Paige let go of Spencer's hand and her travel bag as she unlocked the door to her dorm room. Once inside, she tossed her keys on top of her desk and set Spencer's bag beside the bed. Spencer sat on the bed, her hands folded in her lap, and looked up at Paige. She looked so angelic and vulnerable that it was harder and harder for Paige to suppress or continue denying what she was feeling.

Paige hated herself for getting like this. Again. She knew what this thing with Spencer was: Two friends far from home and on the heels of break-ups with their long-term soulmates, clinging to each other for support; occasionally working out their physical needs with each other. But Paige had, once again, gotten caught up in it - the need to support the woman whom she was with, to protect her, to be there, whatever she needed. It wasn't that Paige wished to be the other girl in those relationships – the one who could just treat it as a casual thing; the one who could walk away. She just wanted, for once, not to be the one who was always desperately clinging to the one who was walking away.

But she had to be honest with herself. That was who she was: The lioness, thanklessly mothering her cubs, until they outgrew their need for her.

"Paige, we need to talk about..."

"No, we don't."

Spencer stood and put her hands on Paige's chest. "I need to explain what you heard me tell Emily."

"No, you don't." Paige hardened her heart. "I get it," she said, slowly shaking her head. "I know what this is. I would've told Emily the same thing."

Spencer opened her mouth as if to say something, but she couldn't speak. She stepped away from Paige and turned her back to her, not wanting Paige to see how wounded she was by those words. But her body language gave her away - the way that her shoulders slumped, the way that her head lay in her hand.

Paige realized that she had gone too far. She only meant to say that she understood that what she and Spencer had was expendable, but it had come out as if she meant that she would dump Spencer if Emily wanted to take her back.

"Spencer," Paige begged, putting her hand on Spencer's shoulder, but Spencer jerked it away. "You know that I didn't mean it that way. You know that I'm not looking to get back with Emily!"

Spencer spun around and gawked at Paige. "You think that's why I'm upset?"

Paige shrugged her shoulders.

"Paige, I didn't mean what I said to Emily. You know that. I was only saying what she needed to hear."

"Well, how do I know that you're not just saying this to me because it's what I need to hear?" Paige meant it half as a joke, to lighten the tension, but for whatever reason - exhaustion; frustration; something Freudian, where she would rather fuck things up on her own than face rejection - it came out bitter.

Spencer's jaw dropped. She raised her hands and shook her head, telling herself not to say something that would make things worse. "I should just go," she said in defeat. She turned to grab her bag, and then reached for the door.

Paige knew that she had to do something to keep Spencer from leaving. Instinctively, she appealed to her competitive side. "Hastings!"

Spencer's shoulders dropped when she heard that. That's it, isn't it? It'll never be more than this stupid-shit game to Paige.

Paige saw Spencer's back rise and fall as she fought to hold it together. "Spencer..." she pleaded, drawing out the last syllable.

Spencer turned around, the tears and her words streaming out uncontrollably. "You know how it is with Emily. You know the way that she makes you feel - that you'd rather cut off your arm and give it to her than disappoint her. And you know the way that I feel about you!"

Paige was stunned. She got what Spencer was saying about Emily, but that last statement was totally unexpected. Paige took a deep breath. "Maybe you should tell me, then. How you feel about me."

Spencer collapsed against the door. She dropped to the ground with a grunt of frustration and stared at the ceiling. She couldn't believe that Paige was really going to make her say it out loud. The night was just getting worse and worse. She wished that she had just kept her mouth shut; fucked Paige's brains out and gone to sleep. In the morning, they could go back to pretending that it was just physical.

Spencer felt Paige plop down next to her, and, soon, Paige was taking her hand. She guided Spencer's face downward so that she could see her eyes. "Would it help if I went first?"

Spencer encircled Paige's left arm with her arms and laid her head on Paige's shoulder, nodding her response into it. She opened her mouth and took a deep breath, looking down at Paige's fingers as Paige started to speak.

Paige, too, avoided Spencer's eyes for what she was about to say. "Okay. I guess that I have a tendency to fall in love too quickly and too... desperately." Paige turned her head just slightly towards Spencer, fearing that she would see some expression of shock there. Spencer was still staring stoically at Paige's hands. "Only, I just found that out recently."

Spencer lifted her head from Paige's shoulder and looked in her direction. Paige was still looking straight ahead. Spencer laughed genially. "You only recently found that out?" she said, as if it was common knowledge.

Paige shrugged her shoulders. "I thought it was just with Emily," she explained.

The smile left Spencer's face when she realized the implication of what Paige had said. "Oh." She squared her shoulders toward Paige. "You mean me?"

Paige nodded slowly, lowering her head. Spencer brushed the hair away from Paige's cheek and kissed her there. She put her head back on Paige's shoulder and renewed her grip around Paige's arm, signaling her to continue.

"I know that we're about the struggle. Fighting for dominance on the field, in the classroom... and in bed. And I love that. I really do. I love that you bring out the best in me. It's just that, somewhere along the way, I realized that I didn't just love competing with you. I love being with you. I love..." Paige couldn't finish.

Spencer released a sigh of contentment, and it came out as a purr. "This isn't freaking you out?" Paige asked, finally turning to look at Spencer's reaction. She was surprised to find a tender smile on her face. It wasn't her victory smile. It was something softer, somehow;- almost shy. Paige had seen that smile before, directed toward Toby. As always, it disappeared as soon as Spencer realized that she had been caught.

Paige nudged Spencer with her shoulder. "Okay," she rasped softly. "Your turn."

Spencer exhaled. "Okay," she said, sliding her hand down to hold Paige's, to ground herself. "Well, I guess that I learned something about myself, too. And I also just learned it earlier tonight. When Emily called you my fuck-buddy." Paige recoiled a little at that disclosure. A scowl overtook Spencer's face. "I mean, who is she to judge what you and I have? As if she's the only person whom you could ever fall for; as if there could never be anything real between you and me." Paige stroked Spencer's arm.

"So, yeah," Spencer continued, "I took it. I took everything that she threw at me, because I knew that it was coming from a hurt place, and I know that we did the wrong thing by her. But I never regret what I did with you, Paige. What we did together."

Spencer took a quick glance at Paige's reaction before she squeezed her eyes shut, exhaled, and continued. "Do you remember what you told me about Emily, back when I first came out here to Stanford? That you always do the right thing the wrong way? 'Cause, we may have done this the wrong way, but that doesn't mean that it's not right. Very few things that I've done in my life have felt so right."

Paige smiled and turned to give Spencer a kiss. She sighed as their lips separated, smoothing her hand over Spencer's hair. "So what happens now?"

Spencer smiled seductively. "You take me to bed?"

Paige smirked. "Okay, so what happens after that? Like, tomorrow?"

Spencer sighed. "I guess I need to have a talk with Aria and Hanna."

"Give them your side of the story."

"Exactly."

"And Toby?"

Spencer rolled her eyes. "I'm sure that he knows."

"But don't you think..."

"We're broken up, Paige!"

"Yeah - like me and Emily!"

"No," Spencer said condescendingly, "not like you and Emily. I'm not dating Toby's ex."

"But I am!"

"But you're not his best friend."

"But we are friends..."

"Only through Emily!" Spencer was losing her patience.

"But I'm..."

"Fuck, McCullers! Why do you always have to make things so..." Spencer caught the smirk on Paige's face and realized what Paige was up to. She grabbed Paige by the collar and stood up, dragging Paige up with her. Once they were on their feet, she slammed Paige against the door. "You [kiss] can be so [kiss] fucking [kiss] aggravating!" With that final word, she thrust her thigh between Paige's legs and started grinding into her roughly, still clenching her fists into her collar as she planted a bruising kiss against her lips. When she felt Paige moan helplessly, she shoved her tongue into her mouth, moving one hand to grab her chin and the other to give her left-breast a deep-tissue massage.

Paige was too tired to fight back but too competitive to give in. By the time it was all over and done, both of them were bruised and sore, grateful that their sports seasons were over. They were in no shape to face practice or the weight room for a couple of days.


"It was never like this with Emily," Paige admitted. "I could never go full-out like that with her, you know what I mean?" Spencer just hummed. "And I promised myself that I'd never bring up Emily in bed, by the way," Paige added sheepishly, after the way that Spencer's responded.

Spencer nestled in closer to Paige, holding her arm tighter, possessively, around Paige's waist. In general, she agreed that it was a good idea not to bring up Emily. But she didn't mind hearing that Emily never got what she was getting from Paige. "It was never like this for me and Emily, either."

Paige sat up a little, her eyebrows raised in shock. She gave Spencer a firm but playful shove once she picked up on the fact that she was just messing with her. Spencer rolled with the shove, landing with her back to Paige. She lifted her hair off of the back of her neck and fanned herself with it a couple of times before she pulled it up into a bun and laid her head on the pillow.

"Mmmm," Paige cooed, "I like it when you put your hair up." She ran the back of her fingernail from the place on Spencer's neck where her hairline ended all the way down her back, under the blanket. When Spencer squirmed, with a giggle, Paige planted a kiss on the back of her neck. It was just supposed to be one; - a kiss good-night - but Paige couldn't stop. As the kisses got longer and more heated, her hips began rolling into Spencer of their own volition.

"Paige," Spencer whined in a half-hearted protest, drawing two syllables out of the name. Paige continued undeterred. Spencer turned around quickly, before Paige's lips could find their favorite spot on Spencer's neck– the one that Paige had nicknamed "the point of no return."

"Paige!" Spencer said sternly, scowling at Paige's dopey grin. She put two fingers on Paige's lips to hold them at bay. Paige parted her lips and started sucking the two fingers lightly. Spencer dipped her shoulders and pleaded, "I haven't gotten any sleep all night!"

"And you're not going to," Paige promised.

And Paige always kept her promises.


"So, that's pretty much it," Spencer said with a deep sigh. The seconds seemed to drag by as the phone remained silent. "Anyway," she added uncomfortably, "I just wanted to let you hear the whole story. From me."

"Well, thanks," Aria said sincerely. "And we understand."

"Yeah. We don't blame you," Hanna added.

"I do," Spencer said weakly.

"Spencer, Emily and Paige were broken up. You and Toby were broken up. You and Paige weren't cheating."

"I know, Aria, but I should have told Emily from the beginning…"

"Why?" Hanna interrupted. "What good would that have done? Emily would've made you feel guilty, and the whole thing with Paige would've been over before it started. Is that what you want?"

"I don't know." Spencer took a deep breath. "No, that's not what I want for me, but it's what I want for Emily."

"Spencer," Aria said in a calming voice, "We all love Emily, and we all want her to be happy. But, let's be real: If you never got involved Paige, what difference would it have made? It's not as if she and Emily would magically get back together."

"I told Em that I would break up with Paige, if that would fix things," Spencer admitted, still ashamed that she had said it.

"She didn't believe you," Hanna informed her. "And she would never ask you to."

"Emily's just in a bad place right now. Honestly, if things hadn't gone so sour with her and Sara, she probably wouldn't even care that you were dating Paige. She might even be happy for you." Spencer huffed. "Happy" was a bigger leap than she was able to accept.

"Don't worry about Emily," Hanna said. "We'll take care of her. You take care of Paige."

Spencer's shoulders dropped in relief. She was glad that her friends had her back, of course, but it felt even better to know that they were going to make sure that Emily was okay.

"So, what's it like with Paige?" Hanna couldn't help asking. "It must be nice to be with someone all gentle and nurturing for a change."

Spencer couldn't help laughing out loud. "No!" she said definitively. "Paige is anything but gentle. I mean, sometimes, with Toby, I got the feeling that he was treating me like fine China, you know? - As if he was afraid that he would hurt me. But Paige knows me better than that. She's…" Spencer bit her lip and tugged at her hair. "Um, yeah. Not gentle."

"Do you ever miss being with a guy, though?"

"Hanna!" Aria chided. It seemed like a good time to get off of the phone, but she stayed on the line. She didn't want to leave before she was certain that Spencer was okay.

Spencer gave the question some thought. "I think… sometimes, I miss things like... the feeling of rough fingertips on my skin, you know? But, when I'm with Paige, I don't miss anything at all. I mean, physically, we can do everything that a guy can, and then some." Hanna stifled a laugh at that. "But we're not together because of the physical aspect – even though that's what we both thought that it was, at first. This blow-up with Emily made us both realize that it's more than that. We're really connected. I mean, Paige gets me, you know? I can show her sides of myself that no one else has seen. And she sees things in me that no one else sees. Sometimes, she sees things that even I don't even see."

"Well, we're happy for you, Spencer. We really are."

"Thanks, Aria."

"And Emily will be, too. It's just going to take some time."

"Yeah, trust us," Hanna agreed. "Pretty soon, it's going to be the four of us again."

Spencer allowed herself to smile, hoping that time would prove her friends right. For now, the best that she was able to manage was to be happy with the place that she and Paige were in, and happy for Aria and Hanna's support.


A/N – This chapter's poem: "Eulalie - A Song."