I know, I know, I'm a day late. I hereby give you permission to throw carrot sticks at me. No, but seriously, guys, I had no idea yesterday was going to be as busy as it was, I'm really sorry. You guys literally got me past 140 reviews, and I can't thank you enough. Well, I might be able to with this weeks #RunawayRecap...

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

While I don't think this episode was as good as the two preceding it, it had its moments. For one... okay, I hate it when either of the girls go off macking off with random guys, but I actually loved Riley, I thought he was adorable! And I can leave it at that since we're not gonna see him again, which makes me inexorably happy because I can't get enough of FuckIt!Aria who destroys everything in her path like she's on some Mongol march and has ONE NIGHT STANDS (mainly because Hungover!Aria is a hilarious branch off of FuckIt!Aria) and kicks her creeper ex-boyfriend in the balls before exiling him completely. Can we keep this Aria forever please?

And for another... CAN WE KEEP CREEPER MRS. DILAURENTIS FOREVER PLEASE? I believe Andrea Parker is the name of the actress who plays her, and she is a marvel. She's creepy in the best way possible, the way that was MADE for this show! To quote my idol Heather Hogan, "even her posture is aggressive and awkward and menacing and proper." She's amazing, and SO Ali's mom, let's be real. Do you all think she's A? Or is Ezra just messing with the girls by handing over a fake manuscript?

Okay, and another reason I loved this episode, and I never thought these words would leave my mouth/my fingers... but FUCKING EMILY FIELDS YOU BADASS! I thought it was the end of it when she told off Fitz, and I would've been happy with just that, but when she stood in front of Mona's (!) car while she was backing out, I lost it. Emily... stood in front of an overlord who once ran over her best friend without hesitation... I'm so proud of her.

I am not, however, proud of this SHOW, for literally having Spencer and Aria be alone in a bedroom together, and NOT GIVE US A SCENE WITH JUST THE TWO OF THEM! They are legit trying to deprive us of them... which I guess is okay in the longrun because it's spurring a SHIT TON of amazing fanfic, but still. But, like, Aria could tell Spencer how she would never think she's capable of murder, and Spencer could comfort her about Ezra and tell her that she just wants her to be safe and get all protective and adorable and oh god now I'm having feels...

I guess the best way I can think of to dig my way out of these feels is to talk about Hanna, who is going to send Spencer back to Radley with the way she keeps cracking cases in seconds, while it would've taken Spencer 20 bird whistles, 37 burner phones, 8 dry cleaning notes in red coats, and 89 wedding dress escapades in the woods. So... 6 months. Oh, and not to mention you'd have to factor in another month for the number of times she'd have to follow a trail of blind people like a lineup of army ants to a storage locker that holds a lunchbox with a Maurader's Map in it.

And then Travis, who I actually felt so bad for. I am not a Tranna shipper, but I will say I think they can be cute together while Caleb is still in Ravenswood (not for long!). But when Caleb comes back, audios Travis! Still, their date was adorable, and he really is such a gentleman, and I can't help but want him to be happy.

And that concludes this weeks tear-stained, feels-filled edition of #RunawayRecaps. Stay tuned for next week, the episode before the finale!

*END SPOILERS*

And now, your chapter. This one is another one of my favorites, because it involves a friendship that mainly functions by bickering with each other over petty things, but when they're sweet, they're SO sweet. And I think this is one of those moments, so get your tissues ready!

Hanna ran out of the courtroom like she was running out of a fire. The judge had called a five minute break, and she couldn't be more grateful for it.

The case was going horribly. The ball had gotten rolling the minute Lucas was seen as an unreliable witness, and it had started rolling steadily downward with increasing speed. Every piece of evidence they had acquired, Melissa and Mona had somehow found a way to counter it. Exhibit A had been the keys to a white minivan that was home to the A team lair once, but Mona had simply claimed that it was a minivan that belonged to her family, which they used for long road trips. Exhibit B had been the fingerprint analysis on a cellphone that was connected to mass texting the girls several times, but Mona had brushed this off, claiming any connection she had to that had to do with her working at a Verizon store once during high school. After that, Hanna had lost track of the number of exhibits, because clearly Mona was winning the jury over with her destitute new look and puppy dog eyes, throwing excuses left and right, surprising Hanna with her ability to keep all of the lies straight. Every once in a while, though, she caught Mona stealing glances at her, and they weren't sinister glances. They were almost... apologetic?

Hanna wasn't falling for her act of innocence the way the jury was, though. She didn't need anyone's sympathy. A cigarette, however, was something she could use at the moment.

"Hanna, wait!"

She felt a hand on her shoulder, and nearly jumped three feet in the air, but when she turned around, it was just Caleb.

Hanna felt the skin prickle on her arms, but silently told herself to stop being so dramatic. That tendency had stopped years ago; why was it starting back up again?

Caleb hesitated, seeing her reaction, but then retaliated as he held onto her hands, looking into her eyes with concern. "Don't let this get to you," he said caringly. "Things will turn up soon, I promise."

"How do you know that?" she whimpered. "They're clearly winning!"

"It's only the beginning of the trial," he reassured, but that just got Hanna even more riled up.

"I know," she said bitterly as she adjusted her blazer on her shoulders. "That's the part that sucks."

Caleb sighed, at a loss for words, and Hanna couldn't blame him. "It'll be over before you know it," he finally said, but Hanna knew him well enough to know this was just last resort for him. With that, she simply huffed as she removed her hands from his and walked away, claiming she had to use the bathroom.

But she didn't go near the bathrooms. Instead, once she was out of Caleb's sight, she walked toward the nearest door, where she slipped outside, reaching into her purse for a lighter and a pack of Marlboros just as the door was closing.

Somehow, during the last ten years, Mona had gotten even smarter than she already had been, and the fact that she had teamed up with Melissa, the definite smarter Hastings (although she wouldn't dare tell Spencer this), made this case even more impossible for them to win. She should have known that going into all of this. Why didn't she just call off the trial? Why did she have to get herself into this whole mess? Why did she actually feel like she could win this thing?

Just as she was lighting the cigarette and putting it to her lips, the door opened, and the slim silhouette of Spencer Cavanaugh walked through the opening. Her eyes widened when she caught sight of the cigarette between Hanna's long fingers, but Hanna simply rolled her eyes.

"It's a cigarette, Spencer, not the second coming of Jesus," she snapped. "Don't act like you've never seen one before."

Spencer's eyes got even wider, but they returned to normal size as she shut the door behind her. "I just didn't realize you smoked."

Hanna pulled the cigarette from her mouth and let out a ring of smoke. "There's a lot you don't know about me," she pointed out as she turned her head to the side to avoid seeing Spencer's stunned expression. She didn't know why she was being so cold to her old friends when they really hadn't done anything wrong, but she couldn't help it. It all just felt so... off.

"But I'd like to get to know more," Spencer said from behind, and Hanna turned back around, giving her a look.

"Okay, what do you want to know?"

"Does Caleb know you smoke?" Spencer asked, raising an eyebrow up past her forehead. At this, Hanna took another huff of smoke as she rolled her eyes again. Yes, Caleb did know; he just didn't know she had gotten back into it again. She had been so good for the past year, but now that there was pressure on her shoulders from this trial, she was slipping back into her old ways. But it wasn't like it was some huge secret she had been keeping from him. They shared just about everything else, after all, so she wasn't too worried about it.

"The less he knows, the better," she finally answered cryptically. "Animagus is bliss."

"You mean ignorance is bliss," Spencer corrected, proving she hadn't changed since high school. "Animagus is a term coined in the Harry Potter books, but cannot be used accurately in real life situations. If you want to correctly use the idiomatic expression - "

"Got it," Hanna said, cutting her off as she frustratedly put out her cigarette stub by shoving it into the concrete wall next to her. When she looked up, Spencer hadn't left, so Hanna assumed she'd have to find a way to keep the conversation going. She hiked her purse further up her shoulder and leaned against the wall, getting comfortable. "What are you doing out here?"

"Getting some fresh air," Spencer said with a shrug, only causing Hanna to laugh cynically as she stared up at the noxious fumes above her. Spencer considered this fresh?

"Well, I don't blame you," she said as she leaned her head back against the wall. "Your sister is a real piece of work."

"Tell me about it," Spencer said as she crossed her arms against her chest. "I can't believe she would do something like this."

Hanna nodded her head, admittedly feeling sorry for Spencer. With all three of the Hastings women in court, she could see why this was all looking a bit awkward. And with how competitive Spencer and her sister were, Hanna couldn't even imagine what would happen if Melissa were to win the case...

But she wouldn't win the case. They were going to, no question... right?

"So I talked to Emily," Spencer said abruptly, moving the conversation forward. "She said that she saw you at the airport yesterday."

"That's right," Hanna confirmed, nodding her head. "Her kids are cute."

"Yeah, she showed me pictures," Spencer said with a smile, which Hanna politely returned. An awkward silence followed, and Hanna was about to fill it by reaching into her purse to get another cigarette, but Spencer grabbed her arm before she could.

"Spencer, let go," Hanna said forcefully, but Spencer wasn't budging.

"I'll let go once you tell me what's going on with you."

"Nothing's going on with me!" Hanna exclaimed as she pulled her arm from Spencer's grip. "What? Just because I'm not the bubbly Hanna Marin you knew from high school, that automatically means something's up? People change, Spencer."

"I'm not saying there's anything wrong with change," Spencer said gently. "In fact, it seems like you're the one who's not comfortable with the change."

Hanna widened her eyes. "Excuse me?"

"Hanna, why are you so hesitant to talk to us?" Spencer asked, startling Hanna. Was it really that obvious?

Apparently it was, because Spencer kept going. "The rest of us are doing fine. Aria and I even got together last night for dinner!"

"Well, goodie for you," Hanna said with mock congratulations. "I'm so happy to hear that Team Sparia has reunited at last."

Spencer brushed the old nickname off, even though it didn't take a brain surgeon to figure out that she loved it, even to this day. "You could be reunited with us, too, if you tried."

"No offense to you guys, but I'm not looking for some sappy homecoming," Hanna said blatantly. "I'm just here to make sure Mona stays in jail."

"And suddenly your old friends mean nothing to you?!"

"You guys used to mean the world to me," Hanna said defensively, letting a bit of hurt leak through her words. She still remembered all those years ago, some time after she and Caleb had gotten out of college. She would stare at her phone, waiting for one of her friends to call, to claim that they missed her, that moving on was impossible, but she never got a phone call from one of them. She and Aria used to live near each other in the city, and they'd even go out to dinner once in a while when Audrey was just a baby, but conversation even then was tight. Suddenly, they had nothing to talk about, nothing in common anymore, and once Hanna moved to Chicago with Caleb and Audrey, that was that. They'd never spoken again.

Those days were horrible for Hanna, and moving on from them was tasking, but she finally did, and was finally able to convince herself that she was happy without her friends. But if she got back together with them on this trip, it'd be near impossible to go back to being happy after she'd seen them again.

Surviving without them the first time was hard enough. Surviving without them the second time would be even worse.

"Are you saying we don't anymore?" Spencer said quietly, her low tenor voice barely above a whisper. Hanna sighed as she pressed her heeled foot against the wall behind her.

"I want you guys to mean something to me," she confessed. "But... I'm afraid to."

"What could you possibly be afraid of?" Spencer asked tenderly. "We're your friends."

"You were my friends," Hanna corrected.

"If you're afraid of being friends again, we don't have to be," Spencer offered up. "But we can still be there for each other through this entire thing. We need each other now, going through this alone is way too hard. After that, if you don't want to speak again, that's fine with me!"

"But it shouldn't be!" Hanna said frustratedly. "That's not what I want!"

"Then what do you want, Hanna?"

Hanna froze, caught. She didn't know what to say. She didn't want Spencer to know what she was thinking. There was no way Spencer could have missed her the way Hanna missed Spencer, and if Hanna told her what was on her mind, she'd think she was pathetic.

"You wouldn't understand," she muttered as she flicked her cigarette onto the ground and walked past her and over to the door. She had her hand on the knob, but Spencer's words stopped her.

"Emily told me about Audrey," she blurted out, halting Hanna in her tracks.

Eventually, Hanna let go of the handle and turned around. "What'd she say?"

Spencer shrugged. "Not much," she said, but when she looked at Hanna with her deep auburn eyes, Hanna could tell that was a lie.

"She said she's wonderful," Spencer said genuinely. "And she looks just like you."

Hanna looked down, feeling herself blushing. "Yeah, well, she gets her personality from Caleb."

Hanna then felt a cool hand on her arm, but the touch was gentler than before. When she looked up, Spencer was hovering over her again.

"If this is about protecting her, I do understand," she said empathetically. "I have two kids of my own, you know, so I know that letting them into a past that you're trying to forget is hard."

"It's more than that," Hanna said shortly, her words cutting through the air like thumbtacks popping balloons. But before Spencer could say anything else, Hanna opened the door and walked through it, not bothering to hold it for Spencer.

I mean... c'mon. How can you have a Spanna chapter and not have Spencer correcting Hanna at SOME point? Anyway, looks like Hanna's not budging, no matter how much she misses her old friends. When will these poor lambs realize that each of them missed the others so much but is just too afraid to say it? Next chapter will be uploaded on Sunday, guys, unless you can get me to 160 reviews before then ;) and you don't want to miss this next one, because it's a big chapter where something HUGE happens, so I'd get cracking if I were you! Thanks again, love you all XD