A/N I am so sorry for how late this is. Four things:
1) This fic was intended to be a fluffy one-shot to make up for a bit of angst in my other Spemily fic Blurring the Lines Between Us, but it has developed into a full-blown story with its own dark plot sans 'A'. (Possibly. It depends on reviewers and my mood)
2) This chapter turned out quite long and I didn't want to torture anyone by breaking it up again (thus the lateness). So, you're welcome. Haha. It's my way of thanking everyone for the wonderful reviews. I was kind of hesitant about the dance scene but, from all the great feedback, I might write a few more scenes similar in style in the future. ;)
3) For Spencer's sake, Emily has French Casement windows in her room.
4) There will be mention of these things called 'sliders'. In sports jargon, girls that play soccer wear what most people call 'compression shorts' to keep from scrapping up their thighs when they slide across the field, and a few more reasons that I will leave the internet to tell you curious people. They are really worn by both males and females, in a variety of sports, but this is just how they are used in this case.
Later that night, Spencer anxiously paced the length of the Hastings' kitchen between the sink and the refrigerator. She had already finished soccer practice, completed all of her homework, and visited each of her sick best friends, bearing saltine crackers and Ginger Ale. Not wanting to get sick herself, she had left shortly after arriving only to find herself at a loss as to what to do for the rest of the evening.
After she visited Aria and had Ella insist that she have dinner with them, she had decided to just curl up in the den, at home, with a fuzzy blanket and a documentary. She had gotten about halfway through a History channel special on the Chernobyl Disaster before her hands started to quiver.
That's how she found herself in the kitchen, casting furtive glances at the aforementioned cupboard of exotic coffee beans. Spencer didn't open it and she didn't dare look in its direction for more than a second because she knew that any longer than that and she would be six feet under, enjoying a cup of Columbia's finest.
Shaking her head to clear her mind and refocus, Spencer fled the kitchen up to her room – she could feel a panic attack coming on. Racing to her nightstand, she opened the top drawer and hurriedly swallowed a Xanax, dry. It was a little hard to do with her trembling hands in addition to how swiftly she was approaching a state of hyperventilation. The world seemed to shift unstably on a rightward tilt with the walls moving in around her. Her knees gave out on trembling legs, and she was barely able to break her fall with shaking hands, narrowly avoiding a full on face plant.
She instinctively slid into the routine that her psychotherapist walked her through, and attempted to focus on a single stationary object to get her vision under control – her hand. The slender digits twitched and shook with tension as they gripped the carpet beneath them. Tendons flexed beneath the milky white covering of her flesh. She repeatedly traced, with her steadying gaze, the blue lines of her veins, and catalogued each curve of her knuckles until the tightness in her chest eased before completely releasing.
Eleven hours. That's how long it had been since Emily had instilled the coffee ban, and Spencer was determined not to give in so soon. She was able to resist when she walked into the Marin's house and she could distinctly make out the aroma of fresh coffee coming from the kitchen. Holding strong, she politely declined Ashley's offer of a cup as well as ignored the odd look that the older woman gave her.
Earlier, on her way to Aria's, she stopped off at The Brew to get a bottle of the imported Ginger Ale that only Zack stocked, in all of Rosewood, and Aria absolutely loved. Again, Spencer resisted temptation with the finesse of a Hastings.
Now, the anxious brunette knew that anyone in their right mind wouldn't continually place themselves in situations to be tempted only hours after starting a pseudo-rehab program, but she was a Hastings and Hastings never did anything halfway. They ran at the bull head-on, and seized it by the horns. In this case, coffee was her bull and its horns were wicked-sharp daggers that were about to turn her into a shish kabob.
Deciding that being home alone was a bad idea, Spencer went to dig a pair of blue, black, and red plaid Converse out of her closet before hastily tying them and running downstairs. She was almost out the back door when she thought better of her plan to jog. Instead, she grabbed her car keys off the kitchen counter as well as her messenger bag that she spotted beside her keys, right where she tossed it after getting home.
By the time Spencer slid her fingertips across the release panel of her custom designed sapphire black Mclaren MP4-12C, a gift of over compensation from her old-money wealthy grandfather after the death of her Nana, the medication had settled into her system enough to bring about the calm and relaxed feeling that she was familiar with. The fast acting effects eased the more prevalent symptoms of her attack while over the long-term, after it dispersed further into her system, brought about a desire to sleep. Sitting in her car, the brunette deduced that she had a decent amount of time before the drowsiness became far too overwhelming to drive safely.
For some reason, the calm feeling that was brought upon by Spencer's medication always accompanied a strange neediness. Her doctor and therapist assured her that it was something psychological – a residual emotional effect of the attacks - and not something physical caused by the Xanax.
Relaxing into the sleek comfortable seat and tapping her fingers on the steering wheel in thought, the slender brunette considered her options. My family is out-of-town, not like they'd be much help anyway – I just want a cuddle buddy. Aria? No, she's too tiny and awkward to cuddle with. Hanna? No, I can't handle the inevitable teasing right now. Besides, both of them are sick. So, that leaves Emily…
Emily really was the perfect choice if she really thought about it. The swimmer was just barely taller than her and Spencer knew from experience how comfortably their bodies fit together. The four friends didn't select their sleeping arrangements at random; there were legitimate reasons why Spencer was always paired with Emily, and Hanna with Aria.
They had slept with the same pattern for years and Spencer only recently started to question the feeling she always got when she would sleep beside her compassionate best friend. She also wondered why Emily never exposed her un-Hastings like cuddling habit to their other friends on any of the occasions that Spencer had angered the typically forgiving girl. They both knew that Hanna would have a field day with all of her sexual jokes and unpleasant teasing.
No matter what the reason was, Spencer definitely felt appreciative. If she had to endure the brunt of Hanna's teasing comments then it would have made her fear where her drunken words had come from, after sharing a more than friendly dance with someone who was supposed to be like a sister to her. After dedicating an excessive amount of thought to the muddled memories from their drunken Saturday night, she came to the conclusion that she was in love with Emily. She had finally figured out that the feeling of contentment that she always felt in her best friend's presence was more romantically attributed than being out of close friendship or sisterhood.
Knowing that there was a chance that she could be rejected if the taller brunette ever found out about her feelings or her lies, Spencer was reluctant to drive to Emily's despite her kindhearted best friend telling her that she was welcome anytime she was having a hard time being alone. Unable to resist the pull of her desire to find comfort in Emily's arms, Spencer finally started the hundred thousand dollar car. The throaty purr of the engine was accompanied by Adema's song "Freaking Out" in surround sound as she drove the fifteen minutes to Emily's house.
All of the lights in the Field's residence were out save for a small lamp beside Emily's bed. The formerly mentioned girl lay sprawled on her bed with a copy of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo lying face down beside her sleeping form. She was enjoying a bit of leisure reading before the words on the page began to blur together and she drifted off into a peaceful sleep.
She was woken with a start when she heard a loud snap, and what sounded like something rustling in the tree outside of the window on the far side of her room where her window seat was. Her room being half illuminated made it hard for her to make out anything in the darkness of a new moon beyond the panes of glass, so she reached over to her night stand to turn off the bright lamp.
As her eyes adjusted and she slowly approached the window, the only light left in the room came from her alarm clock reading 12:58 in the morning. With a surprisingly steady hand, she unlatched the window and opened it. Peering out into the night, Emily could barely make out movement in the large, almost leafless limbs of the sizable elm tree.
Red and orange leaves fell in a loose shower, causing the rustling sound that became more distinctly after having opened the window. Squinting at about eye-level to a joint where a thick limb met an even thicker trunk, Emily could see an abnormally shaped shadow that almost looked like a figure pressed tightly against the trunk as if holding on for dear life. In the almost complete darkness, she could only assume since nothing was really that distinct.
"Hello?" She asked hesitantly, feeling skeptical at best that it wasn't just a cat or an owl and was actually a human being.
Her doubts were erased when she got a shaky, nervous sounding "Emily?" in reply.
The brunette almost gasped in shock, in part from actually receiving a legitimate response and from the fact that she recognized the voice. "Spencer?" She called, trying to more accurately discern the shape of the shadow after having an idea of who it belonged to.
"Yeah, it's me." Emily practically heard Spencer shiver with the leaves in the gentle breeze, making her aware of how cold it really was outside.
"Should I ask why you're in the tree outside my house at one in the morning? You must be freezing." Emily ventured, concerned for both her friend's physical health as well as her mental health.
The tree shook a little more as Spencer adjusted her footing. "It was warm inside my car, and I didn't want to wake your mom by going through the front door like I did last time." What made complete sense in Spencer's mind didn't quite click in Emily's.
"Spencer, my mom isn't home. She left for Texas a couple of days ago, on Monday, to visit my dad for a few weeks. I could have sworn that I told you, and why didn't you call or text me before coming over? I know I remember telling you that at school." Emily was beyond confused at the shorter brunette's odder than usual behavior; she was always the most organized and put together one out of the group, but this screamed impulsiveness, which was very unlike her.
"Em, I'm kind of cold. Do you think you could step back and maybe turn on a light so I know what I'm aiming for? I'll owe you a game of Twenty Questions after I can feel my limbs again. Promise."
"Wait, you're not going to try to jump through the window, are you? I thought you were absolutely terrified of heights?"
"Yes, Emily. I often feel anxiety in high places and I am going to jump through your window because I'm too numb to climb back down without breaking my neck in this damn darkness. It sure beats hanging out here until morning; at least I can't see the ground. Now, if you are quite done with asking questions that I can just as easily answer after I'm not about to die, the light, please?" Spencer was a bit irate with the predicament she was in and instead of taking it out on herself, the rightful culprit, she unintentionally took her anger out on Emily by snapping at her.
"Sorry." Emily hastily moved to turn on the light, and get to where she was out-of-the-way but could still make sure that Spencer was okay. The taller girl had no clue why she was condoning her friend's abnormal behavior instead of trying to come up with a safer alternative. Sometimes, questioning Spencer's behavior is impossible and it's just better to go with the flow, she reasoned.
If she looked hard enough, Emily could barely see enough to monitor the slender girl's movements up the tree branch to where it got narrower and narrower as it neared the wide-open window. The apprehensive swimmer allowed herself a moment of mirth at the thought that her best friend rather closely resembled the shadow of a large monkey, climbing with all four limbs. She couldn't help but to ponder on how Spencer would look as a little ring-tailed lemur.
The shadow stopped just shy of the small area of illumination, about five feet away from the window. The roughly covered branch appeared to bow under Spencer's weight, indicating that she had gone as far as she could without risking a detrimental accident.
"I'm going to have to jump from here, Em." Spencer called, more for her own benefit rather than Emily's. It was her way of psyching herself up. Before she could back out, the slender brunette crouched like a panther and dove towards the window, closely emulating Emily's execution that she had seen hundreds of times when watching her best friend swim.
Calculating approximate distance, momentum, and a variety of other applicable physics formulas, Spencer intended to execute a corkscrew like turn and land on the cushioned surface of the divan beside the window; however, the combination of fear induced adrenaline, and shaky muscles caused Spencer to overshoot her landing. Emily watched as her best friend came through the darkness, and almost in slow motion, saw that Spencer would barely miss the window seat.
"Spencer!" She darted into motion immediately, hoping that she would make it before Spencer crashed to the floor and got injured.
As it happened, Spencer clipped her shoulder on the edge of window seat, causing her to land on her back, in a rather awkward way, and let out a choked gasp as all the oxygen was torn from her lungs. Her continued momentum caused her to roll after hitting the ground, resulting in a few scrapes before Emily was able to reach her. The severely dazed girl curled into the fetal position, trying to ease the pain and manage to breathe again, while Emily brushed her hair out of her face and opted to help her sit up.
Emily was shocked when her hands came into contact with icy flesh and she shifted to take in what the wheezing girl was wearing or, rather, what she wasn't. Spencer was slouched against her, still too shaken to support herself, in nothing more than a sports bra, and her practice shorts with a pair of sliders on underneath. If the swimmer hadn't already questioned Spencer's sanity, then she certainly would have after that.
"Still not the astounding secret agent that you always pretended to be when we were kids. When will you ever learn, Spence? Even after all of these years, you're still trying to defy physics." Emily admonished.
It was late October and the predicted low for that night was 58 degrees Fahrenheit. Even though it was much warmer than the typical low forties, the season didn't merit wearing scant sportswear as casual clothing. With a bit of effort, Emily maneuvered the shivering girl over to the bed.
"Come one. Lets get you warmed up while I go find the first aid kit. Can you breath okay?" She was relieved to see the shaky rise and fall of Spencer's chest as well as hear her somewhat raspy exhales; however, she wanted to make sure that there was no immediate danger of a broken rub.
She tried her hardest to keep a level head under the circumstances, but the voice in the back of her mind kept telling her that something was seriously wrong, something beyond even her comprehension and compassionate abilities. Logic told her that, even if there was something wrong with Spencer, her best friend was extremely unlikely to share; on the other hand, her impeccable intuition told her that Spencer needed to open up, even if Emily had to push her into doing it.
Spencer gave a nod of reassurance as Emily helped her sit back against the headboard with plenty of pillows for her back, that she knew would undoubtedly bruise on her left side, and a thick quilt to help her retain what little body heat she had left.
"Hang tight. I'll be right back." Receiving another nod, Emily hastily closed and locked the window that Spencer had just flown through before embarking on her hunt for the location of her father's military-grade first aid kit that he made sure to keep well stocked for any emergency situations.
Emily returned about twenty minutes later. "I didn't want to drag the whole kit up here because it weighs almost forty pounds, so-" she stopped in her doorway, as she looked up from the assortment of medical supplies in her arms, to see that Spencer had drifted off to sleep.
Dumping everything on the bed beside the slumbering girl, she placed a hand on Spencer's cheek and happily felt warmth return to fragile pale skin. The unspeakable desire to kiss the smooth lips that she was unconsciously running her thumb over caused a burning ache to surface in her chest. She hurriedly broke the starring match that she had gotten into, memorizing every detail of those forbidding pink lips, and jerked her hand back before she was tempted beyond recourse.
To distract herself, Emily set about making sure she had everything she needed to treat Spencer's minor injuries when she woke up. She was so absorbed in her task that she didn't notice a pair of brown eyes watching her.
"Mark Ryden." The smooth, albeit a tad raspy, voice startled Emily and made her jump as she turned to see that Spencer was very much awake. "That was the name you gave me when I said that I was going to play a secret agent; you thought it was a good spy name. Then you said that you were going to be Elly Ryden, my wife. It was during the summer I think, right after you turned seven." Spencer continued, explaining her arbitrary outburst.
"I remember that; we were playing pretend in your backyard. Then you completely freaked out on me and I started to cry because I thought that you didn't want to marry me. I didn't realize that you were ranting about how Mark Ryden's art was 'an affront to surrealism'. I had no idea that he was a real person when I thought of the name." Moving the quilt out of the way, Emily took the opportunity to tend to Spencer's scrapes and wrap her ribs- just as a precautionary measure- since the brunette was apparently awake.
"That was the first time that I had ever seen you cry. I was at a complete lost as to what to do to get you to stop, so I panicked and ran over to the barn to pick a dandelion for you; when I got back, I sat you down on my favorite swing and proposed to you." Spencer lamented with a small smile, missing the simpler times in life where their friendship was so light and pure, before she had tainted it with her lies and secrecy.
Emily was exceedingly careful with the way she wrapped her battered friend's ribs but, when the swimmer accidentally bumped a soft spot, Spencer bore the pain that shot through her back without a sound, silently telling herself that she deserved it.
"I took the dandelion and made a wish." Emily continued the story, snuggling into Spencer's good side – her right one- with a pale arm draped across her shoulders, as she pulled the fluffy quilt across both of them. "You kept asking what I wished for, but I told you that it would be ruined if I said it out loud. It was so cute when you turned your vows into a long-winded speech on why Pop Surrealism, especially including Ryden's works, shouldn't be classified as an artistic movement."
"I was right in the middle of explaining the historic importance of bestowing the suffix '-ism' on a period of art when you put your hands on both of my cheeks and kissed me. I was frozen stiff until you pulled back and said 'I love you, but you really need to shut up because I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about'." She gave a light chuckle at the memory as she mentally recounted the exact inflection that her friend used. "I didn't want to be out done so I kissed you back and told you that it was okay because I was a spy and not an art thief." Spencer had shifted so that one hand cupped Emily's cheek. Both wore reminiscent smiles as the pale brunette finished the story, "That's when I knew that you were perfect for me."
There eyes were locked rather intimately, Spencer's searching Emily's, before the older girl leaned down where the swimmer met her half way in a gently kiss. There was something familiar about the kiss, but there was also something new that both of them noticed. They couldn't name it but, subconsciously, they knew what it was.
When Spencer pulled back, the only thing that she could think to say was, "I can't even remember the reason that I came over, but I'm happy that I did."
A/N I beta-ed this chapter myself, so all mistakes are my own. I really am sorry for the long wait, but I ended up having tons of assignments given last week that were due yesterday (college just kicked my ass for the first time). I really enjoyed all the reviews last time and I hope to get a few more. I'm not going to give a number or anything, just know that I appreciate all kinds of feedback (so long as it doesn't constitute hate-mail). Thank you. (: