A/N – Do you know what's annoying? Writing a chapter for it to just randomly delete itself. And then trying to re-write it knowing it just wouldn't be the same the second time around.. I've also been attempting to start another story (I have actually started 3 of them) but I feel unsatisfied with all of my efforts. Overall it has been very frustrating few days.

Oh well!

Just a note to say that I have no clue about gun shot wounds, survival rates, and all of that super-smart medical stuff. I have used my trusty friend Google to find out as much as I could.. so this chapter may not be factually, medically correct..

This isn't the last chapter, but it may be the penultimate chapter, I haven't quite decided yet.. I will definitely miss writing this, and I think that makes me want to hold on to it just a little while longer..

Chapter 17 - "Think of the story that you'll have"

Alex sped down the road, sitting just on the speed limit, her foot tempted to press down and give it more gas, willing her to drive faster. She resisted, she couldn't afford to waste time being pulled over by a state trooper. The elderly man in the gas station had told her to take the fifth exit, and so far she had passed three. She had no idea what she could find back at the apartment building. As far as she knew, Piper and Nikki were still locked up as hostages. And there were over ten floors to the building with maybe twenty apartments on each floor.

But what if they were already dead? What if word about the shooting in the arena had reached the rest of the Cartel and they decided to clean up their evidence. Alex shook away these uneasy thoughts. She decided that this was unlikely. Kubra didn't have a successor in line to head the Cartel, a selfish mistake. Some of the importers may attempt to group together to run things but ultimately, Alex knew that Kim would take over the contracts and Kubras men would disband. In the chaos of the likely attacks, Piper and Nikki would probably be forgotten.

The fifth exit came up and Alex turned into it, she passed through a small town, and noticed a drive through burger joint. She pulled over and asked for further directions. As she had in the gas station, she received a look of confusion as she showed the woman the address scribbled onto the piece of paper in her hand. Questioning looks, as though silently asking her why she would want to visit the unoccupied building.

The woman took the piece of paper from her and looked from the slanted hand-writing back up to Alex, "that place has been closed for years, the only people who go there are-" she paused, her eyes narrowed, "are druggies and criminals…"

"I just need to know where it is.." Alex insisted.

"You don't look like a druggie.. or a criminal," the woman shared her evaluation.

Alex let out a sigh of frustration, "I'm not." ...anymore...

The older woman adjusted the glasses on the bridge of her nose as she inspected Alex, her eyes dropping down and then back up. Alex shifted from foot to foot as she tried to manage her attitude which was becoming increasingly frustrated.

"It's just down the road, take the first right and then a left. I don't think you should be going there on your own.." the woman spoke, she forced a kind smile but Alex could see through the act.

"Thank you!"

Alex climbed back into the van and pulled away before the woman could say anything else. She followed the directions and sure enough she came to the apartment building she had seen earlier that morning. It was now late morning, though it felt much later. As she took the first right she saw a black car speed out of the junction and roar down the main road. To anybody else this would just be another careless driver, but to Alex, the car could only have came from one place. She pressed her foot down, pushing the car to go as fast as she could. Who had been in that black car?

The van screeched against the tarmac as she pulled up beside the apartment building. The white van that had been parked up earlier that morning had not moved. Piper and Nikki were inside, she knew it. She didn't know where they were, or whether their abductors were still inside, guarding them, although the van indicated that they were. She jumped out of the van and looked around for something she could use as a weapon. There was a piece of slightly rusted copper pipe in the wasteland to the side. She picked it up and held it firmly in her hands as she entered the building.

It occurred to her that she would need more than her new weapon to break down any of the doors. She cursed herself for her lack of planning, and began pushing on doors, calling their names. A few doors opened but when she stepped into the apartment's they were empty, although many of the ground floor apartments were occupied by rats. Large rats. Rats the size of small cats. She quickly closed the doors, and continued to shout their names. She tried to tell herself that the lack of response just meant that they couldn't hear her as they were on a higher floor, but with the lack of elevator use, she couldn't imagine they were too high up.

She climbed the stairs, moving her search to the first floor and she paused. She could hear footsteps against the tiled floor. Hurried footsteps. Footsteps coming towards her. She pulled the copper pipe down to her side, gripping it tightly, readying herself for whoever was around the corner. She continued to climb the stairs, almost dropping the pipe to the floor at the sound of a voice she recognised. It was like music to her ears.

"You don't think that Alex-"

"That Alex, what?" she interrupted, turning the corner to see Nikki crouching down beside Piper.

Her relief was short lived.

Pipers blue eyes looked down at her, a pained expression on her face as she attempted to pull herself up from her sitting position on the steps. Nikki stood with her hand around her waist, topless except for a black bra. Her missing t-shirt had been tied tightly around the top of Piper's leg. Grey jogging pants stained in a deep shade of maroon, bright red blood smeared up both of their forearms. Her heart began to hammer in her chest, she already knew it before the words passed Nikki's lips-

"Gunshot."

"When?!" Alex asked, surely it couldn't have been too long ago. She recalled the black car speeding past her at the junction.

"I don't know, we started moving out as soon as it happened.." Nikki's attention was on Piper as the blonde shuffled herself down the next step.

"The two men who kidnapped us are dead," Nikki continued, "some guy he just broke down the door and shot at them, he wasn't aiming for us but one of the fucker's jumped to try and hide behind us and she was shot."

Alex watched as the two women continued to move one slow step at a time. She thought about asking Piper if she was ok, but she already had the answer. Of course she wasn't ok. None of this was ok.

"It must of been one of Kim's men," Alex thought out loud.

"Who?" Piper managed to ask.

"I will explain to you later," Alex spoke softly, "we need to get you to a hospital."

Piper nodded her head, before sitting on one of the steps, "are you ok?"

Alex could barely believe it. The blonde had been shot through the leg, she was trying to get down three flights of stairs, and she was asking Alex if she was ok?!

"Yeah Kid, I'm fine."

Piper gave her a smile which turned in an instant to a wince as she shuffled down the next step, "fuck!"

As she watched the two women struggle down each step, Alex felt helpless. She wanted to apologise but she felt that an apology didn't even begin to express the way that she felt. She didn't expect their forgiveness, so she wouldn't ask for it. What was she supposed to say? "I'm sorry that you got abducted by order of my old drug lord boss, and then shot by the rival Cartel I encouraged to come after Kubra and assassinate him."

This was her fault.

She pushed through the waves of guilt, and decided she needed to be more practical.

"I have a van," she explained, "I will go and drive it up to the door."

With that she hurried down the stairs and back outside to where she had parked the van. She revved the engine and pushed up over the high curbs, across the yellowed grass and turned it so the back of the van faced the open door. It was a struggle but together she and Nikki were able to lift Piper into the van, careful not to knock her injured leg.

She drove back the way she came, and slowed as she drove through the town, pulling into the drive through burger place. She waited for the voice, "Good morning, Big Buddies Burgers, can I take your order?" the thick accent spoke.

"Yeah, could you tell me where the nearest hospital is?"

There was a pause, "is everything ok, ma'am?"

"No, my girlfriend has been shot and I need to get her to the hospital." What was it with the inquisitive people of this town?!

"The nearest hospital is about twenty minutes away!" The voice sounded panicked as she explained the route to the hospital.

Alex thanked her, repeating the directions over and over as she reversed out of the drive-through.

As she drove the minutes passed like hours, and she knew with each minute, Piper was losing more blood. With no sign of the hospital Alex began to panic that she had forgotten some vital turn in the directions and she was just going to keep driving through this baking desert until she ran out of gas, and Piper bled out.

She couldn't even communicate with them over the roar of the engine and the road passing beneath them. She had no idea how Piper was doing, and she wouldn't know until she stopped.

Finally there was a road sign indicating a hospital within 5 miles. She sighed in relief, and checked her speedometer to make sure that she hadn't edged over. 4 miles. 3 miles. 2 miles. 1 mile.

She saw the white, red and blue of a hospital building. The first turn in was for the ER, she dropped her speed and turned in. There were ambulances parked up waiting for calls, and there were ambulances parked up dropping off patients. Alex drove straight for the entrance doors and stopped the van.

Piper looked worse than when they had left the apartment building. She looked pale and clammy, and her eyes seemed to look through her rather than finding focus. A lump formed in Alex's throat. She didn't want to think about it, but how could she not? What if Piper dying? What if she died? What if Piper died today and it was all because of her.

She shook away the thoughts as she had been doing all day. She couldn't deal with it right now. It wasn't the right time to be sifting through her guilt and remorse.

She slipped her arm under Piper's and brought the womans hand around her neck as Nikki did the same. They practically dragged her into the ER.

Alex had been in the Emergency Room only once in her life. She had broken her arm as a child when she had lost her balance climbing over a high wall. The ER had been exciting then, with important people like doctors and nurses rushing around to save people's lives. But now, with Piper's life on the line, she couldn't stand how busy the room was.

What was the protocol? When she'd broken her arm she had sat on a bench reading old magazines while her mother filled out forms and discussed insurance.. But she couldn't imagine that Piper would sit in the waiting room with a bullet wedged into her leg as her blood drained out. Instead, she screamed for help.

"Help! She's been shot!"

The entire room seemed to look over at them. A nurse rushed over, shouting orders at the other nurses to page for a Dr Fishwick. She grabbed a wheelchair and opened it out, driving it up behind Piper. Alex and Nikki lowered her into the chair and the nurse wrapped a blanket around her before wheeling her down the corridor. Alex and Nikki followed at her ankles.

"What happened?" the nurse asked.

Alex's mouth was dry, she felt as though she had swallowed sand.

"We were being held hostage in some abandoned apartment building when a gunman broke down the door and shot our kidnappers, he misfired and hit Piper," Nikki explained.

"Piper," the nurse called the blonde, "how are you feeling?"

"Cold," Piper answered, her voice was quiet.

While Piper underwent surgery to remove the bullet from her leg, Nikki and Alex waited together in silence.

It felt as though time had stopped for Alex. She was desperate for news and yet terrified that the news would be bad. She paced up and down and up and down, and when she sat, she found herself tapping her foot or biting her nails. Her and Nikki had barely spoken, instead they buried themselves in the silence.

Finally Nikki spoke up, "so what happened?" she asked Alex.

Alex found herself explaining everything to Nikki with ease, she'd expected it to be much more difficult, but the words fell away from her effortlessly. Talking about it also made it more real. The last few days had been surreal, as though she'd dreamt herself into a Hollywood movie. Reliving it through her words confirmed that it had happened, and that it was still happening now.

Nikki didn't interrupt once. If it hadn't been for the fact she had abducted and locked up, she would have thought that Alex was just talking shit, just trying to impress her with made-up dangerous experiences.

A doctor walked over to them and announced that Piper was out of surgery. The bullet had been successfully removed, and there was significant muscle damage, but Piper had been lucky (as lucky as anyone who had been accidentally shot could be), as the bullet had narrowly missed a main artery. The doctor explained that Piper would have areas of numbness due to nerve damage, and that she would have some muscle wastage, but that she would be OK.

She would be OK.

She wasn't going to die.

Piper and Nikki took up seats beside Piper, and waited for her to wake. The blonde was connected to an IV, morphine dripping into her to control the pain. The use of the opium was sickeningly ironic.

Long eyelashes flickered open and Alex let out a breath of relief as she looked at those blue eyes. They were darker than usual, and her pupils were dilated, probably due to the drugs pumping through her system to numb the pain.

"Hey," Alex smiled.

Piper watched her for a moment before she smiled back.

"Hey."

Nikki scurried from her chair so that her head was in Piper's line of sight, "hey!"

Alex chuckled and Piper's smile widened.

"I suppose I should leave you two lovebird's together," Nikki spoke, readying herself to give them some privacy.

"No!" Piper's voice was small but it was firm.

"Stay."

Nikki nodded and moved her chair close to Alex before taking a seat.

"I know I should tell you both how sorry I am," Alex began, "but I don't know how to even begin."

Piper opened her mouth to speak but Nikki covered it for her when she said simply, "we know."

Alex didn't think they did know. They couldn't possibly know the weight of the guilt she felt. She felt her eyes begin to burn, and she didn't bother to stop the tears from rolling.

"Fuck," Nikki pulled her in to a side-by-side hug, "don't get soft on us, Vause."

"I don't know what I would have done if you'd-

"But I didn't," Piper interrupted.

"But I nearly-

Piper closed her eyes as she quoted one of Alex's classic lines back at her, "Yeah, but think of the story that you'll have.."