A/N: I must say, I'm rather pleased with the way this turned out. Two fics in two days, well that's a record for me.

Disclaimer: Nope. Nothing to see here. Because if there was, season 3 would've premiered already.

Dedicated to my fellow fan fiction author/Spoby lover Ana aka .moonbeams. I'm glad you like my stories, because I like yours, too. Keep up the great work. You are amazingly wonderful! :) Chris

glad I did

-Spoby-

Toby Cavanaugh could barely ever picture the moment where he had a child.

And while he did dream about his future throughout much of his youth, the entire prospect of establishing a life with another person aside from his highly demented, voracious stepsister, Jenna Marshall seemed extremely unlikely, possibly even, taboo. Growing up, Jenna had always harbored a weird sort of infatuation with him and he spent most of his childhood serving as her favorite plaything, the one unfortunate person she deemed responsible of fulfilling her sexual needs.

And Toby hated it.

He knew it was wrong. He knew Jenna knew it was wrong and yet here he remained caught up in an enormous conundrum: tell and have Jenna twist the story around to convince their parents that he was forcing himself on her or keep quiet and endure the torturous abuse. In the end, he chose the latter, though the former also did quickly find a "legitimate" ground for emergence.

Toby found himself swept up in a whirlwind of very foggy events (a stinkbomb, a fire, a single spark hitting Jenna in the eyes, cops everywhere) before the authorities showed up and bargained with the law to send him to military school as a trade off for skipping sentencing. He'd later learn that Alison "Ali" DiLaurentis, Rosewood's very own resident queen bee was responsible for his "horrifyingly cruel, selfish actions" (as Jenna had put it). Well, her and her posse made up of Spencer Hastings, Emily Fields, Aria Montgomery, and Hanna Marin, that is.

He didn't know what bothered him more that a) once he'd figured out Ali was responsible, she blackmailed him, unaware of all the details or b) that her so-called friends had let her, pathetically hiding behind the bushes and cowering in fear. It became a question Toby constantly lodged in the back of his mind. Why? Why? Why?

Why had the girls let Ali do that?

He tried answering the question a million times himself and each time, he guessed the same. The girls were afraid of Ali. They just couldn't stand up to her.

Emily was far too sweet. She'd been the only girl out of Alison's clique he'd ever really liked because from the outside she appeared too considerate and polite to belong. Aria was timid and unpredictable. She spent her time away from Alison pouring her nose into books and scrawling into a journal and figuring out who she wanted to be (the pink stripes in her hair were a clue). Hanna was too insecure. She worried Ali would call her fat and ditch her if she didn't obey her every command. And Spencer? Spencer's personality was too similar to Ali's. They both had to be the best and the strongest and let everybody know about it.

As much as he hated to say it, next to Alison, Toby hated Spencer the worst. Or at least, he thought he did.

But the truth was, Toby knew less about Spencer than he realized.

-::-

"How you feeling?" Emily Fields, Hanna Rivers, and Aria Fitz all stumbled into Spencer's private hospital room, smiling excitedly. They'd just received word from Toby earlier that morning that Spencer's water had finally broken and she was preparing to deliver.

"Like I've been through the war." Their brunette friend chuckled, hair completely askew and still sweaty from the delivery. "But I did it, didn't I, honey?"

"Yes, you did." Toby suddenly smiled leaning over to kiss her lightly on the forehead. "You were great." He turned his gaze down at the newborn in his wife's arms, an overwhelming sense of pride and accomplishment warming his insides. This was his baby. His son. The one he thought he might never have. Or worse, be forced to have with Jenna.

He beamed happily.

"So, what'd you name him?" Aria asked inquisitively, admiring her friends' interactions with their barely a day old son. She'd always known they'd make great parents and found herself getting lost in the surrealism of it all. Spencer and Toby had a baby. More importantly, a baby boy.

"Keegan Carter." Spencer laughed, watching the infant she held yawn in her arms. After everything she and Toby (and even her and her friends) had gone through in the past, it scared her to think she was now responsible for caring for another human life, yet at the same time she was really looking forward to it. Being a mother could be tough, but it could also be rewarding.

"Adorable." Emily remarked before Hanna anxiously snatched her nephew from his mother's grip. Initially she'd been disappointed to learn that Spencer and Toby weren't having a girl she could dress up with clothes from her very own "glam-chic" fashion line, but during the course of nine months, the idea of being an "aunt" to a little boy settled in and well, she'd made some adjustments. One of them being, an entire section of her boutique becoming transformed into a children's display, centering around infant boys' wear. Spencer had loved the idea and after a good bit of nagging from Toby, they'd both agreed to let Keegan be one of Hanna's infant models.

"Hanna, what are you doing?" The blonde watched as her friends studied her unswaddling her nephew from his blankets to examine his body.

"I'm just checking to make sure my little model here isn't faulty." She gently pinched the baby's cheeks. "Not that such a thing is even possible when he's got Toby for a dad. Although…I'm not seeing anything remotely near a six-pack yet…"

The others laughed. Toby hadn't known Spencer had shared their little inside joke with her friends ("If we had a real baby, what would it look like?" "Hmm, I'm picturing a newborn…with a six-pack...") and found himself rather amused, even going so far as to chuckle at he and Spencer's teenage silliness. The moment Hanna was referring to would be one he'd never forget. Not for as long as he lived.

"Give him sixteen more years, Hanna." Emily chuckled. "And I guarantee, you'll see an improvement."

The blonde tapped her finger to her chin as if pretending to think things out. "Hmm, let's hope." She giggled. And instantly, Toby felt his mind drift away in a series of several flashbacks.

-::-

He'd never liked Ali or any of the other girls, including Spencer (more like, especially Spencer) so he deemed it unbelievably shocking the day she'd showed up claiming to help "tutor" him in French. He'd questioned her motives and after surprisingly labeling her as non-judgmental for once, he decided it'd be all right for her to stay. She'd gone through a lot of trouble just to sit on his porch and endure his unspoken scrutiny; she'd even brought him a book, and later apologized. He seemed to be warming up to the idea of her hanging around a time or two here and there, maybe longer.

The weeks following proved to encompass more communication with her. Not through French tutoring any longer, but secretly sneaking around decoding Braille and staking out run-down motel rooms like they were Scooby Doo and the mystery crew. It began awkwardly, though by the end, they were officially budding into a perfect romance. One that had started on lies and betrayal and accusations and judgments and hate. One that had formed because they were two "people of interest."

So things were great for a while despite all the meddling cops and the trouble with her creep of a brother-in-law, Ian who tried to kill her and her crazy and unpredictable father and his violent temper. But then it all started changing, Spencer started changing, and Toby felt as in the dark as he had before. She told him she couldn't see him anymore, that he needed to forget about her and move on. He didn't. And of course, evil extortionist psycho stalker A made her cut the cord.

She made both her and Toby's friend, Emily help her and she used her sister's ex-fiancé, Wren with whom she shared a previous fling to really sever the ties. It worked. Until A unmasked herself and Toby came clean saying he'd only pretended not to love her when she hurt him.

She found out that this was all a part of some super complex yet oh so clever plan he cooked up with Dr. Sullivan to keep surveillance on Jenna, just in case she was really "on the inside."

Their struggles continued—new A's showed up, more Hastings family secrets unraveled, Jenna plotted her seemingly never-ending revenge, Spencer graduated, started college, graduated again, Toby took on more construction jobs, they worked, married, and got soon enough, got pregnant with Keegan.

He wouldn't have believed it had it been someone else telling him that this was what would become of his life. Never in a million years, or for a million dollars, either. He'd have laughed if somebody told him he'd fallen in love with the girl he once hated and who in turn hated him back.

But yet here they were. Them and their son. Spencer, Toby, and Keegan.

What? There's no way he could've possibly heard that right.

-::-

Hours after the girls had visited, Spencer and Toby once again had the private hospital room to themselves. Keegan was sleeping inside his glass bassinet next to Spencer's bed and Toby had snuggled with his wife, resting her head in the crook of his neck. The couple remained in silence, the previous events of the day still doing their best to register with the mid twenty year olds who'd been the second of their friends to start expanding their family trees (Aria and Ezra were first, no shock there, Hanna and Caleb were trying, and Emily and Paige were waiting to adopt). They were thrilled to be sharing this experience at this point in their lives, but they were also scared, anxious, and very tired.

"What are you thinking about, babe?" Toby yawned, pressing his lips sweetly against Spencer's temple. The young woman sighed.

"Nothing. Everything. Can you believe we have a baby now?" She stretched a little, curling deeper into her husband's side.

"No and that's the weird part. If at age seven, someone would've told me about any of this, I don't think I could bring myself to believe it. But now, now I can."

"And how do you feel about that?" Spencer queried. "Honestly."

"Honestly, I feel really lucky that I have all that I have. I remember questioning whether or not I should've stayed skeptical of you after you brought me my French book and explained everything to me that day, but I'm really glad I didn't."

"Yeah, well I am, too."

fin.

A/N: Sorry for any typos I missed, I caught a few but not all because it's 3:19 in the morning where I live and my brain is shutting off. I literally couldn't sleep until I got this done though. Hope you all liked, especially you, Ana :) Goodnight/Good morning. -Chris