First, I want to thank you all for the incredible feedback I got from my other E/T story. I'm so pleased to see E/T (Team Tomily!) be so popular and well liked as well as the fact that many of you liked the other fic. I'm back with another E/T fic-likely a two parter. Hope you enjoy and let me know your thoughts!

Emily Fields had always fascinated Toby Cavanaugh. Her face was like an open book to him that he could read forever and repeatedly. By seeing her shuffle her shoes and stare blankly at the ground, he knew instantly she was upset. When she was passionate about something, she'd eagerly wave around her hands and talk fast.

Emily didn't have the glamour of her friend Hanna, or the witticisms of Spencer or even the sophistication of Jenna. But what Emily possessed was warmth. She was her own personal sun. And in the deepest crevices of his mind, he yearned for that warmth.

Long ago, Toby had realized that Emily would never fit into his world. The world of punk music and dreams and art. No one usually understood him. He was painfully shy and many took advantage of that fact, spreading rumors and pulling pranks on him. As a result, most had dismissed him as a lone outsider who was known as a freak. And as the school freak, he knew his position on the social ladder: rock bottom.

Emily on the other hand, while not on Queen Hanna's level, was well liked and popular. Emily was captain of the swim team, had a jock as a boyfriend… it was as if she had everything. But often, Toby saw her shuffle her shoes and stare at the ground.

Toby always wished that he could talk to Emily, get to know her better. Sometimes he cursed his infatuation with her. Why did these feelings never go away?

He disliked Emily's boyfriend Ben on the spot, wondering how Emily could have ended up with someone so shallow and self-serving. In the most secret place of his thoughts, he would wonder how it would feel like to be with Emily. To be by her side, holding her hand. But he always chastise himself for the thought. He couldn't keep fooling himself.

He could never get close to her, because it would mean risking secrets that he had tried so hard in vain to keep. Secrets that not only affected him, but Jenna as well.

Toby had never meant to be with Jenna. But he was lonely and the solace that she provided him as well as the fact that she cared for him in her own messed up way drew him to her. It was a mistake that kept repeating itself. But in his mind, Jenna was always replaced by Emily, even though he tried desperately to clear his thoughts of Emily. Toby would never be worth of her and he shouldn't even try.

After Alison had caused him to take the fall for what had happened, Toby had done a lot of thinking at reform school. No longer would he be imprisoned by his own secrets and his own past. On one day, September 1st, he had made the resolution that he was free at last. Free from the inhibitions that had held him back. He even emblazoned it as a tattoo.

So when he returned to school, the first person to fall upon his sight was Emily. It has been a year since he had seen her last, but she had changed little. Loose curls, blue dress, open honesty on her face. Still beautiful and still unattainable.

When he finally forced himself to look at her, really look at her, he saw that guilt was written all over her face. He knew that she had been in league with Alison for Jenna's accident. While he felt that Alison's actions were deliberate, he doubted Emily's were.

But now Emily was not his priority anymore. Reform school had taught him that he should live for himself, so he resolved to forget Emily as well.

But fate as always was a funny thing.

One afternoon, he had been passing by the girls' locker room and heard a commotion. He thought he heard pleading, and then heard the sickening thud of skin against skin. Cursing himself initially for getting involved, he entered the room, only to see Emily being forcibly hurt by Ben. Something in him saw red, and before he knew it, Ben was bleeding against a locker and Emily was able to escape.

When Emily came to thank him later on that night, he didn't say a word. He didn't want to. He didn't want to get involved and get hurt. But somehow from the ashes… rose the feelings he had tried so hard to bury as she turned away after thanking him.

Over the next few days, a tenuous trust began to be built between the two of them. They exchanged terse greetings, but there was something-something there.

Toby always felt he was owed something by the universe, for being punished for something he didn't do to protect someone he had felt something for long ago. But he forgave the universe when he became Emily's lab partner.

And after that, in between telescopes and goggles, an unlikely friendship began to form. Toby had always observed Emily from a distance, as if she were a remote star. But now, he could reach out to her. And he was pleased that many of his initial assumptions about Emily were right. Emily was not only beautiful but kind, sympathetic, and loyal. She shared his interests in music. It was as if the stars had aligned. She in turn recognized a wisdom in Toby beyond his years and his painful shyness which became less and less of an issue whenever they were together.

He was happier than he had ever been. He was being accepted and cared for because of who he was. But then Homecoming happened. Toby always knew at the back of his mind that it could never last. Emily harbored some feelings for Maya, the new girl, and while Emily cared for him, the doubts about him her friends had filled her ears with ended up causing her to flee from him. While running, she slipped and fell on the stairs. To his horror, she ended up unconscious. He gathered her up and took her to the hospital, leaving her with a nurse.

Then he ran away, leaving everything behind. But still he thought about Emily incessantly, wondering what she was doing, who she was with. Those few moments Toby had with her kept him going. It was enough. Anything more-well, anything more was not possible for Toby Cavanaugh. He realized long ago never to keep his hopes up, because those hopes would be inevitably dashed. Emily would never fall for him, and it was dumb enough for him to think that she ever would.

But a few months later, he ventured back to Rosewood. The cops, the reporters, even Alison's brother were waiting for him. He endured questioning for hours on end, but they became satisfied that he had nothing to do with it. Like many, many others, they realized that he was Alison's victim.

Jenna tried to reach out to him, but he rebuffed her advances. Toby didn't know really why he wanted to come home (other than for his parents who he knew had worried). Well, he did know why but he didn't want to admit it.

It was because he missed Emily. Somehow everything in his life for the past three years had always circled back to her.

Toby didn't return to school. His parents felt that an alternate one would be best, so he didn't end up seeing her every day. But yet Toby yearned.

Finally, a week after he had come home, Emily came to him.

So what is she going to say to him? Next chapter will hopefully be up soon.