This is my first tentative toe into the Chicago fandom, so I'm a little inexperienced, even though I've been a fan for a while. I was inspired to write this by watching 'Cell Block Tango' yet again (I've only seen the movie, as I haven't yet had the opportunity to see it on stage- I hear it's quite different?), Liz always being my favourite character. I may write another fic about her, I may not. I quite like Annie too. The title of this fic is an obvious reference to the Hans Christian Andersen fairytale.

Little Match Girl

All her life, Liz had been a restless girl. As a child she had played furious jump rope games on the street, plagued by more brothers and sisters than she could count. She was a middle child, small and skinny, with bony fingers that were constantly giving the younger children sly pinches behind her mother's back. At school she scribbled inky stick figures on her arithmetic and in the playground no one could outdo her rapid hopscotch. On rainy days, when she was forced to stay inside, Liz held her hands over the candle flame, dipping them lower and lower until she could no longer stand it, or one of her older sisters stopped her. Liz liked to watch fire. It was the only thing that moved as quickly as she did.

None of her family was surprised when Liz ended up in jail. She was always going to turn out bad, her aunts would say, shaking their heads as Liz's mother poured them tea. Too vicious, too boyish. You can't blame yourself, dear. Liz's mother gave a strained smile and told them stories about Liz setting her brother's mattress alight when she was twelve (no one had gotten hurt, and Liz swore it was an accident, but it seemed an appropriate tale to tell when your daughter was convicted for murder).

So began Liz' life as a government funded tenant of Murderess Row. She was not elegant or aloof enough to be the classy lady (that was Annie), too short tempered to be the calmly threatening stoic (June held that position) not famous enough to be the queen (no one could beat Velma), too cynical and hardened to be the pretty brat (Mona had that role covered), and she was not the innocent because, well, she wasn't innocent. So Liz was the bitch.

They could see her coming from metres away, a pack of matches in one hand and a cigarette shoved into the corner of her mouth, trailing curses and smoke. Her features, always rather sharp, shifted throughout the earlier months of her sentence to the pointed, aggressive look she now wore, all angles and elbows. Her hair, never her great beauty, became lank from grease and laundry steam and was constantly escaping from its pins. She wasn't pretty; no one in jail remained pretty for more than a year, but she was impressive. Weaker girls avoided her warily, not wanting to be the target of Liz's infamous temper. Stronger girls respected Liz as one of the highest-ranking prisoners in the jail, splitting their cigarettes with her (they would have been unwise not to). Occasionally someone would challenge her, thinking she was all talk, and be put right with a calculated punch in the face.

Liz became known as the fiery one, the short fuse, the tough-as-nails girl and she wore those names with pride, striking matches and throwing them away with little thought as to where they landed. Sometimes one of the wardens told her to put out the matches when they smouldered, but she was a favourite of Mama's so this reprimand was rare. Her cell was streaked black with soot.

"Is she mad?" one of the new girls whispered to Mona. New girls always seemed to like Mona. "I heard she was mad. Crazy, like."

Mona sniggered. "Nah, Liz ain't mad. She's just real angry."

"She shot a guy just for chewing gum!"

"Yeah, that's Liz for you. And he didn't chew gum. He popped."

Liz was given twenty years for shooting Bernie. She had narrowly escaped the noose- some sort of legal loophole and a judge with a fondness for pretty girls. She had served three years already and was certain that was going mad. She was not one for sitting quietly in an ice-cold cell, waiting patiently until she was released as a bad tempered, bitchy middle-aged woman. She was only twenty-two when she entered the Cook County Jail and when she got out she would be in her forties. Seventeen more years. Seventeen fucking years!

Liz bit her lip with frustration and struck a whole handful of matches against the brick wall. They flared to life with a satisfying hiss, burning her fingers as she held them close to her face, hoping to see some apparition of freedom like the girl in the fairytale she used to laugh at.

"Aww, Liz, honey," Annie breathed from behind her magazine. "You all right?"

No, Liz wanted to say. No, I'm not all right. Get me out of here. Take me somewhere else. I don't care how, I don't care where, just take me somewhere else.

She dropped the matches, struck another and lit a cigarette. "Sure I'm all right. Mind ya own bloody business."

It was lonely, being the tough one.