A/N:: HELLO. IT'S ME. (sorry for being such a loser, I just couldn't resist)
Okay so this fic is canon as of right now (up through the garbage that was 6x10), but you can disregard any rumors that you may have heard about the time jump because SCREW THAT. There are some very specific allusions to 6x07, as well as mild references to drugs and alcohol. You've been warned :)
Thanks for all of your the support, friends. This definitely exists due to the gentle prodding of those who have recently asked me for something new. To my guest reviewers - it makes me so sad that I don't have a way of replying specifically to you when you try to get in contact with me! Please know that I cherish you guys even when I have zero inspiration to write anything!
Sometimes she wakes up crying without remembering a thing. The nightmare is already gone, but her heart is still racing.
Other nights, it is as vivid and cruel as if it is actually happening all over again. A figure in a hoodie tries to strangle the life out of her. Dirt is trapped in between her sheets, the echo of police sirens bounces between her ears, an orange jumpsuit chafes against her skin. Or even worse, there's a physical chill traveling over her body as if she is naked on that steel table all over again. A fake prom that goes horribly wrong. The real prom that came to a screeching halt. The shrill protests of her friends as she's forced to press a button that seals their fate.
Sometimes, she finds herself dashing violently through the woods, forced to relive the night she found Toby's dead body ruthlessly discarded on the forest floor.
There's no stopping her screams when she's in the grips of a particularly brutal nightmare. It's an unforeseen godsend that Laurel, her soft-spoken roommate from Virginia, is a Psych major with boundless empathy. Any other student would have marched straight to Housing within the first week of classes, fierce with the intent of getting Spencer exiled to another room.
But it isn't always like this. There's another type of sleep; it's the kind that's only interrupted with the warmth of his lips, the scattering of his breath tickling her neck from behind, the weight of his arm that reflexively tightens across her waist. Those nights are dreamless, because the sweetest dream she could possibly conjure up has already been realized. It's his presence right beside her - his sleepy smile, his deep voice, his long fingers lost in her hair. He steals all the badness and replaces it with pure and uncontaminated goodness. She decides that he's her modern-day Robin Hood, and even if the reference doesn't make complete sense, she can't bring herself to swap it out for something more coherent. For once in her life, being right about something is less important than just feeling the way she feels when he's near. He makes everything better.
She can't spend every night in his bed, though. That was part of their deal - she is supposed to take a crack at the normal college experience since 'normalcy' is finally an attainable concept for her.
It's only when she crawls into the standard-issue twin bed in her dorm room that the cobwebs of her past have a tendency to creep back into her brain. She's making progress, though. There are mornings when she wakes up without a single thought of -A or CeCe, not rehashing a single memory of the underground bunker that almost broke her for good. Sometimes she goes a whole week without a single nightmare, celebrating seven consecutive mornings where she sleeps soundly until her alarm goes off. There are days where she hears a text message come through without a shred of fear.
She gets up with something that resembles optimism, she gets dressed, she gathers her books. She goes to class. She lives.
And it's honestly so much better than she ever thought it could be.
But every now and then, no matter where she is or how far she has come, those old demons show up and still take her hostage without her permission. She wants to be strong, she wants to give her past the middle finger, to cuss out the memories, to stomp out the old impulses.
She just isn't there yet. And disaster never comes with any warning.
"Toby?"
"Where are you?" He doesn't bother with saying her name, asking her how she is, none of the usual pleasantries that are supposed to come out of your mouth when you answer a phone call.
Spencer has only uttered his name - one word, two syllables, four letters.
Instantly, the earth tilts beneath his feet. She isn't okay.
"Toby...I..." The monotonous thump of a bass is all that fills the silence.
"Tell me where you are. Please, babe. Are you on campus?"
"N-no. A couple blocks away. It's a house - "
There's a commotion in the background then, the riptide of voices and music suddenly sharpening into a monstrous wave. It obliterates her feeble words. He almost chucks his cellphone at the door in sheer frustration.
"- but I can't find her."
"I didn't catch all of that, Spence," he bites out in as calm a voice as he can manage, "you said you're in a house? Is it a frat party? Where's Laurel? Did she go with you?"
"I said I can't find her, Toby. I can't find Laurel. We came with a group of girls from our building and I...I - "
He nods without any regard for the fact that she can't see him. He crams the phone between his ear and his shoulder, grabbing several items at random as he flies through the narrow apartment, aiming for the door with a myriad of emotions collecting in his throat. "Take a deep breath, okay? She's probably looking for you as we speak. Just stay put and let her come to you."
Her wobbling exhale filters across the line. "Right. Right, okay."
"Can you remember how you got to the house? Do you know what it looks like, or what direction it is from your dorm?"
"I-I'm not sure. You don't need to come, Toby. I'm fine, I just needed to hear your voice."
To her credit, she did sound far more stable that time, but like hell was he not coming.
"Too bad, because I'm already on my way." He makes a point of opening and closing the door to his truck as loudly as possible to prove his point. "So you can either tell me where you are, or I can hang up and call your roommate to find out for myself."
She takes her time before answering, and he can imagine the exact crease that's likely forming between her eyebrows as she battles with herself internally.
"Hold on. I'll open the GPS on my phone and tell you what it says."
Toby merges into the stream of glowing Friday night traffic, whispering a soft 'thank you' toward the smog-filled sky.
Her arms shudder against her jittery knees. She's huddled into a tiny ball, wishing that she could make herself even smaller yet. That damn pungent smell - so vilely unsolicited - swirls around her, mocking her, twisting itself into her hair and her clothes.
As she kneels there on a sticky and unfamiliar floor, she's plagued with one pathetic little thought, and it's bombarding her brain over and over again - Why can't I just be normal?
Her throat burns, but she refuses to cry. Not here. Not yet.
She closes her eyes and wills him to arrive faster. She needs to escape from this place before her fragile reserve of restraint dissipates into the pervasive clouds.
Her hope swells a moment later when the door swings open to reveal –
...someone who is not Toby.
"Heyyyy." A generic-looking blonde boy steps closer until his greedy leer dissolves into something more hesitant. "You okay? You don't look so hot. Oh gosh, are ya gonna puke?"
"I'm fine," she mutters, trying to scrounge up an assertive-looking scowl that will have the power to drive him away. "Nothing to see here."
He wagers another uneven step toward her as a pack of barely-clothed girls come screeching through the hallway behind him. "You look familiar, don't you? Are you in my criminal law class?"
"Nope. No law classes. No Hastings legacy law degree for me, please."
"I have no idea what that means, sweetie, but I'd love to get you a drink and find out."
He staggers forward once more. Spencer grimaces, bolstering her grip around her knees and praying to be anywhere but here. She considers getting up and giving him a piece of her mind, but the thought of standing makes her stomach churn with an unpleasant mix of nausea and anxiety. Every drop of previously consumed alcohol seems to rally against her, chaining her to the ground.
"Please, just...go away."
He opens his mouth with a crooked smirk, but his opportunity to respond is cut off prematurely.
"She asked nicely, so you should probably honor her wishes," Toby says as he strides into the room without preamble, his jaw tight and blue eyes flashing. He goes right to her without even glancing at the moron who's already begun to edge his way toward the door. "Everything okay here, Spencer?"
Relief charges through her body as he sinks to floor in front of her and takes her face in his calloused hands. She nods slowly, her gaze never leaving his. "It's fine...he's only been in here for a minute."
And just like that, it's as if they're the only two people in the whole house. His lips press against her forehead and a physical calm washes right over her.
"Tell me what happened tonight," he murmurs as gently as she's ever heard him, "tell me what kind of worrying I should be doing right now."
Six months ago, that request would have bugged the hell out of her. Six months ago, she still had a problem telling him much of anything. It had cost her too much. It had broken her too many times.
But this isn't Rosewood and she doesn't have to be that girl anymore.
"I'm not hurt or anything like that. I had a few drinks and...and I don't want to be at this party anymore."
She sees something dangerous flicker across his expression. "It reeks of marijuana in here."
"I know," she whispers back automatically. "I shouldn't have come. I want to go home."
She blinks, and in that fleeting nanosecond, one solid arm is beneath her knees as his broad hand finds anchor at the small of her back. He stands up, lifting her effortlessly in the process. "Then let's go home."
Her head is drooping listlessly against the fogged window. He is certain that she's slipped off into an alcohol-induced slumber, so he takes his time once the truck is in park at the rear of his building and unconsciously begins to memorize the moment. Her fitted leather jacket has definitely seen better days - some unidentifiable substance is smeared across the sleeve nearest to him, and the collar is crinkled at a wildly askew angle. Her eye makeup is smudged beyond repair. There's a tear in her silver tights, starting just below the hem of her skirt and running down toward the top of her knee.
And dear God, is she ever beautiful.
He smiles, albeit a little sadly, and reaches out to smooth a straightened chunk of her nutmeg hair back to where it belongs. When he pulls his hand back, her red-rimmed eyes are staring right at him.
"Mornin', Tobes."
His brow arches at the sound of her nearly inaudible mumble. "It isn't morn-" but then he glances at the neon numbers on the dash and lets out a defeated sigh. "Of course, even when tipsy, you're still smarter than me. 12:07. It's officially morning."
"You're smart, Tobes. Really smart. Smart and sexy too."
He bites his lip to keep from laughing too loudly. "Thanks, I think."
Her eyes drift shut, but her golden grin remains insatiably intact. "Don't be coy. You know it's true."
Toby shakes his head with another stifled laugh. "What I know is that it's time to get you upstairs before you cause a scene out here. What I also know is that my back is going to be sore tomorrow after I'm finished hauling you all over the place."
"Pssshh. Don't even. You tell me all the time that I weigh next to nothing."
"Nice to know that you're actually listening to me when I speak."
She hums back at him with a lazy smirk, making no intelligible comeback. Taking that as his cue, Toby gets out of the truck and goes around to her side of the vehicle. She nearly tumbles right out onto the curb as he opens her door, but this is not his first rodeo - his arms circle her small torso in an instant, catching her long before she has the chance to damage any of those precious brain cells. "Come on, Raggedy Ann. Up we go."
She snuggles her head against his shoulder as he swings the door shut and begins to carry her up the sidewalk. "My hair isn't red, Tobias."
"And yet your limbs are flopping around aimlessly."
"Touché, babe."
"I called you before I could do anything stupid. You know that, right?"
Toby abruptly stops rifling through the medicine cabinet to aim a solemn look at her from over his shoulder. "Yes."
She rubs at her temple, trying to calm the noise inside. "Really? Just like that, you believe me? You believe that I didn't..."
"Really." He expels a weighty breath as if he can't decide what to say next. "You would have never called me if you had actually taken a hit."
Even in her numbed state, that one stings a bit. "Fair enough."
"That isn't the only reason, though. I do trust you. I think we both know that the last time was..."
"The last time was unforgivable," she finishes for him with a self-loathing grumble, grimacing dejectedly from her spot atop his bathroom counter. If only she could reach backward in time and undo all of her past transgressions against him. She would do anything to erase the glassy, pained look in his eyes as he sat alone in the Police Department conference room, gallantly trying to push her away before anyone could put two and two together. "I'd rather die than ever hurt you like that again."
He is suddenly in front of her then, his arms resting on either side of her. "Don't say that. Don't even think it. We forgive each other. That's what we do. I can handle anything as long as you're still here."
She meets his intent gaze for as long as she can dare. If she had heard that once - literally, just once - the first time she had been hooked on Adderall, would her story have turned out differently? Would she have ever touched those pills - or any other drug for that matter - again?
"Thank you for coming to get me tonight." She leans in closer so that their noses are touching. "Thank you for believing in me."
He glances downward and swallows with baited anticipation. And then his lips are on hers, so soft and so full. The spinning in her head stops momentarily, but her heart is galloping out ahead of her. It is late autumn in Washington DC, but he is as warm and as light as blue cotton candy in mid-July.
When the kiss ends, he pulls her in for a long hug, his voice tight when he finally speaks - "I'll always believe in you, Spencer. I have no other choice."