Thank you so much for the response last chapter, it makes me so happy to know that people are resonating with the way I write and enjoying the story I'm trying to tell. This chapter was a little tricky to write because a) I know nothing about kids, and b) this isn't a ship I've really written for before, but I hope it turned out okay. For anyone getting restless, it'll only be a couple of chapters before the truth finally comes to light (well, most of it, anyway), so I hope you'll stick with the story until then. Thank you all again for last chapter, and I'll see you next time!
[Seventy hours, three minutes.]
For all her enthusiasm, Spencer barely picks at her dinner. Emily watches her carefully, sensing Aria and Hanna doing the same thing: cataloguing every single piece of information they can glean from her behavior, trying to put the pieces together to figure out the puzzle. The most worrying thing in Emily's mind is the way that Spencer's hands spasm at random intervals, something she tries so hard to cover that it ends up bringing more attention to it. At first Emily had thought it was a nervous twitch, a side effect of Spencer readjusting to the situation after whatever hell she'd been through, but it seems more serious than that. Emily shudders to think what kind of injury could have caused such lasting damage.
"I won't be offended if you don't eat it all," Ezra says after a while, twirling a piece of pasta around his fork. He's across the table from Spencer, and she's barely looked at him except for when she thanked him for the food.
Almost everyone has finished their bowls by now, while Spencer's barely taken two bites. At Ezra's words she sets her fork down and reaches for her coffee instead, her expression somewhere between relief and disappointment.
"Turns out book smarts don't translate well into culinary prowess," Aria teases. "Half the time we have to order takeout anyway."
Ezra rolls his eyes good-naturedly. "Well excuse me for trying to expand my skillset. When was the last time you set foot in the kitchen for anything other than coffee?"
"I made brownies last week!" Aria protests, mock indignant. "Spence, back me up. They were good, right?"
Spencer jerks her head up, seemingly startled at being addressed. Aria's playful smile drops a little in response to Spencer's blank look, and Emily catches Hanna's eye. As with so many times before, they're on the same wavelength, although it's one that Emily would rather be far away from. Amnesia? Hanna mouths, and Emily nods slightly, connecting the dots in the same way as her friend. Unfortunately the picture they form is far from pleasant.
"Let the woman finish her coffee in peace," Hanna says, saving Spencer from having to answer. "Speaking of which, does anyone want a refill?"
"As long as you're not getting any more for yourself," Emily cautions, looking pointedly at Hanna's fingers, which have been drumming on the table for the past thirty seconds. "Not all of us have Spencer's caffeine tolerance."
She looks at Spencer as she says this, trying to catch her eye and bring her into the joke, but the other woman is looking at her plate. Just as Emily's about to give up, Spencer looks up and smiles – too late, too slow, like there's extra steps involved. Like she has to remind herself to smile, to force herself to react. What happened to you, Spence? she thinks for at least the hundredth time, wishing she could just ask her without making things worse. Spencer will talk when she's ready; she has to believe that.
Hanna lays her hand flat on the table, stilling the tapping, and then she stands up abruptly. "Okay, Mom," she says, rolling her eyes. "I'll have decaf. Anyone else?"
Aria shakes her head, and Spencer inclines hers to indicate her half-full cup. Ezra stands up too, starting to clear away the plates, but he pauses as he reaches Spencer. "Do you want me to leave yours?" he asks, his hand halfway toward the plate.
Again, Spencer doesn't answer right away. Emily can almost see the gears turning in her mind, recognizing the same thoughtful expression that Spencer used to have when she was working through a tough math problem or a new A clue. It's worrying that such a simple question would prompt that kind of response, but Emily reminds herself that Spencer is probably exhausted. Whatever happened to her, it's been a long day, so it makes sense that she would be a little less on the ball than usual.
Finally Spencer shakes her head. "I'm not really hungry," she mumbles, setting the knife and fork back on the plate, perfectly parallel to each other. "But thank you."
As Ezra finishes clearing the table and Hanna sets about making coffee, Emily turns to Spencer, bracing herself to ask how she's feeling. But her phone buzzes before she gets more than a syllable into the question. "Sorry," she says quickly, noting the alarm that flashes through Spencer's eyes at the sound. "It's just my phone. I can put it on silent if you want?"
"N-no." Spencer shakes her head, and Emily can see her visibly forcing herself to relax, her shoulders drooping and her fist uncurling. She doesn't smile, but her voice is almost reassuring. "It's fine."
Emily catches Aria's eye, sharing a moment of silent communication to confirm that they're on the same page. It's a different book now, but they're reading it the same: Spencer has the Dollhouse look again, that haunted air about her that keeps everyone at a distance while simultaneously daring them to ask about it. Over the years they'd all had their fair share of trauma, but this time isn't like the others. Emily has seen Spencer at her worst – or at least she'd thought she had – but she's never seen her like this, and she doesn't know how to even begin to help.
Remembering her phone, she looks down to read the message.
"What is it, Em?" Aria asks in response to her frown.
Emily looks up again, apologetic. So much for dropping everything to help my friend. "The twins woke up. Ali wants me to call her so I can sing them a lullaby."
"Mama Em to the rescue," Aria says with a smile, but Emily's attention is caught by Spencer's reaction.
She'd almost missed it, her thoughts already skipping ahead to work out which lullaby she'd sing to the girls tonight, but as she replays the moment in her mind it's unmistakable. The way Spencer had stiffened, just a little bit, when she'd mentioned the girls. The fact that, without even saying a word, she'd seemed to shut down when Emily had mentioned her wife and daughters. Spencer's been distant since she got here, and back in the bathroom Emily had interpreted her reluctance to talk about the twins as a general side-effect of whatever trauma she's gone through, but this reaction seems too specific. Making a mental note to talk to Aria about it later, Emily tables the thought and gets to her feet.
"I'll be right back."
She doesn't wait for a response before leaving the apartment, her feelings of uneasiness growing with each passing step. It had been a shock to see Spencer the way she was, even with Ezra's warnings and Aria's descriptions, and every time Emily looks at her she feels her heart break a little bit more. But now her mind is starting to break too, trying to accommodate all of the conflicting information it's being presented with. None of it makes sense, and although Emily knows there has to be some kind explanation, she isn't sure she wants to be privy to it.
Alison picks up on the second ring, her voice strained in that very particular I love my kids but right now they're driving me crazy way. "Hey, babe. How is she?"
Emily leans against the wall in the hallway, her grip on her cell phone just a little too tight as she tries to ground herself. "She's okay," she replies, the most honest answer she can give without further explanation. She'd filled Ali in on as much of the story as she could when she'd called earlier, but it's hard to explain Spencer's state without seeing it firsthand. "Ezra made us all dinner, and I think we're going to spend the night. How are you and the girls?"
As if in response there's a shriek in the background – Lily, Emily knows right away – and then Ali's muffled voice as she addresses someone else. "No, Jason, she – Yeah, don't take Happy Bear from her. She won't sleep without him." There's a murmur in the background, and then Alison returns, huffing out an exasperated breath. "It's a rough night," she admits. "Jason's helping as much as he can, but…"
"There's a limit to what an uncle can do," Emily finishes for her. The girls were usually pretty good, and they loved company. Her friends had all taken turns babysitting and rarely had any complaints, but nights like these were the exception. Lily would get all worked up and that would set Grace off in turn, and only their mothers could calm them down. Emily doesn't blame them; there's no replacement for a mother's touch.
"This is the first time they've been this fussy, so I think he's a little overwhelmed." A faint jingle undercuts her words, and then a rattle; she must be picking up the girls' toys while Jason is trying to get them settled. With a wistful sigh Alison goes on, "Remember last time we brought them up here? I took for granted how much easier it was with six people here instead of just two."
Emily casts her mind back to that trip. It had been the first time they'd all gone away together in a long time, and it had been exactly the break from reality they all needed. Jason had watched the twins when Emily and Alison had wanted to hang out with their friends, and with Hanna, Aria, and Spencer on standby there had even been a couple of times when they'd been able to go out by themselves for date night. Alison had taken her to the fanciest Italian restaurant she'd ever seen in her life, and they'd shared a bottle of wine over fine pasta and even better breadsticks. It had been a perfect trip, but with the benefit of hindsight Emily can't shake the feeling that something about it had been... wrong.
"Was Spencer acting… strange during that trip?" she asks after a moment, and the silence in response lets her know that she'd caught her wife off-guard. "I just – I mentioned it to her earlier, and she didn't seem to remember the trip at all."
Alison hums, evidently thinking back, and Emily envies her. Where she and the others are desperately trying to find answers, Alison can afford to be more curious than concerned; she hasn't seen Spencer, and Emily's certain now that her description hadn't fully impressed upon Alison the severity of her condition. "She was a little busy," Ali concedes finally. "But she was working on that marketing thing for her mom, remember? She had to keep taking all those calls."
"Yeah." Emily hadn't thought it was strange at the time, given how frequently Spencer took on more projects than she could handle and then somehow handled them anyway, but it's strange that she wouldn't remember it now. "Did you… actually hear her make any of those calls?"
In the thoughtful silence that follows, an idea begins to form in Emily's mind. The more she thinks about it, the more she realizes that Spencer hadn't been herself that trip. She'd seemed preoccupied to an extent that couldn't just be explained by the work she was doing for her mom. Maybe whatever happened to her was already going on then.
"I don't think so," Alison says finally, cutting through her thoughts. "She always went outside to take them."
A red flag springs up in Emily's mind, but refuses to expand into anything beyond a deep-seated sense of unease. The amnesia theory rises to the top of her mind, connected to Aria's theory from before – that Spencer might have fallen back on her addiction. That would explain her strange behavior, and it could explain why she doesn't remember it. And if she'd been taking the pills for that long it could account for her physical condition as well; maybe she'd simply been hiding it so well that they hadn't noticed until now. The only thing it doesn't explain is that look in her eye, like she's one step away from the edge of a cliff.
"Why are you asking?" Alison prompts when she doesn't respond. "Do you think it has something to do with what happened to her today?"
"I don't think something happened to her today," Emily says slowly, still sorting through her thoughts. "At least, I don't think it was just today. I think… maybe it was already happening then. She doesn't – I don't think she remembers going on that trip. And the only other time she's had this kind of memory loss was…"
Emily can picture Alison's face tightening as she connects the dots, tracing it back to the first time Spencer had been in that state: the summer Ali disappeared. "You think she's taking the pills again?" Alison asks, her voice level despite the reminder of a time she'd much rather forget. "Those phone calls she was making -"
"- could have been to her dealer," Emily finishes grimly. "It's not -"
Her words are drowned out by a sudden wail – Grace, this time – and Alison swears softly under her breath. "Listen, I really want to get to the bottom of this Spencer thing, but -"
"You're a mom first and a friend second," Emily supplies, a long-running joke between them. "It's okay. I don't think we're going to crack the case tonight anyway."
"Are you sure?" Alison's words are barely audible against the background wailing, combined with what sounds like Jason trying to soothe the girls. "It sounds like Spencer's been through a lot -"
"She'll be okay," Emily says, so firmly it feels like she's trying to speak it into existence. "She's with Aria and Hanna now, so there's not much I can do right now anyway. Do you want to put me on speakerphone? I can sing the girls a goodnight song."
The prospect of actually being able to help comfort someone is appealing; even if she can't help Spencer right now, she can at least help her girls get to sleep. A moment later Alison tells her that they're ready, and Emily can picture them, her perfect little family: the twins side by side in their crib, Alison gently rocking them back and forth. And her, miles away but still able to reach out to them, to offer a little slice of calm in an otherwise hectic world. She smiles, her voice low and gentle as she starts to sing. "Hush-a-bye, don't you cry, go to sleepy little babies…"