A/N: I'm sorry it's been so long between updates, but this was probably the most exhausting bit of fic i've ever written. Here be angst, friends, so tread lightly! I'd be interested to hear what you think of it. There will be one more slightly lighter chapter, to wrap up the story.

Three planes. Three planes since six yesterday morning, and now it's nearly 1 am and Alex is stuck in traffic. The cab driver gave Times Square a wide berth, but it doesn't matter - New Years Eve in New York City means absolute gridlock. The ball has already dropped, and now matter how fast the cabbie drives Alex knows it's too late to kiss her girlfriend at midnight.

Piper will be at Polly's place, knocking back cocktails and listening to Polly's friends talk about their little start-up companies and their bohemian design projects and whatever else their small talk consists of. Frankly, Alex would rather not take part. But Polly is important to Piper, so Alex does her best to play nice whenever these parties come up. She hopes her girlfriend won't be too mad at her for getting home later than she promised, but she came from Tahiti. She took three planes. She tried.

At quarter to two the cab drops her off in front of Polly's east side apartment. She trudges up the stairs, dragging her carry-on luggage with her; the traditional bouquet of roses is in her other hand. The building is quiet, and when she knocks on Polly's door she can barely hear any noise on the other side. The door swings open, and Polly is the only person in view. 'The brunette doesn't look pleased to see her.

"Hey," Alex says awkwardly, forcing a smile. "I guess I missed the party. Is Piper still here?"

"No," Polly replies stiffly. "She took a cab, she's probably home by now."

"Oh. Okay."

"If I were you, I'd hurry. She didn't look too happy when she left."

"Fuck, okay." Alex sighs. "Thanks. Uh- happy new year."

Polly returns her wishes with a grave nod before closing the door, and Alex rolls her eyes. She and Polly have never liked each other. They maintain a careful truce for Piper's sake, but there are times Alex wishes they could just be rid of her.

She goes back outside. Hails a new taxi. It feels like the night will never end, and all she wants to do is get home, get under the blankets, and sleep with Piper's reassuring warmth beside her. The streets are still crowded due to the holiday festivities, and it takes another half an hour before the cab pulls up outside of her building. When she finally reaches the apartment, she lets herself in with a key.

"Piper?" the front room is empty; so is the kitchen. "Babe, I'm home."

No answer.

Deciding she must already be asleep, Alex drops her things by the door and carries the roses into the living room, intending to set them down on the table for Piper to find in the morning. She's surprised to see her girlfriend in there, standing by the window and staring out at the cityscape below. A book lies open on the chair next to her, its spine heavily creased. It's a collection of poetry by Pablo Neruda.

"Pipes," Alex greets, smiling softly, "doing some late night reading?"

She crosses the room and kisses her girlfriend's cheek, encircles her waist like she's done hundreds of times before. Piper is clad in a drapey pale gold dress that makes her look like some stunning figure out of Greek mythology. She stares into space, gaze focused absently on a distant object. The reading lamp casts a backlit glow against her profile, leaving part of her face in shadow. Even like this, half hidden by the night, she's still a sight for sore eyes.

"Babe... what's wrong?"

Alex brushes Pipers hair back, letting her fingertips trail across the smooth plane of her cheek in an attempt to rouse her by touch, to bring her back from wherever her mind has drifted off to. Piper doesn't pull away or flinch; she just stands there, unmoved and unresponsive.

Finally, she turns her head and slides her gaze higher until she locks eyes with Alex.

"I kissed someone."

Alex pauses.

Pulls her hands away.

"What?"

The question hangs suspended between them, a heavy weight held up by a trembling strand of gossamer. For a long moment it balances there, unanswered, and there is still the possibility that Alex heard her wrong. That this isn't happening. That the thread won't snap.

But it does, and the answer falls from Piper's lips like some bone-shattering anvil, breaking it all open.

"I kissed someone else."

The words hit Alex like a gut punch. She turns away, not wanting Piper to see the way her face contorts, the way her hand trembles as she presses it dizzily against her forehead. The pain is like a physical blow, and she bends at the waist to absorb it. Her lungs contract like an overworked bellows. She allows herself this one moment of wounded surprise and then twists back around, fingers balled into fists.

"Who?"

She takes a step forward.

"Does it matter?"

"Who?" The word comes out in a hiss of fury, and Piper shrinks away from her.

"Just a guy," Piper says. "At Polly's party."

"A guy," Alex repeats. "You kissed a guy. At Polly's party. Tonight." She says the words slowly, punctuating each phrase with a brief pause. Somehow the knowledge that it was a man makes everything feel worse. "Did you bother to ask his name before he stuck his tongue in your mouth?"

Piper's chin trembles. "Look, Alex, it's just- it just happened, okay? It didn't mean anything. We'd been talking for a while, we were drinking, it just-"

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" she interrupts, her voice rising in pitch. "That you were flirting with him all night?" Her throat constricts, heart hammering so hard it might soon beat its way out of her ribcage. "I hopped three planes, Piper. Three fucking planes in thirty-six hours to make it back here, and then I sat in traffic for over an hour. And you-" her voice cracks "-you were kissing some guy, but it's okay because it didn't 'mean anything'?""

"Don't," Piper interrupts, and now she looks angry too. "Don't do that, don't act like you're blameless. Does it mean anything to you, when you're prowling bars in Berlin or Barcelona or wherever, buying drinks for girls who are barely legal?"

"That's different! That's work."

"Work? Right, your job - turning girls into drug mules. Seducing them with your cocky attitude and your stupid witticisms. Do you use the same lines on them that you did on me? How many of them have you kissed, Alex? How many of them have you slept with?"

That stings. Alex isn't a seductress, she isn't some sleazy bar lurker slipping drugs into peoples' drinks. So what if she talks to a girl, and the girl is interested? The mules all have a choice. It's not her fucking fault if they choose to take her number, to carry a bag, to get on a plane. But Piper doesn't understand that, and deep down Alex begins to suspect that Piper doesn't even trust her. Not just because of the drugs, but because of Sylvie. Piper will never, ever, for a single second let Alex forget about the way they met; forget that she'd made Piper the 'other woman' in a short-lived love triangle. What happened with Sylvie was a mess, a mistake, but Alex feels like she'll never hear the end of it.

"Jesus, Piper!" She whirls away, pacing in a circle just to expel some of her pent-up energy. "Why are you still so fucking insecure? How many times do I have to tell you-"

"Do you even miss me?" Piper demands, behind her. "When you're out there, half a world away, working over your new mules- do you even think about me?" Piper's tone softens, her last words falling in a sudden hush like the sound at the beginning of rain shower.

Alex turns around to find Piper looking at her pleadingly, eyes wide with hurt and fear and something that might be shame. She has picked up the bouquet of roses and is handling it delicately, as if afraid the thorns will prick her.

Alex swallows hard, trying to suppress the painful lump in her throat. "I always think about you," she says, forcefully. "I love you."

"But you weren't there," Piper whispers.

"So you did it to punish me?" she asks, bitterly, her voice starting to break. "You- you kissed someone else because I was- because I was late? My flight was overbooked! I tried, Piper! I fucking tried like hell."

She swallows again, to keep from crying. She hates crying. There is a question perched on her lips, and she can't hold it there any longer.

"Did you kiss him at midnight?"

Piper closes her eyes. She doesn't have to answer.

Since they met, they've spent every New Year's Eve together. When the clock strikes twelve, Piper is always in her arms. Whether or not they kiss, whether or not they're even awake, holding each other as midnight passes is their way of saying 'I want to spend this year with you.' But tonight, Piper was in someone else's arms. Tonight, Piper was kissing someone else, and Alex can't help but picture it: Piper laughing, drunk on champagne and reckless with holiday euphoria, being swept into the arms of some faceless stranger. Him leaning forward to steal a kiss, and Piper letting it happen, maybe even enjoying it, kissing him back...

The image makes Alex want to rage and cry and howl. She feels like she's swallowed a vat of boiling water, and now everything inside her is burnt and raw and blistering. Her chest is going to burst open, the mirrors are going to shatter, the walls will crack and the whole building will come down around her. She almost wants it to.

Piper is crying now, tears sliding silently down her cheeks, and Alex hates her for looking so controlled. She wants to see her break down, sniffling, sobbing, eyes red and swollen, makeup running hideously down her face. But she looks so ethereal with her pale dress and her glistening cheeks, so angelic in her sadness that she might be carved out of marble.

Fuck her, for staying so composed. Fuck her for looking so beautiful when Alex hurts so goddamn much.

"Why?" Alex asks, her voice hoarse. "Why did you do it, Piper?"

Piper sets the roses down on the table and then wipes delicately at her face, whisking the tears away. "I haven't seen you in two months, Alex. You're never here. Every time you get on another plane, I think: what if this is the last time I see you? What if, this time, you don't come home?" She folds her arms protectively across her own chest. "Sometimes I wonder if I should stop waiting for you. Just pack my things and go."

The words are startlingly steady - practiced, even, as if Piper has rehearsed this conversation many times before. She isn't saying this on a whim. She means it, and that changes everything.

Alex doesn't feel angry anymore. She feels scared.

She needs to fix this. She crosses the room, wraps her arms around Piper from behind. "Pipes…" she breathes the name, nuzzling her chin against Piper's hair and the side of her neck. "I'm sorry."

It costs her something to apologize. She doesn't do it often. She doesn't know what else to say. She presses her lips against the soft skin of Piper's throat. "I'm sorry," she says again. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." Each repetition accompanied by a kiss, each kiss growing sloppier, more frantic. She moves her hands to Piper's hips, pulling her girlfriend back against her own body.

Piper doesn't say anything - but she tilts her head back, and between kisses Alex can see that her eyes are closed, her jaw clenched. Whatever she'd thinking, whatever she's feeling, it doesn't matter; Alex can fix this. Her fingers find the zipper of her girlfriend's dress and she lowers it, slips her hand inside to caress the skin and trace the faint contours of Piper's ribs.

She can fix this. She can make the hurt stop. She can make Piper stay.

She can fix this.

...

Hours later they are lying naked atop the bedsheets. One window curtain is still drawn open, and the light from the street creates long shadows that spill across the canvas of their skin like brushstrokes.

Piper is leaning away so far that she's almost curled in upon herself, but Alex holds her resolutely, hand wrapped around her midriff like a ring of iron. Like a handcuff. She's not trying to hold Piper prisoner, it's just that those words keep echoing in her head: 'Sometimes I wonder if I should stop waiting for you. Just pack my things and go.'

She tightens her grip, nuzzles her face closer, takes in the smell of Piper's skin like it's the only reason to keep breathing.

"We can't do this anymore," Piper whispers, in a voice so exhausted that it hurts to listen to. "We can't keep fighting, fucking, and then forgetting about it."

Alex swallows.

"I know."

Neither one of them says another word.

It's always darkest before the dawn, Alex thinks, but when the sky begins to lighten she still hasn't slept. She is afraid to close her eyes, or to let go of the woman beside her. She's afraid of waking up to find the bed empty.

She knows that when Piper leaves it will be as sudden and total as the passing of midnight or the turning of the year; a moment marked only by Before and After, and this time there won't be a kiss to ease her through it.