It took so long to get used to a different last name, the final remains of her childhood forever gone once she stood up there and said "I do."
It took even longer to figure out the movements, though they had been together since forever – Larry tucking her books under his arm, Larry walking her home from some dance or a football game, Larry and his eager kisses and his nervous hands – but marriage isn't dating and so they shuffled around each other, almost shy, after vows were taken and after promises were made before a whole host of family, friends, and some silent god up on high.
It took a long time for Piper Chapman to become Piper Bloom.
It did happen, though, ever so slowly, and now she knows how Larry takes his breakfast (two eggs, sunny-side up, buttered toast, coffee with cream and sugar), she knows the lines of his face nearly as well as her own (laughter near the mouth, frustrations along the forehead), and she knows that he loves her, oh so completely, and she knows that she is one heck of a lucky girl to have him, to glance down and see that ring on her finger.
And whenever she looks at the photographs that line the mantle – her in white, baby's breath held fast in her hands, with her parents smiling by her shoulder and Danny standing proud in his uniform as Cal tugs on his tie impatiently – she knows that this is what good fortune looks like, she knows that this is what good girls are meant for and Piper is nothing if not a good girl.
Still, it took a long time.
It took a long time to forget that other Piper from some other life, to close up memories like an old book and pack that story far away, to not wish for something else, to not dream of someone else...
But Piper Bloom talks on the phone to her best friend about this and that, Piper Bloom plans a Sunday dinner and tidies up the house until the guests arrive, Piper Bloom flips through magazines as gossip swirls around the salon, Piper Bloom shifts into her husband's embrace whenever he turns out their bedroom light.
And Piper Bloom tells herself that whoever she once was doesn't matter much anymore.
But Piper Chapman knows better, fingers stalling on the black-and-white words of this newspaper page – Diane Vause, 49, of Richmond died on September 12th – and suddenly her eyes quickly scan ahead, already searching out a name she has not seen nor said aloud in almost ten years and when it is finally there, when that name is just right there in front of her...
...it leaves Piper's lips like a long lost prayer.
"Alex Vause."
/ /
There's laundry to be folded, there's a roast to defrost, there's all the odds and ends of her days to get to and yet she is a million miles away-
Alex and her green-eyed gaze, warm while still being wicked, and she is beckoning Piper to hurry up, to keep up as they shimmy their way down the quarry, summer skies cooling down to dusk and leaving them alone with stars just waking up, and Alex steadies her, sure palms against Piper's hips, and they are breathless with this moment, this moment where the two of them don't have to hide and it is only natural that their lips meet as they have so many times before, sweet and secret and absolutely perfect
-and some things never truly disappear, they just burrow down deep into the shadows of a person's world, quiet until they are rousted from slumber, and Larry will be coming home soon and there's a family just down the road that is so very proud of her, there are rules to forever follow and there are sacraments that she has worked so hard to hold dear.
But Piper is a million miles away, back in a land of stolen clenches and overwhelming feelings, and her heart is pounding in her chest as she draws closer to this cemetery, as she bypasses the few somber faces and the motions of a preacher with dirt slipping from his hands, and then there she is, there's Alex Vause – pale cheeks cut with tears, arms wrapped tightly around the middle of her body – and Piper has no idea how she has managed to live this long without having Alex in her life.
"Piper...?"
The sound of her name is choked and confused and Piper blinks her way out of the staring she was doing and goodness knows she should say something, an explanation or simply some words of comfort, but Piper is moving instead, reaching out and pulling Alex into her arms and the other woman doesn't shove her away or even try to struggle against this hold.
They cling to one another, as if they never really let each other go in the first place.
/ /
The diner table is sticky between them, coffee rings left like abstract art and maple-syrup stains at their elbows, and the air is thick with all they are not saying, serious conversation swallowed up by mundane chatter and the steady hum of a radio behind the counter ("...and it really doesn't matter if I'm wrong I'm right, where I belong I'm right where I belong...").
Alex dropped out of school in her senior year, smart but very bored.
Alex hitchhiked for a while, thumbing her way west.
Alex got into some kind of trouble and she won't say anymore than that.
Alex lives near San Francisco now – endless sunshine and peace signs and record stores and revolution.
But Piper isn't transfixed by a life so unlike her own, she is memorizing this face that she hasn't seen in so long, looking for the changes that growing up can bring while still finding familiar places – Alex's eyes carry the gleam of adult-sized awareness and yet her lips lift in the same manner as always, still somehow shy even when she smirks – and Piper really shouldn't focus on Alex's mouth, the slant and the slope of tender red flesh, but she remembers...
...dear lord, she remembers just how those lips taste...
Piper feels the heat as it flutters up her neck and she shifts her body, suddenly uncomfortable in this vinyl-lined booth, and Alex clears her throat, like she knows, like she has always known just how a reunion of theirs would go.
"So... you're married, hmm?"
The question slices through the tension and creates a pain all its own. And Piper glances at that ring, delicate stone atop a white-gold band, and yes, yes she is married and yes, it's been for a while now - "Three years." "Three years, wow..." - and sure, it is nice, it's as nice as can be, but Piper knows she doesn't look particularly enthused and Alex doesn't look truly interested.
And so the tension gets harder to talk around, time apart weighed further down by loss and by lies, and Alex sighs as she pushes an untouched cup of coffee away.
"I should go. I've got a lot to sort out at my mother's house and only a few days to do it in."
And Piper should let her go, she should put some change down on this table and walk out the door and not spend another second here, she should go home and be there to greet Larry, she should become Piper Bloom once more and chalk this day up to a childish whim, a fanciful dream that has no business being in the real world.
"Do you need any help?"
But letting go of Alex Vause was always the dream, never the reality, and now that she is here again, Piper cannot bear the thought of letting the woman slip away like she did before, and she knows it is wrong – there's a ring in their midst, commitments have been made, and there are hearts to be broken still – and she can see the indecision flicker across Alex's face, the trepidation where past and present collide...
...but Piper wants, Piper wants so much, and surely Alex can see it, surely Alex can feel it...
...and the song changes to something older, Brenda Lee's sweet voice echoing a plight as old as time itself - "...emotion, you get me upset, why make me remember what I want to forget..." - and something in Alex's gaze seems to give way, a faltering resolve that begins to disappear the longer that they stare at each other.
"Yeah, some help would be great."
And Piper Bloom shakes her head, disappointed, but Piper Chapman feels like everything finally makes sense.
/ /
[tbc]