A/N- Relatively quick update this time... mostly cause this is sort of a pretty direct continuation of the last chapter. Thanks again to everyone who's reading/reviewing/fave-ing/following or just lurking quietly. You guys are great... :) As per usual, another big thanks to The Person Who Read This For Me for reading this (of course) and also for all the time they take out of their day (heh) to go over this shit and give me excellent feedback and advice. I appreciate everything, dude. You're awesome. Anyway... hope you all enjoy... (things in italics are brief flashbacks...)
Chapter 8- The Quick and the Dead
Alex tried to focus on what lay ahead of her, ignoring the fact that Piper's yelling had stopped, trailing off and becoming a series of gulping sobs that rang far too loudly up and down the eerily still street. When she got about 10 feet away, she jerked her head, "Let Red go…"
"And I suppose if I do you will not immediately take the gun from behind Fahri and shoot me?"
"You have my word that won't happen… and you know I keep my word too."
Kubra examined her closely for a long moment, then nodded to Aydin, "Go!"
Red shook her head, "I will not leave her alone with you... she may trust you but..."
Alex nodded at her, "Go Red, it's okay."
Red gave her a long hard look, then started to walk towards the saloon slowly, glancing over her shoulder every few steps. Kubra gestured to Aydin, said something to him in their language. Aydin frowned at him, but Kubra gave him a hard look, and he nodded, following Red, gun still on her. Evidently, Kubra didn't trust the woman not to run back and try something. Aydin hurried her along and then stayed with her and her sons on the porch of the saloon. As soon as Red was out of immediate danger, the only one anywhere near to Kubra now was her. The one that he wanted…
"tell the rest of 'em t'back off…"
Kubra shook his head, "You haven't even surrendered yourself to me, Vause. I am not such a fool. They will leave when you are well secured. Then we will retire to someplace private and I will personally ensure that your death is properly facilitated this time…" he gestured, "Throw your gun down, release Fahri…"
Alex takes one final glance around the town, carefully looking at every face she can see from her position, remembering them just as they are right now… Red is back on the porch, Dmitri has an arm around her, is whispering in her ear… Alex tosses the gun off to her left and shoves Fahri forward. Fahri stumbles towards Kubra, who frowns at him with some distaste, saying something to him in their native language, which Alex knows just enough of to pick out the words "disgraceful" and "humiliated" and "woman". Fahri takes his lecture stoically and then nods, heading towards one of the mounted men near the sheriff's office. The man slides off his horse and opens his saddlebag, pulling out what looks like a small medicine satchel. He sits Fahri down on the front steps of the Sheriff's office, not far from where Daya and Bennett are and starts to tend to his wounds.
Alex looks back and Kubra's eyes are burning into hers. It has been five years since she's been this close to him, and the last time he was telling her that he wished her dead. She had almost forgotten the aura that he gave off. A sort of inherent authority, a sense of power running just below the surface. It is in every word he says, every gesture that he makes. He is a man with infinite self-assurance, absolutely convinced that his plans will never go amiss simply because he is the one who made him, because surely he could not miss any detail. He is used to unquestioning obedience and he lets everyone in his employ know the price for those who don't grant it to him…
And she had defied him. She had stopped doing as he said, had dared to think for herself, to think about what she was truly doing. But then, she had never really been his to begin with. Not really. Maybe the preachers were right and they were all of them well and truly fucked, but Piper had shown her that they could at least aspire to something better. And Alex was different from the rest of Kubra's people because maybe she had always known that.
Kubra is holding his gun, but it's held at his side. He has her now. He knows it. So he stands and waits patiently for her to come to him. Behind him, Mendez and the new girl slide off their horses, getting ready to take her in hand when she gets close enough and Kubra orders them to… she remembers what Piper had said to Ahmad about them being dogs… all of them just waiting for the command of their master…
Alex was infinitely glad she was no longer one of them. And the that feeling makes her almost breathless with relief. Even after she had left Kubra, there had been a part of her that wanted the adventure, the thrill of violence that came with riding with him. It had scared her, and she had done her best to push it away, to keep it suppressed all the time. But now the idea of it was so repulsive to her that she didn't have to try to push it away anymore… it just wasn't there. Yes, she had been exhilarated by beating Christopher… but when the moment had passed, she had hated herself for it, and rather than making her crave more, she had been determined not to do it again.
She was beyond all that now. She was better than that, better than them… Holding tight to that thought, she squares her shoulders and makes to walk towards Kubra…
Kubra watched as Vause began to cover the last bit of ground between them, her hands raised slightly in front of her. Behind her he could see her woman, collapsed against the shoulder of a hulking young man who closely resembled the bar owner. She was shaking with her sobs, which could be heard even from here. Such sentimental foolishness… he had thought Vause above this sort of thing. The girl had been ruthless when she was with him. He would tell her to destroy something (be it person, place or thing) and it would disappear. Fahri had done well to find her. So much rage just waiting to be directed by a firm hand...
He had known about her drinking, about her tendency to lash out indiscriminately at the others, but as far as he was concerned, it was all to the good. It made her even more malleable. And frankly, if the others allowed themselves to be beaten, then they deserved what they got. He had had grand plans for her… expansion of some of his affairs into the newer territories meant he would need new enforcers there, and she would be a perfect weapon to use against anyone who doubted the ferocity of his organization.
And then she'd started to fail him. It started slowly, little things and then had escalated into outright defiance of his orders… He had waited until Fahri was off on a run and had then condemned her, not wishing to hear his right hand man's arguments for his protégé. Fahri was the only one who ever dared dispute him. In this case, his words would have meant nothing, the decision would have been the same, but Kubra didn't want to waste time.
It had been most dismaying when he had discovered she might still be alive… he had hoped that Fahri's source had been mistaken… but now here she was, in front of him, a mere shadow of the finely sharpened weapon of destruction she had been when she was with him. It was what came of allowing her sentiment to get the better of her, of letting weakness become her way of life, surrounded by all these women, even going so far as to fall in love. It raised the bile in his throat to think of. At least before, she had died fighting… now she was slinking towards him, all the will to resist taken from her by the simple tug of all the various strings attached to her.
Life was infinitely easier when one cared for nothing, when one was willing to sacrifice anyone to further their own purpose. All these so-called friends, and they couldn't help Alex Vause now. They couldn't save her from what was coming. All they did was make it easier for Kubra to take back what was his… in this case, her life.
He had quite an elaborate scenario planned out for her… drawn out and decidedly unpleasant, but this had gone so easily, she was so willing to come along like a docile cow, he might consider a degree of mercy should the rest of this go as smoothly.
She was about a yard away now. He kept his gun at his side. Violence would evidently not be necessary, so best not to do anything that might provoke any of the group behind her, who were still armed. Vause seemed to have decided to go peacefully, but Kubra knew that the others might make a foolish decision.
She took another step forward and he said, "Just there is fine." She stopped. He gestured Mendez and his newest recruit, the woman Watson forward to restrain her.
Mendez and Watson had taken two steps when Kubra looked at Alex's face and saw that her expression had shifted. The hopeless resignation of a moment ago was gone, replaced by a grim sort of resolve. He met her eyes and saw in them something that was almost regretful. Her voice was clear and soft, "You should've just left well enough alone, Kubra…"
He frowned… what?
Before any of them could properly even register her words, Vause moved with uncanny speed that had not diminished in the least since he last saw her. She punched Mendez in the face with enough force to stagger him but not to knock him down, then grabbed him by the back of his head and propelled him towards Watson, who was frozen to the spot by the sudden movement. All 6'3" of Mendez was propelled straight into Watson's lithe, athletic frame, knocking them to the side, and then, without missing a stride, she put her boot into Kubra's chest, knocking him backward into Mendez's horse, who immediately moved out of the way. Kubra's breath huffed out of his lungs hard and he hit the ground hard, losing his grip on his gun.
The infernal woman didn't give him a second to recover before she was on him, kicking him again hard in the side before falling upon him, her knee making contact with solar plexus, driving what little air he'd managed to regain out again. She punched him again then grabbed him by the collar, forcing him up so she could punch him even harder.
He tried desperately to regain his bearings, to fight her off. He managed to extract a hand and started blocking her blows, albeit feebly. Even as he did, he wondered why someone hadn't just shot her in the back the second they'd seen her take him to ground. And then it dawned on him that he heard other sounds... gunshots... yells... screams of anger and pain...
Vause adjusted her grip on his collar, forcing him to sit up and look her straight in the eye. She had that look he recognized, the deadly calm one, the one that was reveling in the violence she was doing because of the control it gave her... he almost smiled to see it again, even if she'd knocked out what felt like half his teeth. "Look around you, you bastard... and see what a bunch of women have done to you..."
He turned his head as much as he could given the pain in his neck... and it took him not a half second to see that he had been played... thoroughly deceived... by a woman
The Saloon
"He'll want to kill me. He'll want to take me out of here and kill me and he'll absolutely kill all of you in order to get me to do it."
"Are you sayin' we ought to let him?" asked Bennett.
The makeshift town council had gathered in the saloon. Bennett, Miss Berdie, Old Chang, Gloria and Sister Ingalls sat or stood in various states of repose around the bar. Rosa and her people had remained as well. It had been fifteen minutes since Alex and the others had returned, and every cell in Alex's body felt like it was vibrating with the need to get to the ranch, to see Piper, to rescue her. But Red had made it clear that if Kubra showed, it was much bigger than Alex or even Piper... the danger would extend to all of them.
"What's the problem with that?" growled Maria.
"You keep talkin' like that, I'mma sit on you, bitch!" snapped Cindy.
"As if you could catch up with me, you fat piece of..."
"No! None of that!" growled Red, "This childishness does no one any good. And no one is letting anyone take her anywhere, that is not how we work, and you know this!"
Alex sighed, running her hand through her hair again, "I can't be the reason he hurts any of you... If I go with him..."
"If you go with him, ain't nothin' to stop him comin' back here if the mood strikes and takin' out the rest of us out..." said Rosa.
"All he wants is Vause, then why would he?" asked Bennett. Red glared at him. Bennett's expression became flustered and he turned faintly pink, "I ain't sayin' that I want to give her over, I'm just... playin' devil's advocate is all..."
Miss Berdie shook her head, "Men like him... they don't forget anything. Maybe he'll only take Alex today, but he doesn't forget a slight. He might get it in his head that we all helped conceal her all these years and that that's somehow an insult to him. Tasha knew his men when she worked with Vee... Vee was ruthless, Kubra was even worse... he would have men beaten to death simply for looking at him wrong..."
"And we can't forget all the trouble he causes," said Sister Ingalls, "He is not a good man. He perpetrates violence, he kills people, destroys their lives."
Rosa raised an eyebrow, "I hear you sayin' we ought to take him out as a public service?"
"You hear me saying that we should make him understand that this town is not worth his trouble. That he should leave Miss Vause and all of us alone... and that should a permanent solution to the problem present itself at some point in the proceedings…" Ingalls shrugged.
Rosa grinned, "If the nuns I knew as a kid were anything like you I might still be in the church..."
Sister Ingalls shrugged, "Well... it's not like I'm practicing anymore..."
Alex was shaking her head again, both touched by the show of almost unanimous support (fuckin' Ruiz) and feeling a little hopeless about their prospects. "I can't say for sure how many men Kubra'll bring. But he's tried to kill me once and didn't succeed. He'll want to make sure the job's done right this time. That means numbers. The last time I saw him get a party together for a rogue man, there were twenty of 'em... they'll be loaded for bear, highly trained, vicious... he don't employ any other kind..."
"He 'employs' fuckin' mad dogs..." Gloria put in.
"They're mad dogs when the threat's taken out. Disciplined before."
Alex looked around at them, "We can't do a fuckin' thing until Piper is safe... that's how this has got to work."
Rosa nodded, "That'll be practically easy..." she proceeded to lay out her plan... Alex would go down, distract Fahri with talk while Rosa and a small team scouted for other men around the ranch and then came in to back her up at an opportune moment. Alex thought the plan sounded as good as it was like to get. There were a lot of unknowns involved, but it couldn't be helped...
"Meantime," said Rosa, "rest'a my gang and some'a the better gun hands in town will set up a little surprise for those fuckers. Figure he'll ride into town thinkin' he's got us dead to rights... that we won't know he's comin' and that we'll all be just ripe for the slaughter. Thing is he don't know how many of us there really are. Doubt that bastard down at Chapman's gave him every little detail... so if a few of us're missin' he won't know... key'll be everyone who ain't either raidin' the ranch or settin' up the ambush... they'll have to be real fuckin' good actors..."
"I think," said Sister Ingalls, "that if Kubra Balik and twenty of his men ride into town armed to the teeth and ready to slaughter us all if Miss Vause doesn't surrender herself to him, there won't be a need to act frightened..."
There was a wave of nervous laughter, then Red looked around at them all. "We all need to agree... the plan will depend on us all doing what we need to..."
Bennett nodded, "Reckon it might be a new experience to actually use the gun..."
"Don't nobody come in and fuck around with this town," Gloria put in, "Man comes to take on one of us, he gets to deal with all of us..."
The Nun said, "Well, it's a good thing I recently stocked up on my traumatic injury supplies..."
"This man cannot be allowed to bully us... Alex is one of us... we can't allow him to take her," Berdie said.
They all looked at Old Chang, who was sitting in a chair, eyes closed, chin on her chest...
Red frowned, "Chang!" No response... "Chang!"
The old Chinese woman stirred, opening one eye, looking around, "Bury the cocksucker," she said, drawing her index finger over her neck. Then she closed her eye again and began snoring.
That caused Red to smile, bemused... then she looked at them all, "All right... let's decide who is going to do what and when. We do not have a lot of time..."
The Chapman Ranch
The gunshots carried down from town.
"God damn it..." growled Rosa, "...bastard's ahead of schedule." She glared down at Fahri, "Your fuckin' boss is a fast god damn rider."
Fahri said nothing, simply looked at her, his mouth a hard line.
"Fuck..." Rosa gestured, "we've gotta get back up there..." she gestured to Maxwell and Vasily, "go get us ready to go back, like we discussed." then she gestured to Cindy, "take that piece of shit out front. Give the lovebirds a second, hmmm?" she looked at Alex, "One minute, Vause. You know the deal..."
Then they all trooped out the front door. The second it clicked shut behind them, Piper was out of her chair like a shot, throwing herself into Alex's arms and squeezing her so tightly Alex was sure that her ribs were going to crack... but she couldn't have cared less. She hugged the blonde back just as hard. After a moment, Piper pulled back just far enough to kiss her hard... it was brief but intense, and when they parted again Alex they were both breathless.
Alex rested her forehead on Piper's sighing, "When Red told me..."
"I know..."
"I thought..."
"I know..."
Alex frowned, "I have t'go up there... have t'confront him... it's the only way he'll leave us be..."
Piper closed her eyes, her mouth turning down in a frown, "Damn it... what are you going to do?"
"Well, we'd kind of hoped that he'd wait til we got you rescued and gotten you and whoever was down here with you back up to town... that would've been best case… but Rosa had a plan for this too..." she looked into Piper's blue eyes, "You and me, we're gonna have t'do a little play actin' but... I think it could work..."
The blonde sighed, "You're going to have to get close to him, aren't you?"
"Yes..."
A long pause, then Piper kissed her again and said, "Fine... fine... I want this bastard out of our lives... what do we need to do...?"
Alex sighed and straightened up, looking Piper over, "First things first... might wanna wear somethin' other than your night clothes... I mean, I like that robe and all, but I don't think that's gonna be best for what we've got in mind..."
The main street was chaos. As soon as Alex's fist made contact with Mendez's face, Rosa leapt from the wagon, drew her pistol and took a shot at the closest of Kubra's men, all of whom seemed just as momentarily paralyzed as the black girl had been at Alex's sudden move. She grabbed Chapman's arm and thrust one of her irons into the girl's hand. "Shoot the bad guys, kid!" she called out over the gunshots and shouts. Chapman nodded... Rosa could tell she wanted to go straight to Alex, but the path was through the middle of the street, making them sitting ducks if anyone should look their way.
In front of them, Maxwell and Vasily dashed for the livery and the saloon respectively, taking aim at the men who were holding the residents hostage. Behind them, Cindy was out of the wagon as well, following Rosa as she advanced. to her right, Miss Berdie's girl Poussey (whose soldier father had taught her to shoot) had emerged from where she was hiding on the roof of the saloon and was taking shots at Kubra's men. To her left, she saw Blanca further down come out from behind the facade on the roof of the General Store and doing the same. Rosa saw them each hit their targets as she turned her attention to the left, where Maxwell was barreling into one of the men holding Miss Berdie and Ford, while Ford himself thrust his elbow into the stomach of the other.
Rosa took aim and hit a man on a horse who was riding forward to help the men at the livery. Chapman took a shot at Mendez, who had extracted himself from the black girl and was turning towards where Alex was still sitting on Kubra's chest. The bullet hit him in the left shoulder, and he cried out, glaring at her... and seeming to consider his situation, he retreated in the alley between the saloon and the rooming house where a couple of Kubra's men had gone. The black girl was slower to get up, and made a move towards Kubra and Alex, likely to try to help her boss. A shot rang out from behind her and a bullet went plowing into her side, putting her down hard, face first, groaning.
Red's boys were all scrapping with the men on the porch of the saloon. Aydin was taking on Dmitri and Maxim together. They'd disarmed him, but he was fighting like a devil. Rosa could see flashes of movement from inside the saloon, possibly the girls taking matters into her own hands. She wanted to help Vause, but a bullet whizzed by her head, and she knew she had to find cover.
She grabbed Chapman, who was ignoring a bullet that landed just inches from her foot, as she looked towards Vause, "Chapman, we've got to get to cover!"
The blonde had a wild look in her eyes, which were still fixed to Alex, "She needs our help!"
As far as Rosa could see, Vause's scrap with Kubra wasn't begging for outside interference. They were too close to one another, moving too much for a clean shot at Kubra, especially with the way Kubra's body was angled... and there were too many bullets flying. "Not goin' to be able t'do that if we stay out here and get our heads blown off... and you know that's not what she would want! Come on!"
Chapman grimaced but she knew Rosa was speaking true. She relented and followed the bank robber. They split off to the left, heading for the space between the livery and the Sheriff's station, where Fischer had disarmed one of their guards and Daya had managed to get the other on the ground and was kicking him repeatedly in the side, reminding Rosa that the girl had started out as a whore, and that whores had their own methods of dealing with aggressive customers. Rosa and Chapman slid behind a barrel standing beside the Sheriff's station. Rosa shot another horseman, knocking him off his mount where he was finished off with a bullet from Poussey's rifle.
Gloria and her girls had made short work of their guards, and Flaca had somehow ended up on a horse, behind one of the horsemen, smacking him hard in the side of the head repeatedly as Maritza and Gloria got hold of the guns their now unconscious guards had been holding and shot another horseman coming to his friends' aid.
At the general store, Chang had produced a blackjack and a pair of brass knuckles from somewhere in the depths of her billowing sleeves and had pummeled one of the men who'd been holding a gun to them into unconsciousness before the second had registered what had happened entirely. When the second man went to help his partner, he stopped watching Soso, who picked up the wooden stool beside the door (where Chang seemed to spend two thirds of the day sleeping) and, with a determined sort of look on her face, brought it down on the back of his head with overwhelming force. He went down to his knees, and Chang sapped him hard in the back of the head for good measure.
As soon as the first shot was fired, Marco and Maria Ruiz swept in on horseback from the East, where they'd been concealed in a shallow gully just outside of town. Marco slid off his horse in front of the apothecary and took out one of the men there while Jones kicked the other one hard in the crotch and Sister Ingalls smacked him hard in the face with the huge hardcover Bible she had insisted on bringing with her when they'd pushed her out the door ("the Lord is my constant comfort, gentlemen, I don't feel quite right without the Good Book in my hands…).
Ruiz pulled the rifle off her back and shot one of the few men still on horseback off of it. Throwing a leg off her horse and hitting the ground running as someone shot towards her.
As far as Rosa could tell, things were going well. It had been less than 10 minutes, and the surprise nature of the attack had given them such an advantage that it appeared that almost all of Kubra's men were either on the ground or trying to get out of town... The only fights that really seemed to be in much question were the one with Aydin and the boys and the one between Alex and Kubra, but they had everyone else on the run...
Maybe this crazy fuckin' plan would work after all...
Alex noticed none of the chaos around her. Her entire world was narrowed down to the man she was fighting and the 20 foot radius around them. The adrenaline was pounding through her veins, the blood rushing to her ears, and the cold, hard anger that always seemed to take control in such moments was gripping her brain.
Kubra was no easy target. Despite the fact that she had surprised him and initially taken the advantage, getting in some good solid blows and most likely injuring him fairly badly, the plain fact was that this was not his first rodeo and Alex hadn't had a gun to shoot him with or a knife to plant in his chest that would have really weakened him fast. He hadn't gotten to be the head of an organization like his without taking on challengers, and although he was surrounded by men like Mendez and Aydin who did most of his fighting for him these days, he had spent a decade climbing to the top… and that meant knowing how to defend himself.
Even after he'd taken a half dozen blows to the face and neck, he still managed to free a hand from her grip and punch her in the jaw. The angle wasn't ideal, but he was strong enough that it staggered her back onto her heels and allowed him to bring his knee up and jam it into her spine hard, causing her to pitch forward. Although this also meant she was falling towards him, she was the one now at a disadvantage, wincing from pain, unable to recover entirely, and more importantly removing her weight from his midsection and throwing her off balance. Kubra's other hand was freed as Alex tried to break her fall with her own hands, and he slammed his fist into on the right side of her face. She hit the ground with a bone rattling thud as Kubra rolled over, getting his feet under him but not bothering to stand all the way up… all he needed was his gun… he saw it three feet away and went to scramble for it…
Alex, though, had recovered quickly and was up on her feet, taking a two step run up before kicking him firmly in the ribs. He rolled over once and ended up on his belly. Alex lunged forward, trying to get him pinned again before he could move… so there was no way to reverse her momentum or get out of the way when Kubra rolled over with a knife (previously concealed in a small holster on his belt) in his hand. He didn't have a lot of time to direct his blow, but the knife slipped easily between her ribs… she was so keyed up on adrenaline and rage that it wasn't enough to actually stagger her, but she registered the sting of pain , and felt the blood begin to soak her shirt.
She was pinning his arms again, so he couldn't draw the knife back for another blow. She couldn't afford for him to get his leverage back, to get his feet back under him… especially not with a knife (his weapon of choice) in hand. And she knew the relentless adrenaline rush wouldn't last forever… given how fast her shirt was getting soaked, even with the knife still in the wound, he had gotten her good, and the more blood she lost, the less strength she'd have… even without that, this couldn't go on forever…
He was glaring up at her, using what little room to move he had to twist the knife that she dearly hoped wasn't wedged into one of her vitals… she was using most of her strength to keep him contained, basically draped over him like a blanket… she couldn't stay like this… and he knew it… "You don't seem very focused right now, Alex…" he growled at her, "Am I right in thinking…" another twist, and he applied more pressure, "… you aren't very focused right now?"
Alex took a couple of deep breaths, trying to gather her strength… she knew what she had to do but would only get one chance, and if it didn't work... she couldn't think about that…
"When you are dead…" Kubra spat, "they will follow… when you are dead, I will personally ensure that that woman dies in screaming agony and…."
"Y'know what, you son of a bitch… You talk too fucking much…" she planted her hands on the ground on either side of Kubra's shoulders and pushed herself up. Before he could register the sudden move, she brought the hard part of her head down on his nose hard. He cried out in pain stunned. She pushed up and sat back on his legs again, knees braced on either side of his thighs… he had lost his grip on the knife when she'd hit him, and it was now lodged in her midsection.
Gritting her teeth, she grabbed the hilt, pulled it out and surged forward again, holding the finely honed edge to his throat… "Gonna make sure you ain't never comin' back here to threaten me and mine again, you understand? Never fuckin' again…"
There was blood running from his broken nose, and from his mouth, rapidly expanding bruises on both sides of his face, but the fucker had the gall to actually fucking smile at her, a cruel, mean looking thing, blood staining his teeth a faint pink, his eyes matching his smile, "Look at you… you are so soft now… if you were as you had been, as I made you, I would be dead already, bleeding my life out all over this godforsaken street…but you can't do it… I see in your eyes hesitation… weakness…I can see what you are thinking… all your talk of finding a better way, and here you are about to kill me… what will your woman think? What will all these people when they know you are a murderer again?"
Alex spat some of the blood she felt filling her mouth (he'd knocked at least one tooth loose) out on the ground next to Kubra's head, "Well I guess that'll just be my burden to bear, won't it? You'll be too busy rotting in hell to think on it much…" and then she drew the knife across his throat…
Kubra made a stuck choking sound and brought his hands up to his throat. It took about twenty seconds, the blood seeping through his fingers, soaking the ground and his coat. He kept his eyes on hers as the life bled out of him, until they rolled back and she felt him go limp and boneless beneath her.
She leaned back on her heels, hands on her thighs… she was breathing hard now, rush fading rapidly as she began to feel the effects of the blood loss and the hits she'd taken. She gritted her teeth and dropped the knife, putting both hands over the wound in her side, grimacing and wincing as the pain caught up with. She'd need to see the Doc and soon.
Looking around her, she saw that Kubra's men were losing ground. It was possible they'd known what was coming they might have done better (maybe even won, though Alex didn't like to think on it), but as it was, the element of surprise and the way the townsfolk'd had all their reinforcements lined up was overwhelming. They'd taken out half Kubra's boys before they even knew what was going on.
Alex began looking for Piper… Rosa was supposed to be looking after her, making sure she stayed as safe as she could. She was looking to the left, over towards the space between the livery and the sheriff when she saw a flash of blonde hair on the porch of the sheriff's… Piper appeared to be behind Bennett, helping Fischer secure a couple of Kubra's unconscious men. Alex took a deep breath and gathered up her strength… was about to try to stand up…
…when, seemingly out of nowhere, a boot came flying towards her. Under normal circumstances, she would've sensed it, might've been able to move out of the way, to at least roll with the blow, but both her reflexes and her speed were off, thrown for a loop by her injuries… and the man who'd kicked her was almost as fast as she was…
Aydin had been holding off the three large Russians on his own, trying to break away, to help Kubra, cursing his boss for making him leave… Aydin knew how dangerous Vause was.. always had, had always been wary of her… had wanted to stay near Kubra to ensure she didn't try anything…
He saw Kubra get the upper hand, seemingly, but then almost as quickly, Vause was on top of him, pinning him with her weight… and before he knew it, Vause was slitting Kubra's throat… Aydin couldn't stop the cry of anger that left his lungs… (Fahri had been the one who found him, his mentor, but Kubra was like his father… the man who had made him something… something Vause had never done anything but hold in contempt)…
Suddenly all he wanted was to get to her. He lunged forward and grabbed two of the Russians by their hair, he slammed their heads together hard and then pushed them into the third. The trio went down in a heap, two of them unconscious, and Aydin used their distraction to slip off the porch and run towards Vause and Kubra…
Aydin's boot made contact with the right side of her face, sending her glasses flying. The pain was immediate and intense and there was a sickening crunching sound as she felt her cheekbone shatter. She went down in a heap (fuckin' again) and felt Aydin kick her viciously in the ribs to make sure she stayed there… once, twice… three times… rapid and furious, driving the breath from her chest and wincing in pain… and then he took two steps, towards where Kubra's gun had landed. She was face down on the ground, hands flexing on the dirt, trying to get her breath back, get the strength to move. She turned her head to look at him, squinting at him… head feeling fuzzy…
His clothes were torn, his hair mussed, his face bruised, but Alex could feel his anger radiating off him in waves. He took two long strides towards her, grabbed her by the collar of her shirt with his left hand and turned her over as roughly as he could. Then he put his boot to her neck, applying enough weight that she would stay in place, but not enough that she would pass out, even in her weakened state. On instinct, her hands came up and grasped the boot feebly. He ignored her struggles and pointed the gun down at her, saying nothing. Aydin was a physical being who had little use for words… nothing either of them could say would make this anything other than what it was.
She braced herself, looking him straight in the eyes. She didn't feel any fear for herself. Death wasn't the worst thing, and at least she had ended Kubra first... all her thoughts were of Piper... she couldn't even turn her head to look for her, to try to see her one last time... Alex thought about all they had been through, about how she loved the blonde so much it was almost beyond her comprehension... her only wish as she looked up at the man who would kill her was that Piper would survive this and go on to live a good full life... even if it was without her... God she was going to miss her... Alex saw Aydin finger tense on the trigger…
... and then there was gunshot from behind her and Aydin's head snapped back, a neat hole in the middle of his forehead… the pressure disappeared from her neck, and he fell gracelessly into the dust, the gun clunking to the ground between them.
Alex grunted and shifted herself to look back in the direction of the shot... and saw Piper (or a blonde blur that greatly resembled her) standing on the porch of the Sheriff's office, a smoking rifle braced against her shoulder, a look of grim triumph on her face. When she saw Alex turn toward her, Alex thought she saw her face fall (probably because Alex looked like she'd just had her ass kicked). Piper lowered the gun and made a move to come down the steps towards her…
But before she could move, the door to the Sheriff's office opened and George Mendez stepped out… grabbing Piper around the waist and dragging her back into the office, which he then slammed behind him.
Fischer, who had been knelt at the rail surrounding the porch, taking shots at the men further down the road to the East, looked over her shoulder at Piper's cry of distress and immediately moved towards the door…
Alex desperately scrambled to get her feet back under her and push past the pain that seemed to be permeating every cell in her body. There was only one thought pounding through her brain. Get to Piper…
Piper had spent the fight on the Sheriff's Station porch, helping Fischer secure the men she and Daya had knocked out and taking shots at the men on horseback. At some point Rosa had made sure they were secure as they could be and left to help Gloria and her girls across the street. Piper's eyes kept travelling back to Alex… first she'd watched as the brunette killed Kubra, coolly and efficiently slicing his throat wide (Piper could not bring herself to feel bad about this… not after all she'd been told Kubra had done and was capable of… she wasn't even sure how upset she was that Alex had done it… this was penance, this was closure… the end of something). But then…
Piper's only thought when she'd seen Aydin knocking out Sergei and Maxim, running towards where Alex was kneeling (looking completely spent, holding her hands over the spreading red stain in her side) was that she had to keep him away from her…
She looked around frantically and saw that one of the men they'd knocked out and tied up had a rifle in a holster on his back. She grabbed it and checked that it was loaded, then she swiveled around towards the street just in time to see Aydin kicking Alex savagely in the ribs and then walk over to grab the gun Kubra had dropped.
Piper had only ever shot at cans on a fence (and had gotten to a point where she hit them one hundred percent of the time, which Alex was incredibly proud of), never at a moving target, never at a living thing (she'd slaughtered hogs and chickens, but that felt different… Alex would occasionally go out hunting with Red's boys or Poussey and Tasha, but Piper always begged off even that…), but if ever there was a time that she had to make this shot…
She remembered everything Alex had taught her, and tried to calm herself down enough to put it all into practice. She braced the gun on her shoulder, aimed carefully, forced her breathing to calm… Aydin had his boot on Alex's throat, the gun pointed down at her face… Alex was staring up at him, stoic and calm in the face of this, her job done…
And then Piper released the breath she was holding and pulled the trigger… the bullet hit Aydin dead center of the forehead and there was a grim satisfaction to it as she remembered how blithely he had threatened both her life and Alex's… how she knew he would follow through on his threats for no other reason than that he had been told to…
(in the back of her mind, she felt a sort of desperate relief that the old feeling of release she once had when doing violence was no longer there… the wild feeling she'd felt when beating Tiffany Doggett nowhere to be found… the satisfaction she felt now was because she had saved Alex's life… knowing she had not taken a life on a whim…)
She watched as he fell and then Alex turned to face her. Piper drew in a breath, she hadn't realized how bad Alex had been injured. She could see the blood spreading through her shirt and jacket, the bruising on her face. The all out battle of only a few minutes ago had faded to individual skirmishes, Kubra's people in retreat now that their master was dead… There wasn't near as much danger in going into the street as there had been.
She felt an urgent need to get to Alex. She took a step forward…. And suddenly felt a pair of arms wrap around her roughly from behind, dragging her back into the sheriff's office. The door slammed and the bolt slid home before the person holding her spun around and tossed her to the ground forcefully, knocking the breath out of her as she slid across the floor and came to rest against the bars of the single jail cell.
A voice from her right, "Was that necessary Mendez?"
Piper looked over and saw Fahri, leaning against Bennett's desk, his left arm held stiffly, his left eye swollen shut (she had lost track of him after that, the last she'd seen he was getting his wounds tended to, but he must have slipped in here when it began. With his shoulder as it was he would've been relatively useless in a fight.). There was dried blood in his mustache and on his face. He was looking towards a second man, the one who had grabbed Piper. The man had been one of the ones behind Kubra when they'd first come over the rise from town. Piper had managed to make note of a few of them before she and Alex had started their whispered playacting for Fahri's benefit. (the act had to be convincing, and letting anything slip in front of their prisoner was a slip up they couldn't afford). She remembered him because he shot him, caught him in the shoulder
This man was tall, broad, had black hair that fell to his shoulders in the back but was cut close in the front. On his face was a bushy mustache and a scruff of uneven stubble. The overall effect was not pleasing. He wore an old Confederate Army coat, the left shoulder bound up inexpertly with what looked like a torn shirtsleeve that was soaked with blood, and there were two pistols and a large knife on his belt, much like Alex's. He had an unpleasant smile on his face and an even more repulsive look in his beady brown eyes.
The tall man's eyes were roaming up and down Piper's body, making her feel oddly like he was doing something obscene even though she was fully clothed and not even in a particularly alluring way (she and her clothes were both rumpled and covered in sweat and dust). She did not like the look in the man's eyes at all, not one bit... it promised things that she had never even been given reason to contemplate in the past; even in her darkest moments in Boston, she was still the privileged daughter of a privileged man and she was protected from some of the worst realities of what rough men might do to a woman (until, she thought, she married one)...
He didn't look away from Piper as he answered Fahri, "Fuck yeah it was... considerin' everythin' you told me, this bitch has spent some serious time makin' this whole fuckin' thing a lot harder than it needed to be..."
"That is not exactly what I said... I simply said..."
"That she fuckin' fooled your dumb ass twice... Jesus, you oughta be more interested in punishin' her than I am…"
"And why does she require punishment at all...?"
"Cause she shot me… And cause she's at least as responsible for all this bullshit as Vause is, and since I got no interest in fuckin' that bitch, I'll have to make due..."
Fahri pushed himself up a little straighter as Piper's eyes widened. She looked around, trying to find some way out of this. The sheriff's station was one room with the cell in the back of it. Small, cramped... if she tried to scramble to her feet, he would be on her before she could move towards either the front door (which he was blocking) or the back door... she had no weapons (she'd tucked her pistol into her belt when she'd picked up the rifle, but it had fallen out when she'd struggled with Mendez, and the little knife she'd slipped into her boot had ended up in someone's chest). Panic began to flutter in her stomach but she tamped it down... no, no she couldn't give into that... she had gone through too much, survived too much... she would not fall apart now.
"No," Fahri said, his voice commanding, serious, but the look on his face concerned. He looked from Piper to Mendez, "This is not necessary, Mendez... nor is it prudent... our men have scattered, Kubra is dead. There is still chaos out there for this brief moment. We cannot waste it. We have to leave now..."
"Oh we'll leave... and we'll do it before any'a those bitches gets us, my horse is out back... what I wanna do... it won't take too long."
"Mendez..."
Mendez didn't respond to the authority in Fahri's voice, "Oh don't try to act like my fuckin' boss anymore, Fahri... Kubra's fuckin' dead... that gravy train is derailed... and to be real fuckin' honest, that's Vause's fault too..." Mendez looked at Piper, "Best fuckin' gang I ever run with..." he took another step towards Piper, "You're right though, we're runnin outta time, and I wanna make sure I make this somethin' this one'll remember... I'll bet you ain't even had a man before, have ya honey? I can tell ya whatever Vause does with ya, it ain't nothin'..."
Before he could finish whatever heinous thing he was going to say, Fahri had slid between he and Piper. "You will not do this."
Mendez glared, "Oh you gettin' all squeamish now, Fahri...?" Behind him, someone began pounding on the door loudly. "don't you dare fuckin' tell me you don't know what Kubra had us to some of those towns, some of them ranches he erased..."
"I was aware of those things. Those things were necessary for maintaining his authority. This is pointless cruelty..."
"You don't like it, you ain't gotta watch..."
"Mendez..." the pounding intensified. They could hear someone scrabbling keys on the door.
"What? You gonna tell me what you'll do t'me if I try to touch her? Gonna puff yourself up some, little man?"
"No. I do not make threats, I take actions. I will give you one final chance. We will go and you will leave her here..."
"Fuck that..." Mendez went to take a step forward, raising his arm to push Fahri out of the way.
Fahri ducked under the taller man's arm smoothly and, with fluid grace, moved all the way around behind him. Mendez frowned, turning around as quickly as he could... and coming face to face with one of his own pistols in Fahri's uninjured right hand (Fahri had pulled it from Mendez's holster so smoothly he hadn't even felt it), pointed straight at his forehead.
"I never liked you anyway you stupid, small minded, cruel son of a bitch," and then he pulled the trigger.
Through sheer force of will, Alex had dragged herself to her feet and was staggering towards the Sheriff's office. The stab wound in her torso was like a slow burning wildfire, spreading pain and heat from her midsection all through the rest of her body. The pain in her face was much sharper... she couldn't walk right thanks to her busted up ribs and so her steps were staggered, jarring and every one caused a spike of agony to run through her brain straight from the place where Aydin's boot had made contact.
Half way there she felt someone pull her arm around their broad shoulders and looked over to see Cindy, a cut on her forehead and a bruise on her cheek, but otherwise seeming no worse for the wear. Alex was almost astonished to see that the chaos and movement on the street had abated, the overwhelming noise of horses and people grappling with one another, of gunshots and yells had faded, and now the townsfolk were really just trussing up the men who'd been knocked out and assessing their own damage.
The injury to her face made talking a chore, though she reckoned she could do it if she needed to, and even gritting her teeth felt as though it was like to make her pass out, but she gestured towards the sheriff's office.
Cindy nodded, "Yeah I saw..." She handed Alex a gun, which Alex stuffed in her belt, "just in case..."
With Cindy's help they moved much faster (although, despite the fact that Cindy was trying to be gentle, moving faster meant hurting more... but Alex didn't fucking care).
On the porch, Fischer was cursing and picking through a pile of scattered keys. She looked over at them, "When I grappled with that fella," she pointed at one of the unconscious men on the porch, "they fell off my belt, the ring busted and now... I don't know which one's the front door."
Alex wanted to help, but thought if she went to her knees she might not be able to get up. She felt helpless and out of her mind with worry, all she could picture was what Mendez (who she had seen do many, many awful things, his actions seared into her brain a long time ago) with Piper... the mere thought of the slimy bastard touching the blonde made Alex frantic.
She leaned against the door and started kicking it as Cindy set to helping Fischer with the keys, handing the skinny woman one key after the other as Fischer tried them on the door. "Lord, why do I have so many blamed keys," she muttered to herself. They'd have gone for the windows, but the interior shutters (meant to be sealed against an attack in case someone decided to come after a prisoner) had been shut.
Alex's anxiety was like a physical force, overpowering the pain, and she found the strength to pound on the door with her fist as well as her foot. Grunting with the effort and wincing every time she tried to speak because of the pain. Everything in her wanted to scream Piper's name over and over...
Finally (FINALLY), Fischer came up with what she thought was the right key. She turned it in the lock... just as a gunshot rang out from the other side of the door. Alex slammed her shoulder into the door and burst through... almost tripping over Mendez's just fallen body.
She looked up and saw Fahri standing over Mendez. As soon as he saw Alex crash into the room, Cindy and Fischer behind her, Fahri dropped the gun and raised his hands. Alex looked around frantically and saw Piper, who'd been squeezed up against the bars of the cell. She was pushing herself to her feet.
As soon as she knew Piper wasn't hurt, she turned to Fahri, anger rising, that strange overly controlled calm, the one that always seemed to precede violence, spreading through her. She pulled the gun, pointing it at him.
Behind her, Fischer said, "Uh... Vause... he's... he's surrendered he..."
Cindy said, "Hey, Fischer, think maybe I saw me some crimes need some takin' care of..."
"What?"
"Out... side..."
"But..."
"FISCHER..."
Alex heard the deputy sigh, and then she and Cindy left. Alex was still unsteady on her feet, but she'd gotten her second wind and was glaring at Fahri hard. When she spoke her speech was pained and stilted, her whole face hurt. "You... you brought... them here..."
"I was doing my job... as I had to..."
"I am... going to... kill you..."
Fahri frowned and stared back at her, "Do what you must... unlike you I understand the necessity of violence..."
Before Alex could do anything, Piper was standing next to Fahri, her hand up, much as Fahri had done just a moment ago, "Don't do this Alex! Don't do it..."
"Why... the fuck... not?" she gritted out. "mad dogs... should be put down..."
"Loathe as I am to admit it, Alex, he saved my life..."
"Held you... hostage for... days..."
"And didn't hurt me once, didn't even come close... Alex I don't like him any better than you do, but..." she took a step closer, putting her hand gently on her right forearm, "...there's been enough killing... you've done enough of this..." she was looking intently into Alex's eyes, and Alex couldn't help but look back, as though she were being compelled to by a mysterious force. Piper's eyes were clear, full of determination, full of concern, "... this is not who you are anymore..."
"Whole town... probably just... killed at least ten men..."
"Yes. Because we had to. To defend our homes, to defend our lives and our friends. But you don't have to do this. If you kill him it won't be justice... it'll just be revenge…" Piper was closer now, her hand had slid up to Alex's shoulder, her eye still intent, "If you do this, Kubra will have won... he will have turned you back into what he wanted you to be..."
Alex shook her head, glaring hard at Fahri. She could barely see his face without her glasses but she could see that he was placid, unmoving, resigned to his fate. She moved her eyes back to Piper's.
"He'd... he'd do it if the... position was reversed..."
"Maybe…" Piper said, though somehow she wasn't sure that was entirely true, "... but you aren't him not anymore. You never truly were..."
Alex was fading. The pain seemed to be everywhere and suddenly her gun arm felt so fucking heavy. Piper's gaze was intense, as if trying to give her the strength to get past this desire to kill him... the adrenaline that had propelled her here, the rage that had made her point her gun at Fahri... it was all fading, and all it was leaving behind was exhaustion… she was so god damn tired.
Piper gripped her shoulder tightly and leaned forward, every word she said laden with conviction, "You are better than this, Al... I know you are... and deep down you know it too..."
There was a long, weighted moment where time seemed to stand still, Piper and Alex into one another's eyes... and then finally, Alex closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and looked back at Fahri. The gun remained pointed at him, but the rage had leached from her eyes. "You... leave here... never come back. Spread... the word... not to fuck with us..."
Fahri looked surprised, "I must admit, I was not expecting this..." he looked at Piper, "You are most convincing."
Piper glared at him. "Just because I wouldn't let her kill you doesn't mean I like you... you're the one who recruited her in the first place."
"No one held a gun to her head..."
"Enough..." growled Alex. "You should... go before someone else... gets their hands on you... I won't kill you... but no guarantees about... anyone else..."
"I thank ..."
"Don't thank me for a fuckin' thing. I'm not killin' you because that ain't who I am anymore..." she gestured to Piper with her head, "Walkin' outta town without givin' you to Red or Rosa? That's for savin' her life..." she took a step forward, "and this..." she suddenly lashed out with her left fist, driving it into Fahri's stomach, driving all the air from his lungs and stagger, bending double, "... this is for scarin' her in the first place... now get... the fuck out..."
Still sucking in shallow breaths, Fahri nodded, and without a backward glance, he limped out the back door of the Sheriff's station where Mendez's horse awaited...
As soon as the door closed, Alex let the gun fall to the ground and immediately proceeded to collapse heavily into Piper, so heavily that the blonde was forced to half fall to the floor inelegantly, trying to break Alex's messy fall as well as she could. And then passed the fuck out, the pain finally and quite suddenly catching up to her...
In the end most of Kubra's men managed to escape. Aside from Aydin, Ahmad, Mendez and Kubra himself, four others had been killed. Seven were knocked out and trussed up, sharing Bennett's single cell until the next morning when Red came and explained the facts of life to them. They would be released with a canteen each of water and told to hoof it the 20 miles to New Litchfield. And if they ever showed their faces again... well they'd end up in New Litchfield in that case too, only in a custom designed pine box. The rest had run off, and probably gotten the idea.
The only one who remained in town was the young black woman who had been by Kubra's side (whose name turned out to be Watson). Her injuries probably should've killed her but she stubbornly hung on. Some advocated letting her die, but the Nun refused, citing her vows both to God and to medicine. No one was quite sure what they'd do with her in the end, but for now she was still in a coma, so it barely mattered.
Alex was the most severely injured of the townsfolk. There'd been cuts and bruises, a broken arm, a couple sprained ankles, bruised knuckles and punches to the face, standard issue injuries for anyone in a scrap, but for the most part they'd all acquitted themselves well. Bennett had a bad blow to the head, but nothing he couldn't heal from. Arkady had been stabbed, but not anywhere important.
The only people who hadn't participated in the fight were Lorna (still too injured), Nicky (wanted to help but was a horrible shot and also refused to leave Lorna's side), and two of Miss Berdie's girls, Tasha and Suzanne. Miss Berdie refused to have her around for the fight for some reason, something about violent tendencies (no one could quite see it because the girl was so peaceful, even simple, all the time, seeming content with interacting with the little family at the livery and with the horses), and Tasha was the one who always looked after her and would no more leave her side than Lorna would leave Nicky's. They rode up to the Roost in a wagon (pulled by Bugsy) as Alex was riding down to the ranch.
The town was like the people, battered and bruised but not even close to broken. The next day they began to clean things up, satisfied with the knowledge that they could band together and defend their town from any threat if given half a chance...
The Doc told Alex that she should talk as little as possible until the bones in her face healed, and that she had to stay in bed until the stab wound got better. The Nun had, in fact given she and Piper a far too knowing look and told them that there was to be no vigorous physical activity of any kind, to which Alex (already defying Doc's orders) said, "Spoilin' all our fun... Sister..."
Alex needed daily looking after, so they moved up to town again and took up residence in the same room at Red's they'd had during the long winter. Piper and Ford still went down to the ranch every day, along with Tasha and sometimes Suzanne (who enjoyed taking care of the horses) around 5am (leaving Alex sound asleep… never one to wake early if it wasn't required of her) and took care of things, but Piper returned to Red's every day for lunch and didn't go back to the ranch, preferring to stay and fuss over the brunette.
Having Alex at the saloon made things easier on the Nun, who was also checking in on Lorna daily, just to make sure the doc they'd found in the little burg just outside Cara County had done his work right bracing up her ribs and her arm.
Normally, Alex loathed being idle, but she didn't mind sleeping in and Piper and Poussey were keeping her well supplied with books. The nun figured her to be laid up here for maybe a couple weeks before she wouldn't need to be checked on daily and would at least be well enough to ride. Alex didn't figure she'd get so restless she'd start feeling the need to move if it was only a fortnight.
She wasn't usually one for being taken care of either, but as with most things, she didn't mind Piper doing it. Although having Piper in such close proximity when she'd been told not to engage in vigorous physical activity became frustrating after a while, especially since Piper was determined to mind the Nun's orders and refused to make any mischief whatsoever…
After a week, Alex wasn't near so sore as she had been, and she was healing up nicely, though not enough that the Nun was granting her total release. She could get up and move around a little, go down the stairs at least. Which didn't stop her letting Piper bring her lunch up to her and sit by her bed while she ate.
Alex couldn't talk much, but it worked out fine because Piper could absolutely fill a silence like no one she'd ever met. She talked about her morning on the farm ("Hades misses you… he got cross with me when I tried to feed him"), about Ford ("He says Tasha wants to come and help more often around the farm…"), about what Sister Ingalls had told her ("Quite optimistic about your progress… evidently you're a fast healer, Al…")
Alex just nodded and smiled at her, letting the words wash over her, listening and watching the blonde's every move as she gingerly ate the soup and mashed potatoes Red had made her special (both seasoned in the way she liked best…evidently, the only way to get special treatment out of the old Russian was to almost die… again). Alex marveled at the way she never got tired of looking at Piper, how the girl was still just as dazzling to her as she had been when they'd first met, and how her feelings for her had gotten nothing but stronger since then.
When she finished, she pushed the tray to the side of the bed. Piper, who had been sitting in a chair by the bed, talking and gesturing, sometimes emphatically (as she was like to do when she spoke at length about something she felt strongly about) paused to lean forward and take the tray, but before she could get a hold on it, Alex caught her wrist and pulled the blonde down into the bed…
Piper let out a gasp of surprise and then gave Alex a stern look, even though she couldn't stop herself smiling, "Alex!"
Alex held her tight, not even looking to do anything more (the Nun had been clear about busting her stitches, and she didn't figure her stab wound bursting open while they were at it would be much of a mood setter), just nestling the blonde into her, breathing in her scent, feeling the comforting warmth of her, marveling at how she always seemed to fit perfectly into Alex's side...
As always, Piper seemed to know exactly what Alex was after, so she just snuggled into her, resting her head in the crook of the brunette's shoulder, one arm over her waist. She leaned up to kiss her briefly and then closed her eyes, content to let the sounds of Alex's breathing and heartbeat surround her.
Just as Piper was about to drift off into a light sleep, she heard Alex's voice, "Pipes..."
Piper frowned, "Alex you're not supposed to..."
"I... know... but... this is important," her jaw felt stiff and the right side of her face hurt like a bitch when she spoke, but she had to say this, "I haven't... said thank you... for saving me... from myself... from what I was going to do to Fahri..."
"Al..."
"I wanted to do it... so bad..."
"But you didn't and that matters..."
"yeah... I guess... I guess it does..."
"I meant what I said... you aren't that person anymore... as far as I'm concerned, you never truly were..."
Alex smiled slightly, even though it hurt, "Yeah..." They lapsed into silence again. Alex felt Piper's breathing level out, the blonde slipping into the light sleep she'd been on the edge of a moment ago. Alex stayed awake, contemplating Piper's words… think that perhaps the first time, she really, truly believed that she wasn't that person anymore... Kubra was gone forever. His gang was scattered to the four winds, the most dangerous of them now either dead or beholden to her... the future stretched out before her for once shining and bright and unburdened by the possibility the past that had haunted her for so long might return to take its due from her...
She tightened her hold on Piper and smiled, closing her eyes, absolutely convinced they could take on anything as long as they were in it together…
The End (y'all)
A/N- Well, there ya go. There will be an epilogue coming soon so this isn't the absolute end... :) Stick around cause I have a feeling you'll like it... (Hint: there will be fluff haha)