I'm going to keep this short. This will be a two or possibly three shot, picking up roughly from sometime after 4x19. It's Spencer-centric, basically revolving around her whole drug storyline thing. I don't know when I'll have the next part up, because my inner muse is currently on vacation, but I'll do my best to have it up within a week. I live on a steady diet of carrots, chickpeas, and reviews, so if you like this and want to read more, please leave me a review. It'll only take a second and I will be eternally grateful. So here's the first part, enjoy, review, see you next time. You guys know the drill. (Oh, and the lyrics at the start are from the song Dark Road by Annie Lennox, so I claim no credit there.)

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maybe i'm still searching but i don't know what it means
all the fires of destruction are still burning in my dreams
there's no water that can wash away this longing to come clean

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It was inevitable, and yet nobody saw it coming.

At first it had just been a way to focus, a little something now and then to help her stay awake. Then it became a habit, a safety blanket so that she could get through each day, each night, each torturous moment. Gradually she began taking more and more of the pills, in the school bathroom in between classes, in her room at home, even one time with her friends when nobody was looking. And then, suddenly, it wasn't enough. God, it wasn't enough. She needed more.

It was a familiar pattern for some, and all she had to do was listen. She never even had to ask the questions, because the answers were brighter than the sun that she had grown used to seeing rise over the horizon after yet another sleepless night. She found out who to go to, what they had to offer. She would take whatever she could get her hands on, whatever would help her stay up or stay sharp or stay sane (if she could even call it that anymore). The only people who knew about her spiral were the people whose 'study aid' she so feverishly purchased every other day, and since they were making money from the transactions they were disinclined to worry about Spencer's wellbeing. That was her own problem.

It was risky behavior, and that was part of the appeal. One of her suppliers picked up on the change, noticing when Spencer started caring less about which pills to take in order to get her homework done and more on what she needed to numb the pain, to block out her racing raging thoughts. Taking advantage of this, she approached her. The exchange was brief and detached, and Spencer knew that should worry her. But it didn't, not yet.

"Do you want to try something new?" Seductively.

"What is it? What does it do?" Warily.

"Don't you trust me?" Daring.

"Okay. Give it to me." Impulsive.

So she took what was offered, and she learned not to ask what it was. Sometimes she even got them for free, not as charity but as a reward for being such a loyal consumer. Most of the time she didn't even know what she was taking, and what little uneasiness she initially had faded away as she grew more dependent on them, on the highs they gave her and the lows they blocked out. She was running on less than empty, and it was a wonder her friends hadn't noticed.

This was so far from the person she was supposed to be, so different from the way she had pictured things. She was strung-out, spread thin, barely able to sit for five minutes without twitching. But she was unravelling the mystery, getting closer to finding out who was behind all this, and that was what was important. A few sleepless nights, a few missed tests, it didn't matter. She had her goal in sight, and she wasn't to be deterred.

Every once in a while she would crash. It would come suddenly, after a couple of days or even a week. She would be okay, and then she wasn't. Sometimes she'd miss a day or two of school, just sleep off the effects of whatever she'd taken, catching up on the rest that she kept trying to tell herself that she didn't need. Her friends would come to visit, worried because she wasn't answering her phone. It was getting harder to come up with lies to explain her absence, her behavior, her appearance. Her pale, washed-out skin; her bug-eyed expression; her fidgeting and stuttering. Her friends were starting to notice.

"I stayed up all night studying for a test. I'll be fine tomorrow."

"Melissa came back from London with some exotic flu. I'll be okay by tomorrow."

"It's just a cold, nothing major. I promise I'll be fine by tomorrow."

Her friends wanted to believe her, but they were finding it more difficult. Her lies were becoming transparent, her friends more suspicious. And Spencer was becoming someone she didn't even recognize, everything she had always sworn she would never be. She was losing it, and she refused to let anyone help. She would be the first to admit (silently, of course) she had a problem, and the last to accept help for it. She was Spencer Hastings, and she was going to fix this on her own.

She couldn't remember a day that had gone by in the last month when she hadn't taken something. Some days were worse than others; alcohol mixed with pills, skipped meals, frantic studying late into the night. Her room was chaotic, and for the first time in her life she didn't care. She was aware that she wasn't thinking clearly, that her thoughts were jumbled, that she was connecting dots that nobody else could see.

Even if she hadn't been aware of just how manic she was, the few short conversations she had with her friends would have been enough to bring attention to it. They saw she was falling apart, and they called her out on it, and she shied away from them. She spoke quickly these days, her words tripping over each other, and her friends would have to wade through the chaos of her sentences in order to divine some kind of meaning. Some days they didn't even try, just shared a weary look and then smiled at her patiently, not even trying to understand the car crash going on in her head.

Despite how bad every day was, there was one night that stood out, the worst of the worst. She'd opened her eyes and found herself in a black-and-white world, simultaneously glamorous and terrifying, and she'd drifted through the new world, trying to expose its secrets and find the answers she needed. But then she'd really opened her eyes, and she was still standing in her kitchen, the pill bottle in her hand and an old movie on the television.

The scariest thing was, sometimes she wasn't even sure which world was real.

"The world looked better in black and white."

"Spencer, what are you talking about?"

"Nothing. Just a dream I had."

Some part of her was convinced that her waking hours were her dreams. Nothing felt real anymore, nothing felt true. She couldn't trust her own senses; couldn't believe in the things she saw and heard and felt and touched. Even when she held something in her hands, she was still half-convinced that the tactile sensations were products of her delusional mind, and any moment she'd wake up in a big white room with no doors or windows.

Her parents were never home, and even when they were she was hardly aware of them. She was drifting through life, stuck in her own mind, and the strength she would need to get out of the traps she had set for herself was too much. So she fell into a routine, because fading away was easier than holding on. She just had to solve this mystery, she just had to finish the puzzle, and then she could rest. She didn't like to think of what would be left of her then.

Her descent continued unmitigated, unrestrained, until one stormy night when her demons came out to play.

And her friend came over to save her life.

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Any guesses as to who this friend is? For those of you who know me, it shouldn't be too hard to figure it out, but have a go anyway. So that's it, please don't forget to review, and I hope I've intrigued you enough to see you next chapter.