Title: Damaged

Summary: Everyone is damaged, she explained, but not everyone is broken. Ashley never thought that going back to Baltimore with Kyla would bring her face-to-face with the one person who made her feel like she wasn't broken.

Disclaimer: I don't own SoN. What I do own is a computer and the amazing ability to not do what I am supposed to with my time.

So, here's the deal you AWESOME people you, let me scrape my jaw off the floor and just say: da-amn, you guys (shakes finger) you guys…I'm speechless, seriously.

I tried to get this out earlier, but two of the guys at my lab decided the flu would be a fun thing to have so overtime (yay, not). Also, Happy (belated) Birthday to a lovely reviewer Mehhnobigs, I hope it was fantastic.

And I hope this lives up to expectation.

Ashley didn't take the sketchpad from Kyla. In fact, she didn't do much of anything but stare down at the charcoal rendering of herself and feel her mind go blank. Then she folded her hands across her stomach and turned on her heel, walking out of the room and down the stairs without once breaking stride.

Kyla watched her go with a frown on her face. 'Drat,' she thought, flipping the art book closed and trapping it against her chest with her arms. Maybe this was why Spencer was always telling her to think things through before she acted.

Have a plan, the blonde would always say, have a plan and have another plan for when the first one didn't work.

'A plan,' she snorted to herself because what good would a plan do her if she didn't even have a goal in mind. Seriously, what had she hoped to accomplish with all that dramatic crap? Certainly not Ashley's retreat. But then what would she have done if the older girl had responded in the opposite fashion? She'd already asked Spencer to back off, made it clear to her best friend her position on the not-a-relationship. Except that things were quickly being taken out of obvious control and onto something of a higher power.

There was so much to this that she didn't know. Didn't understand.

It was time for Kyla's well-used, default Plan B and she knew it. With a sigh she tossed the pad onto her bed and reached for her phone.

!

They took the most beautiful person I'd ever met and convinced her that she was ugly on the inside.

Ashley stood under the spray of the water long after she had finished with her shower. It was a quiet place to think, to gather her scattered thoughts and try and put them in some sort of logical order. Everything Kyla had said was bouncing around in her mind but there were certain things that she kept refocusing on. She thought on the sketch of herself, thought about the implication. What was the implication?

She and Spencer had met before. Or Spencer had seen her and something had happened for her to leave an impression on the blonde. The impression of a sad, scared girl. Or maybe not, maybe Spencer was the kind of artist that would just notice things, notice people and be able to recreate from images in her own mind. Except that Kyla had implied that the sketches in the book held some sort of significance to the blonde so she probably wouldn't be in there if it didn't mean something.

They took the most beautiful person I'd ever met and convinced her that she was ugly on the inside.

It was like all the pieces were right there in front of her and all they needed were to be put together to form the whole picture. But what if the whole picture wasn't something she wanted to see? What if it meant something she couldn't deal with?

Because this wasn't some stranger on the other side of the country that she would never see again, this was Spencer, Kyla's best friend. This was, that was … insane.

Ashley didn't trust people, almost on instinct. It was more than a little difficult for her to let people in because she had been burned so many times by the people that were supposed to be on her side unconditionally: her mother, her father, her best friend and the boyfriend that had impregnated her. Although Aiden had made his way back in eventually he was the only one who had tried.

But Spencer? Spencer had to just be there and Ashley felt at ease. That didn't happen, not on the first time meeting someone.

So maybe the thought that they had met before was there on both sides, as well as the thought that something significant had happened. But she hadn't been lying that time at the school when she told Spencer she would have remembered if they'd ever met before, and Spencer had said the same thing. The only hugely significant event that had happened to her where she hadn't truly seen the other girl's face was…

I want to be as ugly on the outside as I feel on the inside

They took the most beautiful person I'd ever met and convinced her that she was ugly on the inside

Ashley leant forward to let the warm water pour down the back of her neck and squeezed her eyes shut, and took one more shaky breath. No. No, because see, things like that just don't happen. Spencer couldn't be the stranger on the boat. She couldn't be the one Ashley poured her heart and soul out to through her tears in the middle of the night. She couldn't be because Spencer was real, she was… That was not possible, right? How does something like that even happen?

Do you believe in fate?

Ashley wanted to laugh because even if she didn't believe in it, Fate seemed to definitely believe in her.

!

"What exactly did you say to her?"

Kyla dropped her head into her hands and pouted at the kitchen table. "I told you already and it isn't going to change no matter how many times you ask me."

The other person sighed and the chair clattered as she fell into it. "Oh honey, I know you were trying to help but you must realize that you can't force those kinds of things." Eileen reached across the table to hold her daughter's hands in her own. "Some people need to work things out on their own or else they did not respond well to the sudden influx of knowledge."

The smaller girl's forehead hit the surface with a dull thud and Eileen actually laughed. Ashley appeared in the doorway to the kitchen in her glasses and looking freshly scrubbed. The mother offered her a small smile even as she patted her own daughter on the back of her head, "Spencer should be out front with Aiden, sweetie."

Ashley nodded once and spared a glance at Kyla's slumped form before disappearing once more down the hall towards the front.

Kyla's head shifted and Eileen was suddenly looking down into her daughter's slightly accusing eyes, "You knew, didn't you?"

The older woman lowered her upper body until she matched the younger's posture and they were staring at one another eye-to-eye with their chins both resting on the table top. She cupped her hands over Kyla's cheeks affectionately and smiled, "Spencer has more than one sketchbook, honey, and I've seen them all."

!

Ashley found Spencer sitting on the front steps with Aiden standing in front of her on the walkway. Whatever they're talking about ends as soon as the front door swings open and the boy's attention is drawn away from the blonde. Ashley stands there awkwardly for a moment, two sets of concerned looking eyes on her and she falters.

It's Spencer that speaks up, though not to her, "We'll talk later, Aid?"

He tilts his head to one side, looking between them and Ashley feels her chest tighten at the distinctly Spencer-esque motion on her oldest friend. "Sure," he finally agrees taking the steps and rubbing the top of the blonde's head as he passes her. She swats at his leg with a 'hey!' and he laughs as he reaches out to squeeze Ashley shoulder.

Spencer was pulling her hair into a quick ponytail when Ashley sat down next to her. "So..."

"So," the blonde repeated, clasping her hands between her knees and giving the other girl a side-long glance.

"You, uh," she glanced at the space between them on the porch where Spencer's phone lay. "Have you heard about Juliet yet?"

"Yeah," her hand twitched like she going to pick up the device but decided against it. "Marissa called last night, apparently Jules showed up at her brother Mike's apartment, swallowed a fourth of a bottle of Jack and passed out on the couch."

"Ouch," Ashley winced, "She going to be okay?"

Spencer's shoulders jerked up at the same time her eyes dropped, "She'll probably be sick for a few days, but after that, who knows."

The brunette hummed in response but instead of continuing with that thread of thought she gestured weakly outward, "Would you want to go on a walk? Or …something?"

Spencer stood and offered her hand to Ashley, but the smaller girl choose to push herself up and walk passed her, drawn too much inward to notice the hurt look. The blonde blew out a breath, rolled her eyes skyward and mentally counted backwards from ten before moving to catch up.

"Something on your mind, Ashley?" Spencer asked after a long moment of silence.

She twisted her fingers together as a distraction before murmuring lowly, "Kyla showed me your sketchpad."

"She told me."

Ashley wasn't sure why that information surprised her, but it did. "Oh." She went silent again, not quite sure how to start this conversation or even of she wanted to.

The blonde gave her another chance. "Something else on your mind?"

She frowned and told herself it was like ripping off a band-aid, do it quickly and get over the awkwardness faster. The longer she dragged it out the harder it would be. "We've met before."

Spencer nodded and pulled back her shoulders slightly to put just a tad more distance between them, "Yeah we have."

"It was- wait," she swung her herself around to face Spencer with her jaw dropped, "You knew?" The blonde was glad for the space when Ashley's arm missed her by a centimeter when she nodded. "Why didn't you say anything?"

Shocked by the hardness in the question Spencer immediately went on the defensive, "What was I supposed to say? 'Hey, Ashley, not sure if you remember me, but I pulled you off a railing when it looked like you were going to jump from back of a cruise liner into the icy depths below, you doing better?'" Ashley's face paled at the confirmation of her wayward thoughts and Spencer cussed under her breath at her own response. She sighed at the other girl's semi-lost look and tipped to nudge her shoulder against the brunette and break her stillness. "Come on, Ash, that's not something you bring up over coffee. That's like," she waved a hand, "third date material, second date if you stretch it."

Ashley snorted despite herself and then tried to control her features, "Don't try and make me laugh. I'm mad at you."

"Why?"

"You should have said something."

"Maybe," Spencer shrugged in a what's done is done sort of manner. "Maybe it was a little selfish of me to want you to recognize me on your own, but can you blame me? That was a hard night for both of us and if you weren't ready to face it, to face me as that girl, then, I wasn't prepared to force it."

Ashley's jaw clenched at the new information and she took a moment to rearrange her thoughts. "When," Spencer let her work through the thought, "when did you… recognize me?"

"Uh," Spencer rubbed at the back of her neck and puffed out her cheeks in thought. "Friday, at school," she finally answered with a slight wince despite her attempts at nonchalance.

Ashley stopped in her tracks. "Friday?" she reiterated shrilly, sputtering at the blonde's answering shrug. "But you said-"

"That I would remember meeting you," she opened her hands, "And I did."

"How?"

Spencer cut her blue eyes at the other girl but stopped just the same and turned to face her fully. She took a moment to trace Ashley's face with her gaze, something she had done several times over the last two and a half days the brunette realized, and answered softly. "Your voice is pretty unique, soft but kind of raspy. I thought it was because you were crying the first time, but it's just the way you talk, like you're leaking charm." Ashley felt her breath catch at the blonde's words. "You smile the same," gently she reached out a hand to brush along Ashley's cheek where she knew a dimple appeared when she smiled too widely. "It changes your whole face, but it's still outlined in sadness. Except when you laugh, for real laugh, because your nose crinkles. Right here," she touched the pad of her thumb to the bridge of the other girl's nose.

Ashley felt her eyes flutter closed as she unconsciously leant into the blonde when her voice dimmed to an almost murmur. "And you, uh," her eyes and fingers dropped lower until she could run her thumb under the brunette's lower lip. Her gaze was almost azure and she swallowed heavily before pulling her hand away and completely withdrawing from Ashley's personal space. "You," she cleared her throat, "You wear my hoodie a lot."

Still disoriented from the blonde's touch, it took her a moment to catch that last part but when she did she felt her body flush for an entirely different reason than moments before. Her stomach clenched in embarrassment and she clapped her hands over her face to hide the blush, "Oh my God."

Spencer couldn't stop the nervous laughter that bubbled up at the abrupt change in demeanor and was more than a little grateful at the distraction. "What? Why 'oh my God'?"

"It's embarrassing," Ashley moaned, glaring out through her fingers at the blonde's amusement.

But Spencer shrugged and stopped chuckling long enough to pull the digits from Ashley's face and give them a small squeeze, "Why?"

She took a moment to think about it. It was embarrassing because anyone would look at it as a little creepy that she was still wearing an article of clothing she got from a stranger. Plus she wore it without thought and used it like a child's security blanket or a boyfriend's letter jacket. And to see someone wearing their clothes in that manner, multiple times in such a short period of time would inevitably draw the wrong conclusions from any one.

Except that it was Spencer, and if anyone was going to understand the truth behind the obvious it was probably going to be her.

Finally she flexed her fingers for the blonde to let go and shook her head, cheeks still tinted red and eyes downcast, "Do you want it back? I mean, it is yours after all."

"No." Spencer grinned and gestured for them to continue walking. "It's looks better on you, I'm sure. Besides," she let the grin fall into a teasing smirk, "I would hate to deprive someone of their 'comfort hoodie'."

Her blush returned with renewed vigor and she would have gone back to covering her face but Spencer had grabbed her wrist to prevent it and to keep her moving in their walk. "Who told you?" she asked, stonily ignoring the heat of her face and blue eyes.

"Aiden may have mentioned it." She let go of Ashley, slipped her hands in her front pockets and shrugged.

"Aiden may have to die."

Spencer laughed, bright and clear, and leant to touch her shoulder to Ashley's, "I may have asked. I'm glad you still wear it though, Ashley, glad it can still provide comfort when you're feeling overwhelmed." She clenched her jaw like she was physically stopping herself from continuing and then smiled reservedly at the brunette. They walked a few more moments in silence, Ashley attempting to process and Spencer content in the quiet.

"It's not the hoodie, really," the brunette spoke to the air in front of her, seeing Spencer turn slightly to her from the corner of her eye. "It's kind of like, I don't know, the memory it holds or just the idea that there's someone in the world that would be there for me when I needed them to be. Kind of like a sign from the universe," she raised one shoulder and let it fall in a smooth motion.

Spencer pressed her lips together but didn't offer a reply.

"You saved my life that night, you know." Ashley finally confessed, stopping completely in the middle of the sidewalk and waiting the four heartbeats it took for Spencer to stop as well.

With her back to the other girl, the blonde raised her forearms until she could stare down at the inside of her wrists. "So much of our lives, yours and mine, wasn't about want we wanted. We never asked for what happen to us but it did. In moments of desperation we scramble to seize control, to have an option where we get to choose the next moment in our lives." She flexed her hands and dropped her arms, "You weren't going to jump, even if I hadn't been there, you're too stubborn to let other people drag you down to that level. It was never about jumping, Ash, it was about control," she turned and looked Ashley in the eye. "You were in control that night, and you're in control now and that's all you."

"What were you doing there that night?" Ashley asked after a pause, the thought occurring to her for the first time. "Why were you back there?"

"I was …tired," Spencer drew her fingers over her face and started walking again, just slow enough for Ashley to catch up. "I was just cracks away from breaking. It wasn't a choice for me and it wasn't about control. I hated everything in that moment and I was so, so angry."

Ashley casts back her memory to that night, but all she can remember is the way she felt and blue eyes. Sad, empty blue eyes. "Spencer…"

But she wasn't listening. "Before that, whenever I would look in the mirror I would see everything that camp made me out to be and I would hate myself more and more. But then that happened and you and, and suddenly I could hear your voice and I could see myself how you must have seen me that night, not the physical, but everything else and I'd heal, bit by bit, until I could look myself in the eye and be okay." Ashley reached out and grabbed Spencer by the elbow, forcing the blonde to face her. It took a moment for her gather herself enough to look into chocolate eyes but she did. "What I'm trying to say, Ashley, is that if your life was saved that night, then it wasn't the only one."

"Oh," Ashley blinked and Spencer flushed at the way she was being looked at. She tied to pull back but Ashley twisted her fingers in Spencer's shirt and squeezed, keeping her exactly where she was. She hesitated, she thought about it and she kept her eyes on Spencer's. Everything she remembered about that night was about how that stranger, how Spencer, had been there for her.

She never thought about how she had been there for Spencer.

So she stops thinking, stops hesitating and just reacts. She let go of the material around Spencer's elbows and slipped her arms fully around her middle. She set her head against the blonde's collar and feels her breath hitch, her shoulders stiffen and her chin jerk. But then she being surrounded by arms and heat and that feeling of safety that she felt for the first time that summer between her freshman and sophomore years settles over her once more.

Spencer's breathy laughter is muffled in Ashley's hair, but that is not nearly as comforting as the steady thump-thump-thump of the heartbeat she can feel with her whole body.