A/N: So. I bet you guys weren't expecting this, huh? :) The thing is, when I posted the epilogue to A Beautiful Mind, several people suggested I write a sequel. It definitely got me thinking, but when I finally set out to write it I realized there was a part of the story still left untold. I'm talking about the first weeks after Aria's death that I originally skipped because I thought the story worked better that way. Be warned, though. If A Beautiful Mind made you cry, there's a big chance this will, too. (If you haven't read A Beautiful Mind, I would suggest doing so before reading this. I swear I'm not trying to shamelessly promote my own work but I really don't get into any of the details here, and it will leave you very confused as to why things are the way they are).

That being said, I do also have a sequel in the works for you. It's actually very close to being done, but I think I might give you guys a breather and post it next week around the same time? Good?

Come Back To Me

In the two weeks Toby Cavanaugh had been coming to this hospital room, he had positively mastered the art of drowning out everything and everyone but the girl in the bed.

To be fair, he had always been quite good at numbing himself to what was going on around him. His tendency to get overwhelmed by all the injustice in the world always kind of left him with little choice but to ignore his settings and deal with things his own way. But only recently did he feel like he'd finally managed to fully zone out on the devastating reality he was stuck in.

He ignored her parents' frantic whispers and petty arguments on how to proceed with her treatment. He ignored her friends' tears. He even ignored the medical professionals bursting in and out of the room, adjusting her IV or tending to the raw skin around her wrists. He spent days and days by her bedside, holding her hand, hoping beyond reason that he would suddenly awake from her stupor and grace him with that smile that instantly brightened his world.

To say she was unresponsive would be a major understatement. She had yet to speak a word since she was brought here, had yet to make eye contact with anyone, had yet to show any sign of life besides breathing. She slept an abnormal amount of hours each day, and when she was awake she would stare out in front of her with lifeless eyes as if she was caged inside her own mind.

The doctors had assured them that all her senses were intact, but she reacted to none. It was as if she didn't see, didn't hear. Sometimes he wondered if she even felt his thumb stroking the back of her hand, or his knuckles gently grazing her cheek.

Her family could hardly stand to look at her. Her father couldn't seem to make himself come closer than a few feet, and her sister could barely even make it through the door. It was as if they didn't know how to deal with this level of vulnerability, hers as well as their own, and so they handled it by keeping their distance while they saw to it that her every physical need was taken care of.

There was a time when this type of cowardice would have infuriated him, but now it was just one more thing to add to the endless pile of things that were fucked up in the world.

Hanna and Emily stopped by almost every day, sometimes twice a day, but even they rarely stayed longer than an hour each time. Toby honestly couldn't blame them. They were dealing with so much more than just Spencer: a friend that had died it the most dire of circumstances, another friend that had committed the worst kind of betrayal before running off, and the realization that someone they had trusted blindly was responsible for the atrocities that had happened not only in the last few weeks but in the last two years.

Jason was struggling as well. Toby knew that he, too, had other issues going on in his life – the biggest one being the disappearance of his conniving blond sister, not to mention a mother that was devastated by this very occurrence. He would stay in contact with Toby through text messages, though most days the younger man had very little to report. When Jason was able to make it by it was usually late, after his mother had gone to bed, but Veronica's glares and Peter's awkward mannerisms would typically prevent him from staying too long.

Toby, however, barely left her bedside. Peter would bring him things to eat from the cafeteria, and once in a while Veronica would convince him to go home for a shower and a fresh set of clothes. But he couldn't breathe easy until he was once again in the small, dark corner of the psyche ward. The idea of her lying there, alone, was enough to send him to the brink of insanity.

Two weeks into her hospitalization, Peter announced he was going back to work. He claimed that doing nothing all day drove him up the wall, that he couldn't do anything for Spencer anyway, and that the best thing for the family right now was if someone provided for it. It was a cop out and they all knew it, and for a few days Veronica was furious with him. But only a week after her husband, she too threw up her hands in defeat, much to Toby's dismay. They would stop by after work and often took turns spending the night; but even then, Toby found himself hoping, for the first time, that Spencer really was as oblivious to her surroundings as she seemed to be. It broke his heart to think of her actually being aware of the fact that her parents were slowly giving up on her.

He was alone with her during large parts of most days, and honestly, it was the way he preferred it. No distractions; no using up all that energy trying to drown out the commotion around them. He could barely distinguish between days; there were times when he had no idea if it was Monday, Tuesday or Friday. July turned into August without him noticing. In the light of things, he could only consider it insubstantial. He had no desire to do anything else, or be anywhere else. He would have stayed in that godforsaken hospital room forever if it meant being near her.

It was on one of these days, after nearly four weeks of nothing, that he suddenly saw change. He'd been sitting beside her for hours, his fingers tracing the sheets and the inside of her forearm. He'd tried reading to her earlier, but he wasn't feeling it and it wasn't as if she showed any signs of hearing him anyway.

But sometime in the early afternoon, he leaned in closer to her after suddenly becoming aware of something small yet terribly significant. She was looking at him. Her eyes were not only directed at him, but they were focused in a way that he hadn't seen since she'd been brought here.

She was doing more than looking at him, he realized. She was seeing him.

He stared back at her but hardly dared to breathe for fear of losing her to blankness again. He wasn't sure if he would have been able to speak even if he wanted to, but he tried to convey with his eyes all the things he'd been whispering to her over the past few weeks as she lay there in her haze.

I love you. I miss you terribly. I'm sorry. Come back to me. I'll protect you with everything I have.

He didn't know how long they were there like this, her in the hospital bed and him in a chair next to it, eyeing each other like they were getting reacquainted; but when she spoke it nearly knocked the wind out of him.

"Toby," she said, so softly that he doubted he would have heard it had his face not been mere inches away from hers. "Will you hold me?"

His body reacted before his brain could catch up. "Yes," he said with conviction, standing up and pulling the covers away from her body. Her hands reached for him and he lifted her out of the bed and into his arms. Then he sat down with her on the mattress, his back against the headboard, locking her in an embrace across his lap. His brain still didn't seem to be working properly, but he felt encouraged by the sensation of her fingers latching onto him with equal ferocity and held her as tightly as he dared. After a moment of intense embrace, he used one hand to tilt her face towards his and started pressing kisses everywhere his mouth could reach. He was startled when he found that her skin was wet, but even more startled to realize they were his tears and not hers.

Nothing more was said between them, and eventually she gave into exhaustion and fell asleep in his arms. Hours must have passed like this – him still sitting up in her bed, holding her while she slept, his eyes never wavering from her beautiful porcelain face. He was so lost in the feel of her, in the joy of having heard her voice for the first time in weeks, that he simply wasn't conscious of time as it passed by.

He started violently when the door to her room opened with a loud squeak, and Spencer also jolted awake at the feeling of her his body startling hers. They both looked up to see Peter and Veronica standing in the doorway wearing their sharp work attire, their mouths half open in wonder. Toby realized they saw the transparent look in their child's eyes and knew, instantly, that everything had changed, and that they had missed it like they'd missed so many milestones in her life.

It was as if they couldn't speak, but Peter's eyes slowly descended from his daughter's face to her legs, and Toby quickly grew self-conscious under his scrutiny. Spencer's hospital gown had ridden up all the way to the top of her thighs, yet she was still sitting in his lap and he had his arms locked around her waist like is was the most natural thing in the world to them. Toby automatically loosened his hold, but this only caused her to tighten her grip on him and he soon found himself reaffirming his presence without a second thought.

It was Veronica who snapped out of it first. "Spencer," she said, and there was desperation in her voice like Toby had never heard before. "Oh thank God."

Spencer tensed a little as her mother came closer, but apparently convinced herself it was all right before he even had the chance to physically reassure her. Still sitting on his legs, she allowed both parents to embrace her, but as soon as her father stepped back she turned back to Toby and slipped her arms around his neck again. It was clear to everyone in the room who she wanted.

She didn't talk much for the rest of the evening, but they all accepted this because in contrary to the past few weeks, it was clear she was aware of what was happening around her. She knew who they were, and reacted to what they said even if it wasn't always verbal. Toby even got her to eat a little something, which was perhaps the greatest victory of all since it was her first round of solid food in almost four weeks.

She fell asleep clinging to his hand, terror in her droopy eyes as she struggled to keep them open. "Don't go," she implored raspily. "Don't."

"I won't," he promised, bringing her hand to his lips and kissing it. "I'll be here when you wake up, I promise."

He spent a dreadful night in the sofa chair, alternating between fitful sleep and worrying that today had been a one time thing and that in the morning, she would be dead to the world again.

She wasn't. He held his breath when he saw her eyes flutter open, but within seconds he registered that she was clearheaded and calm and he couldn't stop himself from leaning forward and brushing a gentle morning kiss against her lips. She held him close to her for a moment and he swore that for just a second, he saw something akin to a smile wash over her face.

Her parents took the day off from work, and Hanna and Emily came over as soon as Toby texted them, as did Jason, and even Melissa seemed to be making a conscious effort to make the best of the situation. With everything that had happened in the last month, with all the horrors that had gone down, everyone seemed to want to cling to that one bit of happiness that at least Spencer wasn't lost to them completely.

But very soon, they learned that having her back came at a terrible price. The first time it happened, Veronica was trying to force her into eating something she didn't want. Toby watched from the sidelines for as long as he could stand it, not wanting to undermine her mother unless it was absolutely necessary, but as he watched his girlfriend become more and more agitated he knew he couldn't take it anymore. He was about to intervene when Spencer suddenly screamed out in frustration, kicked the tray away and curled up into a ball as her breaths came in short, shaky bouts of hysteria.

He and Veronica looked at each other, horrified. Toby seemed to be frozen in his spot when he saw Veronica's hands reach for her. She attempted to grab Spencer's shoulders, but this seemed to make everything about ten times worse. The frenzied girl cried out and struggled against her mother, her eyes squeezed shut and her hands protecting her head.

"Spencer!" Veronica exclaimed in horror as her daughter continued to thrash and kick against her. "Stop it! You're hurting me!"

"Don't," Toby heard himself saying, escaping from his temporary paralysis. "Don't shout at her. Don't touch her."

Veronica looked at him as if he were crazy while still trying to restrain her flailing daughter.

"Let go of her!" Toby repeated, louder this time, and the increase in volume was enough to startle Veronica into releasing the girl. To no avail, though – Spencer continued to hyperventilate in obvious distress.

"Spence," he said her name, hearing his voice crack. "It's okay. Everything's going to be okay." He took a step closer. "I'm going to hold you, okay? I'm going to hold you the way you like to be held."

He touched her shoulder tentatively. It didn't calm her, but it didn't make her lash out like she had before with her mother either. Slowly, he sat down next to her on the bed and gently pulled into his frame. He could feel that her breathing was still highly irregular, and he took deep, easy breaths in the hope that she would match her respiratory habits to his. He brushed the hair from her neck, his lips connecting with her ear as he rocked her back and forth.

"Come back to me," he whispered. "I know you're scared. I know the world seems like an awful place right now, but I'll always protect you. I love you so, so much. And I'd never ask you to come back if it wasn't safe."

He kissed her cheek and continued to whisper things, and little by little her breathing evened out. He didn't let her go, though. He couldn't even if someone threatened him with a gun.

It was she who finally moved. She wrapped her arms around his neck and hid her face against him, and he knew she was back.

At first, they'd had no reason to think this would happen regularly. It had scared the hell out of him, yes – but he figured after what she'd been through it would be more worrisome if she didn't have an anxiety attack here and there. But it wasn't long before he came to realize this was so much more than that.

It wasn't just her physique; it wasn't just a reaction her body went through when she was frightened. It was her psyche. It was her mind that was doing this to her, terrorizing her, tormenting her with memories of her harrowing past. And the worst part was that she was completely at its beck and call. She was helpless to control it, helpless to do anything but succumb to its domineering grip.

There were no words for how agonizing it was for him to watch. During the weeks she had been catatonic, Toby had never really let himself think about the barbarities she had seen in that cabin. He had been so focused on her, on getting her better, that it had slipped into an almost forgotten corner of his mind, locked and sealed away. But now, as he could only stand by powerlessly as she paid not once, not twice, but over and over for the injustice done to her… it horrified him. It kept him up at night.

He tried to think of it too much during her good moments, not wanting to ruin her relative happiness with his dark thoughts. It was on days like today that he had to chase these parasites from his brain so he could give her his full attention.

They were alone, like they usually were during the daytime, and they had played Scrabble earlier – for the first time since she was hospitalized. He had looked at her as they sat perched across from each other on the bed, taking in her pale skin and the dark circles under her eyes. But before he could consciously make the decision, before he even realized he was considering it, she interrupted his thought process with a crisp, quiet warning.

"Don't even think about it, Cavanaugh. If you go easy on me, I will punch you in the nose."

He never would have thought her sass could bring him such overwhelming relief. It spread through his entire body, warming him from the inside out, because even if she only ever demonstrated it when they were alone, it was proof that she was still in there. His Spencer. It was proof that nothing or no one could permanently destroy the core of her being. She might have taken a few more beatings than she could handle, but in that moment he saw the girl he fell in love with as clearly as he saw the Scrabble board resting between them.

They played, and while he could tell it was beneficial for her to use that part of her brain again, it also rendered her so exhausted she couldn't finish the game. They settled into the single sofa chair instead, after he'd dragged it by the window. It wasn't much of a view but at least it gave them some illusion of space and fresh air inside the plain, stuffy hospital room.

They did not talk much, but they shared slow, lazy kisses that represented how their physical intimacy had been growing since she had miraculously awoken from her altered state two weeks ago. He felt every inch of him come alive when one of her hands snaked under his shirt and caressed his abdominals.

"I want you," she whispered, nestling herself even closer to him. "I want to make love with you."

This caught him off guard, and he gently pushed on her shoulders to catch her eyes. They were certainly no strangers to the physical aspects of love, but he had not yet let himself think about when and if it could ever happen again. "We can't," he told her quietly, painfully. "Not here. Not now."

"Why?"

Her question was simple and almost childlike, but the desperate glint to her eyes just about killed him. "Because we're in a hospital. And you…" He swallowed. "You're still getting better."

There were tears in her eyes now. "But I want to. I want to be with you like that again."

He shook his head, feeling moisture well up in his own eyes as well. "I'm sorry, baby. I'll hold you instead, okay? Come here."

He pulled her to him, kissing her head as she curled up into a ball in his arms. He took this as acceptance, but his heart shattered all over again when he felt his shirt grow damp with her tears. Even now, with everything that was going on, she cried so seldom, and complained even less. She'd had to be strong for so long that it had become something she abided by even when her mind was in shambles. It destroyed him that he couldn't give this to her, but he couldn't risk it – not when she was still so fragile; not when he didn't dare assume she was really there and not just absentmindedly going through the motions with her body.

That was what her good days were like. Her bad days were a different story altogether – horrifying and difficult and exhausting for her as well as for everyone around her. It happened that she had multiple episodes a day, her body convulsing almost as if she were having a seizure. Her mother seemed to have decided that Toby was the one who handled it best, and wouldn't let anyone else near her when disaster struck. And gradually, he grew to learn what she responded to and what caused even more chaos. Soft voices, slow movement and body warmth were the only things he knew to give her, but it worked better than anything else he'd been able to figure out. It was either that or let the doctors shoot sedatives in her until her body had no choice but to give up the fight. Peter preferred this method because it worked a hell of a lot faster, but Toby couldn't bear it. More than that – he was convinced it wouldn't help her in the long run.

"It doesn't teach her to cope with her pain," he argued with Peter out in the hall after Spencer had tumbled to sleep. "We need to help her to learn to live with this. Not medicate her until she doesn't feel anything anymore."

Every few days, he would reach for the greatest courage within him to head out for an hour or so to freshen up and change his clothes. He would leave her with Hanna or Emily or both, knowing that she preferred them to her parents. And she was always so brave in letting him go, even if he could tell she was fighting every instinct in her to break down and beg him not to move.

Only once did it go wrong. In hindsight, he had sensed something wasn't right from the start and probably should have postponed this habitual trip home. He'd had a bad feeling about it from the start, but after having specifically asked both girls to come for this very purpose, he felt bad for blowing it off. And so he ignored his instincts, tenderly kissed her goodbye and promised to be back soon. She nodded wordlessly in acceptance, but the dark, troubled look in her eyes left him uneasy.

He'd only been his truck for a good five minutes when his phone rang.

"I think you'd better come back." Emily sounded distraught, and his heart ripped in two when he heard Spencer's ragged sobs in the background. "She won't stop crying. She won't stop crying and I don't know why."

Without thinking twice, he made a U turn, hit the gas and eventually all but ran down the halls to her hospital room. She'd been sitting up in her bed when he left, but now she sprawled on the floor in the corner that was furthest away from the door. He'd heard her cries from all the way down the hall, her already raspy voice cracking as she sobbed, "Where's Toby? I just want Toby…"

His feet walked him over to her without thinking and he lifted her from the cold hospital floor. "It's okay," he whispered, cradling the back of her head as she wrapped her body around him. Both Emily and Hanna came closer to him with desperate looks of apology on their faces, but he felt unable to deal with them right now and all but fled the room while still carrying Spencer in front of him.

Restlessness shoved him down the hall with her, noting that in a matter of seconds she went silent as her face buried itself in his shoulder. Both her arms and her legs squeezed around him so tightly that he wondered if she was trying to crawl inside him, and briefly he considered putting her in his truck and driving until fatigue forced him to pull over. He saw a life for them, away from Rosewood, away from her excruciating memories, somewhere in the middle of nowhere with endless rows of trees and grassland; or perhaps in a secluded part of a non-touristic beach, where they could take walks in the sand and swim in the ocean and watch the sun sink into the horizon every evening. He envisioned it so clearly that for a moment, it seemed like the only choice he could make.

But almost as soon as the thought struck him, it melted away. No – he forced it away. Because he knew if he did that, if he took her away from this, he would be just as bad as her father when he ordered the doctors to sedate her. Instead of helping her find herself again, he would be trying to escape her pain, trying to numb her to it because he couldn't take it anymore. It was tempting – some days it was like a giant chocolate cake mere centimeters away from his fingers – but at the end of the day he knew he could never do that to her. He had to trust that she would eventually figure out how to reignite the fire in her, that she would fight back, that there was nothing in the world that she could not overcome with his help.

And so he sat them both down in a chair in a lone corner of the hospital wing, still holding her tight. He soothingly rubbed her back and placed occasional kisses to her neck until she slowly pulled back to look at his face. He brushed her hair from her eyes, using this thumbs to clear away the last remnants of her tears, and gently shook his head at her when she opened her mouth to speak.

"You don't have to say anything," he assured her softly, "and you don't have to worry. I'll always come back to you." He blinked back tears. "Just like I know you'll always come back to me."

Once upon a time, Spencer had promised him the best summer ever before she went away to college. He realized with considerable irony that it wasn't even that long ago that she had uttered these words. He couldn't help but consider fate a heartless bastard when he looked at where he was now – in a cramped hospital room that got insufferably hot for hours on end when then sun was in the wrong place, watching the person he absolutely lived for fall apart, over and over, in front of his very eyes.

But then something happened that made him suddenly wish they could stay in that place forever. Her doctors claimed she was ready for a more permanent environment – somewhere she could stay long term since they felt she had made all the progress she was going to make inside this hospital. When they uttered the words Radley Sanitarium, the hair on the back of his neck stood up and a chill ran up his spine. Even more disturbing was the resigned look on her parents' faces, almost as if they had expected this.

He said no. No way, out of the question. He said he would find a way to take care of her and provide for her at the same time. Veronica and especially Peter were skeptical, but eventually gave their consent. His knees shook with relief as he thanked them, and it took him longer than it should have to realize why.

It wasn't because he wouldn't have to watch her go to Radley. That wasn't happening anyway. It was because he wouldn't have to resort to the desperate measures that he'd cast aside weeks ago, knowing they weren't in her best interest. He knew that if it came down to it, he would leave everything behind to go on the run with her, keep her safe as best he could, spend the rest of his days searching for a place that would bring her some semblance of serenity. Grasslands and beaches weren't what he wanted for her – he'd already established that – but it would still be infinitely better than Radley.

He would be forever grateful that it didn't come to that. They all helped move Spencer's things into his loft – Peter, Veronica, Hanna, Emily and Jason. Even Melissa was around to assist, but she made an excuse and left before Spencer actually arrived. Toby couldn't say he was surprised. The bond between the Hastings sisters was nonexistent these days. It was as if Melissa didn't know how to love her sister now that it no longer made sense to compete with her. Whatever bond they shared had always been defined by envy and resentment, but also by deep respect, though neither would have admitted it. But they were in two different worlds now. Toby strongly suspected it was too painful for Melissa to look at Spencer and know that her sister might never be up to playing tug-of-war with her again.

Their first night together he made them dinner, noting how his girlfriend already seemed slightly more at ease than she ever had at the hospital. They'd had a conversation where he told her he would have to return to work soon, as much as he hated to leave her. It had gone better than expected – in fact, it was almost as if she had anticipated it. He assured her that there would always be someone staying with her, that she would never be alone, and she accepted this with a brave nod and just a tiny amount of pain in her eyes that that person couldn't always be him.

He planned to hold her close until she fell asleep, but she took him by surprise when she turned around in his arms and kissed him passionately. He was lost for a minute – her smell, the warmth of her tongue and the softness of her body. But then he drew back.

"Please make love to me," she murmured, struggling to keep him close. "Please…"

He'd lost count of how many times she'd ask for this since their Scrabble game. He'd gently turned her down every time, even when she broke his heart by asking if he didn't see her like that anymore. He'd told her that of course he did, but still didn't allow it to go further than that. Maybe his past with Jenna made him extra cautious – paranoid, even – but he just couldn't bear the idea of her maybe regretting it later.

But now, as he saw her in the home he'd provided for her, looking the most like herself than he'd seen her in weeks, he hesitated. He looked her square in the eye and asked slowly, "Are you sure that's what you want?"

She nodded, running her hand up the back of his neck and into his hair. "More than anything."

They spent a lot of time kissing before slowly removing the cotton barriers between them. Even then they just kissed for a while, getting reacquainted with the feel of each other's bare bodies. His hands followed the curve of her back, her hips, her legs; and he vaguely wondered how it could all feel so unrushed when it had been nearly two months since they last did this.

When her hand moved to the small of his back and she brushed her pelvis against his, it was clear she was ready for more. He asked her one more time if she was sure, and when she nodded without the slightest hesitation he carefully entered her.

It was as if the whole world went quiet. They fell into a slow, sensual rhythm, and he felt her gasp against his neck as her fingers clawed at his back.

"Toby," she choked out against his skin, and he realized with alarm that she was crying.

"Oh God," was his knee-jerk reaction, already moving away. "I'm so sorry…"

"No." She held on tight and locked her ankles around his waist to prevent him from pulling out entirely. "I just..." Her voice broke. "I missed this. I missed you."

His vision blurred at her words, and he suddenly felt like an unimaginable idiot. Why had he denied her this for so long? Why had he assumed it was about sex when it had always been so much more than that for them? It was about being naked with each other, about the intimacy and warmth of that skin on skin contact, about translating their emotional connection into something physical. It was one of life's true pleasures – why hadn't he just given it to her the moment she'd asked?

He kissed her, and their tears mingled together. When she came he could tell it was a little more subdued than it usually was, but the blissful expression on her face was more than enough to convince him he'd done the right thing. He pulled her body all the way into his, kissing her forehead and her closed eyelids and the tip of her nose.

They lay together in silence for a moment, but soon she pushed even closer into him with a contented sigh, her lips finding the shell of his ear.

"I love you," she whispered, and he could have cried all over again.

It was the first time she'd said it since this ordeal began. And even if he had known all along, even she had made it impossible to question over the last few weeks, his heart still loved to hear it. He could never express how lucky he was that she still wanted him not only as her protector and comforter, but also as her lover.

"I love you, too," he murmured, brushing his fingers through her hair. "More than anything in the world."

"Still?" she asked in a hushed tone, and he could see that her eyelids were getting heavy.

"Always."

Her fight was far from over, and he knew that. There was no way of telling if she would ever be able to get back to what she used to be – if she would ever be able to go to school, or get a job, or even head out for groceries without shutting down. But as he looked at her now, her dark head pillowed on his chest, he did know beyond any shred of doubt that he would go to the ends of the earth for this girl. He would never stop believing in her, and he would use his last breath trying to be her safe place to land.

He fell asleep thinking they would just have to live one day at a time.