Title: Just Tell Me What You Want
Rating: This chapter is probably only PG-13ish. There's slight language and slight sexual content.
Disclaimer: None of these characters are mine. I can't claim them. They are all property of the hard-working folks who are involved in the show South Of Nowhere. (Okay, I own Neil and Brock, but they aren't in this chapter anyway. They live at the bowling alley, only. Also, Nikki, is not part of the cast of S.O.N. She's there for Aiden's sake)
Feedback: Thank you to everyone who sends it. I love getting feedback. It encourages me to update, I admit it.
Summary: This will be a Spencer/Ashley story. It will involve the other characters of South of Nowhere though too.
Author's Notes: Okay, Gasp This is the final chapter of the story. It's been a little while, but I have to say, I've had fun writing it…and I appreciate any feedback that you guys/girls may have about it, now that it is over. Also, I had two endings in mind for this story, and I flickered back and forth, unsure of which to use. So…I made it simple. I wrote two endings. One is full of angst, and the other is, well, happy and slightly fluffy. You'll figure out which one you're reading by the end, I promise. If there are people who wish to read the other alternate ending, just let me know, and I'll post that too. Enjoy!
"Oh look, it's the wannabe cheer queer." Madison snickered as she walked into the locker room noticing the back of the blonde's head around the corner as she walked in. She failed to notice that Spencer was otherwise occupied with Ashley, whose lips were pressed against Spencer's until Madison walked in. She didn't need to see their own little show. "Or, from the looks of it…The queer part isn't a wannabe act." Her friends joined in on her snickering this time.
Of course, this is when she noticed who Spencer was with. Ashley. They were both standing facing Madison and her fellow cheer bitches, mussed up hair, red and puffy lips from kissing and all. "Aw, how gross. She's not the world's loneliest lesbian anymore."
"And look who's still alone, Madison. That'd be you." Ashley smirked as Spencer tried to smooth down her own hair. "Still mad that your ex prefers us over you, huh?" The first remark didn't bother Madison, but the second one stung. She was still rather touchy about the Aiden subject. Let alone that he had dated two lesbians right after they had broken up.
"At least I don't sneak off to girl's locker rooms to make out with some skank." Madison's eyes widened a bit in anger, before she had managed her own comeback.
"Bitch," Ashley snarled, unsure of whether she or Spencer had been called a skank. Either way, it made her lunge at the other girl. She shoved her, and then Madison was suddenly shoving her back, and hair was being pulled, and fists were being thrown. It was not a girl fight in the way that most think of the word. Yes, there was the hair pulling, but it was punches being thrown at times, not just slaps.
"Ash, come on." Spencer muttered as she tried to tug her girlfriend away from the other girl. Madison's closest friends were trying to hold Madison back as well.
"Yeah, control your lesbian lover, Spencer. Or…Are you just waiting to see if she hits on Aiden again?" Madison sneered as Spencer had finally dragged an infuriated Ashley off of the cheerleader.
Spencer scowled at her, but Ashley couldn't help herself, and punched the cheerleader. "Ashley!" Spencer shouted at the same time that Madison's friends were trying to pull the two girls apart again. Ashley wasn't listening, and the blonde got impatient. She realized that there were always going to be people reacting like this. Madison. Her brother. The other kids in school. Random people who realized they were a couple on the street. Her mother. Oh my God. Her mother.
Paula never had anything decent to say about being lesbian, gay, or bisexual. Which meant, in Spencer's mind, that Paula would never have anything decent to think about her own daughter. Her own mother would hate her for what she was, for who she loved. That wasn't right. Spencer burst out of the locker room, trying to hold back her tears. Damn it. She had promised that she wasn't going to cry and yet, here she was.
A few seconds after Spencer left the locker room, Ashley untangled herself from the mass of cheer breeders as they tried to get at Madison, to see if she was okay. The brunette didn't care about them, so she chose the easy decision, to find Spencer. It wasn't hard to locate the blonde because she hadn't wandered far. "Spence?" Ashley asked hesitantly. She ignored her. "Spencer, what's wrong? Is it that I hit Ashley again? I'm sorry. I was trying to control it, I really was, but she's just such a…Such a…"
"She's a bitch, I know that Ashley." Spencer finished her girlfriend's sentence and turned to look her straight in the eyes.
"Then what's wrong?" Ashley was confused. Spencer was hot and cold. One minute she had her arms wrapped around Ashley's waist, pulling the brunette in for another kiss, and the next minute, she was crying again, running away from the brunette.
Spencer sighed and wiped away her own tears. "I'm sorry. I promised myself that I wouldn't cry again, not over…" Spencer stopped herself from finishing her own sentence. Ashley wasn't supposed to know about the promise that she had made herself.
"Not over what? Not over me, Spencer? Did you promise yourself that you wouldn't cry over me?" Spencer looked aghast at Ashley for a moment before nodding. Ashley knew her too well. Ashley saw the blonde's head nod, and she immediately bit her lip to keep herself from crying. Her girlfriend had cried about her so much that she had promised she never would again. "What a great start to a relationship." Ashley muttered, and Spencer reached for the brunette's hand. They were lucky that the gym was the only thing in this area, and the cheer breeders would be busy with Madison, so they wouldn't wander back out until after the warning bell had rung. The two girls just had to be willing to move before the rest of the students made their way this way to their classes. They had a few minutes. "That's just it." Spencer paused to take a breath and to stop another tear that was making its way out of her left eye and hanging precariously on her cheek. "We can't have a relationship."
"You just want to be friends?" Ashley looked forlorn, but she knew that there was a fate worse than just friendship with the person you love. She'd rather have that than nothing, and eventually, Spencer may come to turns with being gay.
"I can't just be friends with you." Spencer shook her head. Ashley just didn't understand. She needed to understand.
"That's why we can date." Ashley slowly explained things to Spencer, who still shook her head.
"No," Spencer stated simply. Simple was best. Simple was elegant. Simple was not easy.
"We can go however fast or slow you need to go. I promise." Ashley couldn't believe this. They had just started dating, and already she was losing her girlfriend. It wasn't fair.
"No, Ashley. We can't. I can't." Spencer didn't bother to wipe at the new tear that made its course down her cheek, this time from her right eye.
"Is this about the fighting thing? I'll work on it. I'll ignore Madison. I'll…Spencer what do you want?" Ashley was ready to plead with the blonde. She loved her. She'd do anything. Anything.
"To be away from you." Spencer said it simply, and tried to say it like she meant it, but each of the girls knew that she was lying.
"I love you." Ashley was crying now, and the girls were suddenly together again. They were kissing, and they didn't care that they were in the school. It was their most passionate kiss; it was their kiss most filled with distress and sorrow. They broke apart as the need for air became insistent, and Spencer smoothed a piece of hair back behind Ashley's ear. It was their final kiss, a good-bye kiss, even though they'd see each other every day after this day in school; they wouldn't really see each other clearly anymore.
"I love you too, Ashley. That's what we can't be together." Spencer wanted to keep things simple, but nothing was simple. "I've never met anyone more like me than myself. I've never loved anyone more than I love you."
"And you said that I was screwed up?" Ashley was so confused, and Spencer just gave her a look. "Sorry, fucked up." Ashley changed the word, and Spencer felt even worse, but she felt that this had to be done. They couldn't have a relationship together. It wasn't right in people's eyes. In her mother's eyes.
"My mom would never approve." That was simple to say.
"So this is all about your mom?" Ashley looked incredulously at the blonde.
"No, it's about us. We'd always be the odd couple out. Everyone else would be a guy and a girl when we'd have family picnics or whatever, and I'd be the one who would be bringing a girlfriend." Spencer tried to explain herself, but it still made no sense to Ashley.
"So would Glen and Clay." It was true. They'd bring girlfriends to picnics. They had before.
"Ashley, that's not the same thing. You know that." Spencer shook her head sadly, and reached for the brunette's elbow. The brunette jerked out the way, and in turn, she smashed her elbow on the locker behind her, but she ignored her throbbing elbow and the pained look in the blonde's eyes.
"I do?" Ashley understood that it was different, but she didn't see how that mattered.
"Yes, you do. I love you, and I don't want to hurt you. I know that eventually something would happen, and my mother or my brother…or, I don't know. A random person on the street would say something, do something, and then everyone would look at us. They would know, and we wouldn't be able to change that. We'd have to deal with the discrimination all the time. I'd have to deal with my mother after that." Spencer tried her best to explain herself, but it all just came back to her mother.
"So, this is about your mother?" Ashley shook her head sadly as the bell rang, and people milled out into the hall. Lots of people, including Glen and Clay.
"No," Spencer paused, considering her answer, and she decided to be completely honest. "Yes. I have to live with her Ashley. I can't live with her like this. She won't let me, at least not happily. I'm sorry, Ashley. You have no idea." Ashley had more than an idea, but she knew that she couldn't change Spencer's mind anymore, not now. There were too many people around, and there always would be.
"But, you said that you love me, Spencer. What else matters?" Ashley hoped for one last chance, but the people were distracting. They were listening, and Spencer couldn't let that happen.
"Everything matters." Spencer bit her lip, and she whispered her next sentence. "I don't love you, Ashley."
"You do," and the tears flowed from Ashley's eyes freely now. She was too far gone to stop them.
"I don't love you." There was a bitter sorrow in Spencer's voice before she turned and fled through the crowd. Ashley stood there for a moment longer.
"What the hell are you looking at?" She glared at them without really seeing any of them, their faces were all blurred together. Aiden reached and touched Nikki's hand. She nodded because she understood that he was friends with the other girl still. She wasn't going to lose him to her. So, he went to his friend, Ashley. She needed him right now, and he would show her that they were still friends. They always would be. Together, the two of them left the group as well. There was nothing left to see anymore.