8:

The sound of a Skype call ringing awoke Spencer. She blinked a few times and sat up, rubbing away the tears that stuck to her face from the previous night.

"Mmmmm…" She groaned. "Who the hell wants me at eight in the morning?" She exclaimed, to herself, rolling out of bed and finding her open laptop on top of the dresser, hitting the track pad of her laptop with her fingertips. The screen glowed to life and she spotted the little window of the video call. She groaned as she read the screenname: Hanna_Banana13.

She clicked on the ACCEPT button and a portal of Hanna's face popped up. "Hey Spence!" She smiled, but her face was immediately overcome with disgust. "Oh my God! Jeez, did you get trampled by a heard of cows? Or were you just drunk?" She asked, taking in Spencer's haggard morning appearance. Of course, Hanna looked perfect; her blonde hair curled and her makeup flawless. She could see her bedroom walls in the background.

"No." Spencer snapped, rolling her eyes, "That was two nights ago." She sighed.

"What?" Hanna asked, leaning closer into the camera. "I was only kidding! Spencer Hastings was drunk?" She asked in disbelief. "Alright, give me all the deets. Was there some hot nightclub in Myrtle Beach? Some hottie bought you a drink or two…? Oooh, Spencer Hastings, you've got some 'splainin to do!"

"Alright, alright!" Spencer exclaimed, holding up her hands in defeat. "No, there was no nightclub. There was no new "hottie" who bought be a drink. It was me finishing my dad's bottle of Jack Daniels in the kitchen, alone, and then being overcome with tears. Turns out I'm not a happy drunk. I'm a morbid drunk."

"That's it?" Hanna looked majorly disappointed. "Damn. I was hoping for something juicy and hot."

"Ew, Han, don't paint me a picture." Spencer said. She was surprised by how much better she was feeling in the morning. A gray cloud still hung over her, but a few beams of sunlight had broken through.

"Well, I guess I'll just have to keep hoping. But anyway, how's Myrtle Beach?"

"It's – " Spencer opened her mouth to answer, but her laptop dinged.

"Oh, look, Aria wants to join our chat!" Hanna said, accepting the request from "Feathered_Conscience." Spencer always thought Aria's screenname was unnaturally too creative. "Trying to hard" as Melissa would say.

"Hey guys." Aria's smiling face appeared on the screen as another chat window opened beside Hanna's.

"Hey." Hanna smiled. "Good news: Spence finally drank something beside's ice tea and coffee." She said the same time Spencer snapped grouchily, "Hey, this is a first – a Saturday without Fitz!"

Aria's brown eyes opened wide and she gasped. "What? Spencer! What happened?"

Spencer groaned. "Will you guys please stop making this a big deal? Yes, I finished a whole bottle of Jack Daniels in my parents' kitchen the other night. Can we please move on?"

"Fine." Aria said. "But can I ask one thing? Why did you do it? I just want to know!"

"Yeah, why did you do it, Spence?" Hanna asked, arching an eyebrow.

Spencer took a deep breath and began, "I did it because – "

But she was once again interrupted. The sound of the door slamming downstairs in the background of Hanna's house cut her off.

"Oh, Em's back from her run! Hold on a sec, Spence. Wait for her to get here."

Spencer groaned and rolled her eyes.

"Han?" Emily's voice came from downstairs in the Marin house.

"Up here, Em! Come on up – Spencer and Aria are on Skype!"

"Really?"

Within a few seconds, Emily came into view, falling onto her stomach on the bed beside Hanna.

"Ew, Em, you're all sweaty." Hanna said, taking in Emily's hair plastered to her face and the dark, wet spots on her tank.

Emily gave her an annoyed look before turning to the camera, "Hey, Spence! How's South Carolina? Ooh, eek! I think we just woke you up."

Spence was once again interrupted. "Spencer got drunk the other night." Hanna said.

"Spencer downed a whole bottle of Jack Daniels the other night." Aria said at the same time.

"What?" Emily's eyes got as wide as saucers as she looked at Spencer thought the camera. "Spencer! How? Why?"

"I'm getting to that!" Spencer growled, "And if you would all just please be quiet, I will explain everything."

"Alright. We're all ears." Aria said.

"Well, first of all, Myrtle Beach itself is beautiful. The house is nice and Melissa and I are getting along. On the other hand, it's the worst experience in the entire world."

"Why?" All three girls asked at the same time.

"Because." Spencer sighed and closed her eyes, "Toby's here, too."

"What?" Hanna, Aria, and Emily chorused simultaneously again.

"Toby? As in Toby Cavanaugh? As in your ex boyfriend that A made you break up with?"

"Hanna!" Emily and Aria scolded. Emily wacked her upside the head.

"What? It's true, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is." Spencer said miserably. She sighed, "And yes, I mean Toby Cavanaugh. The only Toby we know."

"He didn't tell me that he was leaving." Emily's eyebrows furrowed.

"Yeah well, me neither. Which, I guess shouldn't surprise me, since we are kind of messed up right now." Spencer's eyes fell on her hands, resting on her laptop keys.

"Well, what happened?" Aria asked. "When did you find out he was there?"

"I was going for a walk the first night behind the line of houses and Toby was on his back porch. Apparently his dad is a friend of the groom and they are renting a house a few down from ours."

"Well, did you talk?" Hanna asked.

"Yeah. We did. And it was really awkward." Spencer said honestly.

"Have you seen him since?" Emily asked.

"Yeah. I was on the beach two nights ago and he…he came out of his house and found me."

"And you talked then?"

"No, Hanna, I stood there like a scarecrow and didn't utter a word." Spencer's voice was soaked with sarcasm.

"Well, I'm just wondering!" Hanna exclaimed, holding up her hands in surrender.

"Anyway, so he asked if he could see me the next day, and I thought that, seeing that A wouldn't be keeping tabs on me while I was away, that I could let him. And God, that was stupid."

"So did you cancel?" Aria asked.

"No. Worse. I went to see a movie with him. And then I left half-way through." Spencer's body filled with self-hate all over again.

"What?" Three pairs of eyes centered in on her like she had just dropped from space.

"Will you stop saying 'what'?" Spencer threw her hands down in exasperation. "I know it was stupid, but if you could only see what I saw…I saw the only guy who had ever fully loved me, willing to give up everything for me to be happy, and then there I was, taking it all from him and still lying to his face." Spencer sighed. "I'm just like Ali, guys." She whispered.

"No, Spencer. You may feel bad, but you are not like Alison." Emily disagreed.

"Yeah. It's not your fault that you can't tell Toby the truth. You're keeping him from ending up like Dr. Sullivan by lying."

"But that's the point!" Spencer gripped fistfuls of her hair. "I'm leading him on like we have a chance, and A made it perfectly clear that we don't!"

"Maybe, but I understand, Spence." Aria said empathetically. "If you love someone…you just can't stay away."

Spencer nodded and sighed. She heard the sound of pricking on her window, steadily picking up by the minute. Rain.

"Wow. As if my morning wasn't gloomy enough." Spencer muttered. She sighed. "Alright guys, I should probably get in the shower. Just text me if there's any update on A's tomfoolery."

Hanna snickered. "Tomfoolery?"

"Shut up, Hanna." Spencer laughed a little and rolled her eyes.

"Okay, talk to you later, Spence. But…if you need anything, just call me, okay? I've been there. I know what it's like." Aria said.

Spencer smiled weakly. "Thanks Aria."

"Me too. You can call me, too." Emily said, nodding.

"Thanks."

Aria and Emily looked at Hanna expectantly. "What?" Hanna asked, raising an eyebrow.

Emily flicked her in the head. "Alright! And me too! You already know that!" Hanna said.

Spencer laughed, in spite of herself. "Thanks, you guys. Alright, I'll talk to you later."

"Bye, Spence." They all waved goodbye as she clicked the END CALL button. She shut her laptop and set it down on her unmade bed, getting to her feet and stretching. She shuffled to her bathroom and ran the hot water in the sink, splashing some on her face to clean off the dried tears and smeared mascara. Once her face was clean and completely bare of outside substances, she grabbed her toothbrush and started scrubbing away her awful morning breath.

The house was completely silent except for the sound of running water and harsh rainfall, so the sound of someone knocking on the door made Spencer jump like a deer.

"Spencer? Can you get that, please?" Her father's voice rang out from somewhere down the upstairs hall, "Your mother and Melissa went shopping, and I'm in the middle of my work."

"Alright." Spencer replied dutifully, yet a tad bit resentfully. She sighed and quickly scraped a hairbrush through the worst of their snarls in her brown waves, before setting down the brush and heading downstairs to the foyer. Oddly enough, she thought nothing of their visitor, probably just her aunt stopping by to see her, to hug her tight and say how "tall she'd gotten."

So, it surprised her when she opened the door and saw not the face of her aunt, or any face at all, but Toby's back to her, standing in the rain, halfway down the dirt path to the driveway, as if he was waiting for her.

"Toby?" Spencer asked, stepping out onto the porch and shutting the door to prevent her father from hearing. She was immediately welcomed by a heavy sprinkle of rain. "What are you doing here?" She asked, her voice tight.

Toby turned to face her. There were still about five feet between them. His blue eyes cut like knives. It was like they had hardened over, their sapphire blue turned to ice.

"To find out why the hell you just walked out of the theater yesterday." Toby said, his voice similar to how it had been a few weeks ago, when he had stormed into her house and demanded answers. "I thought we were finally figuring things out!"

"Yeah, and that's the problem!" Spencer exclaimed though the rain. Her clothes were already soaked, her hair dripping, but she didn't care. "What if we do figure things out? What's going to happen when we get back to Rosewood? It's going to go back to being the same thing! We've been over this Toby! I told you that it isn't safe for you to be around me!"

"And I said I don't care." Toby took two strides toward her, so that they were hardly a foot apart.

"Well you should!"

"I don't get you, Spencer. One minute, you're perfectly fine with spending time with me, and the next, it's 'too dangerous'. What's going on? Tell me, damn it!" He shouted.

"Don't you think that if I could tell you, that I would have already?" Spencer yelled, "Look, I'm sorry about yesterday, okay!" She didn't realize how close they had become as they shouted in each other's faces.

"You are the single most confusing person I have ever met!" Toby exclaimed.

"Wha – " Spencer started, but her words were smothered as Toby's arm roped around her waist and his other hand collided with the back of her neck and in the next second, his warm mouth enveloped hers. Her words were swallowed by a moan and she couldn't stop herself as her hands raked through his hair. Even in the chill of the morning rain, she felt warmth spread from her lips throughout her body. His arms tightened around her waist and he lifted her up. She wrapped her legs around his torso, the time of separation dissolving into the kiss. Toby's lips worked against her urgently, and she in turn moaned softly, tightening her hold on him.

And there, in the pouring rain, Spencer began to hope for those ten days she had left.

See! I promised some happiness! Alright, it isn't over yet, because we still have the wedding and everything, but I promise, I will deliver beauty 3 Cause, after all, what is Spoby if not beautiful?

Live. Love. Spoby.

AJ