Needs, Wants, Desires, and Dreams

Need I Say More

A/N: There will be a *warning* near the end of the chapter due to descriptions of the IVF process/needles and alluding to some of the trauma that comes along with having a miscarriage. A more explicit chapter is coming and will have a heavier warning behind it.

For Jason DiLaurentis protecting his little sister would always come first. He could never forget the day his father brought him into his mother's recovery room to see her. Even with her eyes closed and peach fuzz covering her scalp, Jason knew Alison would protect him just a fiercely as he instantly desired to protect her. They needed protection. They needed a victor by their side to fight battles big or small. They needed someone else there when everything fell apart.

The six-year age gap had been their plans' biggest fault. Alison could never consider the turmoil surrounding him the years before she was born, and similarly, Jason was unable to foresee the decimation that took place the six years she had to live alone at home when he moved away for college. Depending on the way it was looked at, it was either extremely fortunate or exceedingly unfortunate that the DiLaurentis Family Decimation only took two years to occur from the time Jason moved across the country. Left in the wreckage of a messy, years-long divorce and a steadfast promise to never speak to either of her parents again, Alison lived at home in silence among her alcoholic mother the last year and a half of high school. As much as she hated to admit it, the start of Emily's dad's hospitalization was a welcomed interruption and a standing excuse to be at home as little as possible until graduation.

Upon moving to Boston, Alison quickly began renting an apartment with her brother, who at the end of his own college career, took the gutsy step of moving back to the east coast simply to watch over the last remaining person in his life that he deemed to be family at all. Senior year of high school had proven to be hellacious for Alison and having someone around her a majority of the time to keep her on track proved to be the best thing that happened to Alison in years. Over the next 3 years, Jason and Alison found their rhythm as adult siblings. They discovered how their emotional ticks from childhood had manifested into inane habits and even worse coping skills. But they also formed a bond that grew to be unbreakable as they aged.

For an extended time, Jason was the only person in Alison's life that knew she was gay. He watched as his sister stumbled through the door one night after her first drunken kiss with a girl in her Psychology class. He sat patiently on their couch as she relayed each moment, falling into his shoulder while she giddily giggled at the outcome of what was meant to be a casual night out. Jason hadn't had the opportunity to watch her go on dates during high school, but he could sense as much as his sister could that kiss was defining.

It was a moment more defined after she reconnected with Emily Fields. When he found out all four of his sister's high school friends were coming to visit, Jason beelined for the airport, both to escape the drama and to give them more room to spread out in their tiny two-bedroom apartment. The Alison he returned home to was so much more than the sister he left behind three days earlier. She appeared fulfilled. She carried herself with poise. And most noticeably, she smiled again.

It was the same toothy grin Jason witnessed when he tickled her in her crib.

It was the same twinkle Jason experienced as Alison watched her brother graduate from high school.

It was the same smirk she beamed into his shoulder after that first late-night kiss.

And her smile continued. Once a feature that Alison was unable to find through her family's sorrow, Alison's smile soon became an irreplaceable fixture because Emily drew it out of her. Emily captured a light within Alison that Jason had once only ever dreamed of being able to help his sister find. For that, he was so grateful. For that, he owed Emily everything.