A/N Sorry for not having this up sooner. Majority of this chapter has been written for a few days but every time I sat down to finish it off I just found that my flow was lacking in some parts and ended up deleting most of what I wrote. So I decided to take a full day off and hoped that it would allow me to write better today. Anyway, hopefully it payed off and you all enjoy this chapter.

Thanks for all the amazing feedback from last chapter- you all made me smile so much. As always, thanks so much for the reviews/favs and follows as well as the sweet PM's from you all. As I said in the new update for 'Broken', my new update schedule will be 2 Rescue updates for every 1 Broken to help try and have them end around the same time before moving onto my next project- which if anyone is interested will be a new Vauseman AU multi-chapter that is centred on Alex.

Reviews:

Al: Ugh, me too. Caring Alex is perfect and warms my heart. I know, poor Piper. I liked using the 'I love you's' in this way, it felt natural to me to have them in that spot.

Guest: Thanks :D

I3VauseMan: Haha don't worry I was just kidding too, Nicky will most probably use more stuff like that in the future. No worries I took it as one. I meant that I keep with a basic plot structure but will bend it so the certain scenes you guys may request can happen. Haha, I have actually said to a few people- I was totally listening to P!NK whilst writing the last chapter (weird I know.) I do though always go and listen to your recommendations before starting the new chapter- I enjoy it. I get exactly what you mean as I too have been around for the unfortunate side effects of severe depression in a loved one- it is truly horrible to see. I couldn't agree more with you- especially on the questioning of yourself. I personally have done that more times than I can count because of a certain situation. But like you said, remember the good times. Thanks again for another review and feel free to send me some of that hot chocolate :P

Sue: Thank you very much, means a lot to hear you say that. Hope you enjoy this update.

Guest 2: Yay, thanks so much.

Sorry for the mistakes in this chapter, it is currently 11pm here and I just wanted to have this uploaded before I went to bed so you all didn't have to wait until after I got my much needed to beauty sleep. Anyway, enough of my ramblings and onto the chapter. Enjoy :D

….

Originally to Piper, the idea that she would enjoy the opportunity of waking up next to someone she loved seemed foreign to her, her mind never really believing that she would be capable of letting someone in enough to love them. In the past, love had caused her nothing but pain and heartache, the loss of her much loved brother putting an intense strain on Piper's way of life. Piper had loved Danny dearly, being the person who had been most affected by the loss of his life when she a teenager, a loss she continued to carry with her even to this day. Whilst Piper had led herself to believe that she had moved on, putting his death behind her, deep down she knew that this was not true. Up until yesterday, Piper had never once discussed Danny's death with anyone, even shielding Nicky from the horrors of the truth of what had happened that day.

The past 24 hours had proved to be an emotional rollercoaster, yet, as Piper laid there in the familiar warmth of Alex's comforting arms, she felt calm, believing that the events that she would face today would somehow be okay as long as she had the brunette by her side. Shifting gently onto her side as to not wake Alex, Piper gazes towards her sleeping girlfriend, the sight filling her with so much happiness. The thought of knowing that the brunette in front of her loved her had allowed Piper to have one of the best night's sleep she had had in a long while, with no nightmares surfacing despite the events that had transpired yesterday.

Subconsciously feeling her girlfriend's stares, Alex's eyes flutter open, her lips pulling into a smile at the sight of a watchful Piper. "Morning Pipes, you been creepin on me long?" Alex asks with a laugh, sleep still lacing her voice.

Piper returns a wide smile. "Sorry, you are just so adorable when you are asleep," Piper retorts, knowing she would have once cringed at the thought of ever saying those words.

Alex jokingly makes a displeased face, pretending to hate Piper depiction of her. "I am not adorable, hot maybe, but definitely not adorable," Alex concludes with a small smirk.

Piper laughs, giving Alex a playful shove. "And cocky too."

Alex returns the laugh and uses her arm to pull Piper closer, kissing her gently on the temple before her face turns serious. "You ready for today, kid?" Alex asks, knowing the potential emotions that the events of today would bring.

Piper sighs at Alex's words, feeling as though her perfect bubble had just been popped under the thoughts of what she must now attend, never having the ability to deny her brother's heartfelt requests. Shifting out of Alex's embrace, Piper sits up and rubs her hand through her hair as she gazes towards the bland motel wall. "I'd like to say yes, but I really don't know. I don't even know why Cal feels the need to attend. I mean, if it was up to me, I wouldn't have even bothered to make the trip up here."

Alex puts a comforting hand on Piper's lower back, rubbing soothing circles. "Everybody grieves in their own way babe. Cal probably feels he needs to do this in order to move on and be able to put the past behind him."

Piper sighs audibly at the need to respect her brother's wishes, before turning to face Alex. "I know and I get it, I really do. I know it's selfish of me, but for once I just wish I didn't always feel the need to protect him by going along with him in his plans. Our mother was a fucking bitch and I swore to myself I would never let her have control over my life again and by going today I kinda feel like she has."

Alex sits herself up, draping her arm loosely around Piper's neck as she stares into her eyes. "Piper, going today doesn't mean you are relinquishing control. It just means you are being the better person and putting the past behind you in order to give your brother the support he needs."

Alex watches as Piper relaxes, her lips pulling up into a tight smile that didn't quite reach her blue eyes. Piper leans in to give Alex a quick kiss on the lips before pulling back and sighing in slight defeat. "I guess you're right," she says, before jumping from the bed and making her way into the shower.

Today was going to be a long day.

….

They arrive at the cemetery shortly after noon, pulling into the small parking lot they spot an anxious looking Cal who is dressed in a black suit, his girlfriend Neri standing at his side. Seeing Piper in the passenger seat, Cal smiles, obviously concerned his older sister would not decide not to show up, knowing how much she hated the idea of attending their mother's funeral.

Exiting from the vehicle, Piper immediately walks over and allows Cal to elope her into a warm embrace, feeling the tension is her younger brother's body begin to disperse at her touch. Pulling back, Cal rests his large hands on his sister's shoulders, his eyes shimmering gratefully into Piper's. "I didn't think you would come," he whispers, knowing that he was asking a lot when he pleaded for Piper to attend today's small service.

Piper gives her brother a reassuring smile. "Of course I would come Cal, you said you needed me. Now let's go do this," Piper says, grabbing her brother's hand firmly before gently pulling towards him in the direction of the front gates.

Piper remains in a haze throughout the small burial service that only consisted of the four of them and the funeral director, her body barely even acknowledging Alex's presence or her supportive hand that remained on her shoulder. Piper had never truly felt any affection towards her mother, finding it difficult considering her past actions. For Piper, this was the closest she had been to the woman in over 5 years, never once returning to visit, wanting to distance herself from the aging woman's suffocating ways as much as possible.

Piper continues to grip Cal's hand supportively, feeling he brother shake slightly as the man in front of them delivered the common eulogy. Cal was by far a much more emotional person than Piper, tearing up for their mother despite her treatment of them. Piper had long ago harnessed the ability to shut her emotions out, rarely allowing them to surface to affect her. But like Alex had said, everybody grieved in their own ways and Piper wanted to be there in order provide comfort for Cal. For the sake of her brother, Piper desperately attempts to avoid the sneer she so wanted to display on her face, feeling the incessant need to scoff as the man describes the picture of a woman who was so clearly not her mother. The woman's emotionally manipulative ways clearly not making it into the description of her on this day.

As Piper watches the casket being lowered into the ground, her mind wanders back to the last moment she had contact with her mother when she was eighteen, feeling the anger brewing inside her at the mere thought of the last actions her mother had displayed towards her.

With her suitcase sitting open on the mattress of her single bed, Piper quickly walks to her bedroom closet, pooling as much of her belongings in her arms and dumping them without order into the brown leather case. Walking to her dresser, Piper opens the top drawer and pulls her out a small picture frame that held one of the last remaining photos taken of her and her two brothers before her father's death. Wrapping it in a t-shirt to prevent it from being damaged, Piper places it gently into the suitcase and shuts the lid, zipping it shut. Grasping the handle, Piper heaves the suitcase from her bed and walks her way to the front door and towards Nicky's awaiting car, having told her to remain there knowing the potential drama her mother could cause at her exit.

Piper had been awaiting for the day to come for years, only staying within the confines of the house in order to protect Cal from whatever emotional torture her mother would so cruelly decide to deliver. With Cal now settled in a boarding school out of state, Piper felt confident in finally allowing herself to leave her family home and onwards towards a future she hoped would be much brighter than the darkness that was her past.

As she approaches the front door, she feels a small hand grip her wrist tightly, causing her to spin around to face her aging mother whose breath presently reeked of alcohol, a common occurrence since her father's death. "You think you can just leave?" her mother slurs out, the woman's teeth tainted red from the wine she had just consumed.

"Let go of me," Piper commands as she attempts in vain to pull her wrist from her mother's vice like grip, hating the mere fact the woman had the audacity to touch her.

Tightening her grip to the point Piper knew it would bruise, Carol hisses at her daughter as she eyes the suitcase. "And where are you gonna go, huh? Who's going to want you? You're just some pathetic piece of shit who know ones cares about. You belong to me."

Piper can feel the familiar burn of tears forming behind her eyes as she allows her mother's spiteful words to penetrate the barriers she had dutifully constructed around herself. "Fuck you," Piper mumbles as she averts her eyes away from her mother's piercing glare, not wanting to give her the satisfaction of knowing that her words still had the capability of affecting her.

A sudden piercing slap echoes throughout the room, Piper's right cheek burning under its impact. Immediately dropping her suitcase, Piper cups her reddening cheek and allows her eyes to dart back to her mother's. Piper rubs her cheek in shock, her mother never having resorted to physical violence, only ever having opted to be emotionally abusive, spitting hateful words at her children, blaming them for the way her miserable life had turned out.

Piper's mother points her index finger towards her, a devilish scowl plastering her weathered face. "Don't you dare speak to me like that," she bellows. "I am your fucking mother."

Piper scoffs, feeling the uncontrollable anger blossoming insider her and the overwhelming need to release the truth which she had always kept hidden away. "You're not my mother, just the bitch who I was unfortunate enough to have given birth to me. You have never, nor will you ever, be my mother. You will never have control of me again. So stay the fuck away from me and more importantly, stay the fuck away from Cal you heartless bitch, you've done enough damage."

Piper watches as her mother steps back slightly in defeat, her face contorted in a stunned silence for quite possibly the first time ever. Smiling slightly to herself at the image, Piper turns herself around, collecting her suitcase from the floor and walks out the door of the home, which for years had held her hostage, never once looking back.

As the casket finally disappears from view and into the confines of the hole in the ground, Piper feels her heart begin to constrict and her breathing becomes laboured at the last memory of her mother. Even after all these years, Piper's mother's hateful words never ceased to resonate some form of emotional response within her. Whilst her father's physical abuse had been extremely difficult to handle, her mother's continued emotional abuse through the use of name calling and telling her children how worthless they were, was in fact the most difficult to digest and move on from, her mother's words remaining burned deeply into her mind.

Not wanting to spend a minute longer giving in to the needs of the woman who called herself Piper's mother, Piper shrugs Alex's comforting hand from her shoulder and begins to walk away from the burial site and towards the one place she knew could provide her comfort.

"Pipes?" Alex questions as she watches Piper walk away from her, internally debating whether she should follow.

Alex feels Cal put his strong hand on her shoulder, causing her to turn and face the younger man. Cal simply shakes his head, before nodding towards the distancing Piper. "Just give her some time alone," Cal confirms, knowing exactly where his sister was headed and feeling she was better off left alone for the always difficult reunion.

Walking through the graveyard, her feet scrunching along the light gravel pathway, Piper turns down the aisle of headstones which would lead her to her intended destination. Approaching it, Piper feels her stomach pool with guilt at the realisation of how many years it had been since her last visit to the one person who she knew she could talk to anything about. Walking towards the white headstone, Piper stops and takes in the sight of the name scrawled in black, before sitting, her back facing towards her three companions who watch on in the distance.

"Hey," Piper whispers to her confidant, wishing so much that he would be able to return an answer.

"Uh, sorry it's been so long. I have been really busy," Piper says, groaning slightly as the words leave her mouth, knowing that they were far from the truth. "Shit, sorry. No, I haven't, that's a lie and I know we promised we would never lie to each other."

Piper gazes forward at the small picture that illuminates from the centre of the headstone, her eyes welling with tears at the smiling face staring back at her. Piper smiles slightly, remembering the day she herself had in fact captured the photo. The picture acting as a frozen moment in time, which allowed the horrors of their childhood to be masked from questioning eyes.

"Smile Danny," Piper yells, holding who newly purchased black Nixon camera up to her right eye, her left closed as she attempts to take the shot of her smiling older brother who stands in front of her at their favourite park, away from the suffocating restrictions of their household. The camera had been a 'guilt' gift, purchased by her mother in an attempt to keep Piper quiet after her father had unwarrantedly beaten Piper for something that had in fact turned out to her mother's own doing. Piper's mother rarely felt any form of guilt, only choosing to purchase such gifts as she believed it would be a way to help mask their disgusting treatment of their children to the outside world, her mother always wanting to depict them as the 'perfect' family to their family and friends.

Piper knew for a fact that her own mother was somewhat terrified of her vicious father, occasionally being the person on the receiving end of his violent tirades. Rather than protecting both herself and children by leaving the man, Piper's mother did her best to deflect all oncoming violence away from herself, inherently causing his focus to shift to that of his young children. Over the years, alcohol had become Carol Chapman's solace, rendering her emotionless and essentially useless in the protection of her terrified children. Piper's mother had never been an affectionate woman, something Piper had learnt to deal with from an early age. However, as each year passed, Piper found her mother growing increasingly cold and distant, never once showing remorse for the actions which she allowed her children to suffer through.

Pulling the camera away from her face, Piper smiles as she glances down towards the digital screen, the photo displaying a very happy looking Danny, who appears seemingly normal on the small screen, no indication of abuse evident at all.

"What, my mug that bad?" Danny jokes as he slowly jogs over to Piper, whose eyes remain firmly fixated on the screen.

Piper shakes her head at him, glancing up to meet his eyes as she turns the camera screen towards Danny. "I just forgot how well pictures can hide the truth. They are essentially a digital lie," Piper whispers dejectedly, knowing her brother would know the hidden truth she was referring to.

Danny sighs slightly at his younger sister's inherent defeat, raising his hand to comfortingly rest on her shoulder, wanting to ease her pain and protect her from the emotional torture that came with living in the Chapman household. "They won't always hold lies Pipes, one day we will be away from all this and we will take photos that will hold nothing but happy memories. Memories that we will want to hold on to forever. Don't sacrifice the future good times just because of the current bad ones. Things will get better one day, I promise."

Piper smiles half-heartedly towards her brother, who would always attempt to make light even in the darkest of situations. "You promise?" Piper whispers, finding herself needing her older brother's reassurance.

Danny smiles hearteningly, before pulling his younger sister into a tight embrace, his long skinny arms providing the warmth Piper needed. "I promise Pipes," he whispers soothingly in her ear. "Besides, I thought we promised we would never lie to each other."

Piper smiles at the memory, feeling the heavy pain in her heart, slowly lifting at the memory of her eldest brother. Whilst Piper loved Cal dearly, Danny and Piper had always shared a close bond with each other, his loss resonating deeply in Piper, causing her to begin her downward spiral into the deception that drugs held. Even though she knew Danny would heavily disapprove, Piper continued to allow herself to be pulled into the darkness that was heroin, feeling as though with each high she was allowing herself to get distance herself from her pain that encompassed his death.

"You know you were right Dan, as per usual. Things have gotten better, I just wish you were here with me to experience them," Piper murmurs, her voice cracking at the final few words as tears begin to seep from her eyes and run down her cheeks. Piper sniffs loudly in an effort to stop the tears, raising her hand and wiping her eyes with the back of her hand as she continues to focus on her brother's headstone.

"I finally met someone," Piper explains with a small smile, wanting to share everything with her brother that had happened in her life since her last visit, knowing he would be proud of her progressive accomplishments. "Her name is Alex and you would really like her. She's smart, funny and crazy hot- just how you like them. Oh, and guess what the best thing is. She loves me and I love her. I know who would have thought, your fucked up baby sister capable of expressing love for someone else," Piper laughs slightly, remembering all the times she had visited Danny when she was younger and told him of her wild ways, not ever wanting to hide the truth from him, knowing for a fact that he would be the first to scold her if he was still alive.

"I tell you what though Dan, I never really believed in the whole true love/soul mate bullshit. I mean as you well know, I have gone through countless girls and even guys and never once felt anything for any of them. But with her, it's so different, she's different. From the moment we met, I felt this unbreakable pull towards her. It was almost like we were magnets and the universe was just pushing us together. I know it sounds sappy, but at the end of the day I just can't shake this feeling that she is and always will be so inevitable to me," Piper finishes, smiling as she describes her love for Alex to her brother, finding that this small patch of grass was the only time she was ever 100% truthful.

Feeling a sudden gush of chilling wind, Piper brings her knees to her chest and hugs herself, choosing to sit in silence as she enjoys some quiet time alone with her brother and away from the emotional restrictions of her present life. Piper knew it had been far too long since her last visit to see Danny, finding herself putting the trip off with the mere thought that her mother was living so close. Whilst Piper knew her mother chose to rarely visit Danny, she still had this inherent fear of the risk that she would somehow stumble across the vile woman during one of her trips. Piper didn't consider herself a very hateful person, finding that she rarely had allowed enough emotions to surface that would actually warrant those kind of feelings to appear. However, Piper knew she hated her mother. Whilst her mother rarely resorted to physical violence like her father, the woman, as twisted as it was, had always appeared to love the power her emotional scarring's caused her children.

"Piper," she hears her name called from afar by the familiar voice of her youngest brother, breaking her from her trance. Turning her head back towards the direction she had originally come from, Piper sees her three companions huddled together as they wait patiently for her to finish. Putting her hands on the wet grass, Piper pushes herself up, stopping face on to the white marble that is in front of her.

"See ya Danny, I promise I won't take so long to come visit next time," she whispers, placing a kiss of her fingertips before putting her hand on the top of her brother's headstone, closing her eyes for a moment as she internally says goodbye.

Sighing, Piper pulls her hand back and glances down towards her watch, her eyes widening at the realisation she had been sitting alone at her brother's headstone for well over an hour. Turning on her heel, Piper makes her way back towards the group, who remain huddled together by the gates of the cemetery. As she approaches, Piper fixates her gaze onto Alex, who gives her a welcoming smile. Returning the smile, Piper continues forward and steps into Alex's warm embrace, her head resting on her shoulder as she finds the comfort she suddenly found herself desperately seeking.

They all continue to remain in silence, allowing Piper to calm her thoughts. Alex strokes her hand through Piper's hair softly, feeling the tension in Piper's body slowly begin to dissipate with each comforting stroke. Feeling the tightness of today's events beginning to leave her body, Piper takes a deep breath in and pulls back, locking her eyes with Alex's. "Let's go home," she whispers, finally ready for the first time to leave the thoughts that came with this place behind and away from the control of her present life.

A/N I swear these damn chapters just keep getting longer and longer- not that I think you guys are complaining :P I hope we all enjoyed the Danny and Piper stuff. Obviously it was difficult to add him in as he is not alive in present day, but I thought this would act as a nice little exchange and the flashback show a bit more of their dynamics. I felt like the talking to the headstone is something quite a lot of us have done after we have lost someone we love- at least I know I have. I hope we all enjoyed my take on the inevitable scene- I really wanted to use it in this story but in a different way for a change so I opted to have Piper say it this way. Hopefully you all still enjoyed it.

Well, that is it for the Chapman house stuff- I now will begin to focus on some happy stuff for the time being. I know you have all been waiting patiently for it- so who is up for some Alex and Piper 'interaction' ;) in the next chapter without a Nicky interruption?

As always, please review and let me know what you guys think. Much love to you all and new chapter hopefully won't be too far away.

Mrosse38