Author's Note:

This story will be an AU, where Spencer died in the fire at Thornhill Lodge.

The premise is pretty depressing to write, but it wouldn't leave me alone; I've always wanted to write a story that deals with the death of one of the Liars, so here we are. It will deviate heavily from the show's canon (Toby and Spencer never joined the A-Team in Season 3, 'A' is not CeCe, Spencer was trapped in Thornhill Lodge with the others)

This story will be around 3 chapters, focusing on Spoby/Sparia.

It will begin a few months after Spencer's death, where Toby and Aria are still struggling to cope.

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Chapter 1: Desolation

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When she regained consciousness, it felt like her lungs were burning.

The comforting haze of darkness was ripped from her senses, eyes flashing open as her mind was catapulted back into awareness-and Aria's breath rattled in a painful gasp. Her mouth felt as if it was caked with dirt, lips drier than desert soil-and the dusty echo of ash lingered upon her tongue, making Aria's features warp in an uncomfortable grimace. Everything felt hot—unbearably so, every inch of her skin draped in unpleasant warmth—and she struggled to rise, her hands digging into the ground beneath.

It wasn't an easy task—her fingers groped through the loose soil at a sluggish, exhausted pace, the rest of her muscles tightening in protest—but Aria managed to win the battle, pushing herself onto her knees. Unfortunately, the victory had a cost—a sudden change of position that was far too disorienting to her weary senses, a wave of irregular spots racing across her vision—but she managed to weather the storm, taking a moment to regain her bearings.

Her senses began to adjust, vision clearing with every breath of fresh air-and as her clarity returned, memories of the night flooded across her mind in sharp relief. They emerged as cloudy flashes of insight—Thornhill Lodge, Mona, Redcoat—but as she pieced the fragments together, it didn't take her long to recall her final memory.

The fire.

Aria straightened, dread gathering in her stomach-and even as her thoughts grew heavy with confusion, she was already turning to search for the others. Her eyes swept across the ashen landscape that surrounded her, an effort that yielded no trace of her companions-and as the seconds drew by, passing in thick silence, she felt despair twist down her abdomen.

How am I alive?

Somehow, she had been pulled outside the lodge by an unseen savior, rescued from certain death-and she could only hope the others had been so fortunate. Their plan to trap 'A' had always been risky, but with Mona as their newfound ally, they were confident in the plan's success—however, even with her vast intellect, it had become clear they were outmatched. Their tormentor had been swift to turn the tables, the script of events spiraling into a more dangerous game-and by the night's end, they had realized how little they knew.

They had been trapped, condemned to burn-but with the intervention of a force she had yet to discover, she had cheated that inescapable fate. The steady, haunting roar of flames drew her attention, an echo that drifted through the night-and Aria lurched to her feet, swinging to face the building that she had once thought to be her tomb.

The Thornhill Lodge was a frightful sight—engulfed in a whirlwind of flames, the building consumed by ghostly, wreathing tongues of fire—and Aria could only stare, stomach tightening as the structure began to collapse. The air was thick with a curtain of ash, hissing in protest as oxygen was pulled towards the growing inferno-and soon enough, the flames reached a blinding crescendo, forcing her to turn away. Aria didn't bother to glance back—her eyes stinging with the arid, painful blast of heat, knees shaking beneath her—and instead, she moved to continue her search for the others.

"Spencer...?" She called into the murky darkness, voice no louder than a whisper-and even at such a low volume, her throat convulsed with pain, not ready to accommodate speech. "Emily? Mona?" Horror began to creep through her, giving her the strength to ignore any flashes of pain-and Aria tried again, her frantic voice rising with every syllable. "Hanna? Are you guys alright?"

Her words travelled across the midnight air, clashing with the erratic roar of flame-but as they passed without a response, she turned once more, heartbeat screaming beneath her chest. "Guys, are you-

"Hello, Aria." The soft, startling voice drew her attention-and she whipped around, heels knocking together in an awkward stagger. Recognition slammed into her with frightening speed, crashing against her thoughts like a physical force-and she retreated a few short, hasty steps, unsure if the figure before her was a figment of the mind. "A-Ali?" Aria felt the word tangle in her throat, surprise nearly ripping the wind from her lungs-and as she stared at a face that she had so long thought to be dead, she lacked the breath for words.

Alison's features hadn't changed with time, framed in golden, swirling hair-and her figure cast a striking shadow, even against the backdrop of night. She was clothed in a long trenchcoat, but that familiar silhouette was unmistakable-it was Alison DiLaurentis, returned from the grave. For a moment, she was certain her senses were deceiving her—Alison looked like an angel of death, hovering amongst the shadows, wind flickering at the edges of her cloak—but as time began to crawl onward, the inarguable truth sank in.

Alison was alive.

"Y-you're not dead." Shock tore the statement from her lips, all else forgotten-but Alison's face didn't betray a trace of happiness, her eyes dark as night. She seemed to be struggling with an unspoken dilemma—lips clenched together as if trying to suppress a sob, eyelids rimmed with a mournful sheen of red—and when she spoke, her presence held only a shadow of its former strength.

"I'm sorry." Alison's voice was a thick, heavy whisper, weighed with an emotion she had yet to understand. "I couldn't save you all." Before she could open her mouth to demand an explanation, the girl had vanished in a swirl of crimson fabrics-and her figure melted into the darkness around them, fading as quickly as she had emerged.

Alone in the wide clearing, she could hear other voices begin to thicken the air—the others, she realized with a surge of relief—but hesitation stayed her hand, caught on Alison's parting words. The display of such gentle, earnest vulnerability from their leader had been so uncharacteristic that it had thrown her sense of perception for a loop—along with the fact that Alison was among the living, unless the sight had been a feverish hallucination—and she started forward, moving through the clearing at an uncertain pace.

It didn't take much to break that paralyzing stillness—just a few strides were all she needed to refocus her bearings, thoughts pulled to a more pressing issue—but as she spotted a silent form at the edge of the clearing, her nerves slammed to a halt once again.

"No..." Aria's stagger blended into a shambling run, legs powered with a speed she never thought possible, fear grasping her spine like a set of cold fingers-and her breath grew shallow as she neared the indistinct silhouette, limbs heavy with dread. It wasn't often that the mind's worst scenario was an accurate prediction, nor was the worst of nightmares given flesh-but even before she reached the corpse, she just knew, stomach churning like a turbulent storm. Every feature clicked together, the gears of recognition crashing into place with horrifying sincerity-and Aria felt nausea sweep through her, muscles wracked with a pain beyond what she had ever known.

"Spencer!" Aria cried, the name warped in a horrible scream-and as the world rocked around her feet, she dropped to her knees beside Spencer's body. Her hands found the girl's head, cradling it with a tenderness she didn't know she possessed-but even as she pulled the girl towards her lap, she knew it was too late. Spencer's face was paler than the grave, eyes shut in a twisted mockery of peace, limbs splayed across the grimy soil-and a series of furious burns marred the length of her clothing, deep enough to sear the flesh beneath.

Death was not an artist of beauty, that was for certain—it wrought nothing but despair.

"N-no..." Aria's voice grew softer, tears burning her cheeks as surely as the fire itself-and she clutched at the girl's limp hand, twining their fingers together. Something twisted beneath her stomach, muscles coiling as if being pulled into the depths of her soul-and while she couldn't quantify the sensation, she felt it regardless, ripping through her with all of the mercy of the flames that had destroyed them. "Spencer..." Above the roar of pain, she could hear the clamor of voices growing louder, closer—her shout must have drawn the attention of the others—but she found herself wishing they would just leave her to die, lost in black desolation.

Spencer wasn't responding—deaf in the face of her cries, as lifeless as the dolls their tormentor sought to reduce them to—and Aria grasped her face with a fervor that edged into hysteria, shaking her with every word. "Spencer, open your eyes—" Her voice halted on a shiver of anguish, knowing how futile such an effort was-but she was too frantic to stop, fingers clutching at the flesh with enough force to bruise. "Come on, Spencer—" Aria felt her tears mixing with the soil below, her head pressed against Spencer's hand as she wept-and any thoughts of dignity soon fled, scattered by grief.

"S-spencer, please..." Aria felt her lungs heave with a bitter sob, surrendering all hope—she was gone. It wasn't supposed to be this way—being so young, they had never thought about the gravity of death, even after Alison's supposed demise-but life wasn't fair, and she knew that now more than ever. As a writer, she yearned to live in a world absent of conflict, crafting a reality of her own making-but in this dark place, innocents could die, and the villains could win.

"Open your eyes." They were empty words, she knew, carrying no weight—the power behind them stolen, shattered by death's unforgiving hand. "Please, open your eyes..."

"Aria!" The name drifted at her ears, syllables muffled by distance-but she didn't move as the others drew near, voices rising with panic, footsteps crashing heavy upon the soil behind her. "My god, what happened?" The words were growing clearer now, sharpening with dread-but even as the echoes of sound flooded through her ears, she ignored them, allowing them to pass without a response.

She didn't care—she couldn't care. Not when she had so much more to say, so much more to do.

Time stretched on, apathetic to the tragedy it had just recorded-but under the cold, unforgiving glare of midnight, Aria knew nothing but silence.

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Please, open your eyes...

Aria flew to a seated position, eyes snapping open as if in response to the words-and as wakefulness crashed over her in a jarring wave, her thoughts were slammed back into the present. Her heart was screaming beneath the fabric of her chest, lungs heaving with adrenaline, fingers clawed in the tangle of bedsheets-and Aria's lips tightened in a frustrated sigh, all too familiar with this evening ritual. She had always been troubled with nightmares—especially as a youth, her childhood often more turbulent than her mother's marriage—but in the last few months, they had become a crippling problem.

They struck with frightening regularity—haunting visions of the night of Spencer's death, rising to torment her in the early hours of morning—and as much as she tried to move forward, that ghost of the past was always there to drag her back. The nightmares hadn't changed with time, a nightly occurrence-but as much as she had been numbed to the grim reality of loss, the dream always brought pain, slicing open withered, aging scars.

She hadn't been the same since that fateful night—not since she had lost the friend she had come to cherish as family.

Each of them had been devastated—Alison by a sense of guilt at her failure, Hanna and Emily by the affection they shared for a mutual friend—but she had lost something more, the power than anchored her tumultuous life. She hadn't just lost a friend, she had lost the sister she never had, the platonic intimacy she always wanted-and unlike the others, she knew that a piece of herself had died with Spencer.

It's not supposed to be like this.

Aria shifted upon the mattress, eyes clouded with unshed tears-and she wiped them aside with a furious hand, resigning herself to another sleepless night. A humid sheen of sweat clung to her forehead as she rose from the edge of the mattress, pacing over to her bedroom window. It was nearly midnight, the sky blanketed in a thick, ashen cloud of darkness-and she felt just as heavy with exhaustion, limbs sagging under the weight of fatigue.

She hadn't experienced a full night of sleep since that day—her eyes rimmed with scarlet, body wasting away into bone—but she didn't care about keeping appearances, not when the world had come crashing down. The future had once been so bright, so brimming with possibilities—a year ago, she was certain that she would have been a bridesmaid at Spencer's wedding, and vice versa—but everything had changed in the span of a single evening. They were supposed to enter the milestones of life together—from watching each other's marriages to becoming the spirited, reckless aunts to each other's children—but that opportunity had been stolen from them, erased long ago.

Erased by their tormentor's hand—Ezra's hand.

Once, the name had felt like honey on her lips, a herald of everything good in this world—now, the very word tasted bitter, an echo of hatred upon her tongue. If there was a positive to Spencer's death, it was that it had led to the downfall of their tormentor and his allies—after the incident at Thornhill Lodge, their private battle with 'A' had been catapulted into national headlines. Once every secret had been drawn to light, exposed to the gaping maw of media sensationalism, the furor of Spencer's death had engrossed the nation-and after a few weeks, the FBI had been called to Rosewood.

It hadn't taken long for the A-Team to realize how outmatched they were, their sadism leading to sloppy mistakes, as well as an electronic trail to follow-but by then, investigators had already discovered their identities. Within a week, A's accomplices had all been rounded up—Detective Wilden, Wren Kingston, CeCe Drake, and Jenna Marshall—and were soon charged with Spencer's murder, along with a slew of other offenses. After the loss of support, they were able to outmaneuver 'A' himself, revealing his identity-and Aria hadn't forgotten how her stomach had twisted when the news had surfaced, horror whipping through her like the waves of a storm.

Ezra.

His name buzzed through countless articles, a morbid coverage of his exploits, the shock only adding to her despair—while she had felt the unmistakable sting of betrayal, she had always suspected that he wasn't as benevolent as his charming veneer. In the aftermath of Mona's unmasking, she had grown to mistrust any display of human goodness, knowing that it could be a façade-and Ezra had begun to kindle her suspicions, especially after she had started questioning their relationship. When she began to pull away, his behavior changed for the worse—the manipulations were subtle in every conversation, though she slowly noticed the attempts at control—and as the romanticized layers were peeled away, she saw him for who he truly was.

A predator.

As she often did, she had gone to Spencer for advice, her naivety broken-and while Spencer's words had once shocked her, made her thoughts reel with frantic denials, time afforded her wisdom to see the truth behind them. "I know you think you love him, Aria, but he's taking advantage of you." Spencer had told her in what had become their private sanctuary, the two of them sectioned away in a bathroom stall-and even now, she could remember the concern on her features, something that had warmed her heart. "It's not a relationship, it's an adult preying on a minor. What he's been doing to you is illegal, and there's nothing wrong with what you've been feeling about this."

Spencer had always been willing to tell her the truth—regardless of the cost to herself or others, regardless of how others perceived her—and while a lot of tears had been shed on that day, it had given her the impetus to look beyond Ezra's manipulation. She had never thought of herself as a victim, let alone the victim of such an intimate violation-but as she discovered the slow changes in her own behavior, she realized the truth. At first, she had decided to avoid him altogether, rather than facing what may result if she confronted him directly-but he often arranged scenarios where she would be forced to be alone with him, such as the pretense of a grading discussion.

It had been the first time she had refused his advances, and told him to stop—not that he had listened. The change of behavior was frightening, a nightmare that she never wanted to revisit, though it had only confirmed her suspicions in the most repulsive way—he had never respected her consent to begin with. She hadn't been able to gather the courage to confide in her parents, seeking the solace of a shower to burn away his touch-but Spencer had always known the darkness behind her mood, even then.

"Aria, you need to tell the police, or I'm going to." Spencer's voice had been different, frayed with the echo of pain—not her own, but empathy for another's. "Whatever he's been doing to you, it's not your fault, okay?"

Perhaps that had been Ezra's motive for stealing the game—he wanted to have her back under his control, to punish her for escaping the abusive cycle—but even though he couldn't hurt her anymore, it didn't change that paralyzing fear. She knew it would remain for life; while she had once romanticized the forbidden relationship, diving into it with all of the immaturity of youth, she knew the decision had never been hers to make. Ezra had given her an illusion of control, a façade of consent-and she had been too young to know the difference.

After his arrest, she realized that she wasn't his only victim—several other girls had also come forward, each one from a different city. Their stories of victimization had been a frightening mirror to her own, something that was unsettling to watch playing out before her-and their accounts of his behavior had been nearly identical, as were the methods he used to manipulate them. It was a painful reality to confront—that someone she had placed so much trust in was her abuser, that Ezra's true nature was nothing like the gentle facade he presented—but with therapy, she had learned to work through it.

Pedophiles weren't always the decrepit, leering men that fiction so often presented—they could be behind even the kindest of appearances, male or female, old or young. Like most of his kind, Ezra hadn't lasted long in prison—he had been stabbed to death by one of the inmates a few weeks ago. Only his family mourned, a collection of affluent, callous people that were probably just as slimy as their relative-but morbid as it was, she saw it as a blessing, a flicker of light in the darkness.

Good riddance. Aria felt the thought flare in her mind, unbidden—her only regret was that Spencer hadn't lived to see the day. Her murderers had been brought to justice, yet it wasn't enough—death was irreversible, and no force could ever bring her back.

They may have had their freedom—the ability to live the rest of their lives in peace, without the threat of A's constant shadow—but Spencer's life had been the price, a cost she would never be willing to pay. Closure may have soothed the others, but it granted her no peace—she would rather have endured a further decade's worth of torture than lose her closest friend.

We'll always be Team Sparia. Aria felt her eyes begin to water, cursing the treacherous sensation-but the grasp of despair wouldn't leave, clinging to her like an old friend, a lover's touch. Her friend's memory was a lifeline to sanity, an ember that would never burn out; for all of its power, not even death could erase a memory. I'll never forget you, Spencer.

Aria peered out the window, watching the sidewalk that lay below-and silvery fingers of moonlight danced across the concrete, a hypnotic rhythm to her weary eyes. Nature had always gifted her with a sense of peace, even since childhood-and she had been drawn to the creative arts, from writing to photography. Such displays were often the only comfort she had—that burning passion for creativity enveloped her like a flame, a soothing balm to her frayed nerves—and it was a pleasant distraction from the shambles her life had become.

Rosewood had moved on from the grim shadow of death—the media's sensationalistic hunger could only draw pathos from a tragedy for so long, after all—and its echo was soon lost to time, buried in the humdrum of daily life. Her friends had likewise attempted to move forward, returning to school as if the world had a purpose, as if the world's hideous underbelly hadn't been revealed to them-but she was not so forthcoming. She knew it wasn't a healthy fixation—her grades had been dragged down by an ocean of absences, her body withering under the weight of depression—but even with the gift of clarity, she couldn't seem to break that heavy paralysis.

Much to her parents' dismay, she had quit therapy a few days ago-but from the trauma of her teacher's sexual abuse to the crushing weight of Spencer's death, she didn't have the strength to face it any longer. The deeper she went, the more demons she would have to unearth-but for her, the feeling of Spencer's cold, limp flesh beneath her fingertips was enough for a lifetime. Eventually, she would have to face that bitter truth—it was part of the healing process, after all, the light at the edge of the tunnel—but today was not that day.

Things weren't supposed to end this way.

Aria stared into the darkness, a perverse mirror of the emptiness she felt within-and her vision was already clouding with fresh tears, mourning the future that could never be.

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