(Piper's POV)
I pulled Alex upstairs and we changed into warm clothes, grabbing our hats, scarves, coats and gloves. Alex was beaming.
"What's that smile about?" I ask her.
"I just can't believe I finally belong somewhere. I finally know what Christmas with a family feels like and it's all thanks to you babe. I mean, back when it was just my mom and me it still felt great but I always knew there was something missing. I always thought that not having my Dad around was the missing piece but now I know, ever since I met him compared to meeting you, that missing puzzle piece has always been you. That first time I took you to meet my mom at Christmas, I finally felt whole. I finally felt like I had my little family. You, me and my mom. That was all I needed and now being here with your family. Ugh babe, I love you more than life itself, come here." She finishes with a few tears glistening in her eyes and pulled me into her by my wrist then wrapped her arms around my mid section and placed a very deep and loving kiss on my lips. She didn't let go, I had to break free for air. She still had me pinned to her with her arms though. A few stray tears had fallen down both of our faces without us noticing so we both wiped each other's tears away with our thumbs as we smiled. I kept my hands cupping her face and looked her directly in the eye.
"Alex. With me you'll always have a family and even if we fight, I mean come on, it's us, we're bound to have a fight every, I don't know, Tuesday."
Alex laughs at this and I continue,
"But, like you said in prison, when you have a connection with someone it never goes away. We're like dogs on leashes I guess. You own me and I own you and every time we wander too far away the other always calls us back through whatever means necessary. You are my family, yeah I have brothers and two parents but you are part of that now. What's mine is yours and I love you. Okay?" I smile, reassuring her.
"Okay." She replies and cups my face also. She continues,
"And I love you too."
She sweetly smiles at me and brings me in for another kiss. After a few moments she breaks it.
"Now come on, let's kick some ChapBloom ass." She sniggers and pulls me out of the bedroom laughing at her "ChapBloom" phrase as we held hands.
When we got to the front yard, everyone was already out. They'd started the snowball fight without us so we looked at each other, shrugged, gathered snow into a ball with our hands and joined in.
Neri quickly left to go back inside due to her being 8 months pregnant so it quickly turned into a one v one fight. As in, we each picked a person to pelt. Dad picked Cal, Mom picked Danny and of course, Alex picked Larry meaning it was me versus my childhood bully. I guess this was the chance for revenge. My family were having a nice time together on Christmas morning pelting each other with snowballs but there was tension between the four of us being Larry, Vanessa, Alex and myself. Each throw of snow may have been a little too hard at the other. Alex saw I was getting more and more annoyed that my ex and my ex bully were here at my childhood home ON CHRISTMAS DAY and that she is his new fiancé so she aimed her snowballs at me occasionally which got giggles out of me and laughs from her as I threw some right back at her.
Forgetting about Vanessa, I turned this into a Vause versus Vause battle and pelted my wife with snowballs until she managed to gather about five snowballs and continuously throw them at me. Both of us laughing.
"I'm not gonna stop until you beg for mercy!" Alex laughs as I held my hands up to cover my face, also laughing.
Suddenly something freezing hit my shoulder where my bullet wound scar is. It came at a flying speed which made it all that more painful.
"Aaaaaaah! Jesus!" I cry out in pain and fall on my ass in the snow, holding my shoulder. I was pretty much healed from 5 months ago but the coldness of the snow made a bit of the pain come back along with the force it was thrown at.
Immediately, Alex drops her snowball collection she'd collected to pelt me with and ran to me. As soon as she got to me she held me in a firm, comforting, protective embrace.
"Babe?! Are you ok?! Did she hurt you?!" She asks the questions quickly as if her life depended on it, or mine.
"Yeah. It hurts." I wince and look up at Alex who looked absolutely livid. She was giving Vanessa a soul piercing glare then narrowed her eyes as she rubbed her hands up and down my arms.
"What the fuck did she ever do to you?!" She yelled at Vanessa.
"I just thought since it was me versus Piper earlier, I'd help you out. I'm slightly competitive." She tried to explain.
Alex immediately removed her hands from me, kissed me on the top of my head as I watched this situation take place. My ass getting colder and wetter but I stayed in place to watch how this would go down.
Keeping her eyes on Vanessa, Alex crouched down and gathered a HUGE amount of snow, forming one giant snowball.
"Yeah? Well guess what? It's me versus you now." She seethed and lunged her snow boulder at Vanessa. It hit her square in the face, knocking her on her ass in return. Alex did nothing but glare at her fallen opponent before coming back to help me up from the snow.
Out of nowhere, Alex gets hit in the face by a snowball of similar size which knocks us both off balance since she was helping me up and her glasses off her face.
"Fuck! My glasses!" She shouts and feels around in the snow for them.
"Here babe, I've got them." I say, finding them and picking them up for her, putting them back on her face.
We turned around to see Larry with a victorious glare on his face. He had been the one to hit Alex.
Alex's upper lip curled as we both got up. She started towards him yelling before I caught her and held her back.
"Oh, you want to go there Larry?! Really?! I've won before, I can win again!"
Alex was furious now and I could tell she was referring to me marrying her instead of Larry.
I held her back by wrapping my arms around her mid section,
"Babe, he's not worth it, neither of them are. I'm okay."
By this point my parents and brothers intervened.
"Piper honey, why don't you go have a bubblebath? You look freezing and it might help the pain in your shoulder." My mom suggests. I nod and Alex snakes a protective arm around my shoulder.
"That's a great idea, I'll go run it for her." She affirms and ushers me back inside.
Before she closed the front door I heard my dad.
"I know you four have your differences but you are here out of our generosity and that is no way to treat our daughter and daughter in law. Especially you blondie, I know you used to bully my daughter." My dad firmly scolds.
Alex and I looked at each other with a smirk and headed to the ensuite in my childhood bedroom.