Thank you so much for the engagement last chapter, especially the reviews. I'm so glad people are enjoying this! Here's the next chapter, featuring: Sparia feels, Angst™, and a couple of answers (sort of). Enjoy, and I'll see you all next time!
[Seventy hours, fifty-eight minutes.]
The reflection isn't hers.
As if magnetized, Spencer's hand drifts up to the bathroom mirror, lightly brushing the glass as she traces the unfamiliar form of her face. Her face. A voice echoes in her mind, like her own but harsher, the Hastings sophistication undercut by a far rougher upbringing: My name is Spencer. Don't you dare call me anything else. Her hand falls limp, dead weight as memories crowd her mind, causing a disconnect between her body and the neurons that control her movement. She's frozen in place, meeting her own eyes in the mirror, trying to map the course of a history that no longer belongs to her.
It's her face, and some parts of it are familiar. Her eyes, her lips, her cheekbones – all unchanged, untouched by the widespread torment that had ravaged far less recognizable features. Most of the damage is internal, after all, or at the very least hidden underneath her clothes. But there's so much about her face that she doesn't recognize, so much that makes her feel like a stranger to herself.
The dark circles under her eyes are more pronounced than they've ever been, even after the Dollhouse or the drugs or the endless nights of frantic studying. Her skin is paler, too, an unsurprising but strangely devastating consequence of having been kept underground for months. She looks like a colorless copy of herself, a grayscale version of a once-vibrant woman, and the heaviness in her limbs begins to seep deeper down, burrowing into her heart like a worm into a rotten apple.
"Spence?"
She jumps, her awareness shifting outwards to accommodate the sudden voice. There are more voices, too, coming from the living room. Ezra, Hanna, Emily… Her friends. Your friends aren't coming for you. It's her voice but it's not; the inflection is almost perfect but the edges are too sharp, the words a little too clipped. A convincing imitation, with just a hint of mockery running beneath it like a vein of deceptive gold.
Feeling returns to her limbs too slowly, her mind still catching up by the time Aria enters the room, lingering just inside the doorway as if she's not sure whether she should be here. Spencer turns to face her, but still can't meet her eyes.
"Hey," Aria says, in that talking-to-a-wounded-animal voice that she reserves for tragedy and trauma. Spencer doesn't have the heart to tell her that the real tragedy was months ago, that the aftermath is nothing compared to what she's already lived through. "I was worried you might have made a break for it."
It takes Spencer a moment to register the lightness of her tone, to recognize it for an attempt at humor. She doesn't respond.
"The girls are here," Aria says when it becomes clear that Spencer isn't going to say anything. "Do you feel up to talking to them?"
Spencer starts to nod, but the sight of her reflection, no more than a ghost in the corner of her eye, makes her pause. She turns back to look at herself, shifting from a perspective of self-reflection to one of appraisal. This time she takes in her full appearance: her tangled hair, her old sweats, her tired eyes and trembling hands and –
God, they can't see me like this.
She shakes her head instead, unable to articulate the mess of thoughts currently jumbled up in her mind, like tangled Christmas lights that haven't been taken out from the attic in years. If she pulls too hard the thoughts will break, memories shattering like glass. She just needs to hold it together for a little bit longer.
"I'm not ready," she says haltingly, bracing herself for backlash. It's usually swift, refusal resulting in immediate punishment, but sometimes it's more drawn-out.
This time, though, it's non-existent.
Aria doesn't tell her that she's not allowed to say no, that she's being petulant and obstinate. She doesn't threaten to dock her food allowance or take away any of her privileges. Instead Aria smiles, soft and reassuring, and yields at once. "Okay. That's fine. We can just hang out in here for a bit, if that's – Is that okay?"
She's your friend, Spencer reminds herself. She's not going to hurt you.
Another voice, her own and yet not, fills the spaces left between her silent assurances: I won't hurt you unless you give me a reason to.
She blinks, bringing herself back to the moment. Her white-knuckled hands are gripping the edge of the sink so tightly she feels like the porcelain should crack underneath her, and if it doesn't then she herself should crack, shatter into a thousand pieces that nobody would ever have the patience to pick up. With a deep breath she relaxes her hands, focusing on the coldness of the sink against her skin, the presence of another person – a friend – just behind her.
"I know you want to ask," she says suddenly, surprised by the roughness of her own voice. She glances up, meets Aria's eyes in the mirror. As expressive as ever, Aria's emotions are written all over her face, lettering so familiar it feels like a favorite childhood book. Not wanting to linger on that particular story, Spencer forges onward. "So go ahead."
There's a long beat of silence, punctuated only by an occasional raised voice from the living room beyond. It takes all Spencer has not to flinch at the sound, to talk herself out of her immediate fear response and recognize that the people beyond are friends, not captors. That they're probably talking about how to help her, or figure out what's wrong with her – not how best to torture her. She pulls herself back from the ledge of panic and turns around just as Aria speaks.
"What happened?" the other woman blurts out, worry pitching her voice up an octave. When Spencer doesn't answer right away, she takes half a step forward. "I just – If you don't want to talk about it, I get it, but you look -"
–like I've been held against my will in an underground bunker by my evil twin?
The bitter thought draws her attention away from Aria for long enough to miss her next words.
"- if I don't know what's going on," Aria is saying when she tunes back in, her words coming out in a tumbling torrent like she's worried Spencer will rescind her invitation and decline to answer any questions. "You've only been gone for an hour, I don't un-"
"When was your wedding?" Spencer interrupts, unable to keep up with Aria's train of thought. She's so used to being talked at rather than talked to, and it's not until Aria blinks in surprise that she realizes she probably shouldn't have cut her off like that. Her parents would be ashamed at how quickly her social decorum had disappeared in captivity.
"Thr-three months ago," Aria says, the gears turning in her mind as she tries to switch to Spencer's track. She does, and a burst of comprehension blooms on her face. "Is this about Toby? Did something happen between you two?"
The name, said so casually, is like a knife to Spencer's heart. Speaking from experience, a bullet to the chest would probably hurt less. Aria had connected the dots, but missed the turnoff entirely. Three months, then, Spencer wants to tell her, that's how long I've been gone. Not just an hour. At least the tally she'd kept is accurate, give or take a few days she doesn't exactly remember.
"It's not about Toby," she says instead, and the once-familiar name feels foreign to her tongue, so heavy she almost has to force it out. Like it no longer belongs to her, just as she no longer belongs to him. She hesitates, wanting to know the answer as surely as she knows that hearing it will only hurt her. "Where… Where is he?"
"In London." It's a statement, a simple fact, but it tilts upward at the end with an unsaid question: Don't you already know that?
Spencer processes the answer, turning the implications over in her mind. So she hadn't been lying about that. Interesting.
"Do you want me to call him?" Aria suggests. "If something's going on I'm sure he wouldn't mind coming back early -"
"No." This time Spencer knows she's being rude by interrupting, but the thought of Toby coming back for her – coming back to her – is too much. "Please don't… don't call him."
Aria takes a step forward, closing the door properly behind her, and Spencer bites back an instinctive burst of fear. You're not trapped, she thinks with more than a hint of desperation, the door's not locked. Her knuckles are white again, her hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms. It doesn't ground her as much as she'd hoped, but it takes the edge off the fear. She leans back against the edge of the sink, crosses her arms over her chest. Instinctively trying to make herself a smaller target, even though she knows she should be safe here.
The door closed, Aria sits down on the rim of the bath, prim and proper and very carefully looking at anything but her, like she's worried Spencer will disappear if she looks at her for too long.
"Is there anyone else you want me to call?" Aria asks after a moment. "Melissa, maybe, or your parents -"
The thought sends a jolt of panic skittering through Spencer's nervous system. "No," she says firmly. "I don't want anyone to know I'm back."
"Back from where, Spence?" Her voice is still gentle, but there's a hardness in Aria's eyes now. However she's filling in the blanks, she doesn't seem to like it. "You look like you haven't eaten in weeks. You've lost weight, and you're so pale…" The hardness vanishes for a moment, replaced by tentative levity. "Are you a vampire?"
The joke catches her completely off-guard, and then, as Aria quirks her lips into a smile, Spencer laughs. She truly, honestly, laughs. After a startled pause Aria joins in too, and for one blissful moment the room is filled with nothing but love and laughter. It feels so good to laugh again, some of the tightness in Spencer's chest unfurling like a flower in response to the unexpected connection. And then, just as suddenly, it feels wrong. The tightness returns, clenching and then pulling inwards, dragging her back into her cell and slamming a door closed in her mind. She doesn't realize she's crying until Aria is on her feet, no longer laughing but reaching out.
Spencer freezes in place, torn between opposing instincts: to stay strong or to seek comfort; to risk punishment by refusing or injury by complying. The choice is taken from her as Aria throws caution to the wind and hugs her, the first time in months she's had any physical contact that wasn't violent or coercive. The contact shakes something loose inside Spencer and the modicum of dignity she'd been holding onto disappears. Without a word she twists around in Aria's grasp so that they're properly facing each other, and against her body's protests she returns the hug. The movement reignites a dull ache in her bones, but it's worth it for the comfort, for the way Aria's arms tighten around her, holding her close, holding her together.
They're both crying now, and for the first time in a long time Spencer doesn't feel completely alone.