An addition to 4x03, Cat's Cradle. I don't believe Spencer just blasts into Radley like it ain't no thang. Also she told Hanna later in the episode that they wanted privacy...which made my mind wonder..

Just a little oneshot. Hope you like it!

Slipping through the pale door and merging into the suspended shadows, Spencer glanced back to see Toby close on her heels. He pulled the door closed without a sound, then gave her a slight nod. She stole through the blue obscurity, moving with catlike grace, her ponytail swishing behind her. The constant churning in Toby's aching head eased momentarily as he admired his girlfriend's courage. He would have never asked her to do this…yet here they were, back in the pits of her own private hell, all at her insistence.

Her creeping frame suddenly went ramrod straight, her boots cemented to the floor.

"Spence?" he whispered, concerned that they had been detected. They were only a few feet from the service corridor that they accessed on the way in. Her head remained ominously angled in the direction of the adjoining hall. It was if she hadn't heard him.

"Spencer!" His hand settled heavily on her delicate shoulder and felt a shockwave run through her as he made contact. He scanned the passage that had so fully enraptured her mocha gaze. It was empty, void of even a flutter of dust. "Come on, we need to get out of here."

With his hand on the small of her back, Toby propelled her forward toward their planned route of escape. She mumbled a halfhearted apology and glided through the door as he held it open for her. He shook his head and descended the steps in her wake.

But he didn't dwell on her strange behavior for long. Images of his mother spun before his crystal blue eyes, his vision blurred with his last memories of her—a long white gown, exhaustion painted in the lines around her mouth, her hand weakly smoothing his hair out of his eyes. Maybe she didn't choose to leave him. He needed more information, he had to find Dr. Palmer. Feelings that had been long ago locked away were springing up with exacting vehemence, as if they had been lurking much closer to the surface than he had allowed himself to believe.

Their path through the children's wing and out the inconspicuous side entry remained providentially clear. Toby inhaled a crisp and calming breath of release. They were out of that godforsaken place.

He trailed Spencer around to her side of the truck and shuffled through his key ring. She offered him a bright smile as he unlocked the creaky door and let her in—yet something indeterminate wavered precariously beneath her expression. Her eyes blinked too rapidly, her chin wobbled just a fraction of an inch. But before he could string together an outline of a question, she disappeared into the murky interior of the truck. Circling around to the driver's side, Toby began to dismiss it. He was distracted and upset, probably just conjuring up reflections of his own unsettled emotions.

But as he slid the key into the ignition and threw the truck into reverse, her tense movements caught his attention. Spencer was fiddling with a loose button on her black trench coat, her hands shaking with an uninhibited tremor. Her fingers moved automatically in a detached frenzy while her eyes peered straight through the windshield with eerie resolve. Strike three.

He put the vehicle back in park and enveloped her hands in each of his. Her skin was like ice. She swiveled to face him, her doe eyes large with unspoken inquiry.

"Want to tell me what you're thinking about?" He kept his voice low and smooth, not wanting to put her on defense.

"Shouldn't I be the one asking you a question like that?" The gusto in her raspy tone rang like false bravado, a slapped-on cover that didn't quite reach the edges. Had she been talking like this all night? He hadn't heard it before, but maybe he hadn't really been listening.

"You didn't answer the question, Spence."

She squirmed a little, her eyes straying from the intensity of his observation. "I don't know what you're talking about. Can we please get out of here?"

His grip on her hands tightened at the sharp sound of her plea. Her panic cut through him. A series of curse words threatened to spill out of his mouth. This was a mistake, letting her embark on a fieldtrip to Radley. He had vowed to make everything right with her, to do a better job of protecting her…to not ever let her relive the nightmare of the last few months.

"Toby, please?" Her frantic request was accompanied by a tugging on his hands, her heightened pitch hurdling through the quiet truck.

He released her hands and shifted gears, hit the accelerator with a punch, and sped out of the desolate lot. As the looming gates gradually vanished in the thickening fog, Toby glanced at his passenger. Spencer was huddled against the seat, slumping toward the window, her eyes squeezed shut. As they passed under the fleeting glow of a streetlight, a flash of a tear glimmered on her white cheek. He concentrated on the yellow lines before him, eating up the miles as fast as possible. They weren't going home. Not yet.

The rollicking nausea was finally beginning to pass, loosening its grasp on her insides. Spencer didn't like this sensation…it certainly came unwarranted. She was stronger than this, she believed in willing oneself to overcome weakness. And she had overcome so much, so why this needless setback? Something about that place just drained the fight out of her. A freeze-frame surrender blotted out all other truth, the kill switch had been flipped, and she was a mortified clutter of broken pieces.

And poor Toby had gone silent a long time ago. She refused to further burden him with such a useless display of inadequacy. Her meltdown had not gone unnoticed, but she was glad he hadn't pushed it any further. He had more than enough to worry about without his former mental patient of a girlfriend dancing on the edge of a relapse. She gnawed obsessively on her lower lip, trying to repress the imprint of barred windows and stale air. An endless blend of night and day, gray walls, a nameless existence.

The flick of his turn signal startled her. Spencer arched her neck to squint at the gas gauge. It was over the halfway mark. She raised a brow in Toby's direction, but he didn't seem to care. The truck came to a stop in the neon glare of a rundown convenience store. He unbuckled his seatbelt, but made no move to get out. Instead, he pivoted in his seat and looked at her expectantly.

"What?" Her mouth was set in a hard line. "You had an unquenchable desire for a Twinkie or something?"

Her sarcasm earned a one-sided smirk. "Nice try, quippy. You want to fill me in on what happened back there?"

Spencer shrugged, reluctant. "Nothing."

"Give me some credit here, Spence. I'm not blind or deaf. That was not nothing, it was something."

"Toby, seriously, I'm fine. Now unless you have an appointment with a trucker named Bubba, I would like to go home now." She unconsciously pushed her nails into her palms, an old habit formed in her lifetime war with Melissa.

He tilted his head in disbelief. Grabbing one of her hands from her lap, Toby raised her fist into the air as if it were an item of evidence. "Look at yourself! This is not fine. People who are fine do not scratch red marks into their own palms."

She inspected the afflicted area, which did sport some angry crescent-shaped indents. Okay, so he had her there.

"Spencer," he implored, his voice much softer than before. "Please don't push me away. You're all I have."

She took in his wide baby blues, intently begging her to say something. His strong fingers wormed their way into her balled fist, forcing her hand open and weaving into her grasp. She sighed, indisputably frustrated with herself. "It's not a big deal…"

"Humor me." A challenge crept into his words, unwittingly luring her in.

"I guess…I…" Her voice was so small that Toby had to lean closer. "I freaked out a little in there. I thought I could handle being back, but from the second we pulled up, I-I felt queasy. I did my best to ignore it, and I t-tried to concentrate on why we were there. And I was almost okay…but when I saw the hallway to—well something snapped."

He nodded slowly as he processed her stammering admission. Pressing a tender kiss to her forehead, he murmured, "Are you feeling any better?"

"I'm getting there." She shivered, her earlier illogical fear sneaking its way in. "I had this stupid anxiety that…that if someone recognized me, they'd call for the orderlies to lock me back up in my room."

Toby gathered her closer into the warmth of his arms, his heart thudding with unparalleled sadness. "I wish you would have told me what was going on."

She shook her head stubbornly. "No. No way. You needed to get answers."

"What I need is you, Spencer. I've put you through enough, haven't I? You should have never been in that place to begin with, and I shouldn't have ever let you go back." His azure eyes blazed with enduring conviction.

Tears trembled behind her black lashes. "Just tell me something—wouldn't you have done the same thing if our roles were reversed? If this had been about me, you would have done it too. Right?"

He heaved a pained sigh, his eyes boring into the unaffected steering wheel. "Yes. For you, I would."

"I'm worried about you, Toby. All of this with A and your mom…it's a lot to take in." She traced a line down his jaw, persuading him to turn back to her. "I'm here for you, no matter what."

"And I love knowing that. But Spence," he said, his hand curling affectionately around her neck, "I'll be alright at the end of all of this as long as I have you. The past has already happened. I lost my mom. Whatever else I might gain from all of this, she's still gone and I won't get her back. But I can't lose you too…I can't. So I need you to be honest with me if something is bothering you or someone is hurting you. You, Spencer Hastings, are my number one priority. Are we clear?"

With a sniffle and a smile, Spencer closed the minuscule gap between them and kissed him. Her velvet lips and sweet scent captivated his senses, overriding his whole system. He shrewdly used his leverage on the nape of her neck, driving her further into his hold. She molded herself perfectly into the angular planes of his sculpted body, impatient for more. Toby reclined further, his other arm locked around her waist. He slanted backward as he returned the pressure of her kiss—

And his head smacked against the unforgiving cold glass of the window.

"Oomph!" He groaned, his lips still fused to hers.

"Oh my gosh, Toby!" She scrambled off of him, her brown eyes bulging with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Mmhmm…" his hand sought the sore spot on the back of his cranium, wincing as he found it.

"I'm so sorry! I'll run inside and get some ice! Oh, Toby—" her hand was already on the knob as she grappled for her wallet in the depths of her purse.

"Spence, I'm okay, really." His hand circled her wrist as the words grumbled their way out of him.

"You're sure? Because it will only take a second, I swear, and—"

Toby pulled her back to his side, silencing her with a gentle kiss. "Yes, I'm sure." He started to snicker under the force of her solemn gaze.

"What? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I just—I'm surprised that's never happened before. I love this truck, but it's not exactly spacious." He broke into full laughter, thinking of how foolish they were. He had a whole loft they could make out in—among other things—yet they were all over each other in his cramped little truck.

"Are you suggesting we continue this elsewhere, Tobes?" she asked with a devious smirk.

"I don't know, I'm sure Bubba the trucker enjoyed the show," he returned with a wiggle of his brow.

She just laughed, glad that her snarky retorts could be shelved for now. After another brief meeting of their mouths, Toby started the engine back up and pulled back out onto the open road. He rested his hand contentedly on the knee of her dark jeans as they took off under the shelter of starlight. "I meant what I said before, sweetheart. You are my whole world, my future."

Spencer looped her arm through his and snuggled closer, her head burrowed into his solid shoulder. "I heard every word. I love you, Toby. You aren't ever going to be alone."

all reviews always welcomed :)