DISCLAIMER: I do not own Pretty Little Liars or any of the characters. If I did, Toby would clearly not be on the A-team.
"Please, don't let me go."
The words echoed in Toby's ears, bursting with hidden meaning.
Please, don't let me go. Just hold me.
Please, don't let me go. Stay in Rosewood.
Please, don't let me go. I know I haven't been honest, but don't give up on me.
Please, don't let me go. I need you.
As Spencer clung to his neck, joyful from their reunion, Toby smiled and kissed her eagerly even though her words had shaken him to the core. He knew he would never be fully prepared for what was to come, but the one thing he had been counting on was Spencer's strength. It was what had kept him going these past few weeks without her, knowing that he was lying to her and betraying her in the worst possible way.
Spencer is the strongest person I know. She doesn't need anyone. She certainly doesn't need me.
These were the words that Toby had spoken in his head like a mantra during this time away from her. He would close his eyes and repeat these words while he sat holed up in A's lair, instead of in Bucks County, where he was supposed to have been. He would chant those words when he was alone, making plans with Mona over the phone, and reprise them when his cell phone would chime with a new voicemail or message from Spencer. They were the first words he thought before falling asleep and waking up, almost as if they were inscribed on the backs of his eyelids. Spencer is a Hastings. She'll be fine.
He had known that her resilience would get her through and that, no matter what, she would be okay. She was Spencer Hastings, after all. Invincible. Indestructible. Unshakable. But then she looked at him with those big, brown, trusting eyes and softly murmured those five little words that nearly shattered his heart into a million little pieces. Please, don't let me go. And Toby damn near melted into a puddle right there in the middle of the street.
Even though he had sought out and joined the A-team as a means of protecting her, he knew there was a chance that he had lost Spencer forever. Toby knew that if she or one of the other girls should find out what he was doing, they might not accept his "working on the inside" explanation and he was prepared for those consequences. He had to be because her safety was the only thing that truly mattered. He knew that he would break without her, but putting himself back together again wasn't exactly new territory for Toby Cavanaugh. He had done it several times before. In fact, it seemed as though his life had been one long series of shattered hopes and broken hearts. Masochistic though it may have been, Toby could handle destroying himself.
Spencer, on the other hand, was an entirely different story. When she whispered those five words to him, he felt their relationship breach a whole new level. She needed him. She loved him. He could feel those three unspoken words on the tip of her tongue, taste them as she pressed her warm mouth against his and burrowed herself more tightly into his outstretched arms. He nearly trembled beneath her touch, feeling the familiar rush of emotions that he had tried to repress over the past few weeks.
"Pretending not to love you was the hardest thing I've ever done."
Toby nearly laughed as he thought back to those words he had spoken many months ago. In reality, it felt like a lifetime ago. At the time, he had meant them with the utmost sincerity, but so much had changed since then and he had gotten himself so much deeper into this black hole of insanity that had begun with a seemingly simple inquisition. He wanted to go back in time and shake his past self like a rag doll.
"You think THAT'S pretending?!" he wanted to scream.
You fool, he whispered in his head. You had no idea what pretending was.
He had learned a lot about pretending since then, from Mona and the other members of the A-team, and even from Spencer herself. Honesty had once been a trait that Toby prized in himself and in others. When he was younger, he had been open and sincere, which was one of the qualities that made him so vulnerable to Jenna when she had first moved into his house. She saw him as innocent and easily manipulated and she used that to her advantage. She would also tease him about it relentlessly in her condescending manner, reinforcing the idea that she was in charge and he was simply some silly little boy who knew nothing about the ways of life and needed to be instructed by someone as sophisticated as her.
"You shouldn't wear your heart on your sleeve," she used to tell him, flirtatiously rubbing his arm. "You'll bleed to death."
How right she was. There was a time when Jenna had held that still-beating heart, warm to the touch and wet with blood, in the palm of her hand and squeezed until all its life was extinguished. He could picture that shriveled heart in his head and the image was always something morbid. His blood, streaming out of the tiny, decimated heart like strips of crimson silk. Jenna, standing in front of him with fire burning in her eyes, painting the blood over her lips until they were stained red, like a child's after eating a popsicle. Jenna, scattering the remaining pieces of his heart into the wind, smiling devilishly as she reminded him that she owned him.
Toby closed his eyes, shaking himself free of the memory of her. Jenna may have been the one to destroy him, but Spencer had put him back together again. She had let him in and trusted him, something that he knew was difficult for her. Besides Emily, Hanna, and Aria, Spencer didn't trust anyone. Not even her own family. But she had placed her faith in Toby and saw the good in him, something that he hadn't thought anyone in that town would ever be able to see in him again. Slowly, she had helped him to mend. Theirs was a story of love and redemption and he knew that he would have gone to the ends of the world to protect Spencer and risk everything in the process, if it only meant that she would be safe.
And so the ever honest Toby was swept under the rug and a new Toby Cavanaugh was born, one who could lie and deceive without blinking an eye. He may have been a version of himself that he loathed, but if he could save Spencer's life, he knew it was worth it. He had no regrets, but finally seeing Spencer for the first time in several weeks, he saw what he had been too blind to see before.
She may have been Spencer Hastings, smart, strong, and fiercely independent, but she was also human and she trusted him with her whole heart. And he, Toby, would be the person who broke it.
A/N: Okay, so I'd just like to say that I have so many feelings about Spoby! I literally cried real tears during the midsummer finale (and I'm not ashamed!) I wrote this with the intention of Toby joining the A-Team post 3x08 to infiltrate it and break it down from the inside, no matter how flawed or doomed that theory is. I still can't admit that he is truly evil and faking everything because it just doesn't make sense with his character arc. Sure, he's justified, but we were led to believe that Toby doesn't have a vindictive bone in his body and that he would never hurt anyone simply because they had hurt him first. He's better than that and I hope the writers don't just throw away that beautiful story line of blooming trust and redemption for the shock value. Anyway, rant over! I meant for this to be a one-shot, but I might write more to go along with it if I get inspired. Tell me what you think.