Chapter Three

"Rise and shine sleeping beauty."

Piper felt soft lips kiss from her forehead to her cheek.

She groaned and opened her eyes, smiling reflexively as she looked into Alex's. "Really? Aurora is not my Disney princess."

"She totally is," Alex laughed. "You never like to get out of bed."

Piper caught Alex's lips with her own, before they could travel down her neck.

Alex kissed her jawline.

"You know, you don't really have a Disney princess," Piper said.

"No?"

"No. No one's as tall and hot as you are."

Alex laughed. "I take that back, maybe you are a morning person."

"I mean there's Meg," Piper said. "She shares similar qualities with you."

"Meg? Like from Hercules."

Piper took Alex's hand and traced her fingers. "Yeah," she was having doubts about explaining it all the way, but knew she had already traveled too far into the conversation to back out of it. "You both were manipulated by bad people," Piper said carefully. "But in the end found your way out of it."

The light went out of Alex's face at the thought of Kubra, and she reached for her glasses. "Come on, we have another long road trip today."

"I kinda wish your friends weren't always around, so we could have more privacy."

Alex shrugged and smiled. "Me too. They can get really annoying actually."

"I think we'll miss them more when they're gone."

"Yeah..." Alex thought for a moment. "It's going to be weird Piper. I mean, not weird saying goodbye to them, I'm used to having friends come and go. But having to stay in one place?"

"It can't be worse than Litchfeild." Piper said.

Alex smiled and raised a brow. "Litchfeild wasn't all bad. At least you were there."

"Yup, at least I was there." Piper smiled and nodded. "At least we had each other, and we'll have each other now, and through all of this."

"You promise?" Alex's eyes carried a touch of vulnerability.

"Al, I'm not leaving again. I promise."

-A-P-A-

Piper had always hated airports. They made her nervous. She loved traveling though, as soon as the plane was off the runway she was fine. But inside the airport, she felt trapped, in the crowds of people hurrying around impatient to get out of there and to their next destination.

Her feelings were only amplified by the fact that her and Alex were carrying fake passports, and wearing brown wigs. Brown hair fit in the most. Alex was an expert in disguise, but Piper was sure that Alex was too gorgeous to ever not stand out.

This reminded her of carrying drug money.

She tried to keep from shaking as they went through security. She bit the inside of her lip and remembered the look on Flaca's face when she had humiliated her, she thought of sending Stella to SHU. She focused on the power, the coldness. She couldn't hold Alex's hand. Their fake information said that they were sisters. Alex promised to get that changed once they got to Cambodia, but for now, in the airport, it drew less attention this way.

On the plane, Piper sat back in her chair, and took Alex's hand. She had the sun on her face from the open window. Alex knew that if she didn't have that wig, the sun would light up her hair and make her look like a sunshiny angel.

"So, do you know what kind of house you want?" Alex said. "We'll have to go shopping when we get there. For now I booked a really nice hotel, but we can't stay there forever."

Piper smiled. "I haven't even thought about that. Where we will live. I've been so focused on getting out. On you. But yeah. Its kind of exciting right? Its like everything we did wrong, we can fix it now."

"Yeah, prison had to be good for something."

Piper turned toward Alex and opened her eyes. Something had been nagging at the back of her head for so long. "Alex...don't take this the wrong way. This is going to come off as, possibly the most narcissistic thing I've ever said but...did you...oh my god, never mind its so stupid."

"Did I get you landed in prison so that I could see you again?"

"How...?" Did you know I was going to say that? Piper finished the thought in her head.

"Piper, I didn't lie to you when I explained it to you the first time. I may have lied other times, but I was honest then, and I'm trying to be honest now. I can't say that I didn't want to see you again. But its possible for people to move on. Even when they don't...fully."

"It was stupid."

"It's not stupid. I missed you Pipes, I really did."

"I missed you too," Piper said softly. "I just couldn't...Alex, you have to admit that in the beginning it wasn't exactly love at first sight. You seduced me, specifically for the reason of using me as a drug mule."

"Yeah, but I fell in love with you along the way. And it doesn't mean that I didn't love you the first time that I saw you. You were different Piper, you were always different. Why do you think I asked you to come with me? To disappear into the universe together."

"I know, I know that now. But what I'm saying is, I left because I had doubts. Our relationship, the way we built it, it was like, doubts were weaved into its foundation. I don't want that to happen again. We have to do this, we have to build this, thing, this life together, we have to build it right, this time."

"I know," Alex took her hand and kissed it. "And as messed up as we are, we can do this Piper."