Kinda more of a fluffy chapter, but it does lead to something big, so keep your eyes open. Send me reviews with your opinions as always! I read every single one of them, and fall in love every single time. You guys are legit the best.


"WHAT?!" Aria screamed. "No. That's impossible. She's not still out there. I thought we got rid of her!"

"So did I, but apparently not!" Spencer exclaimed, exasperated. After Jason broke the news to Spencer, she was at a loss for words. Jason was caring enough to ask if there was anything he could do for her, and Spencer asked if he could drive her to Ella's apartment where Aria was staying. He complied, but dropped her off on the street, as he was still afraid of making any sort of contact with the girl he still had some feelings for. Now Spencer was sitting anxiously next to Aria on her bed, although she wished more than ever that her ankle would heal so she could pace around the room to calm her nerves.

Aria slowly positioned herself so that she was sitting up against her pillow. "What does it mean, Spence," she asked, looking up into Spencer's kind brown eyes. "Is she back to take care of unfinished business? Is this not over in the way we thought it was?"

Spencer sighed. "I never really believed it was over," she confessed. "It all seemed too easy. If she were dead, there'd still be the other A-team members to finish what she started."

"But she was the one in charge," Aria pointed out. "If she died, they wouldn't have anyone calling the shots. The team would've crumbled."

At this, Spencer just raised her eyebrows. "You really think Mona would've let the A-team crumble?" she asked testily.

Aria just collapsed back onto her pillow. Spencer, out of anyone, knew what Mona was capable of. She had pushed Spencer to the point that she had just snapped and no longer wanted to be a victim. She had no fear, and Aria had gotten a taste of this when she had threatened Mona in the girls' bathroom while Spencer was still in Radley; Mona had simply shrugged her shoulders and gave Aria a look that was so smug and so awful that Aria wanted to smack her. She could only imagine what Spencer had to endure all during that time. And Aria wished more than ever that Spencer had told her about Toby being A and Mona whacking her like a piñata as soon as possible so that Aria could be there to comfort her through all of it.

As these thoughts were going through Aria's head, Spencer took a good look at Aria. It had only been a day, but Aria looked just as bad as she did yesterday, with burns and scratches still littering her body. Spencer used her arms to push herself further up on the bed. "How are you feeling today? Any better?"

Aria just closed her eyes as she rolled her head to the other side of her pillow. "A little, but I think it's just because of the meds. My back is still killing me."

Spencer could only nod her head. Back at the fire, it had taken everything in her not to wince every time Alison had slammed Aria's little body against the wall. It sounded so painful, and Aria's helpless yelps of agony only made Spencer feel worse that she couldn't get up and save her. Looking back, Spencer realized she could've saved Aria so much suffering if she had gotten off the ground sooner, but Ali's confession just kept going and Spencer needed some answers.

And yet, as hard as it was for Spencer to admit, since she hated not knowing things, she would rather go back to having her questions unanswered now that she knew the truth. She had put Aria's safety at risk, and Spencer had never seen Aria look as overwhelmed and confused as she did now, since she knew the wretched truth.

Aria noticed Spencer surveying her, and just offered a weak smile. "Relax, okay? I'll be fine. I'm more worried about you. You can't even walk!"

"Well that's what the crutches are for!" Spencer jokingly protested, causing her and Aria to giggle slightly. It felt good to still joke about stuff, even though the walls in Spencer's brain were still slowly collapsing on top of each other.

The giggles soon stopped, however, and they were back to their forlorn situation at hand. "What do we do now?" Aria asked, more to herself than Spencer. "Should we tell someone?"

Spencer leaned back on her elbows on the bed. "Honestly," she began, "I ask myself that question every day. But every time we try to tell someone about this, it…"

"… comes back to bite us in the ass," Aria finished, averting her eyes to the wall.

"Yeah," Spencer said while slumping her shoulders with so much force that a few of her sleek brunette locks fell into her face. She simply blew them away fiercely as she looked toward the door. "Aren't you afraid your mom is going to hear us?"

"Nah, she doesn't wanna listen in on our conversations. She's probably on the phone with her barista right now," Aria explained with an eye roll.

"If you're implying that your mother isn't paying attention to you, then allow me to point out the various number of times today that she pestered me to pester you into eating the omelet she made you almost 2 hours ago, which you still haven't touched! Have you even eaten anything since yesterday?"

Aria just glanced over at the unmoved vegetarian omelet lying on her bedside table, avoiding the question. She had been excited about it earlier, but 10 minutes alone in her room while her mother prepared her omelet was enough time for all of the lies and secrets in her brain to go into war with each other to the point that it made her nauseous. She was starving, yes, but anything she could keep down she was sure would just come right back up. Even so, she appreciated her mom cooking it, so she didn't want to throw it away, so it had just been sitting on her bedside table for the remainder of the afternoon.

But Aria was more focused on the other half of Spencer's sentence.

"I never said that at all," Aria said defensively. "I love my mom, you know that! And I love Zach, too, I think he's great! I'm so happy for her. It's great that she's been able to move on after the divorce…" After mentioning this, Aria immediately wished she hadn't. If there was anything she hated more than anything in the world, besides the A-team, it was her family not being what they used to be. Spencer was still looking at Aria expectantly, so she continued. "I'm just bitter that I have to leave her out of all of this."

"No, I get it," Spencer said apologetically. "Sorry, I didn't mean it that way." And that was the whole truth. Spencer knew how close Aria was with her mother, and she had only implied that Aria was unaware of this because she was truly jealous of Aria's parents. Well, at least of her mom. Whenever she had a conversation with Mrs. Montgomery, Spencer always found herself thinking about how much Aria took after her. They were both so caring, yet so stubborn, and they both could have you answering their every wish and plea with just the enlarging of their eyes. Most importantly, every time Spencer was in a room with the two of them together she could clearly see the love they had for each other in their eyes. Spencer knew Ella would do anything to make Aria happy, and all Spencer wanted was someone to care about her in the same way. And she knew her parents certainly never would.

Spencer tried to put these thoughts aside as she placed her hand on Aria's knee that was concealed by the covers. "If you really want to," she began, "you should tell her. If it'll help you feel better."

Aria just stared at Spencer like she had grown wings. "What happened to what we JUST talked about, though? What if A does something?"

Spencer just gave Aria's knee a comforting rub. "You don't have to bring A up. Just tell her about what Ali told you, and see if she has any opinion on it. If anything, I think she would-" But then Spencer stopped herself. She was about to say, If anything, I think she would want some kind of closure on the issue, with she being Ali. But just the mere mention or implication of Ali's name made Spencer sick, so she tried to avoid it as much as possible. Also, she wasn't entirely sure it was true; if there was anything Alison loved, it was having power, and that meant denying anything that made her look weak.

But she didn't tell Aria this; Aria needed to talk to her mom. It was probably the only way she could recover from everything that happened.

Spencer swallowed and continued. "I really think you should tell her. Just spin up a lie about how you found out. You've always been really good at that," she added with a wink.

Aria giggled at that last remark. "Well," she started, "I guess I could tell her that we found it in her diary. That's what I told my dad when…" Now it was Aria's turn to stop herself. The mere mention of her dad made her stomach churn. She shook her head, trying to erase the thought of him. "I'll… I'll tell her."

"Good," Spencer said with relief. She then released the weight she was putting on her elbows so that she was lying fully on her back as she stared up at the ceiling. The room hadn't been painted yet, so the ceiling and walls looked completely plain and blank.

If only I could get the inside of my mind to be like this, Spencer thought darkly. Aria noticed Spencer's despondent state, so she questioned it. "Is everything okay, Spence? You haven't been sharing a lot of how you've been doing lately."

"That's because I truly have no idea," Spencer scoffed.

Aria chewed the inside of her cheek, pondering over this. She thought of how broken Spencer had looked when she saw her in Radley, and how dead. But when Spencer came out of there, she looked fresh and new, which was scary and confusing at the time, but even more scary and confusing when Aria found out that Spencer was on the A-team. Looking back, Spencer had gone through way more emotional turmoil than any 17-year-old should, and it broke Aria's heart. It was almost as though she had no one to turn to now; she couldn't turn to her boyfriend because he was the cause of the turmoil, she couldn't turn to her parents because the only thing they cared about it regards to her was her GPA, and she definitely couldn't turn to her sister because, quite frankly, Melissa was a bitch!

Aria wanted more than anything for Spencer to know just how much she cared about her, and that even though her family would never be there for her in the way that she wanted them to, she still had Aria.

"Hey Spence?"

Not bothering to sit up, Spencer turned her head just enough to the side so that she was facing Aria.

"You shouldn't be staying at home by yourself," Aria said worriedly. "You could really hurt your ankle if you put too much strain on it."

"Aria, relax," Spencer whined, facing the ceiling again. "My parents aren't out of town or anything, they're just working."

"Still," Aria persisted, "it's a pretty big house for you to have to navigate through… wouldn't you be more comfortable staying here?"

At this, Spencer's ears perked. She sat upright and faced Aria. "I can't ask you to do that. It's your mom's new apartment!"

"My mom loves you, Spence," Aria said easily, "and she knows you've been… out of it lately." Which was true. Ella was always telling Aria how she had seen how depressed Spencer had been at school, and how it was worrying her. If Aria were to ask if Spencer could stay a couple nights, she was certain her mom would comply.

Spencer still looked uncertain. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I'll just ask her later! And you don't even need to go back to your house to get anything, just borrow some of my stuff. You shouldn't be walking back and forth between houses, anyway."

Spencer's entire face lit up for what seemed to be the first time in weeks. She got on her knees on the bed, reached over, and enveloped Aria into a hug. She didn't realize that she was nearly crushing Aria's crippled spine, or that Aria had to bite her tongue until it bled to keep herself from screaming, but she decided to forgive it for now.

Spencer finally let go, allowing Aria to release the breath she'd been holding. She looked at Aria admiringly with her hands still on her shoulders. "You're the best, you know that right?"

"Nah," Aria said, brushing this off. "It'll be good for me, too. I could use someone here when I tell my mom about… that."

Spencer intertwined Aria's hands with her own. "I'll be here. I promise. Whatever you need, seriously! After what you're doing for me?"

Aria just giggled, but then tried to suppress a yawn. It didn't go unnoticed by Spencer.

"Aria-"

"-I'm fine," she protested. "I'll just sleep later."

"You're not fine, you're exhausted," Spencer demanded. "You've barely kept your eyes open this entire time! Just go to sleep. I'll just find something else to do." She then added mischievously, "In case you haven't noticed, I'm pretty fantastic at occupying myself."

Aria laughed, but that just turned into another yawn that made her eyes droop even more. She let out a sigh in defeat. "Fine," she muttered, "there are books on that shelf over there… if you want…"

And with that she was out.

Spencer had to laugh at this. Of course Aria would have put in a bookshelf specifically for her reading pleasure in her mom's apartment. Spencer grabbed her crutches and started to get up to pick out a book, but not before looking over at Aria's sleeping face. She looked so peaceful, so at ease. Spencer would give anything to have her look like this while awake; she just wanted to see Aria back to her happy, bubbly self again.

She scooted over to Aria and caressed her cheek.

"You'll get there, sweet girl," Spencer whispered. "I promise. We'll get there together. I'll end this for you."

With that, she lightly kissed Aria on the forehead, picked up her crutches, and hobbled over to the bookshelf.