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-c'est la guerre-
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Summary: "He wasn't sure who, exactly, he expected to find on his front porch, but he would've never guessed it to be the mocha-eyed brunette with the rarely visible dimples waiting there." Three-shot. Toby, as he meets someone who gives him hope. Spoby 1x16.
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I've been re-watching seasons 1 and 2 in preparation for the season 3 premiere, and the 116 Spoby scene, I felt, really just hinted at what would happen for Spence and Toby once they opened up to each other and found the solace and love they'd been searching for. So this is my interpretation of that arc, told in Toby's perspective.
Oh, and before I forget—Chris, this one's for you. Keep writing your amazing stories, and I hope you enjoy this one, and it isn't too crappy. ;) xo.
~Ana
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-un: the unexpected-
It was no secret that Toby Cavanaugh had learned to expect the unexpected.
He had never thought he could have ended up a slave—a prisoner—to his vindictive, sly stepsister ("It would be so easy to convince my Mommy and your Daddy that you've been forcing yourself on me."). Those long, terrible nights he'd spent with Jenna, her skimpy lingerie discarded, her husky voice murmuring things to him that he had no interest in hearing…he still had nightmares about them. He remembered spending an hour in the shower afterward, scrubbing himself raw, desperately trying to cleanse himself of the metaphorical filth and obscenities.
Of course, it had been the perfect secret, the perfect torment to dangle over his head, for the manipulative blonde (who now beamed out on charity fund posters and newspaper headlines and memorials, the beautiful, the loyal, the true friend, the popular) to get him (the underdog, the misunderstood, the sketchy, the creep) to frame him for blinding her with the damn grenade or bomb or whatever she and her posse had stuck in the garage.
Toby never had anticipated a year in reform school, with the real bad ones. The meth addicts, the drug dealers, the gang members. He wasn't one of them. He was actually a good guy, if you bothered getting to know him. He was smart, sensitive, and thoughtful…but his ordeal had changed him. He trusted no one.
And no one trusted him.
Half the town, maybe more, considered him a killer, a monster, a freak; and those who didn't were either high, alcoholics, babies, or didn't follow the news. People crossed the street on the opposite side when they saw him coming, although no one could prove he'd hurt anyone.
And he hadn't.
He hadn't peeked in anyone's window (how voyeuristic, not to mention psychotic), hadn't killed the infamous blonde beauty (as much as he had thought she was a vapid, shallow, insert-not-very-nice-word-here), hadn't run Hanna Marin down with an SUV (he hardly even knew her). The problem was, no one believed him.
How can you clear your name when it's been tarnished beyond repair?
In a way, he had Alison to thank for this one. And her friends. Hanna. Blond, pretty, the new "It" girl. Aria. Eccentric. She was the one smart enough to get out of Rosewood, but thoughtless enough to come back. Emily. Sweet. Shy. Who he'd considered a friend, once upon a time. And then there was Spencer. Smart. Witty. The one who'd probably cursed his name more times than everyone else in Rosewood combined.
Even he himself knew that the Hastings girl despised him to the very core.
So when there was a knock at the door, and Jenna yelled, "Toby! Someone's at the door!", he yanked it open a crack, wondering who was trying to sell them brownies or vacuum cleaners, and the "we're not buying today" froze on his tongue, the one eye peeping out of the ajar door widening slightly.
He wasn't sure who, exactly, he expected to find on his front porch, but he never would've guessed it to be the mocha-eyed brunette with the rarely visible dimples waiting there, peering at him, books clutched to her slim frame.
"Hi." She said, her voice slightly nervous, shaky. He was scaring her, just being this close to her. A stab of resentment went through him. She didn't know him, goddamn it, and she was making silent judgments and accusations about him that were totally off the mark. The Rosewood "golden girl" had probably never been told she was wrong before.
This time she was. So, so horribly wrong.
She held out a sheaf of letters, probably from the mailbox some "upstanding" Rosewood citizen searching for justice had hit. "I noticed this on the porch on my way up," she explained, shifting her weight slightly. In spite of himself, Toby was intrigued by her slightly husky voice, her unusually deep-set eyes, and, of all things, her confident, self-assured pose, even standing in the foreign territory of the boy who she'd professed hating the bane of the existence of. He wished he could be as sure of himself as Spencer. In fact, he had always envied that quality about her.
He reached out to take the letters, figuring she was attempting to be polite, and went to shut the door.
"Wait!" she interrupted. He stopped, his icy-blue eyes focused on the suddenly slightly-nervous girl in front of him through the crack. "I-I'm here to tutor you. Someone from the school called to tell you, didn't they?"
What Toby didn't know—what Spencer, too, was oblivious to—was the fact that this pivotal moment would define what came next. She could've ignored the poster in the hallway. He could have slammed the door in her face. They could have gone back to distrusting each other, to feeling no connection to each other, and everything that was to come after—the motel, the kiss, the truck, the rocking chair, the true love they both so desperately needed—would have never existed. It's the little moments in life that make the biggest impact.
But of course Toby didn't know that.
Slowly, he shut the door, pulled open the chain latch, then opened it again. A flicker of something he couldn't quite discern passed through Spencer's eyes.
He guessed with the walls she put up she was close to impossible to read.
A question hung in the air between them, stifling them with the accusations and the awkwardness and the distrust. Why?
"Why you?" he asked deliberately. If there was one thing Toby Cavanaugh didn't do, it was lie. He hated liars, hated the filthy, guilty feeling that came with it. And saying anything else, like, "Cool, let's get going" because that would be a blatant, obvious falsity. And, plus, he really wanted to know why.
There was always a motivation behind Spencer Hastings' actions.
She gave him that look again, a slight smirk crossing her face. "Because I'm in AP French." She paused, then continued, "And I volunteered."
Yeah, so you could interrogate me, he thought. Try to sniff out what happened between me and Alison—and while you're at it, the sordid details of being Jenna's plaything.
He wanted to slam the door in her face.
But he didn't.
And, while he didn't know it now, he would be so glad he didn't, years later.
But for now, their story was just beginning.