Disclaimers: I do not own PLL or the characters.
Spoilers: Season 2 and 3 of PLL. If you have not seen the ending of two onwards, please do not read or read at your own discretion.
Rated: T to be safe.

Notes: set directly after Caleb is shot and Lyndon James is killed. Everything that happened around the time of Maya's disappearance/death, happened in 2007, instead of 2011. I am using the birthdays from my Little Liars story.

October 2007

*Rosewood Memorial Hospital*

As they sit in the waiting room, Emily with an arm around Hanna, – the blonde has yet to let Emily out of her sight, – the older girl thinks back over the events of the night.

She found out that Maya does not, in fact, have a cousin named Nate St. Germaine. The man that was pretending to her cousin is actually named Lyndon James.

It turns out, Emily had been spending time over the last few weeks with the person who was the very reason why Maya's parents were forced to fake their daughter's death and then disappear into WitSec.

He's gone.

Dead.

That's all Emily can think about. She sits there, with Hanna glued to her side, fingering the phone that is in her pocket.

She needs to call Samara.

Emily needs to let her know that the person who tried to kill her best friend, her sister, is dead.

That means only one thing.

Maya can come home now.

Knowing that she probably will not be let go by Hanna, Emily takes a deep breath and pulls her phone out.

Speed dialing from memory, Emily catches Alison's eye from where the blonde is sitting across from them, with Aria beside her.

It is then, that Emily sees it dawn on her.

She knows. She knows who Emily is calling. She realizes why, and Emily watches as relief floods Alison's face and she begins crying for a whole new reason.

Samara picks up almost immediately. It's after ten in Rosewood, which would make it around 7 p.m. in California.

"Hey, Em! How's everything going?"

"Samara…" Emily heard the sharp intake of breath on the other end. Samara knows Emily only calls her that when things are serious.

"What's going on, Emily? Are the girls all right? The boys, Grace?"

Emily decides to go with the bad news first, so she can lessen the blow with the good news.

"Caleb is in the hospital. He was shot."

Another sharp intake of breath. "Oh, my god! Please tell me he is going to be ok."

"Yeah, he's in surgery right now, but he should recover just fine..." Emily pauses for a moment. "There is something else…Did you know that Maya doesn't actually have a cousin named Nate St. Germaine?"

"I knew it! Her mom is an only child and her dad has no family with that name. I knew he had to be some weirdo pretending to be her cousin."

"He wasn't a weirdo, Samara," Emily says this but there is no malice to the words. "Samara, his name was Lyndon James. He and Maya met when…when they both went to True North."

Emily can hear the other girls' reaction around her as she says this. They had no idea about Maya and her stalker from True North.

Samara has no response to this. "You still there 'Mar?"

"Yeah, yeah, I'm here. You're saying…you're saying that the man who pretended to be Maya's cousin was actually the fucking stalker she told us about?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying." There's a pause and then Emily continues. "Samara, there were three people in that lighthouse." Emily had already told Samara where she was going with "Nate". She was going to see a lighthouse and spend some time just the two of them. Only, things didn't go as planned.

"One person is dead, one person is in surgery right now, and one is speaking to you on the phone. You do the math." After saying this, Emily waits.

Waits for her to realize.

Waits for it to dawn on her.

And waits for it to be clear to the others sitting around Emily.

"Emily, don't joke, ok? Don't say that unless you mean it."

"I mean it, Sammie," Emily voice breaks as she uses Maya's childhood nickname. "You…you need to call Jack. Make sure he knows. So he can get things in order, ok? I love you, Sammie. Don't ever forget that."

"I love you, too, Em. I'll call Jack and let him know and let him get everything set up. Give Hanna my love. Tell her I'm thinking of her and Caleb. I'll talk to you later, ok?"

"Okay, I'll have my phone by me all night so call whenever. Bye." Hanging up, Emily places the phone in her pocket. She looks around the room at the girls and Toby and Melissa, who had shown up a few minutes ago.

Emily waits. The room is filled with silence; the only thing breaking is the quiet sound of the person at the service desk taking phone calls.

Emily makes eye contact with Alison. Neither of them was supposed to know. Samara wasn't supposed to know. Jack, or Jackson Taylor, Officer Taylor, the officer who was in charge of getting Maya and her parents new names, a new home, and new life to live, was threatened by Maya.

She threatened that if he did not tell Emily and Samara that she was not actually dead, but alive and well, in WitSec, then she would leave her new life, go back to Rosewood, and tell them herself.

She knew she would be putting herself and her parents' lives in danger. She knew that if this Lyndon guy found out she was still alive, then he would most definitely not screw up on succeeding to kill her the second time.

But at the time, she did not care. She told him what would happen if he didn't listen, so, against everything he knew, everything he learned about the rules for working for Witness Protection, he said yes.

He would tell them.

And that is how Emily and Samara found out. They found out that the body in Maya's backyard was not actually 16-year-old Maya Anne St. Germaine.

They found out that Maya was ok, that she was alive and well, doing as good as she could. She was in Witness Protection. She and her parents were given new names, ones that Jack could not tell them, and sent to live in Montana.

Lyndon James was a very dangerous person. He became obsessed with Maya and when Maya, in his eyes, left him to be with Emily, he was enraged. He followed her to Rosewood, lured her away from the safety of her friends and family, and then attempted to take her life.

It didn't work. Maya got away. She ran and she ended up at Noel Kahn's cabin. She broke in and was going to hide.

:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/

*Flashback – Date: April 1st, 2007*

16-year-old Noel Kahn comes downstairs as he hears the house phone ring. Picking it up, he realizes it is the security company, calling to alert, or more so his parents, of a break in at their cabin.

He calls his dad at work, to let him know he is going to meet the police there. His dad okay's it, and Noel grabs a jacket, his shoes, and his keys.

Pulling up to the cabin 45 minutes later, he meets with two police officers – Officer Johnson and Officer Roberts.

"Hello, Officers," He greets. "I'm here because of the reported break-in." He shakes their hands and proceeds to do a walkthrough with them, where they find a busted window in the back, but little else.

As the Officers are looking around, to see if they can find fingerprints or even footsteps that could lead them to the burglar, Noel sees something on the ground.

He shines his flashlight over it and sees it is a footprint, exactly what the police are looking for.

As he goes get their attention, his light hits something else, or more someone else.

A figure hiding in the bushes. It's girl.

Maya. Emily's girlfriend.

He makes a "shush" motion with his finger, and she nods. A few minutes later, after not finding anything (Noel scraped away the shoeprint), the police tell him they are leaving and that whoever broke in must have gotten away.

Maya comes out. The way she looks take Noel's breath away. He leads her inside the cabin and gets her a glass of water and an ice pack.

She has a bruised cheek, a busted lip, and the beginnings of a black eye.

Maya breaks down as Noel hugs her, and she tells him about the guy that has been stalking her – Lyndon James.

Noel begs her to let him take her to the police, for her to report this Lyndon guy, so the police can arrest him. She tells him no, she doesn't want to go, at least, not right then.

Please, she begged, just let me hide out here. Just let me get a plan on what to do. Noel said ok. What could he do? How could he help? He offered to call Emily, or one of the other girls, or Toby, Caleb, or hell, even her parent.

But Maya refuses. She tells him not yet. She can't tell, she can't get anyone involved. Not yet, she said, please, Noel, please, not yet.

Noel caves. For the next two weeks, he checks in on Maya, bringing her food, comfort items, taking her back home during a school day when her parents were at work to get a bag of her stuff.

:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/

*Three weeks later – 1 week after Maya's "body" was been found*

It's been one week since that night. The girls finally discovered who was behind the –A messages, threatening them, making them jump every single time their phones went off.

Spencer was taken by Mona; they found out by phone that she was their stalker.

Mona almost ran them off a cliff, and then proceeded to almost off the cliff. She fell anyway, though it didn't do much damage. She was treated and released from the hospital within a couple of hours.

And sent straight to Radley Sanitarium.

They thought the night couldn't get any worse.

Until they arrived just around the corner from Maya's house. To find cops, an ambulance, police tape…

And Emily's mother.

The police found a body, she had said. They think it's Maya.

Emily's world stopped then. All this time, while Maya was just missing, she thought one day, one day she'll come back.

And now, well now, it has been one week. Seven days since Emily's world was turned upside down.

It's yet to be righted upwards.

Noel Kahn stops by.

Pam lets him in. She tells him Emily is upstairs, but that she hasn't come out of her room for anyone, anything, except to eat or to go to the bathroom, so don't expect this time to be any different.

He nods and heads up.

Knocking on the door, he says, "Em, I-I know that you…you probably don't want to talk to anyone, let alone me, but can I… can I come in? Please?"

Silence.

Taking a deep breath, he decides he really can't break a promise to someone, if that someone is dead.

"Emily, Maya wasn't missing the two weeks before her…before she…" He trails off. He can't even think the words let alone say them. If only he'd been more firm, forced Maya to go to the police, then maybe she would still be here.

He doesn't need to complete the sentence because Emily is already opening the door.

She's dressed in a sweatshirt that Noel recognizes as belonging to Maya, and a pair of grey sweatpants. Her eyes and cheeks are red and puffy, and she looks absolutely exhausted. Noel suspects she has got little to no sleep the past week.

"What do you mean, she wasn't missing?" Her voice is rough.

Noel swallows past the lump in his throat. When Maya was reported missing, he had no idea what to do. He knew about the bus ticket that she purchased.

He knows because he was the person in the dark colored car that Maya was speaking to outside the bus station. He took her back to his cabin after she purchased the ticket. A one-way trip to San Francisco, California.

They'll think I'm going to visit Samara and her family, she had said. Lyndon will leave Rosewood and then I'll show back up, and everything will be fine again.

Why didn't he go to the police? Why didn't he say something when she was reported missing?

"I mean," Noel says, back in present. He slides the bag off his shoulder. It's Maya's. The one that held her clothes and personal belongings from when she was hiding out at his cabin.

"I mean, that she was not missing. She was hiding, right here in Rosewood, at my family's cabin." He holds out the bag, sort of as a peace offering. "This was the bag she kept there. I haven't gone through it."

Emily takes the bag and walks over to her window seat. Noel follows.

"She tried to break into my cabin one night, about three weeks ago," He says as he sits. Emily holds onto Maya's bag as if it her lifeline. The one last thing that connects her to Maya.

Noel supposes, in a way, it is, and it does.

"She didn't know about the security system, that set off an alarm and alerted the police," Noel pauses, but Emily doesn't say anything. So, he decides to just keep speaking until she stops him. "I went there, to meet with them. They did a walkthrough and we found the window that was broken in the back of the cabin."

"While they were looking for whoever did it, or fingerprints or footprints, anything that would be useful, I saw Maya…she was-… she was hiding in the woods, behind some bushes and trees…" He trails off.

Remembering the look on her face, the bruises, the cuts, his eyes well-up. "She looked so scared… I motioned for her to stay quiet, until the police left. Then, I brought her inside. I-I talked to her. She…she told me… God, Em, she told me about some guy that practically beat her up."

At that, Emily's head snaps. He's taken aback at the look in her eye.

"What guy?" She sits up straighter. "Did she give you a name, did-did she tell you what he looked like? Who was the guy she was talking about, Noel?"

"Lyndon," He answers right away because, what good would it do, to lie about it now? "She said his name was Lyndon James. But that's it!" He hurries to assure Em that he has no idea who this guy is, other than a name. If he did, Maya would be alive, and this Lyndon person would either be dead, or in jail.

"That's all she told me, Em. She said she was being stalked by a guy named Lyndon James. He's been after her since she got back from True North."

Emily's eyes well up. Before he knows it, she has tears streaming down her face. Her next words send chills down his spine.

"I know. She…she told me about him, too." Emily breaks down, dropping the bag, and Noel immediately scoots over and folds his arms around her.

"I should have been more firm," Noel whispers after a few moments. "I should have forced her to go to the police and report this asshole. God, Em. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Emily tightens her grip on him, almost like she is comforting him.

He knows he doesn't deserve it, though. He knows he was the last person to see Maya alive. He should have done something. Anything at all.

He knows, if he did, Maya St. Germaine would probably still be here.

"It's ok, Noel," Emily whispers. "This isn't your fault. She was so stubborn. You wouldn't have got her to do anything if she didn't want to do it."

Hearing it from Emily helps more than anyone could imagine.

Her opinion is the other one that matters to him.

:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/:/

*End of flashback – present time*

Emily is pulled out of her thoughts by Hanna tugging on her arm. Looking around the room, she sees everyone watching her.

She sighs.

"All right, I think we should head home," Emily says. "I believe I have some explaining to do."

I wanted this to be a one-shot. But I decided to split it. I've had this idea in mind forever. I typed out the first 700 words on my iPad and left it for a while. Over the next several months, I've come back, here and there.

Grace is Emily's little sister, she's nine years old. If you guys want a second chapter just let me know. It will have Emily explaining everything and Maya coming home.