It's been five days since Alex's last fix, and the detox is worse than she remembers.

The absence of heroin is a vacuum that keeps filling itself with images from the past, snatching up old memories to drag them naked and confused into the present. Sometimes when she wakes up, disoriented and aching, she mistakes the red door of her cell for a spray of blood on the walls of a hotel room. The image overwhelms her: she can smell cigarette smoke and the croque-madame Fahri ordered from room service, and it's like she's suspended inside the moment, like she never left the hotel at all and everything since then has been an elaborate daydream.

In reality, the red door is just a door. Alex in prison, in solitary confinement, where the ghosts of the dead can't get to her.

She takes a deep breath and presses her back flat against the wall, her spine slotting into the grooves of the cinderblocks. Somewhere down the row a woman is howling. The mournful cries rise in pitch, repeating over and over until other inmates begin shouting over the sound.

"Not again!"

"Hey, shut the fuck up!"

"Can someone get this bitch a muzzle?"

The inmate in the cell next to Alex's is awake now too, kicking her feet against the wall between them, a rhythmic thump thump thump. Every inmate in the SHU seems to reach a point where they just need to make noise, to remind themselves that they aren't voiceless. That's the worst thing about solitary: how unreal it feels, and how inconsequential you become locked up inside of it. The world goes on without you—or maybe it doesn't, because how would you know? You can't see anyone else, and they can't see you, and you're not sure if any time has passed or if you only imagined it.

There's bang as the lock on her cell is opened, and then a CO's wide-shouldered frame fills the doorway.

"On your feet, Vause."

"Where are we going?" Alex's voice sounds brittle from disuse. When she stands, her limbs feel leaden.

"Hands," he says, ignoring her question.

She holds out her wrists and the guard shackles them, more tightly than he needs to. Alex knows she'll see bruises when he takes the cuffs off later. He leads her down the labyrinthine corridors of the solitary housing unit and then out into the atrium where gen pop lives, their cells stacked along the mezzanines. There are no crimson doors here: everything looks washed out and dreary, passing by in a blur of beige and grey.

The CO is holding Alex's arm as they walk, his gigantic fist curled around her bicep. It triggers another flash of memory: the way Aydin marched her out of the hotel building, holding her just like this but with the mouth of a pistol pressed into the small of her back. He shoved her into an SUV—black, with tinted windows, the kind you always see in cop procedurals. They rode for several miles, pressed together in the backseat: Aydin with his gun at the ready and Alex trying to figure out how it had all changed so quickly, her world caving in overnight.

"Keep moving," the CO says, giving Alex a little shove.

He takes her to a room not much bigger than her cell in the SHU except this one has a table and two chairs in the middle, ostensibly some kind of max security visiting area. She sits in the seat closest to the door and waits while the CO cuffs her to it. Then he leaves her alone in the room, shutting the door behind him. It isn't the good kind of alone either, the kind that feels safe and comforting—it's the kind that fills Alex's chest with an inflating balloon of panic, until her breathing becomes tight and shallow.

She looks up and notices a square of light set high on the wall, a tiny bar-less window. She hasn't seen the sky in almost a week. It's pale grey and patchy with light; the color of dawn, which means it's morning.

What color was the sunrise, the day after Fahri's murder? Alex can't remember. She isn't even sure there was one.

The door flies open, and it jolts her so bad she can feel the cuffs bite into her wrists as she yanks them instinctively toward her body. Withdrawal has made her twitchier. She thinks it's the correctional officer returning, but when she turns her head to glance at him she finds a woman staring at her; a young blonde wearing a business suit that has department store clearance written all over it. Her hair is long and crimped and pulled back into a half ponytail, and she's holding a leather folio under her arm, clutching it like a lifeline.

"Alex Vause," she says, and her voice has a nervous lilt that makes the name sound like a question.

"Yeah." Alex radiates hostility. "Who are you?"

"I'm Piper Chapman. I'm your assigned counsel."

She takes a step forward, extended her hand like Alex is supposed to shake it. Alex wiggles her own wrists instead, pointedly jangling the handcuffs until the lawyer looks mortified.

"I'm sorry," she says, blushing. "I— I'm sorry."

Alex rolls her eyes because, of course, they sent her an attorney who looks like she took the bar exam last weekend. "Assigned counsel for what?" she asks.

"The trial," Piper Chapman answers.

She's still standing by the door. Her eyes shift around the room, taking in the dirty walls, the concrete floor, and the single unoccupied chair. She looks mildly frightened, like she's never done this before, and it's obvious she doesn't belong here. She's too glossy; too soft. Prison hardens everyone, both inmates and officers, but all Alex can see when she looks at Piper is tenderness. It almost makes her want to warn the woman away. Get out of here, she thinks, before this place has time to break you.

But instead she says, "What fucking trial?"

And Piper says, "Kubra's," and it sounds like the crash of rubble as every wall in the prison comes tumbling down.

The lawyer takes a seat, lowering herself gingerly into the chair across the table from Alex. "He's been extradited. And since your conviction was for crimes associated with his business, the prosecution will need you to testify. I'm here to help you arrange your statement."

Alex's hands have begun to shake. The cuffs clank embarrassingly against the metal frame of the chair, like morse code tapping out her secrets.

"Are you okay?"

She grits her teeth. "I'm fine."

Piper's eyes lower until she's staring at the bundle of files on the table in front of her, like she's afraid to look at Alex; like being in the presence of a junkie embarrasses her. She starts sliding her bracelet around with the fingers of her opposite hand, apparently a nervous habit.

"They told me you were detoxing," she says, so quietly it's practically a whisper.

Alex feels a hot rush of shame. She tries to picture herself the way other people must see her: the khaki scrubs, the limp, lusterless hair, the trembling fingers, the thin sheen of sweat. It's humiliating, but worse than that, it's dangerous. This isn't like going to rehab in Northampton, where the staff is paid to be discrete. This is prison, where any sign of weakness is an opportunity someone else could take advantage of. As soon as she gets clean she needs to get herself together.

"Look," she says, with as much finality as she can muster, "I won't be making any statements. I already testified, at my own trial. I'm done. "

The lawyer brushes an errant lock of hair away from her face and glances up again, and Alex is struck once more by how young she seems. There's an innocence in the smooth, uncreased planes of her face that looks misplaced in the florescent light of the meeting room.

"This is really important," Piper says.

"Then let the prosecution deal with it."

"Your testimony would—"

"No offense," Alex interrupts, "but who the fuck asked you? What are you, like, a year out of law school?"

The lawyer leans back a few inches like she's shrinking away from a blow. Alex can see her jaw clench as she swallows, and her eyes flick toward the door as if she feels just as trapped as her client does.

"I'm sorry," she says, sounding genuinely apologetic, "but this isn't optional. They're going to put you on the stand. You have to give a statement. I'm just trying to help you."

Alex laughs, and it comes out sounding somewhere between a creak and a groan, like the starting clank of long-unused machinery.

"Sure, you're trying to help me. You walk in here with that discount rack ensemble, and that Bambi-eyed, deer in the headlights expression, and I'm supposed to believe this isn't your first assignment? I mean why the fuck should I trust you?"

"Because this is my job."

"Right. Wouldn't want to put your paycheck in jeopardy."

"No," Piper says, frustrated. "That's not what I meant." She opens one of the folders in front of her and shuffles through its contents until she finds what she's looking for. "Your deposition. In it, you listed six other people who were part of the ring. Four of them are currently serving time in federal. Two of them got off on lesser charges."

"So?"

"So you testified against them, and they testified against you. Every single person in this case knows that you were placed high enough in the cartel to work with Kubra directly. You can't claim that you don't know him if there are six other witnesses who say you do. The court will never buy that, and it'll just get you added time for perjury."

Alex's determination falters for just an instant, a span of seconds in which she can clearly hear her own heartbeat. "Sounds a lot like my problem."

The lawyer stares at her pleadingly, but Alex closes her eyes. She pictures Fahri immediately, his body on the floor with a neat bullet hole in the forehead. If that was for a minor fuckup she can only imagine the kind of retribution Kubra would unleash for ratting him out to federal investigators. Alex can feel beads of sweat forming on her forehead, but whether it's from the heat or the fever or the fear, she doesn't know.

She opens her eyes again. "When's the trial?"

"Three weeks from now, maybe four. The date still hasn't been set."

"Well then, I think we're done here. Thanks for your time, Piper."

"Wait. You need to add me to your PSI so you can call me, okay? Your counselor has my phone number."

"I'm pretty sure I'm not gonna do that."

"Alex, I'm your lawyer."

"Hey, officer!" Alex raises her voice. "Officer Johnson? We're done in here!"

The look Piper gives her on the way out is some combination of disappointment and pity, from which Alex quickly averts her eyes. She doesn't need some stranger judging her. She doesn't want to be felt sorry for.

But when she's alone in her cell again with the red door closed behind her, she regrets that she didn't take more time to study the color of the sky outside the window. She doesn't know how long it will be before she glimpses it again—that luminous square of early morning light, proof that the sun is still rising even on the days she doesn't see it.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Alex passes forty-eight of restless pacing inside the box, listening to the muffled shouts and screams of inmates down the row, before that same need to be heard begins welling up inside of her. And it's strange, because she's always been comfortable with silence. Back up the hill she'd sometimes go days without talking to her bunkie—although, to be fair, there weren't many conversation topics of common interest between Alex and the religious meth head she lived with. Still, the quiet never bothered her as much as it did now. There was a lump in her throat she was afraid would keeping building until it became a scream.

The conversation with her new lawyer was the longest talk she'd had with anyone in more than a week, and she finds herself wishing she'd savored it more. The only people she sees are the COs who bring her meal trays and the one who sometimes takes her to the showers, but none of them are worth trying to talk to. She should have let Piper speak a little longer, if only to enjoy the sound of another human voice producing something softer than a broken howl.

"Let me out of here!"

"Yo, shut that bitch up!"

"Give me a gun and I'll do it myself!"

The voices are muffled by thick concrete but Alex can still hear them. It's hard to sleep for more than a few hours at a time with the shouts always breaking the silence, and if that doesn't wake her then the nightmares will. Today she woke up dry-mouthed and itchy, and even though she knows the worst of the withdrawals are over she's still craving it.

The kicking starts up on the other side of the wall.

Thud, thud, thud.

Alex thinks about kicking back, and then decides against it. She wants to do more than make noise; she wants to talk to somebody. She wants to know what color the sky is.

A moment later she's pounding on the door, beating her fist against the metal. "Hey, I need to talk to my counselor. Hey!"

A CO slides open the viewing window, frowning at her. "You can't see your counselor except for scheduled visits. You know that."

"My case is going back to trial. I have a right to contact my lawyer."

"You don't have any goddamn rights unless I give them to you, inmate."

"I'll that to tell my attorney. I'm sure a civil liberties suit against the Department of Corrections would interest her." She tries to look confident as she says it, like this is a legitimate threat, although the image of Piper Chapman trying to intimidate someone with a lawsuit like some Elle Woods wannabe is admittedly comical.

The guard rolls his eyes. "I have to check with my supervisor," he says, slamming the window shut again.

Twenty minutes later Alex is standing in the telephone nook of the atrium while everyone else is on evening lockdown. She looks at the piece of paper in her hand with the phone number scrawled in her counselor's writing. This is stupid, she thinks, and then dials it anyway.

"An inmate from Litchfield Federal Prison is attempting to contact you. To accept this call, press one."

"Alex?" Piper's voice sounds stretched and thin, like she's speaking from halfway across the continent.

"Yeah. Hey."

Alex isn't sure, exactly, what she intended to say. She's too aware of the officer standing a few feet behind her, of the handcuffs digging into her wrists as she clutches the phone. It doesn't feel safe to talk like this.

"Did you add me to your PSI?"

"Yeah."

"That's good, Alex. That's great."

"Yeah," she repeats, like she's suddenly forgotten every word in her vocabulary. "Look, I was thinking… about what you said the other day. About, you know, giving a statement. And I think… I think we should meet again. Can you come tomorrow?"

She hates how eager her voice sounds. The desperation is so obvious, so naked, and yet the need still feels greater than the embarrassment.

"Not tomorrow," Piper says. "Friday?"

It makes Alex realize that she has no idea what day of the week it is. From the confines of her cell she can barely even keep track of whether it's day or night, let alone the designations on a calendar. "What's today?" she murmurs.

"Wednesday."

"Do you think you could talk to my counselor about having me moved back up the hill to minimum? I'm clean now. Fully detoxed. And I don't have any violent offenses. They can't keep me down here, right?"

"Of course, yes. I'll talk to him for you."

There's a long silence. Alex presses the phone against her ear, listening to a rustle of papers on the other end of the line. She tries to imagine what Piper's desk looks like: if it's just a cubical in a massive office building, or a private office in a tiny practice somewhere in the suburbs. She pictures a wall full of windows and sunlight spilling onto the desk, bathing the wood in warm golden light and glinting off the bracelet encircling Piper's slender wrist.

"Wrap it up, inmate," the CO growls.

"I have to go," she says into the phone.

"I'm glad you changed your mind. I'll see you Friday?"

"Yeah, okay."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

On her way back to the SHU Alex walks past another window. The sky is pale and pink and soft as cotton. It reminds her of morning in Amsterdam: how she woke at dawn on the first day of her inaugural trip to Europe, eager to explore the city. How it felt like the beginning of a free vacation— every meal, every mile of cab fair charged to someone else's tab.

She's paying for it now: every dime, every dollar, every hour of borrowed time.

It's a debt she might never be rid of.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

As she passes through the security gate that separates the visitor's lobby from the prison, Piper thinks about it how it was put in place to keep the lives on either side from touching each other.

The inmates and the people who care about them exist in two separate realities, and Piper wonders what their visits must be like—if they pass scraps of hope furtively between themselves like contraband. If the news they exchange sounds like murmured prayers. If any real piece of the outside world manages to transcend that gate, to plant itself like a weed growing up stubbornly through the concrete.

It's just after lunchtime and the inmates are out of their cells, milling about the atrium. A correctional officer is escorting her and she doesn't feel like she's in danger, but there's something about the way the other women are looking at her—greedily, hungrily—that makes her wonder if they can sense the outside on her somehow. Perhaps they can smell it: the wet loam of springtime, clinging like earthy perfume and leaving a trail of scent behind her.

Some of the inmates look at Piper like she's a monster, or maybe a prize, squinting and glaring and making lewd gestures; others stare like she's a miracle, their eyes wide and wondering. It's strange, because she's only ever just been Piper. On her best days, good enough. On her bad days, a disappointment. But now, catching sight of her own reflection in the eyes of the inmates, she feels for the first time like a metaphor, a symbol for something more than herself.

Sometimes Piper thinks she became a lawyer in order to feel validated in exactly this way: to feel like somebody who matters. And maybe it's a little selfish, but as long as the job gets done it doesn't seem to make a different what her reasons are for doing it.

Her client is waiting for her in the dingy little visiting room—chained to the chair, same as last time.

Piper sits down across from her, setting the files down on the table. "Hi," she says.

"Hi," Alex echoes.

"You look better."

It's true; Alex looks less pale and a little stronger, like there's more life in her today. Maybe that's just what happens after people get clean, when the drug no longer has a hold on them.

"Thanks," Alex says. There's a detectible tone of sarcasm in her voice, but Piper is getting used to the way everything she says sounds a bit like mockery.

"I talked to your counselor. He says they can send you back up to minimum by the end of the day."

A visible change comes over Alex's features then—her eyes widen a little and the lines around her mouth soften. "Thank god," she mutters, and then glances away, seemingly embarrassed by her own sincerity.

"You're really feeling better?"

"Said so on the phone, didn't I?"

"Okay. Good. I'm glad."

Alex raises her eyebrows a little. "Don't start getting soft on me, counselor," she says, and the ghost of a smile tugs her lips up at the corners.

Piper smiles shyly back at her, because it seems like the teasing tone is some kind of peace offering. "Should we get down to business?"

"By all means."

Alex leans back in her seat and lets her legs fall open a little, like she's making herself comfortable, and Piper finds the gesture intimidating. She doesn't like to admit it, but Alex is… well, beautiful isn't quite the right word. There's no construing the pallid, recovering-junkie look as anything exactly charming. But there's a kind of grace to the way she comports herself—even here, even in shackles—that Piper can't help but find attractive. That is, objectively. In a completely detached, observational sense, because her interest is entirely professional.

"Okay," she begins, refocusing on the task at hand. "I think we should push for a plea deal. Witness protection."

"What?" The word comes out accompanied by a bark of laughter. "That's a joke, right? Or are you really that new at this? Convicts don't get witness protection. Fucking Wall Street financial criminals, maybe, but not drug traffickers."

"This is a really big case. High profile, federal jurisdiction, lots of media coverage. Kubra is a powerful man with an extensive network. Bringing him down would be a huge coup for the prosecutors, and an embarrassing screw-up if they somehow lose the case. They need your testimony to seal the deal, and I think they'll be willing to bargain for it."

Alex shifts in her seat. Her jaw is clenched tight, nostrils flaring. "You told me already that I have to testify. That I don't have a choice. If that's the case then I'm pretty sure I have zero leverage."

"That's why it's going to take a little extra convincing. If we can assure them that you're the innocent party in all of this—"

"Innocent? Seriously? You must not have read the part in my deposition where I gave a full confession."

"Okay, but you obviously confessed because you were afraid."

"Thanks. Cowardice is so flattering."

"I didn't mean it like that," Piper says quickly. "I don't blame you, okay? Cartels are dangerous, and Kubra Balik is—"

"Don't," Alex interrupts. "Don't act like you know my life story, Piper, because you don't. You don't know the first thing about me."

"Then tell me."

There's a tense silence. Alex's gaze flickers like she wants to look away, but she continues to stare resolutely across the table. Her refusal to speak is a kind of challenge, one that Piper finds herself answering.

"Why did you start using drugs again in prison?"

Alex flinches, and chains of her handcuffs rattle against the chair.

"You're not my fucking therapist!"

Piper's pulse quickens so fast she feels like it's leaving the rest of her behind. "You're right," she says, in a voice of determine calm. "And I don't know you. But I'd like to."

She can hear own heart beating as the blood rushes to her ears, and beyond its insistent thrum is another, softer sound: Alex's audible exhale as she tries to steady herself, her breathing so forced that Piper can hear it from across the table. The sounds of their individual panic twine together to form a kind of rhythmic duet, percussive yet hushed like distant wind chimes.

It's Alex who caves first, exhaling into a quiet murmur words.

"After I got arrested the feds took everything. My money, my apartment, even my personal stuff. Photographs, letters… they said it was all evidence. I don't know where any of it is now. Maybe it's all in a file folder somewhere, or locked up in some government storage unit. Who knows. But I think it's probably just… gone."

Alex's glances up again and her irises are the color of aging copper, like they got left out in the rain too long and lost their shine. "You say you want to get to know me—fine. But I don't have a me, anymore. Not really. They took away everything I had, so I've pretty much been erased."

Piper's heart feels like it's been yanked a few inches out of place. "I'm really sorry, Alex," she says softly.

"Yeah, well." Alex shrugs. "Me too, I guess."

She's shrinking back inside herself now, and Piper can see it: the way the light withdraws, leaving her face blank and expressionless. Alex twists her wrists in the cuffs like they're chafing and Piper feels it too, the kind of pain that spreads and itches.

This is why they advised her not to become too involved with her clients. You can't save everybody, they told her. You need to remain indifferent. But looking at Alex now, watching the way she disappears under the weight of her own memories, Piper knows she'll never manage it.

She wants to help, but more than that: she wants to be the one to save her.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Piper decides to take a research trip the following week. Alex's file notes only one relative: an aunt named Linda who lives near the Cape, just a few miles inland. She doesn't mind the drive. It gives her time to think.

The aunt's address is a rundown, one-story beach house. The white clapboard siding is dirty and there are panels missing, presumably because they rotted away and never got replaced. The front steps are warped with age and the wooden boards sag a little beneath Piper's weight, threatening to give way any second.

The woman who comes to the door is fairer haired than Alex, but Piper can see the family resemblance immediately: the wide, full mouth and the unusual eye color, though darker in hue than Alex's.

"Linda Prescott?"

"That's right."

"My name is Piper Chapman. I'm representing your niece."

Mrs. Prescott squints at her, lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the sunlight. "You're her lawyer?"

"Yes, that's right."

For a second Piper's afraid the aunt will ask her to leave— she looks on the verge of suggesting it, but then seems to change her mind as she lets out a heavy sigh.

"You'd better come in then," she says, opening the door a little wider. Piper steps nervously through the frame.

"Here, have a seat in the den. I'll get you some coffee."

"Thanks."

She sits down in an old wingback chair situated next to the bricked-up fireplace. The cushion is so thin she feels like she's about to sink into the springs. The curtains on the bay windows are drawn and everything in the room looks a little melancholy, all the fabrics worn out and faded.

Piper can't help but wonder if Alex grew up in a house like this, so sad and lightless. Then she thinks about her parents' house—all the bright, airy spaces that somehow managed to feel both too cold and too empty—and decides she's in no place to judge.

The coffee Alex's aunt hands her is lukewarm and bitter. It tastes like the the morning brew, hours old, but she drinks it for the sake of politeness.

"Mrs. Prescott, I'm wondering if you can help fill in some family history. I have Alex's testimony about her time with the cartel" —the aunt flinches— "but I don't know much about her life before it. I was hoping you could help."

Mrs. Prescott rubs the knuckles of one hand distractedly against the top of her knee, her expression skeptical. "I'm not sure how that's supposed to help her case."

"Sometimes it's beneficial to paint a more holistic picture for the jury. It makes her more sympathetic, adds to her credibility as a witness."

"Hold on," she says, getting to her feet. "I have some of Diane's old things around somewhere."

She comes back a few minutes later carrying a heavy cardboard box, which she sets down on the coffee table.

"Here. You can look through it—take all the time you need. I'll be in the kitchen."

There's a faraway, slightly haunted look in the aunt's eyes as she says it, and Piper can understand why she wants to leave the room. It must be painful, dredging up her deceased sister's past like this; discussing a criminal niece she barely has contact with.

"Thank you," Piper tells her, in what she hopes is a tone of real sincerity.

The collection inside the box seems random at first: old VHS tapes labeled with dates that Piper doesn't know the significance of; a white pleather jacket fitted for a young teenager that must have belonged to Alex. At the bottom there are piles of paper, letters kept in their envelopes with foreign stamps and international addresses: Belgium, Prague, Jakarta, Fiji. She opens one and a photograph falls out, and Piper feels a pleasurable jolt of recognition: a younger Alex stands in the foreground of the shot, the Eiffel Tower filling the sky behind her. The picture looks unplanned, like the camera went off accidentally: Alex's mouth is hanging open mid-laugh, and her eyes are shining and delighted.

Piper flips the polaroid over to read the note on the back:

Mom, I'm in Paris! It's every bit as pretentious as you'd think. I feel like I'm in a bad foreign film, but in the best way possible. We took a posed photo in front of the tower, but my friend said you'd probably like this one better. I agree. Talk soon— Love, Alex.

She turns it over again, smiling. The face in the photograph is so unguarded, so expressive in its enthusiasm, that it's difficult to reconcile with the one Piper has now spent several hours seated across from. This younger Alex is wearing black jeans and a plain dark t-shirt, and it feels strange to see her in something so casual and form-fitting compared to the prison uniform. She looks a little familiar somehow, like someone Piper could have met in college had their worlds been just a little bit closer.

For an hour Piper sits and sifts through the memories: elementary school report cards, gap-toothed childhood photos, old articles of clothing. They're all pieces of a puzzle adding up to Alex, a different and more complete image of her than the one Piper already knows. The box is labeled Diane, but everything inside of it is about her daughter. It's like nothing else mattered enough to save—like Alex was her most prized possession.

Eventually Piper glances up to find the aunt hovering in the doorway, her fingers gripping the wooden frame like she's afraid to come any closer.

"She was always such a strong-willed kid," Linda says quietly. "Grew up with a huge chip on her shoulder. Diane was the same. As soon as she had Alex, it was like the two of them against the world."

Piper smiles softly. "Do you mind if I bring a few of these things to her? I think she'd like to have them."

The aunt nods, but her eyes are staring past Piper like she barely even sees her. When she speaks her voice is cracking.

"I used to be glad Diane wasn't around to see how this all turned out— her daughter in prison. She loved that girl so much, you know, I thought it would have broken her heart. But now… now I'm not sure it would have mattered. Everything that kid did made her so proud. What's the knowledge of one mistake, compared to a full life of happiness?"

The words don't really feel meant for Piper: it's like Alex's aunt is talking to someone else entirely, some presence in the room that only she can see.

So Piper packs up the photographs and the letters and quietly apologies for the intrusion, leaving Alex's aunt alone to speak with Diane's ghost.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

It's Saturday and Alex is in the yard, enjoying the relative freedom of minimum security. She finds an empty patch of grass and lays down on it, feeling the feathery blades tickle her skin, and then she stares skyward until her vision is filled with nothing but cloudless blue.

It brings back memories of waking up on the beach in Phuket: dusted with sand, pleasantly disoriented, miraculously not too hungover. The sky and the ocean were one brilliant color, swallowing the horizon hungrily between them. Then she starts thinking about flying—about that moment during takeoff when the plane finally breaks through the cloud cover, and all you can see out the window is clear skies and sunlight.

She closes her eyes and imagines escaping over the twelve-foot security fence with the same effortless grace as an airplane; concrete turning to vapor at the touch of her fingertips until there's nothing left.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I brought you something," Piper tells her, sliding a photograph across the table.

It's the one Alex sent to her mom during the first trip to Paris, and her fingertips tremble as she reaches for it. "Where did you get this?" she murmurs.

"I went to see your aunt. I asked her if I could bring some things back for you."

"There's more?"

"A whole folder. You can have it as soon as it passes inspection."

Alex's throat is so tight she can barely breathe. She slides the polaroid off the table and into her lap, holding it reverently in her shaking palms like some remnant of her mother's magic might still cling to the paper.

"I just wanted you to know, Alex, that you haven't been erased. You're still here, see? I found you."

The way Piper says it is so tender it almost makes Alex want to cry. She glances up to look at her, and that's the moment she realizes: the blue of Piper's irises is exactly her favorite shade of sky.

.

Author's notes: This is a complete rewrite, in two-shot version, of a fic I started/abandoned more than a year ago. It was originally called Call Your Witness. I'm dedicating this to the very kind and patient reader who's been prompting me to finish it for months now. You know who you are, and thank you!

Also, I am aware that I have like 2483453 other fics in progress and that posting this before finishing them is probably a bad idea. But once I felt inspired to start writing this I just couldn't force myself to work on anything else. As soon as this is done, it'll be back to the others.

Thanks!