200 reviews baby! I literally cannot stress enough how incredible you all are for getting me to this point, and the REAL exciting stuff hasn't even happened yet! Thank you all so, so very much for your kind words and support toward this story, and shout out to eveningshades1107 for the second time in a row, only this time for being my 200th reviewer!

Unfortunately, I can't really chat. I am posting this chapter, and then I have to race out the door. I'm gonna be on the road for the while, so I probably won't be updating again this weekend. BUT if you guys could review a bunch as a nice welcome home for me when I get back, that'd be amazing! Enjoy your chapter :)

Spencer folded her arms as she leaned against the rough surface of the wall in the lobby of the courtroom. It was the next day, and she was waiting less than patiently for the doors to open, along with everyone else, but inside they were dealing with different matters.

Toby was getting a drink of water at the water fountain next to where Spencer was standing, but when he stood up, wiping his mouth clean with the back of his hand as he faced Spencer, his features hardened. "Stop it," he said sternly.

She looked up at him innocently. "Stop what?"

"I know that face," he said obviously, as though Spencer couldn't fool him.

"I don't know what face you're talking about."

"Yes you do," he accused. "That's your Spencer-face. You always make that face when you're thinking about something."

Spencer cocked an eyebrow upward playfully. "Are you saying you're giving into misogynistic attitudes by denying my right as a female to use my mind however I so choose?"

Toby sighed, and Spencer could immediately tell that he wasn't in the mood for her to be challenging him today, whereas he would usually play along for at least a little while. She cocked her head to the side as she inched in closer to Toby, wrapping her thin arms around his taut stomach. "Why the long face? I'm the one who should be unhappy right now."

Toby's shoulders slumped as he gave in and wrapped his arms around Spencer's waist as well. "I know that," he said admittedly, "and that's why this whole thing bothers me."

"Weren't you the one who said it'd end up being okay eventually?" Spencer pointed out, but Toby just shook his head.

"I guess I'd just forgotten what Mona was capable of," he said quietly, seemingly more to himself than Spencer, but he eventually snapped himself out of it as he cupped her face in his hand, having her look into his clear blue orbs. "But that won't stop us from winning this thing. This is just her way of stalling, okay?"

Spencer smiled into his hands as she took his wrists in her own palms, but all of a sudden Toby pulled away, tucking his hands into the pockets of his dark suit pants - different from the tan suit he had worn the previous day. When Spencer looked up to question him on it, she noticed the loving look in his eyes had transformed into one of coldness, one of darkness.

"Toby, what's wrong?" she started to ask, but he was so intensely focused on something behind Spencer that she had to turn around to see what it was.

Spencer gasped when she laid eyes on a tall, lanky man in his late thirties, dressed up in a royal blue button down and a pair of khakis. After ten years, he had aged only slightly, but with his kind brown eyes, bushy eyebrows, and charming smile, Spencer immediately recognized him as Wren Kingston, and apparently Toby had recognized him as well.

"What the hell is he doing here?" Toby growled, and Spencer immediately turned her attention to him to calm him down.

"I'm not sure," she said, a little suspicious. "I'll go ask him - "

"No!" Toby protested immediately. "I don't want you going near him."

"Why not?" Spencer asked, shocked. "You're not seriously jealous, are you?"

"Of course not!" Toby denied. "But he's bad news."

Spencer turned her head over to where Wren was, chatting up the clerk and the bailiff, leaning backward as he laughed at either his own joke or a joke one of the others had told. Spencer rolled her eyes as she turned around. "I seriously doubt he's bad news," she said mellowly. "He has me by, like, eleven pounds."

"He's your evil older sister's husband," Toby pointed out, making sure to emphasize the word evil. "That's not sounding off any alarms in your head?"

Before Spencer could so much as open her mouth to answer, the doors opened, and the bailiff was now ushering everyone into the courtroom. Spencer groaned as she turned back to Toby. "I guess we'll have to see, won't we?" she said conclusively as she stood on her toes to give him a quick peck on the lips, then darted inside, her black cardigan billowing behind her as she raced to catch up with the other girls.

She didn't even bother looking at her mother as she sat down between Emily and Aria, the way she had yesterday. She, Melissa, and her mother had gotten into a massive argument last night, with Spencer claiming that Melissa was taking an unfair approach to the case with the claim that Emily had murdered Alison instead of Mona, but Melissa kept saying over and over again that it Jason was the one that said this, even if Spencer refused to buy it, and Veronica had just stayed on the sidelines, only butting in when it seemed like Spencer was getting out of line.

That's right. When Spencer was getting out of line. Shouldn't her mother be on Spencer's side? How come Melissa wasn't the one getting in trouble? Wasn't the youngest child supposed to get all of the attention and love from their parents?

Spencer straightened out the pleats on her pencil skirt as she turned to Emily, whose eyes looked so tired they might as well have been carrying luggage to go on a month long trip to Europe. "Did you get any sleep last night?"

Emily sighed as she leaned back against the pew. "Hardly," she admitted as she rubbed her eyes, her gold bangles jingling against her arm as she did so. "It's not like sleep would've helped though. I would've still walked in here like a zombie."

Spencer nodded her head. "Yeah, I can't say I'm really looking forward to this either," she confessed. "Especially now that we'll have to testify."

"What?" This came from Aria, whose hair was swept away from her face in a high, stylish knot, making the fear in her features more clear. "What do you mean we have to testify?"

Spencer sighed. Telling the girls this next part wasn't going to be easy. She leaned back against the wooden pew and folded her arms as Emily, Aria, and Hanna, who heard the commotion and decided to drop in as well, leaned in attentively. "Because Jason said what he said about Emily, that's bringing an entirely new suspect into the case," she said, the words tasting sour on her tongue; she never thought she'd hear herself saying the words Emily and suspect in the same sentence. "Melissa is totally going to use this against us."

"A suspect from the prosecution?" Emily whispered in fear. "They can't do that, can they?"

"There isn't a rule that says they can't," Spencer said, shaking her head. "So that means at least Hanna, Aria, and I will have to testify for you. My mom was telling me last night."

"Last night?!" Aria's eyes widened with rage. "And you didn't think to tell me while we were on the phone?!"

"She told me after Melissa left!" Spencer said helplessly. "It was late, we were off the phone by then."

Aria crossed her arms stubbornly. "You could've called me back," she muttered under her breath as Spencer sighed in frustration. Aria had a point, she could have called her back, along with telling the other girls, but she didn't really think Aria wanted her to call back. The last thing she needed this week was for the girls to think she was being overly clingy. They all had their own stuff going on, they didn't need a leech attaching itself to the hairs on their arms.

"Okay, so now what do we do?" Hanna spoke for the first time since the conversation started. "Don't we need to get our stories straight about what happened that night for when we testify for Emily?"

Emily's eyes widened next to Spencer. "Keep your voices down!" she hissed, but this just worked Hanna up.

"Why?" she said snarkily. "It's not like you have anything to hide. You didn't do it."

"Which is why we don't need to get our stories straight," Spencer answered. "We were having a sleepover, we all fell asleep, and when we woke up she was gone. That's all that happened. Right, Em?"

When she looked over, Emily had a look of doubt upon her face, one that she wasn't expecting to see. Before Spencer could make any kind of comment on it, her thoughts were interrupted by the banging of a gavel up front, and the case was brought to attention.

Everyone participated in the same rituals as the day before, with the same judge and the same jury, before sitting down as the judge took charge. "Today, the defense may call its first witness."

Melissa happily stood up from her desk as she walked up to the front. "Your honor, the defense calls Wren Kingston to the stand."

Spencer felt a jolt of electricity shoot up through her spine as she whipped around in her seat, and sure enough, Wren walked forward, a determined expression on his face. Spencer wanted to smack herself on the forehead. Of course Melissa would call in her own husband to testify. Of course.

Her eyes wandered over to Toby, who was giving her an I told you so look, and she rolled her eyes and turned back around, watching as Wren sat comfortably in the chair at the stand after being sworn in.

Melissa pompously strutted up front, her heels menacingly clacking against the hardwood the same way they had yesterday. Spencer felt Emily tense up next to her, and when she turned to her, she looked like an arrow ready to be shot. Not used to being the calm one of the group - if she could call this calm - Spencer patted Emily on the knee, a gesture Emily seemed to be grateful for.

"Mister Kingston," Melissa said authoritatively up front. "You were working at Radley Sanitarium here in Rosewood when my client was staying there, correct?"

"That is true," Wren said in a charming British accent that wafted its way through the room. Spencer gulped quietly to herself as she put her hands in between her legs to try to stop them from trembling so much. Was it possible for a witness to charm their way into making an executive decision? Was that where Melissa was going with this?

"You were supplying her with medication," Melissa went on. "Could you tell us what exactly she was taking?"

"Actually, I have a list right here," he said, rather too perkily, as he reached into his suit jacket and pulled out a folded sheet of paper, which he handed to his wife. "You'll find on there a list of class A sedatives that got her sleep cycle back on track, in addition to a few anxiety medications that helped calm her nerves."

Melissa scanned the list with her eyes, and Spencer felt her heart rate quicken as she watched it all go down. What was he trying to prove?

"And you found this combination of medication to work well for her?" Melissa asked, not taking her eyes off of the page.

Wren eagerly nodded his head. "As soon as we switched it, it was like she was an entirely new person. A large improvement. I'm aware of minor things she had done before, but she had told me time and time again that these girls pushed her to do it based on how they treated her."

Spencer felt like she was going to be sick. Was this allowed? He was basically singing Mona's praises like a lovesick puppy. It was times like these where Spencer wondered whether Melissa had refused to change her last name to match Wren's specifically for an instance like this. As Spencer's anger grew, Melissa walked over in front of where the Judge Forton was sitting.

"Your Honor, I would like to have this official medical report marked as the defense's exhibit G, and ask that they be admitted into evidence."

Judge Forton nodded his head as he turned to where the girls were sitting. "Does the prosecution have any objection?"

Suddenly, Spencer couldn't stand it anymore. She leaned into her mother, who was sitting in front of her. "Yes, you do," she hissed in her ear. "Melissa can't do that, that's her husband! There has to be some form of bias there!"

Mrs. Hastings paused, and for a moment Spencer thought she might actually take into consideration what she had to say, taking in her words like a sip of coffee, letting it sink into her skin as she processed what she could do with that beacon of information. When Veronica opened her mouth to answer, a beam of hope peaked its way out of Spencer's heart. She was going to do it. She was really going to help them win this case!

But as always, she was wrong.

"No, your Honor," Mrs. Hastings said tautly, and before Spencer could even make a sound, the judge banged his gavel down on the desk. "The witness is excused."

Without missing a beat, Spencer grabbed her mother's arm as the commotion and conversation around her increased. "How could you do that?" she whispered, not wanting to draw any attention. "We nearly had her, mom!"

"No, we didn't, Spencer," Mrs. Hastings said tiredly as she turned around to Spencer. "Even if Melissa and Wren are married, that doesn't diminish the connection between him and Mona. He's on her side no matter what."

"But - "

"If I had objected, I would've started up something unnecessary that would've gotten you all in even deeper trouble," she said warningly. "Drop it."

"I don't believe this," Spencer spat. "Are you trying to make us lose?"

Veronica's eyes widened as she stared down her daughter. "I said drop it," she said through gritted teeth. "I am doing the best I can. Next time I get a comment like that from you, I am getting up and leaving."

And with that, Veronica turned back around, and Spencer slumped back in her seat, somehow feeling even worse than before.