A/N::: Hey lovelies :) This fic falls somewhere in the hiatus landscape of Season 4, so post-Halloween episode but pre-4B.

Important: there is a prequel of sorts that I posted a few weeks ago. It is a oneshot titled The Price of Silence. This will make sense either way, but that fic is about Spencer telling Toby what happened in Ravenswood during the 4A finale and the Halloween episode. SO in this fic, it is assumed that Toby knows Ali is alive! Pretty sure it won't be that way on the show, so that's why I wanted to be clear.

Her lungs burned with a wheezing pain with each hastened footfall. Tree branches reached out with spindly fingers and slapped at her, snagging and tearing and gashing. The mist swallowed her up with such completeness that she was surely safe by now. Safe, but miserably lost.

Spencer sagged against a withering trunk, gasping for breath and hoping for some glimpse of desolate roadway. Something snapped ominously from behind. It could be anything, a clambering raccoon or falling tree limb…or a killer. Or -A.

She stole out into the inky black night, the spitting rain picking up slightly as she pushed through the dense brush of forest. An abrupt stumble nearly sent her sprawling headlong into a hidden brook, but she managed to right herself just in time. She cast another long look over her shoulder. The shadows pranced and morphed and tangled together. Spencer plunged ahead, splashing through the gurgling stream and scrambling up the embankment. The terrain pitched upward. A gripping hope bubbled up through her. If it was getting steeper, maybe it was leading up to the old highway.

Cringing at the brash sound of her waterlogged leather boots crumpling through the crisp dead leaves, she slowed down enough to muffle her steps. Her panting breath left her in white puffs of vaporous air, but the outer cold couldn't touch the arctic grip of trepidation inside. She clutched at a root as she hauled herself higher up the ridge. But when the root slithered away in a menacing flash, she had to stifle a shrill scream—her palm had connected with a snake.

She scaled the bank with renewed zeal, no longer concerned with the commotion she left in her wake. This was all too familiar, but she couldn't lose her nerve yet. She could push past the terror of reliving her worst nightmare. She would escape. She wasn't a victim, not anymore.

Her internal pep talk was met with a tangible reinforcement when the gleam of a steel guard rail emerged from the pitch-black jungle of weeds and thorns. Spencer grasped it with both hands and forced her weary body over the glorious barrier that signified civilization. At least she could see the crescent moon arching into the midnight sky...she wasn't alone. He was coming.

If there was one thing she was sure of, it was this: Toby Cavanaugh wouldn't stop searching until he found her. Even if she wandered along until sunrise, he would be out there too. Him, her, and that incandescent moon.

His teeth sunk so deeply into the soft tissue on the inside of his cheek that Toby was sure to draw blood. The lumbering groan of his truck's old engine did nothing to decrease the racing pressure of his foot against the accelerator. He was going at least 20 mph over the speed limit, but that was a trivial detail. The rushed undertone of Spencer's raspy voice played back in his tortured mind. Toby, I'm in trouble…can you come to the woods on the west end of town? I'm kind of—can you hear me? Just hurry. I…I'll try to find you on one of the back roads…"

And then the call had dropped, along with his thrashing heart. Every muscle tensed and flexed with roiling anxiety. He had already made one solid loop in the vicinity of where he assumed she had been directing him, but it had all been way too vague. What if he wasn't even in range? What if he had misunderstood or maybe she could have been referring to some old logging roads that he wasn't seeing and…he couldn't breathe. He could already be too late. What if that phone call had been the last time he ever heard her voice?

No. If he let himself think that way, he would lose it completely and find himself pinned beneath this truck at the bottom of a ravine. He had to concentrate on finding her.

He curved perilously along the rambling pavement, a spray of gravel pinging off the sides of the vehicle. Come on, Spence, where are you?

A hammering beat of potential promise skirted through his wringing thoughts. Much further down the road, in a wispy flicker of his high beams…it looked like a person staggering slowly in an overgrown path along the narrow shoulder. Toby whispered a desperate prayer as he punched the gas pedal with increased cruelty. The gears shifted begrudgingly as he flew up the hilly terrain.

The slumping figure spun at the sound of his crunching tires. It was her, that high forehead and slim silhouette, the dark hair bundled back in a sleek braid—Spencer.

He slammed on the brakes and reached across the interior to throw open the door. She practically fell into the seat, fumbling with the handle and slamming it shut.

"Spencer, what the—"

"Go, please, we need to get out of here!"

A grimace overtook his face. She was frighteningly pale and noticeably shaken. "Are you hurt? Should I take you to—"

"No, I'm fine. Please drive, Toby, now."

Her penetrating demand was met with resolute obstinacy. "I think you owe me some explanation! What is going on? Why are you out here alone?" He pressed a hand to her quivering cheek as he examined her black ensemble with a distressed look. His other hand brushed over her dark coat and mud splattered jeans. She was soaked.

Her brow scrunched with confounding urgency. "Toby—"

"I don't know what I'm more upset about, Spence, this -A team apparel you're wearing or the fact that it's freezing outside and you're sitting here drenched. You know how this looks, right?"

Her icy hand found his and squeezed lightly. "Yes, I know, and I swear I will explain everything, but not here. Please trust me."

Toby was practically seething at her stubborn refusal to answer him, but those bottomless chocolate eyes seared his soul with their haunted insistence. When he found himself on the receiving end of that entrancing gaze, she was always sure to defeat him.

"Okay. I trust you."

A melancholy smile molded itself into the mud-streaked lines of her downcast face. He sped off into the awaiting obscurity, his gut still constricting with the coiling indication that he wasn't going to like what she had to tell him.