AN: Thank you to those who have shown interest in this story! I have decided to continue it but I'm gonna put a WARNING in here that if you're looking for some romantic emison to help you through the wait to next episode, this is not it my dudes. There is much angst and more to come. I have about thirteen chapters so far and they're all angst central ( though I am imagining a happy ending at this point but bros it's not soon trust ) I will also say I don't know how fast I'll be updating this because I don't remember a lot of the details for this season so I'm gonna try and do a rewatch of s4 / 5 before going to much further so I don't too make mistakes with what's meant to be happening at this point. I will say though that this story is going to be AU and fair warning that I'm really liking the idea of having Ali end up in the dollhouse for a bit. Anyway, I'd love to hear any feedback from you guys! Enjoy x

The walk back to the car was slow and silent as the three girls processed Alison's words. Going in they'd felt bad for being wrong, for accusing her and destroying evidence that could've proven her innocence of a crime they now knew never took place. But they'd still felt relatively justified — she still deserved it after everything she had done, right? She was still a terrible person. At least that's what Aria was telling herself, Spencer too albeit less righteously, even Emily was holding onto her anger, though for her it was mostly out of self preservation. Knowing in the back of her mind that if she really let herself feel the weight of her mistake she might not recover from her own betrayal.

But after that.

There was no room to tell themselves they were justified. Not as far as the swimmer was concerned.

"That was awful." Emily said as she got into the back seat of Spencer's car, clearly wrought with emotion, a pause in between each word she spoke, her voice sounded strained. As if speaking even those few words would cause her chest to cave in.

"Yeah." Spencer agreed quietly as she sat unmoving behind the wheel, emotionally drained as she replayed the conversation over in her head.

"We're never gonna be able to make this right."

"Em, come on it's gonna be okay." Aria tried to sooth, hearing the heart break in her friends voice.

"How is it going to be okay?!" The brunette snapped back, her eyes filling with unshed tears. "Ali's in jail and we put her there. She looks like someone sucked out her soul, she doesn't even sound like Ali." She went on, trying and failing to keep her emotions under control, sure that the sight of the blonde either unwilling or unable to look at her would stay with her forever.

"That definitely was worse than I remember it being. I forgot how good she was at picking us apart." Spencer mused, her own voice laced with guilt as she wondered how she could get it all this wrong.

"Yeah, well maybe we deserve to be picked apart this time." Emily retorted instantly with an anger directed more at herself than her friends.

Sighing heavily, Aria looked between her friends, still not ready to jump on the guilt bandwagon as far as the whole situation went, before trying once again to sooth her distraught friend. "Em, don't let her get to you like this she's just lashing out beca—"

"No, she wasn't and you know she wasn't. That wasn't Ali just being a bitch, she was broken and we did that to her." The tanned girl interrupted, her rage quickly turning on her petite friend as she defended the blonde.

"Look we don't have time to think about that right now, if we don't find out who's really doing this she's gonna throw mike under the bus." Aria snapped, already tired of the attitude.

"You mean like what he and Mona did to her."

"Hey! Don't—"

"What? Just because he's your brother, he's innocent? He knew she had nothing to do with this and he didn't tell anyone. Not the police, not even you and now Ali is in jail and if we cant figure this out she might stay there."

Spencer looked at Emily through the rear vision mirror with wide eyes, noticing the girl's chest was heaving with how worked up she was getting. " Guys, lets not—"

"Look I don't know what she was talking about back there and you two obviously have some thing going on but don't let her guilt you into becoming her puppet again just bec—"

"I'm not her puppet!" Emily roared, a warning glare in her eyes as she met Aria's gaze.

"Well then stop acting like she's innocent! There's a reason we thought she was A." The petite brunette snapped back, refusing to be intimidated.

"Yeah! We're all assholes."

"Ali's done a lot of shit that could've ended her up in there just as easily—"

"So have the rest of us!" Emily interrupts before Aria can finish making her point. "And she knows just about all of it. If she wanted to she could have us all sharing a cell right next to her. But we aren't. We're all free and she's stuck in that horrible place because of us so stop acting like she's the devil."

With that the car is left in momentary silence. Unable to think of anything to say in rebuttal the smaller brunette turns to the driver in search of assistance but finds only a shrug and a guilt ridden "She has a point." So she sinks back into her seat and tells Spencer to start driving as she tries to think of how she's going to get her little brother out of this mess.

...

Alison had been barely managing to go through the motions since they left. Her mind completely occupied with thoughts of her friends, of Emily. There was a large part of her that wanted to meet the girl's eyes when she'd asked, to find comfort in those eyes the way she had so many times before. But a larger part was afraid. Afraid that when she looked at Emily again she wouldn't see her mermaid, the woman she wanted so badly to be worthy of. Afraid that instead she'd see the girl standing in her backyard, preventing her escape with cold, hard eyes and an unmoving jaw.

From the others the betrayal had stung, the taste it left in her mouth was bitter, but it wasn't a surprise, at least not entirely. She knew they were all carrying their own grudges and resentments and in all honesty she had been expecting them to turn on her eventually. But from her? It felt like her heart had been ripped from her chest.

It was an unfair standard she knew, especially after what she'd put Emily through when they were younger, but with the ache in her chest now, Alison wondered whether she'd ever be able to really get over it.

So caught up in her thoughts was she that Ali unwittingly let her guard down. Forgetting to watch her back whilst trying to deal with her emotions. It was exactly the reason she had avoided those eyes, but it seemed the effort was in vein as she felt herself pressed up against a wall.

The woman currently pressed against her was a lifer she'd met a few times before, curtesy of A, she was sure. She was also the one who'd littered her arms with bruises with the help of a few of her friends. "Hey, prom queen." She grinned, exposing her yellowed teeth as she got in Alison's face.

The blonde didn't respond other than to push back in attempt to free herself, promptly receiving a blow to the jaw for her efforts. She tried not to cry out, the impact causing her to bite her lip hard enough to leave blood running down her chin.

Looking back at the other inmate who was easily twenty years her senior, Alison held onto a silent rage as she planned her revenge. She'd already found out from one of the guards that had taken a liking to her that the woman's name was Rebecca and her cell was two blocks down from her own. All that was really left was to wait for this brute to make the first move.

"I bet you taste just like strawberries." Rebecca chuckled in a way that made the blonde feel as though she were about to be violently ill. "I'll see you tonight." She promised with a predatory smirk meant to intimidate the fresh meat.

What she didn't know was that her visit was exactly what Alison was counting on.

…

"How'd it go?" Hanna asked walking into Emily's room and throwing herself onto the other girl's bed. The swimmer barely even acknowledged her entrance though as she remained silent and brooding as she sat looking out her window.

"That good, huh?" The blonde mused, propping herself up on her elbow as she stared at her friend, waiting for her to say something.

"I can't believe we thought she was A." She huffed, breaking her silence with a slight shake of her head as she continued to wallow in her self loathing.

"Well it made sense." Hanna shrugged, trying not to get too heavy on the subject. "Still kinda does."

"You wouldn't be saying that if you'd seen her in there." Em snapped, her gaze finally moving from her window to the blonde as she levelled her with a warning gaze. It was too late to be protective, the damage was already done. That painful truth she was well aware of but she was she was planning to make up for it at every chance she could apparently.

The blonde held up her hands in surrender, letting it be known she wasn't about to argue that point and Emily narrowed her eyes at the girl, worried what her nonchalance may mean regarding her impending visit. "You are gonna go aren't you? She asked about you, you know."

"Yeah, I'll uh, I'll go see her." Though her voice hardly sounded certain. She'd spoken briefly to Spencer about what Ali had to say before she'd come and she wasn't exactly looking forward to facing her friend after what she'd said the last time she paid her a visit. But if the look on Emily's face was anything to go by there was no chance she was getting out of her turn.

"I'll go, promise. I'll bring her some magazines or something." She conceded, relaxing when Emily's gaze finally let up.

"I should've brought something for her, I didn't even think of that." The tanned girl mused, more to herself than Hanna as she thought over what she could bring the girl on her next visit. And how early was too early to try and go back.

"Relax, I'm sure she was glad to see anyway, you're the favourite remember." Hanna replied with a teasing tone that was meant to make her friend smile, it seemed she was fresh out of luck today however because Emily looked like she might burst into tears at the comment.

"She wouldn't even look at me." She confided, her voice a pained whisper, having to bite her lip after she spoke to keep it from quivering.

"I mean she's gonna be pissed for a while, sure." Hanna offered, again in attempt to make Emily feel better as she got up and moved to sit beside her at the window. "We did kinda set up a human barricade to stop her from getting away."

The brunette let out a humourless chuckle, her face giving way to despair as she thought back on the look of betrayal on the blonde's face as they pushed her toward the waiting police. "Thanks for the reminder."

"Em, she'll get over it." Hanna assured, placing a comforting hand on her friends leg.

"Yeah, because Ali's never been good at holding a grudge." Emily scoffed, running a hand roughly through her hair as she tried to keep her emotions at bay once more.

"You have a point." The blonde agreed, having to take a moment then to think of something optimistic to say. "Look once we get her out of there, I'm sure all its gonna take is some decent grovelling and she'll be back to her old self in no time. We'll be one big happy family."

"Do you think she still wants that?" She asked her arms folded over her chest as she looked down at her knees, so torn up over the whole situation she could feel her face starting to hurt from frowning. "We made the whole us against her thing pretty clear, it might be a little hard for her to see us as family."

"What'd she even say to you?"

…

She waits, watching as the Rebecca walks in. So focused on the trap she'd set placing pillows under the covers of her bed to imitate her form that she didn't notice the blonde hiding in the shadows behind her. Alison stood still like a lioness ready to pounce at exactly the right moment, attacking only as the taller woman bent over her bed.

With impressive speed, the blonde wrapped a rope fashioned out of a ripped sheet around the inmate's neck and tugged it as hard as she could toward the floor, causing her to have to arch over backward uncomfortably.

It was a trick she'd learned from a friend she'd met in New York and it'd been one she'd made sure never to forget, because it required very little strength and this way she was too off balance to make an attack.

If she tried to straighten herself even a little she'd be choking herself, the same if she tried moving to either side with how tightly Ali was holding the rope and her spine made it impossible for her to go any lower. She was trapped until if and when the blonde decided to show mercy.

"Hey leather face, how's it feel to be the prey?" Alison sneered, her face hovering only inches above the other woman's.

Rebecca replied with a predictable, "fuck you, blondie." As she attempted to claw the material away from her neck.

"Bet you wish you could." The blonde mocked, squeezing the rope a little tighter, watching as the other started to turn red as she gasped for air. She wasn't usually a violent person. Ali never got physical with anyone unless it was absolutely necessary to defend herself and even then, she'd never done something like this before. But there was a dark, twisted part of her that was really enjoying it. Enjoying the feeling of having someone's life in her hands after having spent years helpless as hers was stripped away from her bit by bit.

When she noticed the woman looked close to passing out, she relaxed her hand ever so slightly and allowed her a moment to gather what air she could before speaking again.

"You tell whoever put you on my case that I'm nobody's rag doll, you got that?" She all but growled, to which she received a throughly confused look as if this woman had no idea who she was talking about before Rebecca nodded as best she could.

Furrowing her brow, Alison lost some of her momentum at the response. Had she been wrong? Was A not putting her up to this? Deciding those questions could be saved for later as she noticed the Rebecca's shaky legs struggling to continue holding her up.

Leaning down and pulling the rope a little further towards the ground as well, much to the contorted inmate's dismay. Alison chose to end the night with one final message, her blue eyes were like ice as they met the hazel hues of her tormentor turned victim, her smile carrying a sinister edge.

"And the next time you think about jumping me there are a couple things you should remember; I'm in here for murder, half the guards in this hole are sweet on me and I know where you sleep too."

Tightening her grip on the rope once more, the blonde dragged the other woman choking and stumbling out of her cell before letting it go and allowing her to fall in the hallway.

"Sweet dreams."