Chapter 22:

You Come Undone

C.S. Lewis once described grief as something alike in form to fear. Something unsettling, that brings about new feelings and unearths fears from your past that have been buried so deep, you didn't even know they were in there anymore.

Fear. It's a powerful thing. No one knew the feeling better than Hanna, who had been through countless fearful encounters. Whether it was being hit head on by a car in full motion, losing a best friend to evil, being stabbed in the leg with a knife after being locked in a house with no easy way out…Hanna knew the drill. In many ways, the whole account with A had made her stronger; braver.

But this was where she was lacking in her bravery. In these moments – these fragile, raw moments – was where she paled. Where she fell. Where she was broken down.

Hanna Marin, the girl who laughed in the face of death and played around with fate until it didn't know which way was up. But also the girl who put her soul into the people she cared about. And crumbled to dust when she saw them go.

Like that night, when she got a call from Rosewood Community hospital after only an hours worth of sleep. Her attempt to sleep away her hangover had been an epic fail, and she fumbled around in the dark for her vibrating phone. She found her purse on the floor and knelt on the carpet. Her vision blurred, still not completely out of the influence of her multiple drinks from the night as she wrapped her fingers around her cell and hit ACCEPT, raising it to her ear. Wren's worried voice on the other line brought with it a bundle of catastrophic news, and her blood ran cold.

His voice was so far away as he repeated over and over, "Hanna? Hanna!" But her numb fingers dropped the phone. She felt like throwing up. Was it happening? Was it real?

Had it really been all her fault?

If Spencer hadn't driven her home…she wouldn't have had to go through the alleyway to try to get her keys. She wouldn't have been found bleeding and unconscious on the cement floor, like in those gory crime scene movies.

She wouldn't be the reason that Wren was calling her in the dead of night, delivering such news.

And there, in the middle of the floor of her dirty, run-down apartment, is when Hanna Marin finally lost it.

She picked up her phone and shakily got to her feet, hardly able to see through the combination of her hangover and tears, and chucked it hard against the wall, watching as it broke into pieces and fell to the carpet. Breathing heavily, she whirled around and grasped the pillow from her bed, chucking that across the room as well. She stumbled over to her desk and picked up her textbooks, hurling them to the floor, grunting with anger and frustration. She kicked her chair over and then began to pound the side of her fist into the back of her door. After she got a few good hits against the wood, she realized that her hand began to hurt. And her bones began to ache. The tears welling up in her eyes pored over and she hit the door once more before letting her forehead fall against it, unable to control the sobs now. She turned so that her back was flush against the door and slid down it until she was sitting on the ground again. She covered her face with her hands and tried to catch her breath as her body was wracked with sobs, her shoulders heaving. A few incoherent words passed her lips without her knowing:

"My fault…"

"Spencer…"

"Please…"

"God, no…"

"I'm so sorry…"

Finally able to lift her head up, Hanna fumbled with shaky fingers for her purse. She scrubbed at her eyes with the back of her free hand as she tried to swallow the lump in her throat. Her fingers finally wrapped around the keys, and she tugged them out of her bag, getting to her feet, and hurrying for the door.

She had to make it there.

For Spencer.

She just had to.

The worst part for Emily was the waiting.

The long, drawn out minutes, that slowly became hours, which went by at the pace of a snail. Each second, each tick of the clock, felt like a beat of her pulse, pounding in her ears. Painfully loud. Painfully slow.

Being stranded, surrounded by nobody, alone to let her thoughts fester and morph into the worst-case scenario. Each manifested thought was worse than the one before.

Emily had heard the news during her layover in Dallas as soon as Aria had gotten it. The poor black-haired pixie had called Emily in a deep state of despair, hardly able to deliver the report through her blubbering tears. Once Emily had deciphered the words, her heart ceased to beat. Her blood froze, and it felt like it was running like mire, sluggishly through her veins.

Panic was her first feeling. Extreme panic. It overtook her like a sea, drowning out any other thoughts going through her mind.

She promised Aria that she would try and get out to Rosewood as soon as possible. Her overnight flight for the holidays had been the cheapest obtainable option for her when she had booked the vacation months ago, but she internally kicked herself for not springing for the available, yet more expensive, tickets for the flight during the previous day.

She checked with every gate agent in the entire terminal. Each of them gave her the same blunt answer: no, there was no earlier flight. You'll just have to wait Ms. Fields.

What for what?

For the worst to blow over?

For the storm to pass?

For her life to fall apart?

No. Emily was a patient girl. She always had been. But she needed to be there. Right then. Not later, when she was running into the hospital lobby after everyone else had been there. Not after everyone had already talked and consoled each other. Right then. She needed to be with her friends, who were fearing and grieving as much as she was. She needed to wrap her arms around them and tell them that everything was going to be all right, while the repeated the exact same speech to her.

It's what friends do. They help each other. They provide words of comfort in times of need.

But, alas, Emily stood alone. She was situated in front of the glass wall of her terminal, where the gate would be accepting her plane in a good two or three hours. She stared out the wall-length window, at the pale glow of the moon and closed her eyes. She prayed, long and hard. She prayed for the fear to stop. She prayed for optimism to come along.

She prayed for absolution. In something. Anything.

And in that luminous radiance that the moon gave, casting a white shadow along the empty, eerie terminal, Emily felt the tiniest shred of relief.

She knew that no matter how far she was, or how long it would take her to get there, she and all her friends in Rosewood were gazing up at the same lonely moon.

And Emily began to hope.

Toby thought he had been through more change than any human ever ought to. Whether it was good or bad, small or big, drastic or humble, Toby had seen it all. Hadn't he?

He'd lost his mom, seen his father get remarried, lived under the powerful rule of his stepsister, and fallen for a girl that once wanted him dead.

He was a master at adapting to change. He was a chameleon, equipped with the ability to accept a new situation.

Right?

But during that fateful night when he returned home to his apartment from the dinner party, shrugged off his suit jacket and tossed his keys in the little dish by the door Spencer had bought for him, he experienced a kind of change that hit him in a way that nothing else had.

That feeling of uncertainty. That cold sting of fear.

The whole time it played out, the thought never really sunk in enough for him to accept it. Not as he picked up his cell phone, seeing Hanna's smiling face pop up on the caller ID. Not as he answered the call, raised the phone to his ear. Not as Hanna's shaky, gasping voice, heavy with a hangover, began to pour out the news. Not as his mind shut down, and everything around him was echoing, like he was under water. Not as the phone slipped from his cold, frozen fingers and he made a dash for the door, grabbing his keys on the way out. Not as he drove blindly through the dark streets of Rosewood, the streetlights whizzing by like lightening bugs. Not as he burst through the double doors of the lobby of the Rosewood Community Hospital, his heartbeat deafening him to any other sound. None of it truly sunk in. He wouldn't let it. He had to stop it from happening. If he didn't accept it then…it wouldn't happen, right?

He vaguely saw Aria out of the corner of his eye as she rose from her chair in the waiting room. His eyes flickered back and forth, and as he took a step towards the hallway – where Spencer would undoubtedly be, confined to a hospital bed as countless doctors worked over her – Aria stepped in front of him.

"Toby…hey, hey, Toby, stop!" Aria said, and her voice sounded hallow, a million miles away. He didn't even look at her but instead absently stepped around her, heading for the hallway again. In his peripheral vision, he spotted a very worrisome Ezra sitting beside an equally worried and half-druken Hanna next to Aria's now vacant seat. Jason occupied the fourth seat, and Bree the fifth. Jason had his arm around Bree, who was shaking a little, and looking like she was having trouble breathing.

Aria stepped in front of him once more, grabbing his arms. "You can't go back there. The nurses told us to stay here. She's undergoing some serious x-rays. She can't have visitors until they finish with their procedures – not even family."

Toby's gaze fell on Aria's face, and it was like he was hearing her for the first time. "No, I…" He swallowed hard, shaking his head. "I need to get back there." He breathed, his voice barely audible. But as he made a move for the hall again, Aria grasped the back of his shirt, "Toby!"

He whirled around, facing her fully. "What happened to her?" He demanded. Aria bit her lip and looked away. "What happened?" He repeated, his voice barely a desperate whisper.

"She…she was on her way over to Ezra and my apartment when she got sidetracked and…I don't know exactly how but she ended up going through an alleyway. A gang cornered her and…" Aria's chin wobbled and she covered her face with her hands. When she spoke again, her voice was watery with tears. "And I don't know what's going to happen to her." She said, her voice breaking on the last word.

Toby shook his head, closing his eyes tight. No, no. That couldn't have happened. Spencer was…Spencer was smarter than that. She was stronger than that. The whole time he had known her, she'd always been strong and sure. This kind of stuff happened to stupid, brainless girls in horror movies. This didn't happen to people like Spencer.

In a blind haze, he turned back and began running headlong down the hallway. Aria reached for him, trying to grab the back of his shirt again, but he slipped out of her grasp. "Toby!" She shouted after him, but he was too far gone. Thankfully, the nurse behind the counter had left for a moment to assist a doctor, so he was easily able to hurry up and down the halls, sprinting up the stairs, checking the names on the front of each door.

Hastings, Hastings, Hastings… He thought as his eyes sputtered back and forth, reading each label. Finally, at the end of the hall on the second floor, he found it. Room 225, Spencer J. Hastings.

Just as he was reaching for the doorknob, intending to yank the door open in his desperate fog, it opened, and Wren exited, colliding with him.

Bewildered, Wren stepped back. "Toby?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows. He lowered his voice, "Wait, what are you doing up here? How did you get past the lobby?"

Breathing hard, Toby shook his head. "I need to see her, Wren."

Wren looked away, "She can't have visitors until we finish all of our analysis and tests, Toby."

"No, you're not hearing me." Toby said seriously. "I need to see her, now."

Wren shook his head. "Toby, I can't let you in there. I'm sorry."

"Is she okay?" He whispered desperately.

"She's stable. She lost a lot of blood in the alleyway. I don't quite know how it happened, but she has a cut on her shoulder, and she broke a few ribs. But, luckily, nothing punctured any of her vital organs. It appears that she hit her head hard on something – presumably the ground – and we're checking to see if any permanent brain damage accompanied the blow."

The thought of it made Toby's head fuzzy, and he suddenly felt sick to his stomach. "Wren. Please." He said. "I just need to see her. I'll sit in the corner, I won't disrupt anything, I promise. I just…I need to see that she's breathing. I need to know that she's okay."

Wren furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head once more, "Toby – "

"Please. You don't understand." He said. He pointed at the hospital door – the one that separated him from her – and tried to even out his breathing, "That's my life in that room right there. She means…everything to me. Come on, Wren. You know that feeling, right? Haven't you ever been in love before?"

Wren looked away, torn. "I…"

"Please."

This time, when Wren looked up at Toby, he saw it: The eyes of a desperate man. The raw, hard glance of someone who was seconds away from crumbling to dust. He'd seen it before. Hell, he'd felt it before. Countless times. The bitter fear, the cold uncertainty…

He took a breath and let it out slowly, his gaze dropping to the clipboard in his hands and then back to Toby. "Alright. " He said finally. "I'll tell the other doctors to let you in. But you can't disrupt any of the progress."

Toby let out a sigh of relief. "I won't." He replied as Wren reached for the door. "Thank you."

Wren nodded and pushed the door open and stepped to the side to let Toby in.

The lobby was cold. And it smelled like latex and cough medicine. Hanna observed as she sat frigidly in her seat beside Aria and Ezra, the three of them nearly crushed by the silence condensing the room. Jason had taken Bree home to get at least a little bit of sleep before her final the next day, and Ezra was holding Aria tight in his arms, lightly stroking her back as she cried softly into his shoulder. He pressed a kiss into her hair and murmured words of reassurance.

But Hanna…Hanna was silent. She didn't cry. She didn't move. She hardly even breathed. Since her previous meltdown in her apartment not an hour before, she was strangely…unresponsive. Cold. Distant. Still.

Trapped within the inner mechanisms of her self-destructive mind.

The guilt ate away at her like moths, slowly nibbling away at her as if she were last year's old wool sweater. Slowly unraveling her, creating growing holes and breaking down her shield.

But she held it together. She had to, didn't she?

She owed it to Spencer to stay strong.

Hanna remembered the time in her senior year of high school, when her mom was nearly caught for having an affair with Detective Wilden two years previous to save Hanna's ass from getting arrested. She remembered how Spencer had taken her hand, looked her in the eye and shook her head.

"Hanna." She had said, "I know that you're scared. Okay? It's scary. Uncertainty is scary. But you have to be strong. For your mom. She needs you to be strong right now."

Now, Hanna smiled slightly – a bittersweet smile, amid the chaos – and sighed. That's what I'm doing, Spencer. She thought. I'm being strong for you. I'm scared. I'm worried. But I have to be strong. You would want me to be.

She looked over at Aria and Ezra and then back at her hands, folded in her lap.

And I'm so, so sorry.

The sound of the lobby door opening made Hanna look up, and a panicked Veronica and Peter Hastings entered, frantically looking around the room, as if Spencer would suddenly emerge out of thin air.

Aria sat up, wiping the tears from her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, smearing mascara across her temple. "Let's go talk to Mr. and Mrs. Hastings." She told Ezra thickly, and she sniffled hard as she got to her feet. Ezra followed suit, and the two approached the anxious Hastings parents. Aria began to explain what had happened, her voice breaking a few times as she did. Ezra put an arm around her.

Hanna's eyes surveyed the room absentmindedly, and her gaze fell upon none other than Will Lovat, who sat in the secluded corner of the waiting room silently. How had she not noticed him before? Had he been there the whole time?

"Will?" Hanna furrowed her eyebrows and stood up, her coat held tight in her arms. Will's gaze flickered up to her, and he watched as she crossed the room, standing in front of him. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm uh…here for Spencer…" Will replied, confused. He arched an eyebrow, "Isn't that why you're here…?"

"Well, yeah, but I didn't think anyone besides friends and family had heard about the incident yet…I mean, it's so late…" Suddenly, a thought hit her like a ton of bricks, "Wait…are you the one that found her?"

Will looked down at his lap, then back up at her. He nodded. "Yeah. Yeah I did." He replied solemnly, as if the very memory gave him chills.

Of course, it ought to, seeing that he had been the one to find her body, unconscious and beaten up and bleeding. Hanna shuddered at the mental image she got.

"What…what happened?" She asked carefully.

Will sighed and patted the seat beside him, indicating for her to sit down. She did, and he began to explain. "I was coming home from Radley tonight. I had been working late and decided to take the faster way home. So, I cut through Windsor road and went down the street where Hollis Bar and Grill is. I saw Spencer's car parked and then I saw her going down into an alleyway. I didn't want to scare her – make it look like I was stalking her or anything, but I wanted to make sure that she was all right. You can't be too careful, you know? The kind of filth that roams this town at night…" He shook his head, "It's their witching hour. So I stayed there for a few minutes, but then I heard someone's muffled scream and just…reacted. I knew that something bad was happening and I drove my car up to the alleyway. When I was able to get a good view of the scene, I saw that there were four big guys…probably drunk and all in black coats. They had Spencer pinned against the wall by the front of her shirt…it looked like she was choking. When the guys saw my car, the freaked out and took off, letting go of Spencer. She…fell to the ground and by the time I got out of my car and got to her…she was out cold." Will shuddered, "I think the worst part was the blood. It was all over…" Hanna watched as he looked down at his hands, as if he could still feel Spencer's blood all over his palms. The thought made her feel sick. "When I picked her up and carried her back to my car…I just laid her down in the backseat and drove her straight here. And I've been here ever since."

Hanna shook her head in awe. "You…you saved her?"

Will shrugged, cocking his head to the side.

Hanna let out a soft breath. "Thank you." She told him, her voice a low whisper.

Will nodded and then he looked up at the clock that hung on the wall behind the front desk. Hanna looked at the clock too, and she sighed.

Time. It was an odd thing. Sometimes, you look back at the years and wonder why time went ahead and flew by so fast. You wonder how so many years could feel like just a few minutes. Other times, just a few minutes can feel like long, still, lifeless years. Decades. Centuries.

Monster. Hanna thought. That's what I am.

If she hadn't let what happened with Caleb eat away at her so harshly…she wouldn't have felt the need to turn to alcohol so often. She wouldn't have been at Hollis Bar and Grill and neither would Spencer. If she hadn't been so weak, Spencer would be warm in her bed, the worst fear on her mind being her final the following day. Not lying cold on a hospital bed, as doctors ran countless x-rays to make sure that her brain would still function the way it was supposed to. The people Spencer loved wouldn't be crowed around the otherwise empty lobby of Rosewood Community Hospital, awfulizing about the worst-case scenario. They wouldn't all be terrified out of their minds.

And Hanna wouldn't be feeling like this.

Putting a hand over her mouth, Hanna let out a choked sob. She closed her eyes tight and bowed her head, her shoulders shaking with her strangled cries. Will put a reassuring arm around her and pulled her to his side. He laid a hand on the back of her head and stroked her hair softly as they both waited for the worst of the tears to stop.

yay! i got around to updating! tell you what - if i get at least 10 reviews on this chapter, i'll update by tuesday. thanks so much for all of the wonderful feedback! i love you guys! :)

-AJ