Merry Christmas/Other Holiday!

I've been drowning in more schoolwork than should ever be allowed. Anyways, this chapter is pretty long. The chapter title comes from The Last Apprentice books.

I know you hate me for the last cliffhanger, but come on. How could I resist?

The moon is full tonight. Imagine if it were full every night.

Spencer's PoV

"Ash?" I asked louder, more desperately. Why wouldn't she answer me? She couldn't be dead. It was my fault if she was dead.

I heard it: a single rattling breath that sounded terrifyingly difficult to take.

Relief.

She was alive. Everything was okay. Except for all this blood. I thought her nose had stopped bleeding, but the blood was everywhere. What if it was clogging up her ability to breathe? I struggled to still my panic. My mother was a doctor; I should have known these things. I didn't know these things.

Calm down.

Why wasn't she conscious? Did she lose too much blood? Did her head strike the pavement? Was she in a coma? No, she was still struggling after she hit the ground, and it was only her nose right? Even if it was a head wound that shouldn't have been enough blood. Right? What else happened? Carmen was choking her. How long does it take to kill someone like that? Three minutes? Four? Five? I understood people lashing out in anger, striking blindly, but to watch someone dying underneath your hands for five minutes. How does someone do that? Did it even matter? Ashley was alive. She was breathing. I had to get her to the hospital, or something. Where was my cell phone? It had fallen out of my pocket. Where was it now? It was dark and the grass was thick. It could be daylight, and I might not find my cell phone in this grass. Where was Ashley's? Not on her as far as I could tell. I found her car keys and wallet in her back pocket, but that was it. I was leaning over to, but them back into her pocket when a hoarse voice whispered, "Spencer?"

Ashley's eyes had opened, and she watched me intently as I withdrew my hand from her back pocket.

"Trying to feel me up?" She asked with familiar cockiness. I flicked her on the forehead in response.

"Ow!" She cried out indignantly. "I'm injured you know."

"No damage done, then." She sighed huffily, but the effect was ruined when her pouting turned to a flash of pain.

"Are you okay?" I asked, alarmed.

"Yeah, it just hurts to breathe," she replied.

"Do you have your cell phone? We need to get you to the hospital."

"No hospital," she whimpered.

"Are you insane?" Seriously, what was it with people tonight? Was there something in the air? "What if you broke a rib and it's piercing your lung?"

"It's cracked, if it were broken in two it would hurt a lot worse," she answered firmly.

"How do you know that?" I had never heard of Ashley breaking her ribs before.

"I broke them when I was five," she informed me with her eyes closed and breathing deliberate.

"You're still going to the hospital," I reiterated.

"No, I'm not." She sounded like a little kid.

"Yes, you are." So did I.

Ashley clambered laboriously to her feet, and started hobbling away.

"Where do you think you're going?" I asked in disbelief.

"Home!" She called over her shoulder.

"Once again, are you insane? You can't even walk," I pointed out. "How are you going to get home?" Ashley has never thought things through.

"Driving," She replies merrily. It was the most unconvincing merriment I'd ever encountered.

Her ankle, which seemed to be damaged in some way, was slowing her down so it only took a few moments to catch up with her. Having done so, I wrapped one arm around her chest and stooped quickly to scoop her legs out from under her too. She's way too light was the only thought I formed before she shrieked. Immediately, I was holding on to a slippery, flailing fish, except this one had arms, legs, and nails.

"Ashley!" I shouted, managing to collapse on the grass with her on top of me. She almost staggered away, but I caught her sleeve. All I could hear was her ragged breathing as she landed heavily on me. Her sudden weight on my bruised ribs made me wince.

"Please don't, don't," Ashley? "Please, I just want to go home. Spencer's waiting. I need her. Please don't do this again." Ashley was crying on top of me. Quivering while she chanted "don't" over and over again. Loud sobs were broken up by a traumatized voice calling out. "Just let me go home. I have to."

"Ashley, it's me. Calm down." I enveloped my arms around her and tried to still her trembling. In return I got a scream as Ashley lunged out of my arms.

"No! Get away!"

"What's wrong, Ash?" What's going on?

Ashley hunched over into a little ball on the grass. I crawled over to her and whispered soothingly, "Ash." I stroked her back with my hand gently, remembering the time I had gone to Ashley's house on the day she'd had her miscarriage. I was so distraught when I found out that she was having a miscarriage that I didn't note how strangely she was behaving that day.

"Lavender's blue, dilly-dilly, lavender's green. When I am king, dilly-dilly, you shall be queen," I sang softly. My mother had sung that song for me countless times when I was little. "Call up your men, dilly-dilly, set them to work. Some to the plow, dilly-dilly, some to the cart," I never knew who or what "dilly-dilly" was, but it never really mattered. "Some to make hay, dilly-dilly, some to cut corn. Whilst you and I, dilly-dilly, keep ourselves warm."

I'd listened to different versions of the song since, most of them too fast or mutilated. Just like the poor "Star-Spangled Banner".

"Spencer?" I heard for the third time that night.

"Yeah?" I murmured as gently as possible, not sure what had happened.

"Don't leave," she answered vulnerably.

"Not a problem," I stated. Suddenly I couldn't take her to the hospital. Why not? I just couldn't. I couldn't stand being left in a waiting room, questioned for details of the fight, and watch strangers poke at her. I couldn't let her out of my sight and not know if she was alright. I couldn't, okay? For better or for worse I wasn't bringing her to the hospital any time soon. I hoped.

Ashley's PoV

I freaked out. When she grabbed me it was like she punched a hole right through my sanity. I couldn't tell if anything was real or not now. A minute ago, I had been convinced that I was back in the dark. Now, I was with Spencer, who hesitated to touch me after my breakdown. My only function was to dazedly react to Spencer's reassuring orders to get on my feet and lean against her. We staggered along for awhile, but I was too drained to focus on the ground in the dark and kept stumbling.

"I'm going to pick you up now," she said. I mumbled something resembling a "yes" tiredly. This time I was too exhausted to panic. I had some recollection of Spencer putting me in my car. Next thing I knew, she was icing my nose and eye while I insisted that she ice her own eye too. She wanted to check my ribcage, but I managed to avoid the examination. I went to bed after I had a dream.

It was dark and musty again. Except, this time, sterile lights flickered to life. I tried not look at what was scattered around the room. They were everywhere though. Callous steel instruments with sharp edges, reflecting light that hurt my eyes. Their cold shine was odd against the dirt floor. I was naked, shivering in a couple of quilts. The lights were more ominous than the dark. It meant he had come down.

Suddenly, cold air slammed into me as the quilts were ripped off, leaving me exposed. A hand gripped tight in my hair and I began to thrash, calling out. A punishing blow to the skull dazed me for a moment while my hands were restrained behind my back and my body thrown to the floor. The next sensation was a hot stinging pain on my cheek. My eyes screw shut with pain and fear.

"What did I tell you about playing around?" A voice asked with relish.

"Not unless it's playtime," I whispered.

I felt another slap, and the voice returned.

"Speak up, whelp."

"Not unless it's playtime," I repeated, forcing myself to be louder.

"Better," he stated. The approval in his voice prickled, and it goaded me not to comply with his next order. "Open your eyes." My eyes shut tighter than ever. Now the voice was dangerously cool with a slight warning. "Open your eyes," he commanded. I gave no response but to close them more forcefully. Then, I felt a weight and hardness on my legs, and I almost looked to see what was happening. I'm nothing if not stubborn though. "Are you going to open your eyes?" the voice hissed, angry now. I shook my head.

"I TOLD YOU TO OPEN YOUR EYES!" he bellowed. I screamed as something with the sharpness of a fork plunged into my left breast. My eyes flew open and I twisted wildly. Through tears I saw his satisfaction and the large object that he suddenly shoved into me. I shrieked and tried to wriggle free, but I couldn't move at all.

"Playtime."

I still felt smothered and desperately clawed at anything that my hands reached. There was no way out, nowhere to run, no hope in the world-

"Ashley!" Now it was Spencer on top of me, trying to still my panicked flailing, and pain flared in my ribcage. I lay there, tangled in sweat, sheets and Spencer. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," I replied shortly. Cold hands delighting in any way they could make me flinch. "I'm fine."

"Right," she said doubtfully.

"I'm fine," I insisted obstinately. Unfeeling metal with hard surfaces and sharp edges.

"Sure you are," she replied, frustrated. "You just disappeared to another continent for three months and come back pregnant, anorexic or something, and throwing weird fits. Sounds fine to me."

"I didn't mean to stay for three months," I told her truthfully.

"Then why did you?" she asked. "I needed you." She sounded vulnerable for the first time since I came back. She'd been angry, cold, scared, worried, but never vulnerable. I'd left her. She'd needed me. Nothing could erase that.

"I'm sorry."

"Will you stop saying that?" she's angry again. "What's that do? Why didn't you come back? Why didn't you even call?"

"I got caught up in something."

"Hooked up is more like it," she replies bitterly.

"I didn't-"

"Didn't what? Have sex with anyone? How the hell did you get pregnant then?" I took a deep breath.

"I didn't want to."

She just looked at me. Something in her eyes told me that she had simply given up trying to figure me out. Then it changed. I saw her eyes shift in the moonlight.

She flicked on the light switch. My room was a mess. I'd never been a great organizer in the best of times and it was even worse now. Then I noticed Spencer staring at me. Except she was staring at my abdomen which reminded me how much my ribs hurt. I glanced down to where she was looking.

Shit.

My robe had fallen open sometime during my twisting to reveal a too small T-shirt and too much skin, and I scrambled to close it. Spencer's hands were on mine before I could grab the string.

"Where did you get those, Ashley?" she asked calmly.

"A long time ago," I lied.

"How long ago?"

"Before you met me," I replied without thinking.

"I doubt that," came her dry response. Smart move, Ash. Tell the girl who's seen you naked on multiple occasions that you've had huge red scars all over your body since before you met her. "What happened in Europe?" she questioned softly.

"Nothing," I said with my eyes shut.

"Stop lying," she sighed with frustration. "Don't I get some version of what happened in Europe? Don't you owe me, at least, that much?" I didn't say anything, preferring to stew in guilt. A strange sensation began making its way from my ribs up my torso. I opened my eyes to watch Spencer trace a long ridge with her finger, pushing up my shirt as she did so. My shirt inched up until it revealed my mangled left breast. She pulled back in shock. "What happened?" she whispered, but I was already turned away.

"It doesn't matter" I replied shortly and shut off the light. I was so tired. I wanted to sleep and never dream. Just sleep and maybe I could wake somewhere where there was no pressure and nobody hated me or expected me to live up to any standards.

"It matters a lot."

"No it doesn't. It won't change anything." It was the truest thing I'd said in this short conversation. Spilling my guts out wouldn't change anything. There was no point. I couldn't bear to see what Spencer would think if she knew. I couldn't tell her. In truth, I didn't know why telling her scared me so much. Maybe it was because her opinion of me meant everything. Why should I risk all that for nothing?

The past cannot be erased.

Spencer's PoV

Currently, she was crying softly. When I had come into the room Ashley was screaming. Now, I wanted to scream. I wanted to tell her how much she'd hurt me, how infuriatingly secretive she was being, how unfair that was, how much I wanted to hurt her, how much she scared me when she wouldn't wake up, how worried she made me with her normally tan skin so pale and ravaged in the moonlight, and how much I detested her for putting me in this position where I couldn't leave without feeling like I'd killed a puppy.

"I love you," was the next thing that left my lips.

With that, I was suddenly free: free to admit that I would love Ashley no matter what; free to let go of the pain; free to talk to Aiden and Kyla; free to properly grieve for Clay; free to take care of Chelsea, with her pregnancy winding down, instead of her taking care of me; free to wrap up the trembling mess in front of me, even though she tensed in fear, and let her tears soak through my shirt and onto my chest, let her fingers cling to my form.

I was sick of being bitter at the world. It took so much out of you to second guess every feeling and every action. I didn't know how Ashley managed to do it all the time. If I couldn't trust my own emotions how could I ask Ashley to trust me with whatever secret she was keeping? Obviously there was some secret. At this point if she would tell me what it was we could get over it just be us again. "We" could be return to life. I'd already been angry long enough. Whatever it was, I was ready to forgive.

When her sobs slowed for a second, I leaned down to her ear and soothed. "Whatever it is it matters. It matters in every aspect of the world except how much I love you. When it comes to that, whatever happened doesn't matter at all. I will always love you."

For a long time, there is only the quiet and the loudness of half-sobs. I sat there and looked at the moon outside the window, acutely aware of her too prominent bones digging into my body. Finally, a shattered voice spoke.

"I love you too." I smiled when I heard those words. The next ones took them away. "You shouldn't love me." I was opening my mouth to list all the reasons I should, but her hands stifled my protests. "It wasn't supposed to end up like this." Ashley's eyes were cloudy, like she was trying to distance herself from this conversation. Then they caught mine, and she was fully here again and terrified. "I didn't want to- I wasn't planning to-" her speech faltered. "He made me. I didn't want to cheat on you. He- he wouldn't let me go." She was shaking again. I tightened my grip on her and pulled her into me until I was cradling her.

"He raped me."

The words dropped into the room, making the moonlight seem like ice. "I'm so sorry, Spencer." She was crying again, exhausted. Shocked, I held her as she cried herself to sleep.

I had thought I couldn't be angry anymore. I was correct because, right now, I wasn't angry.

I was livid.