The week had come and gone as uncomfortable enough as it was for both Alex and Piper. Not a word mentioned between them the past week, only a simple nod of the head in recognition and off they went. It was as if they had been strangers, strangers with a childhood history between them.

Give her a bit more time and she'll come around, Alex thought.

She had been rehearsing what she would say to Piper if given the chance.

Nicky, Alex and Christopher entered the school library to do their group assignment due at the end of next week. Alex had to get this out of the way because she had other things to do, which included but was not limited to her marketing essay and work.

Christopher was one of the strays that couldn't find a group to sit with so by default he was stuck with them.

"You told me, you had a person in mind Vause! What happened to them? Now we are stuck with him." Nicky averted her eyes over to the boy and said after finding out.

"She got another offer," Alex only replied about the blonde.

He was a shy Asian boy, but Asians were good at numbers so possibly he was more an asset than a hindrance to them.

The library, like any other day of the week, was packed with bustling students. It was the end of the week, you'd think college students would be out for the weekend, but it seems college students did not take any moment off to enjoy their lives and Alex and Nicky were stuck in that predicament this time.

"Okay first table you find sit at it, or we could be looking for forever." Nicky had said as they passed by the grey motion barriers. A window table was ideal for Alex as she always worked better with natural sunlight.

"Over there, two free seats!" Christopher said in his thick Asian accent. He must have been an international student. He ran to them before they could be claimed by other people.

"Chris, those are individual seats with dividers blocking off one from the other, they won't do," Nicky said.

"Nichols, I think we can get by just fine with these seats. One of us will crowd around, it's no problem," Alex defended the boy.

"Okay fine, then you can do the crowding Vause cause that seat is mine," Nicky rapped. Chris was already seated and waiting.

Alex stood by as they got settled and opened their books. She took out her own and stood at the side of the desk balancing her binder and sheet of lined paper and assignment on the edge of the desk divider.

"Okay so how do you guys want to divide these questions? There is three sections so I guess we each pick one," Alex spoke down to them in a hushed tone.

"I looked over the questions and they range in difficulty, easy to hard Vause," Nicky replied.

Nicky was right, this was formatted like a pretest, where the easy questions was first and challenging later.

"Okay in that case we divide them so that we all have at least two to three questions from each section," Alex said.

"Are you good with that Chris?" Nicky interjected. The boy was all sorts of awkward now.

"Anything is good with me," he said smiling.

They split their questions and got to work.

After about ten minutes into, Christopher looked up to Alex who was still standing while working and said, "Hey do you mind sitting down, you towering over me is making me nervous."

Nicky chuckled from over in the next seat.

"Shut it Nick. Dude, you could've told me before," she said and scanned her eyes around her surroundings. Still no seat available. Instead she turned and slid her back down against the desk and sat on the floor next to their bags.

Alex could only take about half an hour of this floor seat before her behind was numb. She got up.

"How are you guys doing? I'm going to have a look around the library for a seat, the floor is causing a pain in my ass. I'll be back," she said.

"Good."

"Great, okay Vause."

Piper walked up to the front desk with a book for one of her classes to check out and with her college ID in hand.

"You can't take that book out of the library dear. That's only to be used within the parameters of the library," the librarian told her. Many of these librarians were students themselves looking for volunteer work and extra money.

"Oh I wasn't aware of that, is it possible to place some money on my card then?" she asked.

Piper would just photocopy some of the pages she needed.

"Yes, we will. Do you have the money?" the lady librarian nodded.

"I will be just one second, my bag with my purse is at the table back there," she flashed her whites and shuffled away for her money.

xxx

Alex walked from one aisle to the next, walking through the rows of bookshelves. Some people could be seen sitting on the floors as well here.

She suddenly spotted about three chairs in close proximity and went to ask if any of them where free.

The first chair had bags thrown atop it so she left that one alone. The middle chair had an occupant that had taken a washroom break. She went for the next chair feeling her options dwindle down.

"Is this chair free?" she asked.

The guy turned and the girl in the group only looked up in recognition from her papers. The girl spoke.

"Hey aren't you in our class? Accounting?"

"I'm not sure, but I have work to do so can I get an answer?" Alex pressed on. She didn't know who the hell these people were, Piper was the only one on her radar in that class.

"Alex?"

Alex slowly turned at the familiar voice.

"Piper, uhm hey." Alex didn't know what else to say, but here her heart began to beat faster. This was the first time she was talking to her in about a week. She began to back away from the chair as it hit her smack in the face that this was Piper's chair that she was trying to take.

"Hi. What are you doing here?" Piper asked.

Piper was happy to run into Alex. She wanted to talk to her after having a while to think the premature kiss through, but didn't know how to go about it and now here she was handed to her on a silver platter.

"I was just asking around for a chair, until I realized it was yours. I should go," Alex began to walk away.

Piper didn't hold herself back as she took Alex by the hand and just stood there with her hand latched on to Alex's waiting now for Alex to respond. She didn't care if her group members were eyeing her oddly.

Alex smiled to herself and said, "Yes?" as she turned back around with an amused expression and cocked eyebrow. She was certain she wasn't out of the clear yet but this was a good sign.

"Alex don't, we are almost done here, I can come over and hand you the chair when I'm done with it. Just tell me where you are sitting.. or standing," she said.

"I can show you? Do you have somewhere to go?" Alex said.

Piper beamed.

"Okay! I was actually here to get some money. I have to put some money on my card to photocopy some pages out of a book, after you show me I can go back to doing that," she said.

"Sounds good."

Alex waited with one hand on her hip and the other to her lips as Piper leaned over her chair and into her bag for her purse. She had a great view of Piper's ass now as she sized her up, legs and all. Damn did she not want this view to end.

"Okay I got it!" Piper exclaimed turning back at Alex flashing her light pink purse. "I'll once again, be right back you guys. Alex let's go."

If Alex didn't know any better she would have thought Piper was all better now.

Piper and Alex walked slow now as they were together.

"So how are you kid?" Alex looked at her as they walked.

"Okay I guess. But I don't want to talk about anything right now," she said.

"Fair enough." Alex sighed. This was weird, she thought.

"... Al I didn't mean it like that. I do want to talk to you, but after you are done with your work today," she said taking Alex aback.

"You do? Okay, I can text you then... we can meet up on the patio later," Alex said rather quickly.

"I do, we have some stuff to talk about. The patio sounds like a good place," she agreed.

They had arrived at Alex's table and that was that.

"Here we are," Alex said.

Nicky turned around at the sound of Alex's voice, an indication that she had arrived, empty handed.

"Vause we send you off to get a chair and you come back to us with a girl, interesting choice. Will you be sitting on her?" Nicky was clearly teasing but Alex wanted to slap her hard at this very moment.

Piper giggled.

"Nichols, Haha, you are so very funny," Alex said sarcastically.

"Sure I am, she's laughing." Nicky said pointing to Piper.

Nicky shifted in her chair and offered her hand to the blonde.

"I'm Nicky Nichols, Alex's friend. I think I called you, along the lines of, insane the first time we indirectly met, but because you find my jokes funny you're easily friend material," Nicky said.

Piper was about to go for the hand but Alex cut her off leading her away.

"Piper, ignore her. Go, do your thing. I'll talk to you later, kid." Alex dismissed. Piper nodded and walked off.

An hour and a half later Piper put all her stuff away and dragged her chair with her to where Alex was as promised. She was alone as the rest of her friends left half an hour earlier.

Only thing was when she arrived to where Alex was expected to be, Alex wasn't there.

None of them were.

Piper groaned. She hated being lied to, and even more she dragged this chair all this distance for nothing.

She parked the chair in a corner and pulled out her phone to text Alex. Maybe she was still around.

Hey Al, you still around? I came by your table at the library and none of you were there.

Piper walked out of the library and up to the schools patio. She picked a shaded part under the trees and for the most part away from all the smokers. This was generally a place where smokers chose to be anyway and as much as she tried the smoke still drifted.

She bounced her leg up and down as she sat waiting. She pulled out an energy bar to eat in the meantime. She was hungry, she couldn't wait to get home to her dads dinner.

Piper almost didn't notice the vibration from the phone as she bent down to tie her laces that had came loose as she fidgeted.

Wait for me at the patio. I'll come find you. On my way.

Alex had separated from her group at last. It was harder to convince Nicky to leave without her. She quickly pulled out a cigarette to relax herself to what was about to come. It didn't look like it was going to be too bad, but she still needed the cigar.

She flicked the unfinished cigar into one of the many ashtrays that was scattered everywhere around the patio when she arrived then went to find the blonde.

"You made it!" Piper said as she watched Alex gracefully slide into the seat across from her a couple minutes later.

"I did. You weren't hard to find. So..." she said.

"You just had a smoke?" Piper asked smelling it on Alex's breath.

"I did, half of one. And you just had some sort of granola bar," she replied.

"Oh my gosh, how did you know?" Piper's hand went over to cover her mouth.

"You have some purple thing stuck on your tooth, that's why," Alex smiled. Piper flushed.

"Awww, don't worry about it. I can help you remove it if you want?" Alex offered.

"Thank you but I can do it myself. It must be the raisins. All I need you to tell me is if its gone," Piper said using her tongue to scrub at her teeth.

Once again the many faces that Piper made as she struggled to remove it was very amusing to Alex.

"It's still there," Alex mentioned moments later.

"Oh darn it Alex, just help me then." Piper finally let out with a small eye roll.

Alex leaned in and with a clean fingernail she flicked the little foodie off.

"There, all done." Alex smiled as she rubbed her finger along Piper's lips. The urge to kiss her again was overpowering but she held off.

Piper pulled away slightly.

Piper felt herself go all timid. The little effect of Alex touching her lips was enough to make her blush harder.

She breathed.

"Okay Alex. I guess we should talk about that day now." She whispered.

"I'll start." Alex offered. She had to come clean first, she was the one that rushed things and she knew it.

"First off, I'm sorry Pipes. I shouldn't have rushed into the kiss like I did. My impulses beat me that time around. And hell you must have been terrified. Being with a woman your first time, it's always scary. Not that we are together, but just the experience of kissing a girl for the first time, you know? That wasn't what I intended to make you feel at all. I should have asked first at the very least. I knew I messed up when you cried."

"Alex, I cried because of another reason, that I just noticed after I ran away from you. I shouldn't have ran like I did. You are right that everything was new to me, but I should have had a better explanation."

"Why did you run if you told me you weren't afraid of being with a woman prior? You where the one to drag me into the alley way after all." Alex didnt want to play the blame game but she couldnt help but mention it.

"That would have to do with why I was crying, and i'm not afraid..."

"Then tell me that first, why did you cry?" Alex asked. Alex kept her hands to herself even though she wanted to touch Piper, to let her know that Piper could tell her anything and she would listen.

"It was him. You almost gave me, with just the kiss, what I felt with him, and it was too much for me to handle. I'm sorry." Piper admitted.

Alex was silent but nodded in understanding. So there it was. She would never measure up to the dead guy.

After a bit she said, "Look Piper, I'm not as perfect as the guy you were with. I actually have no intentions on being perfect.. but let me tell you something, I will damn well try to keep you happy as a friend. The kiss, it was a mistake and I get that. Whatever we have right now, is cool. I won't ask for more... unless that is ultimately what you want... when you are ready." Alex said.

And that was all she had to say for now.

A/n- So I didn't take too long to update this time and it was longish. Well sort of. I have no idea when the next one will be up.. I will aim for less than a month, hehe. Happy reading, and don't forget to share your thoughts!