Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Do you have what I want?” Ali Dee questioned, looking Mayor Darkbloom directly in the eye, both knowing exactly what Nurse Dee was referring to.

Vivian didn’t hesitate to answer. She gave a slight smirk, as she answered Ali’s question; “Yes.”

She took a second to process it, but all the puzzle pieces came together, eventually.

(It should’ve hardly counted as a surprise).

Miss Dee responded, as she realized what had happened, and the whole thing came unraveling. “I should’ve guessed you were the one who put him up to it.”

Vivian shrugged, her demeanor remaining intact, smug and self-assured. “All I ever said to Mr Marin is that a real man would take back what was his.”

Vivian watched Ali Dee scowl - knowing it was that name, that statement, that set her off like this - and she knew that Vivian liked seeing her like this; powerless, behind these bars, in a complete state of agony (it was a feeling she liked inspiring in everyone, not just Miss Dee; no citizen in Rosewood was a stranger to Mayor Darkbloom’s cruelty - or Miss Dee’s, for that matter).

(She knew that there was no time - Sheriff Fields would be back with Lily and Grace soon - or value, for Nurse Dee to resist in the face of temptation. All that she could value laid in the palm on Vivian’s hand. And all Vivian craved in return were the words haunting her.)

Vivian yanked the object away from the bars, out of sight, away from Ali’s reach. 

Vivian stood up, and she asked one last time. “What. Is. Your. Real. Name?”

And the she held her head high, smiling in all her self-satisfactory glory, as if this question was one she’d been waiting for for a long time.

Then she answered the question, with the name that hadn’t been said out loud for 28 full years:

“Mona Vanderwaal.”