Re-post of my doc from a few years ago. I plan to post 5 chaps a day. This was written after Season 1 aired and I believe I was done by season 3. I tried to keep it in context with the series up until that point. I'd love to edit but it's extremely long and I don't have the time.
I plan on leaving this up for a few weeks. Enjoy.
EDIT: the format got messed up when I posted; fixed now
Chapter 1
The click of the first lock on the door radiates down the long hall of the apartment. Piper's ears perk up at the noise, with every intention of going to meet her wife at the door like she did routinely everyday, but her brain told her to stay put. The second lock repeats a similar click, the keys jingling in the lock.
"Helloooo?," Alex calls out a bit confused to see the lights on in the living room down the hall, with background noise from the television set, but no Piper.
It became routine to greet each other at the door; it never felt pathetic or forced, it was genuine happiness to see each other, after being apart the entire day. Each woman would question if that feeling would ever fade, the longing to always be near. Perhaps it was the time spent separated years ago when Alex would travel before Piper joined her side, or the eight years spent apart prior to being reunited, or the time spent after each of them had been released from Litchfield, that heightened the yearn. Regardless of the source, it was lost time that they would never get back, and lost time that neither woman wanted to add to.
"I'm in here," Piper called out from the living room.
The tall brunette glided down the pumpkin colored hallway adorned with dozens of photos from their past travels. Her footsteps became louder as her footing transitioned off of the runner from the hall into the entryway.
"Are you ok?," she called out, as she slipped the strap of her cross body backpack over her head and placed it in the basket under the mail table.
"Yep, just trying to work my magic."
She began to walk towards the living room but stopped herself mid-step.
"Shoes!," the blonde called out from the living room.
She retreats back towards the table and leans her back against the wall. She lifts her leg to unzip her boot, followed by the other and places the boots beside their coat-rack. She unbuttons her jacket and unloops her scarf from around her neck, she hangs them both on the rack. She walks hurriedly towards the voice, her socked feet however, provide no traction causing her to almost slip on the polished hardwood floor, but she regains her balance; she didn't remember it being so slippery.
She turns the corner of the living room and eyes their empty couch. Her eyes dart quickly when she finds Piper on the floor on her elbows and knees, a pillow under her cheek, her ass in the air.
"Hey," she mumbles from the ground.
Alex inhales slowly and brings a hand to her mouth, "are you fucking kidding me?"
"You're sure about this? I mean by all means I don't necessarily have better odds and I'd be considered increased risk too."
"I'm positive babe, it's definitely not that. I don't... I just don't have that desire to go through it the way you do, okay?," Alex replied, the grocery basket hanging off her left arm.
Piper turned both boxes of ovulation kits over and read the backs comparing efficacy levels. Alex's eyes flashed around the aisle,
"Jesus, I'm in the wrong business. How many fucking types of ovulation kits, pregnancy tests, panty-liners and shit does one country need, huh?"
Piper shushed her while she continued to read the backs and placed a box of ovulation kits in the basket next to two different types of pregnancy tests, a hundred count bottle of folic acid, and lubricant among other items.
The brunette observes Piper in her element, and chuckles to herself.
They'd had this conversation many times. The thought of her own baby was something she just simply hadn't considered for herself. She was a teenager when she knew she was attracted to females, and the thought of having to ever use someone else's 'seed' completely grossed her out. She'd seen the look in Piper's eyes at Litchfield whenever she showed off the newest picture of Finn that Polly brought or mailed to her, and her eyes years later when Polly walked in the door with him clinging to her side, just how much she loved that little boy and how much he loved her back. She was never too busy or tired to play with him or listen about his day at school. Unwittingly over time her own heart had become fond of the kid; perhaps it was the enthusiasm he possessed as he lunged forward and knocked her down when he hugged her hello or the way he nuzzled into her side as he showed her his sticker collection.
"He loves you because you coddle him and you always go out of your way to answer his questions," Piper told her wife one day after they'd watched Finn together.
"I don't. He just fits well in my lap like this because my legs are so damn long. And I don't want to answer his questions with crap information so I look it up."
"You love the way he fits in your lap and how he thinks you know everything. Why are you trying to argue with me?"
Alex avoided eye contact. "He's alright. He's always sticky though and he makes a mess."
Alex couldn't shake what Piper had said though, she did love the way he fit in her lap, and cuddled up beside her when she looked things up, and the way he looked at her while he eagerly waited for her to answer his questions about different types of rocks in the latest book she was reading to him. Piper mentioned having a family of their own one day, so it wasn't a foreign concept, she had just never felt the urge or need to expand their family, the way she had been lately. They lay in bed later that same evening after cleaning up pieces of Goldfish out of the carpet. The room was dark other than the swinging lamp mounted on the wall that illuminated the pages of Piper's book. Alex's head lay on Piper's abdomen, her eyes tracking her wiggling toes as she read. She lay there for a while, when she murmured, "syrup and cheese."
"Heh?," Piper questioned.
Alex laughed while tracing a finger on Pipers lower abdomen just above her shorts, "Finn. He always smells like syrup and cheese."
Piper drew her knees up and Alex turned over and looked at her. "I think I'm ready, well as ready as I can be. I want our own baby."
Piper couldn't contain her smile, she squinted her eyes, "but I thought his sticky hands and mess drove you crazy?"
The corner of Alex's mouth dipped down to the side but her face was bright, "it does but kind of in the same way yours did when you first started moving all your stuff into my place. Of course it didn't go unnoticed but I kind of loved finding your junk everywhere because it just made me think of you."
"When did you become such a mush?"
Alex shoved her shoulder, "I'm not," she sighed, "can't I just miss the kid when he goes home at end of the day?," she asked in defense not yet used to being regarded as a sweetheart. "And yeah, his limitless energy is exhausting, and sometimes when he knocks me over and my back feels like it's going to give out I'm reminded of how old I am, but the pros so outweigh those little things."
"I knowwwww," Piper whispered with her eyes closed.
Piper bent her neck downward, and Alex lifted off the bed just enough to kiss her wife. Piper brought both of her hands up to her face, "I'm gonna throw up, I'm so excited. You're sure?"
Alex nodded quickly while releasing a small snicker, "yeah... yeah, I'm sure."
Piper roughly removed herself from underneath Alex and skipped towards her laptop, moments later returning with it to their bed.
"What are you doing?"
"I want to look at sperm donors and email my ob/gyn office a request for an appointment."
"Right now? Cant we start all this in the morning?"
"No way, I'll never be able to sleep now," she bit at the nail on her pointer finger.
Alex threw her head back onto the pillow beside Piper and laughed knowing that was the God's honest truth.
"You're still sure that you don't want to carry our baby?," Piper asked.
"Yeah definitely, it would be too foreign for me, I'll be more of a wait outside and pass out cigars kind of mom you know?"
Piper looked at her sternly, "you know people don't do that anymore right? You need to be with me and you can't smoke anything in a hospital."
Alex took a deep breath and exhaled loudly, "is this a preview for what I'm signing up for?" Piper relaxed her face slightly.
"All I'm saying is you've wanted this experience your whole life and I'll be there to take care of you. Ok? I'm sure I want this...for us. "
A few days later, Piper was reassured after her pre-conception counseling visit, that her body was healthy and had no reason to do anything else to increase her chances of fertility. She tracked her periods, had a healthy diet and eliminated toxic habits from her lifestyle. They decided they wouldn't tell anyone about their decision to build their family until they knew their baby was healthy.
She confirmed with her ovulation stick that morning that today was a fertile day and she waited for Alex on the busy Manhattan sidewalk during their lunch break to pick up the canister that held their donor sperm.
"This thing is huge, what the hell kind of sperm is this?" The container looked like a vintage milk container, and was bulky and awkward.
"Something about the liquid nitrogen needing a certain amount of space to keep it chilled. It is really big though," Piper replied giggling with her arm hooked into Alex's.
"I can't take this to work with me, the guys will never let me hear the end of it. I'm gonna just take the rest of the day, see you tonight?" Piper pecked her cheek and said yes with a look of adoration in her eyes and parted, descending down the subway steps.
Piper came home to the smell of marinara sauce. She floated into the kitchen while Alex managed several pots on the stove and handed her a glass of red wine and a small kiss. "Maybe I shouldn't," she handed the glass back to Alex.
"Pipes it's fine, one glass of wine isn't going to do anything... or maybe it will, lightweight."
Piper pursed her lips and swirled the contents in her glass; she took a sip of her wine and retreated into their living room. Alex brought their plates in and set them on the coffee table while Piper held her glass and looked around the room, "you know we really should get a dining room table. That's something I want our baby to grow up with, tableside family dinners."
Alex looked around and nodded.
Piper chewed on her rigatoni, "aren't you going to eat?"
Alex looked up, dazed, two glasses of wine gone from while she cooked and her brain was now swirling with the directions for their insemination that she had read through so many times. She ate some pasta with Piper's encouragement and brought her blonde to their bedroom.
Piper undressed while Alex lit a few candles around their room. She bent down near the side of the bed and opened the canister, a mist escaped and she couldn't help but laugh.
"I'm sorry, I was trying to make this as normal as possible but this just isn't romantic."
Piper crawled over to the edge wearing only a shirt and bra, and looked over the edge and saw the white vapor that Alex released from the container. Alex slid the straws containing the sperm on their bed and then got up and got a plastic bag, a towel, the syringe, a scissor, and lubricant. Piper laid on her back while Alex sat uncomfortably upright looking at the sperm straws on their bed as if they were as out of place as a drag queen cat-walking down an Oklahoma country road.
"I can't tell if you're nauseated or terrified, stop staring at the sperm."
"How are you so relaxed?"
"I've been ready for this for a long time Al."
"Yeah but is this how you imagined it?"
A close lipped, wide smile, slowly crossed Piper's mouth; she tilted her head to the side and grabbed Alex's tense hand.
"Yeah it is...well, not always but when I knew I wanted to spend my life with you, yes. I knew I'd always want kids but I never knew if you'd really want them too, and I'd hoped to be able to have my own baby, biologically, so when I'd said yes to marrying you, I knew this is how it would be... if you decided you wanted one too."
"I thought it would be put in in an office somewhere, I didn't think we could do this at home."
"I'm relaxed because it's you, in our bed, in our home. It's romantic enough," she reassured the brunette. She contemplated if this was the first time she had to give the brunette words of encouragement in the bedroom. She smiled inwardly and gently pressed on, "do you think they're thawed?." she asked rocked her head towards their liquid gold.
Alex's hand relaxed in Piper's and traced her finger over the straws looking at them differently now, "yeah, they're not cold anymore."
"Okay, great. You feel like you know what you're doing?"
Alex confidently nodded her head. She cut the straws, and drew up the contents in the syringe. She squeezed some of the lubricant onto her fingers.
"I don't need it," Piper stated, "I'm always ready, believe me."
"I...I don't want to hurt you," Alex replied, she'd never been so nervous to touch this woman in her life.
"You're not going to hurt me, just relax," she grabbed a pillow and shoved it under her hips. "The lubricant can supposedly help, but I'm good, really, just do it."
Alex wiped her hand on the towel. She nudged Piper's knee open and kissed her center softly once and sat back up. She touched her wife gently and inserted the sperm. She brought her body up over Piper's and kissed her neck over and over until Piper couldn't resist the urge to touch herself. Alex replaced her hand and rubbed her in circles until she felt her wife arch her back and let out a primal moan. Her breathing slowed and Piper kissed Alex's full, soft lips. Alex kneed across the sheets and scooped everything off of the bed, "sorry this needs to not be here anymore, it's driving me crazy."
Piper laid with her hips propped up while Alex cleaned up. She heard the faucet turn on from the main bathroom as she imagined Alex scrubbing her hands and chuckled. She returned to the room shortly after and laid down next to Piper; she cracked Piper's book open and read aloud after Piper said her angle was too awkward to read it on her own. Distracting herself with the written words, Alex read for over an hour, not knowing when Piper fell asleep. She turned off their light, but her eyes remained open at the thoughts of everything that had gone on that day. She got up and went into their bathroom, peed, brushed her teeth and bent down to get the mouthwash from underneath the sink, stopping to eye all the fertility products in the basket under the sink. Never in her life had she bought any of these things that most women do at some point in their lives, it looked so alien in her own home. She read the back of the different pregnancy test boxes, one advertised detecting pregnancy five days before a missed period. She shut off the light after replacing the box into the basket, and walked out of their bedroom, pulling the door closed behind her. She walked into their home office, pulled the push pin off the cork board and sat on the floor with the calendar in her lap. She glanced over the pages and she was about to count out days so she could figure out how early Piper could take her pregnancy test when she noticed all the different colored dots on the pages: period dots, ovulation dots, pregnancy test dots; she shook her head, humbled, "beat me to it." It was no secret that they were both obsessive compulsive in their own respects and Alex silently laughed, she should've known the blonde would've added the ovulation and pregnancy dots to their calendar.
Two weeks had gone by, Alex had been busy at work with plans for a building requiring updated construction. Laundry had piled up and there was no food in the house. They planned on going to the market together later that evening. Music played throughout the car as they were driving to the market, Piper squeezed Alex's knee, "I'm not pregnant."
Alex's eyes slowly left the road and glanced toward Piper. She had completely forgotten amount timing the test. Alex started thinking about having to go through all of the steps again, when she redirected her attention back to Piper, the blonde's eyes were in her lap.
"Hey it was just the first time," she grasped the blonde's hand and kissed it, "it might take some time."
"I know that, I just got caught in the moment I guess, hoping it would stick the first time," she breathed deeply, "I feel sad." It was so simply stated, but Alex's heart broke at her words, she wished she could just make it happen. She pulled the car over to the side of the road, she could see the tears slowly dripping down Piper's cheeks and onto her jeans as she cried silently. Alex eyes welled up as she undid her seat belt and turned all the way to Piper. She held both of her hands in her own and kissed her.
"I feel sad too," she stated and Piper looked up at her, "it's going to happen though, just give it more time." She cupped Pipers face with her hands and wiped her tears with her thumbs. "This is supposed to be a happy time in our lives, don't stress and feel let down, it's going to happen when it's supposed to, like everything else. You're meant to be a mother."
Piper leaned over and put her head on Alex's shoulder. She knew her wife was right but it still hurt and she cursed herself at her innocence and magical thinking, believing that this would happen on the first try.
Six months later, Piper woke up alone in the bed, the water from the shower audible through the bathroom door in their bedroom. She got up and quietly walked into the bathroom. Alex was singing Beyonce's "End of Time" while stomping out the beat in the shower. The steam from the hot water coated the bathroom mirror, Piper crouched down and quietly tore through the foil of her pregnancy test and tried to quietly pee over the stick. As much as she tried to be positive and strong, months after months of negative tests was disheartening and broke her spirit each and every time. Regardless, each time she silently prayed while she peed, bargaining with the omnipotent beings above. She shut the lid of the toilet, but didn't flush. She placed the test on the edge of the sink beside Alex's blaring phone and sat on the toilet lid, she leaned back against the wall and counted to Mississippi one hundred and eighty times. She tiptoed over to the test and almost screamed when she saw the faintest pink line. Her vision blurred with wetness, her shoulders shook as she cried.
"All up in the kitchen in my heels, dinner time," Alex sang along with Beyonce to a new song, Piper covered her mouth holding back delirious laughter. Getting clean always made Piper happy, but after being deprived of a proper cleansing routine for all those years-long hot showers, complete with an intact, clean curtain and full on shampoo microphone sing a longs- were a guilty pleasure that neither of them took for granted anymore.
She looked up blinking quickly over and over, she opened her mouth and tried to exhale quietly, controlling her breathing. Over the last 6 months she thought of so many cute ways she'd want to tell Alex, but now she couldn't think clearly, she needed to tell her now. She placed the test behind the faucet, wrote "look down" with an arrow on the mirror and stepped out of the bathroom. The cool air on the other side of the door was welcomed as she put her hands on her knees and leaned over. She couldn't believe it. She ran into the office and moved her finger over the calendar, her eyes furiously looking over the dates that blurred through her still wet eyes. She stopped on the date of her last period and smiled. She went back to the bedroom and paced around the room until she heard the water stop, she froze. The sixty seconds that it took Alex to step out the shower and dry off seemed like hours, "what the hell is she doing in there?!," Piper thought to herself.
"Me and my boo, in my boo coupe ridin," she heard her singing suddenly halt, "OH MY GOD!" she heard her yell from behind the door.
The doorknob moved around, she heard Alex curse unable to open it with wet hands and then she appeared in the doorway holding the pregnancy test and her towel falling down, barely being held up with the other hand. She held herself together for about a tenth of a second after seeing all of Piper's teeth including her molars through the most beautiful smile as she continued to cry and flung herself into her arms.