A/N: I know the last chapter was pretty harrowing and Alex didn't save our Pipes in the nick of time (don't hate me). I've written this chapter from Alex's perspective, so we can see what she is thinking for a change. We'll get back to Piper as soon as possible, I promise. Thanks for the reviews as always folks. Hope you have a great weekend :-)

ALEX POV

It had been 4 days since she had seen or spoken to Piper now and the silence was deafening for Alex. It was making her snappy and irritable and there was nothing she could do about it. Well, there was, but that would mean walking into PoPi to talk to her and their face-to-faces weren't going so well at the moment. She shouldn't be bothered by this really. She hadn't spoken to Piper for 4 years until this past week, so 4 days should be easy. Maybe it could be if she hadn't overheard Nicky on the phone with Piper several times this last few days, laughing and joking with each other. She found herself tensing up every time she heard Nicky's phone buzz with a message, imagining they were always from Piper. Alex didn't even have Piper's number. So there were awkward face-to-faces filled with expectations of apologies on both sides and unanswered questions and nothing in between. She couldn't text a quick 'sorry I overreacted earlier' or a 'goodnight, have sweet dreams' when she went to bed. It felt like Piper was so near yet so far away to her now. She was finally able to see her and had been close enough to touch her, but hadn't dared to. She knew the touch of Piper's skin would keep her awake at night, yearning for more.

Alex had left her phone on the table in Sandy's on Thursday night and had called in on her way back from a cards night at Poussey's place last night to pick it up from behind the bar when she saw Piper sat with a group of pretentious looking academic types. They were clearly talking about something that Piper wasn't interested in as she looked bored stiff. It looked like a good opportunity to rescue her from a night that was dying a slow death if she could catch her away from the group. She bought a drink and sat at the far side of the bar for a while, watching for a break. She laughed when she saw her dork-dancing with a tall guy from the group on the small dancefloor, smiling to herself because she's seen Piper bust those moves before and they were just as bad back then. The songs changed to a slower pace and she saw Piper put her head on his chest, letting him stroke her hair as they danced together slowly in the middle of the crowded dance floor. Her heart was pounding and the jealousy cut deeper than she could have expected. Of course, she hadn't expected Piper had been celibate since they split up - as much as she preferred to think that she had been. She expected there had been other men and maybe even women since they were together. But seeing Piper being held so closely and tenderly by someone else was something entirely different and she wasn't prepared for that. Was she expecting to be able to walk back into Piper's life and win her over just because they had history? It was their history that was keeping them apart for all this time …How ironic. Fighting the hot-headed impulse to go over and pull him off her, she gripped the chair she was sitting on tightly and swallowed down the toxic mix of bitterness and self pity she was feeling now. She shouldn't stay here and watch Piper slipping further away from her and she downed the rest of her drink. She had to get out of the bar as quickly as her legs could carry her.

She had driven by the liquor store and picked up a bottle of bourbon on her way home and got through a good two thirds of it before falling asleep on the couch.

Now, slightly hung over and even more depressed than she was already she stood up slowly and brewed some coffee. She saw a message from Nicky on her phone:

'Yo Vause, don't worry about opening up today. We love standing outside a locked office door in the rain on a Saturday morning. Much rather stand here being pissed on than dealing with pissy customers anyway.'

Shit. It was 9:15 and she'd insisted Nicky and Lorna came in today to sort a big overseas delivery they had for a new customer. Not bothering to shower or change, she knocked the coffee off the boil and got in her Audi Q7 to open the office up. The downside of having trust issues was that she was the only one with keys.

The traffic was fairly easy, so she arrived within 15 mins to see a less than impressed Nicky huddled under Lorna's pink umbrella. She got out of the car and strolled up to the doorway.

"You two should put a cap out for some change or you'll never make a buck for a coffee." She quipped as she pushed the stiff door open with her shoulder.

"Fuck off. If you weren't paying us double time rates we'd have left you to deal with this shit today. This is way too early for me to be asking how I can help anyone other than a lady in my bed." She wiggled her eyebrows and winked at Lorna, who rolled her eyes and pushed past her to hang her umbrella.

"At least you admit you have to ask how to help a woman in your bed. Practice makes perfect Nicholls. Just a shame you're not getting much practice these days eh?" Alex threw back as she twirled her keys around her finger.

"Ouch! You offering to be my muse there Vause?"

"Fuck no. I'm way too gay for you."

"What's that supposed to mean? Last time I checked, I'm pretty gay you know."

"That's not what I meant. Doesn't matter. It was a joke."

Nicky looked confused, but turned to her computer screen to start it up while Alex walked through to the kitchen to put some coffee on for them. She hadn't meant to say those words, but after seeing Piper flirting with Nicky and then dancing with that guy last night…well, Nicky didn't know she was playing with fire there. Rule number one, never fall in love with a straight girl. Alex didn't want Nicky to date Piper, but she also didn't want Piper to hurt Nicky with her indecision depending whether this was dick week or vag week.

Alex poured the coffees out and took them through for Lorna and Nicky as they say working through the shipping schedules to distribute the order over a few different containers with enough space.

"Cheers Boss. Did you get lucky last night?" Nicky asked Alex.

Alex stopped in her tracks as she was walking out of the office, but didn't turn around to look at Nicky. "What? Why would you ask that?" She wondered if she'd been spotted at Sandy's bar watching Piper and someone had told Nicky, but she tried to keep her voice even and disinterested.

"Er, because you were at the card game last night? You normally clean up, so just wondering how poor you made Poussey before you cashed in and took pity on her."

"Right. Yeah, I did pretty good you know. Poussey has got some tricks now, so I've got to keep my moves sharp with her." She breathed out and walked away.

Nicky shouted after her. "Hope you were sharper than you are this morning. You might as well go back to bed Vause and come back when we need to lock up. You look like you slept in those clothes and that bourbon isn't smelling so good coming out of your pores."

Alex was seriously considering it, feeling like she crawled out of bed on the wrong side this morning. She was checking through her emails when she overheard Nicky on the phone to PoPi. She got up to close her office door, not wanting to hear Nicky bantering with Piper today of all days and stopped when she overheard Nicky's side of the conversation. She was talking to Polly by the sounds of it.

"…I just called to let Piper know that South African delivery went out this morning and it should arrive on Monday morning as planned….Yeah, that's the one…Where is my favourite serial complainer anyway?...Haha! Sounds like someone fancied a little lie in this morning then eh?... OK, tell her I said Hi." Nicky hung up the phone smiling to herself.

Alex pressed her door closed. Sounds like someone did fancy a lie in bed, no doubt she wasn't there alone either. Alex slumped into her chair and sighed, rubbing her temples. Shit. This wasn't supposed to happen. She was supposed to sweep her off her feet and it was all going to plan with the notes. It was ruined when she was opening her mouth and trying to talk to Piper. The right words wouldn't come out because the guilt and bitterness of past events bubbled over whenever she was with her. If only Piper didn't always want to ask the most difficult questions, pretend they were just meeting for the first time, she could have handled that so much better. God this was fucked up before it even started.

It was getting close to lunch time when Alex had gone through the most important tasks in her mailbox. She finally reappeared from her office cave and saw that Nicky and Lorna were going through the delivery books for Monday's schedule. "Can you be trusted to lock the place up if I leave you the keys? Turn the lights off, extinguish all naked flames, make sure the windows and doors are all secured and locked, in that order?"

Nicky gave her a wide grin, knowing this was a huge thing for Alex to trust them with the keys. "Sure thing Boss, you can count on us to extinguish the locks and secure the naked flames. No worries!"

Alex raised an eyebrow as Nicky, warning her this was serious. "OK. Here. I'm going back to bed for a while. If I get a call from the fire department telling me this place is charcoal before Monday, I will hunt you down and kill you Nicholls." Handing her the keys, she left the office and got back into her car.

XXXXX

Polly had been calling Piper all morning to find out where the Hell she was. She was supposed to be there helping with the Christmas shoppers. They made more money on weekends and especially in the run up to Christmas and the store was really busy today. The promotions had the place buzzing and she was seeing customers walk out after putting their prospective purchases back when they saw the queue for the cash register. Fucking Piper. Today of all days, she decides to go AWOL. After having a day off yesterday at the spa too. That's gratitude for you. She didn't even have the decency to text her to say she was either totally hungover or too busy having wild sex with her tall dark Doctor.

It was 1:30 when Polly's cell phone started ringing. She had it on the counter in case Piper decided to finally reply to any of the many messages she had left already that day. She was in the middle of serving a customer when she saw it was Piper's mother who was calling her. She left it until she was finished serving and the phone had already stopped. A voicemail beeped on the screen and she walked to a quieter corner of the store to try ad hear the message.

"Polly, it's Mrs Chapman. I'm calling to let you know that Piper won't be at work today. I'm not sure if she's supposed to report in sick before 9am if she is the boss and we are a little late with that, but anyway… I'm letting you know she can't be at the soap store today. She's…..well…she's in hospital I'm afraid. She's been attacked…and…well, perhaps you could call me back on this number?"

Fuck. Polly could hear the pauses in Carol Chapman's message and could tell she was struggling to hold it together. It must be something serious, but what the Hell could have happened to her? Had she been mugged on the subway on her way into work? All this time Polly had been cursing her for leaving her on her own and Piper was in hospital.

Polly called Mrs Chapman back and found out that Piper was in the Mount Sinai Hospital and was attacked last night while she was out with Steve. The Chapman's had been there all night and her mother sounded exhausted. Polly needed to get to the hospital and see Piper, but she was stuck with the store on their busiest day since opening. She needed someone to hold the fort while she went to the hospital.

She called Alex on her cell phone. It rang out before switching to voicemail. "Alex, its Polly. Can you call me back as soon as you get this message please? It's about Piper."

Polly served the customers who were waiting patiently at the counter and 15 minutes passed without her hearing back from Alex. She tried again, tapping her hand on the counter as she waited for Alex to pick up. Voicemail clicked in again. "Super Cunt, where the fuck are you? The one time Piper fucking needs you to be there and you're the invisible woman yet again. I'll try calling your office and I'll have to call Nicky if you don't pick up. This can't wait."

Alex was getting out of the shower when she heard her phone ringing. She wrapped a towel around her and put her glasses on before walking back to her bedroom to find her phone. 2 voice messages had been left. Expecting to hear Nicky's voice telling her she managed to lose the keys or something, Alex dialled her voicemail up and listened as she sat down on the edge of her bed. She listened to the first message and was surprised to hear Polly wanting to talk to her about Piper. Oh God, what secret has Polly Hobby let out of the bag now that will make Piper hate her? She pressed to listen to the second message and froze with the phone still to her ear. Piper NEEDS her? What the fuck could she need Alex for today?

She quickly dialled to return Polly's call and got the busy tone. FUUUUCK! She was asking Nicky instead! Way to go Vause, another case of exceptionally bad timing. Fuck my life!