7. Even if I'm dreaming, I'm dreaming with you


AN/ Penultimate chapter :(

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Close your eyes and lose the feeling that's been sinking
Close your eyes and count to three
Close your eyes, rewind, I know just what you're thinking
Close your eyes and think of me

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The next couple of days feel as though Alex has been pushed onto a busy highway, dodging three lanes of traffic that was hurtling toward her, and it's manageable at first: swerving, turning and jumping away, but eventually the probability of odds sets in and there comes a moment when she hasn't dodged fast enough.

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Alex climbed into her truck, plopping onto the seat and about to close the door shut. Her mom had messaged her, saying she was going to be late today. The manager had asked her to pull a double shift because one of the other girls had called in sick, something which happened all too often to which her mom would too frequently agree to cover the shift.

Alex had told her mom not to take it this time - she had already worked non stop this entire week and as a result they had barely seen each other. Their interactions these days were no more than quick goodbyes and kisses on the cheek before Diane rushed of to her next shift. Sometimes, Alex wondered if that was the same life waiting for her as well; waiting tables, cleaning dishes - her home nothing more than a place to catch sleep.

Guiltily, she shook the thought away, thinking of her mom and how she would never admit to Alex she was struggling or was finding it harder and harder to keep food on the table. Alex had offered.

Offered to pick up a part time job but her mom had brushed the idea away, laughing that Alex should focus on her school.

Her thoughts are quickly shattered when the car door was suddenly yanked back open - the force of it almost ripping her arm off. She whirled around and saw Jessica standing a few feet back, stood by herself, her arms crossed and sporting a self satisfied expression that served to cause the hairs on Alex's back to rise. Jessica never usually confronted Alex by herself, she was almost always flanked by her back up. But also the brunette was stood too far back to have been the one to slam the door open. As as though confirming Alex's suspicions, Jessica spoke to someone who was stood out of her line of sight and hear her say, "Yeah that's definitely her, Jimmy."

Then Jimmy Highton stepped into view, blotting out half the night sky with his burly form, his broad shoulders flexing with thuggish anticipation. Alex didn't miss the ominous smiles that flashed between them.

She felt her heart drop, already trying to frantically start the engine. But before she even had time to fully complete the thought - she was harshly yanked out of the car. The air was crushed from her lungs when she heavily landed on the wet and muddy grass, her knees digging into it. She tried to gasp but a piercing pain radiated from somewhere in the middle of her chest. Alex tried to suck in air but her lungs didn't seem to work.

"What have you got against my sister?" Jimmy grabbed her by the collar, nearly choking Alex with it. This guy was built like a machine - achieved through a combination of playing as the high school quarterback, but more probably because of his illicit steroid injecting sessions, something which most of the school knew about but somehow hadn't had him excluded from the team.

"I'm dying to hear, Vause."

Alex could feel every bit of those steroids right now, his iron grip a vise around her throat. A genuine fear scratched at her head, calmly telling her this wasn't some PG rated, I'll teach you a lesson bitch but more frighteningly an I'm genuinely going to hurt you type situation. She would speak if he could actually let her breath first, his massive hands were slowly cutting off her oxygen supply.

"Ask her what...she has...got against me." Alex gasped. "Your sister isn't...the little p-p-princess you think...she is."

She was answered with an almighty kick in the ribs. Alex felt all the air whoosh out of her body in a single breath, it was like being hit by a forty tonne truck driving at full speed. She spluttered trying to gulp in air between racking coughs, feeling as though all the air had been emptied from her lungs. "Wrong answer." He hissed.

Paralysed, Alex scrambles for purchase, flailing over the muddy ground, languidly swimming through the dizziness, "I asked you a question. What is it that you want from her?" His heavy-weight foot clamped down on Alex's left arm so that she had to clench her teeth to stop herself from screaming out loud. He pressed down even harder and Alex felt as though her arm was going to imminently snap in half. "Answer me, you fucking dyke."

Finally catching her breath, Alex looked up and spat, "Is that the extent of your vocabulary? Change it around for variety's sake."

"You think you're so smart?"

"Get the fuck off me." Alex tried to stand up but was rewarded with a second kick - this time the blow slammed against her temple. She felt herself lurch back and it was as though her brain had short-circuited, her glasses were knocked off, hearing them distantly clatter onto the ground as the world seemed to tilt precariously on its axis. Alex felt something warm and sticky run down her face, rivulets of it streaming down the side of her neck. For a second she couldn't hone in what exactly had happened, too busy trying to figure out whether the strange shooting sparks flying across her vision were normal or not.

Through a blood filled haze Alex hears Jessica's distant protests. "Jimmy! I think you should stop now!"

Obviously ignoring his step-sister's pleads, Jimmy harshly pulled Alex into a sitting position, "Get up, you like acting all tough... let see how much of a man you really are." He slams into Alex, causing her to painfully collide against the side of her truck, she can feel her head ricochet against the metal work, any harder and her head would have been embedded in the door.

"Jimmy, what the fuck! Stop stop!"

Alex miraculously manages to stagger to her feet, a horrible darkness creeping into the periphery of her vision - its presence marking her losing battle with consciousness. The night sky stars began blending in with her own self made ones which were increasing by the dozen.

Limbs flailing, graceless like a marionette, she beelines for her car but never even makes it.

Instead Alex felt herself falling. Or was it the ground rising to meet her? She couldn't even tell anymore. All she was aware of was the eventual feel of the cold grass against her cheek.

"What the fuck have you done? Did I say nearly kill her?" Alex distantly hears Jessica's shouts echoing around her.

"But you wanted me to teach her a lesson, Jess."

"Not like this." An unmistakable worry seeps into her words, like she realised they had gone beyond the realms of a simple high school scuffle but into more criminal territory.

"Let's get out of here then."

"What and leave her like this?" Jessica's voice was full of dissent, somehow managing to access that small bit of humanity she still possessed. "Are you sure she's gonna be okay?"

"Relax, she'll be fine." Jimmy assured her. "I've done this loads of times."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear you say that, Jesus fucking Christ, Jimmy."

"Come on then. Before anyone sees us."

The sound of a car engine filled the night, shortly followed by impatient tires skidding across wet leaves and pine needles. Alex feels the darkness lurch and after a short struggle allowed the tendrils of cold sleep to wind seductively around her. She lets herself sink into the pain, deeper and deeper into its dark recesses – embracing it – until finally she feels nothing.

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"Have you heard from your girlfriend?"

Piper whips her head round, and is surprised to see Jessica trawling behind her without any of her cronies, a fact which sets her instantly on edge. She was gathering her books having nearly finished her class and was walking toward the front of the class, intent on asking the teacher a few questions over some of the things they'd discussed today.

Belatedly she answers, "She's not my girlfriend."

And apparently not even a friend anymore.

Piper feels that familiar hollowness rear its head again reminding her she hadn't seen Alex this whole week. They were good at that; avoidance.

She closes her eyes tight and more memories appear, each one striking violently, shimmering for a moment before quickly vanishing, triggering the next. She's grown used to their unwelcome appearance every time Alex's name is so much as mentioned.

"Have you seen or heard from her?" The desperation in Jessica's question strikes Piper as odd, much more than the sudden need for the brunette to demand Alex's whereabouts.

"No, I haven't."

"Just call her."

"Why?" Piper now properly turns around, taking in Jessica's dishevelled appearance, her eyes shooting around everywhere, her mouth trembling into something resembling regret.

"Just do it." She mutters without looking.

It was something in the way she said it that had Piper not hesitate for a second, some distant instinct that told her not to argue the point. She fished out of her phone, dialling Alex's number. It began to ring, her stomach suddenly turns inside out. Like a coward, Piper hoped Alex wouldn't answer.

But she didn't exactly feel relieved either when the tone eventually switched to voicemail, Hi this is Alex, I'm not here at the moment, please call back later.

Piper was temporarily arrested in place by the familiarity of the voice, all casual and cheery and she wondered whether Alex would even pick her calls up when she saw they were from Piper. "It's going through to voicemail." She muttered, looking up to catch Jessica's expression climb to a further rung of panic, her actions becoming more agitated. Pushing aside her thoughts, Piper narrowed her eyes, "Jessica, what's going on?"

"We didn't mean to." She blurts. "It was supposed to just scare her."

Piper's heart skipped a beat. "What do you mean? What's going on?"

"I really didn't mean it to happen like that…it was Jimmy, he just went crazy." She buries her hands in her hair, manically shaking her head from side to side, as though she was having an argument with herself. "I mean, why couldn't she have just listened? Why does Vause always make everything so fucking difficult?"

Piper took a step forward, an urgency almost tripping up her words. "What are you talking about?"

"Jimmy…"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Piper grabs Jessica's shoulders and shakes her hard - which was a feat really since Piper felt as though her entire body had turned into water, waves of fear gushing out from her. "Where's Alex? Tell me where the fuck she is!"

Jessica looks like she's on the verge of tears, before she mumbles, "Out at the parking lot." She turns her head at Piper, eyes forlorn. "...But you have to hurry."

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Piper can feel it.

She really can.

An unstoppable snowball of dread traversing through to the bottom of her stomach getting bigger and heavier by the second.

Piper leaves the classroom, probably the fastest exit she had ever made, all the while a machine gun fire of fear drowned out Mrs Dalton's indignant cries of protest bellowing after her. It's her AP Math class; Piper's weakest subject and also the one that always dragged down her overall score, no matter how much effort she seemed to pour into it.

But right now the fear of grades and high school and college seemed so inconsequential, ridiculous even.

She carried on running, her backpack painfully slamming against the blades of her shoulders, but pain was the last thing on her mind, instead each step closer was a further step up the stair of dread and who knew what she would find when she finally reached the top of it.

The parking lot was dark.

The few streetlights irregularly dotted across the perimeter had been stubbornly switched off. The school's meagre electricity budget only extended as far as lighting the immediate outside of the building, so that everything outside of it, including the bike sheds and school gates were thrown into darkness whenever the sun dipped under for the night. Something of a gift to the local stoners who gathered there and lit their joints, blowing out plumes of illegal smoke, brazenly exchanging bags of the stuff, safe in the knowledge no teacher would be able to seen them under the cover of darkness.

Now it seemed like the worst possible combination: dark and deserted; an ideal environment that allowed for a whole host of unthinkable possibilities.

Piper spotted Alex's truck, partially hidden by the hanging branches of the nearby trees overlooking the area. A sweat starts to build that wasn't a reaction to the sweltering evening heat.

She inched closer and closer, slowing down even further when she was no more than a few feet away. She comes to a sudden stop when her eyes catch the glint of Alex's glasses strewn across the grass bed, next she registers her beanie a few metres further.

And as though Piper was participating in a twisted version of tracing a breadcrumb trail she reaches its endpoint.

She stumbles forward, her eyes so dilated, all Piper's able to see are hazy black shapes. And through flashes of psychedelic white – the moon's rays flashing through tree branches had formed into a strange optical illusion - the shadows slowly merge into one familiar figure until she can make out the stark familiarity of it.

Alex Alex Alex

Piper's next words slide back down her throat and for a second her mind cannot wrap around the profound illogic of what she was looking at. She cannot hear above the sound of juddering breaths roaring in and out of her lungs as she blindly drops beside Alex, her knees painfully digging into the mud, and Alex...a sob catches in her throat.

Alex was worryingly not moving. Not an inch.

Even when Piper shook her hard, and her own hands felt like they were submerged into ice cold water.

Even when she shouts into her ears - her throat raw and hoarse from the sheer effort of frantic screams - their echoes reverberating in her ears. The earth seemed to shift from underneath her as she pulled at Alex's t-shirt and her hands came back wet.

Not from ice cold water but from warm sticky blood.

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A bright light suddenly came on, the beam of it feeling as though a hundred flood lights were being focused directly onto Alex's retinas. Something was pressed against her mouth too - and she fought to escape it, thrashing out like a wounded gazelle on its last legs, trying to resist the hands trapping her head. She heard a voice, much too piercing against her ears, the loudness of it like nails against a blackboard.

"Alex?" A voice distantly calling from a faraway place, a voice that also sounded so so familiar. "Alex!"

Alex twisted, writhing aimlessly. That fucking light again - intent on melting her eyes away. Too bright. Too hot. She fought trying to switch it off, so she could fall back into that calm dark, but that floating voice was not letting her.

"Alex! Alex…stop trying to fight me." She felt a hand clasp around her as though it was trying to pull her out of that darkness. "Come on. Open your eyes." A laboured pause. "Please open your eyes."

A black veil suddenly seemed to rip apart before Alex's eyes and she surfaced into a blinding ray of light. For a second she couldn't focus on anything but then her vision slowly sharpened out. Alex saw a face staring down at her, the same face holding a phone with its flashlight function on.

She shielded her eyes from the glare. "The light…"

"Oh sorry." It was thankfully switched off which allowed Alex to register the face hovering not a few inches away from her own, and even though her brain felt like it had been blended into a ball of wool, it took Alex only a second to recognise it, that part of her brain completely preserved.

Of course.

The soft, billowy hair framing her delicate features. The way her eyes shone in the dark, their impossible blue piercing into Alex's with such fervour. The kind of blue that washed up against white sand, a gentle reminder summer was coming.

She wouldn't forget something like that.

But Piper's cheeks were rouged and there was something out of sync with her expressions; a look of panicked concern, wild eyes and dilated pupils, roving over her face in hysterical sweeps.

Alex dimly realised something was off so she tried to reach out and touch her lips, full and red even in the minimal light of the evening, and tried to wipe the frightened look away. But Alex couldn't quite reach, a throbbing pain somewhere in her sides holding her back, causing her arm to feebly drop back down again.

Alex tried to sit forward, the pain in her head worse than anything she'd ever felt. She sat up, her surroundings doing a slow spin that left her nauseated and on the verge of crying out.

Her head was spinning and she could feel her pulse pounding in her ears, every part of her body burning with a fist-crunching kind of pain. Alex took deep breaths clenching her abdomen, choking off any groans. She blinked hard until everything came back into focus again.

"Alex are you okay? Are you alright?" Alex heard her ask, noticing Piper relieved happiness before it quickly turned all serious, her eyes blazing with righteous anger. "What happened?"

And that's when it all came flooding back. Jimmy. Jessica.

"Piper." Alex gasped, her first word she had said since surfacing back to consciousness, every breath causing her ribs to feel as though they were being pulled out of her chest one by one. "What are you doing here?" before she dumbly added. "You shouldn't even be here."

Piper momentarily flounders for her words.

Alex looked away.

They had simultaneously remembered they shouldn't even be talking to each other, weren't even supposed to be on good terms. They hadn't talked for most of the past semester much less seen each other. The time Alex had seen her, just one day in a lifetime, surrounded by others - she had wanted to take Piper by the hand and lead her away.

Even in the darkness and through a cold pain, Alex could feel Piper staring at her. She looked up, meeting her gaze, their eyes somehow exchanging silent sorrys.

"Are you going to help me up or what?" Alex muttered awkwardly, her voice strained and nervous, not admitting it wasn't because of the pain.

"Oh sorry." Piper helped her to her feet and slung Alex's arms over her shoulders.

Alex's legs weren't quite working, so they half stumbled, half let herself get dragged down to the pick-up. The familiarity of Piper's contours unfairly comforting and it made Alex guiltily wonder how she had managed to evade Piper for the last few months.

When she was somewhat straightened out and in a reasonably comfortable position, did Piper ask, "Alex, what happened?"

She muttered Jessica's name out in a resentful hiss.

The name earned an almost never-ending round of expletives from Piper and if Alex hadn't been in the amount of pain she was in now she may have let out a laugh or two but right now the bones in her face felt like they had rearranged themselves into a painful and jagged canvas and the side of her chest was throbbing like nothing she had ever experienced.

"I'm going to call an ambulance." Piper declares.

"No hospital." Alex clenched her teeth, smoothing the frowns of pain out with great difficulty. "I'll be fine, nothing a few Tylenols can't sort out."

Alex neglected to mention a trip to the ER would be a catastrophic mistake; they didn't even have health insurance and also it would make her mom fly off the handle, and probably keep Alex from ever returning to a school that was very lax on looking after the wellbeing of their students.

"What? Tylenols?" Piper countered, her eyes jumping all over Alex and her bruises. "Alex, you should see what you look like. You look as though you've done a few rounds with Mike Tyson... You look everything but fine."

Alex could hear Piper's attempt at trying to remain calm but uncomfortably heard the frenzied worry tinging her words every now and again and it hurt her somewhere deep in the chest.

"Piper." She began calmly, "I'm honestly fine, besides….these?" Alex pointed at the bruises covering her face trying her hardest at feigning lightheartedness even though she was practically going to cry over how soft and concerned Piper's voice was. "…these are the height of fashion these days. They're true battle scars."

Piper appeared unconvinced, "Alex…"

Alex pulled a smile, "Look at you, all knight in shining armour, coming to save the day."

"Alex, you were-"

"I'm fine. I'm fine. Look at me." Alex reassured, a smirk playing at her lips. "I'm going to be having a fucking whale of a headache over the next few days, though."

Alex is almost smiling - smiling as if something good was about to happen because she didn't want to see that look of worry and concern distorting Piper's features. Smiling because Piper was speaking to her again, even though it was Alex who had said they shouldn't see each other again. Alex wondered if they'd ever make amends again, erase the past and start over, or maybe the concrete had already dried, too late for it to change form.

But when Piper suddenly throws her arms around her, enveloping Alex in a tight hug that felt as though it was something she needed but had never really thought she could have or would happen, the world falls through her feet. Piper's embrace was like a hurricane - all fury and force and her words the same. "I'm glad you're okay."

Alex takes a fortifying breath, too overwhelmed, the moment so saturated with something she couldn't define. "Me too." Her voice barely tangible.

"You could have been badly hurt." She says softly into her neck, as if remembering how much worse it could have been.

Sick, Alex doesn't even want to imagine how Piper must have felt when she'd found her. It somehow makes her even more guilty. But more than that - it upsets her. She feels Piper's arm tighten around the waist, her hands running up and down her spine, like she was making sure Alex was indeed there; damaged but whole.

Alex swallows a lump with difficulty, glad she was wearing her glasses, because the burn in her eyes was really really beginning to fall into the category of crying. Alex doesn't think she can come back from the tears once they started flowing. She pauses enough to catch her breath says, "I know."

Piper pulls back just enough to see her face. "Like really really badly, Alex."

Alex sucked in a lungful of air, and gritted her teeth. "Hmmmm."

They stay like that for an entire minute until Piper eventually lets go but still doesn't really move back, the space between them suddenly impossibly small.

Piper continues to stare at Alex, her eyes roaming all over her, as though she was trying to figure her out. It makes Alex feel naked in the glare of it. She lets her gaze drop just as a nervous sort of energy tingled through her. Tiny electric sparks starting from the ground, gathering through her feet and raising upwards in a single stream of anticipation.

Alex shakes her head, but Piper is still staring. Silent but staring. Maybe it's the fact her head had been bashed in not half hour ago, or maybe it was Piper's eyes boring into her, but all Alex knew was it felt she like was being smothered by a warmth. And it was making her feel drunk out of her mind.

"I'm sorry for scaring you." Alex eventually mumbles for nothing better to say.

"I know."

Alex wasn't sure whether they were talking about their conversation months back or the events from this evening, either way, it felt good to let it out.

"I'm sorry too. Really I am."

Alex's chest imploded. It was her who should be apologising. Not Piper. But here she was throwing a lifeline of sorrys at her, ones Alex didn't think she even deserved to grab hold of. Alex wants to say all the right things, do all the right things, but her insides are too wet with unshed tears.

Unexpectedly, Piper grabs hold of her hands. Momentarily surprised, Alex looks down and then back up again, looking at Piper whose face was a swirl of ragged emotion. Alex can feel that specific look burning into her. Burying her. So that she feels herself mirroring the exact look.

They both knew it was coming, it seemed inevitable, really.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

Shy looks exchanged but quickly quashed by an untethered want.

Alex feels Piper's fingers wrap themselves around hers, the touch so delicate and tender it feels like her whole world had been balanced so perfectly. Like she had finally come up for air from the months long swim she'd been on.

But apparently the stars weren't aligned in their favour tonight. Because the light of a massive flashlight harshly lit up the insides of the car, closely followed by Mrs Dalton's voice drifting in through the open window, all incredulous and alarmed, "ALEX VAUSE, what on earth has happened to you?!"

Sheepishly they sprang apart, both blushing and lost for words. The last few seconds still imprinted in their heads as they looked everywhere but each other.

But it didn't matter that much to Alex anyway.

Because in her mind she had already placed their lips together.

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AN/ Kind of sad to realise this is nearly coming to it's end. Thanks for all those readers who have stuck by me for so long. In the meantime, would love to know your thoughts x