PROMPT: Spence has a dangerous plan to catch -A, once and for all but toby's protective instincts kick in and he doesnt think its a good idea so he goes with her. Toby and spencer together on a 'mission'

A/N: So, I'm trying really hard to write this from a perspective that won't interfere too much with my Season 4 story that I started writing. I really don't want to crossover into that territory and ruin the course of that plot for myself. So this is sort of an AU of the end of 3B, but it will still accomplish what the prompt asks for. It will need some groundwork laid out so I can set the stage, so it will probably be like a three-shot.

UNDRESS THESE BEAUTIFUL LIES

Jason DiLaurentis had never been very good at playing the role of the older brother. He'd teased Alison mercilessly throughout the entire course of their childhood and her short-lived teenage years, unable – or perhaps just unwilling – to truly appreciate the concept of family and its subsequent meaning of looking out for one another.

If only he had paid more heed to the sort of trouble she was getting into. If he had opened his goddamn blood-shot stoner eyes for two seconds, perhaps he would have seen a silent cry for help.

Instead he pushed her and taunted her just as badly as whoever had chosen to ultimately end her life.

But he had something of a clean slate when it came to Spencer. Though he had only known about their true relation for a short time, he had found himself unwittingly clinging to the only family that was viably in his reach. His parents were off doing God-knows-what. He rarely spoke to them these days, and had positively no idea what they were doing or even what country they were in. Not that it mattered much, anyway. They hadn't had a true, authentic conversation since Ali's disappearance. Every exchange was superficially succinct, and oftentimes was more painful than simply ignoring one another.

But Spencer was here, in Rosewood. She had grown up over the years and somehow branched away from the family tree, denouncing most of the qualities that made a Hastings a Hastings. She'd been one of the only people to bother reaching out to him when he needed it most, and it was his turn to repay the favor.

So when Emily had tipped him off in a text that Spencer had just finished spending the better part of the past two weeks in Radley Sanatorium on a volunteer basis, he did not even think twice. He had packed his bags with what little he had to fill them, and his own safety be damned, had immediately hopped on 476 North to return to the tiny town with which he had developed the notoriously intense love-hate relationship.

He did not even stop at home before marching up to her door. It was no surprise to find that neither Melissa nor her parents were at home; it was rare that they dropped what they were doing to actually check in on the youngest Hastings.

He felt his heart contract tightly with sympathy. This was precisely why he and Spencer needed one another.

The niceties of knocking escaped him as the adrenaline rush began to kick in. He was barging through the back door like he owned the place, ready to launch into a diatribe about how furious he was with her for not calling him when she clearly needed his help.

But when he saw her curled up on the couch beneath an afghan, her usually pristine hair ruffled into an unkempt mane and her ivory skin sallow and gaunt beyond recognition, his voice got caught in his throat.

She looked toward him, her toffee colored eyes hollow and unfeeling. When his identity began to dawn upon her, however, a new light seemed to flash dimly in their depths, like a candle lost out at sea.

"Jason," she breathed, "you shouldn't be here."

He pressed his mouth into a thin line of concern, taking a hesitant seat beside her. "We're family. Where else should I be?"

She made a barking noise in the back of her throat, akin to a bitter laugh. "How about far away, keeping your distance from Mona and her band of bastards?"

"I can handle Mona," he insisted waspishly. "I'm here to make sure you're okay."

"Define 'okay'," she declared, a dark, sardonic smile marring her pretty face. If he was being honest, the foreign expression gave him a bit of a chill.

"Spencer," he began impatiently, "the last time I talked to you before I left, you were bound and determined to completely destroy the integrity of Ali's memory. I was mad at you for a while, but I've had a lot of time to think while I've been away." He studied her face carefully, taking particular note of how her eyes flickered away from his as he continued. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm starting to think something happened. Something that was bad enough to change everything you ever used to believe."

She did not reply, but simply strung her fingers together anxiously in her lap, her eyes cast firmly downward at the rug in front of the hearth. Upon instinct, he reached out to take one of her unusually blistered hands, holding it tightly in his own as if to send her strength through this simple contact. "You can trust me, Spencer."

There was a pregnant pause. She took a deep, labored breath and exhaled sharply before she spoke.

"Toby's dead."

Jason's internal organs did a bizarre sort of cartwheel, as if he'd just undergone a loop-the-loop on a roller coaster. Words escaped him for only a moment; once he found his voice, he asked what was probably the most insulting question possible.

"Are you sure?"

She did not scoff or roll her eyes at the inquiry, as he had rather expected. Instead, she puckered her lips to the side thoughtfully, pulling her hand away from his embrace. Her arms curled around her midsection shakily, as though she were trying to retain some dwindling amount of body heat.

"No."

Her response perplexed him, despite the fact that he'd been the one to ask the pathetic question in the first place.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean…I saw the body. I was one hundred percent sure it was his, but then Mona came to see me and smashed apart the puzzle I'd been piecing together in my head." She sighed dramatically. "I don't know. Maybe I really am just going crazy."

"Maybe you are," he said vaguely, studying the way the flames danced across one another in the fireplace. "But sometimes just the right amount of crazy is what it takes to finally see things rationally. Not everything fits into logical little pigeonholes. Sometimes you need to be out of your mind to get out of the box."

He could feel her gaze burning into the side of his head, but he did not meet her eyes. Instead he continued to focus forward in the thick air of quietude, waiting for her to speak.

"Thank you," she said quietly, "for not sugar coating it, like everyone else has."

There was a moment of comfortable silence that settled between the two of them, before he asked the question that had been itching relentlessly at the back of his mind.

"So what are you going to do?"

Their eyes locked together for a moment, pale teal mingling with soft mocha. Then, at long last, she replied.

"If you can't beat them, join them," she whispered.

He knew he shouldn't ask her to elaborate. He had a pretty good idea of what she was intending to do, and it would probably be best for her to spare him the details. The more he knew about her plan, the less he was going to like it.

But he had never been very good about following gut instincts.

"What are you getting at?" he murmured slowly, his voice laced with uncertainty.

She rose to her feet, and for the first time since he arrived, he noticed how much weight she'd lost. In truth, there wasn't much to be lost in the first place – her hoodie and yoga pants were hanging limply off her body like she was a pre-teen wearing her sister's two-sizes-too-big hand-me-downs. She looked sickly; and the sight made his heart ache like a newly formed bruise.

"I convinced Mona to let me in," she explained hastily, reaching beneath the couch cushion to unearth a black zip-up sweatshirt. She draped it over the front of her body to give him the proper idea, and when he did not react the way she wanted, she began to ramble once more. "I'm going to tear the A-Team apart from the inside out. I just have to figure out what she has on everyone and completely eradicate her leverage."

There was a moment in which neither of them spoke, simply staring the other down to gauge the reaction. They had never explicitly revealed their knowledge of 'A' to the other, despite the fact that they had both been hinting at it for the past year. It had been something of a 'don't ask, don't tell' scenario in which neither wanted to be the first to bring it up; but they both knew, without asking, that the other was well aware of the team's existence.

"I know you've always been a bit of a risk-taker, Spence," he started slowly, his eyes still locked on the onyx-colored material she held against her chest. "But this sounds pretty dangerous."

She laughed darkly, and the sound was devoid of any actual mirth. "Jason, Mona has taken everything from me. My boyfriend is dead. My friends are strangers." He searched the depths of her eyes for a sign of ambivalence, but he found none. The confidence that emanated from her soul was brimming with frightening conviction, and he actually felt a layer of gooseflesh pop out along the lengths of his arms.

She took a deep breath. "What do I really have to lose?"

The sound of the door shutting next door shook him from his reverie, and he was launched violently back to Earth. He watched silently from the window as the blond man stepped out of the house and traversed across the shared yard space, eager to return to his own home. The phantom backed carefully out of the window's frame, as silent and undetectable as a black cat slinking into the shadows, his breath hitched in his lungs.

Things were about to get very ugly very quickly, if he did not think fast. He had not expected Jason to be home so soon. He had not considered a course of action for this event. Part of him knew he should run; but the other part was tired of evading anyone and everyone that could possibly contribute to his cause.

Before he had time to formulate a conceivable plan in his frazzled brain, the door was swinging open. Jason stepped inside and moved to flick on the light switch, his puzzled expression visible even in the dark as it failed to comply.

"Well that's just perfect," he muttered to himself, dropping his keys unceremoniously on the coffee table with a loud clatter. He collapsed into a sitting position on the couch, cradling his head in his hands thoughtfully. Something was troubling him with a vengeance, and he was clearly struggling to make sense of the frenzy of thoughts that rivaled even Speed Racer's greatest hits.

The man in hiding chose this moment to step out of the shadows and into the beam of moonlight that peaked between the curtains, dropping his hood to reveal his identity before the elder's panic set in.

Jason's eyes met his, and there was a moment of silence in which they competed in a quiet staring contest of cerulean exchange. If Spencer's brother was alarmed by his presence, he did not indicate it.

"What are you doing here?" the blond asked with quiet neutrality, as though it were as commonplace as running into someone he didn't quite want to see at the grocery store.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, taking a hesitant step closer when he was sure Jason would not act out in hostility. "I didn't have anywhere else to go. Mona thinks I'm dead, and I'd like to keep it that way."

Jason rubbed his hand across his mouth wearily. "She thinks you're dead, too, you know." He didn't have to specify. The man in the moonlight was quite aware that he was referring to Spencer.

He sighed heavily as the guilt weighed down upon him, and nodded in quiet agreement. "I know."

Jason's jaw twitched involuntarily, his eyes burning daggers into the younger's frame. "I've never seen her so broken, Toby. I hope to God there's a reasonable explanation for all of this."

"There is," Toby reassured quickly. He wanted to approach the older man to close some of the awkward distance, but he feared that the space was all that was keeping Jason from delivering a well deserved right-hook to his jaw. "I'm trying to get enough information to destroy Mona."

"And you have to squat in my house to do that?" Jason asked peevishly.

"There's been valuable ammunition under Alison's floor boards before," Toby reasoned gently, and he knew Jason would understand precisely what he meant. "Forgive me. I needed to dig a little deeper."

He took a deep breath. "And Spencer?"

Her name always struck him in the heart like some well-aimed arrow puncturing its bulls-eye. He tried to ignore the dull ache that ensued.

"I'm doing this so that I can protect her."

Jason's eyes narrowed immediately, his face a mask of incredulity. "You're doing a great job," he muttered, voice dripping with sarcasm.

Toby stepped closer to the window, peeling back the curtain to gaze in the direction of the Hastings house. He could see her traipsing into the kitchen for a glass of water, her appearance as disheveled as ever. This always stung like some sort of collage of paper cuts. "I understand it looks bad," he offered hoarsely, "but it was the only way."

Jason followed his eyes for a moment before snapping his vision back to him, the cogs locking into place. "You've been watching over her."

Toby nodded silently. "When I can. It was harder when she was away."

Jason's glare was like pure electricity now, and Toby literally felt a shiver travel down the length of his spine at the intensity of the elder's menacing eyes.

"Away? You know where 'away' was, don't you?"

The venom with which he asked the question gave Toby pause. He turned to survey Jason's expression, a morbid sort of curiosity bubbling in his chest.

"She was committed to Radley, Toby. And after her psychiatric evaluation was over, she stayed. Willingly."

It was as though somebody had reached into his chest cavity and squeezed his heart with such force that it had begun to bleed openly. Involuntary tears pricked at the corners of his eyes, and he turned back toward the window to hide his reaction from the blond man behind him.

"All the more reason to get rid of Mona, once and for all," he declared with as much confidence as he could muster, though the falter in his voice betrayed his conviction.

There was another pregnant pause.

"She's planning to do the same thing, you know," Jason began quietly. Much of the poison had dwindled from his tone, and Toby was uncomfortably certain that he had seen the pain in his expression. "She joined the A-Team. She thinks she can take Mona down, all by herself."

Toby spun around to face him once more, all other thoughts wiped clean from the forefront of his mind. He studied Jason thoroughly, assessing the legitimacy of his claim. When the man didn't even so much as blink, the gravity of the announcement began to settle in Toby's stomach like sour milk.

"She can't," he breathed. "She'll get herself killed."

Jason took a deep breath, standing slowly to join Toby at the window. He, too, watched across the yard to see the dull roar of the fire dimming in the Hastings living room, his own protective instincts rearing up to join Toby's.

When the blond man spoke once more, his voice was as slick as ice.

"Well, then I guess it's time you put all the ammo you've been collecting to the test."

TO BE CONTINUED