Terms and Conditions

The Space Between

A/n: Don't forget to vote:(

The night clung to Emily like heat. Not warmth, not comfort, but the suffocating kind, thick and humid, pressing against her chest as though the storm outside had followed her indoors. She lay rigid on the edge of the guest bed, surrounded by the curated perfection of the DiLaurentis estate: linen sheets pressed crisp, the faint hum of purified air, silence crafted to feel expensive. But nothing about it touched her.

Her phone lit up once on the nightstand. A pulse of cold light in the dark.

One notification. Just one. But it was enough to split her chest open.

Pam Fields: Emily. I need you to call. It's your father.

For a long, brittle minute Emily didn't move. As if stillness might rewind something, undo the words, erase their weight. Her heart thudded painfully against her ribs, shallow and uneven. Then, mechanically, she sat up, knees pulled against her chest, the glow of the phone staining her skin pale blue as she pressed call.

Her mother answered on the first ring.

Pam's voice was clipped, measured, the way it always was when she was holding the edges of herself together by sheer will. But Emily knew her mother's tells. She knew what unraveling sounded like when someone was trying to sound composed.

"He came home drunk," Pam said flatly. "He smashed the mug I gave him for Father's Day. I thought he was past this. I thought... he promised me."

Emily shut her eyes. Her stomach twisted like a knife. "Where is he now?"

"In the garage. Passed out in the car. I didn't know who else to call."

Emily didn't hesitate. "I'll be home by tomorrow."

"Em—"

She hung up.

The silence after was a hollow kind of ache, echoing around her until it became unbearable. She pressed her palms into her eyes, tried to breathe past the rising tide of panic, but all she could feel was the distance, how far away she was from the people who needed her most.

And then came the knock.

Soft. Intentional. Not the kind of knock you could ignore.

Emily's body went taut. Slowly, she rose, crossed the room, and opened the door.

Alison stood barefoot in the hallway. Her silk robe was knotted loosely at the waist, hair falling in messy waves around her shoulders, as though she'd just left her own bed but somehow still managed to look untouchable. A candle flickered from a niche on the wall behind her, setting her in half-light, half-shadow.

"I heard," Alison said softly.

Emily didn't ask how. Of course she had. This house had a way of carrying whispers to the wrong ears, and Alison had always known when Emily was breaking even before Emily admitted it herself.

"I have to leave in the morning," Emily murmured, voice steadier than she felt.

Alison nodded once, not missing a beat. "I'll have the jet ready by seven."

Emily blinked, startled. "I wasn't... I didn't ask for that."

"I know," Alison said. Her gaze didn't waver. "I'm offering."

They stood in the doorway like that, close but not touching, the air between them electric with things neither had the courage to voice. For a second, the storm outside pressed harder against the glass, wind rattling the frame as if demanding a decision.

And then Alison asked, quiet, dangerous: "Do you want me to come with you?"

It wasn't casual. Not a throwaway gesture of support. Between them, it was an opening, a weight.
Emily's breath caught, her throat closing around the answer. Too much. Too soon. Too real.