Needs, Wants, Desires, and Dreams

All I Ever Wanted

A/N: Trigger warning: The beginning of this chapter deal with trauma and hints of PTSD.

July 23, 2015

Her eyes shot open from the sound of breaks screeching. Breath heavy. Body trembling. Heart racing. Emily had felt Alison jump beneath her touch. She began absentmindedly placing tender kisses against the top of Alison's left breast, where Emily's head still lay from when they fell asleep only an hour earlier. Alison's hand delicately cupped around her wife's hip as she trailed her fingers up Emily's bare spine to move her wife's head over to her own pillow so she could get out of bed.

Movement had been an obstacle in the DiLaurentis-Fields household for the past few days since they'd returned home. From the cramping and discomfort from Emily's D & C procedure to Alison's multiple stitches and bruises riddling her body from top to bottom, each of them had found momentary pleasure in their lovemaking hours earlier. It was the first release from reality either had experienced in the week following such a traumatic day. Alison groaned as she twisted her body to the right to climb off of their King-sized bed.

"Al, what's going on?"

"Don't worry, baby. I just need some air, okay?" Alison leaned back, begrudgingly over the bed in pain before kissing Emily, "I love you."

"I love you, too," Emily replied with her eyes still closed, smiling back into her pillow as Alison walked in the bathroom. She turned on the light, closing and locking the door behind her.

Her feet had never felt so heavy as the continued screeching and clashing of metal in her head sent a piercing buzz through her brain. Alison stayed feet away from the bathroom counter as she turned to face their mirror. Her nude reflection still startled her. A giant blackish-blue bruise coated a majority of her abdomen, the clearest indication of her internal bleeding replicated on her skin. She noted that the swelling of her bottom lip had gone down quite a bit from where her top teeth dug into it at the onset of impact. But more garish were what appeared to be over three dozen individual cuts covering her from head to toe. Only a few had required stitches: the vertical cut down her right bicep, three separate cuts going down her left leg, and one on her left side just below her ribs. All from glass as multiple windows and items in the car shattered around her. The other stitch marks were across her stomach from tubes used to suction blood pooling inside her from the traumatic accident, which had caused a rupture in her spleen.

Alison stared at the stranger in the mirror in front of her. She saw injury after injury that could've led to her bleeding out in her car.

"But you survived." She whispered to herself as her fingers lingered across her skin, feeling the peaks forming from the soon to be permanent scars. "You were given a second chance."

Chance.

It was an unfortunate choice of words. Her body represented the aftermath of a crushing blow. To Emily. To Alison. To Liam. To Chance.

Alison began mumbling a memorized obituary from the Sunday paper, "Chance Andrew Baker, 23, died Wednesday, July 15, 2015, at Rosewood Memorial Hospital. He was born in Philadelphia on February 12, 1992, son of Elizabeth (Trent) and Gregory Baker. Chance was a dedicated and loyal medical resident at the hospital –"

Her voice echoed over and over again as she pointed to each mark, "Chance after Chance after Chance." Her breathing became more and more labored as she continued reinternalizing her guilt until it compounded into a load too heavy to bear. Her fist pounded on the marble countertop repeatedly, not caring if bones shattered through the force.

"Alison?" she heard Emily whisper through the door, jiggling the lock quickly, hoping that it would magically come undone.

"I'm fine!" Alison shouted back over her shoulder as she lifted her hand, rubbing the side of her palm.