“Game Over, Charles” - Alternate Ending

THE A-TEAM

Charles DiLaurentis was a very bright young boy fascinated with life, nature, and anatomy. Unfortunately, his curiosity had a tendency toward the morbid, his excitement frequently violent. His parents sought advice from doctors and therapists on how to deal with their "difficult” son’s unusual behavior, hoping it would prove nothing more than a phase. After an extremely concerning “experiment” involving his baby sister and a bathtub when he was 8, they had no choice but to remove him from their home to ensure the safety of their other children.

Kenneth could never come to terms with what he viewed as the loss of his only son. Ashamed, he insisted Charles was no longer a DiLaurentis and demanded his siblings grow up without knowledge of their troubled brother. Jessica, however, couldn’t bear to abandon her oldest son and continued visiting him at Radley Sanitarium as much as she could. After 8 years of treatment, when Charles was 16, he was deemed mentally fit to be released from the institution. He wanted to come back home to Rosewood with his family, but knowing how much confusion and pain that would cause, Jessica could not allow it. She had a different plan. She would support him and help him establish a life outside of Radley under one condition: Charles would die, and he would begin living under a new identity, Wren Kingston.

Charles agreed, so Wren was born. After getting his GED, he attended college at Oxford University in England. He then pursued his life-long interest in science and biology at UPenn’s School of Medicine where he earned his MD. There, he met Melissa Hastings and asked her to marry him. As Wren, he had everything he could have dreamed of, a wonderful career, and a wonderful fiance; however, a part of him still mourned the life he never got to live as Charles. When Alison was found dead, he felt a sense of personal justice. It was fair that her life was taken away from her, because she’d caused his real life to be taken away from him.

After his engagement to Melissa, he relocated Rosewood where he began practicing medicine. Eventually, he acquired a part-time residency at the very institution he’d spent his formative years. Wren enjoyed being on the other side, being the person helping instead of the one being helped. But the more time he spent at Radley, the more the dark and twisted urges deep inside him started to resurface. Sessions with his patients began exciting him in an unhealthy manner; their delusions and crimes thrilled him.

One of his patients, Mona Vanderwaal, was particularly intriguing. Under the influence of her medication, she told him stories about his sister and her four best friends. He learned all about their secrets, lies, mischief, and the pain they brought to everyone they encountered. He learned that Alison, whose death had seemed like sweet vengeance, was actually still alive. Listening to Mona, he understood why she tortured those terrible girls and wanted to watch them suffer. He found himself wanting it, too.

Mona was incompetent; she couldn’t finish what she started But he was stronger, smarter, and as a doctor, well-equipped. With a little help from his friends - Melissa, who blamed Ali and the Liars for the death of her husband, and CeCe, who had yet to forgive them for her expulsion from college - Wren could succeed where Mona failed and take the girls down once and for all. Game on.