AN: Hello folks, hope you're all good.

This is a bit of a tricky story for me to write if I'm being really honest, because I don't feel as though domestic Vauseman is really my strength and I don't want it to read like some Brady Bunch style love in. But I never shy away from a challenge, so…..

Thank you for your comments and follows etc, please feel free to leave more. I would add, that if you have a specific question or an aspect of the story you want to discuss, then please PM me or chat to me on my tumblr (I'm orthodox-swing) because I would rather not side track the review board with discussions.

Anyway, here is chapter 2.

Enjoy.

…

It's been a week and the lie is growing, like a particularly vicious nettle, nipping and scratching as it beds itself deeper, the thick, fibrous reeds of deceit, entwining themselves around the fabric of Alex's brain.

Ron, the owner of the building, calls her mid week. 'Insurance has agreed to pay out on the work to the store, seems like the fire fighters were right, it was a faulty strip light connection that caused it, good job we got insurance right?' Alex doesn't have the strength to tell him that this is only part of the problem, that she hadn't insured her stock and as she'd blown a huge hole in her savings towards a deposit to buy the damn store from Ron, she really has nothing much to fall back on.

She tells Mia, over coffee the next morning. 'Shit,' is all her companion can muster at first. 'Guess that puts me out of a job for a while?'

'Are you fucking kidding me? You're lucky I made you manager in the first place!'

'Chill AV,' she says leaning back in her chair, 'I've done my time in that place over the years….'

'I'll be sure to give you a glowing reference,' Alex deadpans.

Mia's silent for a moment as she takes a large bite out of Cronut. 'These really are a bit gross,' she says, tossing the pastry down onto the plate, 'why are they even a thing?'

'Have you got anything more useful to add, or are you just gonna keep appraising the baked goods in this shit hole?'

'Anyone ever tell you that your temper has worsened with age?'

'Anyone ever tell you that you shouldn't bite the hand that feeds you?'

'You mean fed, past tense….'

'Right, so that's a no to helpful suggestions then?' Alex says, frustration bubbling over and threatening to tip her over the edge. Rationally (the small part that still exists) she knows it isn't fair to take this out on Mia, after all, she's lost her main source of income too, but her nerves are frayed and the letter from the clinic is practically burnt into her psyche, so she allows herself this slight assholish indulgence, for now at least.

'Well actually, I do have something that may interest you,' Mia says slightly haughtily, that's if you can bear to spend a second longer in my presence.' She grins and twirls a strand of dyed, purple hair around her finger.

'Just quit being such a pain in the ass and tell me will you? I have to pick Liv up from school in ten minutes.'

'Okay okay, well uncle Charlie has opened up another couple of bars in town and he's looking for some managers, I'm sure you'd be in with a shout, you've worked for him before…and you managed not to fuck that up…well not entirely'

'First rate comedian aren't you?' Alex says, glancing down at her watch and realising she'd overestimated how much time she had to pick up her daughter. 'Listen, tell him to call me okay, I'm interested.' She grabs her coat from the back of the chair, 'let me know what he says alright?'

Mia nods.

'I mean it, this isn't a joke..'

'Never is with you,' Mia says, taking another sip of her drink.

Alex doesn't correct her.

…

Olivia is part way through telling Alex about their class paper mache project. 'I'm working with Jenna,' she says through sticky, raspberry jelly lips. 'She wants to make a pig but I want to make a hamster, like Harriet,' she continues, before taking another bite of her sandwich.

Alex glances up at her through the rear view mirror, 'so what have you decided?' she asks, knowing exactly what the answer is going to be.

'Well I said to Jenna, if she wants to do the pig then I won't be her partner.' And she says it so matter of factly, like it's the most obvious solution in the world, that Alex has to bite back a small chuckle.

'Hey now, Liv, what have we said about hurting people's feelings?'

Olivia takes another large mouthful of her snack and doesn't reply.

'Liv?' Alex says, gently cajoling her.

'I can't speak,' she says thickly, 'you said I shouldn't talk when my mouth is full.'

And before she can stop herself, laughter tumbles from Alex's lips and all she can do is shake her head. 'How d'you get so smart?' she says, only half to herself. But Liv is too busy leafing through a storybook to pay attention.

…

Alex opens the apartment door and the smell of fish is the first thing that greets them. Liv immediately crinkles up her nose and uses her fingers like a peg to block up the end of it.

'I know kid…must be another of your mom's new recipes huh?'

'Yukky,' is all she gets in response.

'I thought I heard voices,' Piper says, wandering into the hallway and wiping her wet hands on a dishcloth that's tossed over her left shoulder. Her hair is scraped back into a messy bun and her face looks a little flushed.

'Dare we ask what you've been doing?' Alex grins.

'I've been making Bouillabaisse, the fish was really fresh at the market this morning, I went early after I'd dropped Liv off at school and called the clinic. By the way,' she says, planting a kiss on her daughter's head 'they still haven't received the money, can you check with your bank again? I hope the payment hasn't got lost somewhere,' she furrows her brow at the thought.

Alex nods, her gut contorting viciously at the statement, 'tomorrow morning I will, it's probably too late now.' Even as she says it, she knows it sounds like a feeble excuse and if she hasn't already, it will only be a matter of time before Piper begins to get suspicious. And the truth bristles back into sharp focus, all jagged edges and venom.

'Mom, can I have pizza for dinner,' Olivia says, momentarily cracking the fraught silence that has fallen.

'Pizza?'

'Uh huh.'

'Honey, the stew is going to be yummy, don't you at least want to try some?'

She shakes her dark tousled hair vehemently, 'fish is gross.'

Piper rolls her eyes, 'I'll make a deal with you, try a bit of fish and if you don't like it, you can have pizza, okay?'

'Pepperoni?' she says, blue eyes lighting up as if she hasn't heard the first part of the agreement, 'if you like, now go get changed and bring your homework down okay?'

She skips off singing a made up song about pepperoni and fish (pepperoni and fish, pepperoni and fish, fish guts are gross, pizza is my wish).

''Make that two for pizza,' Alex says, only half joking.

'Nope,' Piper says kissing her on the lips, 'you're a supposed adult, you don't get to squirm out of it that easily.'

'Why do I feel like I'm being punished?' Alex replies, pulling the blonde in tighter.

'I don't know, have you done something you need to confess?' She's smiling, so Alex knows it's said in nothing more than jest, but that's the thing about lies, they make your skin itch as if you're trying to shed a layer of yourself, start afresh, except it isn't that easy.

'Al?' Piper says, blue hues darkening like a winter sea, recognising the obvious change in Alex's expression.

'I just don't like fish stew all that much okay?' she replies, breaking the embrace roughly. She walks through to the kitchen, where clouds of steam are currently billowing from a large cooking pot on the stove.

'Nice try, but you know I wasn't referring to the fish, you've been cagey for days, what's going on? Is it your mom, is she okay? Her hip's been alright since the fall last month hasn't it?'

'She's fine,' Alex says, feeling like some particularly treacherous beast, especially when all Piper is doing is expressing concern.

The root of the issue is simple enough-she's scared.

Having another child is all they've discussed for the past 18 months. Countless weekends have gone by in a shapeless blur, raking over the store's accounts, balancing up savings, trying to streamline outgoings, in order to decide whether or not the cost of the fertility treatment was feasible.

'We've got Olivia already, why isn't that enough?' she'd asked Piper one night. Maybe that was selfish of her on some level, she'd concede that she supposes, but images of her own childhood never lurk far from the periphery of her thoughts and she imagines Liv with taped together state funded glasses, being singled out for being a poor bastard child. And the thought sends her quite sick.

On those nights, she always steals a moment or two, watching her daughter held captive by the sandman.

But Piper had always insisted that having two children was cost effective. 'We can use Liv's old cloths and toys, I've still got them boxed away in the attic.'

'What if we have a boy?'

And Piper had just smiled and muttered something about how gender rules were out of the window these days, 'besides, hardly like all we ever dressed her in was pink, frilly things.' And so Alex had conceded, a loose yes, based on simple math.

Until now.

Until the full gravity of her mistake has come to the fore and now she's standing in the kitchen, with one of the things she loves most and she can't bring herself to be brave enough to say it. Not the detail of it in any case.

'I've fucked up Pipes,' is all she can manage. She glances out of the fugged up window, watching early afternoon melt into evening and wishing she had some way she could make this better.

'What do you mean fucked up? What's happened?' Piper's voice breaks a little around the last word, betraying the depth of her concern.

And so she explains the sorry situation, barely able to make eye contact, not quite managing the whole truth, the clawing fear.

At first Piper listens patiently, nods at the most pertinent detail to show she's absorbed the graveness of the situation, but Alex guesses she hasn't quite done the math yet, that 2 and 2 is not going to equal 4 this time….there can't be any fertility treatment, not on the feeble savings they have left.

But then it happens all at once, her thoughts and reality morphing into one inconvenient truth and her eyes are wide and glassy, 'so the fertility treatment….'

It's not even a question really, more of a stream of consciousness and before Alex has the chance to add anything further, to apologise or explain how she's planning to take on shifts at Charlie's bar, Olivia has come down with her homework.

She wrinkles up her nose again, points at the pot of stew and giggles as she looks at Alex. And in her entire life, Alex Vause doesn't think she's ever felt quite so small, so insignificant, like she's in the dark, grappling for something that's always shifting, changing shape.

'Hey baby,' Piper says, rubbing her eyes, 'you got your homework there?'

Olivia nods.

'Well,' the blonde continues dropping the dish cloth onto the countertop and turning off the stove, 'why don't we take it to aunt Polly's and grab a pizza on the way? Sound good?'

Liv shoots her one of her broadest toothiest grins. 'Can I take my sticker book to show Finn?'

'Sure you can honey, go grab it and we'll head out in a minute.'

She dashes out of the room, the smell of fish suddenly the last thing on her mind.

'So you're gonna bail? That's your plan to resolve this?'

'No,' Piper replies, hard and cold, failing to make eye contact, 'I just need some space to think things through, I really don't think that makes me the unreasonable one.'

'Right, so tattling to Polly is going to resolve this?' Alex says, the volume of her voice rising alarmingly, so the words seems to rattle, hollow, around the kitchen.

'Keep your voice down,' Piper hisses, 'I don't want Liv to find out.'

'Find out what?'

'Alex I just need some space….we'll talk later, when Liv's in bed and….'

'And you've have a good old bitch about me to prissy Polly. She knows she's overstepped the mark there, that if they were both participants in a game, she'd have been disqualified, because it's such a low blow. So pathetic infact, that Piper doesn't even grace her with a reply.

'Ready!' Liv shouts from the hallway.

'See you later.' Piper says, snatching up her phone from the dining table.

'Pipes….I'm…' but it's barely audible by the time the blonde has left the kitchen and the thing Alex really wants to say, what she feels more than anything, doesn't free it itself from her lips until she hears the click of the front door closing.

'Sorry,' she eventually whispers, to nobody but herself.