Pretty Little Liars one shots

rummaging for answers in the pages - Spanna

Not mine

Spencer pencils it in her planner because it feels a little absurd to type it in the box between "Model UN" and "Modern Political Theory" on her iPhone, and because it's not nearly so unwavering as the others. Were something important to come up on a Tuesday at 10:15 a.m., it could easily be replaced.

(Just because it hasn't yet doesn't negate the possibility; she thinks maybe that's a fallacy she learned in debate, but she can't quite remember which one. One more cup of coffee should do the trick.)

But there it is, today, the way it always is, because nothing important ever seems to fill the spaces.

And when she walks in, the bell tinkers the way it always does, and she semi-consciously smooths down her hair, and she pulls her coat a little tighter around herself. She's here to buy flowers, of course—for her hospital-free grandma, who lives several states away and needs nothing less than weekly get well wishes.

But a white lie is more sound reasoning than the truth, and anyway, Spencer's sure that her grandmother would appreciate them, were she ever to see them in person. It almost overlaps enough to count, right?

(There's probably a fallacy for that, too.)

"No way," says a voice that Spencer suspects she shouldn't recognize so immediately. "Are those the new Louboutins?"

Spencer looks down like she hadn't noticed—like she hadn't gone shoe shopping with Melissa and tucked them into her closet in the Tuesday slot, like she hasn't been thinking about this since Friday. "Oh," she says, with this smile that won't stop getting bigger. "Yeah. Yeah, they are, actually."

Here's the thing: she's stalking a girl (not stalking; conveniently stopping by a flower shop on a weekly basis, as people are wont to do) who can pronounce Louboutins and not nuclear, and it's not even a turn off. Spencer's fairly sure she hit her head on something really, really hard. Over and over. For the past four and a half months.

"You know, at this point I'm pretty sure flowers aren't gonna do the trick. I think it might be time to invest in some pull-the-plug paperwork before you lose all your money to the florist shop on the corner," Hanna says.

She also happens to be not-stalking a girl who wouldn't know tact if it threw up all over her Chanel purse, and that, Spencer has learned, is definitely saying something.

"I'm kidding," Hanna adds a moment later, reassuringly. "I mean, no way would you be able to afford those shoes if you could go broke in the next, like, thirty years."

(If there's not a fallacy about the fact that Spencer's pretty sure she's never found anything more endearing, there really should be.)

*

"Five minutes late!" Hanna says, almost before the bell is finished tinkering. "I was wondering if I should send out a search party."

Amidst all the over-exaggeration, her smile is wide, and genuine, and it dimples at the corners. "I had to finish an exam," Spencer explains, like she owes that, somehow, to the girl she is not-stalking.

"I always figured you'd know all the answers right away," Hanna says, like she's surprised, like she's thought about it. "That annoying person who finishes like an hour before everyone else because they're that prepared."

"I like double-checking," she defends. "...and occasionally triple-checking."

"Oh," Hanna says. "So you're that annoying person."

"I'm being careful," she protests immediately. And then, "Which annoying person?"

"You know, the one who would choose to spend an extra hour on an exam she already has all the right answers to."

Spencer almost points out that she wouldn't know if she had the right answers if she hadn't double-checked (triple-checked), and that it's worth forty percent of her grade, and that, okay, she didn't actually have to adjust any of her answers, but that was this time, and there's always the possibility that—

But Hanna's almost-laughing, like her protests are already written all over her face (like she can read them), and she breathes out carefully, because perhaps there are occasions she could stand not to be surrounded by a world of pre-law students who want to win almost as desperately as she does. Almost.

Still, it's only when she hears the quiet clink of the door behind her that she thinks maybe that means Hanna was waiting. For her.

(The flowers are so pretty that for a moment she almost wishes her grandmother needed them after all.)

*

This time, it's Spencer talking in a rush over the tinkering of the bell, without giving Hanna the opportunity for even so much as a hello, because she feels nervous and ridiculous and she's had about seven cups of coffee already, so her hands won't stop trembling.

"Hanna, I don't—have a grandma."

"Oh my God, she—Spencer, that stuff I said about pulling the plug, I—"

"No, no, I didn't mean that, I mean—I do have a grandma, she's just...not exactly in this zip code. Actually, she's not exactly in this state, and she hasn't been to a hospital since they removed her appendix, and considering she spent most of that time telling the doctors how to do their job, I'm pretty sure they've excommunicated her from any kind of hospitalization for the rest of her life."

"So you've been coming in every week to buy flowers for your...?" When Spencer won't fill in the gap, Hanna raises her eyebrows and folds her arms across her chest. "C'mon, Spence, you're not gonna hold out on me, right? Spill. Does your secret lover have a name? If you're gonna go all Romeo and Juliet on me, you should totally hit up an emergency room to check for signs of breathing before you get poison involved. And if you don't get any responses to three hundred and sixty-five letters, go for an in person visit, okay?"

"In person really isn't the problem," Spencer says dryly, almost under her breath, and Hanna just looks at her.

She's still looking at her when Spencer grabs one of the pre-made arrangements, and pulls out her wallet, and hands her the credit card, and she's looking at her when she says thank you for the flowers, and Spencer never looks back.

(A Hasting takes what she wants, she hears over the tinkering of the bell, but she thinks this may be the first exam she forgot to study for.)

*

It's Tuesday, and she has forty-five extra minutes.

It's Tuesday, and the 10:15 a.m. slot is filled only with white space, accented by the sharp outline of its border, and it's a little bit suffocating.

It's Tuesday, and for every step she takes she tells herself once that she's on her way to Starbucks.

(And if she turns right here, she'll cut off a block and a half, which is at least three hundred and thirty-seven extra steps, and diagonal across the corner means saving at least another sixty-three, and, honestly, it's only logic that finds her standing beside the shop that isn't scrawled in pencil beneath 10:15.)

It's Tuesday, and the bell tinkers like it always does, even when she's ten minutes late for an appointment she's never actually made, even when she's asking how do you feel about dinner? to fill up the space with something that definitely isn't coffee.

"That almost sounds like a date," Hanna says after she finishes looking at her, and she's not smiling, but she sort of sounds like she is.

"And if I wanted it to sound entirely like a date?"

"You might need a little more of this," Hanna says, and she leans into the space between them and kisses her soundly, fingers curling just a little around the back of her neck. "And you might need two tickets for the Justin Bieber Experience."

Spencer laughs, then, mostly because Hanna's not joking, and because Spencer might even be willing to accommodate her.

It's Tuesday, and maybe her planner could use a little less pencil.