Hello! So, if you're not sick of me yet, here's another piece of work. And I mean piece of work. I figured my last story was really heavy and emotional and angsty, so I decided to write something new to more or less lighten the mood. Here's some fluff for you- a nice proposal fic. So if you're keeping count now, I think I'm up to 34 proposals? 35? I've lost count now. I have a problem. Or at the very least, an obsession. :D
I own nothing and no one, as usual, and the title comes from (please do not judge me or my other obsession) my newest favorite scent at Bath and Body Works. It literally smells like a party in a bottle and I recommend it. :D This is random and the complete definition of mindless fluff, but I hope you enjoy it anyway. :D I figured we could all use something a little happier given the circumstances of the show and, let's be real, Spoby. Oh, before I go, let me give a shout out to Laura for being a huge nag and and for also being a wonderful human being. She's the reason this fic exists and she's also the real MVP here. Thank you all for taking the time to support me even though I'm super annoying and I hope you enjoy!
A Thousand Wishes
The old monsters climb out from beneath her bed, shuffle through her backyard and finally leave her alone for good.
Things are different, now. Honestly, Spencer had always believed that their troubles would be solved when they defeated –A in one last, long, bloody battle and that she could finally stop wishing for an end and wishing for peace and happiness upon the completion of their torment, but things are not that way. There is no instant gratification; new monsters soon take up residence in her mind, nagging ones, and though these are easier to handle, they leave her with a whole slew of new insatiable desires and Spencer wonders if she'll ever be satisfied.
She wishes she had chosen a school abroad where tuition is free, because she's twenty-five years old and she's pretty sure her great grandchildren, at this rate, will still be paying off her student loans (her entry-level job, for which she is overqualified and underpaid, is not cutting it, either).
She wishes she could figure out how to spice up her resume a little better to catch an employer's eye, because she's been applying for job after job and either getting no response or, her favorite, the "thanks, but no thanks" email. It's a blow to her already very bruised ego every time.
She wishes she had more money in her bank account, because she refuses to touch the coveted savings she's been earning since she was born but rent and utilities basically bankrupt her each month and she lives on ramen noodles and cereal for the better half of a week while she recovers.
She wishes she felt more at home in this city, because although she does love the rush and the nightlife and anonymity the hundreds of thousands of faces assure her, she feels lost and out of place and she's not totally happy. Secretly, she's counting down the days until she's done with grad school and they can move on.
She wishes she saw her friends more often, because all four of them (five, if you count Alison, which Spencer rarely does) fled Rosewood the second the ordeal was behind them and they scattered across the country. This does not bode well for quick coffee dates or catching up over lunch, but they try to FaceTime as often as they can and they've got a group text going since last March (Spencer hasn't deleted a single message; it's therapeutic sometimes to scroll up and see a travel picture Emily's sent or read juicy gossip about the latest guy Aria's hooked up with or laugh until her sides hurt at something that's come out of Hanna's very profane mouth).
She wishes their apartment were bigger. Truthfully she does; she isn't materialistic in the slightest and the House of Hastings had always been much too large for four people (she used to wander the empty corridors as a child and play hide and seek with her shadows), but their tiny, cramped New York City apartment is outrageously small. It's twelve steps from the stove to the front door, twenty-three from the front door to the toilet, and thirty from the toilet to her side of the bed. She bangs her elbow on the wall every time she stretches out on the couch and walks into the kitchen counter each time she enters the room. They need a bigger place before her body becomes an atlas of bruises.
She wishes she had more free time to spend with her boyfriend. There's not much to wish concerning her relationship with Toby and she's glad; they're rock solid and have been for years. But they don't get to spend nearly as much time together as she'd like and it breaks the both of them. He's up early for work and out of the apartment before she's barely cracked an eyelid and when she comes home late at night, he's already dead to the world. He goes back to carpentry the second they leave Rosewood and he travels a lot, too. When she can, she goes with him, but it isn't often enough. Every now and then, she thinks about it- Toby, next time you go to London, you're taking me with you and we're never coming back. Someday, she hopes to make that a reality.
And so it's these tiny monsters, miniscule in comparison to her past ones but ferocious all the same, that get to Spencer now. She'd had different wishes back then- to find an answer, to put an end to the torture, to make it out alive- but they'd still been wishes all the same. It seems funny to her that she's escaped that life and found a new one, only to be left in the same spot.
She wishes and wishes and wishes. She wonders if there will ever be a day when she'll stop wishing.
Things have changed in the nine years they've been together; that much is true. In fact, so much has changed, he's not sure he could even point his teenage self out of a lineup.
The only thing that remains constant is their resilient, everlasting, unwavering love. Toby still looks at Spencer and finds himself grinning like a love-struck idiot.
But still, so much has changed; they've changed, too. They're not the battered, paranoid kids they were when they left Rosewood behind and never looked back and he likes to think they'd grown up considerably since then. Upon Spencer's high school graduation, she'd gone off to Georgetown and they'd done the long distance thing for approximately one semester before realizing they were both miserable without one another and by the time classes started again in January, he'd moved down there with her. While everyone else was splitting up and parting ways with their high school significant others (Spencer's own roommate had lost her boyfriend one night; Toby had walked his girlfriend back to her dorm room to find the young girl sobbing hysterically on her cell phone and he'd felt incredibly guilty parading their very successful love in her face), the two of them grew stronger and held each other closer than ever. It wasn't easy even with him in the same state, but it was better than the alternative.
And that's how he's always tried to think- on the bright side. They had their differences and their difficulties and their bad times- they're both much too stubborn and much too passionate for their own good, sometimes- but they also had some great times, too, over the years. He'd made the decision, her sophomore year at Georgetown, to get his degree, too, and his father had been thrilled by his sudden burst of ambition and he'd paid Toby's full tuition at a state college in the city. They stayed up together, studying and swapping facts, quizzing one another as he traded points in architecture ("Did you know Antoni Gaudí is actually buried at the Sagrada Familia, his unfinished project, and that each of its eighteen towers is significant?" Toby had asked one night and she'd shaken her head, eyes wide. "Twelve of the towers will represent the apostles, four of them will represent the evangelists, one will represent the Virgin Mary and, obviously, the tallest one will represent Jesus Christ.") for different biological and genetic diseases ("So MCADD stands for medium-chain acyl-coenzyme A dehydrogenase deficiency," Spencer explains and he waits for her to translate this into English. "It's an autosomal recessive disorder of fatty acid oxidation. Basically, your body needs energy to do things and we get this energy from food, which gets stored as fatty acids until we actually need it, but someone with MCADD can't do this because they're missing a key enzyme and when their energy stores are depleted, they're in serious trouble."). She'd still outsmarted him in every way but they'd graduated and gotten degrees and she'd gone onto grad school while he'd found work in an architecture firm in New York.
They'd gone on their first ever vacation together back in her junior year of school, on spring break, to celebrate their fifth anniversary. Together, they'd chosen Paris and she'd spoken circles around him in French while he struggled to remember the basic phrases and she'd teased him about having to give him a refresher lesson on the spot. They'd been complete tourists; taking kissing selfies at the Eiffel Tower and napping at the Lourve (okay, he'd napped at the Lourve; Spencer had been absolutely captivated by each work of art and Toby had been excited about the Mona Lisa and then the rest looked like something out of a kindergarten class) and getting lost along the Champs-Élysées. It had been the trip of a lifetime and honestly, neither of them is sure, to this day, when they'll be able to afford another like that. They've been buried in schoolwork and actual work ever since.
It's years later, now; November fourth, exactly two days before their ninth anniversary. He's up bright and early for work, although it's much earlier than it is bright; the sun has yet to come up over the city that never sleeps and the streetlights and billboards are still burning brightly, unable or unwilling to let go of the relentless night. If he's being perfectly honest, it had been excruciatingly difficult to get out of bed this morning. A cold winter chill has already grabbed the city by the throat, choking the last hope of autumn out of each of its residents and leaving the air biting and windows frosty. Toby had been shaken out of a sound sleep by his blaring alarm and the chill already settling over the apartment in the early hours of the morning and it was a crime, really, that he had to leave his very warm bed and equally warm girlfriend, who by some miracle got to sleep in two hours later than he did. He thinks about this now, as he's halfway through brushing his teeth, and frowns. Spencer doesn't appreciate sleep like a normal human does and he's pretty sure those two extra hours are being wasted on her.
He takes a quick shower and pulls on jeans and a sweater as the skies begin to lighten and the fog on the bathroom mirror eases and creeps out like the tide. There's movement in the adjoining bedroom and he's right; Spencer's completely letting sleep slip through her fingers. It makes him chuckle even if he does slightly envy and not totally understand her. He reaches for the door handle and jams his thumb like he does every time- he'd say their apartment is like a shoebox, but that's an insult to shoeboxes, honestly- and cursing inwardly, he grapples with the door to step back into the bedroom. At the sight of his girlfriend, whom he'd left sleeping soundly literally twenty minutes ago, he chuckles and all thought of the pain in his thumb goes by the wayside. She's dressed in a light blue button down of his, haphazardly buttoned at that and falling off her left shoulder, and nothing else, standing on their bed and trying desperately to reach for the switch on their ceiling fan. It's a rickety thing that sounds like a cat in a blender when it's running and they're always sure it's going to fall from the ceiling and kill both of them, so he's not sure why she's trying to turn it on. Also, it's thirty degrees outside. He can't quite seem to grasp her logic, but the temperature of their apartment is something they are constantly fighting over.
"Hey, calm down, Elsa," Toby calls to her and she glances his way, pursing her lips. "It's already an ice cave in here."
"Maybe I'm going through menopause before my time," Spencer calls back. "But I'm melting over here."
"Need I remind you that last night, you were freezing and wouldn't let me touch the thermostat?" Toby asks and she shakes her head.
"No, you need not," She replies. "That was last night. This is now. Besides, you know that thing goes from zero to sixty and we'd both be hypothermic within the hour."
"Yeah, but if we turned it on, you'd be cooler right now," Toby suggests. "Or you could just step outside because it's below freezing."
"Just let me take my life into my hands with this fan," Spencer says. "It's not that serious. I just need a breeze."
Toby shakes his head, momentarily ducking back into the bathroom. "I don't understand you, sometimes."
"I don't understand you!" She calls back.
He chuckles and then asks, "Why aren't you asleep? It's not even six a.m."
"It's six-oh-three," She corrects him. "You left me. I can't sleep without you and you know this."
Toby grins, poking his head back into the bedroom. "You can't sleep without me?"
She rolls her eyes, still blindly grappling with the fan. "You know this."
He abandons ship, momentarily captivated as he always is by her, and steps closer. "That's pretty cute."
"It's not," Spencer disagrees. "I like to pretend I'm one of those kick-ass, 'don't need no man' women we outlined in my women's studies class, but then I remember last month when you were away for a job in Connecticut and I literally went through an entire bottle of ZzzQuil in three days and I know that's not true."
Toby laughs, his head thrown back, as he reaches for her, his hands on her waist. "You never told me that."
"Why would I tell you that? It's so bad," She shakes her head. "ZzzQuil did nothing for me, by the way, except destroy my liver and make me extra tired and a little drunk."
"I missed drunk Spencer?" He laments. "Drunk Spencer is one of my favorite Spencers."
"Ha, ha," She muses playfully. "Please tell me you're just as pathetic."
"I'm just as pathetic," He nods and she mustn't believe him, for he feels the need to add, "Seriously. Do you know how many windows there were on the north tower of the hotel we were staying at last month?"
"Um, no?"
"Five hundred and thirty six," Toby recites from memory. "Yeah, I could see the tower from my window and I counted them all the first night we were there because that's how much I wasn't sleeping."
"Oh my god," Spencer beams. "You're a freak just like me."
"That's us," He chuckles. "Two freaks in love."
She laughs too and bends at the waist to meet his lips with hers. She pulls away much too soon for his liking to ask, "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"Mm," He shakes his head. "I'd rather be right where I am."
An inquisitive look appears in her eyes before surprise colors them instead. He drops his hands from her waist to the backs of her knees and gives a gentle tug, his grin growing wider as she falls back against the mattress, her squeals of surprise melting into elated laughter instead. Crawling on top of her, Toby swipes hair off of her face and attaches their lips at once, completely disregarding the fact that he should probably be on his way to the subway by now if he wants to arrive to work fifteen minutes early as he usually does, just in case. He pushes these thoughts out of the forefront of his mind; he's got more important things to focus on right now. They kiss feverishly for a few moments, hands roaming everywhere at once, and Toby's just begun to toy with the buttons on the shirt of his she's wearing when she pulls back a bit, placing a hand on his chest. He can see desire swimming in the deepest amber of her eyes, but it's shrinking, and he wishes he could call it back.
"Toby," She warns, her voice husky and low. "Don't start something you can't finish."
"Oh, I fully intend on finishing," He promises, his eyebrows flicking upwards suggestively, and she grins before they're kissing again.
"You need to leave," She pulls away again, attempting to be the voice of reason.
Toby sighs. "I'll still have time. I've got thirty minutes before I need to be at my desk."
"That doesn't include the subway commute-"
"Five, ten minutes tops."
"- Or the walk to the office-"
"It's a block from the subway station. It's not far."
"- Or the elevator time-"
"How long could that possibly take?"
"What if something happens? What if you get stuck in the elevator or the subway breaks down or you slip on black ice and break an ankle?"
"Ah, right, my eternal pessimist," Toby shakes his head, balancing on his elbows to look her proper in the eye. "Are you trying to get rid of me?"
"No, of course not," Spencer insists. "I'd obviously rather you stay."
"Then are you the thermostat?" Toby asks and at the confusion in her eyes, he adds, "Because I can't seem to turn you on."
Her reaction takes him by surprise; she bursts into hysterical laughter and shoves him off of her, sitting up to wipe the tears of mirth from her eyes as he stumbles and tries to steady himself without falling off the bed. "Believe me," she assures him. "You've never had an issue in that area."
He grins and then falters a bit, catching sight of the clock over her shoulder. "I have to go to work."
"Mm. You do," She agrees. "I should get ready for class. I have a little over an hour, but if I leave early, I can stop for Starbucks on the way."
He smirks. "There's a Starbucks on the way? Why am I not surprised?"
"Are you kidding? There's a Starbucks on every corner; it's New York," Spencer grins and stands, crossing the room to get dressed and stopping to kiss him chastely once more. "Go. You're not going to be fifteen minutes early, now."
"That's okay," He grabs her hand, pulls her down onto his lap and kisses her again. She relents. "This is always worth it."
Spencer beams and caresses his cheek, saying, "Just think, if you'd woken me up earlier, with you… What could we have gotten ourselves into?"
"You looked way too peaceful to disturb," Toby disagrees. "But it's okay. I intend on making up for this morning in spades this weekend."
Spencer frowns. "Will you ever tell me what we're doing for our anniversary? I hate surprises."
"No, you don't."
"I do!" She insists. "What should I prepare for? Are we staying in or going out? Are we going out to dinner or are you going to attempt to burn the apartment down again?"
"Hey, it barely sparked," Toby says. "I had it out before you noticed."
"I noticed."
"Okay, I had it out before you figured out the fire extinguisher," Toby says and she smirks. "No, I'm not cooking and no, we're not going out. You'll see."
"I hate 'you'll see'," She whines. "Just give me one little hint."
"One little hint?"
"Please!"
"Um…" He pretends to consider this and then says the one word he knows will drive her wild. "Rosewood."
"Rosewood?" Spencer balks. "Wait, Rosewood? You're joking, though, right? You're just fucking with me?"
"No. You asked for a little hint and my little hint is Rosewood," Toby shrugs and she climbs off of his lap in disdain. "Take it or leave it."
"Leave it. Definitely leave it," She shakes her head. "I don't want to spend our anniversary in Rosewood. I hate Rosewood."
"Me too," Toby agrees. "It's the worst town of all time."
"Then please tell me you're just fucking with me!" She pleads. "Toby, you can't seriously-"
"Okay, one more detail because you're not going to let this go," Toby says. "Do you want the good news or the bad news?"
Spencer frowns, her hands on her hips. "The bad."
"The bad?" Toby shakes his head. "Right. Eternal pessimist. Got it. The bad news is, we really are spending our anniversary in Rosewood."
Spencer sighs. "Toby…"
"Do you want the good news or not?"
"Is the good news that you're actually just fucking with me and we're not-"
"No! It's not!" Toby interrupts. "The good news is that you still have a boyfriend who loves you enough to plan a romantic anniversary weekend away despite the fact that you're trying to cancel it."
"I'm not trying to cancel it," Spencer softens. "I'm excited to go away with you and I guess, as long as we're together, it doesn't matter where we are."
"There we go. That's better." Toby nods. "That was my thinking, too."
Actually, it wasn't.
In fact, he'd been planning this Rosewood getaway weekend for months and the exact location had been integral to his course of action. He'd watched her, as a powerless teenager, get tortured and tormented and troubled by this town's actions and all the people in it. He'd watched as more and more people ended up dead and each time, Spencer and the girls were to blame, even though none of them had so much as looked at the victim funny. He'd watched and waited for things to be different, had even tried to fight the tireless fight with them, both on their side and from the other side, and they'd fallen apart numerous times instead. On the night before the final showdown, Toby had held a trembling Spencer in his arms and promised her, vowed his soul, that they would leave Rosewood for good and not come back. He had every intention of keeping that promise until he sat down one day and really looked at the town and what it had actually given them.
Somehow, all the terror and the death threats and the sleepless nights wracked with anxiety became worth it when he realized he wouldn't have her without them. Rosewood had thrown them in each other's path and if they hadn't both been falsely accused of murdering one very alive girl, they likely wouldn't have connected as easily as they had. Rosewood had taken away all hope, but had also given them some as well, in the form of one another. It had given them the love and acceptance they so desperately needed. It had given them hugs that felt like home, a sense of security they'd never felt in any other, and something they craved, searched for and looked forward to whenever they were apart. It had given them heartache but also so many wonderful reunions. It had given them Scrabble nights and The Catcher in the Rye and afternoons spent lazing in the afternoon sun, conjugating French verbs. It had been the birthplace of their grand, wonderful, beautiful love. It had been the beginning of their forever.
And Toby knows, deep down, that he'll not only cherish these memories forever, but he'll have her forever.
But this weekend, he plans on making it official.
"Toby?" Spencer asks, grounding him to reality once more. "You spaced out on me."
"Sorry," He shakes his head, pastes on a smile, wills his nerves back into their cage where they belong. "I was just thinking about this weekend. Despite the Rosewood factor, I think you'll enjoy it."
"Of course I will. I'll be with you the whole time," Spencer grins. "I'm sorry I freaked out. I tend to overreact to things."
"You do."
Spencer decides, "This weekend is going to be perfect."
"Yes," Toby agrees. "That's what I'm counting on."
They hit the road the next afternoon. Originally, Toby had planned on getting an earlier start, but Spencer had been dead-set against skipping her Friday mid-morning immunology lab ("I can't just not show up! What if we find a cure for lupus? What if I skipped class on the day we found a cure for lupus?!") and thus, they hadn't gotten on the highway until well after three o'clock. Spencer's jittery and unsettled in the passenger seat beside him the entire way and it's only partly from the giant travel mug of coffee in the cup holder. Her nerves and anxiety return each time they make the begrudging trip to Rosewood and no matter how many times she tries to convince herself she's okay. To be honest, he's never pleased to come back here, either; he always looks at Rosewood and sees the cracks in the otherwise perfect exterior, the seams in the torn fabric bursting with secrets and lies. For a moment, Toby wonders if this is even worth it- should he have picked a different locale altogether? Should he turn around right now and never look back? But then he remembers a conversation they'd once had, back when they'd both been scared and naïve yet determined. It just looks like a town. That's all it is.
They just pass the deep cobalt 'Welcome to Rosewood' sign when Spencer quips, "It's Hanna and Caleb's anniversary weekend too, you know. They have us beat by one day."
"I know," Toby replies. "But we took our time to at least get to know each other instead of going from zero to sixty overnight."
"That's true," She grins. "I definitely wasn't ready to have sex with you that night. I was literally only thinking about Scrabble and –A."
"Yeah, you were even too scandalized by the shirt I was offering you. And sharing a bed? The horror!" He teases and then backtracks, realizes what she's said, and asks, "Wait, what does sex have to do with anything? We hadn't even kissed yet."
"Because the night of our Scrabble sleuthing adventure was the first time Caleb and Hanna…" She trails off, catches the look on his face, and concludes, "You didn't know that."
"No. I don't need to know that," Toby says. "Why do you know that?"
"She's my best friend," Spencer offers, a blanket statement. "We talk about things."
"Those things?"
"All things."
"Wow. Okay," Toby nods and adds, teasingly, "I'm definitely going to be more careful with what I tell you from now on."
"No!" She whines. "We've been so good at telling each other everything lately. No secrets, remember?"
"I'm kidding," He placates her. "You know I wouldn't dream of keeping a secret from Nancy Drew."
She grins, seemingly satisfied with his answer, and they continue on through the winding, familiar streets. She takes in the sights for a moment before asking, "So what's the plan for this weekend? Are you finally going to tell me what you've got up your sleeve?"
"Obviously not. That would ruin the surprise," Toby says and grins when she frowns. "But I figured since our anniversary is a weekend-long affair, why not start the celebration tonight?"
"Yes! Can we?" Spencer agrees. "Maybe we could grab some dinner? I haven't eaten since my clementine and half a granola bar at eleven."
"Dinner was actually exactly what I had in mind," He replies. "What would you say to a picnic?"
"A picnic?" Her eyes widen with glee. "That sounds amazing. Where would we go?"
He nods towards the hillside as they drive further into town and the moment the realization hits her, a saccharine, nostalgic grin toys at her lips. "Our spot on the hill? Just like old times?"
"It's been too long," Toby agrees. "And I think I know what food we should pick up along the way."
"Buccoli's," Spencer says without a moment's hesitation. "Remember when we used to order take-out from them, like, twice a week?"
"As usual, you read my mind," He chuckles. "Yeah, we were obsessed. They knew our regular order."
"And that one hostess always threw in extra garlic bread," Spencer reminisces. "We had to be their best customers."
"Then we'd bring it back to the loft and you'd study and I'd work on drafts," Toby recalls. "We'd try to get our work done as quickly as possible so we could spend some time together. We never got enough time together, even back then."
"I know," Spencer nods her agreement. "And then my mother would call and ask me when she'd be expecting me home and I'd tell her I was leaving in ten minutes and it would always turn into an hour. Usually more."
"And you'd always say, 'Okay. I'm really leaving now'," Toby quotes. "But you never actually would. And most of the time, especially if your parents weren't home, you'd just stay. Those were my favorite nights."
"Mine too," Spencer grins. "Because sleeping in your bed was always infinitely better than sleeping in my own."
He grins too and very well knows the feeling. They pull into the lot outside of their old favorite restaurant and both hop out of the car as the afternoon wanes into evening and the sky begins to darken from a deep purple into a cascading black. Spencer muses, "I wonder if they'll remember us."
"It's been, what? Four years? Five?" Toby wonders. "I doubt it."
And yet, the second they step into the restaurant, the hostess barely glances up, reciting perfectly, "House salad, lasagna and extra garlic bread, coming right up."
The couple shares a glance and Toby murmurs, "Okay. I was wrong."
"We definitely came here way too often," Spencer replies. "I mean, she didn't even look at us and she knew exactly what we-"
"You crazy kids don't look a day older than the last time you were in here," The hostess says mere moments later, a bag of takeout containers in her hand. "Good to see you again. Glad you two are still hanging in there; not everyone makes it out of here intact."
Her words hold a double entendre and neither one chooses to comment on it. Spencer offers, "Yeah, it's been a while, but we're in town for the weekend and we couldn't just pass the opportunity by."
"Well, as you can see, business has been rough," The older woman replies, glancing over her shoulder at the three occupied tables and the two-dozen empty ones. "The moment they put that Olive Garden across the street, bam. No more customers. People would rather have brand name than homemade these days."
"I'm sorry."
"Eh. They're doing it to the whole town," She shrugs. "Closed the Rear Window Brew, too, and turned it into a Starbucks. It's what they do now; replace the tried and true with the moneymakers. It's like they're trying to erase everything this town was and make it over into something it should have been. We'll see how successful they are with that."
"The Brew?" Toby's eyes widen. "We used to go there… I used to live there."
The hostess frowns. "Sorry, kid."
A moment of silence passes before he offers payment for their order. "Well anyway, here's-"
"No, no, are you kidding? It's on the house," The hostess shakes her head. "Least I can do. Enjoy your evening. Please, come back soon."
They shuffle awkwardly out the door and Spencer bites her lip, contemplating. "How do we leave money without insulting her?"
He smirks. "You heard her. It's on the house."
"I know, but I can't on good conscious let that go," Spencer says. "She said herself business is struggling. How can she afford giving away free meals?"
"It's a chunk of lasagna and a bowl of lettuce. I'm sure it's okay."
"Excuse you. It's amazing lasagna and delicious lettuce."
"You're right. It felt wrong coming out of my mouth."
Spencer chuckles and they pile back into the car, setting their sights on the hilltop. It's a comfortable silence, if only for a moment. He feels her eyes boring into his skull and, at a red light, turns to ask, "What?"
"Do you want to drive by it?" She asks and momentarily, he actually forgets what she's talking about. "You lived there for years. It was your home and you loved it. I loved it."
"Oh. Oh, The Brew." Toby sighs. "No. I don't want to see that. I'm sure Starbucks will be more popular but I don't want to see what they did to it. My first home exploded and my second home got a facelift so it's no longer recognizable. I'm oh for two, here."
"Hey, your third home might be the size of Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs," Spencer points out. "But at least you're sharing it with me."
"Yeah, that's true," He nods. "And those are odds I'm never going to beat."
The drive up the hillside is long and slow, their old, tired truck grunting and groaning the entire journey, as it had already worked so hard and traveled so far that very day. The skies above are black as coal, now, with the full, bulbous moon and tiny, glittering stars the only natural light on the otherwise darkened night. They reach their destination and kill the engine, climbing out of the truck as Toby pulls a blanket and two old sweatshirts of his from the back and they settle on the ground, making themselves cozy. They eat in silence for a while, watching the cars drive by below them, headlights dancing on wet pavement, and the trees surrounding them whistle with the wind, a soft, caressing tune. It feels like yesterday, Toby thinks, that they'd come up here to escape Rosewood and all its horrors, to get a moment to themselves, to just be for a moment before they had to return to reality and face the music again. He glances at Spencer now and she looks right back and he sees it all, every last moment together, right there in the sensual cinnamon of her eyes.
"This is really nice," She comments simply and leans further against him, tucking herself more firmly in his embrace. "The city needs more places like this, you know? It's so peaceful."
"Yeah. It's like…" He trails off, attempting to phrase his feelings in the best possible way. "It's like we're the only people in the world."
"Exactly. That's why I always loved coming up here with you," Spencer says. "I always felt like, as long as we were up here, nothing could touch us. We were, literally speaking, above all of that. And there's something just… oddly tranquil about that notion. It feels safe."
"Glad something could make you feel safe."
She frowns and meets his eye again. "You always made me feel safe. I know you think you didn't and that's the whole reason you became a cop in the first place… But I always felt safe when I was with you. I always knew you'd never let anything happen to me. And you never did."
He allows this sentiment to fill the cracks in his mind where self-doubt tends to creep in, sometimes. The air is heavy, now, and he attempts to lighten the mood by asking, jokingly, "Oh yeah. Remember when I was a cop?"
He succeeds; her shoulders shake with laughter as she tells him, "Toby, I'm still trying to forget."
"Hey! I wasn't that bad!"
"It's not that you were bad," Spencer amends her statement. "It's that you gave me a fucking heart attack every time you walked out the door. I thought we were both going to die before our time."
"I know I pushed your anxiety through the roof, but I wasn't going to die-"
"You don't know that! Look at the Rosewood Police Department's track record! Go ask Garrett or Wilden if they thought they'd die!" Spencer exclaims. "Oh, wait, you can't ask them! Because they're dead."
"Okay, yeah, all the cops ended up in body bags," Toby concludes. "I wasn't thinking about that at the time."
"You weren't thinking about anything at the time other than my safety."
"Yeah, because you weren't!" Toby replies. "Jesus Christ, Spencer, you know I love you to death. I love the girls, too. But you all did some really crazy, really stupid, shit in your day."
Spencer laughs. "I know. And it shouldn't be funny- it really shouldn't- but for some reason, it is."
"It's really not," Toby disagrees. "Do you know how many times you took your life into your hands? Have you ever just thought about how many times you almost lost your life?"
"Hey, I'm not about to pretend I didn't just barely make it out with my life," Spencer says. "It was pure dumb luck. I'm not going to sugarcoat it."
He pokes her side. "As long as you realize it."
"Believe me, I do."
"But, if I thought the 'I just became a cop' sex was good," Toby muses and Spencer glances at him, flushing. "The 'I just stopped being a cop' sex was way, way better."
She grins lasciviously. "Too bad you had to give your cuffs back."
"Yeah. And before I even got to arrest anyone."
"You arrested me loads of times."
"Okay, anyone actually guilty of anything."
A soft breeze tousles the leaves above them and Spencer shivers, snuggling closer to him as he tightens his hold on her. "Not going through early menopause now, are you?"
She smirks. "No. It's cold here."
"You want to go?" Toby asks, nodding towards the car. "Say the word and we're out of here."
"I'm not ready to leave yet," Spencer says even as a yawn escapes her lips. "I could just sit here, with you, and watch Rosewood exist all night."
"It's supposed to dip below freezing tonight," Toby points out. "We'd be Popsicles."
"We'd be damn romantic Popsicles."
He chuckles. "Would we? Are you or are you not the same girl who gave me a long-winded rant sophomore year of college about how dying for love isn't romantic? That was the year they made you read Romeo and Juliet again, right?"
"Yes!" Spencer exclaims. "No, that was me, and I stand by that rant one-hundred percent. Because, honestly, will you explain to me how, in what universe, on what planet-"
"Oh here we go," Toby rolls his eyes. "Spence, I didn't disagree with you then, I'm not disagreeing with you now."
"Thank you."
"Although, as I've told you before, if someone's pointing a gun at us, I'm taking that bullet." Toby shrugs, regardless of Spencer's very irritated eye roll. "Yes, I would die for you, baby. But you won't do the same."
"Easy, Bruno Mars," She replies. "Look, I didn't say it doesn't happen. I just don't like when it's used as a literary device. You don't need all of this drama to make a story interesting, you know? Happy endings are good, too."
"Okay, I was joking before, but now I'm actually worried," Toby tells her. "Are you seriously the same girl who used to say hope breeds eternal misery?"
Spencer shrugs. "I've grown up. We all do it, eventually."
Toby grins. "Well, I like the new you. Optimism suits you, Hastings."
They admire the view a while longer as clouds sweep across the great expanse of sky and owls coo into the progressing night. It's when Spencer shudders a third time, struggling to wrap her sweatshirt more firmly around herself, that Toby suggests, "Should we go now? I think the hotel has heat."
"You think? I don't like that this isn't certain."
"Sometimes people make jokes," He teases and stands, reaching a hand back toward her to pull her up. She slips her palm into his and somehow, despite how cold she must be, her hands are soft and warm. Reluctantly, she glances back at the view, at the peaceful quiet surrounding the town like a blanket, and frowns the tiniest bit. Toby places a hand on her upper arm and she glances back at him as he promises, "Hey. We'll come back."
"Yeah. I know, it's just… You and I have changed so much," She shrugs. "And this place hasn't. It was just comforting, that's all. I don't even know how to describe it. It's like…"
"Like we've been here all along?" Toby finishes and she smiles, nodding.
"Yeah. Like we've been here all along."
"Well… Hold on." Toby pauses a moment, slipping his hand carefully out of hers and navigating around the truck towards the closest tree to the drop off. From his pocket, he retrieves the pocketknife his father had bequeathed upon him for his sixteenth birthday and, without hesitation, he begins to carve. Footsteps on the grass tell him that Spencer's come closer, peering over his shoulder as he carves their initials into the base of the tree, branding them to their spot for all eternity. When he steps back to admire his handiwork, his arm comes around Spencer again and he blows wood splinters off of the blade of his knife, slipping it back into his pocket. "There. Now we'll always be."
Spencer admires it too, for a moment, before saying, "At the beginning, before we knew anything about this mess, we found out that Alison had carved her and Ian's initials into a tree in the woods. It was really creepy."
"Now you tell me this?" Toby panics, glancing back at their tree and asking, "Does that make us really creepy?"
"No. We're adorable," Spencer disagrees. "I love this. I love you."
She punctuates her statement with a soft, loving kiss and he forgets all about Ian and Alison in an instant. "I love you, too. Should we go warm up a bit now?"
"Yes, please."
He does his best to keep his burgeoning nerves at bay, but a faint fluttering begins deep within his stomach he can't seem to quiet. Luckily for him, it's dark and she can't quite see his face; he's sure if she could, she'd easily pick up on the change in air. Instead, she types a quick text reply as her phone buzzes, to one of the girls Toby's sure, before asking, "Where are we staying?"
"See, this was the hardest part," Toby tells her. "Because I thought long and hard about the perfect place for us to spend our anniversary weekend and nothing really seemed like us. I mean, I know someone else lives in the loft now-"
"Isn't that weird? Someone else is living in a place you designed and built?"
"That's kind of my job, so no, not weird," Toby chuckles. "But the loft was out and then I was ninety-percent sure my father wasn't going to offer us my old room-"
"The other ten percent of you puts too much faith in him." Spencer says. "Not to mention I do not want to spend our anniversary in the company of our relatives."
"Which then, of course, ruled out your parents' house," Toby continues. "I'm pretty sure they'd be as thrilled to host us as we would be to be there."
"My dad's walked in on us one too many times for my liking, so good call, there," Spencer grins and Toby winces at the memory.
"Don't remind me," He shakes his head. "I did consider the barn, our old stomping grounds, but we'd still kind of be on your parents' property, so I decided against it."
"Oh my god, remember when we lived in the barn that one summer?" Spencer reminisces. "I'm sorry I thought it would be a good idea."
"It was," Toby assures her. "We had a roof over our heads before we moved out to New York."
"Yeah, but my parents either micromanaged us or they completely forgot we existed." Spencer points out.
Gently, Toby reminds her, "Wasn't that your whole childhood?"
"Ugh. Yes, actually," She sighs. "Despite the fact that we'd been together- how long at that point? Five years? Six?"
"Six, I think," He agrees. "Yeah, they still weren't super okay with us living under one roof."
"Which is greatly amusing because even from the beginning, we basically always lived under one roof. I mean, I spent more time at the loft than my own house," Spencer says. "And when they weren't home, you'd stay over all the time."
"And you'd sneak me in when they were," Toby grins and she laughs, nodding.
"Yes I did. No shame in that," Spencer shrugs. "I don't know. My mom's always offering the barn like a consolation prize. You two can come back any time you want to. I think she might miss me."
"Of course she does. You're her daughter," Toby says. "She loves you even though she has a weird way of showing it. And since Melissa's off on her Australian adventure and you're in New York, I think the empty nest syndrome is really hitting her hard."
"I never expected that," Spencer confesses. "I never thought she'd miss us. She always kind of… She never really seemed liked she noticed when we were around, so I guess I never thought she'd care if we were gone."
Toby frowns but before he can comment on this, Spencer shakes her head, again asking, "Enough about where we're not staying. Where are we staying?"
"Think about it," Toby prods her a bit further. "You. Me. Anniversary. First hotel we ever stayed in."
The fluorescent lighting glows in her eyes as they pull into the parking lot and she gasps. "You did not seriously book the Edgewood Motor Court."
"Remember? That first night together?"
"As if I could ever forget."
"Remember when this was all we could afford?"
"Toby, it's still pretty much all we can afford."
He grins and retrieves their belongings as she scrambles out of the car after him. Nostalgic and sappy, she beams at him and says, "It looks exactly the same as it did nine years ago."
"Yeah, it does," He agrees. "And you know what'll make this even better?"
"Bikes to Die For, Babes to Fight For?" She asks cheekily and her unexpected response causes him to laugh out loud.
"No," He shakes his head. "I made a special room request. Guess which room we're staying in?"
Her entire visage softens. "Room 215?"
When he nods, she steps closer, throws her arms around him and plants a firm kiss upon his lips. "You're such a romantic sap and I love it so much."
"Well, I'm glad," He chuckles, kissing her again. "Come on. Let's check it out."
The woman behind the counter looks beyond disinterested in checking them in; she barely glances up from her magazine, types a few pieces of information into her adjacent computer and then hands them a key. They thank her and she waves them off, already engrossed in the next thrilling read from this month's Better Homes and Gardens. Giddily, Spencer swipes the key from Toby's hand and nearly skips to room 215 and he chuckles and watches her go, surprised, honestly, that she hasn't figured it out yet. Or, more likely, she probably has and she's just humoring him; that makes him even more nervous than before. He shivers a bit from the cold as she struggles with the key, unable to open the door with her mittens, and he notices she's studiously ignoring the room beside her, 214. "You know what I just realized?"
Toby asks, "What?"
"Last time, I downloaded that app that turned my phone into a listening device, remember?" Spencer reminds him and the door finally clicks open. "And we never used it!"
"Well, we wouldn't have heard anything. It was just –A leading you off a cliff," Toby shrugs as they step over the threshold. "A bit of fake flute playing and the ice machine, maybe."
Spencer laughs and reaches for the light switch, illuminating the tiny room, and then they're both frozen in place. Toby cringes, glances at the low-watt lighting, the shabby carpet with a peculiar stain by bathroom, and the threadbare bedspread, and wonders if anyone has ever stayed in this room besides the two of them. He swallows hard and tries not to focus on the yellow wallpaper, the faint dripping of the faucet, the flickering of the lamp beside the bed, and suddenly wishes he'd taken her to a fancy, three-course dinner and then booked the Ritz Carlton. He feels like a complete idiot; this was the worst idea he's ever had. A picnic in the freezing cold? A night in this shitty motel? She's too good for this and he feels awful for subjecting her to this simple kind of torture. He has half a mind to turn around, tell her it was all a joke, and then beg the nearest five-star hotel for a room and a sweetheart's package…
But then he sees her face.
There's so much excitement, so much love, so much recognition and nostalgia in her eyes, and he never would have expected this. She finally speaks, her voice heavy with emotion. "It's exactly how I remember it."
Toby's eyes widen. "It is?"
"Of course!" Spencer nods and steps in further, running a hand over the bedspread that, just moments before, Toby was worried about sleeping under. "Oh my god, it's like looking into the past. This lamp was flickering that night too, remember? And that weird stain by the bathroom; you said it was soda, but I was pretty sure it was blood."
"Yeah, that sounds like me, trying to give someone the benefit of the doubt," Toby smiles. "And you, being the eternal pessimist."
"And they still haven't replaced this dumb thing with a door," Spencer smirks, motioning towards the heavy curtain that separates the sleeping area from the bathroom. "This place needs some serious work."
"It's a lot shittier than I remember it," Toby admits. "I could've sworn it wasn't this…"
"Grungy?" Spencer finishes and he nods slowly. "It's a cash-only, no-tell motel, Toby. What did you expect?"
"I don't know," Toby says and for a moment, his nerves come back. "Are you sure you want to stay here?"
Spencer shrugs and peels off her coat, draping it over the back of the chair in the corner of the room and flopping onto the bed. "I hope you don't take this the wrong way, but you can't be comfortable in that jacket and that… button down."
He smirks and soon, his coat follows hers on the chair. "You were wearing a tie. Who wears a tie to a stakeout?"
"I wasn't planning on staying over!" Spencer replies. "Don't judge me."
"I wouldn't dream of it," Toby promises. "But that was just funny. We'd known each other for what, twenty minutes? And we had our very first sleepover."
She grins. "It was a great time. I was afraid to leave and miss something."
He sits upon the bed and eyes the bag they'd brought, resting on the floor. "Should we change and play Scrabble?"
"Hell yes," Spencer nods eagerly, squirming off the bed and already unbuttoning her jeans. "And I swear to god, if you beat me again because of some dumb word like goofball…"
"Oh, I know. You thought you were so clever using some crazy scientific word," Toby teases and at her narrowed eyes, he asks, "What the hell even is glyceraldehyde anyway?"
"It's a triose monosaccharide," Spencer says and when Toby continues to stare at her, she elaborates. "It's an intermediate compound in carbohydrate metabolism that's sweet and colorless."
"Huh," Toby shakes his head. "Regardless, I'm going to kick your ass again so you better bring your A game."
Spencer eyes him cheekily. "Do I ever bring anything but?"
He pulls the game box out of their overnight bag and sets up the board in between the two of them, shaking out seven tiles and handing the bag to his girlfriend, who's already got her game face on. She slips the notepad out from the box and writes each of their names at the top of the sheet, the pencil moving across the paper like a perfectly choreographed dance. "Alright. Do I get first word?"
"Ladies first," Toby agrees and she studies her letters hard before placing down each individual tile with as much precision as he's ever seen. Her word is SEVEN and he comments, "Thirty-six points. Starting the game off strong."
"That's how you do it," She shrugs and scribbles down her score. "Your turn."
He plays FLORIST and immediately thanks her for the S. "Thirty-nine points for me. You're already losing."
"We've played two words!" Spencer shoots back, defensively. "Give me a break."
"Not on your life, Hastings. I play to win, here," Toby says. "I learn from the best, after all."
"Who taught you how to manipulate a Scrabble board?" Spencer asks after placing down the tiles to spell AVID. "Whose dreams do I need to crush?"
"No one taught me to 'manipulate' anything, thank you very much," Toby replies. "It's just the luck of the tile."
"Luck of the tile, my ass."
"It is! This game is completely up to chance."
"Well, it helps if you have a solid grasp on the English language," Spencer tells him after he plays the word DANCING. "The ability to see a bunch of letters and make a good word out of them."
"Yeah? And how's the going for you?"
"Shut up."
He laughs. "You know, that night, the first time we played Scrabble together, I thought, holy shit, that girl does not like to lose. But I always assumed it was just this game that got you so competitive."
Spencer shakes her head innocently. "I… may take things too far sometimes."
"Yeah, because then I remember the Cards Against Humanity fiasco from that New Year's party two years ago-"
"Melissa didn't pick my card on purpose!" Spencer defends herself. "She definitely cheated, definitely knew which card was mine, and definitely instigated the fight because-"
"- the Monopoly debacle at Thanksgiving-"
"I was this close to Park Place! This close!"
"- and let's not forget the great Uno disaster at Aria's birthday last year-"
"I had two fucking cards left and Ezra hit me with a draw four. It's fucked up, he does that shit every time, and it's why I'll never play Uno with him again," Spencer fumes. "I knew I always hated that guy."
"You are a ball of fire and I need you to simmer down a little bit before you burn everyone in your path," Toby says and she bursts into a fit of hysterical laughter, rolling momentarily away from the game board. "I'm serious! Harness all of that fury into something good, like picking a better word than 'go'."
"I didn't have anything else to work with!" She throws her hands up in defense. "I do not like your G. You can have it back."
"Oh stop," He waves this off, adding a W and an N to the end of her word to form GOWN- and getting twice as many points. "You've won many a Scrabble game in your day."
"Yeah, not to you, though," Spencer points out. "That one time you were sick and doped up on DayQuil does not count."
"Aw, I remember that," He grins. "You took pity on my delirious mind and gave me points for the words I made up."
"I did," She chuckles. "That's what girlfriends are for."
"And you also drank along with me so I wouldn't feel like a drunken mess." Toby remembers. "Although, you at least got real alcohol. I was stuck with that shit that tastes like drainer fluid."
"Well, that's also what girlfriends are for," She adds. "Because it isn't any fun to get drunk alone."
"Speaking of which," Toby says, momentarily pausing the game as she plays TRIBE to pull out a bottle of wine from their bag and a corkscrew. "I brought reinforcements."
"I knew I loved you for a reason," Spencer teases and hops off of the bed, heading toward the bathroom in search of glasses.
"Wow. A reason." Toby jokes. "I should only be so lucky."
She shrieks a moment later and then there's the sound of glass shattering against the bathroom counter. Toby's off the bed before he can blink, but Spencer's already sweeping the broken glass off of the counter and into the trash. "It's fine. Everything's fine."
"What happened?" He asks, still in alarm, his heart racing a mile a minute. "Lipstick on the glass?"
"Um, no, not exactly." Spencer shakes her head rapidly. "Whatever it was, it had many legs and is definitely dead now."
Toby's eyes widen. "Why are we staying here?"
"It's fine. Everything's fine." Spencer repeats and then nods towards the open wine bottle in Toby's hand. "Shall we drink straight from the bottle like some middle-aged soccer moms?"
He laughs then, terror momentarily forgotten. "Sure. That's the classiest we've ever been."
They pass the bottle back and forth and the game goes on. He plays BRIDE; she plays CAMERA. He plays MUSIC; she plays REEDS. He plays BUFFET; she plays TIGER. He plays GROOM; she plays ORPHAN. Just when he thinks she's probably picked up on his very obvious theme, she asks, "Are you seriously about to beat me again?"
Toby realizes the bag of letters has grown light and they both have one single word left before the end of the game. It's now or never. "Yeah, it appears that way."
"Well, that's ridiculous," She replies. "I don't believe that you got so lucky again. What's a girl got to do to get some good letters around here?"
"I told you it was all luck of the draw." Toby insists. "And you didn't believe me."
"Because I used to be able to make anything out of my tiles, back in the day, no matter what they were," Spencer sighs. "I'm losing my touch."
"No you're not," He assures her. "But you can't be good at everything, babe. I can't be the first person to tell you this."
"You aren't, actually. My ballet teacher told me that when I was seven years old," Spencer informs him. "I hated ballet and I wasn't good at it either. I'm not graceful; at least, not in the way you need to be for ballet. But my mother made me take it and I tried so hard to be good at it and then one day, my teacher sat me down, looked at me with that sympathetic look adults were always giving me back then, and said, Spencer, sweetie, it's good that you're trying, but it's okay that you're not perfect. You can't be good at everything. I always thought she was just saying that because she wanted me to drop out of her class- which I did. I guess I never realized until, honestly, it was too late that she was actually speaking the truth."
Toby stares at her, bewildered. "I never knew you took ballet."
"It lasted one year," Spencer says. "I stepped off the stage after the recital, tore out my bun and ripped off my tutu and vowed never to go back. Never did."
"We've been together a million years and I'm just learning this about you?" Toby asks. "What else don't I know?"
"Um…" Spencer considers this question for a moment before beginning to list off the brand new information. "One time I caught my father having a fairly intimate phone conversation with Jessica DiLaurentis, I killed the class hamster in second grade because it was my week to feed him and I completely forgot, my father was trying to impress a future client once and took me to play tennis at the club with him when I was home sick one day and instead of offering up my best serve, I threw up on the court, I got a B- on a math quiz once and literally burned it in our fireplace before my mom got home, I fell off my horse once in middle school and broke my right arm, I snuck into my sister's room after she got back from France to smell the new perfume she wouldn't let me touch and ended up spilling the whole bottle and then replacing it with Febreze and she never knew the difference… Should I go on? This wine makes it very easy to spill secrets."
Toby chuckles. "No, that's plenty. It's going to take me weeks to digest all of that."
She grins, too, and then glances at her wooden sleeve where the remainder of her tiles lie. "I'm not going to be able to make a word with any of these."
"Yeah," Toby nods, his palms beginning to sweat. "Me either."
"Yeah right! I doubt it," Spencer rolls her eyes. "You've probably got 'encyclopedia' over there or something. You're going to get the triple word score and the bingo bonus and I'm going to get shit."
"That's not true," Toby points out. "You're going to get more dramatic, I'm sure."
Spencer purses her lips and says, "You know what? I'm not ready to finish this game just yet. In fact, I'm going to write a strongly-worded… very short letter to my opponent with what I've got left."
He smirks. "Oh yeah? And what if I want to write you a message too?"
"I say, go for it," Spencer says, glancing down at the sleeve where she's hastily moving letters around. "This letter is going to move you to tears, trust me."
"Oh, I have no doubt."
She spins her sleeve towards him when she's done, stifling giggles, and when he glances up, she's spelled out,
YOU SUCK.
Toby's laughing, but he says, "You are such a sore loser, Spence. I'm glad that you're so competitive; honestly, that's been one of the most endearing and entertaining parts of you to witness over these past few years, but you're also ironically terrible at good sportsmanship."
"And don't you forget it," Spencer plays along, laughing just as hard. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm kidding. You know I'm joking, right?"
"No," Toby shakes his head. "I'm pretty sure you honestly think I suck."
"I do not," Spencer insists. "You're the greatest thing that's ever happened to me and you know it. You're the best person I know."
He grins and she motions towards his sleeve. "I'd like to read my very short letter now."
"Well, how could I ever possibly compete with the sentiment of yours?"
Wiping tears of mirth from her eyes, Spencer maintains, "Come on! Show me the goods."
He spins his to face her and watches as her eyes scan the tiny tiles and confusion creeps into the beautiful brown. "EMY RAMR… Those are not words, Toby."
"Oh shit, yeah, you're right," Toby shakes his head, turning the sleeve back towards his body and reworking the tiles. "I've had more to drink than I thought."
"You're such a lightweight and it's so cute," Spencer comments. "You only have seven tiles, okay? It's not so hard to make words as it usually is."
"You keep talking shit, Spence," Toby jokes. "And this will turn into a letter on how much you suck."
She laughs. "I literally cannot wait."
Once more, he spins the sleeve to face her and this time, the laughter dies on her lips. Her eyes widen with shock, delight and glee as she reads,
MARRY ME
In between the two words on that small wooden stand is a bright, sparkling diamond, a question and a promise.
"Holy shit, you do not suck," are the first words out of her mouth and he's glad, because it lightens the worries and makes him chuckle despite the furious beating of his heart and the nerves buzzing in his stomach. "I feel like a complete asshole right now for even pretending that you suck."
Toby reaches forward and plucks the ring off of the Scrabble board, holding it in between shaking fingers as he inhales a deep breath, meeting her widened gaze. "Spencer… For the longest time, I didn't think that I would ever find a cure for the seemingly immeasurable loneliness that set in following my return to Rosewood. I didn't think I would ever find a reason to be happy again after so much darkness had taken over my life. I didn't think I would ever find anything to make me leave my bedroom, where I would always hole up and blast music way too loud in order to drown out all the things that were going wrong in my life. I had tried so hard to have hope, to remain faithful that someday, someone might believe me, but deep down, I didn't think that would ever truly happen."
"But then… You came into my life and you brought with you so much hope, so much positivity, so much light, and suddenly, it felt like everything was going to be okay," Toby continues and Spencer blinks rapidly, her eyes already welling with tears. "We were both in so much trouble and we both had so much at stake. We went through so much together, but we always, always, came out swinging on the other side, no matter what life threw our way. And right from the very beginning, I found my reason to leave my bedroom. I found my reason to be happy again. I found a cure for the loneliness that I didn't think existed… and it was you all along. And it started right here in this very hotel room, the night of our stakeout. We stayed up all night, playing Scrabble, unintentionally and literally sleeping together and then the next morning, in the parking lot… Sharing our first kiss, the first of many, and never looking back. You were there for me then like you always are now; fully, completely, unwaveringly. I am more grateful for you than I can ever possibly say."
"You're my rock," He concludes. "You're my confidante. You're my pain in the ass. You're my fiercest Scrabble competitor. You're my Sunday morning snuggle buddy. You're my number one, regardless of circumstance. You're my best friend. You're the love of my life. You make me so incredibly happy, whether we're spending all day in bed or laughing at each other's terrible jokes or lobbing fake insults at one another through Scrabble tiles. I love you so much and I cannot imagine a single day without you so… Will you marry me?"
"Yes." The word is out of her mouth before she can breathe. "Yes, of course I will!"
Toby slides the ring onto her finger and she pushes the Scrabble board out of harm's way, reaching instantly for him. He meets her halfway and their lips fuse somewhere in the middle. The fluttering of nerves in his stomach has stopped for now, but she's trembling in his arms, and he holds her tighter, still. She pulls back just a moment to say, "Damn it. I always told myself I wouldn't cry. I always thought I was stronger than that."
"You're the strongest person I know," Toby tells her. "But even the strongest person has a moment of weakness."
Spencer nods and they're kissing once more. He feels elated, giddy, buzzed, like a soda bottle shaken to the point of bursting, and he can't quite possibly grasp that this is a real thing that's happening right now. He's proposed to Spencer and she's said yes; they're getting married. And, honestly, this is all he's wanted for the longest time. He kisses her now, his hands softly gracing her face and tangling in her hair, and thinks of the plethora of memories they still have yet to share. They've been together for so long and have done so much, but really, it's only a fraction of a lifetime, a mere stepping-stone on their path, and they've got room for much, much more. They continue to kiss passionately, longingly, lovingly, and Toby is reminded of their very first, shared just outside this exact hotel room; the same bumbling nerves in his stomach, the shy, questioning look in her eyes, the sticky air and warm pavement beneath his shoes and then the feeling of her lips on his. This kiss, now, in no way parallels their first, back then; that one had been gentle and apprehensive and new, feather-light and discovering, whereas this one is all lust and love and all things desire. But the sentiment is the same. Oh, there you are. It's you. It's been you all along.
"I fucking knew it," Spencer says in between kisses, hair mussed and lips already swollen. "I knew you were going to propose this weekend."
"I knew you knew," Toby admits, too, two lovers confessing. "You know how hard it was to find the exact moment to try and surprise you even though you'd figured it out?"
"I thought you were going to do it tonight, when you took me to our spot," Spencer tells him. "And when you didn't, I assumed you'd do it tomorrow, on our actual anniversary. So you did. You did take me by surprise."
"Ha," Toby grins and pulls her mouth back to his. "I win."
He pushes the Scrabble board to the side and lowers their entwined bodies onto the bed, deepening the kiss further and she allows him for a moment before pulling back, eyeing their unfinished game. "All of your words were wedding-themed."
"Yeah," Toby chuckles. "You're only just realizing that?"
"How the fuck did you do that?" She wonders. "And why didn't I notice until now?"
"You were pretty focused on your own, very inferior, words," Toby teases and she purses her lips. "But I was really terrified that you'd figure it out and then call me out on it and it would ruin the moment."
"Well, good thing you kept me pretty distracted then," Spencer replies. "Because the moment was perfect."
Toby grins and kisses her again, but before she can really get into it, he decides he isn't done teasing her. "You really didn't have a better word to use than 'go'?"
"Oh my god," She rolls her eyes. "Get over it."
"I can't get over it!" He chuckles. "You are the same girl who once used 'glyceraldehyde,' right?"
"I stand by my previous statement- you suck," Spencer says. "Stop making fun of me and take my clothes off already."
"Wow. Yes, ma'am." Toby obliges and the nightshirt she'd been wearing is discarded instantly. "You do not have to tell me twice."
It's after, when they're both sweaty and spent and lying in a tangled pretzel of limbs, that Spencer lifts her head from his collarbone to look him in the eye, her smile soft and sweet. And he could honestly never get enough of this- the hugs and the kisses and the lovemaking, the teasing and the playful banter and the sincere declarations of love, the laughter and the happiness and the overwhelming amount of memories that they have shared and will share together in the future. He can never get enough of this and he'll never get enough of her; a lifetime certainly isn't enough time, but he knows it's a start. He looks at her, now, at the wild tufts of hair she's just run a hand through, at the silky sheen of sweat her skin is now glowing in, at the sentimental and loving look in her eyes, and wonders what he ever did to deserve such a great love.
She's still looking at him like this, in a way of almost wonder and amazement, and he cranes his neck the tiniest bit to press a chaste kiss against her lips. "What?"
"Nothing," She shakes her head but doesn't avert her eyes and that look is ever present. "This has been the best night of my life. I still can't believe it's happening."
He grins. "It's happening."
"I've wanted to spend the rest of my life with you for as long as I can remember," Spencer continues. "And now… Now I'm actually going to. We're getting married."
"We're getting married," He echoes and his heart does a somersault; his stomach begins to buzz with excitement once more.
"I don't know. I'm just rambling right now and maybe it's the wine or the crying I did before or the fact that I lost yet another game of Scrabble to you, but my emotions are all over the place," Spencer says and he smirks. "But you're… You're the most amazing person I know and any girl would be beyond lucky to marry you, so I'm glad you chose me."
"Spencer," Toby tells her, rubbing her arms as goose bumps arise. "It's always been you."
She crawls closer, still, and kisses him languidly and her breath is warm on his lips when she professes, "I love you. I love you so much and I cannot wait to marry you."
"I love you, too," Toby replies. "You make me so happy. And for the rest of our lives, I promise to do the same for you."
"Toby," Spencer assures him, kissing him once more. "I have never been happier."
The moment they defeat –A, Spencer thinks everything will go back to normal, but this is not the case. In fact, where the old monsters used to reside, new ones settle in and Spencer has to adjust to reality as brand new problems arise in their wake.
She wishes for things to be different. She has many wishes; thousands of them, in fact.
But then, the love of her life whisks her off to Rosewood for a romantic weekend getaway, their ninth anniversary as a couple, and they get engaged. They'd spent the evening celebrating, worshipping one another's bodies in their typical, insatiable way, before reluctantly giving in to the nagging need of sleep. He'd fallen into unconsciousness before she had and she'd watched the rhythmic rising and falling of his chest, the tiniest fluttering of his eyelids, and her heart had swelled twice its normal size. She couldn't possibly love him any more; of course, she always thinks this, and then he does something that always proves her wrong. She'd snuggled into him, listened to the humming of the radiator and the faint drip, drip, drip of the faucet in the bathroom, and had fallen asleep slowly with thoughts of love and light and him at the forefront of her mind.
Her eyes flutter open and the first thing she sees is the crack in the dingy curtain on the window where the sunlight is bursting through. Rubbing her eyes, she sits and reaches for the nightshirt he'd discarded the night before, slipping it over her head, and glancing around to find she's alone. She wonders where Toby's gone, but only briefly; the lock in the door clicks open and he steps through, tiptoeing quietly, careful not to disturb her, she's sure, because he's always been so incredibly considerate. But then he glances at her, notes she's awake and grinning so incredibly hard at him, and a smile, warm and slow, lights up his face. He places the two coffees, in green cardboard cups, on the bedside table and sits down on the bed beside her, immediately collecting her in an embrace. His lips are on hers in an instant and she feels an overwhelming burst of love explode from her heart at his touch.
"Morning, fiancée," Toby says, his voice husky, and her hands are on his face and sunlight catches her brand new engagement ring, scattering light across the room like millions of sparkling diamonds.
Spencer has about a thousand wishes to improve the trivial things in life, to fix her frivolous problems, to right her minor wrongs.
But right now, she can't think of a single one.
She's happy, so incredibly happy, and so is he. And there isn't anything, she's sure, that could make her life any more perfect.