Bring it On Home to Me

A/N: I've had a prompt on tumblr sitting in my inbox for a while regarding writing a happy ending for Emison in "The Perfectionists" realm. I had planned just to incorporate that into my Perfectionists story, but shout-out to Always_EmisonDF and Emison_hope on Twitter for sparking another route. A lot of people are disappointed in the cancellation of "The Perfectionists" and the ending that Emison was left with. I don't know what would have happened had the show been renewed. I like to think that they'd find their way back together. It's a good thing we've always got fanfic. Here's to hoping this will make the Emison fans feel a little bit better about their end. I wrote this in about half an hour in the wee hours of the morning, so it might not flow the same way the rest of my fics do.

Title inspired by my all-time favorite artist, Sam Cooke. Give it a listen.

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Bring it on Home to Me

It was the second longest plane ride of Alison's life. The first had been the trip out to Beacon Heights. She'd just said goodbye to her family. Her babies had cried. Alison had cried, too, though not in front of Emily or the twins. But she spent the entire plane ride out to Oregon in tears.

The sweet old lady next to her had offered her tissues and held her hand. It had helped a little. All she could think about was how she'd left with things on such an awful note with Emily. They'd been fighting about the job, about the twins, about everything. Alison had accused her of being unsupportive, and Emily had turned it back on her and accused her of running away again.

Their last fight had been what had spawned the talk of divorce. Alison was just pissed. She hadn't meant it when she suggested it. And she sure as hell hadn't expected Emily to follow through with it. They'd bickered about it over the phone, but Alison was too stubborn to give in.

Then she got the divorce papers, and all she wanted to do in the midst of the chaos that was unfolding at Beacon Heights University was run home and tell Emily what a huge mistake it was.

She had been so caught up in the lives of other people that she allowed her own life to fall through the cracks. It was only then that she realized what a huge mistake leaving had been. But by then she was in too deep to leave.

And not only that. She didn't want to leave. Not because she didn't love her family. But because she was too afraid of what the response would be if she went home. She was more afraid of having Emily say that they were over face-to-face than she was seeing it written on paper.

The divorce papers hadn't been a shock, but she had still felt blindsided. She knew that Emily had a habit of acting irrationally when she was hurt. Alison had that same habit. It's why they butted heads so heatedly sometimes.

Signing the papers had felt like the best thing at the time. She thought it would give Emily an out of her crazy life. She thought that signing was the best way to protect her and the girls. Because someone was after her. And she couldn't put Emily through another tragedy like the one they'd suffered in high school. She loved her too much. She loved her so much that she was willing to let her go. But it had still been very hard for her to write her name on the petition for divorce. She'd cried herself to sleep that night.

That felt like ages ago. It had been weeks since an unnamed assailant had started torturing her, Mona, and three of their students. The experiment had all come to a head when Mona had uncovered that Beacon Guard had been a beta test for a much bigger, much more nefarious experimentation put into motion by Claire Hotchkiss.

Her son had discovered what she was planning, but before he'd been able to do anything about it he'd been killed...by Claire's lover and partner, a professor of Psychology at the school who'd invested quite a pretty penny in the idea. The Professor wanted to see how far they could be pushed. But the oh-so-clever mastermind had been no match for Alison DiLaurentis and Mona Vanderwaal.