A/N: Spoilers up to and including 3x12. Anything contained within is pure speculation as to what comes next.
We All Fall Down
It all falls apart quietly.
Not brightly or boomingly. There is no flash or spectacular display.
It just takes the whispered words of three tearful girls. Like the burst of confetti – a quiet little pop before it all falls down. But instead of fragile slips of colorful paper, Spencer's world falls to her feet in messy, jagged pieces.
There is shock and there is denial and then there is silence.
Spencer asks to be alone with the boy who has torn it all down and because her friends cannot refuse the girl who has just lost everything one fell swoop, they march obediently upstairs.
Then they are alone. A boy and a girl with so many truths and so many lies between them. So many of them now lying scattered in cold, broken pieces on the ground beneath them.
"Spencer…" Toby tries as he takes a step towards her.
She swears she hears a crack. She can't be sure if it's just his footsteps over the broken pieces of what they had or if it's her heart, but it is loud and it is painful and she feels it everywhere.
"Don't," she warns as forcefully as she can muster, taking a step away from him. Without a shield of friends she feels stripped down. Naked and bare before this boy she loves and is starting to hate. His betrayal cuts deeply into her exposed, tender skin, straight down to her heart.
He remains where he is and she lets out a breath. She can't bring herself to be afraid of him, even now. But she does fear that if he comes any closer she will only crumble at his feet.
"I'm sor—"
"Don't you dare," she snaps, but her voice catches on the tears in her throat, betraying her conviction. She turns sharply to pace towards the kitchen, unable to look at him.
Away from his watchful gaze, the shock begins to fade and in its place, her mind begins to spin wildly with a thousand different questions and accusations.
She finally settles on one: "how long?"
He doesn't even pause to consider her question, or to lie, and says simply, "from the beginning."
A sob breaks free from Spencer's chest and she clings to the edge of the counter to stay upright.
There's more spinning and more silence and in the wreck, she finds her next question.
"Did you kill Alison?"
Again, he answers without even a beat, "no."
Spencer releases the breath she has been holding in and her grip on the counter loosens. This truth (there is no evidence to support that he is trustworthy, not now, but in this she believes) sends her world spinning once again after it had been jolted to a standstill by all the other truths.
But with the world set turning, it makes everything blur. Memories and images slam against each other inside the space of her head. Dots connect and perfect moments collapse. Nothing makes sense and everything does all at once. The things Spencer thought she knew slip quickly away and the new things that replace them are fuzzy and painful.
Everything spins out of control and being out of control is not something Spencer is accustomed to.
It leaves her unbalanced, unsteady, and clinging to a cold, granite countertop to stay on her own two feet. It leaves her unsure of which question clamoring for her attention she must ask next. One question only leads to ten thousand more.
But soon everything stops and it becomes clear what she must know next.
She becomes brave enough to turn her head, just slightly, to look over her shoulder at Toby who remains rooted in place behind her. "Ian? Did you kill him?"
She watches his eyes close and hears his slow release of breath and she has his answer, but she remains quiet because she must hear him say the words.
Finally he answers "yes" calmly, steadily.
Toby takes a step towards her and Spencer's body snaps into a rigid line, her head turning back to look at the grain of the counter beneath her hands.
"I had no choice," he tells her forcefully. "He was going to kill you, Spencer. He was going to kill you and I couldn't let him."
Furious, Spencer spins away from the counter to face him. Anger drums through her and she must lash out before it consumes her whole. "You couldn't let him kill me?" she cries. "You could torture me and my friends, but you couldn't let him push me from that bell tower?"
"No. Spencer, I…"
"You should have just let him," she whispers vehemently.
"That's very defeatist of you, Spencer," he snaps back coldly, glibly.
Spencer's eyes widen and her mouth parts in surprise. She takes a step away from him, her back pressing into the counter, visibly stung by his words. "That's the cruelest thing you've ever said to my face," she tells him, awed. "Maybe I can see it now," she whispers as she studies him carefully. "I couldn't before, but maybe…"
Toby opens his mouth to say something, but he sees her icy glare and stops.
"You need to go. Get in that damn truck and drive far away from this place and never come back. They're going to call the cops and I'm not going to stop them," she tells him forcefully, willing herself to square her shoulders and look him the eyes without breaking down into salty tears.
"Spencer, you have to let me explain first."
"I can't listen to any more of your lies. Please, Toby, just… go."
Toby remains rooted in place.
"Go!" Spencer screams. She eyes the door directly behind Toby and rushes towards it to force him along, but when she does so, he grabs her by the arm and spins her into him.
"Please," he begs.
"Don't you ever touch me again," she shrieks, violently snatching her arm away from his grasp.
Shaken, but undeterred, Spencer continues to the door and grips the handle tightly, her knuckles whitening. "Don't make me keep asking you."
Toby sighs, shoulders sinking and eyes falling to the ground, as he follows Spencer's path to the door. He stops when he's beside her and pulls his eyes up to meet hers.
"Spencer," he whispers pleadingly. He sees her lips quiver and the tears pool in her eyes, so he swallows all of his other words and settles on "goodbye."
Spencer's body betrays her and a sob breaks free from her chest, but she quickly slaps a hand over her mouth and looks away from him.
She releases the handle of the door and shakily walks back towards the sofa so that she doesn't have to watch him walk away, but can hold herself up when she hears his hand find the handle.
The door clicks and the world jerks to a sudden stop all while her heart is freefalling to the ground. "Wait!" she cries out desperately.
His hand slips from the door.
Spencer remains frozen in place, her back to him. Her next words come so quietly he has to strain to hear them and she can't even be sure she says them at all or just thinks them, but her question hangs heavily in the air around them:
"Did you ever love me?"
She is dizzy, the world turning once more with this last question of hers spilled out. This last little secret of hers smeared out messy and dirty for this betrayer of a boy. Spencer Hastings: insecure and unlovable.
But, she remembers, he already knew all of that. Knew all the ways in which her heart beat before she even opened up her shirt, her skin, broke her ribs, and let him see the precise way in which blood pumped through her veins.
And now here it is. One last thing for him to destroy; to break.
She holds her breath and doesn't breathe again until his hands are on her shoulders. She jumps, surprised by his touch. Surprised by how gentle his hands grip her and a thousand different memories flash before her. He's touched her this way countless times before, but now it just feels like one more act of betrayal.
When Toby presses his lips against her ear, she steels herself for his answer.
This will be her undoing. Either way, she will come undone.
"I am not a good person, Spencer" he whispers harshly into her ear, his breath warm and deceiving against her cheek. "I have lied to you and I have hurt you and I have hated you."
Spencer spins and she is caught in his embrace. She wants to scream or hit him or both, but she is so stunned that before she can find the courage to move, he's pressing his hand against her cheek and leaning into her.
"But I have loved you. There is nothing I have ever done more wholly than love you. And I'm sorry for that. It might be what I'm most sorry for – loving you."
The air leaves her lungs all at once and tears stream down her face. She looks away from his piercing eyes, no longer trusting herself. "Please leave," is all she can manage.
Toby drops his hand from her cheek and turns to leave, moving towards the door with purpose. He pauses when he reaches it, but pulls on the handle and opens the door to the cool night air. He hears her breathe in relief when he does so.
He has one foot out the door, but something calls him back. Not his conscience (that's long gone) and not his bond to the tearful girl behind him (he's broken that) but there is a pull that drives him back inside, marching to where Spencer stands.
Toby takes her tear-stained face between his hands carefully and forces her to meet his eyes. "You have every right to hate me. But don't become that girl. The girl who doesn't love or trust or let anyone in. Don't let this break you, Spencer. You are strong and I am not worth it. I never was. Just… promise me you won't be that girl." He wipes away her tears with the pads of his thumbs and presses a fleeting kiss to her forehead before he is gone.
Out the door and into the night.
It is only when Spencer is certain she can no longer see his shadow does she break down into tears, collapsing to the floorboards.
She is not alone long.
Her friends sprint down the stairs and drop down to the floor beside her, surrounding her in their embrace.
Spencer's tears dry on Aria's shoulder and her head is in Hanna's lap when sleep finally claims her and it is Emily's smile that she sees just before she goes.
She dreams of Toby. Of when she was just a girl who loved a boy down the street.
When she wakes, it is to a brand new world. A world that has been tilted sideways. The pieces that came loose when it was being set askew pierce just as sharply, as painfully, as they did the night before.
But she is not alone. And she is still standing, unbroken.
Spencer holds onto that as she steps into this new world of hers.
It hurts and it is scary, but she keeps moving.
She has a promise to keep.