AN: This is it. Thank you to all of you who have supported me through this story. It's been a journey of self growth and development in my ability to write in English. I hope this story has been satisfactory for you and thank you all again for all the favorites, follows and reviews that I've got. You're the best!
And for the last time;
Thanks for reading. Love always.
Epilogue – Like, Will you marry me for pussies
Two nervous months later, they finally found themselves on Mccarran international airport about to board a one way flight out of the country. Ever since they got to the motel, they hadn't really left the room much. Even if they were pretty certain that Fahri's men wouldn't find them out in the Nevada dessert, they took nothing for granted. It was a stressful couple of months they faced, trying to keep both of them sane while practically locked up in a tiny motel rum trying to make a perfect plan on escaping the country.
They were really lucky. The small community that surrounded the motel wasn't much, the people there kept to themselves and didn't ask questions. They were probably used to dusky strangers who came and went like the desert wind.
Alex actually got the job, and they said it was fine if she worked from a long distance. They just needed her to read the scripts, correct them and give her input to it. Sometimes she would Skype with the author just to get a more personal contact with the person. Alex getting the job was a huge success for the both of them. This meant that they would not go empty handed, short handed maybe, but not empty.
xxx
They walked hand in hand towards the gate for the plane to Frankfurt. They would later switch planes there. It was one of the more expensive trips, not by much, but, it was the most straight way to get to their destination. And they both agreed that they wanted to arrive sooner rather then later.
Alex's property abroad had brought in a lot more money than she thought, so she was even able to buy them an apartment in the new country. So when they arrived, they only needed to make one phone call to get the keys and then, they could say welcome home to each other.
Over the two months they had planned things to the very last little detail. The first thing they both did was starting to sell their property so that they knew how much money they had. It went better than expected and after about a month they had sold all the property that they owned and was able to solely focus on getting their visas and country memberships approved. It was actually quite hard, they had to do many calls to different offices and were connected to one operator after the other. Simply put, it was tiring business, but they had to do it if they wanted to be safe and that's what made them wait patiently, well almost, in the phone queue.
When they finally landed on the airport of Arlanda they were both tired and wanted to get to the new apartment quickly. They dragged themselves trough the bustling airport. Even though it was so much smaller than the McCarran airport, it was still very much alive with people going about, stressing to different locations like the world would end if they didn't get there as quickly as possible. Nobody stopped to look at the both of them and that was a small comfort to them both. People here seemed to mind their own business and that's exactly what Alex and Piper needed and wanted.
Even if people around them hurried their steps, they couldn't even be bothered trying to hurry through the airport. They didn't have the energy and it seemed that all of the tension between them had evaporated into the air once they had sat foot on secure soil. This made them realize just how tired they had both been. Tired of being taut like a spring ready to jump and flee at the first sight of danger.
They just wanted to go home with each other. To finally be able to rest peacefully after their long journey of slow, insecure nights with only nightmares to keep them company. Nights were the clock seemed to be their ever present enemy, ticking away painfully slow like it was taunting them with it's power to control time. They just wanted to be able to call something home again, even if they both had each others warm embrace to call home, a roof over the head is comforting. It would be nice to finally feel safe enough to go out in broad daylight and not having to look twice over the shoulder.
When they got to the apartment, they took a mere five minutes to map out the place before they both crashed on the bed that had been bought and placed there for them with the help of the administrator of the building. Other than that, they didn't have any furniture. Not even sheets. They just slumped down on the king sized bed and held each other before they succumbed to the dark place called sleep.
After a quick trip to Ikea to get furniture and other essential things such as kitchen supplies, they started to really make the apartment a home. A few months later, when both of them got more settled in, Piper started looking for a job. But, since her language skills weren't even near a young child's, she started a web site and started making the soaps of PoPi at home. It was a struggle since it had always been Polly who made them, but with time she learned and eventually they were almost as good as Polly's.
After a while, she saw that the interest for her artisanal products were high so she started to look for a place to sell and make them. Of course she talked to Polly and made sure it was okay with her. Polly had been more than okay with it, she was static and saw this as a great opportunity to expand the business even further than Barneys.
It was nice to spend so much time at home with Alex, but the making of the soaps took up too much space and they would end up in each others faces. Just when things started to become too much for them, Piper got an offer to manage a little shop that was already established, but she would be able to sell her own products as well. Her language skills wouldn't be a problem either, since the shop was located in Old Town and that place was crowded by tourists.
Even so, they both thrived in Stockholm.
At a restaurant in Hornstull Strand a year later, they sat and watched the sun set over the canal. They had enjoyed a cup of coffee after a light, but delicious dinner. The summer in Stockholm was quite hot, much like it could be in New York around the same time of year. It was that kind of heat that seemed to stand still between all the houses when one was in the city, but it was nice to not have a rainy and cold summer.
"Admit it, you only wanted to go to Sweden so you could be Lisbeth Salander." Piper said and smirked, thinking about the books. After they both fled the states, they saw the Swedish movies based on the books, but neither of them really liked it since they both adored the books. They had been okay, though. The only thing they could actually say that was good in the movies was Noomi Rapace who played Lisbeth Salander. They thought that she did a good job. It was a different kind of Lisbeth she portrayed than how she was in the books, but they agreed that it worked.
"What? I'm not even remotely like her." Alex laughed and sipped her coffee.
"A bit. You're dark and mysterious and hot. I mean, you did say yourself that Noomi Rapace was hot in the movies. And she is." Piper whistled low.
"Man, she could give you a run for your money." Piper played on, and stared out into thin air like she saw it all before her. Biting her lip for added effect.
"Dear Pipes, that has nothing to do with me being like Lisbeth Salander." Alex smirked.
"But yeah, Noomi is hot. So, maybe I should dump you and go out with myself since I'm so hot." Alex played and flipped her hair overly dramatic over her shoulder.
"Don't even dream about dumping my ass. You love it too much, you narcissistic asshole." Piper said, while she smiled and kissed Alex's hand.
"Well, since I'm such a narcissist I like my ass better than yours. So keep it to yourself honey." The raven-haired woman said while laughing as she had to dodge a punch from Piper.
"You asshole!" Piper almost squealed, but Alex saw that happy glint in her eyes.
"And you love it." Alex said and chuckled low. The banter between them stilled for a moment, lulling Alex into a more serious mode. It had been a long time since she had thought about it. The forever thing. The promise she made Piper by that sunset in the Nevada desert. When they sat here, a beautiful summer evening, celebrating a quiet year in the new country, she couldn't think of a better moment to ask when they would follow through. If that was what Piper still wanted.
She had always been sure that she would never put that golden band around her forth left finger. But as it had been that evening in Nevada, the more she thought about it, the less it bothered her to make all those promises and actually go through with it all. Because, Piper was different. She had always been, but the first time around, she hadn't been ready or mature enough for that kind of promise. And now it all made more sense to her. She didn't want anyone else. How could she want somebody else when she had so much history with the blonde? So much memories with her? It was all inestimable. Nobody in the world could put a price or some other kind of value on her love for Piper. She felt guilty when she thought back. When she worked for the cartel, maybe then she had been able to put a price on their love, or rather, her love came with a price. She was so focused on her work, on the one thing she thought she was good at. And sure, she had been. There hadn't been much she had been good at before she started to work for the cartel and to be acknowledge as one of the best importers had meant the world to her at the time.
At this moment in her life she could see that risking her life for all that bullshit was just stupid and childish. Naïve was a better word for it, she thought. And it had made her push aside one of the best things she had in the world, her best friend and the love of her life. It was just pure dumbness, but she could also see it for what it had been to her then.
But since they had built a whole new life, she felt that she was more ready than ever to marry the love of her life.
"Pipes, will you steal my last name soon?" Alex said while her thumb caressed the blonde's hand. It actually felt better to say it that way. Like she had said, "I heart you". It still meant the same as I love you, but it didn't feel like it came with all the tension that saying those three big words came with. And it was the same with the stealing of last names. It still meant Will you marry me, but felt better to say. She couldn't really put it into words, but it was kind of comforting to be able to say it like that. Like they had their own way of proposing. It was their thing. Like, Will you marry me for pussies.
"Yeah, when?" Piper smiled as she answered the question, pleased that Alex was seemingly impatient for them to get married.
"In a month? I don't want anything grand unless you want it? We could fly Nicky in." Alex said and fixed with her glasses. Piper smiled wider at this. She was so thoughtful, but still straight to the point with what she wanted. The blonde was really happy about how far they both had come and she was ecstatic to soon be able to call the woman that sat in front of her her wife.
"That sounds fantastic, but Polly has to come too." Piper said, smirked and then she lit up.
"Oh! Maybe we can go to Kiruna and get married at the ice hotel." Piper said with bright shining eyes, like this was the best idea in the world. Her eyes got big and wide and she had almost squealed it out, like she often did when she was excited about something. It brought out that young and innocent Piper that had that Bambi shtick going on. It was cute, but Alex was still a bit taken back by what she said.
"You want a winter wedding?" Alex knitted her eyebrows at the request.
"Yeah, you're my ice princess, so we have to have a winter wedding." Piper said and the smirk returned, knowing fully well how much Alex hated to be called a princess of any kind. Even so that bright twinkle in her eyes was still present. The raven-haired woman narrowed her eyes at the comment.
"I'm not having sex with you on our wedding night on a fucking ice bed. I'll not risk freezing my tits off just to marry you, babe." The raven-haired woman said, still with her eyes narrowed.
"I like the idea, so we'll have to discuss this more, Al. I just want to give my ice princess the wedding she deserves." Piper continued and Alex just rolled her eyes.
"I'm not giving up on this. I'll even risk your tits." The blonde said with a fit of laughter, while Alex just sighed, but smiled anyways.
"But Polly has to come either way." Piper said after she had calmed down a bit.
"Of course. Holly is welcomed." Alex said and they both snorted at the comment.
While the wind and evening slowly crept in, a comfortable silence settled between them. The only thing that could be heard was the city and the people of it going about their business on this Friday evening in the late summer. That point in summer that had slightly colder evenings. The kind of cold that came with the promise that the winter would soon be grasping them with it's unforgiving fist, but it couldn't touch them. Because their eyes twinkled brightly whenever their gaze landed on the other. The kind of brightness that could lit up even the darkest of winters. Also because they were more in love than ever.
"I love you, Al."
"I love you too, Pipes."