She saw her in between the shadows, leaning against a wall still in her shorts and her summer T-shirt, obscured and hidden by cars that were lined up in the parking lot next to the bar. She'd almost given up on finding her there and was on the verge of calling Caleb to tell him he was wrong when she saw her. She would have missed her if it wouldn't have been because of her light green T, which had a big pink Labrador puppy drawn on it. It was the kind of pink thing you didn't miss even at night, a big, cute call for attention. Labradors were not pink, they were kind of light cinnamon, yellow-like dogs; but this Labrador puppy had been designed to be pink, and, god, she was thankful she recognized it in the dark amidst the cars and the walls and the scarce light of the moon, because she had certainly chosen the best place to hide of all.

She was alone.

Spencer walked in that direction, passing by the parked cars, her heart beating too fast against her chest. Hanna had tried to shoot a Valium down her throat, but luckily she'd refused to do it and now her senses were alert and ready. Maybe they were too alert and ready. It was the kind of alertness that you felt when you fell into a whole barrel of pure caffeine, she guessed, even though she hadn't really had anything either to eat or to drink or to make her numb or awaken; nothing at all, except the self-produced adrenaline pumping throughout her veins and blowing her muscles like wings, making her walk both quickly and clumsily because she wanted to get there faster than her body could actually do it. She felt like a wild black foal running the prairie, like a boat sailing and crossing the waves that were cars and hot summer breezes and gravel under her shoes. She felt she could fly if she tried a little harder. But she couldn't. She was just a girl walking steadily towards another girl in the black distance of an ordinary parking lot next to an even more ordinary bar called Marianne's. How did she even end up here?

Her figure appeared more defined against the wooden-like wall as she approached her. She didn't notice her walking towards her. She seemed lost in thought, and for the first time since they'd received Caleb's call she wondered what she was going to say to her. A whole yelling, babbling set of incoherent sounds, most probably, given the pressure she was feeling against her chest, that would surely keep her from giving a lengthy lecture on the dangers and the mindlessness of running away like this in the middle of the night. It was only when she was already really close to her that she realized she hadn't seen her yet because her eyes were closed. Her heart broke at the sight, and she slowed down her frantic walk so she wouldn't scare her. She looked beautiful even like this, in her sporty pyjamas that were meant to go "running". She looked beautiful like this because she was almost as dark as the night that was giving her shelter and still she managed to expel a special glow, an aura of warmth and mystery and innocence that no one would ever possess in such a way, not while she unknowingly, protectively hid it from others. But there were no others around her right now. She was alone, and Spencer was again thankful for that. She didn't want to start this situation by kicking people out off her to take her back to the car.

There was a bottle on the ground, at her feet. She had been drinking. Maybe not too much, Spencer hoped, but she didn't really stop to check how much had already been consumed. She was, as well, holding her phone on her right hand. Well, Spencer knew this meant she hadn't really been missing their one million calls. She just didn't feel like answering them. A flash of anger bit her at the sight, but still she was careful when she slightly touched her left hand with her fingers to let her know she was there by her side.

Emily's whole body flinched in surprise at the careful touch. She opened her eyes a little and tried to focus her gaze on Spencer. Judging by the foggy, blurry, crystallized look she was giving her now, Spencer decided Emily was actually quite if not completely wasted. She didn't really need to take a look at the bottle to know.

She took her hand in hers but no words came to her throat.

"Spencer."

Amazingly, it was Emily who spoke first. Her voice sounded weak and startled.

"Hey." She thought she was going to yell but, instead, her voice sounded as weak as Emily's, only less hoarse. She couldn't yell at her now. She looked so surprised and drunk and troubled.

Emily turned her head a little and focused her gaze again. "What are you doing here? You need to go."

"No, we need to go", Spencer answered, finally finding her normal voice inside. "Come."

She grabbed her hand with more force now, but still didn't try to drag her away.

"Spencer", she repeated, slurring the name and making it sound mush, almost sultry if it weren't because of her drunkenness. "Beware the ides of March, Spencer, they're not yet gone. I'm gonna betray you."

She must have been thinking a lot about Texas too if she was capable of quoting Shakespeare in a situation like this.

The thought made Spencer smile inside. As worried and frantic as she was, the smile turned up on her face too. There was something immensely sweet about Emily even when she was drunk and troubled like this, and apparently it was too big and beautiful to be contained even in times of misery.

At the same time, she felt intrigued at the words. She was here to betray her. Outside of a bar called Marianne's, of which she'd never ever heard of. Emily didn't strike her like the kind of person who'd know about such a place, either.

"You can betray me in the car", Spencer assured. It was easier to convince a drunken person to do something when you played along their obsessive themes than when you tried to force them to behave sensibly. Especially if the drunken person in question had a stubborn temper. "Let's go. And since it's July already, I think we still have time until March."

Emily sent her an annoyed look. It wasn't going to be so easy. "It's the same", she answered, looking away again. "You don't get it."

Spencer let her side lean against the wall too, not letting go of Emily's hand. "What should I get? That you're quoting Shakespeare because you're drunk?"

That she was drunk because of A. Because A wanted her to do something. She knew that much, but not enough, and she wasn't hoping to clarify it while she was still this drunk.

"No", she answered, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. "I… You can't be here."

"Okay", Spencer agreed, realizing the tears in her eyes, but she didn't move. She squeezed her hand in hers. "Explain it to me."

"I can't explain. It doesn't work like that."

"Who says that?"

"A."

Oh, they'd touched bone.

"Don't explain it then", Spencer tried again. "Let's just leave."

"No, you leave." She sounded a little angry now. "You don't understand. I have to kill you to save your ass. I have to do it. I have no choice."

Spencer decided to follow the Shakespearian cue again. "So am I Caesar or Rome?"

Emily seemed totally confused by her question, and turned to look at her again. "What?"

"Yeah, am I Caesar or Rome?", she repeated. "You say you have to kill me, so I'm Caesar. But if you have to save me, then I'm not Caesar and I'm Rome. Right?"

"I… I'm not sure." She considered the question now. "I think you're Rome."

She still didn't look completely convinced of it, and Spencer couldn't do anything but smile at her pained, yet cute state of thoughtful drunkenness.

"That's better then", Spencer agreed. "I prefer to be Rome."

"Yeah, you're definitely Rome."

"And you're Brutus."

"I'm the weakest link."

Her eyes filled with tears again at her own words, and again Spencer felt her heart stir and break at the realization of whatever A had said to her to drive her to this point. She'd thought the weakest-link bullshit had been already overcome and suppressed, but A had somehow managed to hit and create damage there again.

She approached her some more and got a hold of her arm. It was warm, hot even, due to the warm night and probably to the feverish effect of alcohol running through her.

"Come with me to the car", she, once again, tried. "You can save Rome tomorrow."

"No, no", she denied with her head, but actually moved in her direction, leaning a little on her body. Spencer smelled the sweetened taste of alcohol in her breath when she spoke again. "Spencer, please leave. I have to kiss someone now and you have to let me do it."

"You have to kiss someone?" She was starting to put piece by piece together, but was still totally confused as to the meaning of it all. "How come? Is that why you're betraying me?"

A nod followed. She was getting it right.

"Just let me do it", Emily begged. "So you don't go to jail."

Spencer knew that threat was behind all. Hanna and she had looked through Emily's laptop after her escape and they'd seen Dr. Sullivan's photo.

"I'm not letting you kiss anyone but me", she warned gently. "You don't have permission."

She shot her a horrified, guilty look. "I know I don't. But I have to do it, Spencer. You don't understand."

"I do, I do understand." Spencer tried to make sense of all the things she'd collected along the conversation. "A told you to come here to cheat on me so I don't go to jail. Is that it?"

She looked at her in slow-motioned surprise. "Yeah, kind of", she consented. "But worse."

Worse? How much worse?

"Is there something else?", she asked.

Emily put again some distance with her, as if trying to gain control of the situation. "Dr. Sullivan's dead." Her eyes shone, saddened, and she choked back new tears. "I have to… I have to break your heart and I don't know how to do it."

Finally, a couple of tears escaped her eyes, but she managed to control the rest.

"Is that all?", Spencer asked, preparing to drag her away back to the car now. She squeezed her hand again.

"I have to break your heart", she repeated, looking into the distance of the parking lot.

"We're not ready for that yet", Spencer softly joked, trying to make it sound less dramatic. "We have to follow the natural course of heartbreak. I'll let you know when I'm ready."

Emily seemed to take her words seriously and spoke with a startled, annoyed tone. "No, you can't plan something like that. You can't put a date in the calendar, Spencer."

"Fine. Then why are we here?"

Emily suddenly realized. "A. A can plan it."

"A can go to hell for all I care", Spencer said. "And will go to hell. Now come to the car and we'll discuss the picture there."

Again she shot her a surprised glance. "You've seen the picture? A sent it to you too?"

"No. I've seen it in your laptop."

"Oh." She seemed somehow disappointed. "I can't go now. You go."

Jesus, she was stubborn.

"You're coming with me now, Emily". Spencer finally started to lose her patience. "It's dangerous enough that you're here in the middle of the night and that you're completely wasted and waiting for some person to actually hurt you or do something to you."

She turned to look at her with alcohol-induced cutting eyes. "No, you don't get it. I'm the one who's gonna hurt you. That's how it is. Please."

Spencer let out a frustrated grunt. "I'm not moving. I'll stay here with you all night if necessary, so if you wanna kiss someone you'd better do it in front of me." She looked around as to give her a sign of the uselessness of such a proposition. "I don't see a lot of people waiting to be kissed."

Emily seemed both offended and saddened at her words. "Yeah, I know", she slowly acknowledged. "I'm not dressed to kill. But I got my chances."

Spencer was certain of that. She did look cute as hell in her sporty summer clothes and in her cloudy, innocent alcoholic haze. But that made the situation even more dangerous for her.

"Who're you gonna kiss?"

Another offended, yet guilty look followed. "I don't think I should tell you that."

"I'm not letting you do it, so you can tell me everything about it."

All she got as an answer was a deep, nervous sigh.

"Are you calling someone?" Spencer took the phone from her left hand and checked the one hundred missed calls from Hanna, Aria and herself. She hadn't tried to call anyone. But there was a text sent to Samara half an hour ago. She was surprised. "You still got Samara's number?"

Guilt crossed Emily's features. "Yeah."

"Why?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I always forget to erase it."

"And that's why you're texting her? She's the chosen one?"

Spencer couldn't avoid the pang of anger in her tone, but she knew she should control it.

"I was trying a boy, okay?", Emily tried to explain. "But there's no one cute enough. And Samara was my next try."

"Can you explain it to me in the car?", Spencer asked again. She actually didn't care if it was Samara or a boy or a camel. She just wanted to get her back to the car. "You're not gonna do it tonight. Samara's not coming and the cute boy's not coming. And I'm getting you home."

"I'm running out of time", Emily answered, and her voice trembled and weakened as she spoke the words. "We don't have time."

There was a moment of silence when Spencer could see the process of Emily's defeat. For a second she wished she'd continued talking about Julius Caesar until she'd managed to convince her to go, because Emily bent down and sat on the ground, curling herself into a ball. She started to quietly cry.

Spencer felt her heart stop. Whenever people cried in front of her, she always felt uncomfortable. She tried to comfort them with a warm, human touch and rational, expansive explanations on the reasons why things would get better or why they weren't so bad as to cry about them. She was, herself, a person with a tendency to cry too much when she felt frustrated or sad. In such situations, it was always easier to be alone or to have Aria, because Aria was a naturally warm, comforting person, or Emily close. Emily was quiet and understanding and she covered you like a blanket, like the sea and the sky and the air, with such a natural tenderness that she didn't even need to speak most of the times.

But what did you do when Emily cried? What did you do? She had never seen her cry like this, not even when Alison died.

What did you do when she cried like this and it was because of you and because of things related to you?

She bent down next to her.

"Em, please, Em", she said, as softly as she could, and her own voice broke and cracked. "Whatever A says, it's the opposite of a win-win situation. We all lose like this. I don't care what A says. I don't care if I go to jail. I don't care about anything. Just come with me to the car and we'll be fine."

She hadn't even had time to think about Dr. Sullivan when she'd seen the picture. She'd just registered it as a proof of A's contact with Emily two days ago and that had been enough to make Hanna call Caleb and Lucas so they would all search the town for her. She'd even called Toby and had endured probably the most awkward moment of her entire life when she had asked him to call her immediately if he heard news from Emily. He'd understood the urgency of the situation because somehow he had promised he'd look for her too.

Caleb had miraculously found her. It'd been, indeed, a miracle. She'd never have thought of checking the most ordinary bars in town.

The only thing she wanted was to bring her back safe. She didn't care about anything else right now.

"Please", she begged again, brushing her hair aside to look at her face.

She could see the effort she made to stop crying. She wiped her tears away with her palms, and Spencer searched her purse for tissue. Once she blew her nose and dried her tears, she tried to catch her breath.

"I can't let you go to jail, Spencer."

"It's not on you, Em. It's not your responsibility. Whatever A said…"

"No, you don't understand. I can't let you. I can't."

They looked into each other's eyes. "And do you think following A's orders and kissing someone is really going to stop it? Do you think A will actually stop it like that?"

She looked offended again. "No, I know it won't. But it can buy you some time…"

"I don't want time", Spencer cut her off. "Just please come with me, come back with me now. That's the only thing I want."

She did sound desperate and, since that was how she was actually feeling, it had an immediate effect on Emily. She leaned on her and Spencer helped her stand up, and then grabbed her by the waist. They staggered together around and through the parking lot. Caleb was waiting by her car, his expression of worry because Spencer had taken such a long time to bring Emily back.

"Is she all right?", Caleb asked, taking a look at Emily's messy, drunken appearance.

"No", Spencer stated the obvious.

Emily looked sheepishly at Caleb. She was wondering if he had any idea as to why she was like that, and she hoped that no, he didn't, even if that meant that she looked as the most stupid, disgusting person in the world.

Spencer opened the passenger's door and helped her sit there. Then she thanked Caleb with the whole of her heart, asked him to call Lucas, called Aria and Hanna to tell them they'd found her, sent a text to Toby saying the same, and said goodbye to Caleb.

"Does he know?", Emily asked while Spencer was making herself comfortable on her seat and fastening her belt.

"No, he just thinks we had a fight. We're a very passionate couple."

"Yeah, and I'm dumb and an alcoholic."

Spencer actually smiled at Emily's sarcastic comment, but when she looked at her in her seat she saw she was not really joking or trying to be funny. Emily slouched down in her seat and looked away out of her window, into the moonless night.

She drove the car slowly and in silence. It was going to be difficult to get through the night.

"I can't go home like this", Emily suddenly announced, self-consciousness and embarrassment taking over the alcohol-induced cloud. "Where are you taking me?"

"To my house."

"No, that's worse", she exclaimed, horrified. "Please don't."

"Yes." Her tone left no alternatives. She'd already made the decision. "You're staying with me tonight. I'm not leaving you alone."

"No. Your mom…"

"My mom's sleeping, like everybody else", she assured. "It's gonna be okay."

She heard her sigh deeply while she moved uncomfortably in her seat and silence took over of the car again. Of course she wouldn't go to the Hastings' if she knew her mother was there. But she'd already made enough crazy, mindless decisions for the night. It was Spencer's moment to decide and there was no way she was going to leave her alone tonight, and probably tomorrow, and the night after that. Not while A posed a threat like this. She was dying to read the texts Emily had been receiving. She bet they had been awful and cruel to make her fall to this. She should've started questioning her when both Hanna and she realized Emily was acting silent and strange. It was her fault. Emily had been right; she was A's main target at this point, and she had failed to see it because she was thinking about the hockey stick and the fucking cookie and where Jason was, and when Hanna had called to tell her Emily had taken the car to "run" she'd just entered a paralyzing, and still frantic mode of despair, because obviously, obviously A had gone after Emily. Who else was A going to attack? Who had been receiving every text during the last months? And even though she'd been scared when she'd checked Dr. Sullivan's photo, she'd immediately thought of what that had to mean for Emily.

They were both strong, but they were now also each other's weakness.

She looked at Emily while she drove. She was still looking out the window, defeated and grave. She'd have to talk to her when she sobered up, but not about kissing someone, even if it was Samara (and she wanted to know why she'd chosen Samara out of every female possibility); just about why and how they couldn't afford to let A get so close to them.

The silence in the car was broken by Emily's cracked, hoarse voice again. "Can you pull over a moment?"

Spencer turned to get a better sight of Emily's face, which had become paler. She had her arms crossed against her stomach. She was probably feeling sick, so Spencer did pull over on the side of the road, and Emily immediately opened the door, stepped out and threw up under an oak tree.

Spencer got another tissue from her purse and walked next to her, but instead of handing it to her she softly ran the tissue around her face and around the corners of her mouth, cleaning her up. There was no anger or despair or even sadness in her heart right now. She was just… overcome by an overwhelming desire to drive the car out of Rosewood and leave forever with her. So they wouldn't have to take this kind of crap again.

So Emily could be brave and cute and beautiful and, basically, her normal self.

"I'm sorry", Emily said, looking down in shame.

"It's better if you throw up", Spencer explained, still cleaning her face. "At least that won't go through your blood now."

Emily nodded in agreement, but spoke again. "Not for that. I'm sorry for everything else."

Spencer felt tears coming to her own throat. "You don't need to be. You didn't break my heart." She tried to offer a smile, because no, she wasn't heartbroken, she had just been scared to death and was now relieved to have her there, even if she was in such a state.

Emily blinked. "I was gonna do it."

Spencer understood she meant the kiss of death. "I know."

Emily grabbed her arm, as if to call her attention, although she already had it. "You were gonna be mad."

"That was the point, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'd probably forgive you in ten seconds." She tried to joke again, although a part of her was convinced she would forgive her in ten seconds if the kiss of death ever happened.

"No, you wouldn't", Emily answered looking down again. That cryptic, codified kind of communication always made Spencer nervous. Emily looked into her eyes again. "Not if I did it right, but I failed."

"I'm glad you don't really know how to create chaos and evil around you", Spencer joked again, but she was glad. She was glad. Because, if she did it right, yes, she'd be mad. And there was no way in the world she was going to allow A to do that to them.

But, if not for Caleb, it could've happened.

Emily gave her a tiny smile, the first one of the night, but her eyes still shone with tears after the effort of throwing up had taken place. "And now what?"

"Now you sober up and then we talk about this."

"And then you go to jail? Is that it?"

"Let's talk it over later, okay?"

She dragged her back to the car again and they drove away in the middle of the night, the warm summer breeze caressing Emily's face through the open window.

A/N 1: No break-up... yet! ;) Ewww, Maxi-Luca: that Jenna thing sounded scary even for me! aliena2012: glad to read you back! There'll be M-chapters, at least if I manage to write them! Everybody: thanks for the encouragement. There'll be more angsty chapters too. But - I promise to deliver some badass Emily too. I couldn't in this chapter, though. elmopll: I hope you're not heartbroken either, since Spencer isn't ;)

A/N 2 The Julius Caesar part: Brutus says, as a excuse for his act of treason, "Not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved / Rome more."