Author's Note: This is AUish. I kind of thought of Hurricane Sandy when I wrote this. In case you guys didn't know, my town was pretty badly affected by it. But yes, it's a fictitious account of that storm. I think the oddest thing about writing this was that it was the first time I was really writing about what I experienced in Sandy (I mean, writing down my observations).

Words, words, words. Anyway, I hope you like it :)

Day One-Hundred Fifty-Five: Two Sapphires by Becca Schack

I looked up from my cup of coffee when I heard a knock on the door. I got up to get it and saw Toby there.

I let him in. I asked him to come over to talk about the storm that was coming.

"Where are your parents?" he inquired.

I sighed. I knew he wasn't going to like my answer. "They're in Europe. They're with Melissa looking for a house for her and her fiancé. They were going to stay in London, but now that Melissa is pregnant, she wants to find someplace quieter." I didn't even realize all the bitterness seeping from my voice until I finished saying it.

"And they left you here? Alone? With that big storm coming?"

To be fair, my parents had left like a week ago and the storm wasn't really announced until about four or five days ago. By the time I had told them, it was too late for them to come out. If they left, there was a chance that they'd get caught somehow in the storm.

"That was what I wanted to ask you about," I continued. "I know that you don't live with your parents and you're on your own…" I started.

"Do you want to stay at my loft?" he asked.

"Well, you could always stay here. I mean, at least there's a fireplace here if the power goes out and it starts getting cold…" I began before I looked off at the fireplace.

"Whatever you want to do. I'm just not leaving you here alone."

I nodded before extending my arms so he could hug me. I'd never really seen something as bad as they were predicting. Hurricanes didn't happen very often on the East Coast. Usually they hit the South and dissipated into rain before they could be anything major here. I was a little scared, especially facing it alone. It felt a little better knowing he'd be there to hold me if anything bad happened. I always had that safe feeling around him. Just seeing him smile or being right next to him made me feel less alone and less scared.

"It looks really weird out there," Hanna commented as she looked out my window. She just came by to make sure I was fine. I had already gone to the store to get everything we could possibly need for a week. Yeah, that's a lot; I know, but it's better to be safe rather than sorry.

"It kind of looks like that really disgusting yellow Jell-O they serve in the hospital," Hanna continued with a grimace.

I nodded in agreement. "Hanna, maybe you should go home now. I know your mom is probably worried about you."

She shrugged. "I don't even know if my mom noticed I came over. She's in the basement with like five bottles of wine and some crackers. She needs to make sure that the pump in our basement works or something like that. Caleb offered to watch, but she insisted that he stay upstairs with me and she had it. I think she just doesn't want to have to be around us, considering…" she trailed off, referring to his hiatus from Rosewood and how awkward and unofficial things still were with them.

"Toby's going to be here soon. I just want to make sure you get home alright. Call me when you get home?" I asked.

She nodded. "Stay safe," she said after giving me a hug.

Hanna left and not even five minutes later, Toby showed up. I got so nervous when I heard something rustling in the bushes. Seven months after the last signs of A and I was still flinching when I heard a noise in the woods. My heart almost stopped beating until I saw his familiar blue eyes. He smiled at me before opening the doors. He locked the door behind him. I gave him a hug, clinging onto him even after he began to pull away. He furrowed his eyebrows before putting his hand over my heart. "Your heart is racing, Spencer. What happened?"

I sighed. "You scared the crap out of me!" I exclaimed before hitting him on the arm. I turned around and walked over to the fridge. "Stupidly, I bought a lot of stuff that needs to stay refrigerated, without thinking about what would happen should the power turn off. So I guess we're going to have to eat as much of this as we can, or at least…do something with it," I said as I began to take out everything necessary for making any kind of sandwich ever.

He smiled. "For someone so smart, you're such a goofball," he said.

His smile made my knees just a little weak. "Who are you calling a goofball, goofball?" I asked.

A few hours later, the storm was raging on. It seemed as though the winds and the rain picked up as soon as the sun started setting. The wind whipping outside was scary. On occasion, you could even hear the tree branches snapping like bones. I looked down the street and saw a downed tree near one of my neighbor's houses. I guess our one saving grace was that my parents had our house constructed in such a way that the power cables were underground.

It felt almost like nature's purge, the way she seemed like she was trying to get rid of everything that dared to disturb or defy her. Toby and I had turned off the lights and kept the fire burning. In retrospect, it was almost like an act of appeasement.

I rested my head on his shoulder. I never wanted him to let me go. I just couldn't get enough of that safe feeling I got around him.

On occasion, he would give me a small peck on the lips, but for the most part, we just sat, content with each other's company.

Some part of me thought it was so weird that I was sitting with Toby Cavanaugh with my parents half a world away in England or Scotland or Europe or wherever the hell Melissa decided to have her new family.

"Are you upset that your parents aren't here?" he inquired after we'd been quiet for a while.

I shrugged. "I don't know. I just feel like they've always chosen Melissa over me. Why should this be any different?"

"Because you deserve better than that, Spence. Especially when this is happening," he said before looking over his shoulder outside.

I bit my lip. Every now and then, there was a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning. It was so violent, it seemed to light up the entire sky. I always hated lightning storms, so I wasn't all that happy with this.

I tried to settle back in his arms and focused on the fire. It was very nice and warm sitting in front of the fire with him.

"Does it make you sad that you can't go home at a time like this?" I asked meekly.

He shrugged. "I mean…I would never really look for comfort in my dad when I got scared with stuff like this. He was never a touchy-feely person, even when I was like six. That was always my mom. I guess…I'm used to it."

I nodded slightly. We were just two idiots who commiserated together. I guess that was part of what made our relationship work.

I kissed him on the lips after a moment of thinking…about nothing, really.

"What was that for?" he asked.

I shrugged. "Do I need a reason to kiss you other than wanting to kiss you?" I inquired. He shook his head. As he was about to say something else, I dove in to kiss him again. I liked the taste of his lips and just the way he smelled and the way he felt. I pushed him down onto the floor before lying down on top of him. I pulled the blanket I brought from upstairs downstairs. I just snuggled up to him. I felt a little bit of electricity when his callused fingertips ran up and down my arm. It felt so teasing and still gentle on my soft skin. I looked up at him before smiling. "I'm really glad you're here, though," I told him.

He smiled at me and I melted a little. His smile was always hauntingly beautiful to me.

We were quiet again before there was another clap of thunder. I jumped before getting up. He sat up and put his arm around me. "Spencer—"

"I'm probably not going to sleep tonight, but you should try and get some rest."

He gave me a weak smile. "I'm not going to let you suffer alone," he insisted before getting up. He made his way over to the cabinet and took out a bag of popcorn and put it in the microwave. He then took the dark m&m's out of the freezer (I had this thing with frozen dark chocolate) and the Doritos out of the cabinet. "What was it that you were telling me about the whole season of Game of Thrones on your iPad?" he inquired.

I smiled. I knew there was a reason I was in love with him. I dragged over my iPad and pulled up my videos.

"I figured that we might get bored, so I just downloaded all of the latest season," I explained as he sat down with all of the snacks.

We somehow managed to fall asleep watching Game of Thrones, even with the storm brewing right behind us. The fire had burned out—and fairly recently, I assume. All that was left were two glowing embers. They were burning a soft, pale orange. It was very dark and eerie outside and the wind was still whipping. I got the impression that the storm wasn't going to let up anytime soon.

I sat up and looked over at the clocks. I stared at the microwave clock and then the oven. Both were flashing with 12:00 where the time should've been. That meant the power went off sometime during the night and then came back on.

Toby and I spent the day playing board games, like Sorry, Trouble, Monopoly (and what an achingly long game that one was...), and of course, our favorite, Scrabble.

At about 7 PM, when we began to play Scrabble, the storm had finally quieted and really was nothing more than a bad thunder storm.

His electric blue eyes sparkled as he thought of another word.

"Does anyone ever ask you about me?" I inquired.

"What?"

I shrugged. "I just…do you ever get asked about your girlfriend, who the whole town knows was stalked along with her friends?"

"They ask, but I don't tell."

I had to smile slightly at that.

"I would never air your dirty laundry like that, Spencer."

"I know, I just had to ask, I guess."

"Did someone say something to you?"

I shook my head. We continued playing. I wanted something amusing to happen so we could both laugh and smile and joke about that. I needed to hear his laugh.

After he made his move, he got up to make coffee. I had successfully trained him in making coffee just as strong as mine was.

"Hey, Spencer, look!" he exclaimed suddenly. It made me jump.

"What?" I turned to where he was pointing and caught—just a tiny glimmer—of a shooting star.

"Did you make your wish?" he asked.

I nodded.

"What did you wish for?"

"If I tell you, it won't come true."

He gave me this look. Clearly, he believed otherwise.

"I wished I could hear you laugh and smile again," I said before putting down my tiles.

"That's…a weird wish. You wasted a wish on me."

Now I gave him the unamused look.

He brought over our coffee a second later.

"I have a better idea to make this game more interesting," I decided finally. "You won, by the way," I muttered.

He gave me a small smirk before taking a sip of his coffee.

"Since it's rainy and we're alone and we've got nothing else to do, I thought we should turn this into a different sort of game. Strip Scrabble."

He nearly spit out his coffee. "Really?"

I just nodded. His sapphire-colored eyes just glimmered with piqued interest.

"The rules are that whoever loses the round has to lose one article of clothing and instead of playing until we run out of tiles, we play until one of us is completely naked. I think it's sort of a win-win situation here. But I still want to win," I said before crossing my legs and sitting up straighter. I was finally going to win one frickin' game of Scrabble.

It was a pretty tight game until we got to the end. Toby still had his boxers and shirt on. I was wearing my shirt (with no bra) and my underwear, so we were pretty much even. I put down a word for 98 points and he managed to get one worth 99 (with a triple word score). I was internally debating on whether I should take off my shirt or my underwear. I finally decided with my underwear. I threw it aside and I could see him glup as I slid them off.

The next round worked out in my favor. I got 37 points (not my best, but it was good enough), while he could only come up with 18 points. He took off his shirt and we were back to getting even. Seeing him shirtless, however, hardly fazed me. However, I could tell that Spencer sans underwear definitely freaked him out.

The last game took me several rounds to figure out what to put down. I kept teasing him by uncrossing and recrossing my legs. Finally, I settled on a word worth 50 points. I watched him. His bright blue eyes were steady on me. He tried coming up with a word, but I knew he wouldn't be able to.

"Can we skip this?"

"Are you afraid I'm going to finally beat your ass at Scrabble?" I teased.

"No. I just want you so badly right now," he said before leaning over the table to kiss me. I had never heard him speak like that before.

And I was right, by the way. It did end up being a win-win situation. But for the record, I would've won that game of Scrabble and it was a complete ass-kicking.

Addictedtospoby: Thanks. That was pretty good for me (I think idk I hardly ever read my one-shots over). I made my dad promise to get me Marina and the Diamonds tickets when she comes (hopefully she's coming next summer). Well, it might make you feel better about yourself when you remember these are real. freaking. women. fighting about a frickin. dance. competition. and then you'll feel kind of lousy when you realize that these girls have more talent in their feet than you have in your whole. frickin. body. and they're like five years younger than you. oops, this got too personal. That's just me. But yeah, it's good for cheap drama and entertainment. The girls are very good dancers.

AL3110: I don't like it when people have like a full sleeve (or even half a sleeve) of tattoos and when they're really dumb tattoos (like one of the twins? He frickin got a pig tattooed on him like...why).

So what did you guys actually think of this chapter? I've been anxious to write this one for like 100 one-shots by now. This song is just perfection.

The next song/one-shot will be Treacherous by Taylor Swift. Please review and coax me out of my anxiety with this stupid Purge thing (people are frickin ridiculous). -Kayson