A/N: Thanks for all the reviews etc again, much appreciated So I promise this is the last bit of rambling before Piper actually gets down to business, I'm just building up to it, so bear with. Also must shout out Em at the start of this chapter because basically her keen love for this fic is spurring me on a lot. Thanks bby and to everyone else who's reading x

Disclaimer is 'I wish I owned it all but I don't, wah'.

It had now been two hours since Piper had began compiling every shred of information she could find about, or relating to Alex Vause, and despite now having access to the entire FBI database, the profits of her labours were still pretty minimal compared to the stage at which she'd normally be at on a case by this time. She concluded, therefore, that Alex Vause obviously kept herself well hidden and knew exactly how to handle herself in America's seedy drug ring underworld, how annoying: Piper zero, Alex one.

Piper opened another file in which Alex was tagged: a location file. Any of Alex's known movements would show up here, but if it was as useful as any of the other files involving Alex, Piper quickly deduced that it wouldn't be helpful in the slightest.

The file was loading, the wifi was shit today, she noted. Typical.

Piper rested her chin in her hands and stared gormlessly at the screen as she tried to endure the sight of the loading bar inching its way to one hundred percent painfully slowly, almost as if it was taunting her. She tapped the screen, agitated, and huffed grumpily. It was currently settled on seventy percent.

"I probably could've fucking found her in the time you're wasting me! Damn machine." She hissed quietly at the screen, realising how volatile she was today.

Seventy-seven percent.

Piper lightly traced her fingers over the plethora of notes that she'd already gathered, most of them simply giving background information about the drug cartel. Everyone else had it so easy, as there was just about enough information on every other member of the ring so far to catch any of them without much hassle.

Eighty-nine percent.

All Piper had learnt so far was that the guy in charge of the whole thing was called Kubra, and that he was a really nasty piece of work. Piper hedged her bets that he'd be prioritised for capture due to his importance in the case, and the fact that he was arguably the most dangerous of all involved. He'd be going away for a countless number of years. Piper spun on her chair to relieve her boredom.

Ninety-six percent...Ninety-seven...Ninety-eight...Ninety-niiiiiiine-

"SHIT!" Piper jumped as the phone rang, abruptly disturbing the silence that had descended over her office, and in shock, she fell off her chair. Great. "Jeeeesus!" She winced in pain, finding her own behaviour ridiculous and feeling like an idiot, whilst simultaneously thanking all deities that she had her own office. Who would've ever thought that she'd end up in this job; a job that involved being discrete, cool, calm and collected. The irony was too much for Piper today, way too much.

She felt around on her desk from the floor, and eventually her hand grasped the receiver, which she clumsily fumbled with before hastily bringing it to her ear. "Hello?" She said, probably sounding slightly strained to the person on the other end as she hauled herself back up into her chair, listening to the rapid stream of words coming out of their mouth. Suddenly, her eyes widened. "No way." She immediately began to frantically prepare a pen and paper, biting her lip in anticipation before poising herself to write. "Hit me with it."

Ten minutes later, she slammed the receiver down victoriously with a wide smile plastered across her face and a feeling of progress swelling in her stomach. Two members of the ring had already been found despite the fact that the case had only been open today, and one of them had volunteered information about Alex Vause in order to get time shaved off his sentence. Success.

Piper grasped her piece of paper and looked over it in disbelief. Currently, this tiny scrap of paper may as well have been a bar of gold, a treasured possession, because that's how significant it was. Piper reread what she had written during the phone conversation to check that nothing was too illegible; when she got panicked, her writing neatness disappeared along with her logic. Once again, how the fuck did I get this job, she thought.

'Tall, dark hair, grey eyes, black glasses, tattoos on right upper arm and forearm.' The paper read, and Piper scrunched her nose up, Alex Vause even sounded like someone involved in crime, kinda shady looking and probably very imposing. Not really Piper's thing. But there was something else written on the paper though, nearer to the bottom, almost as if it was an afterthought: 'Subway In'. Piper blinked and scratched her head at the random phrase that the captured man had given the authorities, insisting that it related to Alex, but giving nothing more away. Piper was well aware that further research would be needed on that, but was sure that somehow it would be useful.

She turned her attentions to her computer screen, which was now displaying the location file from earlier, finally. Piper listlessly scrolled through the file: nothing, nothing, nothing, noth- wait. Something. Piper leaned in towards the screen to make sure she wasn't imagining things, but she wasn't. She'd made a breakthrough, a small and possibly irrelevant one, but it was a breakthrough nonetheless. Things were finally looking up. She highlighted the information, it was short but sweet:

Past and/or present location(s): New York City

Piper gripped the edge of her desk and stared at the tiny segment of text in front of her. Alex Vause was in New York City, and so was she.

Five seventeen, the clock read, and Piper decided that she'd leave at half past, because she needed to tie a few things up before heading home. Procrastination overcame her though, and she now gazed out of the window through narrowed eyes scanning the skyline of the city and the warren of avenues beneath it. "Where are you, Alex Vause?" She murmured under her breath as her eyes followed the tiny people who darted around the streets below, bustling past one another in order to get home as quickly as possible before waking up the next morning to do it all over again. Piper was thankful that her job was, if one thing, occasionally not mundane. She held her 'gold bar paper' up in front of her again. 'Subway In'... she mused to herself. What is that even supposed to mean? Piper racked her brains for a further three and a half minutes before it hit her. She was such an idiot today, but she didn't hesitate to blame the stress of that morning.

She impatiently jiggled the mouse on her computer to fire it back up and opened Google, typing wildly before hitting go and consequently almost falling off her chair again as her eyes fixed automatically upon the first result that the search engine had thrown back. Piper was right, she sure was an idiot today. Instantaneously, she powered off her computer and scrambled around her office, blindly stuffing any nearby papers into her bag in a bull-in-a-china-shop fashion, but the truth was, she was so madly desperate to get home that unfortunately, a desk sweep was the best option right now.

"Fuck you Richard, fuck you." She growled confidently as she sprinted out of the now practically empty FBI NYC building. "You just fucking watch me." Piper wanted to break out into dance on the spot; she was so overcome with determination and passion ridiculously suddenly, and it was like a new sense of purpose was beginning to surge through her veins, because she loved her job too much to lose it, and she hated Richard too much to let him get away with this. As Piper strutted out of the wide glass doors at the front of the building, she smirked.

It was time to go home and get changed; New York's Upper East Side awaited her tonight.