Author's Note: Hello again everyone! Just a reminder, this is an AU fic for right after the pill scandal, and it is a Spemily story. This is Spencer's POV. I am not all that educated on withdrawal symptoms, so forgive me if any of this seems inaccurate. All mistakes are mine. I hope you all enjoy, and please let me know what you think!

Possible trigger warning: depression.

Disclaimer: I do not own Pretty Little Liars or any of the characters that exist therein. If I did, it would be all Spemily, all the time.


"Spence?" Toby called out, lightly tapping on the door before walking into my room. I just looked up at him through barely cracked eyelids, completely absent of the motivation to respond or even take a vague interest in his presence. "Hey babe, your dad let me in, Em told me you were having a hard time…"

Other than looking at him, I did nothing to acknowledge Toby's words. He entered the room, and I just sat there, turning my head back to stare out the window, my arms wrapped around my legs and my head an absolute mess. My dad had sent Emily home so I could sleep, but as soon as she left I became anxious. I needed her. I felt lost without her, but I refused to call her and tell her that. She didn't need to spend all her time taking care of me. She deserved to be out living her life, not holed up with a miserable screw up like me. She deserved better.

"Spencer?" Toby asked, sounding like someone had kicked his dog.

My boyfriend was standing right there next to me, trying to be sweet and supportive, and I couldn't even bring myself to care. I didn't really care about anything if I were being honest. Empty, that's what I had felt for the last couple of hours; like nothing had any meaning in the world anymore. Except Emily. Emily meant everything.

"What do you want, Toby?" I whispered, just wanting him to go away.

Even as far away as I was in my mind, I knew I would regret saying that normally, but I couldn't summon the emotion necessary to actually care. I wanted to be miserable alone.

"I want to be here for you, Spence. To help you. What else?"

He was confused. I felt no sympathy, although I knew I should have.

"I'm okay, Toby, really. I'm sorry Emily dragged you into this. Honestly, I'm just tired, and I'm going to take a nap. You can go home, it's okay. I'll call you later, yeah?"

I was trying. I was trying so hard to be pleasant. It was hard though, and I was already getting increasingly anxious the longer he stayed in the room. He needed to leave; I needed him to leave.

"Spencer, don't lie to me, I know you're not okay. This is me, Spence, your boyfriend who loves you. Just tell me what you need. I'm not going to leave you here alone," he explained with exasperation, moving closer, crowding me, overwhelming me.

He was too close. He was too nice. It was too much.

"Like you were there for me when you found out about the pills, Toby? Huh? You want to stand here and judge me like you did then? Well thanks, but no thanks. I live in the cathedral of judgment here in the Hastings house; I don't need you preaching it to me too. Go home, Toby. Just go home," I bit out with effort, more emotionally exhausted with every word that flew out of my mouth.

Toby just stood there for a moment, his mouth hanging open.

"Please leave. If Emily can't be here, I just want to be alone."

The second sentence was not supposed to escape, but there it was, and it was true. Unfortunately, it just gave my boyfriend hope, and I saw his eyes brighten with the intensity of it. He pulled out his phone.

"Then I'll call her," he offered excitedly, hitting the send button before I could stop him.

I didn't want him to bother Emily, but I also couldn't motivate myself to move enough to grab the phone away from him. So I just stared out the window again, vowing not to move another muscle until I actually felt capable of it.

"Hey, Em. Yeah, yeah don't worry, everything is okay. Yeah, Spencer is fine, she just misses you. Yeah, whenever you can head back over, I'll run interference with her dad if necessary. Okay, cool, see you in a few," he spoke into his phone, looking quite pleased with himself as he glanced towards me. "She'll be right over, she was grabbing her stuff while we were on the phone."

He looked so damned proud. I was just fucking annoyed.

"You shouldn't have done that," I admonished, irritation extremely evident in my voice as I opened my mouth without moving another muscle.

Again, I could see out of my periphery that he looked like a confused puppy.

"But… you said you wanted Emily here…"

Toby was stuttering; he never stuttered. I must have been even more of an ass than I had imagined, but I couldn't help myself; I just kept going.

"I said that if Emily wasn't here then I wanted to be alone, not that Emily had to be here right now or that I would want you here if Emily was here as well. Damn, Toby, can't you just…" I started, even more irritated when Melissa showed up unannounced and interrupted me.

"Everything okay in here?" She questioned, poking her head around the doorway, her voice sickly sweet and very obviously false in its cotton candy happiness.

Seeing her, I immediately withdrew again. My eyes found the nothingness in the far distance outside my window. We had suspected Melissa of a lot since the A thing started, and I could not handle both her and my own failures regarding the pill debacle. It was almost certain that she was there to throw my imperfections back in my face; to highlight yet again why mom and dad loved her more. I had to protect myself.

"Yeah, everything's fine, thanks Melissa," Toby finally answered after I had been silent for at least three minutes, obviously uncomfortable with the lack of response.

"Just checking. I'll be downstairs if you guys need anything," my sister offered, her tone sounding almost genuine, which made me even tenser.

I didn't know what her game was, but I refused to play.

Toby thanked her, and I heard her move down the stairs, grateful that she was finally gone. Still, I felt crowded. I wished Toby would just go home; I didn't want to hurt him more, but I wanted him gone. Instead, he moved closer. Five minutes before I would have pulled him apart limb from limb with my words for encroaching on my space, but I couldn't find the energy anymore.

"Spencer, I'm sorry if I upset you. Please, just tell me what I can do to help you," my boyfriend begged from behind me.

I couldn't even respond. I didn't know how.

"Spence, please, talk to me."

He sounded close to tears.

Normally, just knowing he was upset would make me cry, but there were no tears in that moment for me. In fact, there was no response at all. I couldn't even bring myself to face him; I just stared out the window, not actually seeing anything.

We sat there in silence: me unable to speak, Toby not knowing what to say.

"Spencer? Toby?" Emily called from down the hallway, her footsteps coming quickly toward my room.

Melissa must have let her in.

The smallest flutter of feeling sparked in me when I heard my best friend's voice, but it was gone as quickly as it had come. I still didn't react. Toby sighed deeply, and I heard him turn and walk toward the hall. I continued to stare off into space.

"Hey, Toby," Em greeted pleasantly, obviously having met my boyfriend in the doorway.

"Hey, Emily," he responded sadly. "Listen, you're here now, so I'll just head out. I'll see you later. Bye Spence."

His footsteps started to retreat into the hallway, but they stopped abruptly.

"Wait, Toby, where are you going? Spencer needs us right now, you can't just leave," my best friend admonished, her voice on the verge of hostile.

"She doesn't want me here, Em. She only wants you. We're all better off if I just leave now. I'll come back if Spencer wants me to, but I'm not going to stay here when I'm just making her more unhappy than she already is," he whispered sullenly, probably hoping I couldn't hear him.

"Toby, she's struggling right now, she's going through withdrawal for god's sake. I was doing some research earlier, and it said she'll most likely be depressed and irritable, anxious, or even worse. Of course she's going to try to push you away, but it you let her then you're just going to validate all of the doubts she's having about herself right now. You can't just walk away because things are a little rough," my best friend lectured, trying to keep her voice down but not really succeeding at all.

Emily sounded like she wanted to deck him. I still didn't move.

"I can't do this, Em. I'm sorry."

Quick footsteps led out into the hallway and down the stairs, and I knew that Toby was finally gone. Somehow I wasn't as relieved at that thought as I imagined I would be though. All I could think about was what he had gone through with his mom. I hadn't known it was possible, but I felt even emptier than before.

My best friend sighed deeply and I heard a loud thunk. I'm fairly certain she kicked the doorframe. Still, I didn't turn. Maybe Emily would do the smart thing and walk away from me too. I wasn't worth the trouble.

"Hey super genius, how you doing?" Em inquired softly, approaching me carefully and making sure I could see her movements as she placed a hand gently on my shoulder.

Lethargy and ambivalence still filled me, and I couldn't find the strength to reply to even that simple of a question. Then again, it wasn't all that simple for me. Regardless, I managed to lean into her touch, just the tiniest bit, to let her know I heard her. The part of me that wanted to protect Emily, to get her as far away as possible, fought valiantly but lost out in the end. It would seem that the part of me that craved and needed her presence was infinitely stronger.

"It's okay, love, you don't have to say anything. I'm here now, and I'm not going anywhere. Just let me get things situated and I'll just be here with you. We won't have to do anything at all that you don't want to," Emily pointed out, leaning down to place a kiss on my forehead before retreating from my vision once more.

There was a lot of shuffling and the sound of moving objects after that, and I was fairly certain that my best friend went out into the hallway more than once. The same sounds continued for quite some time, and I was slowly being lulled into a sense of security by the repetitiveness of it all. Of course, my peace couldn't last though, as a heavy tread interrupted the rhythm and shattered my newly created safe space. It was definitely my father, and I was suddenly terrified that he would send Emily home again. He couldn't do that to me. I needed her.

"You're back already?" Dad demanded right after the light patter of Em's footsteps came to a halt. He sounded angry.

"Yes, sir," Emily responded, obviously trying really hard to be polite. "Toby called and told me that Spencer was asking for me, so I came right over. I'll always come when she needs me, Mr. Hastings."

Her last statement was made with such conviction that I could actually feel it reverberate in my bones. She was being defiant even as she sounded so proper, and I would have smiled had I not felt so far away. People always described my best friend as sweet and shy, but this was who she truly was: strong, protective, and loyal to a fault.

Dad just sighed exasperatedly before responding. He had never been a fan of idealists.

"And I appreciate that, Emily, I do. But if you're here all the time she's going to become dependent on you, and that's just going to make it more difficult when she goes to the rehab center in a couple of days," he explained slowly, as if he thought Em wouldn't understand what he was trying to say unless he spelled it out for her.

I wanted to stand up for my friend, but his words sent another chill through me, and I found myself frozen to the spot. I couldn't even move, let alone yell at my father.

"You want to send her away? You actually think that her being alone, surrounded by strangers who will probably judge her is the best thing for your daughter right now?" Emily started, speaking more harshly than I had ever heard her before. Dad was spluttering, trying to respond, but Em cut him off. "Do you have any idea what kind of toll Radley took on her? How could you possibly think that sending her to another institution would help? She needs to be surrounded by people that love and support her right now, people who would do anything in the world for her, like me. She needs me right now."

Emily whispered the last statement, so quietly that I almost didn't hear it, and my stomach fluttered with the cadence of her words.

"Emily's right, Dad. You can't send Spence away, she needs to be here, she needs her friends," Melissa's voice filtered in from further down the hall, making me jump a little.

I had not heard her approach, I hadn't even heard her footsteps on the stairs, and that made me wonder just how long she had been eavesdropping on us all.

"I'll speak to your mother about this later, this discussion is over," Dad grumbled unhappily, speaking only to Melissa and then stomping down the stairs really loudly. I heard the front door slam a couple of minutes later.

"Thank you, Melissa," my best friend offered, still sounding as if she were standing in the doorway of my room, protectively. Obviously she was not alone.

"You don't need to thank me, Em. Just take care of her, and let me know if I can do anything to help. I'll be home as much as possible, just in case," my sister replied, no guile in her voice whatsoever.

Her recent genuineness perplexed me. Footsteps receded down the stairs once again without another word spoken, and I hoped it was Melissa that had left. I needed Emily in that moment more than ever.

"Sorry about that, Spence," Em apologized, as though she were at fault for what had happened. She was kneeling beside me again, and she continued when I neglected to reply. "I made a pillow and blanket fort next to your bed. Do you want to come sit in there? I'll stay with you if you want, and no one will be able to bother you…"

She seemed hesitant, obviously unsure whether or not she had done the right thing. I wanted to throw myself at her and hug her forever, but it took almost all of my strength just to nod my head and turn towards her a bit. Emily's eyes lit up with happiness at even that small movement though, and she immediately helped me to stand and move into the enormous fort she had built.

I was suddenly immensely grateful for the fact that my family owned so many linens.

Settling into the center of the fort, I felt warm and safe. Em moved in to sit next to me, and I immediately curled into her. She laid us both back into the mountain of pillows behind us, and I felt just a little less empty and overwhelmed. I was finally in a place where I could fall asleep; my eyes drooped quickly.

"I promise that I won't let him send you away, Spence. I won't let anything happen that you're uncomfortable with. I'll be right here with you the whole way; I won't leave your side for a second. Nothing will come between us. I love you, Spence. I love you so much," Emily whispered, probably thinking I had already fallen asleep.

There was nothing I wanted more in that moment than to thank her and tell her I felt the same, but I still couldn't do it. So I just snuggled a little further into my best friend's side as my stomach fluttered once more, and swore to myself that I would tell her all the things I had bottled up inside as soon as I could.