Title: I want it all.

Authors Note: Ah! My holiday's are nearly over and I haven't started on any of my homework. At all. So, uhm, this may be my last chance to actually update before term 3 starts. Also I think Ali's grandma might of been the one calling Carla Grunwald.

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

13TH OF NOVEMBER 2OO9

It's deadly silent in the room as the first of Alison's tears start to pour down her face.

She's weak when she's meant to be strong but she just wants out.

Courtney's not even here, she's off picking up essentials.

Alison slips off of her bed, grabbing her shoes that lay next to the bed and slipping them onto her feet. She quietly walks over to the window and opens it carefully. She doesn't make a sound, taking a deep breath she slides her body out of the window. Her feet land onto the muddy ground with a thud. She can see a car approaching in the distant, a flash of curly blonde hair.

And then she's running as fast as she can in the opposite direction, not daring to look back.

Her heart's beating, her eyes are wide open, and her hands are tightly enclosed as fists; all she can see is darkness ahead.

It's all darkness, the darkness is encasing her in it's giant web. She twists her head back, only once, and she can't see anything but darkness. She can see a faint house outline, somewhere in the distance. Very far away from where she is now, she lets out a sigh of relief and turns her head back to the front, picking up her pace.

She can't risk being caught.

She flings her arms out, knocking away branches sticking out ready to point her in the eye or damage her face. It's like she's out of a horror movie, if it wasn't happening to her she would roll her eyes. Her feet kick at the dirt and sticks and stones on the ground beneath her feet.

She doesn't know how long she's been running for but she comes to a halt as she spots a convenience store. She looks around her, trying to spot Courtney or Courtney's car before she runs across the street and into the store; into safety. The boy behind the desk shoots her a strange look as she grabs a hold of a rack of chips to steady herself as her breathing returns to normal. She peeks outside, other shops are all around her and all are open. Lights flashing, she's safe.

She doesn't trust Courtney, even though she had 'saved' her. There was something odd about her, something evil.

"Can I help you?" The boy behind the desk asks, she looks up her eyes meeting his. She nods her head eagerly, shoving her hands into the pockets on her jeans. Courtney had been nice enough to lend her some clothes so she wasn't stuck wearing the tatty dirt ridden clothes she had been wearing that night. She has a few coins in the pocket of her jeans, she takes them out and counts them up in her hands.

Five dollars and seventy cents in total. A small sigh is released out of her peach covered lips, because yes, Courtney even supplied her with make up when she wasn't allowed to leave the house. She grabs a chocolate bar off of the counter and shoves it in front of him.

"That's all?" He asks, scanning it. She nods her head as she gives him two dollars of her five.

"Uh, do you actually mind if I stay here?" She asks, leaning against the counter. She watches as the bar swallows a lump in his throat and nods his head shyly. She hasn't lost her spark, and if she wasn't on the run she would of been triumphant.

And a little part of her still was.

More people start to crowd in, of all ages. Teenagers, elderly, little kids. They don't leave either, they don't quickly grab something and go. They stop to talk to the boy or ponder over what to get. Alison's never been more thankful for anything in her life, if Courtney found her she couldn't do anything to her.

"What's your name?" The boy asks when it's just them in the store. An elderly couple's in the back of the store, and two little kids are at the ice cream section, their parents outside. Technically, it wasn't just them but nobody was talking to him.

"Alison." She states, shooting him a smile and extending her hand out. Maybe if she was lucky she could crash at his place tonight, or something like that. He takes her hand, smiling up at her.

"Phoenix."

The two of them talk for what feels like hours, people come and go, paying for things, stopping for a brief chat but Phoenix can barely keep his eyes off of her. He does indeed ask her if she wants to hang out tomorrow and she asks if she could maybe stay the night at his because she has no where else to go. She finds herself lying atop of his bed, her eyes lightly shut and her hands curled as fists at her side.

Courtney could find her any minute.

PRESENT

"Are you hungry?" Toby asks Spencer, his fingers entwined with her fingers. He's swaying their hands back and forth between them as they walk towards the brew.

"Not really," She admits. They've planned to meet Emily, Hanna and Caleb there to try and find out more about this Courtney character Alison had told them about. Aria had agreed to go out with Alison to get her away from their plan. Spencer felt a bit guilty, going behind her friend's back but something was off with Alison and she needed to find out what.

"Are you sure about this?" Toby asks for what feels the millionth time. Spencer rolls her eyes as she opens up the door to the brew with her free hand.

"Yes," She hisses at him as they make their way over to the table everyone's already situated at. Emily's even already brought their coffee's over. Spencer greedily takes her coffee, drowning it in one go.

"I don't get what we're supposed to do here." Caleb states. How were they meant to find out more about this Courtney without any information about her.

"That's why you're here. You're good at computer tech stuff, you just search Courtney up and go through google pages and then you tell us what you find," Hanna explains, looking at Spencer for conformation for that's indeed what has to be done. Spencer gives a small nod of her head.

"So why do we think something's up with Alison? And why does it involve Courtney?" Emily asks after a few minutes, the questions have been on her mind since Spencer had first called her.

"It's not a birthmark,"

If it wasn't a birthmark, what was it?

"I, I think either Alison is Courtney," She looks around the faces sitting around the table, trying to gauge their reactions before saying her next theory, "Or Courtney did something to Alison. You can't tell me you haven't been able to see how off she's been, how un-Alison she's been."

"I thought that was just her growing up," Hanna mumbles, taking a sip of of her own coffee. Spencer rolls her eyes, choosing to ignore the comment. Sure, Alison could of grown up but there was something more going on regardless.

"Uh, a Radley page just came up." Caleb's voice breaks everyone out of their conversation, all four eyes shooting up to meet his. "She was a doctor at Radley."

Spencer grabs his laptop off of him, she reads the article thoroughly, her lips twisting down wards into a confused frown. Why are they sharing that information? How was she old enough?

"I think we need to go to Radley." Emily sighs, slinging her bag onto her shoulders.

And Spencer doesn't want to have to go back there.

Not now.

It had been hard enough going back for Toby.

For Alison, she repeats it in her head like a mantra.

Alison. Alison. Alison.

"Alison!" Hanna's voice squeals, confusion evident. The blonde throws her arms around the other blonde, the uninvited blonde, and squeezes her gently. Aria rolls her eyes from behind Alison.

"Could she be any faker?" Aria mouths to everyone but the two blondes suddenly embracing each other, her arms crossed against her chest. A pink streak lies in her hair. Emily can't help but smile at the sight, it's pre-dead Alison Aria. It's pre-Iceland Aria. It's pre-Ezra Aria, and that's a good sight to see.

"You two finally made it." Spencer tells them, grumbles, would probably be more correct. Normal Spencer who isn't going behind one of her best friend's back and was supposed to be waiting for two best friends to arrive would grumble, so this Spencer has to grumble.

Since when has she become one of those girls that refer to themselves in third person?

"You were waiting for us?" Alison asks, confusion sweeping through her voice. She raises an eyebrow, bitch face plastered on her face.

"Surprise!" Aria squeals from behind, tugging on her arm.

"We wanted to do something special, and while coffee isn't all that special, it's still sort of special, right?" Hanna rambles.

"Wait - why are we doing something special in the first place?" Alison asks, catching all of them off guard.

She'll always be one step ahead.

Always.

"Maybe because you just returned back from the dead." Caleb states, staring the blonde he hadn't known when she was alive down.

Two chairs are pulled up to their table and the ones sitting at the table, resit down, more coffee's are ordered as an awkward conversation fails to begin until Hanna starts going off about shoes.

Toby was put on looking after Alison duty as the rest of them went to investigate at Radley.

"I don't think it'll be a good idea for you to come with Radley with us. You know, with everything that took place there with your mother. We need someone to make sure Alison doesn't find out either. Can you please be that someone?"

Spencer had practically begged for him to keep an eye on Alison, her excuse being something along the lines of how he won't be able to handle Radley. The worst thing was, she was right.

So now he finds himself in Alison DiLaurentis's bedroom.

Alison DiLaurentis's hands are around his torso, his hands are patting the top of her head awkwardly as she cries into his shoulder and pours out her heart like she hasn't done since they were fifteen years old, the day she went missing.

"Ali, calm down." He hears himself saying and then all the crying stops and she's pulling away from him, wiping at her eyes.

"Ugh, I look a mess." She complains, running over to her vanity.

They've always been different around each other.

Always different levels, different variety's of different.

"Al, come on, you don't look a mess," He offers weakly, his childhood nickname for her sliding off of his lips.

He knows it was a mistake as soon as it floats through the air, suffocating them. The last time he had called her Al had been when he had professed his undying love for her and she had laughed in his face.

"You, you called me Al." She states, her voice is barely a whisper and if it wasn't dead silent he wouldn't of heard her.

He hates her. He loathes her. He detests her. He finds her vile, disgusting, horrible, a terrible human being.

But he misses being her friend. He misses her being his friend.

On their worst days they could bring a smile to the others face. He kneels down in front of her, his hands stroking her hair comfortingly. There's nothing romantic about it, even if Alison wishes that it was. It's friendly, it's something two best friends would do. Another tear falls from her eyes, she catches it with her pinky before it can land in her mouth. A laugh falls out of her lips, a laugh falls out of Toby's and then the two of them are laughing and crying and hugging.

And even though all Alison wants to do is kiss Toby, to turn this night into a night that neither of them will never forget. She just, she just can't because she doesn't know if the way she loves him is like that. He's always been her best friend, she can't remember a time before him. She remembers a time without him, she can remember plenty of times without him. She's always loved him, whether it be a brotherly love or a friendly love or a romantic kind of love. The latter came later, it was after she had watched The Notebook or was it Titanic? For the first time and realized that she loved Toby like the leading women, or the leading men, had loved their significant other.

At least she had thought she had.

She was too young to tell the difference between the different sorts of love.

"I love you, Toby."

"I know, Alison."

Toby wakes up before Alison, his body is strewn across the floor of her room. He lets out a soft groan as he pulls himself up into a sitting position, the events of last night rushing back through his mind. He glances over at Alison, tucked safely into her bed, a soft smile covering his face.

He had thought he had loved her once. A love that had consumed him. A love that made him want to be by her side every single day.

Now? Now he loved her like a brother loved his sister.

He loved her like a best friend loved their best friend.

He leaves the house straight away, after putting his shoes back on and sliding his jacket on. He's just pulled out his phone to text Spencer when she meets him out the front of her house.

"How did it go?" She asks him nervously, her voice brimming with excitement.

They found something, is the first thought that pops into his brain. He shrugs his shoulders in indifference. A frown settles on Spencer's face before Toby pulls her into a hug, crushing her.

Now? He loved Spencer to the point where it consumed him, to the point where if she ever exited his life ever again he would go mad, to the point where being with her made his whole face light up, to the point where he would do anything, anything, for her. He loved her more than he's ever loved anyone.

"I love you, Spence." His lips connecting with hers, she mumbles the same words against his lips as he arms wrap around his neck.

And that's the moment Alison chooses to leave her house in search of Toby. No, she didn't love Toby like she loves a friend or a brother. She loves him like one loves a significant other.

A\N: This is super short, I'm so sorry. So jealous Alison is back (did she ever leave?) but at least we know what Toby thinks. I don't think this chapter was very good but hey, why don't you drop me a review and tell me yourself?