He helped Ali get cleaned up and then the two slept together that night. The next morning, they decided to not tell anyone, since, Dusty was about to be romantically involved with Emily. Shortly after, when Ali had gotten better, she was surprised when her ex-boyfriend Aaron Snyder returned to Oakdale. It was revealed that back in Seattle, Aaron barely had any time for her, and at one point, Ali thought he cheated on her, so she cheated on him to get back at him. It was all proven false in the end and Ali left Seattle because she felt ashamed of what she did to him. Aaron told her he did not care about that and came back to Oakdale to be with Ali again. After some more struggle, Ali gave and they gave their relationship another shot. It once again did not last very long, when Ali and Dusty discovered that their night had been filmed, and now, someone threatened to post the video on the web. Aaron found out and broke up with Alison. When Emily discovered, she was upset that she left town. Both Ali and Dusty felt guilty about Emily's hurt, but there was nothing they could do. To keep herself busy, Ali got back to her old job, and volunteered at Memorial Hospital. She worked for a while at the hospital, and bumped into ex-fiancé Chris Hughes, who had just returned to town and got his job as a doctor back. The two were glad to see each other and decided to get a drink. There, they ran into Emily, who had also just returned. Emily had forgiven both Dusty and Ali, and she turned out to be involved again with Chris, whom she met during her time away. Ali was happy hat her sister had finally found a man who genuinely liked her and told Chris not to break her heart. Around this time, Chris' nephew Casey Hughes was released from 9 months in prison and returned troubled to Oakdale. He and Ali struck up an immediate friendship and she also welcomed his old cellmate Matt O'Connor into her life. She and Matt soon felt attracted to each other and started dating. Ali came clean to him and told him her past as a porn start and drug addict, but he was okay with it and said everybody makes mistakes sometimes. After a