A/N- Hoping to be able to put up a chapter a day if I can. Enjoy chapter 2!

Chapter 2 - A Chance Encounter

Piper woke me up at ten the next morning. I hated waking up before noon. Sleeping late was a tried and true habit from the bad old days when work didn't start until after the sun went down. Piper wasn't exactly an early riser, but she didn't like to waste the day. Sometimes she'd let me sleep and go out on her own, exploring the city. Other days she'd want to spend with me, and she'd roust me, although rarely before ten or eleven. She'd quickly learned that there was only one way to wake me up that early that would ensure I wasn't entirely impossible. Luckily she enjoyed it as well, even if it did delay our going out bit.

It was nearly eleven when we made it out of the apartment and we went down to the cafe across the street from our flat and sat down at one of the sidewalk tables. The waiter brought us each the tiny croissant and child sized glass of orange juice that the French called breakfast ( as much as I loved their dinner, breakfast was more of a challenge; la petite dejuner my ass... nothing about breakfast should've been fucking petite). He also brought coffee (or espresso or whatever the hell they called it), which almost salvaged the whole meal. I brought the tiny little cup up to my nose and inhaled contentedly.

The French may have tried to starve me in the morning, but they had more than a decent handle on caffeine. This stuff had a kick to it that made even the best I'd had in LA seem like Red's dirty dishwater, and it actually tasted good too. Back home, I'd never asked my coffee to do much of anything except to be strong enough to make my hair stand on end. I usually bolted it so fast I didn't realize it had a goddamn taste.

Here, I'd learned about flavor. Despite the fact that living off Piper's money made me feel a little uncomfortable after a lifetime of working for myself, I couldn't say it was disappointing to finally be able to indulge in good food and drink all the time and not just as something to celebrate a special event or a getting a big job (as if that ever really happened).

Piper sipped her coffee and waited until I'd mostly emerged from my bleary morning stupor before she said, "I thought we might spend the day together..."

I raised an eyebrow at her, "We spend every day together, babe," I said as I finished my coffee and signaled for another. Not that I minded spending time with her. I hadn't gotten tired of spending time with her yet, I was mostly just waiting for her to get fed up with my bullshit.

"Yes, well, today is different because..." her voice changed, becoming lofty and overdramatic as she over-enunciated every word with a dead on British accent, and projected as only someone who'd taken three years of drama at Smith could, "today I'll have a new appreciation for all of life's gifts after coming so very close to death or, possibly, a very bad bump on the head, yesterday night," she grinned at me, I rolled my eyes, "And of course my love for you has only grown after you risked all to defend my admittedly tattered honor..."

"Hey someone pointed a gun at me!"

She squeezed my hand, her voice going back to normal, her eyes softening, "Yes but it didn't go off, and I'd have to say that really is something to be grateful for."

I sighed and gave her a smile, "Yeah me too." My second cup of coffee arrived. We lapsed into comfortable silence as I drank and she applied jam to her croissant with the world's tiniest butter knife.

As I drank I looked out at the people wandering by and wondered exactly where the two girls who'd confronted me last night were now. Did they live nearby? Did they work around here? Was whatever they were so fucking afraid of here as well? Piper had done a swell job of distracting me both last night and this morning, but now that I was back out on the street, my curiosity was beginning to get the better of me again...

"Are you all right, Al?"

I started, turning back to her with a smile, "I'm fine... why...?"

"You're ignoring your food."

I glanced down at the untouched croissant, "Uh..."

"Generally I would suspect some type of apocalyptic scenario. Perhaps a wasting disease... but neither of those seem to be the case."

"I'm okay, Pipes. Really."

She raised her eyebrow, skeptical. I sighed. Piper hardly needed her uncanny ability to read me to realize I'd gotten distracted.

"I was thinking about those girls from last night."

"The ones who waved a gun in your face?" something dark flashed in her eyes, "Yes. I can see why you'd be concerned with them..."

"I just... I can't figure it out. Why the one was in such a hurry, why they just let me go once they figured out why I was chasing her..."

Piper studied me for a long moment, "Alex, I know we discussed this last night, but I still can't help but think that perhaps your undue curiosity is my fault for not helping you find more to occupy yourself with."

I sighed, "And I told you, Pipes, it's not your fault. And as for the curiosity, I'm pretty sure the only things I'm really good at being suicidally curious and reasonably clever."

"That's not all you're good at," she breathed, her eyes flashing. We both paused as pleasant memories of our early morning activities flitted through our brains.

"Okay, well yeah, that too," I grinned, putting my hand over hers, "Point is, you need to stop thinking you've done anything wrong, at least when it comes to me. If it weren't for you I'd probably be dead, and I'd definitely be a lot less happy," I shrugged, "I'm just bad at minding my own business."

"I understand curiosity, but as I recall it didn't do much for the cat, and it hasn't really done all that much for you in the past either..." her blue eyes were soft, and even a little anxious. I could see her flashing back to the night I'd almost died. " I left Los Angeles because I wanted to get away from dramatics... it doesn't do any good to get too involved in other people's problems, especially when the people in question aren't exactly begging for your help..."

Piper wasn't the kind of woman who let her guard down, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out why she'd chosen to do so around me, but I figured it didn't do much good to examine it. All I could try to do was make sure she never regretted trusting me enough to be show me her vulnerable side. So I nodded, "Yeah you're right." I didn't want to get Piper mixed up in something that could potentially be bad news when she'd just so recently gotten away from the shit she'd been sunk into practically her whole life. Her father being rich hadn't done her a damn bit of good until the day she stole his money, and I didn't want to ruin the life she wanted to build with it... the life she'd chosen to share with me.

I threw back the last of my coffee, then picked up my croissant and said, "It'll take me about forty five seconds to finish this off, and then we can get going... Maybe we can stop and get one of those cream filled chocolate covered jobs on the way to the museum... tide me over for a bit..."

"That can be quite easily arranged, darling," she said, smiling radiantly as she recognized that I was putting the whole thing aside. I smiled back, figuring that as long as I didn't go looking for trouble and tired to keep myself busy, the curiosity would eventually fade. Somehow I forgot that just because I wasn't searching for trouble didn't mean it wasn't looking for me...

Our flat was on a street called Rue Princesse (which I'd told Piper was perfect for her when we'd let the place... that one had gotten me a very dirty look). We were walking north on that street, away from our flat towards Rue du Four which led to a weird four street intersection with Boulevard Saint-Germain... when a door burst open to our right and someone barreled out of a closed bar.

This time they ran straight into me rather than Piper, and instead of hopping up and moving straight on, the offending party bore me to the sidewalk and ended up getting their ankle twisted around, crying out as we landed hard. All I could think was, what were the goddamn odds...

The wind had been knocked out of me, but besides that and a bruised ass I didn't think I'd sustained any real injuries. Piper had gone down next to me on one knee and was trying to disentangle me from the person who'd run into me.

I looked up and locked eyes with the same girl who'd run into Piper last night only now she looked significantly worse for the wear. The entire left side of her face was swollen. She'd been socked hard, and pretty recently, maybe only a minute ago. Her lip was split, there was a nasty cut on her cheek, and her left eye was rapidly swelling closed... she'd have a beauty of a shiner later...

If she'd been scared and anxious last night, she was fucking terrified out of her mind today. Her eyes were wide and fear radiated out of them in waves, so strong that it sent a chill down my spine just to look at her. The more closely I examined her the more I realized things were worse than I'd initially thought just from her face. Her clothes were in disarray, torn, with blood spattered on them, and the way she was moving, trying to extract herself from the messy pile we'd made on the sidewalk had a note of panic to it, the kind that usually made things worse rather than better.

Finally, with an assist from Piper, we managed to get separated. I was in a half sitting position, Piper behind me, a hand on my shoulder, "That's the girl... from last night..." I managed, as I recovered my breath. The minute the girl was free, she sprang to her feet... and immediately cried out and stumbled when she tried to put her weight on her twisted ankle.

Piper reacted fast, getting to her feet grabbing the girl by her arm to ensure she didn't fall. Almost against her will, the girl slumped into Piper, still shaking like a leaf, eyes still terrified, but the pain in her ankle (and evidently in her ribs, which had put an arm around protectively) had overwhelmed the adrenaline that had propelled her out the door and she couldn't move.

We could hear her muttering something. I had gotten to my feet and was standing next to them now. She was speaking French, too shaky and strung together and muffled by the state of her face for me to understand. Piper glanced at me, "She's saying we have to get away from here or they'll..."

Before she could finish her sentence, the door the girl had pushed through was pushed open with enough force that it rattled the windows as it slammed against the facade of the bar. Two men, one black, one white, one whip thin, one built like a brick wall, both radiating mean and uncivilized despite their expensive suits, burst out looking ready to accelerate to full speed once they hit they hit the sidewalk. They stopped dead when they saw us, the loss of momentum momentarily turning them into a slapstick scene from a Marx Brothers picture as they tried to keep their balance.

They stood and glared at us, trying to figure out what to do with this shift in circumstances. Clearly they'd been expecting to have to chase the girl down... just as clearly they'd been at least partially responsible for what had happened to her, because when she saw them she went rigid as a plank and a small, pathetic sound escaped her mouth that hit the part deep inside me that got my hackles up.

I wasn't much of a humanitarian. I was self interested and averse to putting my ass on the line for people I didn't know unless they were paying me, but one thing I couldn't stand was piece of shit bully picking on someone who couldn't possibly fight back. It was like a primal instinct from back when I was the tallest kid in school, scaring off the assholes who beat up the little kids for their lunch money.

I squared my shoulders and glared at the two men. I knew I would never be able to fight them. There were two, they were clearly professionals, and my street fighting skills would be as useless here as they had been against P's friend with the gun last night, but it was broad daylight and we were on a public street. The French may have been snooty, but they weren't blind, and I'd have bet my lucky deck of cards that the two gorillas in front of me had no interest in making a scene. If we could just get out of their line of sight maybe we could take the kid someplace she'd be safe.

I was still trying to figure out what the fuck to do when Piper spoke up. She still had an arm around P, who remained motionless, and she'd had drawn herself up to her full height (in her absurd high heels she was nearly as tall as the shortest enforcer). She'd also put on her most imperious rich lady face, which could be quite terrifying when it was turned up full blast.

"Is there something we can help you gentlemen with?" she said in French. She was speaking slowly and distinctly enough that even I could understand, her tone clipped and full of the kind of contempt only the very rich could manage towards people they felt were beneath them. It wasn't loud, it wasn't blustering, but it held an absolute assurance of being obeyed that could only come with a lot of money or a lot of moxie, and Piper had more than enough of both.

These guys were muscle, not brains. I'd known plenty of them back home, and guys like them weren't paid to make decisions or think on their feet. They were given a task and they did it. Variables just confused them. Variables like a woman who dressed rich, looked at them like they were barely worthy of her attention and talked to them like she didn't give a shit that they both had guns bulging under their jackets and violence in their eyes.

In fact, Piper probably looked and talked a lot like the kind of people who told them what to do. The wiry one said something back to her, much faster than she'd spoken, so I couldn't catch every word. He gestured to P and narrowed his eyes. His tone was wary.

Piper glanced at P, "But she does not seem to want to go with you."

The man spoke again, slower, as though he couldn't quite figure out what was happening, "She is our friend..."

"That seems unlikely..." Piper glanced at me. I gave her the slightest of nods. We may not have known who P was or what the fuck was going on exactly, but we did know that if we left her to these two nothing good would come of it. Maybe neither of us were angels, but we weren't going to abandon someone in need, despite what Piper had said earlier about not wanting to get involved in other people's business. "In fact, she seems in need of some medical attention. My friend and I will escort her to a doctor. Good day gentlemen."

Before either of the two men could react properly, she tightened her grip on P as gently as possible and began moving her in the direction we'd originally been going, towards the Rue du Four, where there was even more foot traffic, witnesses the men would have to take in to account.

P seemed just as astonished as the men were. She seemed to wake from her terror induced trance as I took up position on her other side and put my hand on her lower back to move her along. She looked from Piper to me, not sure what to say, but she didn't resist. She may not have known our intentions, but she knew we were probably a better bet than the two men behind us.

Piper picked up the pace slightly. It was probably faster than P wanted to be going on her ankle, and she grimaced hard with every step, but thankfully she was no dummy... she knew surprise was about all we had right now, and the less time the gunmen had to recover from theirs the better.

Finally, we reached the corner and turned right onto Rue du Four. Keeping her eyes front, Piper asked, "Where can we take you that will be safe?"

P frowned at that, "Ain't sure safe is an option anymore... but there is a place where at least someone'll have my back..."

And we headed as fast as we could through the mid-morning crowds towards Boulevard Saint-Germain, all of us hoping that no one was following...