A/N: Hey, everybody! I took a moment from writing my Spemily saga to write this little one-shot. I wrote it during the weekend and I've decided to post it in case you enjoy it. It takes place after episode 2x19, "The Naked Truth", so it may contain the hint of a spoiler (but nothing is actually said). The situation has changed to make it Spemily, but it's only Spemily friendship, nothing else.
Thanks, people who read it and enjoy it.
A/N 2: I'm just editing...
Disclaimer: I do not own PLL, its characters or its storylines. I do love PLL, though, and that explains why I'm writing this xD.
Emily woke up in the dark to the sound of everybody's slight snores. The first thing she saw when she struggled to grasp the forms in the dark was an absence. Spencer's shape under her sleeping bag wasn't there, next to her, so Emily instinctively looked around her place on the floor, trying to find her familiar slender figure.
"Spence?"
She saw her sitting by the window.
"What time is it?", Emily asked to no avail. Spencer looked back but denied with her head, as if she didn't know or care.
Emily searched for her cell to see the time. 3.30. Why the hell was Spencer up at this time?
However, something else caught Emily's attention. There were eight missed calls from that mysterious phone number they had found in Alison's, aka Vivian Darkbloom's coat. That person must have been calling the whole night, but she'd had to put the phone on mute mode because they were sleeping in a room full of people.
She rolled over to her side and leaned on her right elbow.
"I have eight missed calls", she whispered in Spencer's direction.
Again, no one answered.
What was the matter with everybody? Then she realized they were all sleeping in a giant classroom, it was the middle of the night and fortunately no one had woken up to her questions. Hanna had a heavy sleep and Aria seemed to be passed out by her side. She then looked back at Spencer, who was up and acting strange, and decided to stand up and approach her. She was surely acting weird. And, besides, who else, but Spencer, would know what to do about the eight calls they'd missed?
Emily walked next to the window with the phone in her hand.
"What's wrong?", she asked when she caught a better sight of Spencer's pained expression. She looked like she might've been crying, but she wasn't crying now. She just seemed troubled, the corner of her mouth was turned down a little and her brown eyes were darker than usual, both teary and closed off. "Are you all right?"
For a moment, Emily feared there would be no response again. Had she turned into a ghost, or was this a dream of some sort, would Alison appear from amidst the shadows? But, no, it was real; she could feel the cold tact of her cell in her hand, and Spencer moved a little this time to actually look at her.
"Spencer, what is wrong?", Emily repeated, with a stronger tone.
Spencer raised her index finger to her own lips to force Emily to lower her voice or perhaps to shut her up completely. Then she took Emily's phone in her hands and checked the calls. The light of the screen illuminated part of the room, and a couple of bodies moved and shuddered under their bags.
They looked at each other for a moment, but it wasn't the same kind of communication. Emily's gaze was questioning, while Spencer's was a mixture of irritation and sadness. Then Spencer moved from her seat by the window, grabbed Emily's arm and drove her out of the classroom in silence. Once they reached the hallway, they walked together to a further place, next to the lockers where they stopped by and chatted every day in between classes. But all was deserted now, and there was no one around except for them.
"Why didn't you answer the calls?", Spencer both croaked and scolded.
"Because we're sleeping in a room full of people", Emily defended herself, her tone higher than it should be in the echoing solitude of the halls, "and I had to put it on mute mode."
"We have to call back now."
"What is wrong with you?", Emily retorted instead of complying to Spencer's order. "Why were you up so late and why do you look like you want to kill me or anyone who talks to you?"
Spencer seemed to be taken aback by Emily's reproachful tone, because her whole attitude lost part of its electrical negative energy and seemed to loosen and waver in defeat and guilt.
"I don't wanna kill you", she answered, less aggressively now. "I'm just… I couldn't sleep."
"Yeah, I did notice that part." Emily's tone grew lower and calmer too. "What's happened?"
Spencer's darkened eyes suddenly became a little fiery. "I can't tell you", she said. "But, trust me, it's bad enough."
"Is it about A?"
"No, for once, it's not."
Emily let her shoulders fall to relax her posture. She hadn't realized both their bodies seemed tense and ready to explode, as two barking dogs facing each other in the street. Well, Spencer was more of the barking dog kind. Emily was more of a meowing cat when Spencer's dog tried to bite her tail.
"Are you thinking about Toby?", she decided to ask as the most logical, natural question, and her voice sounded already perfectly calm.
Spencer sent her a weak, warmer glance now. "No, it's not that either, amazingly." Her body posture relaxed too, and she leaned against the lockers in lazy tiredness. "There are just too many things eating me away now. I guess this is just kind of the tip-of-the-iceberg kind of thing. The kind of let's-give-Spencer-the-last-push-so-she-jumps-out-the-window kind of thing."
When Spencer felt over the edge, she could indeed get very sarcastic and rather bitter at everything, but that only made Emily look at her friend really concerned, even if she knew of her sardonic, edgy tendencies.
"What is it? Can we help?"
"No, you can't do anything. I can't even tell you anything."
Emily sighed. "Can you at least give me a clue about how to help you?"
"I'm telling you, there's no way", Spencer protested. "If at least I could crash at your place for the next year and a half, but that's not gonna work." Then she sent a longer, more meaningful look to Emily. "And it's not like you actually have a place where I can stay."
She was trying to joke about it in her typical sarcastic way, but this kind of quip gave enough information to Emily as to why she was behaving like this.
It was about her family.
Emily, who was also leaning against the lockers, turned her body to face Spencer. "Maybe you can crash at Aria's for a couple days."
"Yeah, I'll probably ask her tomorrow."
Emily nodded. The Hastings had always been a pain in the ass for Spencer. The same way Spencer could be a pain in the ass for the rest of the world, but worse, because they seemed to push her over the edge a little too much. Who knew what they'd have done to her now?
"I understand this is about your family and you don't really wanna talk about it, but I'm here if you need to talk, okay?", Emily assured, slightly touching Spencer's elbow with her hand. "I won't tell anyone. And, even if you don't wanna talk, you can still not talk to me too."
Emily's last words seemed to amuse Spencer a little, because she smiled for the first time.
"You'll be all right if I don't talk to you?", Spencer joked. "That doesn't make sense."
"You know what I mean."
Spencer sent her a glance that said yes, she did know what Emily meant. She meant Spencer could just remain silent about the problem, without the need to feel alone or isolated about it.
"Thank you", Spencer said in a lower voice.
In a rather abrupt move, she hugged Emily. They stayed like that for a long minute until Spencer patted Emily's back with her hand.
"Why are you patting me?", Emily asked, amused. "I'm supposed to be the one comforting you."
Spencer pulled away from the hug with shiny, teary eyes and smiled crookedly.
"You are comforting me", she assured. "It's just that I was thinking of how you don't have a home either so it just hit me that we're the homeless people in this school, besides Caleb, and we obviously should end up all living down in Hanna's basement or something." She took a deep breath and then smiled more openly. "It's just funny."
"You're weird", Emily answered, but smiled in return. It was actually kind of funny. "And we do have homes. It's just that other people are living in mine, and in your case…"
"It's just that my own people are living there, but I don't know who they are", she interrupted, "so I'd better leave before they drive me totally nuts."
Emily approached Spencer again and pulled her tight for another hug. This time it was her who patted Spencer's back, and she could hear Spencer's soft chuckle at the feeling of it.
They pulled away again after a while.
"Feeling better?", Emily asked.
"Oh, much better", Spencer sarcastically asserted, but there was a soft, calm undertone to her words that had not been there before. "There's nothing like a good pat on the back."
Emily raised her hand and patted Spencer on the back again, in a rather comical gesture.
"Just tell me whenever you need one."
"It feels good."
"I know."
"Do you get a lot of those?"
"I could always get more."
Spencer crookedly smiled at the exchange. "I'll try to give you more then." She seemed to be thoughtful for a moment, and the smile faded away. Then she looked at Emily again. "I didn't realize that with you being the always-understanding-and-perfectly-kind sort of friend you are, you might be in need of more pats. We're not paying you enough attention."
"I get a lot of pats. I already got my whole share of pats when I came out."
"You did?"
"Yeah, don't you remember?"
Spencer seemed to take a moment to remember the times Emily came out. It'd been a while ago.
"Yeah, maybe."
They stayed quiet for a while.
"I'm sorry I was bitchy to you", Spencer said, serious and apologetic.
"It's okay."
Another pat on Spencer's back followed.
"Will you stop doing that?", Spencer protested, but laughed. "I'm being serious."
"I know", Emily laughed back. "Come here."
She hugged Spencer again and this time there was no patting of any sort. They just held tightly to each other until Spencer felt relaxed enough to actually weaken and start crying on Emily's shoulder. She didn't want to become an emotional mess, she was too mad and indignant at her father for that. And she couldn't tell Emily about her father, at least not yet. So she choked back tears and pulled the strength of her legs together, in order to finally move away from Emily wiping some of her tears with her hand.
"Thanks again", she managed to say, once more.
This time Emily didn't answer, but just stared sweetly at her and grabbed her index finger as a last form of contact.
"We should call that number now." Spencer's voice was a little firmer after having choked back some more tears. "Let's do it."
She made a decisive move to grab the phone, but Emily denied with her head and held the phone herself. With a silent instant of communication between them, she dialled back the number that'd called and held the phone to her ear, waiting until the signal came, while Spencer held her breath next to her.