HA! I finished another chapter. I know it took forever, but I think it turned out pretty well, let me know if you agree or disagree.

I own nothing despite my best efforts.

"Arthur, has something happened to Spencer?" Paula asks, voice rising with each syllable as soon as her husband shuts his phone.

Arthur gives her a small hopeful smile, "I think so."

##############################

"Ok, so where am I going?" Ashley asks while starting up her baby.

Spencer frowns, "I have no clue, my Dad has always taken me."

The singer smiles and shrugs, "A couple of years ago that would be problematic, now we have these handy-dandy BlackBerries." She whips hers out and starts to type when laughing distracts her. She turns and pouts, "What?"

"Handy-dandy?" Spencer giggles with a head tilt.

Ashley is torn between continuing to pout and kissing the girl for being so adorable. She continues to pout, deciding kissing would ruin all the progress she's made, "I used to like Blue's Clues ok? And hey, you got the reference."

Spencer giggles again, "But I would never use it."

Ashley quits pouting realizing Spencer has never looked so carefree, "I got the address and if my memory is correct, there's a Starbucks nearby. And I never forget the location of a coffee shop."

"Haven't you already had a triple shot mocha today?"

"Well yeah, but that was eight hours ago, I have too high of a metabolism for that to last me a full day."

"Too high of a metabolism, gotcha. I will keep that in mind."

Ashley flashes a nose-crinkling smile. Which she quickly follows with a scowl and a blast on her horn, "Stupid L.A. traffic, you take your eyes off the road for one second…" she grumbles. However, when her tirade is followed by another one of the blonde's giggles the traffic doesn't seem so aggravating.

##################################

"Spencer, this is the first time you ever came in with a smile on your face, I must say it suits you."

The blonde takes a seat on the leather couch, "Today was a good day."

##################################

Ashley drums her fingers on the steering wheel unable to wipe the smile off of her face. Not even the obnoxiously long line at the Starbucks drive-thru is enough to penetrate her good mood. "Who knew being friends would work for me?" she muses. As she grabs her mocha and leaves a five dollar tip her phone goes off, "Hey David…Get to the point…Hell yes I am up for tonight...The entire weekend, even better…Who's providing the party favors? Perfect…Yeah I'll be there in an hour."

"Let me guess, you're going out?" Kayla asks from the living room couch. She doesn't have to turn around to know that Ashley is dressed in as little clothing as possible, or as the singer refers to it "let's party then fuck" clothes.

"Yeah, don't wait up."

"You do know you aren't actually a rock star yet, right?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" Ashley challenges.

Kayla turns around and gets no satisfaction upon seeing she was right about her sister's attire, "It means that you party like one and it isn't good for you."

"Whatever, I'm going to be at David's, don't call unless someone's dead." With that Ashley turns on her expensive heels and storms out, her mood dampened a little.

The black Porsche pulls up to a secluded beach house. Ashley feels more than hears the music as she puts on the finishing touches to her make-up. Her spat with Kayla the last thing on her mind, she focuses on how good her day was as a whole and steps out of the car, demanding the attention of everyone present but refusing to return the favor.

Inside the house bodies are everywhere but she doesn't really notice them, nor does she notice the shots offered to her the second she enters the house, instead heading straight for the impromptu dance floor and letting loose. She makes it through a couple of songs, feeling better than she has in a long time. Many people, boys and girls, try to dance with her but she doesn't let them get too close, too wrapped up in the music and her own happy thoughts to pay them any attention. She is snapped back to reality when she is swept into a bear hug and swung through the air.

When she is set back down she looks up at a hulking man with glazed over eyes, "David, what the hell? I thought we were clear on the no touching rule?" she laughed.

"We are, I am only allowed to put my meaty gross-boy hands on you when we are fucked up." He looks at her and frowns, "Why aren't you fucked up yet?"

"I haven't been here more than fifteen minutes," she laughs.

David shakes his shaggy head, "I have seen you get fucked up in under five. Now, we must fix this problem if we want this to be a real party." He turns and grabs the beers from a passing couple and turns back to Ashley, "Drink up Davies!"

Ashley accepts the beverage and downs the near full bottle in no time. David claps and goes in search of more liquor while Ashley returns to dancing. A minute later and she is presented with a tray of shots and a couple of pills, which she accepts. Soon she is returning to that all-too-familiar place, so when arms wrap around her from behind and a voice whispers in her ear, "I was hoping you would show up tonight," she merely turns in the arms but doesn't even attempt to break free. She frowns in concentration, "Kelly?"

"Kaylie, but close enough considering how out of it you were that night," the red-head says smiling and running her hands up and down Ashley's back.

"That was a good night," Ashley grins moving her arms to rest on the girl's hips. "So did you come over here looking for round two?"

"Mhm, I even have party favors."

Ashley smiles then frowns and turns her head to the side for a moment, hesitating for the first time in a long time. Kaylie seems to sense this and becomes more bold with her actions, sliding one hand around to cup the brunette's breast, "The bedrooms are all taken, but I think the bathroom is open," Kaylie husks into her ear, nibbling a little on the brunette's earlobe.

Ashley closes her eyes, trying to remember why she had even been considering not screwing the hot body on hers, "What kind of party favors?"

##################################

Arthur and Spencer entered the Carlin home, both chuckling slightly. Paula came to meet them and paused at the now unusual happy expression on her daughter's face. "Hi honey."

Spencer looks at her mother and continues to smile a genuine smile, "Hey mom."

"Dinner's about ready so why don't you go wash up."

"Ok mom, I'll be back in a sec."

Paula watches her only daughter disappear up the stairs before turning to her husband with a raised eyebrow, "What's gotten into her?"

"I think it's her friend, Ashley. She wasn't exactly smiling the whole ride home, but she didn't look so…she didn't look so hurt and lost. And the only thing I know of that has changed is she has a friend now, a friend she seems to trust."

"That's great," she tells her husband with a smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes.

After wishing her family good night Spencer heads up to her room. She sits on her bed, staring at her phone biting her lip. After a good five minutes she snatches her cell. Hey Ashley, I just wanted to thank you for today. She sets it back and looks at it. Fifteen minutes go by and no reply, she leaves to brush her teeth and when she comes back immediately checks her phone. Still nothing. She shuts off her light and lays down trying to understand why she feels so disappointed.

It's three in the morning and Spencer bolts upright. She takes a few deep breaths to try and calm herself back down. She scoots back against her headboard and grabs the glass of water she keeps just for this. Despite having a good day the nightmare was just as bad. The realization brings tears to her eyes and silent sobs start wracking her body. Bringing her knees to her chest Spencer rocks back and forth. She feels the rubber band around her wrists and stops rocking to look at it. She grabs one and pulls it back as far as it will go then releases. In the silent bedroom the snap sounds like a gunshot. The process gets repeated over and over until her wrists are completely red. The sobs have stopped but the emotions are still running rampant inside of her.

"Come on Spence, you can deal with this. You have to start dealing with this," she whispers over and over. Her eyes dart around her room until they fall on a notebook. Slowly she crawls out of bed, opens it up, takes a deep breath, and puts pen to paper.

#################################

It's four in the morning and Ashley has her head lying on the toilet seat. She shakily wipes her mouth and tries to see through bleary eyes. She becomes aware enough of her surroundings to crawl out of the bathroom and down the hall to her usual bedroom. Still crawling she makes it to the bed where she vaguely takes note of the red-head before passing out yet again.

#################################

Sunday night rolls around and Spencer is listening to her brothers fight over what to watch. They keep trying to get her involved, to which she politely declines; insisting watching them fight is more entertaining than any show. Glen and Clay have gotten it down to between two shows, Dexter or House and Spencer is laughing internally as she watches the clock, both shows are already half-over. Her attention gets snapped to her phone and she checks the caller-Id in confusion.

"Ashley?"

"Sssppeeencceeerr!" comes the slurred greeting.

Spencer frowns and walks out of the living room, "Are you drunk?"

"That too."

"Why are you calling me?"

"Cuz I wanted to."

Spencer continues into her room, still frowning, "Ok. What are you up to?"

"Enjoying life while I am still young!"

"I see. So why did you want to call me?"

Another pause, "You sent me a text."

"I did. Last night."

"Right, and I just saw it and wanted to call you to say I saw it."

"Thanks."

"Tequila!"

"Ashley, do you really think that you should drink more?"

"I will be fine, trust me. I puked a lot last night but I am fine now. I know how to handle my liquor. Besides, it's a party!"

"Ok, but you better make it to school tomorrow; I don't want my only friend leaving me alone in P.E."

"I promise. See you tomorrow Spencer."

"See you tomorrow Ashley." The line goes dead and Spencer shuts her phone trying to shake her feeling of disappointment in Ashley's behavior. "It's not my place to judge her."

Spencer's disappointment lasted her all the way through English Monday morning. She leaves the class shaking her head, wondering why she believed Ashley's promise after what she saw a few weeks before. She even pulled out her phone and was half-way through a text when she snapped her phone shut muttering, "I'm not her keeper."

P.E. rolls around and Spencer walks into her usual stall to change. When she exits she is surprised to find a weakly smiling Ashley, "Hey."

"You made it."

"Don't sound so surprised," Ashley tells her in a tired voice. "I remembered telling you something about being in gym by yourself."

"Only something?" Spencer asks trying to sound teasing but coming off sad.

Ashley seems to notice because she shifts uncomfortably, "Even when weekends are a blur I remember the important things."

Spencer didn't know what to say to that, so she dumped her clothes in her locker and followed Ashley into the gym. They were running circuits again, she and Ashley ran next to each other in the beginning, but after a while Ashley could not keep up and dropped to the back of the class. When the final whistle blew Ashley came up to her looking like it was a struggle not to bite everyone's head off. "Well that was fun."

"It wasn't as bad as the last time," Spencer shrugged, but still took a seat to rest her exhausted legs.

Ashley flopped down next to her, "I guess. Still was a pain in my ass, literally and figuratively."

Spencer could feel the beginnings of an awkward silence and tried to prevent it, "So what did you do this weekend?"

"Partied at my friend David's. He has a pretty nice beach house. Spent most of the weekend there." If she had been talking to Madison or Aiden she would have bragged about the girl she slept with and possibly how many shots she did in a row, but that kind of talk just didn't feel right with Spencer, so she kept her answers short. "How about you?"
"Homework, watched TV, wrote, nothing special."

"What did you write?"

Spencer looks away and replies in a mumble, "Just some thoughts and memories."

'One of these days you are going to tell me what happened to you,' Ashley thinks. "Well that's cool. Say, what's your stance on letting a friend see your homework for comparison?"

Spencer shakes her head with a smile, "Only if I can see this supposedly completed homework first."

"I was afraid you would say that."

"But you had to try, right?"

"You've only been my friend for a week and yet you think you know me so well," Ashley teases.

"Chica, let's go!" Madison calls from the gym doors.

The two girls smile at each other sheepishly; they had completely spaced on changing and sat on the bleachers talking for the last five minutes. They made their way to the locker room and changed as quickly as possible.

At lunch Clay and Glen are approaching their usual table when they notice that Ashley is sitting next to Spencer. They share a glance then look back at their sister, trying to read her body language. "I think she's smiling," Clay says quietly, like he's afraid she will overhear from clear across the courtyard.

"You're right. Who the hell is this Ashley chick? We've been trying to get through to her since it happened, and nothing. She meets this girl and suddenly she's getting better."

"Should we really be complaining Glen?"

"I'm not complaining," Glen sighs, "I just wonder what it is about this girl that makes Spencer start acting like Spencer again."

"I don't know. Maybe it's not just her. We moved for a reason, maybe L.A. and Dr. Martin are helping too," Clay reasoned.

"Either way, I don't know how I feel about Ashley. She's pretty cool, but too wild for Spencer. I mean, you saw how much she drank the other weekend, and from what I've heard that's nothing. Not to mention the other rumors I've heard," Glen persisted.

"If Spencer trusts her she must be worth trusting."

"Yeah, we'll see."

The brother's reach the table and Glen sits next to Madison across the table while Clay takes the seat on the other side of Spencer. Just because she's getting better doesn't mean they are going to completely stop watching over her.