AN: Hi folks, hope you're good. Thank you for all your reviews and follows.

Some interesting thoughts on the story so far.

Someone mentioned that I had made Piper very mean in this (I'm paraphrasing) but on the show, neither Alex nor Piper are exactly paragons of virtue and part of the reason I enjoy writing them so much is because they are complex and flawed and very human.

Anyway, here's chapter 3, reviews welcomed with a tip of the hat.

Enjoy.

A solution, that's all they need. So rather than turning off at the intersection to Polly's, she keeps on driving, until the city melts into something greener, where the church spire reaches up to pierce the ungodly sky and white picket fences sprout out, tooth like from the ground, the gnashing jaws of privilege and breeding.

In her mind the issue is simply one of cash flow, nothing more, nothing less. The clinical nature of her thought process is a little sobering, even for her, but this is where the Carol Chapman part of her kicks in, the keeping up appearances bravado, the everything is just swell smile (it never does quite hit your eyes).

By the time she's pulling into the driveway, the lines have been rehearsed in her head over a dozen times, until the words are practically buzzing in her brain, fizzing on her tongue and (if she weakens and allows it) making her heart ache, like a bruise is beginning to bloom there.

And yet when she cuts the engine and everything is just still enough, only one word hisses through her mind- traitor.

...

Olivia is reluctant to leave the car when she realises they're not at Finn's house.

'You said...' she begins, so full of disappointment and rage she can't quite get the rest of the words out, so she repeats them, this time clutching her sticker book against her chest, like some sort of shield, 'you said...' bottom lip jutting out.

'We won't be long baby, I promise, I just need to speak to grandma and grandpa about something,' Piper says, unbuckling her daughter and grabbing her backpack. And then the tightness in her chest is back, the one that's telling her she can't even bring herself to make eye contact with a six year old.

'What do you need to speak to them about?' Olivia says, still clutching the book protectively.

'Grown up stuff, nothing for you to worry about, but it'll be real quick, okay?'

She nods slowly, body still slightly tensed as, as if the threads of suspicion still linger.

'And pizza,' she adds exiting the car, 'remember you said we could get pizza?'

Piper nods, she only wishes everything was so easily resolved.

...

Carol and Bill are on their way out for the evening.

Bill mumbles something about a gala dinner and asks Piper if everything is ok. She nods, in perfunctory fashion, tugging on a loose thread hanging from her shirtsleeve and suddenly feeling like a kid being caught with her hand in the candy jar.

'Your mother should be down in a minute, god knows she's spent long enough getting ready,' Bill continues, eyeing her curiously. 'You sure everything is good?'

'Sure,' Piper says, trying to make her smile, broader, toothier, more convincing somehow, but it's clumsy and wrong and she has the sudden urge to grab Olivia and leave without another word.

'And how's this little bundle of trouble?' Bill says, turning to his granddaughter and ruffling her hair, his words softer around the edges, more palatable when Olivia is present.

Piper can't remember the last time he spoke to her in that way, or looked at her so fondly and she's surprised to find it stabs at her inconveniently- a hot poker of realisation.

Olivia giggles contently.

'Where's your... friend?'Her father says, his usual term for Alex. And Piper has to fight to suppress a frustrated eye roll.

The truth is, she could be spiky about it, after all, it's not like she hasn't done it before. And it wouldn't be hard, to take the bait, snap and insist that he acknowledge that the brunette is her girlfriend, or like last Thanksgiving, point out that they have a child together and that it's no different to Cal and Neri or Danny and Vanessa.

But today the terms of the contract are different. In other words, she needs his help. So she bites back her pride and hurt and everything else that makes her feel raw and too human and keeps her tone as even as possible.

'She's at home, sorting out some paperwork,' she replies, trying to sound as bland as possible and hoping it won't lead to any questions about the store and the fire.

Bill doesn't reply, he merely nods and it irritates Piper, because it makes it more difficult to gauge his mood, to read what lies behind the soft folds of age around his eyes and she wonders how receptive he is going to be to her suggestion.

'You want some cookies?' He says to Olivia, not bothering to make any further small talk with his daughter.

Olivia glances over at the blonde, eyes eager, 'can I?'

'She's not had her dinner yet,' Piper says feebly, after all, that is her fault.

'One cookie won't hurt will it?' Bill says, still refusing to make eye contact with the blonde.

The three of them pad to the kitchen, Olivia hopping onto a bar stool and merrily munching her way through the treat that's handed to her.

'Just one, okay sweetie?' Piper says, but the little girl's attention has now shifted, she's too busy leafing through her sticker book, telling Bill (her captive audience) about her favourites and the stickers she has left to collect. She's part way through describing a purple monster, crumb-coated fingers tracing the page, when Carol walks in.

'Piper?' she says, her mouth pulled into an odd, thin-lipped expression, ' we weren't expecting you, is everything ok?'

'Grandma!' Olivia yells, hopping off her stool and racing towards Carol, a bundle of such raw energy, she almost bowls the woman over.

'Hello sweetheart, I can see grandpa has been feeding you cookies,' she says smiling at the chocolate around the little girl's mouth.

'Onecookie,' Olivia corrects her, 'I'm only allowed one,' she looks over at Piper for approval.

'Well you need room in your tummy for pizza don't you?' Piper says.

'We're going to Finn's house,' Olivia continues grinning, 'do you want to come?'

'Hey Liv, why don't you go and watch TV for a little bit, ' Piper says interrupting. Her skull is beginning to pound behind her eyes and the persistent buzzing of the cell in her pocket is providing an inconvenient soundtrack to her conscience. 'I'll come get you when we're ready to go see Finn, okay?'

Her parents exchange glances but say nothing.

'Liv?' Piper continues, patience beginning to slip through her fingers like grains of sand.

'Okay, but promise we're still seeing Finn?' Olivia says, her suspicions from early still lingering.

'Cross my heart.'

And it works for the time being, as the little girl trudges off down the hall and a few seconds later, the sounds of a particularly exuberant cartoon can be heard filtering through to the kitchen.

'Are you going to tell us what's going on Piper, or would you like us to guess?' Carol says, closing the kitchen door, something the blonde remembers her doing even when Piper was a little girl, as if trapping the secrets in one room would somehow prevent them from doing any real damage.

'Wow, don't bother with the kid gloves, huh mom?'

'Is it to do with Alex? Has she done something?' Carol says, eyes narrowed, cold and hard like a pebble.

'What? No!' Piper says, so loudly that her mother actually takes a step backwards, steadying herself against the granite worktop. And that word hisses through the confines of her skull again.

Traitor.

And suddenly her throat feels scraped dry and that thing knots itself tighter in her stomach, beds down for the night. Because all Alex has done is make a simple mistake. Broken down to its bare essentials, that's all it is.

But the truth (and yes, she's allowing that to seep through, to permeate her, to run through her veins as viscous as blood) is that if they don't go through with the fertility treatment now, she's not sure she can bring herself not to blame Alex.

To forgive her, yes. But blame is a different beast, blame is what destroys, renders things irreparable.

And that's the part of herself she despises, the petty Chapman part of her that she's worked so hard to chisel away over the years.

So she reasons (almost makes it seem logical) that she's doing this for them, that if Alex really loves her, she'll understand, because things have always worked out, even when the presence of Larry loomed heavy and Alex's drinking was spiralling out of control.

They have to survive.

Like they always do.

Later, half way to Polly's, the check nestled neatly in her jacket pocket, she tries to remember what life was like before Alex and it's nothing but a collection of shadows and sepia and all she wants to do is curl up in a ball and cry, sob until there's nothing left and repent to everything unholy for being this person.

But even now, she can't bring herself to shred the check.

So she drops Olivia off at Polly's, tells her she'll be back in a couple of hours and then she calls Alex from the car.

It barely rings once before the brunette answers, her voice sounds oddly hollow, but not angry or upset, just spent and it makes Piper's insides feel like jelly. And the blonde doesn't say hello or ask her how she is, instead she asks her a simple question, one she's banking on the answer to.

'We're for keeps, aren't we?'

Her voice sounds so small and childlike, so un-Piper that a wave of fear washes over the brunette.

'What's happened?'

Silence.

'Piper?' she's getting shrill now and in a cruel sort of way, Piper is taking comfort from it, because it shows just how fragile Alex can be and just how much this matters, how much Piper matters.

'What's going on?' she adds, words urgent, breath short.

'I've found a way to fix this,' she finally says, drawing out the word fix, for her own benefit as much as Alex's, after all that's what she's done, found a practical solution to an urgent issue.

'Fix what?'

'The money for the treatment…I've got it….'

Alex laughs, a release of sorts and it lightens the mood ever so slightly. 'What, you rob a bank or something?'

Piper doesn't reply, allowing a thick silence to settle, like the first snowfall of winter- unexpectedly ferocious, as the realisation dawns on the brunette.

'You went to see your parents.'

It's not even a question, it's a bullet of a statement-short, designed to cause maximum collateral damage, she just hopes that the collateral isn't going to be them.

'Yes I did…but….'

'You did the one thing you knew would piss me off the most.'

But Piper is only half listening, because she needs to get the explanation out as quickly as possible, while it's still fresh in her mind. 'It's just a loan,' she says, as if she hasn't heard Alex, 'we pay it back whenever we can, so we don't technically owe them anything, if that's what you're worried about.'

Alex is trapped between a venomous anger and a crippling sort of hurt, because Piper has failed to understand what this is really about, to grasp the very essence of why this is so problematic for her and that's why her heart feels like it's jack knifing its way up her throat.

'I told you already I would fix it, Charlie is going to give me shifts.'

But it's a pointless statement, because it's too late for all of that now, the current has taken them, so their drifting further apart, nowhere to moor.

'But don't you see Al,' Piper continues brightly, her voice an eerie juxtaposition to the glowering clouds outside, 'this way, you don't have to bust your ass at some bar, you can focus on building your business back up, help your mom out while she's still recovering from her fall and….' She stops just short of what she wants to say, but the silence does it for her anyway.

'The baby,' Alex says, almost to herself, 'the goddamn baby.'

'Don't say it like that,' Piper replies, desperately trying to bat away any hurt from creeping into her voice, after all, she's not sure she's earned the right to it.

But Alex isn't in the mood to play nice, to tone down her natural born asshole, not tonight.

'And what if there is no baby Piper, you ever thought of that? Were you just going to return, cap in hand to Mamma and Papa Chapman, until eventually, by sheer force of nature, you got pregnant? What a way to welcome the kid into the world, hey there bud, we're your moms, we haven't got a house or food, but don't worry, it's all ok, cause we spent thousands and thousands of dollars to get you.' She pauses, trying to catch her breath, words hissing and spitting, causing tiny ruptures through the plastic silence of the phone line.

'You're not being fair,' Piper says eventually, trying to be reasonable, but sounding like a petulant child instead.

And Alex laughs and it's cold and sardonic and it's only then that the real fear begins to creep over Piper, settling like a second skin.

'Alex…' she breathes, 'please….' but the line has gone dead.