Wow, you all are FAST! Thanks for the lovely reviews, everyone, you got me 10 within 24 hours. My goal is to have at least 400 by the end of this story, and we have about 7 chapters (*sob*) left, so if you guys could get me up there, that'd be amazing. I don't have a lot of time, so I'll keep this short and let you all get to your Sparia! :)
Spencer walked in line with Aria, trying to distract herself by making sure their footsteps were in sync - right foot, then left foot. Right foot, then left foot. It was something so small, but by this point Spencer needed small things to put herself at ease. As soon as the trial had ended, she had picked up Aiden and Elijah from a confused Ella - Spencer must've gotten there before either Aria or Ezra did, because Ella seemed oblivious to what had went down with her daughter at the trial, and Spencer did not want to be the one to tell her - then rushed home, packed up all of her things, and moved herself, Toby, and her two kids into a nearby hotel. Once they had gotten settled, Spencer had gotten cracking on the case, trying her hardest to map out as much evidence and facts as she could to take Mona down. But she figured she could use a break, as could Aria, so she invited Aria to take a walk with her so that they could both clear their heads.
It was starting to get dark, so there were some people on the streets, talking in a lively fashion as they walked up to whatever eating establishment was open - there were only about three options, so that wasn't a hard decision to make - or getting their wallets out to pay for a movie ticket for whichever film was playing.
Come to think of it, that was about all there was to do in Rosewood. After living in D.C. for so many years, Spencer had forgotten how restricted she had been in such a small cushy town. No wonder she had spent so many nights dining in Toby's apartment instead of at an actual restaurant. Of course, that could have to do with her confidence in being a better cook than whoever worked at those restaurants, but still.
As though she could read Spencer's mind, Aria looked up at Spencer. "You'd think it would have changed for as long as we've been away," she said softly, as though she could hardly find the energy to say anything more. It was enough to break Spencer's heart; she could barely comprehend what Aria was going through, finding out her husband had betrayed her on such a large scale, and having to balance dealing with him and trying to take care of Tom was going to be a difficult task, and she was starting to wonder if it was a bad idea taking Aria into town, reminding her of all of when she and Ezra were first dating and everything was good.
"Yeah, you'd think," Spencer agreed, eying the movie theatre on the other side of the street, where a group of teenagers were excitedly chattering as they held their tickets proudly and entered through the doors. Then, suspicious, Spencer turned back to Aria. "You know, we would always have movie nights when we were younger, but we hardly ever went to the movie theatre."
Aria cocked an eyebrow up to her hairline. "That's because you all would just raid my house with DVDs from a Redbox."
Spencer let out an eased laugh at this. Good, she had gotten Aria to crack a joke. Now she just had to see how long she could keep this up for. "Well," she added onto this, "your house had the coziest living room! Warm fireplace, soft couches..."
Aria joined Spencer in on reminiscing, and giggled as well. "Those were some good times," she said nostalgically. "All I remember is Emily and I could never agree on whether to watch a noir film or a horror film."
"Don't forget me!" Spencer piped in, acting mock offended. "I always tried to get you guys in on my Agatha Christie collection!"
"I think we had enough complicated mysteries in our life by that point," Aria pointed out cynically as she looked down, letting the sole of her boot - Spencer had given her time to change out of her dress and into something more comfortable - crunch a leaf misplaced on the pavement.
"All the more reason to watch them," Spencer said with a shrug. "How else were we going to educate ourselves on the toils of sleuthing?"
Aria just shook her head, an amused smile on her face, which Spencer considered an even greater success. But then she furrowed her brow in confusion. "Wait, where was Hanna during all of this?"
"Where do you think?" Spencer said dryly. "By that point, the three of us were in such a heated debate that Hanna would just pop a romantic comedy in and wait for us to notice."
Aria snapped her fingers in recollection. "That's exactly what she did!" she said, her mouth agape. "She would even eat all of the popcorn!"
Spencer chuckled at this as she kept a steady pace down the sidewalk, taking in the familiar sites of Rosewood that she had hardly even glanced at when she was still living there. "So... have you been to your house since you came back?"
The cheerful look that temporarily occupied Aria's face melted away to reveal a look of solemnity. "No... I haven't really talked to my dad since Ezra and I got married, so I don't know if it'd be appropriate for me to just show up at his doorstep."
Spencer bit her lip so hard that she wasn't surprised when the familiar coppery taste of blood met her taste buds. That was not the way she was hoping to steer the conversation.
Aria didn't acknowledge this. She just kept walking along, looking up at the stars, the trees, any form of nature that could provide a reasonable distraction for her. "I guess maybe it would be a good time to start up a conversation with him again, right?" she said offhandedly, the words falling from her mouth like a stone being flinged off of a cliff. But as stones do when in free fall, constantly knocking into other stones and prompting them into free fall as well, Aria's words prompted further jibbering from her in what Spencer guessed was an attempt to lift her own spirits. "I mean, he is my dad, after all. And I do miss my old house..."
Spencer let the corners of her lips raise as she watched Aria process this all in her head, trying to optimize the situation. "It was a nice house. Very 'you'."
Aria let out a scoff at this. "That house has seen every single phase of me that I can possibly think of. Even my tree climbing phase."
Spencer snorted at this, laughter pouring out of her like lava. "You climbed trees?!"
"I think it was before we even met!" Aria went on, joining Spencer in her laughter. "I was maybe... seven? Whatever my age, I would always climb trees so that I could read alone."
Now it was Spencer's turn to smile in amusement. That was so classic Aria, climbing trees to read by herself. But when Aria saw this expression, she became defensive. "Well, don't look at me like that! My dad would always try to spoil the endings for me and tell me what the symbolism of it all meant, and I just didn't want to hear it, so I would climb the trees in my backyard to get away from him."
"And he never found you?" Spencer asked incredulously, only to earn a coy grin from Aria.
"That might be the one time I've actually been happy with being so small," she admitted, but before Spencer had a chance to react to this, Aria's eyesight wandered across the street, and when Spencer turned around, she realized they had wandered all the way over to the Brew, where Emily used to serve coffee and where they all used to go to hang out.
"What do you think of when you think of Rosewood, Spence?" Aria asked quietly, and Spencer took her question to heart. She thought of a lot of things. As they passed numerous buildings and the concrete path before them became less illuminated as the sky began to darken, Spencer saw some that she recognized from her childhood. She saw the ratty old community center where her father had signed her up for SAT tutoring by 4th grade. She saw a small, pale gray house on the corner as they rounded the block that belonged to her old piano teacher of five years. And as they continued down the sidewalk, the shopping center came into view, and she spotted the window that belonged to the establishment of the tailor that her mother used to take her to so she could get all of her clothes fitted for outings at the country club.
They were all such small parts of her life, but reflecting on the more trivial memories made Spencer come to realize how they had all come to impact her overall. She had been so hasty to leave Rosewood all her life, but she felt like if she had lived anywhere else, she wouldn't have shaped into the person that she was today. She wouldn't have met Toby, she wouldn't have had two beautiful children to call her own, and she wouldn't have had the wonderful friendship with the other three girls to look back on.
Realizing she still had yet to give an answer, Spencer finally swallowed loudly and opened her mouth to speak. "I think of how I should've appreciated it more," she admitted sadly, bowing her head as the wind picked up and the leaves on the trees rustled to the side of her. "And... I should've appreciated all of you more."
When she looked back up, Aria had tears in her doe eyes. "I'm really glad you said that," she said, clearly trying her hardest not to get too choked up. "I might not have Ezra anymore, but I'm just happy that I have all of you."
Spencer didn't even hesitate to wrap her arms around Aria's little frame, rubbing calming circles along her back and soothingly whispering into her ear that it was okay to cry, and Aria silently complied as she cried into Spencer's shoulder.
As Spencer comforted Aria, she couldn't help but notice an underlying feeling of nausea in the pit of her stomach, and when she finally pulled away from Aria and tenderly wiped a tear that had fallen from her eyes, she realized it was because of the secret she was keeping from her.
She had already nearly lost Aria's trust by keeping one secret, and that was a mistake she wasn't going to make again.
"I need to tell you something, but I think you should sit down for it," Spencer said abruptly, her thumbs still resting on Aria's face and the words rolling off of her tongue at a lightning pace. Aria rubbed her eyes and blinked, caught off guard, but eventually nodded her head and let Spencer lead her to the nearest bench.
Spencer circled around to the other side of the bench and sat down next to Aria, taking Aria's hands in hers. She couldn't help but realize this was the most intimate contact they'd had in ten years, and she hadn't realized how much that upset her until this very moment.
"The reason we have been losing this case is because of poor guidance," Spencer began carefully. "And poor prosecution. So, today I made an executive decision - "
"Executive decision?" Aria repeated, with perplexion in her tone. Spencer bristled, taken aback by being interrupted. She understood that Aria's heart had been beaten to butter tonight, but she needed to get the words she was about to say out of her system.
Apparently Aria didn't understand that, because she kept going. "Spencer, we're not a conference meeting of co-workers, we're your friends. Don't you think any decision you make should be unanimous?"
"You'll agree with this one, though," Spencer said convincingly. "I took my mom off the case."
"What?"
Upon hearing Aria's reaction, Spencer immediately wished she wasn't so abrupt with her words, but it was too late. Aria shot up from her position on the bench like a rocket, hastily wiping her tears from her cheeks.
"Spencer, why didn't you consult with us first?!" Aria exclaimed, her cheeks reddening with fury. "Your mother was our only hope at winning this case, how could you fire her?"
"Are you mental?" Spencer snapped as she stood up, too, gaining the energy to fire back. "My mother was holding us back because she didn't want to have to go against Melissa! Mona and Melissa are winning this trial unfairly, and there's no way we can expose that as long as my mom's on the case."
"There's no way we can expose that in general, Spencer!" Aria argued. "No matter which way we go about this, Mona is going to win. Because she's Mona, and she always has a plan, and she's going to go through with that plan whether your mother is defending us or not."
"Don't say that," Spencer pleaded. "I know you're blinded by a broken heart right now - "
"That is not why I am against this," Aria snapped defensively. "I would be against this decision with or without Ezra. We were already losing with an attorney, but now that we're without one, this is going to be the straw that broke the camel's back!"
"No it won't," Spencer said stubbornly, sticking her chin out and straightening her posture. Here it came. "You're not listening. We're not going to be without an attorney. I'm going to defend us."
Suddenly, Aria's anger diminished, and the flush to her cheeks softened, making them look pale and sunken when paired with the red rims of her eyes from crying so much. She looked just as sad as she did before, but now with an addendum of exhausted. "Spencer..." she began wearily, but Spencer interrupted her.
"Just hear me out, okay?" Spencer interjected. "I know it's sounds rushed, but I can make it work! I went to law school, I'm surrounded by lawyers every day at the law firm I work at. I've been surrounded by lawyers since I was born! I know what I'm doing, I promise you!"
"No, you just think you know what you're doing," Aria said as she put a hand up to her forehead tiredly. Spencer could feel a vein in her forehead pulsing madly. Why couldn't Aria see? Why couldn't anyone see? She could help them win, she knew she could!
"Aria, we can't just sit around and let Melissa and Mona end up on top," she said in a low voice, hoping she could get to Aria better this way. "We have to take action, and we weren't getting anywhere with my mother in charge, but we might be able to if I take on her role! I've already gotten started collecting evidence, and I'll have a convincing argument for tomorrow, I know I will!"
"But that's the thing, Spencer!" Aria said once she removed her head from her hands. "We thought being physically and mentally tortured was a convincing argument enough, but apparently the simple excuse that Mona was a confused teenager who wasn't working alone is enough to get the jury on her side. What makes you think anything else we say will change that?"
"I have a few ideas - "
"But they're not going to work!" Aria finally exclaimed, throwing her arms out to the side of her and staring at Spencer with as much exasperation as she could possibly convey. "The odds just aren't on our side, Spencer! Emily's up for murder charges, Mona and Melissa have managed to emotionally manipulate just about everyone in the courtroom, and my husband has been on their side all along and is probably going to jail once this is all over, too. No matter what ideas you might have, it's not going to be enough."
"Why won't you believe in me?" Spencer asked, with a hint of desperation, but also disbelief. "You were always the one to give me the benefit of the doubt in high school. What happened?"
"I grew up!" Aria spat. "I dug inside my head, found my brain, and started deconstructing things with my mind instead of my heart, something I should've been doing all along and something you should start doing, too!"
"Well, I don't like this new Aria," Spencer said crossly as she folded her arms against her chest. "I miss the Aria that actually let someone else take the reins and listened to her friends' suggestions."
Aria flinched, these words obviously striking the heart, but she quickly recovered. "A lot can change in ten years," she said icily, and now it was Spencer's turn to flinch. How long was this going to go on? This stroll had started as a way for Spencer to help Aria feel better, and now they were throwing jabs at each other like monkeys throwing bananas.
Spencer took a few deep breaths and counted to five, allowing herself a brief moment to calm down. "I don't expect you to agree with me," she said mellowly, "but I've made up my mind, and I'll prove to you all that I'm right."
Aria shook her head. "I don't care if your mind is made up or not," she said, her voice now steadily rising in volume as though she were reaching a climax in a story she was telling. "This is classic Spencer standing in front of me, letting competition get to her and getting herself into bad situations because she believes she's right. Well, you're not always right, Spencer, and you need to take a minute to realize that Mona is smarter than you are!"
Spencer's heart stopped, and she felt her jaw drop to the ground in front of her. A river of tears pooled up in her eyes, getting ready to pour down her cheeks. Aria must've realized that she had taken it too far, because her ferocity from earlier vanished completely and her features eased slightly. "Spencer, I didn't - "
But Spencer wasn't listening. She impulsively turned on her heel and ran away. Far, far away from Aria. So far away, that she could no longer see Aria when she looked back. She couldn't even hear Aria sobbing behind her.
She was too busy listening to the sound of her own cries.
Yep, that was not pretty. But you all wanted Sparia, so I'm here to deliver ;) and next chapter is no better; I've got some Haleb drama coming your way, so hopefully you all can handle it. Same rules as last time apply: 10 reviews, and you'll get your chapter! See you all next time! :)