Chapter 10

Alex ordered pepperoni and vegetarian pizzas to be delivered in an hour, with Nicky and Diane walking into the apartment as soon as she got off the phone.

This was the first time Diane had seen her daughter since she was released from the hospital, and impatiently pulled her into a hug.

"How are you feeling baby?"

Alex held onto her mother a moment longer than she normally would, she needed that extra reassurance more than ever right now.

"I'm good, just happy to be home."

Diane pulled back from the hug and looked her daughter in the eye, "What are you not telling me Alex?"

"It's nothing mum..."

Diane decided to leave it and followed Nicky into the kitchen where Piper was sitting with Charlotte.

Diane picked up the little girl and smothered her with kisses, giving Nicky the opportunity to speak to Alex alone.

Nicky sat next to Alex on the couch and handed her a can of diet coke, "You know mother's can sniff out a lie like a blood hound, right?"

Alex laughed, "Thanks for the reminder."

"Look, I know it hasn't always been smooth sailing between you and me. But I've spent a lot of time with your mum, and she is one fucking patient woman."

"What are you trying to say Nicky?"

"All I'm saying is that she's worried about you, and she's more than earned the right to get the truth from you."

Alex had to sigh at that response, "And you're suggesting I'm not telling her the truth?"

"Are you?"

Alex ignored the question and sipped her drink, she was not in the mood for this.

"Believe it or not, I don't totally hate you these days Vause, you could even say I liked you. I don't want to see bad shit happen to you. And in case you haven't noticed, Diane has become a mum to Piper too."

"I get it Nicky."

"I'm not so sure you do. Who do you think she calls with baby questions? It sure as hell isn't Carol Chapman, it's Diane Vause. So ya know, be nice to your mother."

Nicky was happy to see the smile on Alex's face, but she wasn't quite done yet.

"Have the cops spoken to you?"

"Yeah, I gave them a statement, not that it said much."

Nicky didn't want to push the brunette anymore, she knew dealing with the police would be messy in this situation.

"Listen, I wanted to say thanks for looking after Charlotte while I was in the hospital. And thanks for being there for Piper."

"C'mon Vause, don't go getting all sappy on me. It's what friends do, right?"

"Yeah, right," Alex wasn't done feeling sorry for herself, and she couldn't be bothered hiding it.

"So how are you really feeling? No need to give me the same bulshit answer you gave your mum."

Alex finally managed to make eye contact with Nicky, "Guilty..."

"Yeah, I get it Alex. But you don't have that luxury anymore, you don't get to hang around and mope."

"Save your motivational speech Nicky."

"No, you need to hear it, especially now that there's a kid in the picture."

Nicky stopped talking when Diane walked into the lounge room holding Charlotte. She sat down on the couch next to Alex and kissed her on the cheek. Nicky excused herself to go to the bathroom, but in reality she was hoping that Alex would open up to her mother.

Diane pushed a few stray strands of hair behind Alex's ear, "You have no idea how good it is to see that you're okay."

Alex shuffled closer and rest her head on Diane's shoulder, "I never meant to push you away mum, I thought I was protecting you. I need you now more than ever."

"I'm not going anywhere baby, no matter what happens."

0-0-0-0-0

It was almost midnight, Piper and Alex had finally managed to get Charlotte back to sleep and found themselves sitting on the couch. It had been a while since they'd truly talked to each other, the type of talking where no questions are off limits and you completely lose track of time.

There was one topic Piper couldn't get out of her head, and that was why the hell Alex stayed loyal to Fahri.

"I know you don't understand it, but I do trust Fahri, a lot. My life was completely different before I met him. I was living in a shitty trailer park with my mum and we had nothing. She worked all the fucking time, and it got her nowhere. I never went to college, we could never afford that, I barely finished high school. I just didn't care Pipes, people like us were stuck, and any boyfriend my mum managed to find was a total asshole. The only time we got to live in an actual house, was when one of her boyfriends' let us move in. You know what most of them were like, most of them weren't nice guys Piper. I couldn't live like that anymore, I couldn't let her live like that."

The blonde remembered back to all the stories Alex had told her about some of Diane's boyfriend's. It made her skin crawl to think about Alex and Diane going through all that. The Diane she knew was so strong and amazing, she can't imagine her ever staying with an abusive person. But then she wasn't exactly one to judge, if it hadn't been for Alex and Diane, she might never have had the courage to leave Jack.

"The only work I could get was at shitty cafes and diners, no one wants to hire a person with no education and no experience. And then I met Fahri…."

Piper slid closer to her girlfriend and leaned her head on her shoulder, "How did you meet him?"

"I served him one night at one of the cafes I worked at, he was chatty, we got talking. He kept coming in for a few months, and we'd talk every time. He talked about what he did for a living and asked if I was interested. I was young, I had nothing, I said yes in a heartbeat."

"So you spent a lot of time with him?"

"Yeah, he taught me the ropes. I'm not saying it was always perfect or that I never fucked up, but I couldn't let go of the idea of getting Diane out of that fucking trailer park and away from her asshole boyfriends that treated her like she was nothing. I couldn't watch her go through that anymore."

Piper kept thinking about Alex's words. She'd never had to deal with being poor, she had everything she ever needed when she was growing up, materially at least. Piper could certainly understand why the brunette had joined the cartel in the first place. She snapped back to reality as Alex kept talking.

"I wasn't stupid, I knew it was all illegal, but I still fucking loved it. It gave me freedom and money, it gave me power over things I'd never been able to control in the past. I loved it, all I wanted was to keep getting better at my job, keep impressing the right people. But then I met you…"

Piper lifted her head from Alex's shoulder and kissed the side of her mouth, "I'll never forget the first time I met you."

The blonde was happy to see a small smile spread across Alex's lips, "I wanted you from that first night. Fuck, standing so close to you in that bathroom stall, I don't think I've ever wanted to touch someone as badly as I wanted to touch you."

Piper smiled and moved so she was straddling her girlfriend's lap on the couch, "Was I worth the wait?"

Alex responded by putting her hands on Piper's cheeks and pulling her in for a kiss. She was feeling a lot better this week, and she needed to feel Piper against her. Alex wanted everything, she wanted to fuck her, she wanted to make love to her, nothing could ever match the feeling of watching the blonde come undone and knowing it was all because of her. It made her feel possessive over Piper, like she was the only one in the world that could look after her and protect her. Alex focused all her energy on that kiss, and felt Piper's hands slowly move down her chest.

Alex thought she'd healed enough, and her body was more than ready for sex, she had been craving sex with her girlfriend. That was, until Piper moved her body on Alex's lap and accidentally knocked her in the stomach.

"Aghh, fuck!"

Piper immediately moved off Alex's lap, "Shit! I'm so sorry Al! Are you okay?"

Alex was doubled over on the couch for a few moments until she got her breath back, and managed a laugh.

"Just so you know, I have no desire to go back to hospital."

Piper managed her own laugh and rubbed her girlfriend's back, "It was an accident you jerk!"

Alex wrapped her arms around the blonde and pulled her in for a hug, "Just be gentle with me. Otherwise I'll need to tell Dr Russell that I landed back in hospital because my girlfriend couldn't keep her hands off me."

"Will your ego ever disappear?"

"That's all part of my charm, I'm pretty sure that's why you fell for me in the first place."

Piper smiled and leaned her head against Alex's chest, loving the feeling of being wrapped up in her arms. Then she started actually thinking about why she fell in love with the woman in front of her.

"I'd never met anyone like you."

Both women kept sitting on the couch, arms wrapped around each other, and got lost in their own thoughts about their relationship. Then Alex told Piper something, one of the few things that made her feel ashamed about herself.

"I hate what my job did to you Pipes. I always managed to convince myself that if people wanted to do drugs, then that was their choice. I never thought too much about what happened when the heroin we imported ended up on the streets, until I met you. Seeing what it did to you, that was the first time I had to face the reality of my job. I've never apologised to you.."

"No Al, there's nothing to apologise for. It was my choice to use, just like it was your choice. And we chose to quit, together."

Alex slowly nodded her head, but didn't say anything.

"Al, are you okay?"

"Yeah. I was just thinking that…..that when I saw what heroin did to you, I didn't wanna do this job anymore. But it was also when I had to be away from you, especially when you needed me most, I wanted out so fucking bad."

"And I know you're trying to get out, that's all that matters."

Piper could see Alex's mind wandering, and forced the brunette to look her in the eye, "We all do what we need to survive, our choices aren't always split between right and wrong. Life isn't that straight forward Al."

"I know Pipes, I know…."

Alex pulled Piper in for another kiss, "I love you."

"I love you too."

0-0-0-0-0

Alex and Piper fell asleep that night with their arms wrapped around each other, they were both exhausted. It was almost 2am when both women woke up to the sound of crying from the corner of the room, Charlotte had woken up again.

Alex could feel Piper's body moving to get up, "Stay in bed babe, I'll get her."

But Piper could be just as stubborn as her girlfriend, "You can't pick her up from the crib yet Al, you'll be back in the hospital in 5 seconds."

Alex scrunched up her face and ignored the blonde, following her to the crib. She watched as Piper leaned over and picked up the crying baby.

"You don't listen, do you Vause?"

"Are you just realising this now?"

Alex walked up behind the blonde and touched her daughter's face, trying to calm her down, "Do you think she's hungry?"

"I think so, will you make her a bottle?"

"Sure."

Alex kissed her girlfriend on the cheek and went into the kitchen to prepare Charlotte's milk. In the meantime, Piper moved her little girl onto her shoulder and tried to calm her down.

"It's okay sweetie, your Mummy will be back with your bottle soon."

Piper kept rubbing her little back and swaying her gently, but her screams just kept getting louder. Piper hated hearing their baby cry like this, it made her feel helpless.

"C'mon Charlie, your milk is nearly ready."

Alex eventually walked back into the room with the bottle of milk and handed it to Piper, "Here you go Charlie."

As soon as Piper offered her the bottle, Charlotte started drinking. Alex led the blonde to sit back down on the bed, and sat next to her. Piper looked between her girlfriend and their daughter, and started wondering how she was meant to do this on her own if Alex went to Indonesia and never came back.

"I can't do this without you Alex. If you get on that plane next week...I feel like I'll never see you again."

Alex sighed, it was so hard to respond to that. She still had no real plan, she could only push Kubra so far before he killed her, no matter how good she was. She knew she had to get out of this trip, she'd already asked Fahri to help her find a way out. If she got on that plane, it would probably be at least a year before he let her come back. She couldn't miss the first year of Charlotte's life, and she couldn't go a whole year without seeing Piper.

"I'm not getting on that plane Pipes."

Piper didn't want Alex to go, but she was so afraid of what would happen to her if she stayed, "What's your plan?"

"I'm not sure yet. I'm meant to meet up with Fahri tomorrow, he's gonna help me find a way out of this."

"I know you trust him Al, but I don't."

"Pipes, I don't know how to explain it to you, but I know I can trust him. Besides, I don't exactly have any other options, I can't get out of this on my own."

Charlotte had stopped drinking and Piper placed the baby on her shoulder and started rubbing her back.

"Are you telling me everything?"

"Yes, I promise, I'm not keeping anything from you."

Piper tried to focus on her daughter, but fear was starting to take over, "I wanna come tomorrow."

"No, that's not an option."

"Why?"

Alex stood up and started pacing the room, "Because, the further away you are from all this, the safer you are. I can't live with myself if you get hurt because of me."

Piper felt the tears stinging her eyes, but she was more angry than anything else. She stood up from the bed and placed Charlotte back in her crib, before turning her attention to Alex. She didn't want to wake the baby up, and dragged the brunette into the lounge room.

"You can't use that fucking excuse anymore Alex!"

"It's not a fucking excuse! How can you say that?"

"Because I can't keep going through this with you Al! Not knowing where you are, or what you're planning, it's driving me insane. I'm coming with you tomorrow, and I'm gonna be there to hear exactly what happens. I need to know what's gonna happen to you, don't you get that?"

"I get it Piper."

"No, no I don't think you do. What's the difference between this situation, and that night I went to Jack's house on my own?"

Alex started pacing again and walked into the kitchen to grab herself a beer.

"I thought I was protecting you and Nicky that night. I thought that I could handle it myself. I didn't want you guys to get pulled into my relationship drama again. You'd already gotten hurt because of my relationship with Jack, so you see, I thought I was protecting you. I thought that if I went to the house on my own, no one could get hurt but me. Fuck, I was so wrong. If I had just fucking stuck to the plan and not gone to the house on my own, you wouldn't have gotten hurt that night."

"It's not the same Pipes..."

"It's exactly the same!"

Alex could see how upset Piper was getting. She went to hug the blonde, who pushed her away.

"No! How much longer are we gonna keep doing this to each other? How much longer do you think we can keep lying to each other because we think it's the only way to keep each other safe?"

Piper went to walk past Alex, but the brunette tried to hug her again. Piper kept trying to push her away, but Alex wasn't about to let go. She kept holding onto the blonde until she stopped fighting against her, and eventually started crying into her shoulder.

"Please Alex..."

Alex tightened her grip on the blonde, "Okay, you can come with me tomorrow. I never wanted to make you feel like this Pipes, I thought I was doing the right thing."

Piper tried to bury her face further into Alex's shoulder, "We both thought we were doing the right thing."

"I'll get my mum to watch Charlotte, then we'll go meet Fahri after lunch."

Piper managed to slowly calm down, she felt better knowing that Alex wouldn't be meeting Fahri alone, but she was still scared.