Spencer glanced at her phone and sighed when she saw that Toby still hadn't replied to any of her multiple calls and texts. While robotically stirring her tea, she began to feel like an obsessive girlfriend. But could you blame her? As if she didn't worry about Toby enough with A getting ahold of him, now he was in the police force and it was his job to deal with dangerous people everyday. The police job was definitely more demanding than his previous carpentry job, which had its fair share of demands also. Her and Toby barely had any time together in the past two weeks, let alone talked, except for small meetings over coffee before work and school or tired phone conversations before bed. However, today was Friday and Toby had promised that he'd come by after work that he was supposed to be done an hour and a half ago.
Just as Spencer was about to reach for her phone and give her boyfriend yet another call, she jumped as she heard a light knocking on her back door. She walked over and swung the door open after spotting her long-awaited boyfriend outside, still clad in his police uniform.
"Hi," Toby greeted, leaning down to kiss her as soon as he walked into the house.
"Hey," Spencer replied, glancing up to be met with her boyfriend's lips for a quick kiss. "What took so long?"
"Ugh," Toby groaned, walking over to the Hastings' couch and collapsing on it in one motion. "I got hung up at work."
Spencer made her way over to the couch to sit down next to him. She placed a hand on his forehead and pushed back his short brown hair. "Long day? I hope you're getting paid overtime here, Officer," Spencer joked, chuckling slightly at the sight of him looking so worn out.
"I better be," Toby replied, glancing at his watch. "I have to get to the station in about an hour-"
"Wait," Spencer interrupted, a confused look on her face. "You have to go back? Tonight?"
Toby nodded. "Yeah, we think we might have a lead with something."
Spencer bit her bottom lip as she contemplated this. "Anything I should know about?"
"Well," Toby replied, as he ran his palms over his thighs nervously. "We think we might have a few leads on Bethany's murder."
Spencer sat up quickly at Toby's confession. "What?"
"Yeah," Toby nodded. Ever since Spencer's parents had successfully gotten their daughter off of the ridiculous murder charges, Bethany's case had remained silent for the most part…at least to the public.
"So what's the lead?" Spencer asked, shifting uncomfortably on the couch, silently praying it had nothing to do with her sister.
Toby swallowed and looked literally everywhere besides the direction of the girl to his right, instead deciding to focus on the fireplace in front of him. "Um," he sighed, wringing his hands together because he knew that his girlfriend was not going to like his response. "I can't really say yet," he finally let out.
"What do you mean you can't say yet?" She fired back, characteristically not missing a beat.
"I mean that it's really confidential right now. I can tell you as soon as we release anything."
"Toby," Spencer replied, reaching her hand out for his in order to try to get him to look at her. He finally looked over at her when he heard the serious tone in her voice.
"I didn't think I had to say this, but you know you can trust me."
"It's not that I don't trust you. You know I do," He paused, looking down at the badge on his shoulder. "It's just…it's just that it's part of my job now."
"Yeah, the job I thought you took to protect me. To give us the real story from the inside." Spencer replied, motioning between her and Toby.
"And it's still about that. I'm making sure none of the evidence is corrupted and the stories they give out are valid. That doesn't mean I can release things ahead of time."
Spencer shook her head in disbelief. "I can't believe this."
"Spencer, it's-" Toby tried to explain once again, but was quickly interrupted by his girlfriend.
"It's part of your job. I know, Toby," replied Spencer clearly annoyed. "I just don't think it's fair of you to keep this from me… especially since I was accused of Bethany's murder all of two weeks ago."
Toby turned his body rather quickly to face his girlfriend, letting out what he seemed to be holding in all night. "Well I feel like you're keeping something from me, too. Maybe something about Melissa? All I can say is that we're looking at her and I know she sent you something confidential…and you said it was the truth."
Spencer glared back at him. "You have no idea what she sent me or what's going on with her."
"You're right," Toby admitted. "That's the problem." He swallowed again and weakly added, "I also don't know much about what's been going on with you lately."
"Well I have to be cautious of what I say to you considering anything I say can apparently be used against me in a court of law now," Spencer stood up, becoming angrier and no longer being able to remain sitting.
Toby shook his head at her accusation. "You would know that it's illegal to withhold information regarding any type of crime if you weren't too busy with your own illegal doings like impersonating a nurse in order to break into Radley and steal files on the night of my induction. That's like three felonies right there, Spencer."
"You act like I'm America's Most Wanted! I did that stuff to clear my innocent name."
"Yes, and I know that you're innocent and you do these things for answers, but the police force doesn't know that and these type of things can make you look guiltier."
Spencer rolled her eyes, her pacing slowly coming to a halt. "Well, I wasn't going to tell you at first because I didn't want to put you in this position." Spencer sighed, sitting back down on the couch. "That's why I've been kind of distant…not like it's easy been getting ahold of you anyway."
Toby took a minute to process this, glancing over at his distraught girlfriend. "So what happens the next time you and your friends do something like this? You're just not going to tell me? Or are you already have?"
She swallowed hard, at a loss for words, which didn't happen very often at all to Spencer Hastings. "I…I don't know," she answered honestly and quietly.
Toby was silent at his girlfriend's cryptic reply, not really knowing what to think.
"This feels like last year all over again," Spencer let out a minute later, glancing over at her still boyfriend. "Us keeping things from each other."
Toby shook his head and cleared his throat, his voice hoarse. "I think it's worse this time."
The two of them sat beside each other on the couch lost in their own thoughts for what seemed like hours, but was probably only about five minutes. The amount of emotion and uncertainty that filled the air was overwhelming.
"Maybe it's not the time for this right now," Spencer broke the silence, her voice wavering slightly.
Toby plugged back into the conversation and glanced at his watch. "Okay, well I get off work at 10:00, so we can talk again then if…"
"No," Spencer shook her head, sniffling and taking a deep breath in order to attempt to keep her self together. "I meant that maybe it's not…a good time for us right now."
It took a moment for Toby to realize exactly what she was suggesting, but when he did he felt his mouth go completely dry and his heart drop into his stomach. No, this was not what he wanted, but he had to admit he couldn't the two of them continuing like this.
He nodded weakly, turning and making the mistake of glancing at Spencer and seeing a couple of tears escape from her eyelids. It took all of his power not to wipe away her tears, take her into his arms and tell her that everything would be okay. But he couldn't do that anymore, because he didn't know if anything would be okay again.
"It's just for now," he let out, brushing his hand down her goose bumped arm. He noticed that his own vision was beginning to become blurry and knew that he had to leave now or he would also start crying and make things worse for the both of them.
He stood up and walked over to the door, taking a look back to glance at the girl who he knew would have his heart forever. It's just a bump in the road to forever, he thought. "Goodbye, Spencer," he whispered and escaped through her back door.
As soon as he got into his truck, he pulled out his phone and texted Emily, asking her to go over and check on Spencer. He hated leaving her alone in this state, but it would have made things worse if he had stayed and they were both crying. As Toby started his car and drove to the station he was sure of one thing. He had to make things right again.
Hey guys so I really think something of this nature is going to happen between Spencer and Toby in season 5B concerning Toby's new job as a police officer and Spencer's antics...and what she knows about Melissa! So i don't know if she told Toby about Melissa's confession, but I'm going to assume that she didn't in this story. So let me know what you think about the story and your 5B thoughts...I'd love to hear them! I hope you enjoyed this!