Chapter Text
‘No, I'm not doing it.'
Spencer was fucking outraged. This plan was an awful idea. She was not being handcuffed to Mona Vanderwaal for a whole day, that is if they could last the day without murdering each other that was.
'C'mon Spence, it's just for one day. And it's really important, we need to know if we can trust her.'
She fumed at Hanna, who was failing to convince her that she was needed for the plan. Why did she have to do it anyway, Hanna could certainly do it. At least she liked Mona. Trust her? Ha. Mona couldn't be trusted. Bitch crazy. And frankly one day was too many, she refused to do it. Nothing could convince her that this was a good idea.
'Please Spencer, she means a lot to me. I just want to give her a chance, please give her a chance.'
Curse Hanna and her puppy dog eyes. Oh she was going to regret this.
_
Spencer felt a cold shiver run down her spine, as the freezing metal wrapped around her wrist clicked shut.
There was no going back now.
She had known about this but they hadn't told Mona. She had been lured to her house under the false pretences of picking Hanna up to take her to work. Hanna's car had apparently “broken down”, despite it sitting in the driveway looking perfectly unbroken.
She could feel Mona standing perfectly still under Emily's grip, not even trying to get away. Spencer guessed that she really did want them to trust her, and if she tried to escape she would look suspicious.
'I'm sorry Mona, it's for your own good, we need to know for certain.'
Mona scowled at Hanna, who had just locked the cuffs. She looked down at her right hand that was locked to Spencer's left. She then scowled at the side of Spencer's face.
It was safe to say she wasn't happy. To be fair, Spencer wasn't exactly jumping for joy either.
Aria took the key from Hanna, attached it to a chain and put it around her neck with all her other equally eclectic looking necklaces. The key didn't even look out of place amongst them, in fact it was the most ordinary.
'Okay for the next twenty-four hours you two will be attached at the hip, or more accurately the wrist.'
She and the other girls chuckled while Mona and Spencer shared a look, not finding the joke as amusing. Aria stiffened her giggles at the sight of their expressions.
'All messages you receive and send Mona, will be checked by Spencer. You are to go and do everything together.'
Mona raised her eyebrow at this.
'Well we don't have a choice otherwise do we?'
The girls simply smirked at her. The door was then loudly opened and Alison strode in, and at the sight of the two of them began laughing hysterically. Mona raised her cuffed hand, pulling Spencer's hand with her, and flipped Alison off with it. Which only resulted in Alison laughing more at them, annoying the both of them even more.
The girls then promptly left off to whatever jobs or plans they had that day. Leaving Mona and Spencer alone. She supposed she would have to get used to this if she was chained to her for the next, she looked down at her watch and sighed.
Twenty-three hours and three quarters left.
Mona grabbed her wrist and turned Spencer's watch towards her, also to check the time. Her hand felt nice and warm and it reminded her of Toby's constantly cold hands. She didn't like his cold hands, it was one of the few things she had complained about while they were together.
Mona then stood up abruptly. Forcibly pulling Spencer up too. To her embarrassment she made a rather inelegant yelp as she was dragged. Mona then started tugging her around the house, picking up her purse and phone from the counter. She began to head for the door and Spencer decided this had gone on long enough.
'Stop. Where are we going?'
Spencer dug her heels into the ground, causing Mona to fall forward slightly before readjusting. This handcuff thing was already getting old.
'I have work.’ Mona informed her with a slight sneer. ‘So, chop chop, let's go.'
She started walking again and Spencer allowed herself to be pulled along towards the door. Then a thought occurred to her.
'What work? You don't have work on Tuesdays.'
Since they sort of worked at the same company, Spencer was able to enlist Caleb's help and managed to hack into Mona's email. This allowed them to find a day when both of them were free, so the plan could easily go ahead.
Working with Caleb had been sort of awkward, because of their breakup. For her it'd brought up unwanted memories of while they had been dating. He had been a great boyfriend but secretly she'd always known that if pressed to choose Caleb would choose Hanna, and she was right.
Mona looked sheepishly away from Spencer and uncharacteristically mumbled her answer. Spencer had to lean in close to her to hear properly.
'On Tuesdays, I teach a class at the community centre. On computer science, and how to use computers safely. It's for elderly people.'
Huh.
She wasn't expecting that. Truthfully she had no idea what Mona did in her free time, she had just thought she sat at home plotting or something.
But teaching old people? That definitely wasn't something she thought she'd do. Unless it was a cover and she'd find out if it was soon enough, maybe there was more to Mona than Spencer initially thought.
And to her surprise she was actually kind of interested in finding out. Mona intrigued her in a way she couldn't really properly describe, she was a mystery to her. And by now Spencer was pretty good at solving mysteries.
After they decided it safer to walk than to attempt to drive, they ran into their first problem; the weather.
Spencer was wearing a thick jumper so she could probably do without a coat, but Mona was wearing a not exactly thermal dress. It was a nice dress, it was covered in flowers and had a cute little white collar. But it really wasn't suited for walking out in the cold.
So Spencer loaned Mona an old coat of hers. Then after realising she couldn't actually put it on, she draped it over her shoulders like a cloak. It looked very big on her, like she was covered in a blanket. The sleeves hung well past her hands and the bottom reached her mid thigh.
The sight of her drowning under that coat brought a smile to her face. Oddly she managed to pull it off, looking almost regal in her makeshift coat. But that wasn't hard, Mona could pull off a lot.
She was annoyingly pretty in that way.
Annoyingly pretty. Spencer wondered where on earth that had come from. Sure, she could see Mona was objectively attractive, she had eyes after all. And maybe she had appreciated her ass a few times, tastefully though, she was a leering teenage boy after all.
It didn't matter though, everyone had a secret same sex crush. Even Melissa, who admired Audrey Hepburn a bit too much in her opinion. But she'd never thought anything like that before. After all she wasn't Emily.
Maybe this experience really was a bad idea.
_
They walked in a comfortable silence, strolling past houses and watching cars speed past them. A cold wind followed them as they walked, Spencer noticed it left Mona's cheeks flushed from the cold.
Cute.
Their steps fell into sync with each other and arms swung to the same rhythm. Like they were doing a three-legged race.
It felt nice.
Their hands kept accidentally brushing as they walked. Despite the cold, Mona's hands still felt warm to touch. Spencer could feel her cheeks redden for some reason, she told herself it was the weather.
This was definitely nicer than driving.
_
She felt sort of sad when they reached the community centre. It seemed to taunt her with its bland white walls, and the 'Rosewood Community Centre' sign almost looked to stick its tongue out at her as they walked past it.
The picture they must have made was probably worthy of a frame. Two girls handcuffed together, one wearing an oversized coat over her shoulders and the other a whole head taller than the first.
They must have looked like they were doing a comedy bit on SNL.
She could see the receptionist stretching her head over the desk, catching sight of them and ducking back under the desk, shoulders shaking with stifled laughter. Mona noticed the laughing woman behind the desk and rolled her eyes.
'Laugh it up Celia, I'm going to my class.'
She tugged Spencer past the desk and towards the corridor on the left. Celia's laughter could be heard echoing down the hallway.
Mona led them down a nondescript hallway, passing door after door. The only difference being the number that was on the door. They stopped right at the end of the hallway, at door number thirteen.
While an omen for some, thirteen was actually Spencer's lucky number.
Maybe it was a sign. Not that she was really all that convinced on astronomy stuff or stuff happening for “a reason”. But little things like this, perhaps were just coincidences, however something in her mind convinced her otherwise.
The class, like Mona said generally consisted of older men and women, the youngest looked about her father's age and the oldest looked like he was pushing ninety.
The group seemed thoroughly tickled pink by Spencer's literal attachment to Mona. Who tried her hardest to keep the class focused, but by the end had caught their amusement, giggling with the rest of the class whenever they had to move around in tandem.
Spencer liked seeing her laugh. She had a nice laugh, it was light and reminded her of summer. It was warm, and it made her feel sort of warm inside when she looked at it, like if she was at the beach and lying in the sun.
Her natural smile was pretty and toothy, nothing like the closed mouth smirks she usually dolled out. Although, there was something about those smirks that made her heart beat a little faster.
She was a good teacher, Spencer thought as the class began to pack up. She was patient with everyone, and explained everything clearly as many times as she needed to.
'Alright everyone, remember the homework, make a PowerPoint presentation on your favourite things.' Mona announced, then whipped around and sternly pointed at a man in an orange bucket hat who was rubbing his hands and chuckling.
'Nothing inappropriate, Leonard I'm talking to you.'
'Ah, busted.' The old man replied as he shuffled out. She laughed at the interaction, as Mona rolled her eyes good-naturedly at the man.
Mona turned back to packing up her own things from the desk, Spencer let her hand get pulled wherever Mona needed. Over her shoulder Spencer could see an old woman she vaguely recognised, holding a purple purse shuffling up to them.
The woman riffled through the purse, and brought out a small picture, she looked at Mona, then over to Spencer addressing her. She spoke quietly, like she wanted to have a private word with Spencer. Of course they couldn't actually have a private word, so this was as good as it was going to get.
'You two remind me of my daughter and her girlfriend when they were younger.'
She gave Spencer the picture, it was slightly yellowing but the picture was still visible. It was of two young women, sitting on a bench, just smiling at each other.
It was a simple picture but it was beautifully candid. She reached out her hand to give back the photo but the woman shook her head.
'You keep it, thanks to Mona here I can look at all the photos I want on my new computer.'
She then shuffled out of the room, her purse and computer case in hand. Mona, now fully packed up, peered over Spencer's shoulder to look at the picture. She was so close Spencer could smell her perfume, it was flowery and tantalising.
'That's Doris' daughter and her girlfriend, they're getting married in the spring. Apparently they've been together since they were in their twenties.'
It was a sweet story, Spencer was glad it was going well for them. But Doris' words rang in her head, she wasn't gay, and she certainly wasn't going to be going out with Mona any time soon. Just because she had enjoyed her company so far does not mean she was about to start dating her.
She could do worse though.
Spencer picked up the coat and flung it again over Mona. She brushed some, only slightly imaginary fluff off the shoulder and they walked out the classroom.
She held the photo in her hand, her pockets were too small to fit it in anyway. She sighed inwardly at the state of women’s clothing, her jeans couldn’t even hold her house keys, let alone photographs.
'I have a picture of them too, you know.' Mona said in a low tone, pointing at the photo with her left hand.
Her nails were long, unlike Spencer's because she had a habit of biting them down to stubs when she was stressed. They were painted dark red, maybe Spencer mused Mona could paint hers, a blue perhaps.
'Doris saw me arguing with someone, and in our next class said the two of us reminded her of when her daughter first met her girlfriend. Apparently they hated each other to begin with.'
She gave a small throaty laugh. Spencer could hardly imagine the two girls hating each other, they seemed so in love in her picture.
They walked past the reception and Mona waved to Celia behind the desk, who pulled out a phone and snapped a photo of them. Spencer almost wanted to shout to Celia to email her the photo, but she stayed quiet.
'The funny thing is, I can't remember who I argued with. So guess I'll never know who my Doris-approved match is.'
She spoke with a lit in her voice and Spencer suddenly realised where she remembered Doris and her purple purse from.
She could picture it perfectly; Spencer and Mona were stood outside the Hastings' residence, engaged in a heated argument about -A. It was the middle of the day so there was no one around, but an old woman sitting on a bench nearby. A purple purse sat on the grass by her feet.
When the argument ended, Spencer stormed into her house, but stayed in the living room so she could watch Mona through the window. Mona started walking away from the house, looking not annoyed, but hurt from Spencer's words.
She was waved over by the old woman, and Mona had a brief, friendly looking chat before stalking away down the street. Looking a little bit lighter than she did when Spencer stormed off. Spencer had assumed the woman was a relative or family friend, why else would a sweet old lady talk so kindly to Mona Vanderwaal?
In light of this new, much nicer Mona she was seeing. The one who taught old people and smiled so sweetly, she would definitely have to reconsider her opinion on the girl. Maybe Hanna was right, and she had changed. But she still had no evidence she wasn't working with -A yet, so that'd have to wait.
As they walked past the park, Mona's phone started to ring in her pocket. They stopped so she could fish it out, with only mild difficulty this time. Spencer saw it as a win, they were getting better at this.
She showed Spencer the phone, prompting Spencer to remember the agreement that she had to oversee any interaction Mona had, in person and on the phone.
The contact name said 'Maman', definitely not -A. So she nodded and Mona answered the call. She supposed she was technically allowed to go through Mona's phone, to look for anything that could link her to -A. Although that would have to come later.
'Salut máma, nous venons de terminer.'
Mona paused, chewing her lip as she listened to the response.
She knew from Hanna, that Mona and her mother generally spoke to each other in French. It was to do with Mona’s máma moving to France when she was little, or something like that. She had never really been interested in hearing Hanna talk about Mona before. Well on the rare occasions she did around the group anyway.
But now she wished she had listened, Mona had piqued her curiosity and Spencer Hastings hated not knowing things.
She tried to understand what Mona was saying, but her French was a bit rusty. It had always been her worst subject, apart from Art but she didn’t count that. So she was content to just listen to how the words flowed from Mona's lips.
'Oh mon Dieu, j'ai complètement oublié.' Her eyes widened. 'Je demanderai.'
She lowered the phone and looked up at Spencer. She fiddled with the cuff on her wrist, twisting the band and playing with the chain.
'Today, I was supposed to go for lunch with my mom, and I completely forgot. I can cancel if you want?'
Mona was actually asking her? That was oddly considerate. But by the hesitation in her face, she didn't really look like she wanted to cancel that much, which was surprising. If Spencer had the choice she would avoid going out with her mother like the plague. But clearly they had a different relationship than the cold and distant Hastings, most families did after all.
She was kind of interested in meeting Mona's máma. According to her mother Leona was a pretty pleasant woman, who did a lot of community work around town. If all that was true, how could such an apparently lovely woman raise a child such as Mona?
'No it's fine, I'm kind of hungry anyway.'
Mona smiled at her, revealing her front teeth. It made Spencer strangely pleased that she was the one to make her smile this much.
Maybe Mona wasn't so bad after all.
Mona turned back to her phone, and from what she could pick up from her rapid response, she said they would be over in about ten minutes.
'So, where are we going?'
Mona tugged slightly at the cuffs, prompting Spencer to start walking. She smirked at the question.
'It's a surprise.'
Ugh. She was not a fan of surprises. But this wasn't an -A thrown surprise so it probably wouldn't result in her getting food poisoning or something.
Spencer let Mona lead the way again, this time she had even less of an idea where they were going. At least before she knew where the community centre was, she had no idea which restaurant they were going to.
They passed familiar locations on the way. Passing the club the Hastings' frequented, the ancient library, which everyone joked was built in the nineteenth century, and several restaurants along the way.
Whenever they passed one, Spencer would ask her if it was that one and Mona would pull a coy expression and shake her head. It felt suspiciously like a friendly game. She was actually enjoying Mona's company. Which, if she was told that yesterday she would have laughed directly in that person's face.
She actually thought she could like Mona, as a friend, obviously, regardless of what Doris said.
She just liked having the company, it reminded her of being in a relationship.
_
Mona stopped outside a small café. The building was sandwiched between a second hand clothes shop and a surprisingly clean looking tattoo studio. Outside the cafe on the patio, there were a few tables set out underneath a red and white striped awning.
It was reminiscent of a cafe one could find in Paris. One that looked like all the others but contained something unique that you couldn’t find anywhere else; like the perfect bowl of French onion soup.
The sign read 'Blanchette Rosewood' in big cursive letters. It was a quaint looking place, she could definitely see Mona eating at a place like this.
It felt oddly familiar.
She looked down at a menu on the table in front of her and suddenly remembered that she'd been to this café before. Her father took her when she said she wanted to practise ordering in French, in preparation for their holiday to France.
She remembered it being nice, the food and service had been excellent.
Although she kind of hoped they wouldn't remember her. When they got their meal, her father had demanded for the chef, and to her utter embarrassment, had patronisingly told the French chef that the croque monsieur was cooked wrong.
As they left she had heard the employees whispering to each other. And from what she picked up it wasn't nice things about her father, she heard many variations of the phrase, 'Putain d'Américains'. It felt pretty justified, so she hadn't told her father what she heard. If she had, the café would have been shut down quicker than the click of his fingers, and they didn't deserve that.
A bell rang as they walked through the door into the café, and a girl about their age bounded over to them with a wide smile. Mona reached to hug her, forgetting that Spencer was attached to her and Spencer jolted forward, losing her balance. As Spencer fell, of course so did Mona, and she landed on top of Spencer.
Still sprawled on the floor, Mona pushed her upper body off Spencer's then looked at her. Their eyes met. In Mona's dark eyes, Spencer could see awkwardness and a slight hint of something she knew was reflected in her own eyes.
'Woah Mona, je ne savais pas que tu étais si pervers.'
Mona blushed deeply, the flush ran from one ear to the other and down her neck. It looked strangely attractive. Spencer wondered if the blush ran down to her chest, briefly glancing at Mona's chest before looking away.
Nope, she wasn't going there.
Mona clambered off Spencer, balancing on the balls of her feet as she reached out her cuffed hand to help pull Spencer up. When they were both standing again they were still stood very close. Spencer nervously laughed from the back of her throat and stepped out a little from Mona, before anything else weird happened.
'It was a bet. Get your head out of the gutter. '
Mona blurted out, to the girl's amusement, who just raised her eyebrows and laughed. It was Spencer’s turn to blush as she figured out what the girl must have said.
The girl's name, she learned, was Camille and she occasionally helped out at the café, which her parents owned. There weren't many staff, as it was a small cafe but Mona was very friendly with everyone, calling out to all of them by name, all of whom responded in an equally friendly way.
Clearly Mona and her mother were frequent patrons there, maybe even being the cafe's favourite customers. Some noticed Spencer, and one eagle eyed man saw the handcuffs and shot Mona a confused expression. She waved her hand back as if to say 'I'll explain later'.
Mona's máma was sat in the corner in a small booth, her back faced the rest of the café. Mona slid into the seat facing her and Spencer was forced to follow.
Mona’s hand was crossed awkwardly over her body, clearly she had forgotten about the handcuffs. How she had forgotten baffled Spencer, considering what had just happened. But regardless they got out again and Spencer was let in first.
Hanna had once commented how much Mona looked like her máma, and now Spencer had met Leona she could attest to that statement. They had the same sharp cheekbones, large brown eyes and eerily, the same way of holding themselves. Though Mona had a more intimidating air than Leona, it was clear beyond doubt they were related.
Leona's eyes shot between Mona to Spencer, then back to Mona again. Her eyebrows were drawn in confusion. Mona held up her arm, revealing their handcuffed hands. This only seemed to confuse Leona more.
'Pourquoi êtes-vous menotté à Spencer Hastings?'
She placed emphasis on 'Spencer Hastings', which didn't exactly reassure her that she was welcome at this lunch.
In everything that happened today, she got so wrapped up in discovering Mona, she forgot about the not exactly positive reputation she and the girls had within the town. Almost paralleling Toby’s old reputation, they were the people you wanted to avoid if you wanted to stay safe.
It also probably also didn't help her case that Ali had bullied Mona for years, which Leona had tried to combat, but was given little help by the school. While it was mostly Ali as the front runner, the rest of them at best tolerated it, and at worst encouraged it, sometimes doing Ali’s dirty work. Like putting nasty things in Mona’s locker or spreading cruel rumours.
She wasn’t exactly innocent in that regard.
'Ils savent ainsi qu'ils peuvent me faire confiance.'
Mona replied, Spencer assumed she told Leona the truth rather than the excuse that “it was a bet” they had been doling out all day. Leona looked slightly angry at Mona's words and turned her attention to Spencer. Glaring at her the way Mona usually glared, eyes steeled and jaw set.
'After all Mona has done for you girls, how on earth can you not trust her?'
Spencer actually felt quite intimidated by Leona, as she shrank back in her seat. She looked to her left at Mona, who didn't look like she was about to jump in and save Spencer any time soon. Her face was stony, but Spencer could see a hint of apprehension, as if her answer could make or break the lunch.
She was getting quite good at reading Mona, though whether that was a good thing was up for debate.
She considered her answer. They had very good reason as to not trust her, she had tortured them and hit her supposed best friend with a car. But that was many years ago, and especially after the Dollhouse Mona had gone very much out of her way to help them.
It was tricky to say the least.
'It's just a precaution, we didn't want to keep her at arms length anymore.'
It was a lie, only Hanna had believed she could be trusted and even that was sort of half-hearted. Everyone else, including her, had been perfectly happy to kick her to the curb anytime, guilt free.
She was now having reservations about that, if they did end up kicking her out it wouldn't be guilt free anymore. And maybe it wasn’t right to send her away, she was very helpful. They had, after all, forgiven Toby for being on the -A team, and Ezra for being a low-key paedophile.
While she possibly couldn’t forgive Mona for what she had done in the past yet, they could at least trust her now. Right?
Leona looked to Mona for confirmation on Spencer's words, Mona shook her hand side to side while grimacing. Which neither backed up Spencer's claim nor outwardly denied it. Luckily it seemed enough to placate Leona for the time being.
Camille came over to the table to take their orders and the storm cloud that was resting over the table lifted, and the mood brightened. Mother and daughter made a big show of pretending not to know what to order, pointing at the menus and asking mock questions about the dishes.
'So a mushroom galette, an entrecôte, a café au lait and diabolo fraise.' Camile said while pretending to be annoyed.
They nodded and mischievously smiled at each other, clearly this was a game they regularly played.
'And for you?' Camile said expectantly.
By watching their game she had completely forgotten to decide what to order. She looked down at the menu, and the words swirled around becoming unreadable.
'She'll have the boeuf bourguignon and a diabolo fraise.'
Mona answered for her, and Spencer shot her a grateful smile. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Leona and Camille raise their eyebrows at each other. Camile left the table to deliver the order and Spencer was struck with a thought.
Mona had ordered her something she'd thought Spencer would like. After her time as -A, she might have even known one of Spencer’s favourite meals was beef casserole. She hadn't ordered something that would have been repulsive, like cooked snails or something.
Lunch was nice, the food was to die for and Leona seemed to warm to Spencer, but she still felt awkward. It wasn't their fault, these lunches were obviously something they did together. It was clearly something very personal to the two of them and Spencer felt like she was interrupting that.
She tried to think if she did anything like that with her family. Apart from eating at the club together sometimes, they didn't really do a lot together. They just weren't a very close family.
While she watched Mona talk with her máma, she felt a pang of yearning, she wished she could have this. This close familial bond they shared. She was really only close with the girls, and even then it could be a bit iffy.
Sure they hung out, but not not in the way they used to. The way they did before Ali went missing. They didn't hang out for the sake of hanging out, there was always something to discuss, some new relationship drama or -A plot to manage.
After they finished eating, the bill was delivered by an older man. possibly Camille's dad. He placed it down on the table, as Mona and her máma giggled at the hair style of a woman walking outside.
Mona and her máma had so many little games which were all just so endearing. Spencer didn't really understand them, but they were inside jokes. That was kind of the point.
Admittedly Mona had tried to explain some of them, but some were sort of hard to explain without being there, or were just sort of silly. And one of them just made no sense when Mona had tried to explain a French based game they played, in English language terms.
She tried to recall if she had any inside jokes with either of her parents or Melissa. They did play Star Power, but that was basically a thinly veiled ploy to one up each other. So perhaps not then.
Another seemingly suggestive comment was made to Mona in French by the man who bought the bill. She assumed that based on the way Leona smirked at Mona's simultaneous scowl and blush.
Outside they bade goodbye to Leona, who was going back to work, and Spencer realised she had no idea what they were going to do next. Everything so far had been orchestrated by Mona. Luckily Mona was two steps ahead of her, as usual.
'Since I assume I'm sleeping over at yours, can we go over to mine to get some overnight stuff?'
Oh god.
She had totally forgotten the twenty four hour rule. That meant Mona was going to be sleeping over, in her bed. Sleeping very close to her due to the handcuffs.
Mona in Spencer's bed.
Nope, nope nope. She really wasn't going there. She nodded at her dumbly.
'Yeah sure.'