Piper nervously pushed around the lettuce on her plate, trying to act like she was in search of bits of blue cheese or olives instead of avoiding the lecture from the woman across from her. She hadn't seen much of Ashton, her sponsor, since coming back from her and Alex's tropical honeymoon. She didn't want to admit that her marriage wasn't starting out well. That it wasn't the paradise she had imagined it would be. She was certain Ash would offer her judgment for choosing to marry a woman so deeply emotionally and psychologically disturbed as Alex.

"So are things at home? Haven't seen you in the meetings much."

"Work has been busy and I'm trying to get my business started before we move to California, on top of actually looking for houses and trying to decide what to do with the one we already own," Piper explained, hoping this excuse would be acceptable but knowing it wouldn't be.

"You forget I've been in a relationship with a lesbian-drug dealer for thirty-two years, married for twenty-five of those, well legally for five. I know marriage to a woman who craves that kind of thrill and has the sort of tragic life story that leads a queer woman to do such things. I know the days that it's glitter and rainbows are few. Maybe you can't talk to anybody else, maybe nobody else will understand you but I always will, or at least I try to," Ashton said in an almost maternal tone that perfectly toed the line between warm and stern as she locked eyes firmly with Piper.

"It's just I know there's something wrong with her. Ever since she kicked Nicky out of our wedding. I know that was a hard thing to do. I couldn't do it. I know if Polly came back saying sorry and asked me to be her friend again I would. I never would have chosen to cut her out of my life," Piper choked out as she nervously confessed the truth of why she was really avoiding the people, places and things that would force her to reveal all, to admit her own powerlessness and fear.

"You are a natural peacekeeper, it's what women like us were bred to do and that's even deeper than the messages about us having the best house on the block and three smiling blonde children."

"That's another thing, she won't even talk about kids. We had all these dreams ready. They were just waiting for the moment we said our I dos. But so far all she does is mope around the house and think I don't notice. Like does she think I'm an idiot," Piper added as she stabbed at her lettuce, finally releasing the pent up frustration she had been holding in and aggressively popped a grape tomato before finally looking up at her sponsor.

"Of course she doesn't. She knows you are smart. She's just waiting to see what you do then she'll respond. You left her in Paris and it gave her a kick in the ass. I don't think she'll underestimate you, Piper. Actually, you are probably the only woman she would never underestimate. Sometimes I think that's why she keeps you close, why she married you," the older woman advised as she reached out and held Piper's wrist, stopping her from her quest to stab the heart of every defenseless vegetable on her plate.

"Are you suggesting that I leave my wife? That the honeymoon period is over and I need to face that the life I dreamed of having with her will never be 'cause at the end of the day she will always be the same damn Alex no matter where we go or what we do?"

"Do you want to leave your wife," Ashton countered without hesitation.

"No. But should I want to," Piper asked in a tone that made her sound like a bratty teen girl despite her best efforts at being a strong woman.

"I'm not here to say," the older woman replied with a deep gasp as her patience began to run thin.

"Ash, tell me straight-out. What should I do? I want the old new-Alex back," Piper began to cry as her sponsor fished in her purse to hand the younger woman a tissue.

"She hasn't gone anywhere. She's hurting. She won't volunteer that she is but she's telling you in her way, with her actions. She's been through a lot of loss. She's looking at becoming a mother without hers around and you both could use meeting some queer mothers. And don't assume lesbian moms won't talk to you without a toddler on your leg and one in your belly, that's WASP mothers, different breed entirely. We'll talk to any woman considering it. You need to build a support system," Ashton told Piper reassuringly.

"But we're moving. Do we build one here or in Napa/Sonoma when we move?"

"Start here and chances are somebody knows somebody, what with the way us queers trade coasts. Whatever the equivalent of bringing her flowers is, do it. Small gestures that say 'I know you are having a hard day or time right now or life in general and I'm here.' That's how you stay married. How you transition from the honeymoon into real wedded bliss. Marriage sucks, so do what you can to make it suck less. Show her you are her partner. Courtship is about the grand gestures, marriage about the little things you can do daily to show her you are in this together," Ashton explained as Piper listened intently.

"Maybe I'll buy her a book and some lotion. Offer to get takeout then give her a massage," Piper suggested as she darted her eyes between the ceiling and her sponsor.

"Just be careful. The last thing you need when your partner is avoiding you is sex. You are trying to get her to open up. It would be especially bad in her case," Ashton added as Piper glared at her angrily.

"If you were anybody else I would slap you so hard right now," the younger woman declared.

"You know it's true. Your wife is a manipulative sex addict who will fuck anything with a vagina if said being in possession of a wet pussy promises to do her bidding," Ashton continued, unafraid of Piper's wrath, despite having a strong working knowledge of it through working the steps and general observation since the two started working together.

"Geez, Ash when you put it like that," Piper started before Ashton started to laugh and the blonde flung a tomato wedge at her face.

"Hey, I like her. Don't tell my wife but if I had met her in a dark bar and she promised me sex in exchange for being her drug mule I wouldn't have said no. She's hot. She's also the wittiest person I've ever met and I've met some great minds in my time. She is literally good at everything. Seriously, no woman should be able to cook and do medicine and read novels in multiple languages and the list goes on but she can," Ashton exclaimed as the tension between the two gradually began to dissipate entirely.

"You know that's not how it happened with me."

"Yeah, I do but it was still messed up."

"The her having a girlfriend thing or her bringing me into the ring as her partner thing," Piper asked, knowing full well the top two things her sponsor disliked about her wife and the foundation of their relationship. She had once called it 'shaky bedrock,' and, by now, Piper knew it was but the house they lovingly built was pretty and everything a functioning home should be.

"Today, the girlfriend thing. You made that second life choice knowing full well what you were doing and without any sort of proverbial gun to your head. You are a well-educated young woman. But you didn't know what she didn't tell you. Remember, Piper, we don't know what we don't know."

"Didn't stop me though," Piper countered, unwilling to let Ashton know that she acknowledged the older woman was right about that aspect of her marriage.

"Do you wish it had?"

Piper looked down at her salad as she tried to hide her eyes widening and instinctual urge to bite her lower lip by holding her fork in front of her mouth, "No. Of course not. I got to see the world, to have adventures. To live a life I never would have let myself live if left to my own devices. I just wish the future were clearer. That I knew if it was what she really wanted or we've just shifted positions in marriage and now she's going along with my dreams and desires like I did when our love was brand new."

"Then finish your salad, your future Vause babies will thank you for it soon enough, and let's go do some shopping," Ashton declared as she glanced over at the soda machine and back at the blonde staring at the last remnants of vegetables and dressing on her plate.

"Do you have time for that? Are you sure? Would Daria be okay with that?"

"Yeah, I do and she will understand. I know how to do this. Let me help you so you can help her."

"Thanks for not being like a lot of the other women when I first started going to meetings and dismissing her, us. Telling me I should leave her every chance they get."

"Hey, I'm just here, watching with a tub of popcorn until you ask for my help or support. And as long as I see something salvageable with her, I'm gonna do what I can to help you save your marriage. The divorce rate is what it is because nobody tells young people how to stay married once the ceremony and honeymoon are over. If you come to me and tell me I want to leave her, that'll be a different conversation but it's not for me to tell you to leave your wife as long as she's sober and not hitting you."

"Alex could never hit me," Piper asserted before her brain could even fully register the words her mouth was saying.

"You told me you've seen her do way worse," Ashton fired back as she rolled her eyes at the younger woman.

"To mules. To people who fucked with her or me. I'm her wife. It's different," Piper added, knowing she had no choice but to ride this one out and defend her wife, even if she did so stupidly.

"I don't know if I believe that, but your opinion is yours and mine is mine. Refill before we go," Ashton asked as she grabbed her disposable soda cup and reached towards Piper's with a smile.

"Sure," Piper sighed, mostly from relief that her sponsor went relatively easy on her when she talked herself into some senseless logic. She made sure the table was fairly clean and sent Alex a quick text message before Ashton returned with two full sodas and her sunglasses on and Piper hurriedly grabbed her purse as her sponsor did the same. The two women headed further into the shopping center to browse and made friendly small talk about everything except their wives and programs.

Two hours later, Piper set the white and rose gold polka dotted gift bag with a new book, a soft red cashmere scarf and a black and red-colored candle on their entry table then walked into the house and quickly found her wife lounging on the couch with her head buried in a book. As much as Piper couldn't wait to kiss her, she loved the look of Alex with a hastily tossed chenille throw blanket over her legs and a book nestled between her careful, loving hands, she also knew that Alex was supposed to have been at a meeting. However, it looked like she had been laying there, unmoving for hours. Piper stood there watching until her affection for her brunette goddess overwhelmed her anger, forcing it to concede in battle as love overthrew rage, one again.

"Hey, baby. You're home early," the words fell out of her mouth, guess she was still slightly more than slightly pissed at Alex.

"Yeah. Study group went over and I have a research paper to finish tonight," Alex groaned as Piper glared at her and stuck out her hip. She knew Alex better than anybody and she wasn't buying that bullshit.

"Then why aren't you working on it," Piper snapped.

"I was going to after I finished this chapter. I was just going to drink a mug of tea before I started but I got sucked in."

"You know what your problem is, Vause, you have no resistance."

"I'm a terrible human being," Alex gently placed a bookmark in between the pages of her book and ran her finger along the crease between its pages as she looked at Piper with seductive eyes and a sultry smile as she gently rubbed her thighs together.

"Yes, yes you are. Now stop it."

"Stop what," Alex teased commandingly as she cocked her eyebrow and shot her wife the smile that had been many a young woman's fatal demise.

"You know very well what," Piper shot back.

"Come," Alex flirted as she threw the blanket off her body and looked down then ran her eyes along Piper's frame, "lay on top of me." Piper rolled her eyes and chuckled at just how quickly Alex's flirting was becoming painfully desperate.

"Al, we need to talk. Something is wrong with you, you are hurting and I know you know that I know."

"Can't we talk with you resting on top of me," Alex teased as Piper hitched her hip and glared at her wife, "C'mon babe, we can look each other in the eyes better."

"Yeah cause that's really what you think about when I'm on top of you."

"Babe, don't you know how many women would kill to top me at their request, let alone mine?"

"Well, if that's what you're offering," Piper softened her gaze, bit her lip and took a tiny step forward then paused just long enough to make Alex hopeful that her seductive skills had been effective and she was about to get her way, as if she didn't know better after five years with the blonde, "still, no. But if you behave…I might just take you up on that offer," she quickly planted a chaste kiss on Alex's lips then sat down at her feet and pulled the brunette's ankles down onto her lap, "but if you promise to talk, I'll give you a foot massage. I want us to be there for each other. When you hurt it hurts me too and I know how you feel about me feeling the least bit of pain. I want to share a life together. That means sharing adventures and laughter. It means supporting each other's dreams and goals. But it also means being the person you can go to with anything. So we'll play twenty questions until you can't avoid opening up any longer."

"Okay. Sometimes I hate you," Alex grumbled as se let her ankles fall into Piper's lap.

"Yes, but even when you hate me you still love me and we both know it," Piper teased as she pulled off Alex's slipper socks before pausing to exclaim with a smile, "I got you a present."

"Is this where I'm supposed to squeal 'what is it' and then declare my undying love as you retrieve it and lovingly present the thing," Alex asked as she tried her best to seem like a cold-hearted, uncaring asshole.

"Only if that's what you want to do, but I really don't see you being that type of woman. And I'm not the kind of partner who cares. I know you love me," Piper replied as she rubbed the arch of the brunette's foot deeper.

"Love is putting it mildly," Alex replied in a tone that was somehow soft yet commanding before mouthing, 'I worship you' to the blonde and taking her fingers and folding them into hers.

"Then you should want to talk to me. Is it about Nicky?"

"Wow, hit me right out of the gate, why don't you?"

"I know you, Al. So what's up?"

"I just worry I was a little harsh with her."

"She was endangering the sobriety of you and every other every sober person at our wedding! And trying to pull them into her using! She even tried to get you to use! And she did all that shit knowing how committed you are to living clean and sober and starting a new life where drugs and alcohol aren't welcome. Babe," Piper told her wife as her anger softened a bit. Ultimately, she couldn't be mad at either of them. She just wanted Alex to be safe and to be loved like she deserved.

"Am I shitty person for saying that shit didn't really phase me? It was only all the stuff about me trying to act like I have some class that I don't actually have and never will, or in her words like I'm better than her. She forgets she comes from money too. Not quite as much as the Chapman family and yours is old Connecticut money but she's respectively nuevo riche upper class. She prefers to live like she rolled out of a dumpster, and that's her choice. I'm not doing anything other than being me, you know I don't give a damn about fitting in for anybody else's benefit. Then the stuff she said about you."

"And I know, nobody bad talks your precious princess. Say what they want about you, but so much as think an unkind word about your woman and there's hell to pay. I should be flattered that you love me more than you love yourself, but I'm not and never will be."

"Not if they want to live to tell the tale they don't. At least when she was around and using I could keep an eye on her, attempt to protect her."

"Many have tried and failed to protect Nicky. She needs to do it for herself. I'm sure you hoped cutting her off would be the shot in the ass she needed to wake up and get clean. To choose love and life. Realize that if the career and marriage you have are attainable for you then they are for her too. But Nicky was more interested in finding loose girls up to get high and fuck when she has a beautiful, sweet girl at home who loves her deeply and unconditionally. She'll never change. I wish she would. I wish there were anything or anybody that could get her to want to change. She's fighting a battle in the same war and many have fallen. That hurts. If it hurts me, I can only imagine what it does to you. We had plans and you were making so much progress but lately you seem stuck and now you are starting to roll backwards. I hate to see you like this. You are an amazing nurse and a phenomenal partner. You are the only person I want to spend my life with. You are the one I choose. Not just every morning or night but every time I have the opportunity to make a choice. I know you are hurting. That's what's so great about you, you care so much about people and how they feel. You want people to be healthy and live happy lives. You see the good in even the worst people and situations. You don't run from the chaos but into it in search of a way to be of service. You are the type of person that would save a kitten from a housefire. I know I'm not but you, you would save that kitten, throw it into my arms and tell me you thought you heard a puppy whimper and run back in. You have a heart of gold, albeit a chrome-plated heart of gold but still, and you are a little bit crazy and I love those things about you but I also hate them. I'm not going to tell you to stop worrying about her, where she is or what she's doing because I know it's not in your nature. I'd have better luck telling you not to breathe. Just when those feelings come tell me. And don't skip out on the things you do to maintain your own sobriety, or the life you want. That allow us the chance to make our plans into our reality, babe. You do still," Piper looked down at her own abdomen as she felt the heat of Alex's gaze on the same spot as hers was focused on, "want it, don't you?"

"Do I want to knock you up and move across the country, hell yeah, babe. I've just been a bit nervous about that too. What if I suck at it? My father couldn't bond with me and I have his genes."

"You look nothing like him and the only ways you act like him are the shitty things you choose to do even though you know you shouldn't. You'll be amazing. If I didn't think that then we wouldn't be having this discussion. I don't want to have a baby because I think I should now that I'm a wife. I want to have our baby because I know the parent you'll be. Does this have anything to do with Diane? Are you only claiming it's because Lee is such a shitty excuse for a human being?"

"Yes. And you suck. Who's going to teach me how to be a mother? I mean yeah sure your mom would help but it would never be the same and we're moving across the country."

"You are a nurse. You've done a course in Maternal-Child Nursing and a round in L&D. You know that bond is instinctual."

"Yeah when you carry it, when it's yours."

"I've said it before, I'll say it again, that can be arranged."

"Uh, no thanks," Alex responded with her best poker face.

Piper, of course, quickly called her bluff, "you just want to send me out into a potentially dangerous and difficult situation first, like always."

"Well, when you put it that way, Pipes," Alex groaned as she glared at her wife, making it clear she didn't like being called an asshole, at least not when it came to her treatment of Piper.

"You are what you eat, Vause," Piper teased as she tickled the inside of her knee in a spot only she knew about as Alex dissolved into giggles and struggled not to pee herself as this move often led her to do.

"So, are you saying I should stop eating your pussy?"

"No, just grow a pair of balls to match the dick you can be sometimes."

"No thanks, I've been treated like one of the guys enough times to wonder who in their right mind would want a set of those between their legs," Alex responded as she rolled her eyes and ran her foot up Piper's leg.

"You mean other than you when I get the now tell-tale signs of ovulation?"

"Okay maybe in that instance it would be kinda cool. I mean of course I would love to see what a genetic soup of our DNA would result in, it would probably be something out of the Omen but hey it would be our perfect little beautiful genius demon-child and we would love it like crazy. And when my ovaries are trying to massacre me because either they didn't get the memo or they didn't like it and lately it isn't just my ovaries that disagree with that memo. I would rather impregnate than be impregnated. The thought of sperm anywhere near my cervix is revolting, no matter the delivery system."

"Sperm near your cervix is supposed to make you puke, that's kinda the point of mammalian species survival instincts," Piper joked as they both laughed until Piper's face fell on Alex's navel and she couldn't resist the pull to breathe her in as she pushed up her shirt and kissed her taut abs. Before long, the shirt was off, followed shortly by her cotton sports bra and sweatpants. Then not long after that, the sweet sound of expletives spilling from her lips as she came around Piper's well-trained tongue and a hand roughly massaging her breast as she held Piper's head in place when the blonde found the perfect spot. Alex held her there until her orgasm subsided and she became a heaving mess as Piper's head flopped on Alex's chest. The younger woman tried to fix her own matted hair, then that of her lover. Piper planted kisses on Alex's breasts as the older woman ran her hand along the curve of Piper's back, down her ass and teased her still damp center. Piper's hips began to buck against Alex's pussy harder with each swipe. The harder the blonde pressed against her lover's clit, the harder the brunette pressed against her opening until two fingers found their way inside her and Piper's mouth wrapped around Alex's nipple as her hand massaged the other breast.

They had at least talked a little before the inevitable round of head between legs and Alex seemed to be in a happier, more relaxed place so Piper considered it a win. As they began discussing what they wanted to order for dinner, she knew only time would tell if even their short conversation would change anything with Alex or the openness of their relationship. For the moment, they were laughing and reminiscing as they scrolled through Alex's iPad on the nearby coffee table and that was all that mattered. They were happy. They were hopeful. They were together.