54 - It's Just Me And You

"Important news!" Jessica announced in a sing-song voice as she bounded down the stairs, approaching the kitchen island, where both her children were seated with their breakfasts.

Alison and Jason raised their heads from their cereal bowls and shared a look of dread across the marble island. Alison swallowed her spoonful, "What?"

A week had passed since Emily held her at the kissing rock, and her mother was back to her 'normal' behavior. Alison guessed she should be thankful for that. Plus, Jason was home again, and he had promised her and Emily that he wouldn't let anything happen regarding her mother. He was much more aware now, having grown up in the same household as her. Emily was reluctant to agree, but she still trusted Jason wholeheartedly. The brunette rushed to add that Alison could stay at her house whenever she wanted, and even reminded Alison that she had a key. Alison had been grateful in response.

"As you two know, I'm running for president of my debutante group-"

"We know," Jason and Alison retorted in exasperation.

It was all their mother ever talked about, save her job, and how disappointed she was in them.

"Well," Mrs. DiLaurentis cleared her throat, not in the mood to get sassed on by her own children. She raised her chin, her jaw clenching. Alison didn't know if she should be happy or not by the fact that her and Jason could rattle their mother enough by only saying two words. "The debutantes are organizing a lovely town fair tomorrow. I trust you both to be there."

"No way, I have a date with Cece." Jason disagreed instantly, placing his now-empty bowl in the sink.

Alison nodded in consent. "Yeah, and Emily and I are going to some coffee place downtown."

"Bring them both," Jessica offered almost desparately, and Alison knew she was only saying it because she needed to keep up appearances. If both her children didn't come to the fair, she would have no chance of being elected president. Alison decided to toy with the idea.

"Can I bring the rest of my friends?" Alison raised her eyebrow in question.

"Of course-"

"For free?" she finished with a victorious smirk. Jason watched their interaction, smothering his pleased grin as he waited expectantly for an answer from his mother.

Jessica sighed deeply, as if she was simply tired of her kids already, "Alison..."

"You said you needed us to come. If I'm canceling my plans, the least you could do is give me a way to form new ones," Alison said in a persuasive tone. She was simply too good at this.

Jessica watched her for a moment, her eyes narrowing at her own creation. "Very well," she said finally in a flat tone, giving Jason a pointed look that meant he could bring his own friends too. Then she turned on her heel, refusing to be taunted by the siblings. Once she was out of the room, Jason and Alison shared a noisy high five and proud smirks.

XXXXX

"Woah, your mother organized all of this?" Hanna asked in awe as Emily's car neared the fair. It was an enormous place by the sea, and people of all ages were strolling around, looking generally happy. There were clowns on stilts - which kind of freaked Alison out though she'd never admit it out loud - all sorts of stations for winning dolls or candy, food carts, and even a huge, lighted Ferris wheel. It was the biggest event her mother had ever brought to life.

"With the help of her other standoffish friends, yes," Alison confirmed dryly, exiting the car. Emily turned off the engine and got out of the car as well, along with Hanna and Caleb.

Out of the car that parked three vehicles to their right, came out Ezra, Aria, Spencer and Toby.

Emily stopped in front of Alison. "Are you sure you still want to go?" she asked, worry and care shimmering in her brown eyes.

The brunette had been extra protective of her girlfriend this past week, ever since Alison told her about her home situation. Even to the extent of being a bit overbearing. Alison had stayed over already twice this week, and politely declined the rest of the times Emily had offered, simply because she didn't want to be a burden on Pam, even if the woman promised that she wasn't. She had also moved a few extra sets of clothes into Emily's closet, since from now on out, she didn't know how often she would need to stay over at the girl's place just to confirm that she was alright.

Alison nodded in response. She played with the tips of Emily's silky smooth hair a bit, "I'm sorry we had to cancel our plans for this."

"We can always go there another time," Emily offered reassuringly.

Alison mumbled a quick, "Yeah." She didn't understand why her mother had picked this day to have this debutante fair. After all, it was almost winter, and they did a lot of the debutante events in the summer. She could remember clearly a day where one of her mother's friends had come to visit their house on the first week of summer vacation and told her that they'd been wanting to do this fair sometime at the last week before school started.

Then it clicked. Alison realized, she wasn't here at that time - she'd spent the last week of summer vacation in Paris. Her mother had planned the fair for this particular day because she wanted to make sure both her kids could be there, so that she could show everyone that their family was extraordinarily functional. Typical, Alison thought bitterly. The thought of being seen as merely an object in her mother's eyes stung more than she cared to admit.

"Hey," Emily softly broke her line of thought and Alison secretly thanked her for that, "where'd you go?"

"Nowhere," Alison answered a little too hastily. She gently drew Emily into a brief, yet thankful hug, kissing the top of her shoulder in appreciation. She hoped Emily understood, she wasn't the greatest at talking about her feelings, especially in matters regarding her family. It only came naturally if she was talking to Emily, because she was easy to open up to, or talking to others about Emily, since her feelings for the girl were so vivid and strong.

She tried not to dwell on this thought as she took the brunette's hand and they followed their friends' steps.

They walked in through the cheerful archway of balloons in the entrance, immediately being greeted by one of those freak-clowns Alison much rather preferred to avoid. She pulled Emily away quickly, and the brunette seemed to agree with her that these clowns weren't really her thing. Emily again brought up the time Alison told her she used to be afraid of people in food costumes, and proceeded to joke about adding her fear of clowns to the imaginary list. Alison grumbled that it wasn't funny, but Emily only kissed her cheek and laughed harder.

Alison turned to where her friends were standing in order to ask them where they wanted to head to first, but they were all out of sight already. Only Spencer and Toby stuck around in a fair distance from them, and were looking intently at a map of the place that was handed to them at the entrance to the event. Spencer was pointing at places she wanted to attend, and at the mention of one place, Toby seemed to disagree politely, offering a different place instead. Alison watched in amusement as they made a list of all of the places they wanted to go. To her, they seemed like one of those happily married couples in a Lifetime family movie.

She turned to her girlfriend, stating playfully, "Looks like it's just me and you, Mermaid."

"Is it mean that I kind of prefer it this way?" Emily asked sheepishly.

Alison only smiled lovingly in response, lifting Emily's hand to her lips and kissing it. She would never get used to how soft the brunette's tan skin was, all over of body. "I'll always prefer it this way," the blonde said quietly in her ear, truly feeling like she really meant it.

It took them about two seconds to walk around the place to spot something to do. Every corner buzzed with activity. Everyone had something to do. Alison guessed it was the purpose of this event.

Emily pointed enthusiastically at a scare house, and as much as Alison wanted to run to the car and lock all of the doors just by the looks of the place, she hesitantly agreed to be led over by Emily. There was a bouncer at the front of the line who checked to make sure all kids who entered were either fourteen-year-olds and up, or with the supervision of an adult.

The scare house was generally at the very far corner of the venue, almost as if the organizers didn't want anyone to see it. Albeit, many kids were still pulling their friends or parents in the direction of the spooky structure, and Alison could bet some of it was from peer pressure. She knew how powerful of a tool it could be.

"Should I add scare houses to the list? Under clowns and people in food costumes?" she heard Emily ask, along with a small chuckle.

"I'll show you, Em. You'll see I'm not scared one bit," she said to her girlfriend like a persistent child, but knew Emily could recognize the lie in her voice.

Once they passed the bouncer, who barely batted an eyelash in their direction - Alison guessed it was because they looked older and more mature for their age - they walked in. It was pitch black inside. The door closed instantly and harshly somewhere behind them, making them both jump. Alison knew Emily had a tiny, anticipating smile on her face even though she couldn't see her. The brunette always enjoyed the paranoid and spooked-out feeling she got, usually after seeing a horror movie late at night.

Alison felt a little bad for Emily when it came to her love for horror movies. If a new scary movie were to be released in theaters, the brunette wouldn't have anyone to go with. Hanna would cling to her for dear life and make goofy comments at the scariest parts, Spencer would try to over-analyze every single move the characters made on the screen and point out their mistakes, and Aria wouldn't generally watch a movie that wasn't black and white. That was why Alison swore herself that if Emily wanted to take her to watch some freakish horror movie, or, for example, go into the scare house they were currently in, the blonde would agree.

"Ali?" Emily whispered from somewhere next to her.

"Yeah?"

"We can-we can keep moving now," Emily said quietly, in her best attempt at an authoritative voice. Alison assumed Emily was trying to make her feel less frightened by using a rational voice, and the blonde's heart swelled at her adorableness.

Alison chuckled silently. She reached out her hand and tried to find Emily's in the dark.

"Ali!" Emily gave her a scandalous gasp. "That's was my butt!" she hissed, her voice lowering to a whisper.

"Oops," Alison laughed in amusement. She only pinched Emily's butt playfully and the brunette's breath caught in her throat. Meanwhile, Alison moved her hand and correctly found her girlfriend's one this time. She intertwined their fingers and they kept moving into the house. The fact that she could feel the blush radiating from Emily's body comforted Alison as she stepped into the unknown darkness.

XXXXX

Emily and Alison were standing in line to the Ferris wheel, looking out into the ocean. They had found Hanna and Caleb a little while earlier and decided they wanted to stick together for the meantime. Hanna was giddy with excitement, hugging the stuffed dolphin Caleb had won for her close to her body. Caleb was happy too, he just wasn't as bouncy and bubbly as his lovable girlfriend.

They were getting closer to the beginning of the line and the sun was setting above them, giving the whole sky an artistic ambience that Alison had learned to appreciate from a very young age. She used to love stargazing as a child, but had abandoned it when she started becoming the Queen Bee, figuring other people would think it was lame. Now though, she thought about starting that old hobby again, maybe with Emily this time.

"So, where'd you guys go earlier?" Caleb asked.

Alison kept starting at the pink-orange sunset as she answered, "We went to the scare house, and-"

"Oh, my God, how was it there? I've been trying to convince Caleb to go, but he says it looks pretty lame," Hanna burst enthusiastically into her words, but it wasn't like she wasn't used to it.

Alison turned around to look at her two friends, who were standing behind her, rebuffing their statement, "It wasn't lame."

"It was pretty scary, I guess," Emily started, agreeing with her. "Ali almost peed her pants when the clown-"

"No need to talk about that, Emily," Alison cut her off, wide-eyed. Emily humorously smirked a little. The blonde shook her head lightly, turning to their friends, "Needless to say, it was terrifying."

Hanna released a relieved breath, "Okay, so it wasn't that scary." She turned to Caleb, "So we can go to it later."

"What's that supposed to mean? I just told you it was scary as hell," Alison protested.

"I didn't mean anything by it, but if you say it's scary then it's probably not that scary."

Alison frowned in offense.

"Yeah, you get scared pretty easily, Ali," Caleb remarked, chuckling.

Alison shook her head, "That's not true, you-"

"Miss, please step forward in the line," the guard in the entrance requested.

Alison huffed, eyeing both her friends. She pointed at them, her tone turning into a faux-warning, "This isn't over."

Hanna and Caleb trailed behind Emily and Alison, snickering to themselves.

Both girls got into a booth, closing the door behind them as another booth lowered down, and Hanna and Caleb climbed in it.

The girls' booth began ascending slowly, giving them time to comprehend the view all around them. They only noticed how dark it was when the lights on the ferris wheel suddenly went on, as if activated by an inner clock, lighting the whole thing in colorful lights. The music coming from the big speakers down on the ground started becoming less and less audible as their booth increased its height. They heard the fading sound of Beyoncé's 'XO', and then, there was silence, the only sound being their breathings and indistinct conversations on the ground.

Emily looked around at the venue. The beach was lighted by a few campfires, and warm rays of light were shedding on the water, allowing her to see the peaceful movement of the waves. She couldn't hear it before, but when she strained her ears, she could listen to the sound of waves crashing on the shore. Looking down at the ground below, she suddenly saw their extensive distance from the bottom. She'd never had a fear of heights, but their height up in the air would've been a bit alarming if she had. They were right at the top of the Ferris wheel when the rotation suddenly stopped.

She turned to Alison, who seemed fascinated by the combination of red, yellow, blue, pink and green light bulbs on practically every inch of the wheel.

"It's beautiful," Alison said, her eyes still following the lights, then swiping over the view of the rest of the fair. A boy and a girl just entered the scare house. A family of five just passed through the balloon gate. A girl won a stuffed owl. A boy took a seat around one of the campfires. Alison caught every movement, she could see everything from up here.

Emily was enchanted. A blue light fell on Alison's face, highlighting her features, and she couldn't bring herself to stray her eyes away. The blonde's eyes soon met hers. The light that fell on Emily's face was yellow, Alison's favorite color. It hugged the brunette's skin like the halo Alison always knew her girlfriend had.

"So beautiful," the brunette responded in a soft timbre but Alison instantly knew the girl wasn't talking about the wheel.

The blonde shifted to rest her hand on Emily's cheek, and their eyes met one more time, like some sort of mutual agreement, before their lips finally touched.

Warmth and butterflies both covered every inch of Alison's body and collided in her stomach, all at once. She always felt phenomenal when she was kissing Emily, no matter the context. Emily sighed into the kiss, and that was all Alison needed in order to move forward, allowing Emily's hand to relax on the back of her neck. Everything about them had always felt so right.

Emily whimpered when Alison's teeth clawed slightly at her bottom lip, then she took it upon herself to advance slowly forward, forcing Alison to maneuver until her back was touching the side of the booth. Emily pushed more into the kiss and the blonde swallowed up all of her attention as Emily boldly ran tongue along the length of her bottom lip, causing heat to shoot down to Alison's core.

The Ferris wheel abruptly started moving again, and Emily gave Alison one more kiss before letting go. The brunette adjusted her breathing as she wrapped her arm around Alison's shoulders, and the blonde allowed herself to snuggle into the girl's side, feeling the swimmer's strong heart beating loudly in her chest. When she closed her eyes, she could still see blurred stains of different colors, and her nose filled with the smell coconut radiating from Emily's hair. Now she was sure she didn't regret coming here.

XXXXX

The four couples used the group chat to find each other at a spot they agreed on. People were now passing by them as they stood next to an of ice cream cart, sharing stories.

Aria stood on her tippy toes in order to see better between all of the people. She was staring in the direction of the stone steps leading down to the beach. "What do you say?" she turned to her friends, asking loudly so she could be heard over the many conversations coming from every corner of the place.

"I'm in," Alison agreed. When she had seen the beach from the top of the Ferris wheel merely an hour ago, she'd suddenly gotten a strong desire to go there. Most people at the venue stayed at the fair and didn't go down to the beach, and she loved it when there weren't many people at the beach. The campfires also drew her in, and the beach looked so hypnotizing and inviting like this.

"Me too!" Hanna shouted genially over the outer noise.

The rest of the group accepted the offer as well, and they all headed down the steps. At the bottom, Emily pulled out her ankle boots and socks, inserting the socks in the boots and holding them together in her hand, while Alison did the same with her (surprisingly low) heels. It was a breezy night, and the sand was cold under their feet. They advanced closer to the water, but not too close. Emily didn't want her feet to get wet because then she would have a problem putting on her socks, and Alison didn't want to, either, not in a rush to wet her heels

She grabbed Alison's hand, swiftly dropping a kiss on the top of her knuckles. Alison turned to her, beaming adoringly, getting the same look from Emily. They stared at each other for a long moment before the blonde spoke.

"Em," Alison started, "we should probably move a few feet back before the water reaches us."

"You're right," Emily agreed, but made no move to shift, and neither did Alison. They both grinned a little, Alison leaning on her toes to kiss Emily sweetly on the lips. Emily used her free hand to pull Alison by the small of her back, gently guiding her to a deeper kiss.

"Get a room!" they heard Hanna's voice somewhere distantly behind them, but Alison only shook her head with an amused smile, wrapping her free arm around the brunette's shoulders as their lips crashed together once more. Emily didn't even register the lukewarm water slowly surrounding their bare feet.

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