A/N: Thanks for reading! Question for y'all: How would you feel if this story ended relatively soon (next five or so chapters) and I made a sequel with perhaps a time jump? JUST AN IDEA NOTHING SET IN STONE. I LOVE WRITING THESE VERSIONS OF TOBY AND SPENCER AND THEIR STORY IS VERY NEAR AND DEAR TO MY HEART SO REGARDLESS OF SEQUEL OR NOT I WILL BE WRITING MORE OF THEIR STORY. Let me know in reviews what you all want! Xo

The night was a mix of tossing and turning, tear-stained cheeks being kissed dry, and dozing off between bouts of lovemaking.

The first time they'd made love that night, it was slow and sensual and seemed to last forever. Spencer was pretty sure she started crying towards the middle, but she wasn't sure because she was too overcome with emotions. Toby, too, was consumed with emotion, focused on simply taking all of her, touching all of her, that he didn't even think twice when he saw her tear-stained cheeks, he just kissed the wetness away when he noticed the dampness leaking down her face dripping to her chest. Her nails were digging into his back, his teeth into her shoulder and neck; the noises and emotions coming out of the both of them blending into the background of the here and now they were determined to keep because it was the only place they had and the only safe haven that existed. Here and now. Their interspersed eye contact would seem to last forever, so lustful and so magnetic and unavoidable that it almost stung. It was raw and real and so desperate that it seemed they needed each other's air to continue breathing. He filled up her voids like it kept them both alive.

Nuzzled tears and murmurs of I'm sorry alternation between them and back rubbing and shhhing in the dark didn't last long before the heat between them brought them together once more, completely in desperation. The second time was the polar opposite of the gentle love they'd shared not long before. He slammed in and out of her with all the aggression and pent-up frustration he felt for her not being honest about how badly her parents treated her, himself for not helping her, and for the Hastings for ruining a perfectly good girl. His girl. And then himself again for continually referring to the girl he loved as being someone who was "a mess." He hated to know that it was true, because he wanted to believe she was perfect. But it was clear she was only perfect to him, only perfect when she could manage to keep it together. She was strong, that was for sure. But nonetheless broken. The love was still there in their quick paced movements and low grunts, and the love was still desperate and raw and everything you were supposed to want and everything you read about in stories but never really thought you'd have, but then again their thoughts were puddles and they weren't even really aware of what they were doing to each other or experiencing. They were both in dizzy spells from one another's touch, scent, moans, and skin, all becoming blurred to one.

Spencer didn't mind the aggression. At least she was feeling something. She was just as angry, just as hurt. Her movements matched his aggression, and somehow, she still felt safer there with him than anywhere else, even in a situation where she knew he could easily hurt her or take action. And for that, she hated herself. For not being able to be strong enough to walk away, to save Toby from the mocking of their peers or from the exposure he'd experienced to her world of shame. She wanted to love him back. She wanted to love him back. Didn't she? Harder, faster, slamming herself to try and get the answer to the question burning in her head: was this love real? Was any love real? If this love is real, she thought, love me until it hurts. And he did.

She hadn't forgotten she'd heard him say the word when he was yelling at her parents. She's a mess. Ruined. Broken. Wrecked. It embarrassed her that he could see what she saw in the mirror, and that he'd lied so many times when he told her that he saw someone stronger and more deserving than she felt comfortable believing. She wondered how he ever pretended to see anything but that – a mess. She wondered what else he lied about. But it wasn't to hurt me. He wanted me to be happy. Maybe he does love me. I just don't know why. I believe him, but I don't think he understands what love is. Or who I am. She wondered if he was with her because he liked feeling like a superhero; that their relationship depended on her staying small so he could feel big. Or maybe he was taking advantage of her vulnerability. Maybe if she hadn't slept with him, he wouldn't have wanted to be with her. Maybe if Ali didn't gossip about it so publicly, he wouldn't have acted so quickly. A million times a day she came up with new reasons and excuses as to why he might be with her, why he might continue to voluntarily grace her with his presence. If she really was such a mess, how could he honestly love her? She hated that he'd seen her parents be so disrespecting towards her. She was extremely embarrassed about herself – how terrible was it for parents to not love their offspring? To be so disappointed and unimpressed by their own daughter; a creation of their own love? Spencer still couldn't wrap her head around the idea that maybe, just maybe, the problem was that her parents were selfish – not that she was unworthy. Unlovable She'd spent years and years feeling so embarrassed and undeserving, feeling that it was her own fault that her parents rejected and ignored her and said hateful things and didn't say they were proud like they did to her perfect sister. Because for them to not care about their own offspring, something that was supposed to be so natural, the answer had to be that she was just that fucked up. It never occurred to her that she might be fine, and her parents just might be awful. It felt like a joke, a twisting knife in her back when the words pierced her ears. I love you, she replayed his words in her head. She wanted to laugh and cry and slobber all over his pillows and run away and hide inside of herself or just to disappear. Or maybe just kiss him so deep that maybe he'd swallow her whole, somehow.

She wanted it to be true, she so badly had wanted to hear those words for her entire life, even if she hadn't explicitly realized that. It was the reason for her lies to her parents, for her obsession with her grades and the precision in her technical dance abilities, and even how she maintained such a slender form – obsession with perfection. It was also the reason she'd cut herself, the reason she'd taken drugs, the reason she couldn't look him in the eyes when he told her she was beautiful and smart and special, and the reason that even after months of being with him in his room, and weeks of being his girlfriend, she still felt like she was living someone else's life. She just wanted approval – she had forgotten about her craving for love a long time ago, and had refocused her energy on just being someone worth something – to be enough, to get the Hastings' stamp of approval. But that was proving to be somewhat impossible.

But then there was Toby – he held her like he was trying to protect her even when there was nothing threatening her, he kissed her like their lips were magnets, made specifically to lock into one another's. He said beautiful things to her like he really believed that she was beautiful, even when she was just wearing a t-shirt. Even when she was wearing nothing at all, not even a smile.

And that scared the shit out of her. She didn't believe any of it, she felt like everything was slipping out of her control when he said those three words. They didn't feel warm and safe like she'd thought they would when she made her dolls say it to the doll she'd equated to herself, or when she wrote about it in her diary, or dreamed about how it might go. Instead it felt like a piano being dropped onto her from a high-rise building, squishing her into the sidewalk.

But at the same time, she did feel safe with him. She'd never been in a situation before where she didn't know the answers. But now, her brain was goo and her body was invaded by parts of his own, and she felt like she was another girl on another planet. And she didn't want it to stop.

The unending circle of thoughts, fears, kisses, tears, and love-making rotated until the sun rose and suddenly it was morning and they'd slept some, although she couldn't really remember falling asleep or even waking up. Toby fell asleep finally right after the sun started to rise. But not Spencer. She pulled herself slowly from his arms, all of a sudden feeling too vulnerable to be there. Too naked, too exposed, too Spencer.

When she'd opened her eyes, Toby was also squinting, the sun blinding him from his window across the room. The sheets were only barely draped over them. Spencer sat at the end of the bed facing away from him when she felt the warmth of his skin firmly pressed against her from behind, his hands going under the sheets to let his hands warm her navel as his fingers danced across her sides until they met in the middle. She arched back slightly into him, but didn't say a word.

"Please don't run this time," he whispered into her hair. The first time they'd slept together, she ran. There'd only been two other times after that, and they were both in his car, where she couldn't run, but it also wasn't particularly intimate either. She'd gone home right after in those instances.

"I don't want you to go back there, not yet." He had been worried about her all night, as he watched her alternate between sleeping in his arms and writhing beneath him, knowing there was so much pain in the petite body pressed into his and that there was only so much he could do to change it. All he wanted was to keep her here; keep her safe, knowing there would be consequences for the both of them but decidedly not caring.

"Morning," she said softly, still feeling too exposed, ignoring his utterances of concern. Once again, Toby wondered if her smiles were always fake, if she always looked so sad behind curved up lips.

He frowned, but kissed her forehead. He wanted her to say she'd stay, and that she loved him. It had hurt him a bit that she didn't say it back, but he was starting to understand that it was very, very new to her. It was hard being in love with her, because every time he tried to pick up the pieces for her, they crumbled into smaller, more microscopic pieces in his hands. Spencer was complicated. But that was why he loved her. She frustrated him and challenged him but at the end of the day, she showed him a vulnerability that he'd never seen in a person, and made him want to open up from the big, tough athlete he was supposed to be to the scared boy he was inside, sometimes. And she let him be just that, always calm, always touching his arm, always breathing in his problems and breathing out little words of comfort and kisses that seemed to last for days.

"When I was a little girl," she whispered. "I ran away from home."

He locked eyes with her, subconsciously rubbing circles into her stomach with one hand and twirling her hair around his finger with the other. He was in a trance listening to her when she spoke.

"I packed a sandwich and some money from my bank and my favorite blue blanket that my Nana gave me and I hid at the movies, and went to the park by myself, and ate my sandwich and did all the things I thought would be the most fun. But I got myself so worked up that I'd be in trouble when I got home, that I couldn't even enjoy being away. So I ran all the way back home, and I snuck into my back door and my mom and my dad were playing Scrabble with my sister at the table, and they hadn't even noticed I was gone all day."

"How old were you?" Toby narrowed his eyes, pulling her closer. It made it easier for her that she didn't have to face him.

"Seven, maybe?" She wasn't sure. "That was the day I realized that I wasn't like them. I didn't matter in the House of Hastings. It's been ten years and I thought it would be a lot easier by now. It is, but it also still feels a lot worse than I thought. Still." Her voice shook when she told him the truth. This was a story nobody knew.

"Spencer, you're enough. I promise you you're enough," somewhere in the conversation his hands hand found hers and interlocked their fingers, and he brought her hand up to his mouth to trail kisses on her hand and up her arm, delicately and subconsciously grazing over the long pink scar that was embroidered onto her bony wrist. She got chills when he touched it, but she let him anyway.

She nodded, wanting to believe him, and in moments like these, she did. "I never felt like I had a safe place but…I know this is corny and stupid, but I…I feel safe with you. You're like my safe place." Her cheeks were flushed to a dark red, her eyes flickered down, completely embarrassed that she'd told him that. She wondered if he still loved her now. Ten minutes from now? Tomorrow?

"I'm sorry you haven't gotten what you deserve… but I'm trying to make things better for you, Spencer."

Her stomach flip-flopped. She was afraid he was going to say those words again. It was silly, she wanted him to keep loving her, but was terrified that he'd say it. But she was also scared that he'd stop loving her. She didn't know which fear was greater.

Instead, she stopped him with her lips. And all of a sudden they were making love all over again: sweeter, slower, and more innocent than the night before. This time, she didn't cry. She just silently begged him not to say the three words she ironically needed so much, wanting to be healed physically more than emotionally, giving him what she thought he needed to stay.

xx

After they'd finished once more, in hushed tones of the morning, they got dressed and stayed close, like magnets, barely managing to exchange words. She hooked her hand into his when he led her upstairs as if it might be the most natural thing in the world.

When they got into his kitchen, she was surprised to see his father – a man she'd never met before, but knew who he was based on his sameness to Toby – the strong jawline, the piercing eyes, the towering demeanor, the darkish blondish waves – only the lines near his eyes were deeper and were mimicked in the lines on his forehead, his eyes were duller, more serious, and his hair was thinner. Spencer pulled away from Toby a bit, afraid that he'd get in trouble for her staying over, or she'd have to leave. She wasn't ready to leave.

"Morning," he turned around from the stove where he was scrambling some eggs. "Oh, we have a guest," he smiled at Spencer. There was a calmness in the room when he spoke. There was something special about a single father's relationship with his son. Then again maybe it was just that they had a relationship, and she lacked one with her own parents. She envied the calmness of the house. It was those damn ocean blues, she thought.

"This is Spencer," Toby started, slowly. "She's my…" he started, but trailed off as his father came closer, wiping his hands on a dishrag and extending it to shake Spencer's. Spencer looked at Toby for approval before shaking the older man's hand.

"I know, the girlfriend. I didn't forget," he smiled a little, but his face was a bit harsh. "I'm just frying up some eggs if you all want breakfast. I can make some French toast? Pancakes? What does the lady like?" He smiled at Spencer.

"Uhm… I don't want to put you out, I should probably go home…" She spoke in barely audible tones, but Toby squeezed her hand as if to tell her she wasn't leaving yet.

"No such thing. You should at least get some food in your stomach. French toast it is!" He said, grabbing the loaf of bread from the counter.

Spencer sat down with Toby. "Spencer's… there was a fight last night at her house, is it okay if she stays here? Just for the weekend? Or maybe a few days?"

"As long as she needs, and her parents know where she is…"

Spencer blushed, knowing that she'd shared a personal story with Toby just a bit earlier that exhibited just how much her parents didn't care about her whereabouts.

"They know," she interjected before Toby could say anything to make her feel any more silly than she felt.

"Fine by me, as long as there's no trouble," His father laughed and Spencer felt Toby squeeze her thigh under the table causing her to blush. It felt so much nicer when he did it than when Wren violated her space during family dinner.

They ate breakfast together before Toby's father went to work.

"He was nice," Spencer nodded. "Thank you for letting me stay here last night."

"Are you kidding?" he laughed. "At what point did you think I would have sent you home?" He smiled softly, his hand grazing her forearm, remembering the moments they'd shared the night before. It was surreal. He straightened up. "You're staying until you feel good enough to go home,"

She was still blushing. "I guess it wouldn't have made sense to go home with our night…. But thank you for last night, anyway… I needed that."

"Me too," he kissed her forehead.

"Can I really stay the weekend?"

"As long as you want to be here, you're staying."

She thanked him with a kiss, as if it were her way of saying the three words that haunted and taunted her when they spilled from his lips.

xx

They spent the weekend holed up in his room. They'd built a fort of pillows and blankets as if they were elementary aged children at their first sleepover, and watched TV and did homework leaning up against one another.

They didn't make love again that weekend, but it didn't mean that they weren't intimate and close. They didn't need to do that to show how they needed one another.

He was rubbing her shoulders while she did homework, almost as if his actions were absent-minded.

"Toby," she didn't turn to look at him. She spoke very quietly, so he turned off the TV so he could hear her. "I care about you more than I've ever cared about anyone. I'm sorry if I hurt you when I yelled at you last night when you said…those things. Please don't be mad at me," Please still love me, she thought.

"Spencer," he started, as if he heard her internal fears screaming. "Nothing you could do would make me change my mind. I still—"

She stopped him by flipping around as quickly as she could and kissed him, leaving him breathless. When she pulled back, there were tears in her eyes, but she still made eye contact. "I care about you very much," she repeated, her hand ready to cover his mouth if he tried to say the words again, lingering on his jawline tickling his scruff. "But I really need you to stop saying those words. At least for now."

"But, I do…"

"Toby, please." She begged, her eyes full of tears.

"Baby…what are you so afraid of?"

"Toby—I just need you to stop. If you really do, stop." Her words flung at him harshly, as if she were talking through gritted teeth.

Why? Does she love me back? Is she capable of loving back? She doesn't even know what love is. "Fine, but you aren't going to change my mind, Spencer Hastings. So don't even try. Don't push me away because you're scared."

"Just hold me," she fell back into his arms, refusing to look at him again. They were both a bit hostile at this point. But it wasn't an angry kind, it was a desperate, frustrated, confused kind of hostility.

And that was that. They spent the rest of the weekend quiet, touching always, but barely talking. Just being together, both lost in thoughts they refused to share out loud. Hers of fear of love, and his of fears that he'd fallen in love with someone who couldn't love him back.

He needed her to be just a little stronger.

xx

On Monday they arrived at school together, and he walked her to her locker.

"I have to, uhm, go drop something off at the guidance office." She said, shutting her locker quickly. She really had to deliver a project to Ali that she'd promised weeks ago. Ali wasn't still sending her new projects, but made her promise to finish the ones she had sent her previously – and that was a few final projects.

"Let me walk you," he extended his hand, but Spencer pulled away.

"Spencer?" He reached once more.

"I really have to go," she said, quickly disappearing into the crowd, finding Alison and nearly throwing the binder at her.

"If there are any problems you can text me, but—"

"I know you're still seeing him," Ali said bluntly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Spencer blushed.

"Don't play dumb with me, Spencer. I know you're with him. It's okay, I won't bother you. Be with him all you want. But don't be upset when he realizes you're nothing like the girl he needs, nothing compared to what we had."

Spencer wanted to slap her, to tell her that he loved her. But she didn't say anything.

"I'm just trying to save you from a broken heart, Spencer." Ali touched her shoulder. "It's going to be really tragic to watch your reaction when Toby comes back to me, where he belongs. He's just experimenting, but he knows where he's really meant to be. Guys like him don't end up with geeks like you. No offence or anything," Ali smiled slyly, knowing which buttons to press to make Spencer hate herself even more.

Before Spencer could respond, Aria came and swooped in, pulling Spencer away from Ali.

"What the hell are you talking to her for?" She glared back at the blonde.

"It's nothing," Spencer dug her hands in her pockets.

"Is she still bothering you? Because I will kick her ass,"

Spencer couldn't help but laugh. The petite brunette was no more intimidating than a lapdog. "I'm fine."

"Did Toby tell you congratulations for Friday from Holden and I? We had to leave right after but we really had a good time."

"He didn't… I didn't know you came. Thank you," she blushed as an innocent smile swept across her face.

"What are friends for?" Aria hip bumped Spencer playfully as the bell rang and they separated to go to class.

xx

After school, Toby met her at her locker, but she continued to put space between them, still.

"What is wrong with you today? Stop ignoring me," he reached out to touch her arm, but her phone started to go off and she pulled away once more to go into her bag to find her phone and answer the call.

"Mom?" She narrowed her eyes, wondering why her mother would be calling her.

"Is everything okay?" She asked.

"Just come home as soon as you can, before your father and I have to meet Melissa about a client." Her mother hung up.

"Is everything okay?" Toby mimicked her words to her mother.

"I have to go home," She sighed heavily.

"Are you sure you want to go back there? You can still come home with me."

"I have to go," she walked away from him, leaving him behind and alone.

What is this girl doing to me? The more I help her, the more I end up hurting and upset and confused.

xx

When Spencer got home, her parents were sitting at the table, bickering about something. Shocker. Spencer stood in the foyer to listen before going in and getting her head bitten off.

"But how will it look to the University if we deny them?" She heard her mother bark at her father. She stood in the doorway for a while, quietly, to eavesdrop before taking the plunge to join them.

"But she was waitlisted, if anyone finds out that's how she was accepted, it would be more embarrassing than her not going at all. What if she does poorly there? We both know she's not as…capable." Peter spat back at Veronica.

"She's no Melissa, but maybe the tradition will be good for her. They'll be easier on a Hastings there. We donate enough…"

Spencer finally walked in, slowly.

"Hi," she said meekly, putting her bag on the chair and leaning against the counter. She wondered if she would be in trouble for not coming home all weekend, but she doubted it mattered.

"Open this," Veronica slid an envelope across the table. "We think they've accepted you,"

It was from UPenn, a large, sleek envelope – usually telltale sign of an acceptance packet. She'd tried to hide the waitlist letter she'd gotten, but her father called the Admissions office when they hadn't heard anything from their alma mater. She'd since deposited at Fordham in New York, because though their undergraduate school was only ranked in the 70s in the nation, their law school was ranked very high and her parents expected her to attend law school eventually – at Fordham she could have done a program to get her Bachelor's in three years and start her law degree early. She was less than thrilled about all of it.

"Uhm, alright." She said, opening the envelope slowly, revealing the colorful acceptance packet.

"We were debating whether you should accept after they were so…hesitant…to offer you a space."

"You have to work harder, Spencer, if you do this. You're a Hastings. About time you act like it."

"I'm trying," she said only slightly above a whisper, her eyes casting down.

"What?" Peter said loudly. "Speak up, idiot." He mumbled the name under his breath.

"I just said that I'm trying…but I'll try harder." She said a little louder.

"We think that if you promise to try and do better…maybe ask Melissa for some advice…that it would look best if you attend the University like the rest of the family. But you can't embarrass us by failing."

"I won't…I'm going to try, really." Spencer sounded so desperate. She heard it in her own voice and basically cringed. She wanted so badly to make them proud, that the prospect of studying something she hated sounded good if it meant she might make them proud. Going to UPenn might be the only chance she had left.

"I'd like to go to UPenn…like the rest of you." She said softly, giving in to her last name.

"Of course you do. Of course we wished you earned it," Veronica scoffed. "You just need to work that much harder to keep your space and prove that they were wrong the first time."

She just nodded.

"That's all," her father spat out. "You can go. Make yourself useful and make a reservation at the club for dinner tonight will you?"

"Got it," she said softly, slipping her phone from her pocket and calling the club on her way upstairs.

When she got to her room, she stood in the bathroom to look in the mirror and stared at herself long and hard. She saw the redness in her eyes signifying weakness, the tired bags under her eyes, the frizzy hairs that stood up on top of her head in the humidity, the scar on her forehead and the freckles forming on her nose from the sun. "You got in," she whispered and smiled to herself, her eyes filling up with tears. It was true she never wanted to go to UPenn, but knowing that she could – just like all the other Hastings – gave her a sense of accomplishment. She laughed quietly to herself and bit her lip as the tears spilled out of her eyes more quickly and soon turned into sour tears of sadness. "And you still aren't enough. They're not proud, they're still waiting for you to fail," the tears felt heavier than usual. Before she knew it or could even recall the order of events, she was holding her favorite old razorblade against the thin skin of her forearm, waiting to release the pain she had inside, the hatred she had for herself waiting to bleed out with all of her frustrations and sadness that she was still a fuck up.

But something made her freeze. By now she'd typically have made at least two gashes in her skin and would already by applying pressure and some gauze. But she dropped the razor in the sink when her phone lit up with a notification, exposing the picture of Toby and herself at the dance studio that he'd taken of them when he'd visited one day and consequently set as both of their lock screens. She unlocked her phone to see that the boy in the picture was the one who messaged her.

Toby, why are you always saving me? She thought, carefully putting her razor back in it's case thrown under the sink.

"If they say a word to you, come back over. No questions asked." He had texted.

She called him instead. "Thank you for always saving me," she said softly.

"What? Do you need a ride here?" He sounded panicked.

"I'm fine here," she fell back on her bed. "I just wanted to tell you that." She hung up ominously, making him a bit nervous and weirded out. But he shrugged it off when Caleb called him to come shoot hoops.

Spencer got herself up after a while and got herself dressed in her most Melissa Hastings looking outfit getting ready for dinner.

She got Toby by playing the best game of pretend she'd ever played. A weird confidence came with that realization, after all this time.

Dinner tonight, she decided, would have to be tackled the same way.