notes | for the crazy pairings challenge in the A-team Forum, and this is as crazy of a pairing that i could possibly think of and i had to write it really quickly in about thirty minutes, so i hope you guys still like it, :) also, the title comes from jack's mannequin, dark blue.

—Also, sorry that this is late but — HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO THE WONDERFUL Z, :) You're a reallyreally great friend and a flawless writer, and I hope that you have the best of birthdays! and the prompts: singing in the rain, hearts collide, and scripturient

dark blue
spencer&wesley

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"life can be long or short, it all depends on how you choose to live it. it's like forever, always changing. for any of us our forever could end in an hour, or a hundred years from now. you can never know for sure, so you'd better make every second count. what you have to decide is how you want your life to be. if your forever was ending tomorrow, is this how you'd want to have spent it?"

— the truth about forever, sarah dessen

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It starts off with never being good enough.

It's hard for Hanna to think back to that time — the time when A was just a letter, and it was seventh grade ( singing in the rain was all the rage ) and they didn't have to worry about their parents and friends being affected by the dramatics of a serial killer, who was usually a person that they had thought that they could trust, and every time she's let her guard down, everything comes rushing back to the surface, and life becomes messed up.

The turning point in high school comes when she doesn't get accepted into the University of Pennyslvania, near the end of senior year. There's no going back, perhaps, and Spencer knows that it's impossible to redo the college application, and her parents; that's the worst part of all, because when she comes home from one of the worst days of school, Spencer sees her mother, who gives her a big hug, saying that her acceptance party into U-Penn's business program (Wharton) will be held tonight, and she just goes upstairs and resists the urge to cry. Her mother never acts like this. Ever. She couldn't let her mother down, she couldn't let anybody else down ( because Spencer's already let herself down a countless number of times ) by telling her the truth, so she'll have to stick with the lies.

It's not like Spencer to feel this bad about herself ( but in a way, it truly is ) but life just has been horrible. It really has. And, every time that she decides to keep her guard down, things keep collapsing, and people keep dying, and in a way she starts thinking that it's all her fault, it's all really her fault and they shouldn't blame others, they should start blaming themselves for everything bad that's happening to them.

In a way, what she had said, weeks before to the current date, is completely and honestly true; even though Spencer had been worrying about being killed, and the people that she loves being murdered or hurt, and the fact that Toby had been A — but she understands everything now; and the fact that she should have been focusing on what really mattered. Throughout all of the drama, it was a miracle that Spencer had even remembered to fill out her college applications, only with the assistance and the not so helpful nudgings from Melissa, but her life's just so messed up;

And, honestly, she's not the same person that she had been in seventh grade, before Ali had disappeared ( but she's not really dead, is she? ) with the side braids and the thick rimmed glasses, and Spencer's changed. For the better or for the worse? That, she hasn't decided yet.

.

People start dying — people have always been dying, but this time it's different.

Spencer's not sure whether or not it makes her seem selfish but when Toby dies, all she can think about how selfish it was for him to leave her, and this can't be the ending — IT JUST CAN'T BE THE END; and she can't take it anymore. It's the last straw before her breakdown, and she thinks back on those magic moment days, and she really did love him, but nobody really cares about her in the end, and he was the last one to care, so why does it even matter if she remembers him anymore? He's the only person that cared about her, and he was her soft spot to land. Finally. Not anymore, however; he's gone, and Spencer would have to move on.

Her mother takes her to a psychiatrist in Rosewood approximately six months later, telling Spencer that she needs to learn to move on; but she's been moving on her entire life, trying to change and adapt and to always be the best in everything, but it's not worth having hope. It just breeds eternal mistery, like now; and if she thinks that nothing can get worse again, it's when the psychiatrist recommends Radley.

She's eighteen years old, old enough to learn not to whine and complain and cry at her mother, shouting loudly but she's insane after all ( but she's just sinking into the dark blue night after all ) ; but Spencer doesn't really care about anything anymore because her life is already miserably fucked up and nothing can make it worse than it already is, but things start changing and as the months pass by, Spencer starts to realize that she's never going to be the same way. In a way, she should have known this for quite a long while, but she's never going to go back to being that little smart girl.

And, it hurts, because for her entire life — eighteen years of perfectionism; came to nothing, never being that girl who would refute all the horrible things that her parents had said about her, and all she can think about is back to a day in sixth grade, when life was different; she's allowed visitors, and A drops off a journal. By now, Spencer doesn't even really care that much about how A got the journal in the first place, but there are memories scattered throughout her, heartbreaking memories of a life in which she would never really fit in.

She had always been that girl who stuck out of the crowd, the one who wasn't really sure whether or not somebody was lying to her and let her guard down too easily, just to let her heart be broken once more; Spencer was always the one who made the most mistakes, who was never forgiven just because she was Spencer Hastings and nobody truly liked her, or at least that's what Ali said. And, she's gone now.

In a way, everybody's gone — her parents never really counted as parents; and Melissa would have to be one of the worst sisters that Spencer could ever think of, and she used to live her life for the magic moments, but she can't count and them anymore, she can't count at anything.

Spencer's even bad at being insane; at Radley, she meets a few other girls who remind her of Alison, a group of blonde girls who stick together because of their anorexia issues ( the only acceptable reason to be sent there ) and she's never really going to be that girl that fits in, and she's eighteen years old and Spencer's dreams of becoming a princess, one of those Asian perfect girls is never going to happen, because every time that she's had hope, her walls come crashing down and everything turns to misery and darkness, but she'll have to come out of the dark age.

Or not.

Throughout her vast years spent there, most of them spent up crying, tears wiped away in a morning; it becomes clear to her that all she has left is the passion to write down everything, so she writes and writes and tears everything up in the morning, just to prove that nothing lasts. At least, not anything good.

She could just stay in Radley until her dying day, known as the weird girl, the insane one, worse than Mona even — the psychotic freak who couldn't learn to move on from a single person's death; but Toby wasn't just a single person. Nobody besides Spencer would understand that, not even Emily who keeps on saying that it's okay, and she'll have to move on, but nobody knew him the same way that she did. At least nobody alive, Spencer thinks to herself regretfully.

.

The first day that she's allowed to leave Radley is when she breaks out of the prison.

She's twenty one years old, and wonders what her friends are doing — but they're not really her friends anymore; still, and if they even want to talk to her anymore, and decides that the best way to figure out is to approach them. In a way, she's sort of reckless and stupid and Aria's apartment is the closest building that's not going to check her identification partly because they should know just to let in the dangerous criminal mastermind, or at least that's what they call her.

Spencer doesn't have her phone with her ( of course, because at Radley, they confiscate everything that connects you to the outside world ) and she knocks on the door, and this person shows up and slams the door in front of her face, then opens it and grins, "Spencer?"

Apparently, his name is Wesley.

Ezra's younger brother — the unmentionable one; but Spencer still can't help but think of him as A, because that's what he is to her. A. And, everything spirals out of control them, and suddenly she's holding onto him like a lifeline, and their hearts collide because they're both heartbroken, dying in a sense, but don't you know that you've been dead since the seventh grade, Spencer? You were never really living, just sinking the way home. Several months later perhaps, and he's the only one who actually knows the truth about her and she thinks that she's never going to love somebody as much as she loved Toby, but it's a start.

(holding, holding, go on begin, to let go)