Seven months.

In seven months, their family of four would be back in Rosewood, readjusting to daily routines. In just over ten months, they would retrieve the gorgeous white gowns that had already been put on hold and have a joint bachelorette party the night before their meticulously planned autumn wedding.

Ali's heart leapt in her chest every time she thought of it- Emily standing directly across from her in a wedding dress, looking impossibly beautiful; Spencer guiding Grace and Lily down the aisle as they clutch bunches of rose petals in their tiny toddler hands; and, finally, exchanging paper tickets for a flight to Paris. All of that would be hers in ten months and fourteen days. But they needed to survive these seven months first.

"We should be almost there," Emily said from her spot behind the steering wheel.

Ali looked down at the GPS on her phone and nodded. "Any minute now."

Dusk had settled over the highway hours ago, and by now it was too dark to make out much aside from the black blur of passing trees. Alison couldn't recognize the winding Georgia roads of her childhood. She'd expected some sort of familiarity. Maybe the scenery would look more welcoming during the day.

Emily glanced over at her, seeming to sense her uncertainty.

"Ali…I understand if you're still feeling nervous about staying here," she said softly. "I know it's our first time out on our own, and it might be a little tough for the first few months not having my mom around to help us, but I just thought this was our best move when you consider the cost of tuition at other schools. We're saving so much getting my certifications here, and I guess I could've looked more into online classes, but-"

"Em, stop," Ali cut off her rambling with a playful eye roll. "We're a family. I would've followed you anywhere you wanted to go."

Emily smiled at that and reached over to hold her fiancée's hand. "Thank you for understanding. I just can't see myself coaching for the rest of my life."

"You should do whatever makes you happy," Ali said as she traced circles over tanned skin.

"And I want a higher salary, for them," Emily added, turning her head to take a quick glance at the sleeping baby girls in the back seat. "I just want to give them the world, you know? I don't want them to ever have to worry about anything."

Alison grinned and shook her head slightly. "I don't know if it's possible they won't ever have to worry about anything, but I can promise you we're going to give them an amazing childhood. I already know from my family what not to do as a parent. That's half the battle, right?"

They sat in comfortable silence for another few minutes, until they were pulling into a long, gravel driveway and the GPS announced they had reached their destination.

"So here we are. Home sweet home, at least for a while," Emily declared.

Though it was hard to make out the finer details of the house in the low light, Ali could already tell it looked different than it had appeared in photos. The white paneling on the outside looked older, more dated than expected, but it also looked larger in person. The Southern style wraparound porch reminded her of summers spent at her grandmother's house.

As soon as the car was parked, the twins opened their eyes and looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings, disoriented, before whimpering to be held.

"Hey, it's okay. Mama's got you," Emily cooed, opening the side door and unbuckling Lily.

Alison walked to the opposite side and picked up Grace. She held her close to her chest as she squirmed and planted a kiss to the soft blonde hair covering her head.

"Can you take them inside?" Emily asked. She carefully handed Lily over to Alison and fished in her bag for the house key. "I want to unpack everything we need before the delivery truck comes."

"Yeah, of course," Ali said. "Just worry about unpacking the overnight essentials. We can deal with everything else tomorrow."

As it turned out, the previous renters had done a decent job cleaning the house. The old hardwood floors were clear of dust, and aside from some burned out light bulbs and a few areas that needed to be baby-proofed, there wasn't any maintenance work to be done.

Emily and Alison set up a queen-size air mattress in what would become the master bedroom after the furniture arrived and placed their daughters' portable playpens in the room directly across the hall. It was far past the twins' bed time, but their extended nap in the car made them reluctant to go to sleep. Instead, they pulled a pile of stuffed animals onto the air mattress in between their mommies who had already given up on watching the movie streaming on Emily's laptop.

The girls had just turned one last week. To Emily, it seemed impossible a year had passed since she and Ali first brought them home. An entire year. Almost two years since Ali drove her to the fertility clinic after finding out she was donating her eggs, neither having the faintest idea where that decision would lead them.

Emily's blood still boiled when she thought too much about how her children had come into the world; the pained look on Ali's face when she told her what AD -no, Alex Drake- had done to her at Welby wasn't something she could easily forget.

But she tried not to think too much about it. Instead, she focused on the positives, like what Hanna said to her after finding out she and Ali were a couple.

"Did you already know something was up? Between me and Ali?" Emily asked.

"Aside from you two moving in together and deciding to have a baby?" Hanna responded, raising an eyebrow before taking a sip of her coffee.

"Hanna," Emily sighed. She leaned forward and lowered her voice so the other customers in the Brew couldn't listen in. "You know we didn't exactly choose this."

"You didn't choose for it to happen, but you chose what to do about it. And, I don't know, it just seems like there needs to be a lot of love there already to handle it like you have. This situation would tear most people apart.

"And to answer your question," Hanna continued. "Yeah, I already knew. I've known for years. I'm just glad you guys finally figured it out."

"I think they're finally wearing out," Ali said, bringing Emily back to the present. Lily rested her head against Alison's chest, one arm thrown around her in a half hug while the other held onto a stuffed bear. Grace had assumed a position stretched out diagonally between her and Alison. She could barely keep her eyes open as she sucked on her pacifier.

"Looks like it's bed time," Emily said, scooping up Grace.

"No no no," the tiny girl protested tiredly.

"No!" Lily echoed, and Emily exchanged a glance with Alison over what had become a nightly occurrence since they learned the word. They would kick and cry and struggle as one-year-olds do, but it never lasted long.

Just like every other night, both babies were knocked out in a matter of minutes despite their attempts to stay awake. Emily and Alison carried them to the other room, settled them into the temporary cots, and took a moment to admire them before turning off the lights.

"Lily's eyes are getting darker," Alison noted as they made their way back to their room and settled down onto the mattress. "It's like they haven't decided yet whether they want to be brown or blue."

"I hope they keep their blonde hair," Emily said. She reached over and tucked a piece of Alison's hair behind her ear. It was the same beautiful golden shade their daughters were blessed with. Ali looked back at her, and it still amazed Emily to this day how she could see Alison's features visibly soften when they were together like this.

It was quiet for a long moment. There wasn't a sound in the house, or the whole world for that matter. It was just the two of them laying a few inches apart, and Emily knew what would come next. Her stomach fluttered in anticipation.

Ali brushed the rest of the stuffed toys off the mattress so she could move in closer. Emily met her halfway with a kiss, and they both knew it wasn't a quick, goodnight, we'll talk in the morning type of kiss. It was deeper than that, full of intention and a guarantee they'd be up a while longer.

Ali fumbled with the buttons on Emily's oversized sleep shirt. After it was over her head and cast aside, she paused and said, "You know, I haven't spent more than a week away from Rosewood since I was on the run. All those years wishing I could escape, only to realize I never wanted to leave again."

Emily paused at the unexpected words. She'd been planting kisses along Alison's neck and jawline, but now she pulled back and looked at her fiancée in concern.

"No…I didn't think about that," Emily said tentatively, wondering why she was bringing this up now when everything seemed to be going so well. "If something's wrong and you don't want to be here, you need to tell me, okay? I'm serious."

Ali still seemed relatively nonchalant. "Relax. I was just gonna say it feels different now."

"What do you mean?"

Ali tugged her own long sleeve t-shirt over her head and pulled Emily close to her again. "I'm not alone this time, and I feel like we're going to be just fine."

She kissed Emily again, slowly, and the latter sighed in relief. "You've gotta stop doing this," Emily said after they'd parted, only half-joking. She reached around Ali's back to unhook her bra. "You scared me."

"There's nothing to be scared of anymore," she said in that soft, sweet voice she reserved for Emily and only Emily as she rolled over and pulled the other girl on top of her. "We'll be fine. It might even be fun. An adventure, like you said." The last few words came out in a sultry whisper. She went back to kissing around Emily's ear. The brunette buried her head in the other girl's shoulder and closed her eyes in contentment.

Somewhere between the feeling of Ali's fingertips traveling down her back, the heat coursing through her, and the softness of Ali's skin under her own wandering hands, it occurred to Emily that this was the start of something. It wasn't their first time together, not even close, but it was the first time they were together like this in an unfurnished house, on their own someplace new where no one would know the horrors they'd endured.

It was nothing college Emily would have ever expected and yet it was everything fourteen-year-old Emily ever longed for. And with the woman she loved pressed against her, hand brushing up the inside of her thighs and her heart pounding, all she could feel was pure exhilaration that they were actually here, that this moment was actually real and it was hers.

Covington High School resembled Rosewood High in some ways, but it appeared completely isolated from the rest of town. In reality, it was only a few miles away from the subdivisions which in turn were not far removed from the city. The curved oak trees and the open pasture surrounding the school gave the illusion that it was out in the country.

"Ready?" Alison asked Emily as she got out of the car, careful not to knock over Emily's university pamphlets and textbooks they'd retrieved from the local college campus earlier in the morning. She was fully registered and ready to start classes, so now it was Alison's turn to officially accept her new teaching position at the high school.

"Yep!" Emily said as she walked alongside her. She seemed particularly bright and cheery today, and Alison smiled warmly at her. "I scheduled my classes to end right around lunch, so I think I'm going to accept the part time assistant coaching job."

"Wait, really?" Ali tilted her head toward the other woman. "I thought you decided against that. You don't want to overextend yourself, Em. Especially with Lily and Grace being in daycare. One of them might get sick or need to be picked up…"

"We didn't really account for that in our budget. I just figured we could use the extra money," Emily shrugged.

Alison wanted to argue that money wasn't an issue, but it was true that daycare they'd selected after carefully considering quality ratings ended up being twice the cost they'd anticipated. On top of that, they still hadn't quite made up the money invested in renovating the Lost Woods. She'd tried to ignore it for the past several months because they were still getting along fine. However, sometimes she felt guilt settle in the pit of her stomach when she wondered if her teacher's salary was part of the problem.

But she loved teaching. Way more than she'd expected to, actually. Even with the occasional troublesome student. It was worth it when she saw the impact her words had on some students and how it reflected in their essays. She enjoyed working at the school with a passion Emily said she lacked in her own job the past several months.

Alison knew everything was how it should be and the guilt was irrational, but she still felt a lump in her throat when Emily mentioned their finances.

"You don't have to worry about being the provider. I can handle it for a few months," Alison said. Then, realizing her defensive tone, she paused and added in a gentler voice, "You do so much for me and the girls. Honestly, I couldn't ask you for anything more."

"Ali," Em said, turning to face her, "I want to do this. It's only a few hours a day."

"Okay, if you're sure," Ali relented with a sigh.

Their conversation was cut short when the front door of the school opened and a middle-aged woman in business clothes- the principal, Ali guessed- waved them over.

"You must be Miss DiLaurentis," she said politely. "I'm Amy Reed, vice principal." She had shoulder length blonde hair and freckles, along with a twangy accent that sounded like it came straight out of a movie.

"Nice to finally meet you," Ali said with her best charming smile. She stepped into the building, immediately noticing the heater was on even though the Georgia winter outside was far from freezing. Emily stepped in right behind her and they both followed the woman to her office.

"I have all the paperwork ready for you to sign. And I see you brought a friend," she said, and Alison stopped in her tracks.

"Actually…" she started, but Emily beat her to it.

"No, I'm Emily Fields, the one who talked to you on the phone earlier this month. I asked about the hours for the coaching job because I was still waiting to get my class schedule," she explained, shifting uncomfortably. "We just moved here. Together."

"Oh," Amy said, sounding flustered. Alison saw her eye the diamond ring on Emily's finger. "Oh. Well I…I should go get the information on the coaching job. Wait here. I'll be back in a minute."

The two girls looked at each other after she had left, having a conversation through unspoken words. It felt even hotter in the room now than it had before. Ali pressed her lips together in annoyance. Back in Rosewood, she rarely had to deal with strangers reacting to her and Emily being together. The world had changed so much in ten years, but now she was reminded that the South seemed to move a little slower in that regard.

"They're not going to give us any trouble. No one can," Emily assured her. "I think she was just caught off guard."

"I know," Ali said, gripping Emily's hand. "It just irritates me."

"Good news," Amy said when she walked back through the door. Her cheeks were still flushed, but she was at least looking them in the eye now. "The assistant swim coach position is still open, and practice hours are from 2 to 4:45 Monday through Friday. The natatorium is across campus, so you'll work in there, and you only need to check in the main building for faculty meetings every Friday morning at 7, before the students get here."

"Can you make that time?" Alison asked Emily.

"Yeah, I can. If it lasts till 8, I might have to leave 10 minutes early to make it to class, if that's okay."

"That shouldn't be a problem," Amy said. She placed her palms on the desk in front of her. "If you don't mind me asking, what are you studying?"

"I already have my bachelor's in kinesiology, but I wanted to get further certifications so I can work either in sports medicine or in physical therapy. It depends on what jobs are out there," she said.

"Ah, good. Well I have both your resumes on file and everything seems to be in order. I need you to sign some documentation so we can officially place you in your positions. We should have everything ready by next Monday if you're available to start at that time."

She spread various papers across the table and soon everything was finalized.

Later, Alison and Emily walked out the school, both thinking of what would await them in the coming months.

"Well, we have about half a week to settle in and relax after we get the furniture put in. We should probably go wait for the movers to get here," Emily said. She paused before they got to the car, taking a moment to look up at the clear, cloudless sky and feel the cool breeze.

Alison watched Emily twist her engagement ring around her finger. Since she gave it to her seven months ago, the brunette had only removed it to take showers or wash dishes, and Ali caught her looking at it fondly all the time.

"They're not coming for a few hours. I say we take advantage of a nice day. We should go explore the city a little, and then we can pick up the girls and get something to eat. How does that sound?" Ali asked, taking Emily's hand again.

"That sounds good, too," Emily agreed.

As they reached the vehicle, Emily noticed a fluttering paper sign loosely taped against a streetlight.

"What's this?" she asked as Alison helped her smooth down the paper to get a closer look. There was a picture of a woman who looked to be in her mid-twenties. She had long, wavy brown hair and a heart shaped face.

Alison gulped as she read the word at the top of the poster. It reminded her of something all too familiar: an image of her own face that she couldn't get out of her brain, forever fifteen and fearless. And gone. Missing.

A man jogging by threw a look in their direction. "She's the second one in three months," he called out as he ran past. "You two be careful out here!"

"No," Emily said, shaking her head. "We're not going through this again. This isn't Rosewood."

"Exactly," Ali responded, though she couldn't quite shake the feeling in her stomach that was somewhere between dread and déjà vu. "This is the start of someone else's nightmare, not ours. We already survived. Come on, let's go."

A/N: Okay, here we go! The premise of this story was inspired by rumors of Emily and Alison being teachers in a new town on the Perfectionists. That being said, this has nothing to do with that series. It's about Emison moving someplace new on their own and learning to face challenges together, while also getting caught up in the drama of their surroundings. There will be periodic appearances of other pll characters.

My update schedule will depend on how quickly I write because I'd like to stay a few chapters ahead before posting. I'm currently working on chapter 5. Thanks for reading! Review if you can :)