and flying back to Rosewood the weekend before Emily's semester actually starts, and she's excited at the prospect of getting to spend so much time alone with the brunette, even if she knows that afterwards, she's going to be without her for a long time. But she thinks of driving on the open road (she'd finally gotten her licence, so she can do her fair share of the work), Emily's hand in her own on her thigh, of many nights spent in motel rooms, waking up in one another's arms, and she thinks it'll be the perfect end to the perfect summer.

It's been a perfect year, so far. A is gone and a new one hasn't popped up in their place, leaving the girls in peace for the first time in as long as any of them can remember. She and Emily have been together ever since the night of the winter ball, and though it hasn't always been an easy ride Alison knows that she'll never want to be with anyone else for as long as she lives, because Emily Fields is it, for her, and she knows that one day she's going to ask this woman to marry her and she's going to grow old with her at her side.

The girls sign off a little while later, and as soon as the screen's faded to black Emily is tugging Alison around so that she's straddling the brunette's lap, her laugh at Emily's eagerness muffled by the brunette's mouth as it presses against her own.

"You got everything packed up?" She asks when they part, her hands on Emily's shoulders as she rests their foreheads together.

"Mhm." Emily's hands run up and down her sides gently, and Alison shudders beneath the absent touch – no matter how many times they're together like this, no matter how many times Emily kisses her or touches her, it never fails to drive her wild, to make her blood pound and her heart race, and she prays that that never changes. "You sure you're going to be okay here on your own?"

"I'll be fine," she promises. School's starting up soon and she knows that, even though she's gotten a place at Stanford, she still needs to get the grades. Matt's gone off to college, too, but he's not too far away and has promised to visit her often, and she still has her job at the stables to keep her occupied in the evenings. Things at home still aren't perfect – Jason had moved out several months ago, and has barely talked to their Dad since, but Alison still manages to have a relationship with the both of them, though she's closer to Jason than her Dad, thinks she'll be spending quite a lot of time at his place in Philly, and while she's there Spencer isn't far away, either. "And it's not too long."

"Three months," Emily reminds her with a pout that Alison wipes away with another kiss.

"We'll talk every day," Alison promises. "So much so that you'll be sick of me, soon enough."

"Impossible," Emily murmurs, catching Alison's lips in her own once again, and they don't do much talking after that. They're interrupted some time later by a light knock on the door, and Alison is quick to sit up from where she'd ended up straddling Emily's hips after she'd pushed the brunette flat on her back on the mattress, and she stretches out a hand to pull Emily up, too, moving to sit beside her instead and trying to look as innocent as possible.

(It doesn't work, she knows – both her Dad and Emily's Mom have caught them at it far too many times for that, and eventually they'd given up on their open door policy as long as they both promised to be discrete about what they were getting up to behind closed doors).

"Come in," Emily calls when they both look a little less like they'd been making out like the world was about to end, and Emily's Dad cracks open the door, opening it wider when he's sure they're both decent.

"You guys hungry yet? Everything's pretty much packed by now so we were thinking of heading down to the Grille."

"That sounds pretty good," Emily replies as Alison nods, the blonde rising to her feet and pulling Emily along with her. As they walk down the stairs and stand in the hall waiting for Emily's parents, Alison marvels at how bizarre it is, to see the house that she's spent more time in than her own, probably, over these past few months, stripped bare. She thinks of how odd it's going to be, to drive past the Field's house everyday on her way to school, and for strangers to be living there instead of Emily.

She thinks of what it's going to be like in Rosewood, without Emily, and shudders. But it's not as bleak a thought as it would have been, once upon a time, because Alison doesn't feel as trapped here as she used to, not with A gone for good, and she thinks that she'll almost be sad when it comes time for her to leave, because for all its faults and for all the wicked memories that haunt her here, Rosewood is the place that had brought her Emily Fields – the place where they'd shared their first kiss, their first 'I love yous', and so many other milestones over the past few months.

She thinks it will be good, though, to move on from this place. To start the next chapter of her life, with the love of her life by her side, and she can't wait for it to begin.


A/N:

And there you have it, guys - I finally got my lazy ass around to finishing this thing off. I want to apologise for it taking so long, I don't really have an excuse other than being busy and it being super hard to find the motivation to even edit something when your heart's no longer in it. Which isn't fair to any of you, and I'm honestly amazed that anyone is still reading this. But if you are: thank you. Consider this a belated Christmas present from me to you, for sticking this out til the end.

I hope the ending was worth the wait (or at least satisfying!). A/Charles' identity is kept purposefully vague, so you can draw your own conclusions about who it could have been if you weren't happy with the way the show took it.

I can say with some confidence that this will be my last piece of work for this fandom. I fell out of love with the show a long time ago, and while these two with always have a special place in my heart, I think I've told all the stories I want to tell for them. I am still writing, mostly over on ao3 in the Supergirl fandom, and I'm ofendlesswonder over there if anyone wants to check that out.

I guess all that's left to say is thank you all, again. This started off as a oneshot and turned into one of the longest things I've ever written, and it never would have happened without support from you.