I wrote this last winter, finished the first draft in spring, and finally decided to post it today. I was going to keep this one to myself - it was a necessary piece of catharsis at the time - but there's nothing like a little pre-Christmas angst to make you feel festive.
I don't often recommend tracks to be listened to during (or after) fics, but "I'm Good" by K Flay and "Long & Lost" by Florence and the Machine both make for pretty cool soundtracks to this bundle of angst.
Fahri was dead.
When she closed her eyes, Alex could still see the fear in his.
"Guess you owe him five dollars."
That smug bastard Aydin had shot him without hesitation.
Alex felt sick.
Her flight back from Paris had been delayed, and the eight hour wait had been almost unbearable.
There was too much death in her wake, trailing behind her like the wreckage she was rapidly resembling.
Alex was now officially on her last chance: one more screw-up and she'd be out of lives.
She would keep going - she wasn't a quitter, which was ironic, considering her recent deal with Kubra - but she recognised the appeal in being released from this ridiculous monotony of anxiety and sadness.
She had originally taken this job on a promise of making money and seeing the world.
Now she was slinking off to serve weeks in a rehab centre full of washed-up reality stars with more money than sense.
Time had run out for her mother.
The clock had stopped short for Fahri.
If her countdown hit zero soon too, perhaps that would be a relief.
Slumping in her plane seat, she remembers the ruin awaiting her back at home.
She still had to finish sorting through her mother's belongings, and even then, Kubra expected her arrival at the rehabilitation centre he'd booked her into within 72 hours.
She knew that from her perspective, these terms and conditions were supposed to seem helpful, but it all cycled back around to work and money, and the grains of sand kept slipping through the hourglass hanging over her head.
"I'm trying to run a business here. Do you understand?"
Kubra towered over her, eyes ablaze. She'd really fucked it up this time.
"Yes Kubra, I understand." She could barely bring herself to meet his gaze, and the bile rising at the back of her throat wasn't helping at all.
"I need everyone to pull their weight, and I need everyone focused. You don't seem very focused now, Alex. Am I right to say you are not feeling very focused?"
"No, I'm not very focused."
Understatement of the fucking century.
"Of course not. Because you're not taking care of yourself. But you'll get that back. You need to dry out. I'll find you a rehab center, somewhere near Northampton so you'll be close to home."
It sounded scarily like a second chance, something Kubra seldom supplied.
Alex wasn't sure what to say. "... Thank you."
God only knows how she'd be expected to repay this kindness. Perhaps she'd be better off dead after all.
The plane touched down a little after 11pm, and the weather was just as bad in New York as it had been in Paris.
Climbing into the first taxi she found, she sped through the city to her apartment in a haze of street lamps and slick tarmac, the flickering orange lights hanging along every curb blurred and distorted from the raindrops speckling her window.
Her itinerary was itemised: she had to pack a suitcase (and enough clothes for rehab), and then she'd head to Massachusetts tomorrow, stopping off at her mom's trailer on the way.
She'd finalise the bills that still needed to be paid, and take out the trash. At least then it might be a little more palatable when she returned after getting clean, if the grief hadn't already seeped into every pore of the place by then.
As much as it was nice to be back in the city she loved, she would have preferred to have her mom back in the trailer she hated.
And if wishes were horses, we'd be neck-deep in shit.
Just as she longed for her mother to return, Fahri's words echoed in her ears.
His ghost seemed to be everywhere: behind each curtain in every window she had passed in Paris, in all the crowded cobbled streets as strangers whose faces were so familiar.
She'd even done a double-take at the taxi driver before checking herself.
Her loved ones were all long gone.
The only other real option for companionship she had left was some WASP-y blonde who wouldn't return her calls.
What she really needed was a distraction.
It had worked so well for her in Paris, and besides, she only had another three days left to enjoy herself.
Might as well make the most of her ever-diminishing time.
Bags packed and ready by the door, Alex took the keys to her apartment and grabbed her purse.
In her haste to reach the hedonism that a late night in lower Manhattan had to offer, she sent a photograph from the hallway table tumbling to the ground, the sound of cracking glass echoing through her empty home as the cheap frame hit the poured concrete floor.
Not bothering to bend down, Alex flipped the frame with the toe of her boot, sending thin slivers of low budget casing skittering in all directions. She came eye to eye with a grinning polaroid of herself and Piper on a beach, sun shining behind them.
Ugh.
Checking her phone, it was 00:12.
There was still time to find someone who might take her mind off things, whether with contemptible compliments and an excess of alcohol, or something a little more expensive.
Unlocking the door, she cast a weary glance back to the broken photograph, a moment of nasty nostalgia.
It could stay on the floor.
She'd deal with it - or not - tomorrow.
The club was almost overwhelmingly busy, but Alex knew where to look, who to ask, and within minutes she was handing over a fistful notes in exchange for something to take the edge off.
Go easy, the dealer had said, eyeing her warily. It's pretty strong.
So am I, she'd retorted, but it was a blatant lie, and neither of them had believed it.
She allowed herself to become lost in the bathrooms for the bump, fractured ceramic tiles and warped mirrors leering a distorted version of her own reflection - Alex Through the Looking Glass, Go Ask Alex, Alex in Blunderland… Shit, this had been worth every cent.
In the dim light of the once-white room, Alex laughed, the noise coming from her mouth almost startling.
Finally her image resembled the way she felt - blurry and misshapen, smile askew and appearance unkempt.
Stumbling uncertainly in the vague direction of the exit, Alex passed a toilet stall she'd once fucked in, and wondered who was behind the door now.
Nobody anywhere near as important as the woman she'd left behind.
Back on the dancefloor, Alex became caught up in a crowd of black dresses and discarded beer bottles, plastic cups crumpling beneath high heels without mercy while the group moved as one.
The music was terrible, but she could tune out everything aside from the beating of the bass in her sternum.
The world seemed to move around her of its own accord, and each time she turned, her surroundings were sluggish to keep up with her, as though she were faster than they.
Reality shifted around her resentfully.
She had no concept of time, but knew with some certainty that several songs had passed before she felt the lurching in her stomach, as the strobe lights hit just the right angle of the wrong person at the bar.
Despite the distance, Alex couldn't deny that the stranger's hair was the right length and colour.
Even the way she held herself was unmistakeable.
And that ass…
It was almost impossible to be sure through the writhing throng around her, but Alex found it hard to believe that she would mistake some unknown bystander for her ex-girlfriend.
The blonde seemed to be alone, and knocked back a glass of white wine before turning towards Alex.
The club's lights skittered across her face once more, and through the restless shadows, Alex caught a glimpse of those familiar eyes.
Her breath caught in her throat, and the ever-present edge of panic that came free with whatever off-brand bump she'd just taken in the bathrooms caught up with her.
She curled her fingers into the palms of her hands, an anchor in this ocean of awe, nails sinking into the soft flesh to distract from the woman who seemed so unaware of the fact that she was heading straight for Alex.
Taking deep, shuddering gulps of air, Alex began to back away through the crowd, gaze fixed on the form before her, mumbling incoherent apologies to the owner of every foot she stepped on or body she elbowed in her stumbling retreat.
She had begged for the return of her mother.
She had wished fervently to speak to her best friend one more time.
But she hadn't wanted this; Piper Chapman has not been included in her desperate prayers to a deity she was reluctant to seek help from - some malicious, capricious God who didn't exist anyway.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
A searingly bright light cut across the dance floor, and Alex closed her eyes.
Her breathing came forth in short, sharp gasps, mind addled and thoughts tumbling forth.
And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
Alex shook her head violently as she faltered in her movements, illumination refracting from the bad nineties disco ball hanging above her head, and as she risked a glance around her, there was Piper again, haloed in a pure white refraction.
Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in all their vast array.
"No, no..." The only word Alex could summon wasn't enough to push away the years of Sunday School preaching, the only place her mother was content to leave her knowing that she'd be fed and warm while working the double shift at some diner on the other side of town…
There is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.
The blonde seemed to be shifting around Alex, appearing at first on the left, then the right, slipping through crowds who moved at odds with one another.
Turning swiftly, she made her way up the spiraling iron stairs in the corner, aiming for the open door beneath the dimly-lit exit sign, seeking to scrape away the scripture she'd always intended to shrug off, in the face of an angry and adamant atheism her mother had fondly embraced.
Forgetting that she was two stories up as she lurched for the rooftop-railing in the cold evening air, Alex found herself staring down into the lamp-lit street far below, breath fogging around her in befuddlement.
The smokers who had taken to the terrace stubbed out their cigarettes in haste, the wild look in Alex's eyes enough to stem their own tastes for self-destruction, bidding them back into the club for some other form of satiation.
Now alone on the rooftop, white-knuckled against the iron-work structure she clutched, Alex wondered what to do next.
The drugs had been a bad idea, that was obvious.
The alcohol probably hadn't helped either, but surely nobody could blame her for seeking a little oblivion on the brink of this abyss she called a future.
She had nothing left to live for but her job, and what kind of occupation left a person shaking with fear after a meeting with their manager?
It wasn't much of a life at all.
She felt both hot and cold, all too ready to fight the next person to step too close to her, while simultaneously ignoring the rising bile at the back of her throat.
The crushing realisation that followed - this was why she needed rehab - locked her next steps into place.
She would head down the ancient fire escape at the side of the rooftop, slink home and be done for the evening,
Easy, in theory.
The door hinges behind her creaked in warning as another person stepped out into the crisp evening air, and she lost her train of thought.
Alex twisted in place to reclaim her space, words biting. "Can I get a little fucking peace out h-"
Fuck.
There she was.
Alex's stomach rolled, and she raised her hand to her mouth involuntarily, wary of what might fall free.
Piper held her hands out in front of her as though in surrender, or perhaps seeking some sort of defence.
She had always been on the defence, Alex recalled wearily.
"Are you okay?"
Piper's voice was soft, and Alex struggled to make out the words above the din issuing from the room behind her.
"Am I okay?"
Rage bubbled up as she tried to interpret the myriad of ways she'd been offended by the very concept of the question.
"Alex - "
"Do I look okay to you?"
Alex launched herself away from the edge with surprising speed, startling them both. She stopped short a few paces from Piper, unsure of exactly how to approach the situation.
She realised too late that she was shouting, but couldn't find it in herself to care.
Piper seemed alarmed, but she held her ground admirably. Alex felt the familiar flare of affection flame in her chest, knowing that her ex-girlfriend wouldn't budge until she'd made herself clear.
It had always been one of her fondest annoyances.
"I just want to help." Piper asserted, arms still outstretched, a guard-rail against Alex's anger.
Alex laughed: a hoarse, bitter sound. "Thanks, but you're a little late."
Piper cocked her head to one side, as though weighing the situation.
"What did you take?"
Alex shook her head, not understanding why Piper might ask, not comprehending that Piper could still find it in herself to care. but the world was slow to catch up, and she had to reach out for the railing to steady herself in its wake.
Her palms were warm against the icy metal, and she could feel a chilled sweat making its way down her back as she regained control of her breathing.
"That's a weird fucking question to ask somebody you abandoned."
Piper ignored Alex's rebuttal and stepped closer cautiously. "Your nose is bleeding."
Alex brushed her knuckles across her top lip carelessly, unfeeling as the pale skin shone bright with a warm, sticky redness.
There was less blood than she'd seen before - this wasn't an unfamiliar situation - but it was unpleasant, she supposed.
Emotion wasn't her strongest suit at this point, and admittedly the main reason she'd been drawn to drugs was for their numbing merits.
"Yeah." She acknowledge eventually, and glanced up at Piper then, eyebrow raised. "Is that what you came for? To tell me I'm bleeding out?"
"No. I just..." Piper sighed, and glanced from the rooftop to the city as she weighed her words carefully. She fumbled in her bag, breaking the eye contact she seemed to have been seeking before this point, and handed Alex a tissue. "You're not yourself."
Alex didn't know who she was anymore, but she didn't need Piper to remind her of that.
"You should go."
Piper seemed skeptical. "Should I?"
"Yeah. I don't want you here. I'll say something unkind."
"You already did."
Alex nodded slowly, humming her acknowledgement.
"Well, I was about to leave anyway."
Her anger was slipping away, and she recovered the familiar sadness she'd been content to embrace before Piper had arrived.
She took a few unsteady steps towards the fire escape, peering over the edge as she reached it. The cement seemed a very long way down.
"Can I call you a taxi?" Piper chimed in from behind her, and Alex would have replied with something cutting if she hadn't been too preoccupied watching the ground shift unfairly at the bottom of the building.
Going home alone didn't feel very safe - fuck, standing up didn't feel very safe - but Alex supposed she'd cast aside the concept of ;safety' when she'd taken this job.
"Look," Piper was closer now, and Alex heard her heels ringing through the concrete beneath them as she took another step toward her. "I'm heading to a friend's house. It's not far from your apartment. We might as well share a cab."
Alex heard a tin can rolling idly from curb to curb in the street below, and considered the sound her body might make if she lost her footing at that very moment.
A warm palm eclipsed the back of her own hand, and she was startled by its presence.
Lifting her gaze, she found Piper's eyes searching hers.
"Let's go, Alex. Come on."
Alex wanted to hold her own, refuse the offer of help, put Piper in her place.
But she couldn't.
She needed help, and even though this was the last person she wanted to accept it from, she didn't trust herself to make it home.
"Fine. But you're paying."
Alex could hear the poorly disguised smile in Piper's voice when she replied. "Fine."
They stood in silence in the empty street until their taxi arrived, and Alex appreciated that Piper had made absolutely no effort to engage in small talk.
She was close enough to vomiting as it was, and Alex was certain that meaningless conversation in the name of "friendship" would have sealed the deal.
As the distinctive yellow car pulled up alongside them, Piper held open the door, but Alex didn't move.
The blonde's tone was saccharine as she ventured the offer aloud instead, words speaking louder than actions on this rare occasion. "After you."
Alex groaned. "Stop playing the fucking martyr. I'm only here for the free ride."
She climbed into the car all the same.
She was surprised however - and not unpleasantly - when Piper recalled her apartment address perfectly to give to the driver.
It hadn't been that long for Piper to forget everything about their relationship, but the moment did give her pause.
The younger woman crossed her ankles in the seat beside Alex, spine perfectly straight, interlaced fingers clasped carefully in her lap.
Alex remembered the photographs she'd seen of Mrs Chapman - the same pose, the same poise, the same irrefutable dignity - Piper had it down, but there had always been an edge to Miss Chapman that Alex had adored.
Oh God, how she had missed her.
Alex hated herself for acknowledging the feeling, but it was becoming too overwhelming to reject outright.
She focused instead on the burning behind her eyes, tears springing up unbidden from wells buried deep beneath her adamance.
Her stomach roiled once more as she swallowed hard, the knot in her chest becoming a tightness in her throat, and she fought to hold herself together, losing the battle against the war raging inside.
"How do you feel?" Piper's voice shook her from her reverie.
"Verklempt." Alex chuckled mirthlessly, lying.
Her laugh was hollow, the opposite of how she felt, and the falsehood hadn't soothed the ache in her heart in the slightest.
Разлюбить, she mused. Надрыв. Тоска.
International relations had some benefits after all, if only to allow her to express feelings in Russian that she had no words for in English.
It would have been a pointless game of one-upmanship to voice these words to a woman who had never even visited Eastern Europe - or had she? Alex couldn't recall every inch of each adventure they'd shared - but even if one of Piper's numerous languages included Russian, there was no way that she would understand the addiction-riddled imposter before her.
Alex's mumbled, half-grasped and inevitably incorrectly-pronounced snatches of Slavic slang were worthless here, but it felt better to at least be able to label her feelings.
In spite of her erratic thoughts and even-less stable pulse, the drugs seemed to be wearing away prematurely, and Alex was both relieved and disappointed.
During this encounter they had been both her crutch and her cage, and it was too late to figure out which had been better.
The taxi slowed to a halt, and Alex opened the door gracelessly, spilling out onto the sidewalk.
She swung her legs out unceremoniously, head hanging as she willed herself to stand and leave this shitshow behind her.
Seconds slipped away sluggishly, as though the world could accommodate her pace.
Piper exchanged heated words with the driver in hushed tones, and before Alex was able to tune into their exchange, she felt hot hands taking her own, tugging her upright into the cold New York night.
"Can you walk?"
"Since I was two."
"That's funny." Piper observed, but didn't laugh.
"Wasn't trying to be funny. Sardonic."
"Mm, I see that now."
The blonde wrapped a slim arm around Alex's waist, and despite the deep-seated desire Alex held to tear herself away, she stayed put, too uncertain of her footing to run the risk.
They made it to her apartment with minimal trauma: a stumble on the stairs, a hiccup that threatened follow-through, a mistaken "babe" that slipped from Alex's lips as she paused by the door, fumbling with her keys before Piper steadied her trembling hands.
(Alex felt sick with embarrassment in the wake of that one, but moved along as best she could in the face of her own humiliation.)
Once open, the door swung wide, brass handle cracking loudly against the inner wall as Alex pushed her way through, the sound echoing through her empty shell of a home.
Powdered concrete crumbled to dust on the floor, additional debris to deal with when she woke.
There was nothing sexy about this scenario, Alex reminded herself, kicking her boots off in one direction as she tossed her jacket in the other.
She was once again ready to play the part of the belligerent drunk as she turned on her heel, prepared to send Piper packing at the earliest possible point in time.
The blonde was already in the doorway - she'd barely crossed the threshold - but Alex found her on her knees, takeout menu in her hands that she used to scoop aside the shattered glass and smashed frame from earlier that evening.
The brunette's stomach jolted once more as Piper turned over the image in her palm, a picture-perfect moment from years past, now torn on the floor.
"Do you want this in the trash?"
Piper broke the silence as Alex had the photoframe, clicking into place between them the rift of so much still left unsaid.
It hung in the air like the cobwebs of a conversation neither of them wished to have.
"I..." Alex didn't know what she wanted, now or ever.
Piper's pale face shone in the moonlight of the unlit apartment, neither of them having located the lightswitch upon entry.
Framed by her weary expression were plaintive eyes that asked for desires unspoken, a mouth that had seen so much laughter and sorrow, settled atop the slowly shifting muscles in a throat that Alex longed to touch.
"No. Please. Just, leave it there." Alex gestured lamely towards the kitchen counter-top nearby. "Thanks."
She mumbled her gratitude as she walked away, unwilling to allow Piper any excuse for pathos.
Alex dearly wanted this night to end, and soon.
She began to take steps towards the denouement in the only way she knew how.
Shedding her clothes as a snake sloughing skin, she padded barefoot across the hallway from bedroom to bathroom, foregoing the en suite in favour of the larger sink and cooler floor that the guest bathroom had to offer.
If Piper observed her movements, she neither knew nor cared.
It was becoming easier to remove herself from the situation with each step closer to sleep, knowing that oblivion was on the horizon.
Difficult to feel regret or remorse when you were out cold.
She noted when passing between rooms that her jacket had made its way from the floor to a hook on the wall, her boots now sitting beneath it in an orderly fashion that didn't fit her own aesthetic at all.
Piper was a creature of habit, and as Alex prepared to scrub away the evening's detritus - both emotional and physical - to the best of her ability, she acknowledged the reassurance that the beautiful blonde had not changed too much, if at all.
The chill of the tiles threaded their way through the soles of Alex's feet, and soon she had stilled the tremors in her hands long enough to brush her teeth and wash her face, rubbing the remainder of her eyeliner away with a dark towel.
At least this could come out in the wash.
If only she could do the same with herself, just smudge the stains away with a little soap.
No such luck.
Returning to her bedroom, Alex was unsurprised to find that Piper had turned the corner of the duvet back. It was a predictable (but nonetheless unpleasant) throwback to their evening preparations from days long gone, but Alex swallowed the sentiment down.
Piper was less steady at the sight of Alex naked, and the brunette noticed her ex-girlfriend's eyes drag themselves away from her chest, her hips, her curves, with great effort.
The return of Alex's autonomy allowed her enough self-control to smirk, but it almost wasn't worth it.
She was sad, above all, steeped in a melancholia that overrode her ability to appreciate the power she still seemingly had.
Sighing, she pushed past Piper, who remained motionless by the bed they had once shared.
Sliding beneath the covers, she rolled onto her side, facing away from the woman who had broken her heart in so many ways.
"Are you going to be okay?" Piper's voice sounded as though it came from miles away, a timid question echoing from the far end of a darkened tunnel, and Alex wasn't sure she hadn't imagined the inquiry.
"I'll be fine."
She didn't make eye contact or move a single muscle, hoping to make very clear that the evening - for both of them - was over.
"I..." Piper's personal pronoun lingered in the air, the statement awaiting completion, but the closure never came. "Goodnight, Alex."
Alex heard the door close behind her, footsteps trailing away down the corridor at no particular pace, while the somnolence seeping into her bones eclipsed everything else.
The alarm that Alex didn't recall ever setting awoke her around 8am, and she wondered how much she had forgotten if even completing this simple task had slipped from her memory.
Almost as though surfacing from beneath a great body of water, recollections from the night before flooded Alex's mind, and she took a dozen deep breaths to steady herself.
Piper had been here.
Lurching from the bed at a speed far beyond that which her body was content to tolerate, Alex swung out into the living area of her home, seeking proof for the surely impossible appearance of Piper Chapman here in her apartment.
Beside the door lay the mound of dust from the door handle's impact, and next to that sat Alex's boots, although not as she remembered them.
A stilted image of neatly aligned footwear swum past her line of vision as she noted the akimbo heels, one boot flat on its side as the other leaned haphazardly across it.
Her jacket, which should have been hung from the peg above them if her memory was correct, was also notably absent.
Perhaps Piper had borrowed it, tripping on the shoes in her haste to leave...
But no; the jacket had been flung several feet away, the location of which Alex could track back in her mind to the moment she had tossed it aside in her haste to get away from…
Had she imagined it?
There was one final line of defense for her body's alternate version of events, and consequently Alex turned her gaze begrudgingly to the fallen photo-frame from the day before.
There it lay, exactly where she'd left it, surrounded by shards of broken glass.
Stepping closer, although not quite close enough to allow the light shining onto the image itself to shift, Alex eyed the casualty of her carelessness with caution.
Shit.
She must have dreamt the whole thing, or even worse, allowed the drugs to build it for her.
In hindsight, the image of Piper scooping up a visual representation for the ruin of their relationship was almost comical, symbolic in the extreme.
Bitterly, and in spite of the busy day ahead of her, Alex returned to her room.
Throwing herself down onto the mattress, she pushed her glasses up into her hair and rubbed her knuckles into her eyelids.
How fucking tragic she had become.
Rolling onto her back, she turned her head to face away from the side of the bed where Piper had always lain, only to spy a single golden hair on the edge of her pillow.
Edging closer, the crinkle of a piece of paper beneath the cushion caught her attention.
Tugging out the offending article, Alex found herself holding the torn and tattered page of a takeout menu.
Inked along the edge of brash vendor logo were two tentatively sharpied words: Call me.