Run

A/N: I guess it's AU in the sense that Spencer doesn't come back to reality after her stint in Radley.

Fountains of red and calligraphy tattoos.

She woke up screaming, her hair tangled around her face, nails scratching wildly at world around her. He slipped out of the sheets and was behind her in seconds, wrapping his arms around her waist and holding her tightly. He murmured under his breath, quiet words, anything until she recognized his voice and stopped screaming.

It didn't take too long this time, just a couple of excruciating minutes listening to her scream and thrash and a small scratch around his wrist where she had clawed at his skin desperately.

When she was finally still, she fell back into his arms, exhausted. He noted how small she felt, wrapped in his arms, a million broken fragments of the girl she used to be. His insides coiled with guilt.

"Toby...?"

"I'm here, Spence."

He loosened his grip and let her turn herself around so she could see his face. Her eyes were soft, her face wet with sweat and tears. She was shaking and he knew what was coming.

"You're safe now," he said, knowing it wouldn't change a thing. He touched her face, brushed her hair away from her eyes. They were full of fear. It was like he had never said a word.

"She's here, Toby." Her lip trembled. "It's A."

"Okay." he whispered.

He grabbed the empty backpack from the floor by the couch and began to pack as she moved to the desk and starts shoving papers and notebooks into an old leather briefcase, hands trembling, mumbling about locations and travelling directions and hiding, always hiding.

This room had outstayed its welcome.

Sometimes he wondered if he was even doing right by her. The doctor's had told him that she wasn't safe - that she should be in the hospital with proper care, that she had had a psychotic break with reality or something and that she was a danger to both herself and those around her. On the bad days he was terrified that something would happen to her and it would be his fault - his fault for breaking her out of the hospital in Pennsylvania, for taking her out of the country, for moving her around every couple of months, running from someone or something that no longer existed.

For loving her so much he could hardly bare it.

And maybe he was being selfish. It wasn't like the thought never crossed his mind. But he loved her so deeply that he couldn't bear to see her locked up like a prisoner, drugged so completely that she could barely see him when he entered the room. At least this way she was still Spencer, in most senses of the word. So she hated open windows and cell phones and camera flashes, it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. They often had weeks together at a time without incident, exploring the world and each other, and that was true happiness. He was convinced that he was the only one who truly knew how to handle the paranoia when it overwhelmed her. And when she did lose touch with reality completely, when she woke up screaming in the night and clawing at invisible bindings, he was there to catch her.

He watched her pack, hands trembling, and he swore he could hear her broken mind working overtime to try to put the pieces back together. Spencer was always trying to fit the pieces together, had been doing it since the first day he'd met her in all her brilliant, sly glory. But now, ever since she had found his (fake) dead corpse in the woods and driven herself so far from reality that she had ended up in Radley, she no longer seemed to be able to make it all fit.

He had all but stopped trying to tell her she was alright, that it was all over, stopped trying to bring her back to the reality of a word she hadn't known for years. She was safe. But her mind was broken and safe no longer fit into the puzzle of Spencer Hastings' brain. She would never be able to understand that the A team was long gone, in prison or dead, no matter how many years passed without evidence.

But she knew he was alive. And as long as he could watch the relief spread through the tense panic of those wide brown eyes when she awoke from her nightmares, he would keep going. He would follow her anywhere, his inquisitive and brilliant Spencer with wide curious brown eyes and a smile that could turn his world upside down. She was broken but she could still see him, even if in her dreams he was all red fountains and calligraphy tattoos. She could see that he was here and he was alive and he loved her more than anything in the world. She could see him and that was all he cared about.

And so he pulled his black hoodie over his head laced his fingers through hers as they crept down the hallway and out the back door to the inn. Her pulse raced and it tore away another piece of his heart.

They were running from nothing but he still ran with her.

a/n: Just because Toby thinks it's a good idea to take a mentally ill patient out of the hospital and run with her doesn't mean I do. Just so ya know.