a/n: Hey y'all, sorry for the delay on this one. It was poor fic publishing timing...literally the day after I posted I got a big writing assignment on a deadline for work, so that's been a big rushed thing for the last few weeks.

Like I mentioned, the chapters in this story (minus that first prologue) are going to be shorter than my usual deal, but hopefully from this point forward that will help me update more frequently. Anyway. Enjoy! Definitely lemme know what you think.

Chapter One

Piper can't find her passport.

It makes no sense, because she always keeps it in the outside pocket of her bag, the bag she always takes on flights as a carry on. She never moves it between trips, never, but it's not there. They've been in Paris for awhile now - almost three fucking months - so obviously she hasn't seen it lately, but it was there.

Except now it's not, so she's tearing apart the hotel trying to find it. Even though she's already packed all her stuff into suitcases, already emptied every drawer and closet she'd been using, so there's really nowhere logical to look.

Her eyes are starting to prickle with hot tears of frustration, but Piper blinks them back and keeps moving. That seems like the most important thing right now; she won't let herself be still. If she stops for too long, she'll lose momentum, and this momentum is the only thing that will get her to the airport and onto the plane.

And she stays still long enough to really look at Alex, that momentum's going to stall.

But she can't find her fucking passport.

Piper takes a breath and walks back into the bedroom. She can barely make out Alex in her peripheral vision, sitting on the bed, and Piper makes a point not to look over, opening a random drawer as she says, "Did you look at all?" Alex doesn't answer, which makes Piper's stomach tighten; Alex has never been one for the silent treatment. Piper should probably be relieved that she's obviously done trying to reopen the fight, but the silence gets to her even more. "Alex...I understand you're upset, but could you at least acknowledge I'm a person who is speaking?" Still nothing. Nothing from Alex and nothing in the drawer, and Piper feels her frustration flare. "Alex. Passport!" If she misses this flight she is screwed.

If she misses this flight she will never have the strength to get on another one.

Then Alex says, in this small, disbelieving voice, "My mom died," and all that strength and momentum collapses.

Piper stops moving.

She turns her head slowly, looking at Alex for the first time all day. She's sitting on the edge of the bed, face turned toward a wall, staring straight forward, completely still.

For a second, Piper just blinks at her like she's expecting Alex to take it back. To clarify that she doesn't mean Diane, that she didn't mean dead, that this is some sort of trap.

"What?" Piper feels paralyzed, locked in place by her own disbelief.

They talked to Diane two days ago; Piper had been curled up against Alex's chest while she talked. She could hear the hum of Diane's voice for most of the conversation, coming through the phone, and then Alex had passed it over so Piper could say hi and get caught up on the gossip from Diane's weekly poker game.

Two goddamn days ago Diane had been laughing and joking and Piper has a flight home in only a few hours and she'd already started worrying about what she was going to say to Diane when she saw her, because of course she'd want to see her, and it just doesn't make any sense that she could be dead.

"What?" It slips out again, breathless.

Alex still doesn't look over. Piper still hasn't moved toward her.

"My aunt...called. It happened this morning, I guess."

This morning. For a nanosecond, Piper's mind cranks into overdrive, like she can prove this wrong, as though they're misremembering some phone call. What does Alex's aunt know, Piper's never even met that aunt, just heard Diane trash talk her for years. She has a rich husband, apparently, but never deemed fit to help her sister out when she couldn't afford rent.

All of which runs through Piper's mind as she blurts out, almost skeptically, "What happened?"

"An aneurysm." Alex's voice bends and trembles and makes her sound maybe nine years old. The sound hits Piper right in the chest, piercing whatever fog is engulfing her, and she crosses the room to sit down. Alex's eyes find hers, teary and desperate and looking like they've been searching for something to grab onto. "I don't know, my aunt said so many things I can't even remember now."

The look on Alex's face makes Piper finally believe it.

"Alex..." She doesn't know if it's her own hurt or Alex's that fans out in her chest as Piper pulls Alex against her, stroking her hair. "I'm so sorry," her voice breaks, tears inching up her throat.

"My first instinct was to call her and talk about it." There's a catch in Alex's voice, tears in her eyes, but she isn't crying, so Piper squeezes her eyes shut and swallows against the lump in her throat.

They stay like that for a long moment, Piper stroking Alex's hair, wanting desperately to make this go away. Eventually, she presses her lips to the side of Alex's head and whispers, "What do we do?"

"I don't know..." Alex pulls away, looking lost. She stands up and walks to the nearest piece of furniture, picking up a random T-shirt and pointlessly folding it; it's a little heartbreaking, like she's running on the same false, don't-stay-still momentum Piper had been for the past few hours. "I don't know, I mean, I need to fly home. I need to figure out the funeral because there's no one else to do it." She sounds like she's barely skating the edge of panic.

"Okay."

"Will you see if you can find us two seats out on a flight today?"

For the first time, the absurdness of the timing occurs to Piper.

She already has a flight; to their hometown, to the place where Diane died, where Alex will have to plan the funeral. But that flight is in two hours, and Piper was supposed to be going alone.

For just a second, selfish, twisted panic sets in. This will undo everything. She's been working up to that moment of strength for months, without even realizing it, but that strength is gone now. She's used it up, and she may not be able to grab it again.

Piper looks at Alex, her hands trembling while she folds clothes, a muscle pulsing in her jaw, eyes wide and unblinking. It makes Piper's chest hurt; she wants to go over to her and pull the shirts away, make Alex slow down, tell her it's okay to stop and really feel this. She wants to let Alex cry, and she wants to hold her when she does it.

A single memory suddenly assaults Piper, crushing in its clarity: the look on Diane's face when Piper finally made it to the hospital five years ago, how wrecked she looked, how that had scared Piper more than anything else. She remembers Diane hugging her, still somehow able to offer comfort as Piper cried into her shoulder.

Sobs feel stacked up in Piper's throat, but she won't cry as long as Alex isn't, even though surely someone should be. Instead she swallows and swallows until she's able to say, "Of course. I'll call the airline now." There's no way they can pack up in time to get on Piper's original flight, even if there are other seats. "I...I still need to find my passport."

For the first time since she stood up, Alex stops moving. She closes her eyes, then says, "Top drawer, underneath my T-shirts."

Momentarily forgetting what's going on, Piper bursts out, "Jesus, Alex. You fucking hid it?"

Alex's lips curl inward, and she looks away, looking like a shamed little girl. It hurts to look at, because it throws Piper back in time, makes her think of Alex trying not to cry on the bus or in front of the bleachers or in the car after meeting her dad.

Piper rummages in the drawer and pulls out her passport, tucked between V-necks. For a second, a panicked impulse knifes through her: run.

She can still make her original flight.

But that's the coward in her, and anyway, she can't run from this. She could go home without Alex, sure, but Diane will still be dead. The funeral will still be happening somewhere close by. Alex will still be following her there; she'll just be alone.

Piper steels herself, sticks the passport in her back pocket, and gathers the contents of the drawer in her arms, stacked and folded. She crosses the Alex, tucking her chin on top of the shirts so she can free an arm, and she gently tugs away the shirt Alex is folding for the fourth time and adds it to the pile.

"It's okay," she says softly. "I've got this."

Alex's gaze finds hers and holds on. All at once her face tightens and then collapses, a sharp, stuttering breath jerking out of her, the kind of sound that precedes full on sobbing, and Piper's ready to let the clothes fall to the floor so she can reach for Alex.

But then Alex's features smooth out again, looking like it takes painful physical effort to do so, and she turns very deliberately away from Piper. "You're already packed." Each syllable sounds forced out. "So just...just get us a flight."

"Okay." Piper puts the stack of shirts down on the bed but stands there for another moment. Tentative, she reaches out and rests her hand lightly on the back of Alex's arm. Alex shifts so the touch falls away.

Finally, Piper turns away, heading toward her phone in the other room. It hits her, suddenly, what she's done: pulled away just before Alex needs her more than she ever has their whole lives.

In spite of Piper's promises to herself, tears start to slip out as she walks out of the bedroom, and she has to press her fist over her lips to keep quiet as she cries for Alex, for herself, and most of all for Diane, who for some reason always seemed to believe Piper was better than this.

They get a flight at ten pm out of Paris, which will put them landing back in the States just before midnight East Coast time, after nearly an eight hour flight. Piper tells Alex this, and she nods, but for the most part they're in separate rooms, making phone calls, trying to prepare.

In the taxi on the way to the airport, Piper asks hesitantly, "You called...someone, right? To let them know you're leaving?" She's not sure why she's doing this, acting like she doesn't know Fahri's name, that he was obviously who she had to call.

Alex gives her this look like she's too exhausted to be irritated. "Of course."

That's all they say on the way to the airport.

Alex's arms are wrapped around herself, her jaw clenched, and she won't look at Piper. To be fair, she doesn't seem to be looking at anything. Piper has seen her do versions of this before, briefly: the way her eyes withdraw when she doesn't want to talk about something, when she's trying to be okay even though she isn't.

But this seems worse.

Right now, her eyes are so far away Alex seems unreachable, like she's somehow managed to click herself off. There's nothing in her face for Piper to recognize.

When she can't stand it anymore, Piper reaches over to take her hand. Alex doesn't pull away, but her fingers don't even twitch in response. She doesn't look over.

Fear wallops Piper in the chest and it's chased by an instinctive, childish thought that she should probably call Diane.

Piper has to twist around and stare out the window until she gets herself under control.

They've flown dozens of times together over the past two years, but there's nothing of the familiar, almost comforting routine in this one.

Alex stays gone the whole time they're in the airport; that's the only way Piper can think of to describe it. It's like walking through customs and security with no one, like Alex isn't even there. It's not so different than what it would have felt like if Piper had taken her original flight, alone.

She holds Alex's limp hand again while they wait at the gate. Every five minutes or so she squeezes her fingers and asks, "You okay?" when what she really means is You there?

She never gets an answer. Finally, she pushes, "Alex?" Again, voice inching toward hysteria, "Alex."

Alex closes her eyes. "Pipes...stop."

She sounds like Alex again when she says it: pleading mixed with anger. Piper slips her fingers between Alex's, but she pulls her hand away, turning her head as far as she can, like she doesn't want Piper to see her face. Piper sees her shoulders shudder.

Piper leans back in her chair and presses her fingers over her eyelids. They stay silent until boarding call. And as they file into their first class seats. And for the first hour and a half of the flight, until Piper can't take it anymore, and starts talking just to talk.

"I called Cal," she tells Alex, apropos of nothing. "He's home, you know, for the summer. He said he'd come pick us up, he can bring my car, it's still at my parent's house, you know, and then we can just drop him off and drive to your place..."

Piper's voice trails off uncertainly; she's not even sure Alex is hearing her, but then she mutters in response, "Why do we need Cal to come get - " Alex stops talking abruptly, her face freezing. "Oh..."

They've gone back home for a handful of days at a time, usually every few months. Diane always picks them up.

"Oh." The word comes out like Alex has been sucker punched in the gut. Her face crumples, tears spilling over finally. "Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck."

"Alex..."

Alex jackknifes at the waist, hunching over in the airplane seat, fists braced on her knees, forehead resting on top of her knuckles. The muscles of her back are convulsing; Alex cries without noise.

Piper's vision blurs instantly, and she stretches her arm across Alex's back, bending low and pressing her forehead against the back of Alex's head, practically draping over her. Alex doesn't shake her off; after a minute or so, she even frees one of her hands and seizes Piper's in a death grip.

Piper doesn't say anything, swallows every instinctive platitude that swells in her throat. She slides her hand in soothing arcs across Alex's back and presses her lips against her hair.

Eventually Alex's body stops shaking, the convulsions in her muscles calming, but she doesn't make a move to sit up so neither does Piper. At one point the plane rattles slightly, and Alex's grip on Piper's hand tightens, like a habit.

Her eyes fill up fresh, and she blinks tears onto the back of Alex's neck. "I'm here," Piper whispers. She feels Alex shudder, then make a move to sit up. Piper leans back enough to let her, but she doesn't let go of her hand.

Alex's face is streaked with tears, her eyes swollen, but the emotion is shutting down again. Piper's heart clenches when she looks at her, her free hand almost aching to reach up and touch her face, but for some reason she's unsure of what she's allowed.

They don't sleep the whole flight, or talk anymore. Eventually, they land, go through customs and baggage claim, and walk outside of their most familiar airport into fresh night.

Cal shows up, pulling Piper's car to the curb outside the airport before he hops out and hugs Piper in greeting. He's obviously avoiding look at Alex, with the wide eyed nerves of a twenty-one year old unaccustomed to tragedy.

"Good to see you, sis," he says as he pulls back, giving Piper an awkward pat on the shoulder, before his eyes skirt toward Alex and back again. "Really sorry about your mom, Alex."

It takes her too long, but eventually Alex surfaces enough to shoot Cal a tired fraction of a smile, skeptically asking, "It's Alex now?"

He grins a little, looking relieved. "Sorry. Hobbs." He steps forward and awkwardly hugs her, letting go fast. He grabs two of their suitcases and heads to the trunk of Piper's car, looking relieved to get away.

Piper tries to catch Alex's eye, but she's already ducking into the backseat of the car.

"You want to drive?" Cal offers the keys.

It's tempting, just to have something do, an actual task; Piper's not sure she can take another forty-five minutes sitting next to Alex like she's not even there. But after a second, she shakes her head slowly. "I'm, um...I should sit with her."

"Alright." He casts a dubious glance at the car. "She okay?"

"No," Piper answers without even thinking, the truth of it slamming into her a second later. Her throat narrows, and she looks away, blinking fast. "She's really not."

They stop at the Chapman house first, dark and quiet and lifeless, Piper's disapproving parents sleeping inside.

When Cal disappears through the front door, Piper takes the drivers seat. She glances back and waits before pulling away, but Alex doesn't make any move to come join her in the front seat.

Driving to Alex's apartment, Piper keeps glancing into the rearview mirror, watching Alex's boarded up expression. She thinks suddenly about the drive back from the Death Maiden concert, the way Alex broke down in the car, the first time Piper had ever seen her cry.

It makes her want to pull the car over, just like she had all those years ago, and pull Alex against her until she shakes her out of this fog.

"Alex?"

"What?"

Piper was barely expecting a response, and for a second she fumbles for something to say. Are you okay is a pointless question. "I don't know, I just...can I do anything?"

"Yeah. You can drive," she says, devoid of emotion.

"If there's anything you need from me, just...please, Al, tell me."

"I just need you to drive."

It takes Alex nearly a full minute to unlock the door of her apartment, the keys rattling as her fingers shake, but she pulls away when Piper tries to help.

They step inside, Alex first, and fresh grief sideswipes Piper. They haven't been here since Christmas, and it's ridiculous, because Diane's been gone for less than twenty-four hours, but the apartment seems cold and empty and unfamiliar...for about five seconds. Then Alex flicks the lights on, and Piper feels the automatic surge of comfort this place always provokes.

There's a cluster of wine glasses with different color lipstick stains around the living room coffee table, a few folding chairs set up in a circle, cards and poker chips spread out on top. Diane never used to have time for things like that, but with Alex sending her money, she's only been working one job, and only because she wanted to. So now she has - had - time to see her friends and listen to her records and watch movies and have long phone calls with her daughter, plus Piper.

Tears fill Piper's eyes and she reaches for Alex out of instinct - her own comfort in mind, not Alex's - fingers barely skimming the edge of her jacket before she shrugs away.

Her back is to Piper, so she can't see Alex's face as she drops her luggage on the couch and starts walking around the living room, picking up random dishes, cleaning up.

"Alex."

She carries the wine glasses into the kitchen.

"Alex..."

The sink turns on; Alex starts scrubbing.

"Alex."

Alex rounds on her, wild eyed. "What, Piper, fucking what?!"

Piper exhales, walking tentatively forward as if approaching a nervous animal. "Slow down. Sit down." Alex clenches her jaw. Her body is practically vibrating. Piper reaches for her again. "Talk to me."

Piper's fingers graze Alex's arm, and she physically flinches.

Hurt flickers across Piper's face, and her voice catches, "Alex, you're scaring me."

Through her teeth, Alex asks, "Why?"

"Because you aren't talking to me."

Alex's face twists and then hardens. "What the fuck do you want me to say, Piper? My mother just died." Just saying the words out loud seems to hurt her, and she has to suck in a stuttered breath before continuing. "And how the hell am I supposed to... to fucking cry on your shoulder about that when we both know it just screwed up your clean break?"

The words puncture something in the air between them. Stricken, it takes Piper a moment to answer, her voice small and tight. "That's not fair." She shouldn't be fighting with Alex now. She should let her say whatever she wants, let her be mad all she wants if it's easier than everything else she's feeling. But Piper can't help herself. "You really believe I'm even thinking about that right now? Your mom..." The syllable breaks in half. "I love your mom. And I love you. And I'm so fucking sorry this is happening and I just...I need to help you and it kills me that I don't know how."

Alex's eyes squeeze shut, her body swaying unsteadily, and for a second Piper's thinks she's going to physically fall forward, into Piper's arms.

But then she opens her eye. "No." Alex pushes past Piper, like she can't even look at her when she says, "This isn't something you can just make better, Piper. And right now you're just making it worse."

A few seconds later the door to the bedroom slams shut, and Piper feels the thud in her whole body.

She slumps against the kitchen counter, drained. Her gaze lands on the refrigerator, covered in postcards; Piper remembers buying a lot of them. In the center there's a cluster of photos from when Diane came on vacation with them in Tahiti.

Piper touches the edge of a photograph she took, Alex and Diane on the beach, holding margaritas, their smiles startling in their similarities. Piper's forehead thumps against the fridge as Piper starts to sob.

She cries there for awhile, feeling almost unbearably sad, which makes her want Alex.

And that has to be the most selfish thing ever, because of course Alex has to be feeling a hundred times worse.

But that doesn't necessarily mean she wants Piper.

Piper straightens up and wipes her face with the hem of her shirt. She crosses the apartment and leans close to the bedroom door, listening but not hearing anything, not even the slightest movement. Tentatively, Piper taps her knuckles on the door. "Alex?"

When there's no answer, Piper hesitantly pushes the door open.

The room looks like it always have; even though it's been Diane's room for the past several years, all of Alex's band posters are still plastered to the walls, and her stuff is everywhere, though it's more organized: stacks of books lining the perimeter of the walls, cassette tapes towering in stacks next to the stereo.

And Alex is lying on the bed, curled up and bent like she's a hiding a wound, a hole in her a gut.

"Al?" Piper starts toward the bed. Alex doesn't look up. It takes Piper a second to realize her face is pressed against a leather jacket, her whole body quaking with silent sobs. "Oh, Alex..."

She crawls into the bed beside Alex, folding herself against her from behind, holding on. She can't stop saying Alex's name.

It takes a moment, but then Alex's fingers close around Piper's forearm in a death grip. "Piper...Pipes..." It comes out in a gasp, thick with tears and muffled into Diane's jacket.

"I know." Piper wipes her own tears on Alex's shoulder. "I'm here, Alex. I love you. I'm here."

Alex's body lurches with a soft, smothered sob, but for the most part she stays quiet. She only shakes, the crying an implosion.

Piper holds her like that for nearly an hour, until she feels Alex's breathing slow and even out as she finally cries herself to sleep in the bright light of the bedroom.

Piper's not used to being the last one awake. She's been up for over twenty-four hours, and can feel the exhaustion wedged behind the grief and guilt and helplessness, but it's not breaking through. She closes her eyes and buries her face in Alex's hair, not wanting to let go of her even to get up and turn the light off.

Somehow, Piper manages a sudden, selfish thought, before falling to sleep: she'd lied earlier, that she hadn't been thinking at all about what happened between the two of them. It had been a long, quiet plane ride, and she'd spent all of it worried and scared for Alex; but underneath all that was a current of fear that Piper would never be able to muster the strength to leave her again. Especially not when Alex is going through this.

But now, in this room and bed where they've slept together hundreds of times over the past fifteen years, still one of Piper's favorite places on earth even though she's traveled the whole world over...Piper realizes something.

She won't have to leave Alex again. It was never Alex she wanted to leave in the first place, not really, just parts of Alex's life. But now they're here, together, right where they'd always been. The cartel is thousands of miles away. And when this is all over, Piper can very easily not buy a plane ticket, not drive to the airport, not get on a plane

Which means Alex will have to be the one to do the leaving.

And Piper can't help but hope there's a chance Alex won't go. Especially - and she doesn't like herself for thinking it, but she thinks it anyway - especially considering what Alex is about to go through.