I AM STILL SO EMOTIONAL RIGHT NOW. THAT EPISODE KILLED ME AND I JUST LITERALLY AND TRULY DON'T KNOW WHY.

I thought their fight was beautiful. It wasn't even a fight. It was a battle over who could out protect the other. And it was beautiful and tragic and desperate and just so THEM and I loved it. But I was also very unsatisfied, because a lot of people on tumblr are being very anti-Toby right now and this is my collective stop being dumb guys. Because if you couldn't see how much that killed him then I don't want to talk to you.

He wasn't shutting her out. He was trying to get her to shut HIM out. He just wants to protect her.

So these are Toby's thoughts. This is all.

Oh no this is not all. The title is from Out of the Woods by Taylor Swift, and I think Taylor must ship Spoby guys, because her lyrics are so perfect for them sometimes.

Oh and Falling to Pieces was supposed to be up today, but I got distracted by intense feels. I will try for tomorrow.

TPOV

He slammed the exterior door to his loft with a satisfying clunk and leaned heavily against it, the solid steel being the only thing holding his battle weary body up. What the hell had he just done?

He jammed the heels of his hands into his closed eyes, pushing down until swirls of light started to transform the blackness. All he wanted to do was to block out her face, her words.

"You told me once that I could tell you anything."

A literal knife to the heart would have hurt less. Because it was true. He had said that. And he meant it; he still meant it. He wanted nothing more than to sit her down, kiss away her tears, and to remind her of how much he loved her. But he couldn't. He couldn't.

And that's why he walked away. Not because he didn't love her. Not because he didn't care, but because he cared too much. He had a strong suspicion that that was the cause of most of their fights. It wasn't a lack of caring but a surplus.

If he hadn't left when he had he wouldn't have ever been able to bring himself to leave. Not when she was crying. Not when she was saying things like that. If he hadn't left when he did he'd have pulled her into his arms and never let go, but what purpose would that have served? What good what it'd have done? It would have provided her with a very short sense of comfort; comfort that A would have ripped away at the first opportunity. But by leaving he stood a chance at ending this for good. That was the choice that he made.

In November he had impulsively joined the aforementioned villain in the hopes of destroying the organization from the inside, but it had failed. He returned to her with nothing to show other than their mutual broken hearts. But even to this day, the only thing that he regretted was letting her believe that he was dead. Working on his inside could have worked had things gone just slightly differently. If he had worked hard enough he could have let her know that he was okay without breaking his cover.

He walked purposely down the broken sidewalk. It was uneven, but he didn't look down even once. Maybe a fall would cause some external pain that matched the agony raging in what was left of his tattered heart. There wasn't any questioning it. He was the worst person on the planet. How could he not be after breaking an angel?

Spencer Hastings had saved him in ever single sense of the word. And he repaid her by ruining her. But he ruined himself in the process, so maybe his atonement began there.

He approached the gate with every intention of getting inside. His mission was singular in its nature. He had to get inside. He had to let her see that he was okay. He couldn't imagine her wanting anything to do with him, but he also knew Spencer well enough to know that she would be shouldering the guilt for this. She took on the weight of the world. Things that weren't even close to being her fault weighed heavily on her, but his fictitious death was the straw that broke the camel's back.

He sent her to Radley. The only person left on the planet that he was sure that he loved was stuck in a mental hospital because of his stupidity.

But as he looked up at the ominous, iron clad gates he slowed to a stop. Those inpenetrable bars may have been designed to keep people inside, but they were also an effective deterrent. He looked up at the brick building and contemplated its history. They had failed to keep his mom safe from herself, but Spencer wasn't mentally ill. She was just broken. She could be fixed, she just needed time. And maybe- Maybe Radley could keep her safe while she remembered who she was and why the world needed Spencer Hastings in it.

The world needed her, but she was the only one who needed him. She needed him to end this. And he would, he could. But if he broke her out right now all of her suffering would have been for nothing. All of this pain would have been pointless. He would end this. He had to end this.

He looked up at the building for a long moment before turning away. She was in there. She was so close, but he still couldn't have her. And really, did he deserve her anymore?

"I love you, Spencer," he whispered as he pulled up his hood and jogged down the sidewalk. He had to put some distance between himself and Radley before he changed his mind. "I love you so much," he whispered again, his words feeling more like a goodbye than a declaration.

He should have gone to her that night. He shouldn't have let her go down that rabbit hole alone. What was wrong with him?

And now he was falling down that rabbit hole all over again. The similarities between his delusional draft into the A team and his naive career change weren't lost on him. He did both with little consideration as to the long term consequences. He had tunnel vision, and he wasn't sure if it was to his detriment or his advantage. Because God, if he could end this for her... if he could finally unmask A... all the pain and tears would be worth it. But on the other hand, if he had anticipated how much this would hurt her he never would have done it. Because it was all for her in the end. Everything that he did was for her, and if it wasn't helping then what was the point?

He hadn't anticipated how hard this would be. If he was just a normal guy and Spencer was just a normal girl everything would be fine. He saw her face when she first saw him in his uniform. She was proud of him, and he was so happy for having done something worthwhile. He was just a fuck up. He fucked up everything he touched, but he did this. He finished the police academy in record time, and he did it well. He thought he was finally accomplishing something, but he was wrong. He fucked this up too. Because how was he supposed to be Spencer's boyfriend and decent cop at the same time. His girlfriend and her friends were constantly skirting and often overtly breaking the law. It was justifiable, but it was still something that his oath obliged him to report.

He would never hurt Spencer, but he was a terrible liar. Tanner would know if she asked him a direct question, and he couldn't risk her finding out anything from him, even if it was just an accident. Even if she could tell from his face that Spencer was involved in something, even if that was the extent of it, it would be too much for him to bear. He had to protect her.

He would never hurt her.

God, but when he grabbed her... why had he done that? It hadn't been hard enough to hurt her, but the fear on her face cut straight through him. For a second, no matter how fleeting it was, she had been really and truly afraid of him. He was just trying to get her to listen to him. He just had to make her stop talking before she told him something that he couldn't know. He hadn't meant to hurt her.

Was he turning into Jenna? Because he didn't think that she purposely hurt him either, but she did. She broke him just like he was breaking Spencer.

She sighed and pulled herself up off of him, grabbing her shirt off of the ground and pulling it off of her head. "You remember what happens if you tell?" She asked him softly.

He just stared vacantly at the wall, cruel thoughts swirling around his head like wisps of smoke. Disgusting. Weak. Pathetic. Jenna was half of his size. He could protect himself, yet still he let her hurt him. Why? Why did he put up with this?

She gave him a sad look before walking out of the room. She always seemed guilty afterward, but if she felt badly then why did she keep doing it? As soon as she was out of sight he crawled off of his bed and into the shower in his bathroom. He turned the hot water on high and stepped into the cool porcelain. He sat on the ground, letting the hot water scald his back as he tried to scrub away any remains of what had just happened. He'd keep scrubbing until the pain went away.

And here he was. He tried so hard to help her, but at every turn he just hurt her more and more. Maybe she'd be better off without him. He pitched his aching body off of the door and rounded around the corner. He didn't even realize that he was crying until he caught sight of his reflection in the mirror. Angry red tear tracks ran down his cheeks.

Before he even realized what he was doing he spun on his heel and slammed his fist into the wall, plaster and dust falling to the floor. He pulled his hand out of the hole and put his other hand on the wall, sliding to his knees, a painful sob pushing through his snarled throat. He couldn't do this. He couldn't live this life anymore. He didn't want to be Toby Cavanaugh, the fuck up. He wanted to be Toby Cavanaugh, the boyfriend that Spencer needs and the one of the only decent cops in Rosewood history. He wanted to be both.

But maybe he couldn't be both.

His phone buzzed on the table and he glanced at it out of the corner of his eye. He would have let it go, but what if it was Spencer? He didn't know if he could bring himself to face her right now, but he knew that he would find a way if she needed him. But his shoulders slumped as he skimmed over a meaningless text from his dad. Spencer wouldn't contact him first. She was too stubborn.

He typed out a quick text before he could stop himself. 'I'm sorry. Can we talk?'

He waited with bated breath, praying that he didn't ruin the only thing in his life that mattered. It felt like forever, but it was really only a moment or two before she responded.

'Come over tomorrow after school. -S'

As soon as he looked up from the text his eyes fell on the Scrabble board she had made for him for their anniversary. Scrabble was at the beginning of their relationship, maybe it could help him now. Maybe a game of Scrabble was all he needed to help him figure out what to do.

He slumped against the wall and closed his eyes again. Honestly, it didn't matter what they did in the short term. Things would work out with Spencer. They always did, because he loved her. He loved her more with every breath he took. He thought he loved her the day that she bought his truck, but that was nothing compared to what he felt for her now. He thought love was an emotion that you either flipped on or off. Either you loved someone or you didn't, but he was wrong because his love for that girl grew every single day.

But even more than any of that, love was a choice. It was a conscious decision. And that's why he and Spencer worked. Not because they loved each other, because that wasn't always enough. He only had to look at his own parents to see striking evidence of that fact. No, he and Spencer worked because they were two imperfect people that refused to give up on each other. They chose to be together every day, and if he had any say at all, that wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. He loved Spencer Hastings more than life itself and he would never stop. He would never choose to love her any less than he did right in that moment.