Author's Note: So I guess this one differs from most of my one-shots in the sense that IT'S ACTUALLY (kind of, sort of) CANON! HOLY CHEESE! And also, it's a legitimate one-shot (by definition).

And I actually kind of don't hate this one, like I do like 90 % of my one-shots. Like...they suck. But this one doesn't. I don't think. And I wrote it in like fifteen minutes.

Day One-Hundred Thirty-Seven: Til the Casket Drops by ZZ Ward

It was so bitterly cold in Rosewood that Christmas.

All the girls could sense an attack by A coming on. Toby and Caleb could feel it, too. Christmas wouldn't keep the hoodied fiend from tormenting the girls—even if it had deadly consequences.

It was funny to think that such a beautiful place, with its white-capped trees and street lamps, quaint little houses, and crescent, pale moon, would hold such ugly secrets.

All of the girls were in their beautiful dresses in Spencer's house. Caleb and Toby were also there, sort of like they were moral support for Hanna and Spencer, respectively.

"I can't just sit here forever!" Hanna exclaimed suddenly. "How long are we supposed to just sit around like lame geese."

"Ducks, Hanna," Spencer corrected.

"Lame poultry!" Hanna amended. "We can't sit here like lame poultry, okay? I'm tired of looking over my shoulder just to make sure I'm not getting stabbed in the back. I don't know how much more I can take."

"We're all tired, Hanna," Aria began, "but freaking out about it isn't going to do us any good."

In reality, they were all losing hope. Would A never go away? What had they ever done to deserve this kind of torture?

"Guys, we've dealt with it for a year and a half now," Emily stated. "I think we can deal for six more months until we go to college. There's no way that A can follow the four of us to college. They can't be in four places at once."

"They have helpers, Emily!" Hanna shouted.

"They're not following us to college!" Emily snapped. "Come on. Alison is waiting for us at the Ice Ball. We need to go."

Emily walked out of the door. Aria began to follow her, but noted that everyone else was staying behind. "Aren't you guys coming?"

Hanna sighed. "I'll be there in a minute. I just…need a moment."

"I'll be coming soon, too. I just want to check on my mom again before we go," Spencer informed them.

With a curt nod, Aria was out the door.

Hanna took a deep breath. "I don't know how much longer I can deal with this," she repeated. "Isn't it driving you crazy?"

Spencer hesitated. "It is. Believe me, I'm just as sick as you are. But A is playing these sick games with us. It's just a game, Hanna."

"It's not just a game, Spencer. It's so much more than that."

A moment after she finished speaking, Hanna's phone beeped. She sighed and picked it up. She groaned. "That's Ali. She demands that we leave right this second."

Spencer rolled her eyes.

"What the Ice Queen wants, the Ice Queen gets," Hanna commented with a slight eye-roll.

"Yeah, well, Alison doesn't control me," Spencer insisted defiantly.

Hanna nodded. "I always admitted that about you."

Before Spencer really got a chance to ask what that meant, Hanna was leaving. Caleb started to follow her, but stopped to say to Spencer, "Don't let Alison control you. You're stronger than that, Spencer."

Spencer nodded slightly. Caleb left, too.

It was just Spencer and Toby now.

"I guess we know who's going to make an appearance tonight," Spencer commented mordantly.

"Aside from the Ice Queen herself?" Toby inquired.

Spencer sighed. "A."

"Hey, I'm going to be right beside you," he reminded her.

"For how long?" she asked bleakly.

"Forever. Until my dying day, Spencer. I'm not letting A, whoever it is, take anything else away from you because you don't deserve it and because I love you," he told her.

After a moment of hesitation, she pulled him in for a kiss. She was longing—no, searching—for something and he could just feel it. She wanted security and safety. After looking him in the eyes after she pulled away, she just pulled him close to her. She rested her head on his chest.

"I think they've taken everything from me already."

That certainly broke his heart.

"I don't want them to take you again. You have to promise me that you'll be safe after whatever it is they have planned. Promise me, Toby," she demanded.

"I promise."

She nodded slightly before pulling away from him. She took his hand.

"Are you ready to leave?" Toby asked.

Spencer opened her mouth to speak when her phone went off. No doubt, it was Alison, demanding Spencer's presence immediately.

She sighed. "I don't have much of an option, do I?" There was a brief pause between the two of them.

"I'm ready for this war."

She knew there was no place to go but walk straight into the inferno. She allowed him to lead her out.

She didn't know what lay ahead of her, but she was about to find out.

Sarah: Oh, I saw her and I saw you REAM HER OMG. I noticed everyone else do it, too. Okay, the person who did it was Everything has Changed by Casey878 and I was actually so insulted. I'm not even actually insulted that she copied it (because let's be real, if someone copies your work, it's kind of like "wow, someone thought that my work was good enough that they wanted to take credit". I'm not saying it's any less annoying, I just felt like I actually kind of made it on FanFiction), but she actually CHANGED IT so the grammar was now INCORRECT and idk, but it makes me so irate because I pride myself on having very few grammatical and spelling errors. I just like that about my work. AL/Audrey actually told me about it and at first, I thought it was just the prologue. But then, when I read everything else (and it actually made me cringe...idk if she wrote most of the rest of it herself or stole it from someone else, but it made me cringe because it legitimately made NO sense) and not only did they steal my prologue from "Everything Has Changed", but they basically took parts of the first chapter of "Begin Again" (just changed a few details to make it seem original), AND they stole my beloved baking scene from EHC. But really, the part that annoyed me the most was that they actually changed words to the grammar was now incorrect. I was just like HOLY CRAP WTF THIS WAS LIKE GRAMMATICALLY CORRECT AND YOU CHANGED IT LIKE WTF MAN. It now has four reviews (three of which are just calling the author out on their BS and plagiarism) and the other one is "liked it :)" and I know it's not on my story, but I'll take that as a compliment because literally, the rest of the story just makes absolutely no sense. Like, it has no correlation AT ALL with MY prologue and MY baking scene and MY Spencer scrutinizing herself in the mirror. Wow, this is really frickin long, but it just makes me boil. I already reported her like five times and I'm sure Audrey did, too, but it hasn't been taken down (and it's been up since January, I think). Just please, do me a favor, and tell me if anyone ever takes my work? IDK, it just makes me a little paranoid, seeing how people just have no problem with taking someone else's work.

AL3110:What? How tall are you? I'm 5'1" (that's probably ~1.30 metres or something like that). Lol, my parents don't have that money, either. You could go to CSI, the college on Staten Island. It's really nothing special, but I know it doesn't cost 30K a year. That's why I need to publish a book. I was thinking of revamping FMN, but idk now. The whole thing with TOW is not sitting well. IDK, I feel very guilty writing it.

MilaMizz: My hair isn't straight at all. If it were, it would probably be down to my butt. Just a guess. It's long. At least my grammar is usually correct, I guess, and I actually have proper formatting (I start new paragraphs when a new character speaks. Before, that never bothered me, but now, I cringe when I see it. I just can't). I hate 90% of my work, which is kind of a problem, but you're your own worst critic (HA, I used the right kind of you're/your! I have better grammar skills than 75% of the internet!). I wish I had done more in the beginning of this collection. Like, I wish I got them done quicker. Tell your brother he has good taste in music because ZZ Ward is great. If you've seen American promos for PLL, you know this song. It played in the season 3 promo and PLL even gave ZZ Ward a music video as long as they featured PLL clips in it. They also had her do an Ezria promo for her song "Last Love Song" (which I was kind of pissed about because it was right after he was revealed as A and I felt like they definitely could've used a better song/better couple for that particular song).

tobyequalshottness:Thank you!

The next one-shot is Goodbye by Miley Cyrus and YAY I ACTUALLY KNOW WHAT I'M DOING WITH THIS ONE!

Funny story about the next one: I used to play this song on my old iPod Nano and I played with my dolls and pretty much acted out the scenario you're going to see tomorrow. I was a weird kid, I know. -Kayson