A/N: So I've got a huge list of Max prompts, from various time periods (including one that closely follows the last oneshot, and finally shows Alex adopting Max). But ever since someone asked me about it on Tumblr, I've been wanting to figure out a slightly older, teenage Max. So this started out part general introduction to Middle School!Max, and then segued into one of my prompt ideas. Hope you enjoy! Though don't worry, this doesn't mean we're done with Max's childhood. These oneshots aren't in any order.

"Have a good day, Monster."

"Momma." Wide eyed, Max throws her a look that's half pained, half admonishing, as if they aren't still in the car. As if any of the other preteens slowly trickling inside can hear her.

Alex rolls her eyes, masking the dull, reflexive hurt that always flares when the twelve year old cringes at something old and affectionate. "Sorry, sorry. I wish you a pleasant day, Maxwell."

That isn't even his name.

Max huffs out a long suffering sigh and slouches his way out of the car without a goodbye. There's a line of other parents, three lanes worth of their cars, snaking around the drop off area, but Alex doesn't pull forward right away. She keeps her foot on the brake, watching her son with his black Chucks and red backpack plod toward the double front doors. He's only got one strap slung over his shoulder - apparently the only acceptable way to carry it - and his small frame is lilting sideways from the weight of brand new binders and notebooks.

As he gets further away, Alex feels a flutter of helpless anxiety in her chest. He looks so small, smaller than the other kids, all of whom are carrying bookbags toward the school without trouble.

Outwardly, Max has claimed nothing but excitement for starting sixth grade, but he'd revealed his own nerves last weekend, asking Finn Harper about a dozen logistical questions about lockers and changing classes and where the library was, face tight with concentration like he needed to memorize every detail ahead of time, go in completely prepared.

Now, Max pauses just before he reaches the entrance and glances back over his shoulder. He's too far away for Alex to see his face, and there's no way he can see her through the tinted passenger seat window.

But Alex lifts her hand to wave anyway. Max doesn't, just hoists his backpack up one more time and turns to go inside.

A car honks behind Alex, startling her out of the moment. She eases off the brake and creeps forward, still slow enough that she can text Piper with one hand.

He's in. And I need a drink.

So begins middle school.

Alex has not been looking forward to their son's awkward stumble into adolescence.

Piper doesn't like it, either, although she says every parent must feel that way, that the true kid part of having a kid is over too soon. Except Alex maintains it's especially unfair for her; she got here late. She mostly missed out on the four full years. So really, Max shouldn't be allowed to turn into a moody teenager at all. Just for the sake of balance.

But middle school does in fact usher in days scattered with all the landmines Polly's been warning them about for the past year: eye rolling and groans and monosyllabic conversation and the occasional short fuse outburst - Alex always side eyes Piper during those moments; there's something familiar about Max's puberty fueled temper.

But most of the time, Max is still Max: their smart, headstrong little boy with his off-kilter sense of humor that's always been able to make his moms laugh, not the least bit for show.

There are changes, though, small but frequent ones. Keeping up with Max's ever rotating interests is an impossible task. His favorite bands change every few weeks. A video game that eats up an entire weekend could be completely abandoned soon after.

For awhile, he even develops oddly niche obsessions. One month it's Rubik's Cubes, with Max constantly approaching Alex or Piper and demanding they time him. This particular hobby coincides with Christmas of his sixth grade year, and, having already memorized the classic Rubik's Cube pattern, he asks for novelty versions: double cubes, a Rubik's snake, a pyramid.

By mid-January, he's done with that, all Rubik's products forgotten in a bathroom drawer somewhere while Max spends two weeks watching YouTube videos to master Yo-Yo tricks. He picks up on skateboarding next, which Piper especially feels is a dangerous escalation, but that interest is fortunately discarded after only a few weeks and minimal bruising.

Fortunately, there are a few consistencies:

Books. Alex is pretty sure both she and Piper gave Max no choice in being a reader. When he was a kid, he read everything, but his favorites were always anything weird and a little creepy. he loved the Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark series even when he was young enough that Piper and Alex made sure to pre-read the stories. By the second half of sixth grade, Max reads almost exclusively Stephen King novels, even developing a specialist's knowledge on the film adaptations. He loves looking up interviews about them, and is prone to very enthusiastic, Piper-esque lectures about the differences between books and film ("Momma, did you know Stephen King doesn't even like the movie version of The Shining? Even though it's like the most famous one? And if you read the book, it actually makes a lot of sense why.").

Baseball. Fortunately, it's a sport where Max's smaller-than-average size isn't much of a liability, and he plays a respectable third base even though hitting isn't his strong suit. He's been in Little League since he was seven, and is obviously pleased when he makes the middle school team…but he staunchly bans his moms from yelling anything during the games, which takes at least half the fun out of it.

And music. Listening to it, of course, at least one white earbud permanently affixed to his ear like it's jewelry - they almost always have to remind him to remove it at mealtimes - but also playing it himself. Trumpet, for the middle school band: he's good at it, first chair by seventh grade. And guitar, during weekly lessons and, on weekends, their basement with three of his friends, all of whom are mediocre individually and horrific as a unit, their sole talent apparently coming up with a new unnecessary band name every few days ("No, Mom, geez, we're Tin Man's Heart Attack now, I freaking told you that yesterday!") ("Freak isn't even a bad word, Momma says worse than that all the time!").

One of Max's friends - or "bandmates", depending on what day you talk to them - is a keyboard player named Cash who fancies himself a true music snob, one of those kids who goes through a much too long phase of exclusively listening to old music he refers to as "real", drawing superiority from his hatred Top 40. That type exists in every generation, apparently, and judging by his name, Cash rejects not only all modern music, but the old music his parents favored, instead turning Max and the others onto hard rock and, occasionally, heavy metal from the 70's and 80's.

This particular trend peaks around the middle of seventh grade, when Max is thirteen, and it has Piper and Alex grateful to headphones for the first time in a year. Enter Sandman is somehow particularly grating coming through the tinny speakers of an iPhone.

One day after school, Max and Cash and their bassist Brian are crowded around the desktop computer in the living room, looking up YouTube videos. Bree, the other guitarist and only girl in their "band", is absent, as is often the case.

Piper's not home from work yet and Alex is staying out of their way; every time she even passes the room, Max gets the slightest look of dread on his face, like she's a loose cannon that could shoot out an embarrassing comment at any moment, even though these are the kind of kids who probably reward her automatic parental cool points just for having tattoos.

(The first time she met Cash, standing in her kitchen and wearing a Zeppelin shirt, she'd made the mistake of an offhanded comment that she and Max used to listen to Queen when he was little - Bicycle Race had been his favorite, closely followed by Under Pressure. Judging by Max's reaction, the fact that he had once been a small child was one of the more humiliating things about him, and his mother had just blurted it out to a brand new friend.)

She's unloading the dishwasher in the kitchen, so used to relegating the constant blare of music to background noise that it takes awhile for recognition to burrow through her ears and to her brain, but when it does, Alex walks instinctively into the living room and hovers behind the boys just in time to see a close up of her father, decimating a drum solo in a grainy music video.

By the time Cash and Brian go home, Max has evidently loaded his phone full of Death Maiden music, so Alex's father's band is playing out of her son's pocket as he paws through the refrigerator for a snack.

Alex passes behind him and tugs on the hood of his sweatshirt. "Headphones, buddy."

"Sorry." He turns down the volume, clearly thinking that's a compromise, then closes the fridge door, unfeeling the wrapper from a stick of string cheese.

Alex smirks as he bites through nearly half of it. "That how you eat those now?"

Mouth full, Max nods. "I don't waste time. Life is short." He grins when she laughs. "Hey, what part are you at in Cujo?"

She's been reading it on Max's recommendation. Piper can't get through that kind of book, but Alex has always been used to reading pretty much anything available, and anyway, she kind of digs the Stephen King. Max is right, The Shining is much better as a book - one of his most passionate and unwavering opinions.

"Uh, he just bit the mom, but she made it back in the car."

"Ooh, okay, yeah, you're getting into the good parts," he tells her eagerly. "Also, I forgot one rule though…you can't use this book as a reason not to get a dog."

"You still want a dog after reading this?"

Max promptly launches into an explanation as to how the plot of Cujo could easily have been prevented with more responsible dog ownership, the muffled roar of Death Maiden underscoring the conversation, all songs Alex used to listen to in middle and high school with a fervor bordering on hero worship.

She tries to tune the music out, wants to ignore it and listen to her son with all his brilliant, nerdy enthusiasm, but she's feeling strangely overwhelmed; Max's voice, her father's music, both so familiar and so far apart, like she can't hold them both in her head at once.

So she ends up cutting him off, mid-sentence, "Max, can you turn that off if we're going to have a conversation, please?"

"Fine…" He rolls his eyes and sighs, the instinctive response to any admonishment. He silences his phone, but says, "It's Death Maiden, do you know them?"

"Kinda," she replies nonsensically.

"Cash wants us to learn to play this one song, Dirty Girl. And also Marionette."

She wishes Piper would hurry up and get home.

"Hey. Remember what we said…homework as soon as soon as Cash and Brian leave."

"But I've just got math and it's super easy. I was gonna do it while we watch Bandwagon," he says, referring to the sitcom they all watch together every Tuesday night.

"Well, y'know the show's pretty complex. Better you have all your focus on it."

Max groans but obeys, grabbing his backpack off the floor by the doorway but leaving his trumpet case. Alex can hear the music start up again when he gets into the living room, and something about it keeps her from following him, taking her Stephen King novel and reading on the couch while Max sits on the floor with his homework spread across the coffee table.

Instead Alex stands in the middle of the kitchen and waits almost half an hour until the door finally opens and Piper comes in.

"Hey!" She's smiling, that light infused thank God I'm home smile, but it twists quickly as she tilts her head in confusion. "What's wrong?"

"Jesus, do I look that weird?"

"Yes. Plus you were kind of staring at the door." She crosses the kitchen, giving Alex a quick, habitual kiss hello, concern already settling. "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, don't worry…" Alex flicks her eyes in the direction of the living room, lowering her voice a little. "Max and the guys have discovered Death Maiden."

"What? Alex...God, I guess that does fit their repertoire." Referring to Cash's parents, she says indignantly, "Deb and Leo need to start monitoring what that fucking kid listens to -"

"Oh, they'd never subject their precious little snowflake to censorship."

Piper rolls her eyes in agreement, but then her features slowly soften into sympathy. She touches two fingers to Alex's cheek. "You okay?"

"I'm fine. Really. You go say hey to our boy, we can talk in a minute."

"Alright." She kisses Alex's cheek before following the distant sound of music into the living room.

Piper spends a skilled ten minutes drawing information about his day at school from her son, then issues a non-negotiable headphones order before going to the kitchen to cook dinner with Alex, safe in the knowledge that Max is out of earshot and so is Death Maiden.

"It's not the music," Alex tells her, chopping vegetables beside Piper at the stove. "It's been a few decades now, I can obviously handle hearing the songs, it's just…Max listening. And standing there asking me if I've heard of them." She shakes her head, looking almost angry at herself. "It feels like I'm lying to him."

"You're not."

"You know what I mean though."

"I do. But…maybe it's just the album of the day. He could forget all about it tomorrow."

Alex pauses to throw her a significant look. "Max is already talking about which songs they're gonna learn. You know what that means. It's the only music we'll hear for at least a month." She nudges her elbow against Piper's. "And he's too much your kid…he'll memorize their Wikipedia page, plus every article listed as a source and wanna tell us about it. It's why I now know way too much about Black Sabbath."

"True."

"I can't have him learning the chords to some godawful song my father wrote and not mention he wrote it."

Piper raises an eyebrow at her, prompting gently, "But?"

Quiet, Alex says, "But I don't want him to think it's cool. I did, for way too long. And I know for Max, he's not any different than the other ancient drug addict rock stars they're into right now, but I still…God, Pipes, I hate it."

"I know. And I get that. But your mom wanted you to think it was cool. Right? She told you about him as this rock god. You don't have to do that with Max."

"So I say to him…what? 'Hey, buddy, here's the most cliche of all my shitty stories, that you need to know for no reason'."

"Hey, we've always said it's good to be honest with him about stuff like this. It's okay for him to know our lives haven't always been perfect."

Piper's parents had never talked to her about stuff like that; she remembers growing up with the vague notion that they'd never gone through anything difficult in their lives. And she never once thought they might understand when she was upset about something.

"Yeah…" Alex's expression is conflicted. "I don't know, maybe I'll wait a day or two. His good taste might kick in and we'll never have to hear a Death Maiden song again."

But every morning for the rest of the week, his phone gets plugged into the car's auxiliary cable and Death Maiden soundtracks their drives to and from school. By Thursday Max has gotten to the deep cuts, early EPs and obscure B-sides - including the song her father wrote with the lyric about throwing salt over your shoulder, the inspiration for Alex's first tattoo at age sixteen.

Max isn't awake enough in the mornings to be particularly chatty, so Alex is at least spared a running commentary of trivia or analysis, but on Friday she can't help but ask, unprompted, "Are all these guys still alive?"

It's strange that she doesn't know.

"The lead singer isn't. He died a few years ago I think. Everybody else is, but they haven't played in awhile anyway."

"They were has beens by the late 90's," Alex mutters.

Max looks over at her, interest peaked. "Did you listen to their stuff?"

It's this kind of question she hates; it makes Alex feel deceitful. "Some," she says carefully, hesitating before she adds, "My mom saw some of their concerts."

"Grandma Diane was so cool," Max says with a wistful sigh.

Alex had teared up the first time he ever called her that, years and years ago in some innocuous question. He'd obviously heard the title from Piper; it never would have occurred to Alex such a thing could be given posthumously.

Even now, it makes her chest pang a little. Max knows her mom only from stories..and lately, the stories have mostly been about Diane's record collection or the bands she followed on tour before Alex was born.

There's something to this, about her son calling her mother cool while they're parked outside a middle school, decades after her mom called Alex the same thing in a similar place. Somehow, her goddamned father is still the reason.

Alex reaches over to touch Max's hair, and he lets her for about five seconds before shrugging away.

She decides she'll talk to him tonight.

They're eating takeout Chinese food in the living room, Max on the couch with his legs stretched across Piper's lap. He's scrolling through Netflix on the TV while also waving one foot in Piper's face, jokingly whining for a foot rub.

"Barking up the wrong mom, kiddo," Piper teases, grabbing his foot and holding it still. She nods in Alex's direction. "She's the one who used to give foot massages in prison."

"Once I did that," Alex corrects. "And only because I heroically gave you food off my own plate."

An exaggerated groan rolls out of Max and he flops dramatically onto his stomach, face pressed into the couch cushions. "Stop being weird." Still flat on his stomach, he wiggles close to Piper again. "Gimme a back massage then."

"You're such a diva," Piper informs him, nonetheless kneading the heel of her hand between his shoulder blades. "You gonna pick a movie or what?"

"Are you gonna whine if it's a horror one?" He turns his head so one eye is visible, seeking out Alex's gaze in the nearby recliner. "Momma and me'll outvote you, won't we?"

"I get three vetoes," Piper warns. "And nothing like that last movie we watched with the giant insects."

"Let's watch 1408, there aren't creatures or anything."

"Fine. Alex, c'mere." She moves over on the couch, nudging Max to make room. "Safety in numbers."

Alex has been quiet, content to just watch the two of them, but now she comes to sit on Max's other side, giving Piper a significant look over his head. "Hey, bud, before we start the movie, I wanted to talk to you about something real quick."

She says it as casually as possible, but Max's expression sinks into suspicion anyway. Narrowing his eyes, he demands, "What'd I do?"

"Uh, nothing that I know of. Anything you wanna share?" His gaze is unwavering, and Alex smiles at him. "It's nothing bad, Max. No big deal."

"What then?"

Piper stretches her arm across the back of the couch, draping her hand down to touch Alex's shoulder.

"Do you remember when you were little, and you first asked me about my mom?"

He wrinkles his nose, confused. "Not really."

Alex and Piper swap a quick, nostalgic smile. He'd first merely asked if Alex had a mom, and then was mostly curious if her mom had ever met his.

"Well, you did. But you never asked about my dad."

It wouldn't have occurred to Max at that age to ask; for him, some people had only one parent, and that didn't represent any sort of lack.

Max isn't looking at her; he's slumped low on the couch, tightly wound and obviously uncomfortable by the random, serious subject matter. "Okay, so?"

"So the thing is…my dad is Lee Burley. The - "

" - Death Maiden drummer?" Max's head snaps up, eyes popping with awe. "Seriously?"

It's there in his face, the wow that's so cool! she'd been afraid to see. Instinctively, Alex's eyes find Piper's, steady and encouraging. It helps her continue.

"Yeah, seriously. He met my mom at a concert, and took her on tour for awhile. But they broke up before I was born…he left her when she told him she was pregnant."

"Oh." Max frowns slightly. "But did you get to see him play and stuff?"

"You know, buddy, I never really knew him. He was basically just my birthfather." She uses the term because that's how they refer to his biological parents; there's an implied distance there, and from the way the excitement in Max's eyes dims, she can see it worked. "Your grandma Diane told me who he was, but he never contacted us or anything."

"Did you ever even meet him?" Max asks, and Alex can see in his face the struggle to understand, a thirteen year old boy's vague awareness that there's something very wrong with that behavior. But there's also simple, straightforward disappointment there, the flash of possibility of a rock star grandfather given and then crushed immediately.

Alex glances at Piper before answering quietly, "Only twice."

Surprise flares in Piper's eyes. "Twice?"

She looks directly at Max as she answers, "I went to one of his concerts when I was about eighteen. I didn't stay very long, he…" She pauses, choosing her words delicately. "Wasn't very nice. I went to another show when I was older, after my mom died…saw him for a second, but he didn't recognize me. We didn't even talk."

Piper face softens, clouding over with questions, but Alex looks back at Max. His arms are wrapped around his stomach, face pinched in discomfort once again. "So…he wasn't a good guy."

"Seemed like it," Alex says lightly. "But I didn't even know him, really."

"I can…I don't know, I'll stop listening to Death Maiden. And we don't have to learn their songs, we still don't even know the Zeppelin one -"

"Hey, hey, it's okay, kiddo. You listen to whatever you want, okay? That's not why I told you."

"Then why?"

Alex takes her time considering the question, wanting to make it make sense. "It just felt like a big thing to keep a secret from you."

He holds eye contact for a long moment before looking away. "Can we watch the movie?"

Alex looks at Piper, searching for reassurance. Her smile is gentle and approving.

So Alex nods, "Yeah, Monster, go ahead and start the movie."

He looks over at Piper. "Mom, will you turn off the lights?"

Piper gets up and flicks the switch for the living room while Max finds and clicks on the movie. When she settles onto the couch again, she stretches across the back of the couch again, fingers tangling gently in Alex's hair.

Max is quieter than usual, not once whispering tidbits about the differences between the movie and the short story it's based on. About twenty minutes into the movie, Alex feels sink a little heavier against her side. She combs her fingers absently through his hair. He lets her.

Max doesn't like thinking about this.

It's really weird and embarrassing to realize he's been playing Death Maiden music all week, right in front of his moms, and neither of them mentioned the drummer was, like, his freaking grandfather.

Though Momma hadn't used that word. Not like when they talk about Grandma Diane, even though Max never met her either.

It's hard to imagine either of his mothers before they were adults, but with Mom at least there are photos all over grandparents' house, plus stories he's heard from Uncle Cal or Grandpa or Grandma. With Momma, though, there's no one around to tell stories.

Max feels kinda bad that he never wondered at all about her, even though he's old enough to know by now that most people have two parents, and if one's gone there's usually a reason, and the reason usually isn't very good.

He knows she was pretty poor growing up. Momma told him that when they gave him the whole talk about why she was in prison when he was little (which is his least favorite talk, because really, no other kids have to be told that breaking the law is bad, or that prison isn't fun, and he hated the way his mom's face looked when Momma made sure to tell him how dangerous it ended up being), and also because they once went through Northampton on a trip and drove by where his moms met, and where Mom went to college, and finally where Momma used to live. It was a trailer park, and he'd been really surprised. Max doesn't know anyone who lives in a trailer.

Except he still didn't think much about until right now, when he knows the second and third Death Maiden records sold a lot of copies, and they had a lot of big tours, so Lee Burley probably had lots of money.

He really, really doesn't like thinking about this.

They finish the movie and no one brings up Lee again, except his moms keep looking at each other all serious and raising eyebrows like they're reading each others minds. That's always annoying, but right now it makes him feel like something's wrong, so Max retreats to his bedroom as soon as he gets a chance.

He deletes Death Maiden from his Spotify playlists and turns on some of the quieter, acoustic type music that Cash doesn't know he listens to. He likes it because he can listen while he's reading without getting distracted, except right now it's hard to focus on his book. He finally he grabs his phone and texts his mom.

Can you come up here for a sec?

He thinks for a second, then adds:

Just you though.

Less than two minutes later, she's knocking on his bedroom and pushing it open without waiting for an answer. "What's up, baby?"

"I don't know," he answers automatically, which is a dumb thing to say since he obviously asked her to come up here. "Just. I feel kinda bad about playing that music all week in front of Momma."

"Max…" She closes the door behind her, which he's glad about, and comes in to sit on his bed. "You don't have to feel bad, I promise. You didn't know, and anyway, I promise Momma's fine. I think it just surprised her a little."

"Yeah…" He trails off for a moment, habitually wrapping the cord for his earbuds around his fingers. "Did Momma…I mean, was she sad about her dad not being with them?"

"I think…when she first met him, she's been pretty excited about to finally see him, so when she found out he wasn't a very good guy, that was tough."

"You think it hurt her feelings?"

"Yeah, I'm sure it did. But for the most part, I think she was okay. She and her mom were really close."

"Yeah. I wish Grandma Diane was still alive." He says it because it doesn't seem fair that they only have family on one side, but for a second his mom's face gets so sad Max has to look away.

"Me, too," she says quietly, in this voice that makes him nervous. He changes the subject back fast.

"But I don't really wanna listen to Death Maiden anymore, anyway. They kinda suck."

That makes her smile a little. "Yeah. I think so, too."

"I'm just glad I didn't decide to be a drummer."

His mom grins, even though he's not trying to be funny. "You're a really sweet kid, you know that?"

He sighs. "I'm thirteen."

"Fine, you're a really sweet thirteen year old. Better?"

Almost smiling, Max nods.

Piper leaves her son's door cracked open and goes downstairs to their bedroom, where Alex is stretched out on top of the comforter with a copy of one of Max's godawful horror books. She lifts her eyes, face swarmed with poorly concealed worry. "He okay?"

"Yeah." Piper crawls onto the bed beside her, pillowing her head on her arms and looking up at Alex. "He feels bad about playing the music around you all week."

"God…" Alex exhales heavily, running a hand through her hair. "I didn't want him feeling guilty. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything."

"No, I think it's good that he knows. For both of you." She's quiet for a moment, working herself up to looking at Alex again, and her question comes out so soft. "So you saw him after your mom died?"

"Yeah." Alex answers like she's been waiting for that. "Sorry."

"You never told me."

"It wasn't on purpose. I just didn't think about it." She smiles wryly. "We had enough shit going on without me catching you up on eight years worth of it."

"What happened?"

"It was almost two months after the funeral, I think...before Fahri died. We were mostly staying in Paris, still, but he was always seeing clients in New York on weekends, remember? I tagged along once because he was the one who always had drugs." She says this matter of factly, her voice years removed from the mess she was at that time, but Piper still can't hear about it without hurt tangling up in her chest.

"Anyway. Lee was still one of the clients." Alex rolls her eyes. "Playing some shitty bar, even worse place than the first time I met him. I went because…I don't know, the idea of him still being alive when my mom wasn't made me so fucking angry. I started wishing I'd stayed to yell at him, tell him what a piece of shit he was that first time. So I was planning to do it, got backstage all pissed off and hopped up on whatever pills Fahri had that night. Except he didn't even recognize me. Of course he didn't. He made some feeble attempt at hitting on me, but he was too high to really make any sense."

For the first time, there's a crack in Alex's expression that lets the ghosts in, and she no longer seems twenty years removed from the story she's telling. "It hit me that I was more like him than my mom. Lonely asshole junkies, both of us." She shakes her head in disbelief at her younger self, the distance returning to her eyes as she adds easily, "Not that it was enough to make me quit. Just break down crying in a cab on the way back to the hotel."

Piper doesn't say anything for awhile. She rolls over, fitting herself against Alex's side, cheek resting on her shoulder, like she can offer far too belated comfort.

Piper knows Alex still hates the fact that she missed so much from the first four years or so of Max's life, that her memories of him at that age are limited to a prison visitation room. Even though they know there was no avoiding it, that if Alex hadn't been in prison they likely wouldn't have Max anyway - she's still acutely aware of what she missed.

Sometimes Piper feels the same way about the years after Diane died. Even though she fervently believes they've ended up exactly where they're supposed to be, and that all the hurt and anger and even the separation they had to slog through was maybe the only route to this...Piper still can't help wishing she had been there. It's hard to imagine Alex that way, and it's even harder to think of her that alone.

But then Alex looks at Piper, smiling in a way that's rooted firmly in the present: not lonely at all.

A/N: There's actually a whole second half that spins off from this - but this was already longer than I intended for this collection, and the next sequence is loosely connected enough that it'll be just a sort of "part two". So there's a good chance I'll post that soon before going back to Max as a five year old.

Feel free to leave any prompts for this verse, though I'd prefer it to be messaged on tumblr (Alxvse) or PM'ed just so reviews aren't all prompts (though feel free to tack it on to the end of a review). Plus, like I said, I do have a long list, but I don't necessarily need to get to them in order.