Still Waters Run Deep

Chapter 1: All in the Family

A/N: *waves* Hey, what's up fellow PLL people? I am also a PLL people. I apologize in advance for this lengthy author's note. I swear I usually don't ramble this much in my regular author's notes (when I even post author's notes, that is). But there are a few things you're gonna need to know about this fic before reading.

First and foremost, this story is going to deal with some deep material later on. I struggled with whether or not to post it (though, if you know me from my other PLL Emison fic you know that's pretty much always the case with me). My friends who convinced me to write and share "Matters of the Heart" (which I will also move to here as well) also convinced me to go ahead and post this one, too. But I wanted to give everyone fair warning that this story will get much angstier. It is a journey. And like most journeys, there are going to be some unexpected stops in Feel-a-delphia.

Now that you know that, I'd be honored if you decide to join me for this trip. I will be a most gracious roadtrip buddy. I'm great at looking out for the 5-0. We'll have an unforgettable time. There will be some silly antics, some real philosophical conversations, some carpool karaoke, and yeah, some speedbumps...but we'll get through them together.

If you're coming along there are a few key points that I want to touch on. First of all, this story is fairly canon to how the series ended, with a few tweaks. The first being that I played with the timeline a bit, making it so that the events that happened in the series finale happened prior to Ali giving birth instead of after (meaning the Alex Drake reveal went down before Lily and Grace were born). Because honestly, it's just easier to keep things less convoluted that way. One thing that I did keep the same is that Ali/Emily got engaged after the twins birth, and had a year long engagement.

The second tweak I made was that Mary Drake is *not* Spencer/Alex's mom, meaning that Spencer and Ali are in no way related, because I didn't feel like trying to chart out family histories that take more effort than a college dissertation.

Other than that, everything else is canon. All couples are canon from the last episode. All of the other events happened (with the exception of Spaleb, because that's another messy plot I didn't feel like dealing with).

And finally,

Me (in my movie voiceover tone): "This story has been rated M for mature audiences." I apologize in advance if the sexytimes aren't great. I'm certainly no Danielle Steele...or...whoever writes romance these days. That's part of my problem. I don't read romance. I'm working on the romance aspect. So, yeah, be cool in the reviews about it because I beat the shit out of myself enough when it comes to criticizing my writing. I found that the sweet reviews in my last story really boosted my mood and gave my inner-critic a good swift kick in the lady-nuts. It means a lot when I hear people are reading my writing. Even when they are threatening to beat me with a sharp stick for abusing their feelings.

Chapter 1:

All in the Family

Control. Everyone wants it. But no one truly has it. People try to fight fate all the time, but some things in life are predestined. It's only after those big events occur that people look back and deliberate on how things could have been drastically different "if only". "If only" they knew it was going to happen. "If only" something had been done before it happened. "If only" the world wasn't just a random series of events that inevitably put people in an exact place at an exact time to present them with circumstances that would alter the course of their lives.

Unpredictability is the only thing in life that is predictable, and it's the one thing that everyone in the world shares. The human spirit learns to take in every moment in life and grow from it, though how a person changes depends completely on them.