Author's Note: I'm back! I would've updated yesterday but I stayed up until like one or two watching PLL with my cousin. I think she's into it. We're up to episode 5. She despises Ezria and Wren (she said his face is very punchable) but she's on the #tobydefensesquad (she's also an Emayan).

You'll probably note the absence of an important character in this chapter. Don't know if they'll be back in chapter thirty-seven.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Alex was asleep in his room. Spencer had no clue where Toby was, and she didn't know where the cats were, either. The bunch of hollies sitting on the table had wilted, but neither Toby nor Spencer had bothered to throw them out.

Spencer was curled on the couch. Her eyes stung and felt permanently rimmed red from all the crying she had been doing recently. She was currently not crying; she had reached that point where she felt as though she'd cried all her tears. Now she felt empty.

Sometime after Spencer had settled in this empty feeling, Missy came over to her. "What do you want?" she asked. Missy stared at her for a few moments before she jumped on the couch and curled in Spencer's arm, licking her hand a little. Normally, Spencer would have made Missy get off the couch since she was a bit fanatic about dog or cat hair. But this time, it felt different. She drew Missy closer to her. The dog furrowed herself in Spencer's chest and Spencer felt herself crying again.

There was a knock at the door, but Spencer didn't get up to open the door; she didn't even say a word.

"Spence, it's us!" Hanna shouted from outside. "It's me and Emily!"

Spencer heard a frustrated sigh and then keys jingling. A few minutes later, Emily and Hanna walked through the door. "Spencer, you—"

Hanna stopped abruptly when she saw her friend. She'd heard of the miscarriage and she knew that Spencer would be upset, but she didn't realize she'd still be this upset; it had been more than three weeks since it happened.

Emily, always the compassionate one, walked over to Spencer and tried comforting her. Missy snuggled in between the both of them. Hanna stared for a while, not knowing how to react. After a few moments, she grabbed the vase of wilted hollies and threw them out.

"Where's Alex?" Hanna asked.

"Upstairs," Spencer answered laconically.

"And Toby?" Emily inquired.

Spencer paused before shrugging. "Who knows?"

Both Hanna and Emily knew that wasn't a good thing. Finally, Emily piped up. "Spencer, do you need us to do anything for you?"

For some reason, Spencer frowned and began to cry again as she buried her face into the palms of her hands. "I'm so helpless," she said finally through tears. Hanna sat down next to her and the two—along with Missy—began to console Spencer. "When is it going to stop hurting?" she asked like a child.

"I don't know, Spence," Emily told her. "Maybe it'll never stop hurting."

Hanna wanted to smack her. Spencer picked up on this. "Maybe Emily is right," she insisted. "But when is it going to start hurting like a razor on my heart?"

Natalie put away her pet grooming things and let Missy off of the counter. Natalie noticed that Missy's nails hadn't gotten clipped in quite some time and decided to clip them herself. Afterwards, she noticed that Missy could use a good tooth-brushing and decided to brush her teeth. Missy seemed to make a face at the taste of the toothpaste at first, but when she realized that Natalie would give her a scrap of the steak she'd cooked, she obliged.

"Well, she won't eat a thing," Emily announced as she brought down Spencer's untouched plate. "I guess these are leftovers for Toby?" she suggested.

"If he ever gets back," Natalie said as she put the dog back on the floor. "I feel like I haven't seen him in weeks."

"Apparently, neither has Spencer. Apparently, she barely speaks more than five-word sentences to him anymore," Emily said in frustration. "What are we supposed to do? They have a son. They love each other. This can't happen."

Natalie forced a small smile. "I never knew you were such a romantic, Emily."

Emily rolled her eyes. "I'm just saying…I'm not about to let them fall apart. They're two of my best friends."

"That's understandable," Natalie said as she looked for a plastic container to put the food in, just in case Toby came home or Spencer began to feel hungry later.

"I thought you were the compassionate one. You're a doctor!" Emily said.

"I know, but…honestly, Emily, what do you want me to say? I can't say anything. It's not fair for me to prescribe advice when I have no clue what either of them feel like right now," Natalie said. "The only way I can think of helping them—with outside help, I mean, because I really think at this point, things can't just magically fix themselves; they need to talk about this to another person—is to sit them both down and speak to them about what's bothering them."

"Like an intervention?" The way Emily said it made it seem as though Natalie just suggested they should pull out one's teeth, one by one, as the other stood by and watched.

"Can you think of another way?"

"What if we got them to sit down with each other and talk about it? It's less weird that way. It's less like we're saying 'There's something wrong with the both of you and you need to fix it now for our convenience,'" Emily replied.

"But Em, if they had been able to fix this themselves, they would have done it themselves already."

"No, they're both avoiding each other and it's wrong."

Natalie just sighed as she finished washing the dishes. A part of her wanted to tell Emily that she was right just to end this conversation, but she knew that Emily's plan would never work.

"I'm going to go check on Alex one more time," Emily announced after a long silence. She turned and left the room.

Natalie turned to Missy, who was sitting at her feet. After drying her hands, she picked the puppy up. "Dogs are so much easier. You cuddle more and talk less," Natalie said as she pulled the dog to her chest.

Spencer stared at the door of her bedroom. At the moment, she was sitting in the darkness. She wanted to get up and go sit in Alex's room and cry, but that would probably freak Alex out. She just wanted to be close to him. At the same time, being close to him was just about the last thing she wanted. She didn't want to be reminded of the brother or sister he almost had and then she lost.

She thought losing Brandon was the worst thing she'd ever experience and it happened all over again. She wondered for a long time if it would have been easier on her if Brandon had been stillborn or if she miscarried when she was pregnant. For the longest time, she believed it would have been easier; she never would have known him and, in turn, never would have gotten the chance to really love him. She knew now that she was wrong. For a long time she thought Tennyson was smoking some sort of weed when he said "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all." She realized now that he was just very wise. With this baby—she didn't even know if it was a girl or a boy, and so in her mind, she just thought of it as "the baby"—she was just left to wonder. She dwelled on all the hypotheticals. She contemplated what he or she would have been like and what he or she would have found interesting. She thought about how his or her relationship would be with Alex. She wondered if they'd be constantly squabbling or if they'd always be there for each other. She was just left to wonder about so many things.

And Toby…

Her mind sometimes went back to him. While she initially felt the worst for him, she gradually began to feel disdain and maybe even anger at the fact that he was absent for almost all of the time she had been back from the hospital after miscarrying. She understood that he was in a lot of pain, too, but he couldn't just run off like that. He couldn't just hang her out to dry. She almost felt like he was punishing her by not being there.

And aside from all the anger, she was just worried about him. Although she'd barely spoken to him since the miscarriage happened, she could just feel that he was in pain. She didn't know where he went. She didn't know if he went to do stupid things. She didn't know if he went out to drink the entire day (though she'd never known him to even have a particular taste for alcohol, these kinds of events catalyzed addiction). She didn't know if he spent the whole day wasting away in self-loathing like she was doing. Maybe he did all three.

Hanna sat and played with her hands as she lay in bed with Caleb that night. She spent most of the rest of the day thinking about Spencer and how sad she was.

"Spencer just looked like a complete mess when I saw her today," Hanna said. "And she's one of those people—" She stopped herself.

"What kinds of people?"

"She's the kind of person who's always put together. It's like…if you see that sort of person look like a mess, you know everything is going to hell," she responded. She rested her head on Caleb's shoulder and they stayed there for a few moments. "Have you spoken to Toby?"

Caleb shook his head. "Not directly. I've spoken to Jason. He's said that Toby's spent the last three weeks holed up in his office. Jason doesn't even know if he's left. He assumes that he's gone home briefly, probably to change clothes and shower and stuff like that but otherwise…" Caleb trailed off. "He doesn't even speak to anyone. Jason says he communicates solely in notes and text messages now."

Hearing that broke Hanna's heart. She knew that miscarriage was hard, but she was afraid this would ruin both Spencer and Toby. They were in this deep rut and Hanna had no clue how to pull them out of it.

"I don't know how to help them," Caleb said, voicing exactly what Hanna had been thinking. "I don't think either of them is emotionally available at the moment," he added.

Hanna nodded in agreement. "I want Spencer to know I'm there for her. She just keeps pushing people away. I get why, but it's so hard to see her in this sort of pain…and it's so hard to help…" she explained. "Emily called me tonight after dinner and she said that Natalie came over and they tried to get Spencer to eat. Caleb, she won't even eat. She needs to eat something," Hanna said.

Caleb nodded silently while brushing some of Hanna's hair out of her face. "And I'm worried about Alex," Hanna confessed quietly. "I'm not saying that Spencer and Toby are bad parents, but they're so wrapped up in their own grief that they're not even thinking about him right now. I think it hurts them to look at him, knowing they could have had another baby and he could've had a little brother or sister…"

Caleb agreed. He rubbed small circles on her arm as they lay in silence. After a few minutes, Caleb reached over and turned out the light. Hanna took a deep breath as she rested her head on his chest.

Guest: Thank you, thank you very much! I promise there will be an explanation as to why this keeps happening to Spencer. But thank you for reading and thank you for the kind review :)

Kathryn2014: They'll get through it...eventually. Thank you for reading and reviewing!

arubagirl0926: Thank you and I hope you liked this chapter, even though it was sad.

Sarah: IT IS NOT NICE TO SPAM PEOPLE ON IMESSAGE. Are you happy? You got your chapter. Thanks.

sarahschneider2012: I'm big on the angst so I'm glad to be writing heavier, darker stuff again. I'm glad you'll keep reading the story and I'm sorry that you're upset with it right now! Still, I hope you sort of enjoyed this chapter.

Summer1223: I think I make everyone's heart hurt at one point or another. We'll see what happens. I hope you liked it.

I got my cousin to watch PLL and she's actually intrigued like I am so proud of myself rn. She likes Toby and Emily is her favorite character right now. I'm so proud words cannot describe.

So I'm going to try to update at least one more time before my break ends (almost definitely on my birthday, but maybe on the one-year anniversary of when I started this fic, too, if I can write two more chapters). Thanks for reading! -Kayson