"I'm always leaving you, aren't I. It's like, my trademark or something, I guess."
Piper's smile doesn't quite reach her eyes, even though the corners of her mouth turn up. She was trying, Alex has to give her that.
"Hey, chin up, kid," she keeps her tone light, "you're legally obligated to stay now, so...there's that." Wiggling her ring finger in front of the glass that separates them, the words trail off and die in the air.
"You look nice," Alex changes the topic briskly. She eyes Piper's crisp white button down, the smooth black slacks. "Job interview?"
Piper shifts uncomfortably. There is a heaviness about her today, Alex could see it the second she came in the room, before she sat down. It is in the way she holds the phone, tenses her fingers around it. It is in the way her mouth tightens every so often. It is the sadness behind her eyes, those endless ocean eyes.
She takes one quick, short breath.
"You got it, babe, I know you do."
"Yeah, maybe. I let my mother pull some strings, so..." she sighs. "I didn't want to but I can't sleep on Cal and Neri's couch forever."
"You did say it's a comfortable couch, right?" Alex knows her attempt at humor is stupid and won't help but she doesn't know what to do and Piper looks tired and defeated.
She wants to hug her. That's what she misses most, she thinks. Sex, too, god, yes, but she misses being able to wrap her arms around Piper, to completely envelope her. Stroke her back. Bury her face in her hair, inhale her scent.
It's easy to put on a brave face when Piper is here. Because even if it's through a pane of glass, and Alex can't touch her, she's real. She can hear her voice and look into her eyes. Somehow, in ten minutes, they manage to cram weeks in.
If she's being honest, Piper crams weeks in. Piper fills her in on her life, what tasteless thing Neri cooked for dinner or how Bill Chapman has barely said two words to her since she's been back or the entire plot of the episode of The Americans she caught up on the night before. Piper is always careful not to say too much, to make her feel like she is missing out (she is) but her wife is relieved to be on the outside. It is a relief mixed with guilt because Alex can only tell her she's staying out of trouble and keeping Badison and her idiotic antics at bay for now. Nothing else to report when one day bleeds into another.
There are things better left unsaid so Alex never mentions how she hasn't really slept since Piper has been gone, knowing someone else is on the other side of the wall. How she spent weeks believing she was going to run into her in the cafeteria, the yard, before she remembered. Alex doesn't tell her she left the coffee beans in her front pocket because she couldn't bare to throw them out or give them away. It's all stupid as fuck, all of it, and missing her isn't going to speed up her sentence. Missing her isn't going to do shit but make her miserable.
Piper is moving her ring up and down on her finger, gaze downcast. She is struggling and Alex's throat constricts.
It had been easier to keep things light and optimistic for Piper who came in week after week, stressed about not being able to find a job, but relaxed and soft in a way she had not been able to be in prison. Piper was happy and she was happy to see Piper so mustering up the emotion wasn't difficult.
But now her wife is tense, her shoulders practically pulled up to her ears. And it is with that, that Alex allows two months worth of repressed fear make its way to the surface.
Nicky had asked her once if she was ever afraid of Piper changing her mind again and yeah, if she were to admit it, she knew Piper could be fickle, and yes, Alex would have once believed the other woman's fear of being alone outweighed any love they shared but people changed and Piper changed and she could tell Nicky with confidence that Piper leaving her wasn't even on the radar of things she worried about.
And it still held true. Piper loved her, that much she was sure of. The situation may have been total shit but jaded Alex, who didn't believe in anything, who as sure as fuck never believed in the sanctity of marriage, held value over the commitment they had made, prized the cheap paper clip make-shift ring that sat on her finger, stared down at it when she couldn't stand the thought of a another day in the fucking hell hole she would call home for the next four years. No, she wasn't afraid of Piper leaving.
But there was something.
"Alright, Pipes," Alex says firmly. "This is me, remember? You don't have to pretend everything is a fucking bed of roses, alright? I'm a big girl. Whatever it is, you can tell me."
Piper blinks and heaves a sigh, the weight of it making everything collapse, her shoulders, her mouth. Her jaw slacks. "I'm not the one making everything a bed of roses. That's you."
All of the air sinks out of her and she shakes her head, once, twice. "I don't-"
Piper leans in. "Every time I come here, you're trying so hard to be like, this really positive person. And I appreciate that, Al, believe me, I do. But that isn't who you are." She speaks lowly into the phone, eyes dark. "You keep telling me everything's okay here, that everything will be okay there, that'll I get a job, that I'll make a life but the truth is, we can't know that. We can't. I'm broke and my father doesn't speak to me and I live on a fucking couch. But the worst part is, Alex, that I miss you so much I can't breathe. Do you know what that's like? And do you know what it's like when your wife is putting on all this bravado and it makes you think, huh, maybe, just maybe, this whole situation isn't killing her slowly too."
She is crying quietly now, rustling around in her purse for Kleenex. Around her people are shifting in their chairs, which can mean only one thing, that time is almost up.
Ten minutes isn't nearly enough.
"Piper," Alex commands gently, "look at me."
Piper sniffles but obeys, balling the crumpled Kleenex into her fist. Her eyes are wet.
Under normal circumstances, Alex would have teased her for her penchant toward dramatics but there is nothing normal about these circumstances.
"Do you think I don't miss you?" She shakes her head, "I'm so lonely here, I fucking talk to myself." Her breath is shaky and this isn't what she wants, this loss of control. Not now, not when their time together is so brief as it is. "Look, okay, yeah, I tried to put on a strong front for you. Not because I don't miss you so badly it's physically painful. Because you're out, Piper. You gotta live your life, you know? There's nothing else you can do. Four years is a long time and it sucks. It really fucking sucks, I know it does. I hate this."
She runs a hand through her hair as Piper's breath hitches on the other side of the line. "I really, really hate it. We have to get through this, though. We don't have a choice."
Piper smiles now, a small, tentative upturn of her lips, but it is genuine and Alex is relieved. "I guess we made it this far, right?"
"Exactly." Alex returns her smile, though it is more of a well worn smirk.
It was what Piper had needed to hear, she guesses. She has never been one to cater to others needs, to stroke anyone's ego. Diane hadn't raised her that way. But Piper needed constant reassurance, a fact she'd resigned herself to a long time ago. It had bothered her in the beginning but she'd come to accept it as a part of who Piper was. But Alex had to give credit where credit was due. Piper hadn't asked for anything.
All of this time, Alex realizes, biting her lower lip, it wasn't her that was being brave for Piper. It was the other way around.
"Hey," she husks, insistent in a way that makes Piper look at her. "Promise me we'll get through this."
"I'm not running this time," is Piper's reply and she repeats Alex's gesture of pressing her ring finger flush against the glass. "Unless you intend to."
"I don't have anywhere to go, so...nope, not planning on it."
"Good." Piper's voice is warm, like honey, and Alex sighs.
"Think of it this way, kid, one more day in here means one less day till I get out."
"I really miss you."
"I know."
The time is up now but they both agreed when visits first began, they wouldn't say good-bye. It was too permanent.
"Later, Pipes. Be good, okay?" Tears prick the corners of her eyelids before she can help it. No more hiding anything. "I love you."
"I love you." Piper presses her hand to the partition, against Alex's.
Then she's gone.
And for the first time in months, Alex allows herself to go to her bunk and cry.