This season of "Pretty Little Liars" has been an emotional roller coaster for Paily fans.

Alison's return confused Emily, who realized she still harbored feelings for her former BFF. But throughout Emily's doomed exploration of those feelings, her feelings for Paige never changed. Paily seemed like an unsinkable ship -- until Paige hopped on a plane to Atlantic City, en route to San Francisco, to escape Rosewood (and "A") once and for all. Paily fans are still reeling from their OTP’s emotional goodbye in the airport terminal, but they're not the only ones.

Speaking to MTV News over the phone, "Pretty Little Liars" executive producer -- and fellow Paily stan -- Joseph Dougherty gave us the inside scoop on Paige and Emily's bittersweet "goodbye for now."

"I don't know what's going to happen for Emily and Paige, which is why when I wrote them parting in the airport, I wrote it the way I did," he said. "Paige very specifically says, 'No, it's not fair, but it is what's supposed to happen to us right now.' I wanted to leave the door open."

While it's safe to say the writers haven’t really figured out if Paige will return in season 6 -- they're currently in the planning stages -- whatever they decide will be in Emily's best interest.

"I can promise that whatever we do, we'll be as honest as we possibly can," Dougherty said. "As much as the fans love all of these characters -- and we love them too -- we have to respect them. And we're always trying to be as honest as we possibly can from moment to moment."

Dougherty has long been a Paily supporter in the "Pretty Little Liars" writers' room. In fact, his love for the characters even inspired several fictional short stories, which he published independently on Kindle Worlds. "It's sad and obsessive, yes," Dougherty joked. "As a writer, I'd love to have more opportunity to write for those two characters."

"Whenever I work with Shay [Mitchell]," he added. "I always end up not wanted to finish the scene because I just want to keep going. I could do Emily scenes all day long and be a very happy person."

But with power comes the great responsibility of storytelling, and Dougherty's loyalty lies first and foremost with the show and its characters.

"I come at this from at least three different points of view, and one of them is the job, which is basically you do need to create conflict for characters so that the characters themselves are interesting," he said. "I also approach it as a fan because I really like the couple, and I really like the actors. I've been surprised by how much fun I've had writing and directing them. And the arc of their relationship was arguably an important thing to do on television right now."

Emily's evolution from wallflower to warrior is one of the greatest triumphs of the series thus far. "She is now someone who will ask questions," Dougherty told us. "And that's so not the Emily that was Emily when Alison was around. That's a different girl."

And without Emily, Paige wouldn't have grown into the woman she became in later seasons either. When we first were introduced to Paige, she was angry and she didn't know how to deal with her feelings for Em. But Emily's empathy helped Paige realize that she could express her desire without feeling shameful. Their emotional journey is just one of the many reasons fans feel so strongly for Paily, and it's a journey we hope is far from over.

"It's also one of the great benefits -- almost a blessing -- of having the fans' support," Dougherty said. "It's allowed us to keep the show on. The longer we go, the deeper we can go. None of these characters are the same as they were in season 1, and we got to on this journey with them, which is the fun part of writing."