This is Real

Take Off

A/N: Ok so in my head, the timeline in my head, it's already post Christmas by the end of this chapter, approaching spring. I'm not specifying because it's not really relevant. I just want time to pass normally. This chapter starts a month or two after the last one. (yeah sashay is slow in this fic.....)

"Back here again?"

Sasha looked up from where she was perched on Shay's porch, meeting Leo's kind eyes. She knew her own were probably somewhat distraught. Somewhat. Or maybe completely, she thought, as she offered a smile she knew she was doing a completely trashy job of faking. She got a kind one in return, and she decided the forced smile was worth it.

Because Shay was still not home, she decided maybe she didn't mind the company. Maybe for the last time, she wanted to say, but she didn't want Leo to know anything. She didn't want anyone to. She didn't want to even believe it. "Here again," she opted instead. "Sick of me, yet?"

Leo shrugged his shoulders. "I haven't exactly seen much of you."

He hadn't. In fact, Sasha had taken a week off. A week she'd begged the director and her PR to give her because she was maybe at her wits end, and she couldn't believe she was becoming one of those girls on TV she always scoffed at for being too affected by love. It was a different feeling, scoffing at herself. But it was there. And she maybe hated it.

But when she in that same situation, when she put herself in that scene where she was the one receiving all the uncertainty and the hurt, when she was the one having her heartbroken, she couldn't explain how much it hollowed her out. Like something was being cut out. All she could offer at the comment was a shrug.

Because she didn't like that Leo hadn't seen her, because that meant Shay didn't. And Shay not seeing her meant Sasha not seeing Shay. And that was the opposite of what Sasha actually wanted.

Leo was just about to say something when headlights lit up the road in front, and a very familiar car pulled up at the driveway.

"Good luck," Sasha heard from Leo, but she didn't see him go inside his house anymore because her eyes had locked on the car, and her heartbeat had elevated. Like it always did around Shay. She couldn't even see the young woman, yet.

With a heavy heart she stood, securing the duffel bag she had on her shoulder. She came here specifically so she could cut ties--and maybe hoped to be stopped. Filming for the last and final season of PLL was coming up in two weeks, and people were starting to get emotional. Sasha had to deal with saying goodbye to the show, everyone else, and this. This thing she had with Shay. Or something Sasha didn't really have with the brunette.

She stood now, waiting for Shay to step out so she could get this over with. She had to swallow because her mouth was suddenly dry, and her heard that was thudding quite obnoxiously on her chest was making her legs maybe a little wobbly. But she needed to do this. For her sake. And maybe for Shay's sake, too.

Clutching to the strap of the bag, Sasha watched Shay slide out of the car, hair as perfect as ever, the makeup for the last scene, light and natural, still on her face. Sasha tried not to think about the several reasons that Sasha fell in love with the older woman. That list that was constantly in her head. And Sasha had to control her emotions, chastising herself for being so easy because Shay getting out of her car felt like everything event though it was really nothing. It was just Shay getting out of a car.

Shay's eyes locked with Sasha's, brown eyes filled with curiosity. And maybe hope. Sasha couldn't really tell.

All Sasha knew was that to her dismay, Shay stepping out of the car made her fall in love again.