I know what I said before, but I've been feeling really motivated towards this story, and am in the process of writing my other one at the same time. Keep letting me know what you think in the reviews.

Enjoy!

"Fuck!" Alex shouts as she listens to the door slam, standing helplessly in the middle of her office.

She exactly doesn't know how long she'd been standing on that one spot staring into the distance while thinking over everything the blonde had just relayed; things didn't go down the way the brunette had planned them to. In trying to seek a solution by heading over to where her phone was resting, Alex attempts to call the blonde several times yet has to leave an equal amount of - what must have sounded like - desperate voicemails as her levels of guilt skyrockets through the roof.

She wanted to go after the blonde - desperately so, but knew that wouldn't be the wisest of decisions at this current moment in time; however she did know one thing for certain: she needed to get out of her office, clear her head for a while. Moving over to her computer - making sure it's turned off, Alex picks up her belongings in a hurried fashion before leaving the room, ensuring she remembers to lock the door behind her.

"Isn't it a bit early for lunch?" Alex's assistant, Allison, points out, in seeing the stressed woman wrestle with her coat sleeve, seeming as though she's in a rush.

"I'm heading out and won't be coming back at any point today. Could you please cancel anything I've pencilled in. Thanks," the brunette replies, managing to finally get her coat on and give her assistant a smile while heading for the nearest staircase.

The drive home felt like an eternity; she stopped at every traffic light; it seemed as though everyone else on the roads were displaying questionable driving skills; and the build-up of her frustration didn't help with the fact that she was stuck behind a learner driver.

Finally managing to reach the her building, Alex gets out the car and heads for the apartment she shares with Sylvie, hoping to God that the other woman isn't in.

Upon opening the door and walking around the space to check if anyone's in, Alex finds the silence she was looking for. Putting her coat on the back of the sofa, she walks into the kitchen along with grabbing a bottle of scotch and a small glass. Pouring herself a drink, she leans against the counter, contemplating everything that had just happened throughout the last hour.

After practically downing her drink, she moves to the bedroom she shares with her fiancée and heads for the shower. However, upon scanning the bed, she notices a laptop belonging to Sylvie that has the screen slightly open - a habit of her companion that often leaves her feeling rather irritated.

Walking around the bed to move the item, Alex's thumb brushes the touchpad, which, in turn, illuminates the screen. On any other occasion, she would put the device away, not feeling as though she needs to pry into her significant other's private business, yet in seeing several emails flooding the inbox that appears on the screen, Alex is left curious.

Looking through the messages her fiancée is receiving, the brunette is left confused, wondering why so many people - some of which she had never even heard of - are sending what seemed to be an answer to an argent RSVP. She frowns upon seeing one from a business - one of which she isn't familiar with, and as she reads the contents of the paragraph which alludes to a 'wedding', 'invitations' and a 'request', she - now rather angrily - opens the attachment at the top of the page, fuming when she sees and reads through the results.

Perfect timing, she thinks when the sound of the front door followed by the calling of her name echoes throughout the apartment. Following the noise, she storms downstairs, laptop still in hand.

"What're you doing home so early?" Sylvie asks while taking off her shoes, not looking up at the woman on the staircase as she walks past and into the kitchen.

Moving off the stairs without giving an answer, Alex follows the red-haired woman, and when Sylvie finally turns around, her face drops as she asks: "Why are you holding my laptop?"

"What the fuck is all of this?" Alex counters loudly while turning her arms sideways so that the list of emails is present.

"It's an email account. Are you not familiar with one of those?" the smaller woman sasses back sarcastically in question.

"Why the fuck have people - some of which are complete randomers to me - been sent an invitation to our wedding, which, by the way, I had no fucking idea about."

"You know we're getting married, Alex," Sylvie scoffs, trying to lighten as well as brush off the situation.

"Cut the shit. This goes against everything we spoke about," the brunette argues, placing the laptop down onto the kitchen counter to her right. "You know this is way too soon for me."

"This relationship isn't just about you, Alex," the smaller woman begins, raising her voice. "You're always working and are never home. I thought it would be a nice surprise for you."

"So let me get this straight - you thought that organising our wedding by yourself without so much as telling me you were doing it - despite the fact that I told you I'm not ready for us to be getting married anytime soon, would be a good surprise? Are you sure it isn't you that needs these fucking glasses," the brunette rants, shouting louder than she had been before, concluding with repeatedly shifting her head sideways while pointing at her glasses to emphasise her point.

"Fuck you, Alex."

"No - fuck you. How did you think you could get away with this without me finding out? Are you that fucking stupid?" the brunette continues, the veins in her neck throbbing against the surface of her skin - a physical indication of her increasing anger levels.

Before the smaller woman gets the chance to reply, the laptop makes a noise, signalling that a new email has been received.

Beating Alex to it, the red-haired woman pulls the laptop closer to inspect the message, laughing loudly at what she sees.

"What?" Alex asks, not in the mood for her fiancée's excuses.

"It seems as though we have someone who can't make the date," Sylvie says through a smile, moving away from the laptop and towards the opposite counter, leaning against it as she folds her arms over.

"Who?" Alex asks, eyebrows creasing as she frowns, and in seeing that she isn't going to get an answer anytime soon, she moves towards the laptop, bending forward while she angles the screen to view the typed piece of correspondence.

Hi - thanks for the invite, but you can count me out. I'm away for personal reasons.

Piper.

Feeling her heart sink in her chest, Alex fights back the urge to respond to the email, tell the blonde to answer the phone; it's all one big misunderstanding, but in hearing the laughter from her fiancée, the brunette clenches her jaw, hoping that she doesn't do or say something that she's going to regret.

"She would have been such a shitty bridesmaid anyway… too busy complaining about the colour scheme rather than actually doing whatever it is she's meant to be doing. I don't even know why you work with her, Alex - she's stuck up, she's boring and what she does with her life is practically a ball of uselessness. No wonder she's still single… maybe she came out like that because she's running out of ideas," Sylvie voices to the brunette's back, venting out her opinions on the blonde.

"Shut up," Alex voices calmly.

"Excuse me?"

"I said shut up!" Alex shouts, turning around. "Don't talk about her like that."

"I can talk about her however I like."

"Not around me you fucking can," Alex says, taking a step closer to the smaller woman. "I swear to God, Sylvie, I will fucking lose it if you say another word about her."

"Oh yeah, what're you gonna do? Go and marry her instead?" the red-haired woman asks, yet in seeing Alex tense up at what she had just said, a cunning smile covers her face. "Or did you already miss out on your chance at doing that? Is that what it is? You've been obsessed with her all this time… always making sure you're working on new projects with her… staying behind late with her… all so you can make up for what you're missing out on."

"You know, I've never really noticed how much of a condescending prick you are," Alex replies, not wanting to address the elements of accuracy her fiancée's previous statement entailed.

"Is that all you have to say? That I'm a prick? Well, if I'm a prick I wonder what that makes that precious fucking Piper of yours," Sylvie goads, smiling as she watches Alex back away, assuming her line of argument is dying down.

"You know - I thought I could do this with you, but I can't. And you know what? I don't even feel guilty about it. About that..." the brunette voices, turning to pick up Sylvie's laptop, "about this…" she adds, throwing it down onto the ground while watching the smaller woman's reaction to it smashing into pieces, "and what I'm about to do."

Despite the shouting, name calling, and list of profanities coming from the woman who had just been the victim of her extreme wrath, Alex picks up her car keys and leaves the house, not looking back as she gets into her car and drives off with a one-track mind as to what directions she needs navigate towards.

Having spent the last minute knocking on the door frantically, Alex begins to wonder whether she's ever going to be let in, knowing she must be giving the blonde a shock at the fact that she didn't have to buzz up due to becoming somewhat friendly with the staff working in the lobby.

"Piper please just hear me out," Alex pleads, feeling as though she's talking to a piece of wood, before shutting one eye and looking into the peephole. Seeing a mass of blonde hair blocking the view, she knows that she isn't talking to herself, yet in also knowing that Piper is on the other side with her back to the door, she has come to realise how much it is the younger woman has been affected by the situation.

"I didn't get the chance to give my side of the story," Alex says before adding in a low voice. "I know you're there, Pipes. I can see your hair."

After saying that, Alex observes the blonde remove herself from the door as though she'd been hit by running lava, seeming both defeated and conflicted at the same time.

The door slowly opens, and Alex has to fight back voicing a gasp at seeing the blonde's form.

Her light hair is tied up in a messy bun - obviously distorted in shape due to lying down; her blue orbs lack the spark they generally give off; the bags under her eyes are deep, shadowing the redness from where she's obviously been crying; her cheeks are flushed with the stains of her tears, and her torso is covered with a white tank top opposed to her lower half hugging a pair of grey tracksuit bottoms.

"Hi," Alex begins, not knowing what to say having seen the state of the woman before her.

"What do you want?" Piper asks coldly, the emotion in her voice evident.

"I need to talk to you, Piper."

"I think you said everything you needed to. Or rather, you just said nothing which - to me - speaks volumes," the blonde states, closing over the door.

"Wait!" Alex exclaims, putting her foot through the wooden threshold, preventing it from shutting. "I'm not leaving until you let me in and hear me out."

"I don't think I really need to listen to what you have to say, Alex. You've made yourself pretty clear about how you feel."

"Please."

The blonde eventually gives in as the tension against the brunette's foot is immediately alleviated, allowing her to push open the door.

Alex knows what her reaction must have looked like. She couldn't even begin to imagine how she would be feeling if the tables were turned and she were in Piper's shoes.

The blonde leads them into her living room, which is near pitch black bar one candle resting on a mantelpiece - a fitting atmosphere for how she is feeling, and takes a seat on the large sofa, to which Alex follows in suit.

"Pipes-"

"If you're going to tell me to back off, just get it over with because I don't think I can take another rejection from you, Alex."

"Another?"

"Look - I get it. You're getting married. You've already found that special someone and you're just being nice, but you don't need to keep looking out for me, Alex, because it's you that I need to be saved from. You're what I've always been looking for."

"You're right. I have found my special someone," the brunette begins, reaching out an arm to keep Piper from running off after seeing her flinch at the confirming statement. "I met her just over 3 years ago in a quaint coffee shop, and albeit under different circumstances over time, I knew I had at that very moment."

Piper, lowering her head and shutting her eyes, thinks back to the time in which she had assumed their connection had been instant - mutual, while refusing to allow her mind to drift to where she was all but proven wrong.

"I know I went down a few wrong paths, but I'd always imagined this is where i'd be," Alex admits, rubbing her thumb over Piper's hand.

"Engaged to a different woman while watching another one cry?" is all Piper adds, not knowing whether the brunette was just trying to pity her.

"With you."

"Alex - don't say that. You don't have to try and make me feel better," the blonde stutters out, clearly affected by the words flowing out of the older woman's mouth.

"I'm not doing that, Pipes. I wouldn't dream of lying to you about this."

Piper - now overwhelmed by the words she's hearing and the skin-on-skin contact between their hands, gets up from the chair, moving so that she's a comfortable distance from the brunette, still turning to face her.

"I don't think you get it, Alex. I've been struggling for the past few years just being around you knowing that it's someone other than me that can make you happy - that can commit to making to happy for a lifetime. I was trying, I really was," the blonde's voice breaks with emotion as she starts to cry, "but then you got engaged and everything changed."

"Nothing's changed, Pipes."

"Everything's changed, Alex!" Piper shouts with growing frustration. "You don't know how heartbreaking it is to watch the person you're hopelessly in love with take them steps with another person that isn't you. How it feels to tell someone how you feel only to get their wedding invitation in the post hours later. Of course I want you to be happy, but for a long time now, I've only felt that way myself whenever you're involved in the picture. It's you, Alex. It's always been you," Piper pauses, turning around so that the brunette can't see her emerge into her full mode of sobbing.

The emotional breakdown emerging in front of her is one of which Alex finds herself struggling to watch. Getting up from where she had been sitting quietly, listening to the blonde let out her - what had obviously been pent-up - feelings, the brunette moves behind the blonde, wrapping her arms around her form, hoping to soothe the crying woman.

To her surprise, the blonde doesn't protest as they both stand in the middle of the room - the only sound being her messy sobbing.

"You shouldn't have to see me like this," Piper finally voices after several minutes, sounding as though she's finished releasing new tears.

"Yes I should. Especially when i'm the one that's made you this way," Alex responds, pausing as she thinks through what she's about to say next. "I'm sorry that I've made you feel this way - it was never my intention," she hesitates once again, not wanting the blonde to start crying. "Piper I don't think you realise the effect you have on me. I've always been affected by you since the very moment we met right up until now. I hate the fact that you feel lonely when all this time I was searching for ways to try and avoid ruining everything we have."

Piper offers no response - a sign in which Alex takes as a green light to continue, except this time running her hands down to the jut of the blonde's hips, keeping a confident hold around her waist.

"I get it. I really do. I couldn't stand seeing you with other people, and I guess seeing you leave with that woman was the moment I realised I couldn't keep living in a fantasy when I wanted to live in a reality," Alex admits, nudging her nose against the back of the blonde's neck taking in her scent, which, in response, she feels two warm hands land over her own reassuringly offering a squeeze.

With her blue eyes once again fighting tears, Piper closes them other, taking in everything that she's hearing and feeling courtesy of the woman she had been longing for for so long, worried that there's going to be a 'but' moment coming.

"The way I've felt… I feel about you doesn't even remotely compare to anyone else, Piper, because I love you too, and I know it must be hard to hear all of this right now considering everything that's happening behind the scenes, but all I care about is you knowing the truth."

Ensuring she savours the feeling of being encompassed by Alex's arms, Piper pushes her hips backwards, wishing she could have witnessed the brunette's reaction - which had consisted of holding back a groan as she closed over her eyes - before turning in her arms.

"This doesn't change the fact that you're getting married."

"Is that why you can't come?"

"If you really think I'm coming to your wedding after everything I've just told you, Alex, you're out of your fucking mind."

"I know - I'm kidding," Alex tries to smile, not wanting the younger woman to question what she had just revealed to her. "I didn't know she'd done that. If I had known I wouldn't have-"

"Can we please not talk about her?" Piper interrupts, hoping Alex can sense the desperation in her eyes.

"Sure," Alex responds, lifting her right hand to cup the blonde's cheek, brushing her thumb against her skin.

It's the moment they had both dreamed about; hoped and prayed it would happen, and as the blonde feels the brunette begin to lean closer, she feels the need to make a clarification.

"I can't do this if you're running back to her. I just can't put myself through it again, Al."

"I know. That's not going to happen," the brunette honestly admits, knowing that she too couldn't go back to her fiancée after what had earlier transpired. "I want this just as much as you do."

Sensing the blonde isn't going to protest - finally satisfied that they're on the same page, Alex leans the full way in, connecting their lips in a kiss that they had both anticipated for three, long years.

Their lips fit together like a puzzle piece sliding into its allotted space; gliding slowly across one another, until Piper grips at the brunette's shoulder with her right hand, moving it up and along her neck to rest on her jaw so that she can change the angle of the kiss. The innocent nature of the lip-lock switches into a passionate rhythm, as Piper's tongue lines Alex's bottom lip, and upon being granted entry, both women let out a moan at the sensation they had only previously had the luxury of dreaming about.

Hands begin to wander; Piper's hands run through the brunette's long, dark hair, while Alex's hands land on the blonde's ass, feeling the skin that she had so desperately wanted to touch on many an occasion.

"Let's take this upstairs," Piper breaths between kisses, not wanting to spontaneously combust while standing up in her living room as Alex's lips then move to her neck, grazing the skin lightly.

By the time they reach the blonde's bedroom, they're all over each other. It's a moment Piper had waited for - had envisioned every time she had gotten herself off, and as their lips break away slightly, Alex pulls the blonde's tank top off, yet as Piper attempts to return the favour by removing the brunette's t-shirt, the mood becomes somewhat awkward.

While pulling the garment off the brunette's body, it catches on her hand - more specifically: her engagement ring, something that - once the top finally lands on the floor - isn't lost on both women.

"Alex - not when you're still… we can't," Piper voices, not wanting their special moment to be placed under the category relating to the older woman having an affair.

"It's okay. I get it," Alex smiles, taking the ring off her finger and placing it in the pocket of her jeans before looking at the blonde's form. "You look beautiful, Piper."

"Thanks," Piper blushes at the compliment, ducking her head as she's unsure of what to do next.

"Are you okay with staying over?" she goes on to ask timidly.

"Well, I'm not planning on going home, so yes - I am okay with it. Are you?"

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

The pair undress - Piper giving the brunette a t-shirt to wear as well as putting one on herself, and as they get into bed, both relish the sea of comfort they're currently swimming in before they know they'll be dragged into an unavoidable tsunami of complications.