Hi everyone!
So, since I have finished with the fourth season, and there are a few things that I haven't particularly liked about it, I decided to add a moment - some sort of real confrontation - that I felt it lacked between Vauseman before they could make up. Don't get me wrong, generally, the season was okay, there are lots of scenes I have enjoyed, but, since before I could even start it people oversold it to me, I was left inevitably a bit disappointed by a few things.
The way Vauseman made up was... fine, I guess, but not how I pictured it, and I expected that big fat revelation when it would have come to be much more emotional and for Alex to take much more time before forgiving Piper this time. I mean, we all know that when it comes to Piper, Alex would forgive her pretty much anything, but I was hoping this time would have been different.
I wasn't so okay for Alex to forgive her so easily (even though that re-branding scene was simply stunning). And I would have liked if there had been a slightly wider window during which Piper actually tried to gain back some of Alex's trust. She has fucked up really bad after all. And it would have been nice of her showing to Alex that she was actually there this time for her, but I, at least, felt a bit deprived of that. So I came up with this little something.
I don't know and I wouldn't be surprised if someone who has felt about their maybe-too-quick "reconciliation" (and Alex's lack of PTSD moments - which would have been so interesting) as I have, has already written something like this, but here's my attempt anyway.
It's a scene that could fit after the revelation in the corn, but before the re-branding in the kitchen. So let's pretend that there are like a couple of days between those two events, all right? :)
Now, enough of my rambling :P I'll leave you guys to the chapter.
Oh, by the way, I'm keeping this story open for now, just in case I want to add a few other scenes or, if you have a request you would like to send me and for me to write about season four.
Also, I'm trying the whole third person POV thing :)
Enjoy
She barely makes it in time.
Dropping onto her knees in front of the toilet as soon as she slams the door of the stall open, emptying her stomach from what little she has managed to force down of the revolting excuse of pigswill that they have passed as dinner tonight.
The traces of the nightmare still cling to her consciousness, sharp like claws that pierce through the veil keeping apart the wakeful world from the one of the dreams, tearing down at that thin layer of whatever is left of her mental sanity and making her guilt, thick, dark, dense and sticky tar-like, bleed through the wider fissures.
A pleading cracked whisper for help echoes in her head.
The weak struggle under her hands makes her palms sweaty, but she still fights it, more forcefully than necessary.
And then...
Nothing.
The resistance is gone.
The head lolls limply on the side as the lifeless gaze of who once was her friend stares into nothingness.
Her stomach heaves again.
Tears leak from the corners of her eyes as beads of cold sweat break on her forehead and on the back of her neck, running down her spine as icy shivers.
Under the buzzing noise of the nighttime lights annoyingly flickering on and off, the sound of steps reaches her when her stomach gives her a merciful break between one retch and another, and she rolls her eyes, drunkenly, waiting for the inevitable reprimand or whatever from the CO that has followed her.
She's way too drained and breathless to get sassy and say something like, "What? Was I supposed to puke on the dorm's floor?"
The last thing she expects to feel, however, in the moment her stomach stirs for what she hopes is the last time considering she has nothing left, is the soft touch of a hand on her back as someone crouches down beside her.
She's too weakened to freak out, but she still startles at the touch when a second hand pushes the hair back from her face.
"It's okay," Piper's voice, as soft and calm and reassuring as her hands are, comforts her.
"I got you."
And Alex just wants to laugh then, hysterically.
She doesn't, but when she speaks, behind the fake sweetness in her voice, the words are filled with the same bitterness and sourness of the taste of her own bile filling her mouth.
"It's so nice to know you got my back now, Pipes."
The hand rubbing circles on her back falters, but resumes almost immediately, so quickly that Alex can pretend she didn't miss the soothing motion for that half second, or that despite the meaning of that statement she didn't still feel a twinge of guilt when she felt Piper stiffen next to her at those words.
Whatever. She thinks. Focusing her efforts in regaining her breathing, waiting until the images in her head start to lose their vicious intermittent assault, until she feels confident that her stomach has calmed down and isn't going to roil unexpectedly at the last moment.
"Do you need to go again?"
With her eyes still closed, her voice stuck in her burning throat and her body barely holding itself upright in its knelt position, a minute head shake is the only answer that Alex is able to deliver this time, but it's more than enough. Piper moves from her side, reaching up to flush the toilet before encouraging her to stand.
"Come on." She whispers, and Alex is too weak to fight off the warm gentle grip on her waist and elbow when the blonde helps her up from the floor.
Getting out from the stall helps her breathe a little more easily. The air is still acrid with the unmistakable stench of vomit, but at least it's not so strong in front of the sinks.
She turns on the tap and lets the water run as cold as it can get before rinsing her mouth and washing her face.
It helps a little, but never enough.
Clear pearls of water slide down her cheeks, dripping from her chin and falling mutely in the sink as she braces herself there with a heavy exhale, head deliberately ducked to not catch a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She can barely recognize herself these days anyway. And maybe it's better that way.
It's only when a towel appears in her line of vision that she looks up and to her side, where Piper is a quiet, distressed presence, one arm outstretched offering the scratchy towel, the other tucked protectively against her chest, like a broken, freshly branded wing.
She doesn't look much different than how Alex feels.
Dark circles shadow her eyes, cheeks hollow and gaunt, and her skin is pale despite the heavy work outside under the unforgiving sun.
After a moment of hesitation, Alex takes the towel and deliberately turns to face the mirror. Because anything is better than look into those eyes, usually a blue that can change from a bright teal and cover all the shades of the clearest summer sky, now turned a flint grey-ish with concern. Even the reflection of the stranger staring back at her.
"How's your arm?"
The question is asked with the hope to avoid the whole "why she followed her here" thing, and with an edge of something that sounds like indifference as she dries her face, not so different from the one she felt when she first saw that horrid, angry, bleeding brand the first time.
But she doesn't feel guilty about that. Piper said it herself, over and over, that it was her own fault.
The silence stretches for a few long moments, each second punctuated by the tap leaking drops into the sink, and when Piper realizes that she has no intention to glance back at her, the blonde releases a defeated silent sigh.
"Throbbing." She admits, barely above a whisper, sounding embarrassed, ashamed even, rightfully so, and for more than one reason. And yet, those concerned blue eyes still won't leave the side of her face. Alex can tell because she can feel the heat of that gaze starting to scald her skin.
"Do you want to talk?" The tentativeness in Piper's voice quiets some of the rising annoyance for that intense - although probably unintentional - staring, but she still shakes her head with a firm "No."
Another sigh.
"Alex-"
The insistence, however, is too much.
Alex spins around, throwing the towel in the sink.
"I'm fine."
It's not exactly a snap, but it's definitely not gentle, and neither is the icy gaze that accompanies that sharp answer.
"This is the only time I puked today so I guess that's progress."
Piper winces ever so slightly, not with disgust, but with the same concern and compassion that is making Alex feel sick all over again. She really can't tolerate carrying the weight of another person's guilt. Her shoulders feel heavy enough right now. Pushing her further down into her own seemingly bottomless pit of misery, making any attempt to grip onto something and crawl her way up again futile.
But that harshness isn't enough to stop Piper and have her to back off.
It's quite the contrary in fact, and Alex should have know better, cursing internally when Piper takes a step closer and then softly with those big, blue worried eyes of hers, she asks, "Tell me what can I do."
What can I do...
Piper realizes what she actually said in the moment the words leave her lips, eyes closing tightly, features shaped in a wince as Alex's entire body stiffens.
The words feel like an old ugly wound getting torn open all over again. The memory of it being first inflicted pulsing like betrayal, like a barbed wire being wrapped around her heart.
It makes her nauseous all over again, but most of all, it raises an anger she didn't know was left in her.
This time she does laugh. A brief, awful, raspy bark of a humorless chuckle that makes Piper flinch.
"I'm sorry. I didn't-"
But Alex interrupts her before she can explain.
"Last time you asked me that, you abandoned me." She says it as if Piper has forgotten, but she hasn't, doesn't matter how far down she has pushed that guilt over the years, deluded herself that she didn't feel its spiked edges poking at her insides, now is all tumbling down to her with a vengeance after the latest events and discoveries.
"Every time I really needed you, you were never there." Alex rightfully accuses, and the truth in there gives those words even more bite, but Piper refuses to hiss each time a fang pierces through her skin like that.
Alex wants to take it out on her?
Fine.
She'll take it.
She lifts her chin and tightens her jaw with a determination that burns brighter than her consuming shame.
"You are right." She admits, swallowing down tears. "But I'm here now and I'm not going anywhere. I don't care how much you'll fight me off or how many times I'll have to tell you how sorry I am."
Alex scoffs.
"Why? So you can feel better?" She guesses and then she smiles, a cold and twisted smile that looks so ugly and wrong, so foreign on her features that Piper wavers and... looks away.
"I could have been dead for two months, you know." She says, laughing, and at that Piper's gaze snaps back to hers, so harsh and scorching that it could pulverize and melt stone.
"Don't. Say that." She grits out, trying to mask the sudden shakiness that has taken hostage her voice and the rest of her body at such an unbearable thought with a harder gaze.
But Alex doesn't listen to her, and is completely unaffected by that look.
No... instead, she just stabs deeper and twists the knife when she leans in closer and with the same contorted smile hisses her next words.
"Maybe then you would have given a shit about me."
The slap is actually a relief when it comes, is Alex's surprising first thought.
It makes her eyes water even though it is more noise than pain, but the sharpness of that smack and that little pain that Alex feels radiating and then pulsing subtly on her cheek is so oddly welcomed.
She is actually grateful. Because it succeeds in snapping her back onto herself in a way the cold water couldn't completely wake her up a few minutes ago, grounding her in the real waking world for the first time after that nightmare.
Piper's eyes glisten with a mix of anger and bone-chilling, stomach-twisting, soul-wreaking fear that has her trembling all over and make her voice crack when she speaks, even if nothing can take away the solemnity from her tone.
"I'm never, ever going to forgive myself for not listening to you, for not being there for you when you needed me, but I'm here now, Alex." She repeats, serious and earnest, before her eyes soften and sadden all at once. "I'm here. So please," She's begging now, drawing in a shaky breath that catches in her throat. "Please let me help you."
Maybe it's the lack of sleep, the contrasting sickness and hunger in her stomach, the general exhaustion, Piper's words, the deadly certainty and sworn sacred promise that she holds in them and in her unwavering, pleading gaze, but suddenly, Alex is utterly unable to prevent a strangled sob to slip past her lips and the tears that she has been fighting back with all her might from welling up in her eyes and finally fall down her cheeks.
"I don't think I deserve to be helped." She chokes out, crying, and the words seem to take what little strength she had left in her bones.
She crumbles, unable to hold herself up anymore as sobs wrack her body.
Piper catches her before she can collapse on the floor, cradling her against her own chest and rocking her like a child, shushing her gently, murmuring soft words in her ear that only make Alex cry harder.
"I'm here," Piper reassures. "I swear I'm not leaving you." She repeats, over and over. "I'll never leave you or hurt you again."
Eventually she starts crying, too. Soft, quiet sniffles that go lost among Alex's bigger heavier sobs. But that's okay, she can keep her pain inside and she can take more of Alex's.
She lets her cry until she has nothing left, until she has no more tears, until her body doesn't shake anymore, until she can breathe without struggling.
She holds her until Alex pulls back, looking wrecked, exhausted, but also... better, in a way, even if slightly self-conscious now that it's over, although not so much that she feels the need to pull away when Piper smooths out the hair from her face or wipes away the last half-dried tears that cling to her cheeks.
Once Alex is able to stand on her legs again, she guides her outside the bathroom and down the hallway, all the way to the dorms.
. . .
"You going to be okay for the night?" She asks quietly once reached Alex's bunk, because everyone around is fast asleep, even the guard in the bubble, thankfully.
"Yeah," Alex answers, shifting her gaze around a bit awkwardly, wrapping her arms around herself and looking like she is pretending that she didn't just cry herself out on her shoulder, staining her shirt with a mix of tears and snot.
"Okay," Piper says, and for the first time tonight she doesn't argue, and it is only when she pulls back with the intention to leave that Alex seems to snap back from her haze and, so softly that it surprises her, asks her to wait.
Piper turns around and blue eyes pierce the darkness to lock gently with hers.
"Uh... Thanks." It's all that Alex manages to say eventually, and it's sincere even if mumbled softly and in a rush, but Piper still hears it. She doesn't say anything about it, even though she looks like she wants to, in the end however she just nods with a faint smile on her lips before retreating.
Alex stays there, a bit stuck, until she sees Piper climb up her bed, and then she sighs before slipping onto her own, curling on her side, facing the wall and giving in to the heaviness of her eyelids just after a few minutes of lying down.
Sleep comes so much easier after the turmoil of emotions, but she is just grateful that for once it is dreamless, and most of all, after what seems to be like the first time in months, surprisingly restful.
. . .
It is the next day, when she returns to her bunk after taking the shower, that she feels something underneath her pillow when she distractedly sits down right beside it to lace her boots.
Her eyebrows knit together as she reaches under it where, sure enough, there is what turns out being a tube of vitamins - some supplement of sorts she had no idea they sold at the commissary - and a handful of bags of a lemon ginger tea blend used to soothe nausea and stomach ache.
She straightens up on instinct and, just like that, maybe on coincidence or maybe not, her eyes land immediately on the familiar tall blonde figure that is just getting out from her own bunk across from hers.
And the magnetic pull of that green gaze is so strong that Piper's lifts automatically to meet hers, coming to a halt, brief, but long enough to see the things held in Alex's hands, and for Alex to see the little smile that tugs ever so slightly at her lips, and the softness in her eyes before she turns and resumes walking, before Alex can think about considering calling her say or do anything, just left there once more watching her retreat.
When she is no longer in sight she looks down at the vitamins and tea bags held in her hands, still feeling a bit taken aback, although not exactly surprised by the thoughtful gesture.
Something stirs in her belly, but this time it feels warm and nice and welcoming, soothing and healing. Flickering, even if weakly and cautiously and almost timidly.
But it feels good.
I have to admit, I don't usually write in third person because I don't think of myself as skilled enough to convey emotions as strongly as they are usually more easily perceived with the first or second person, but I still wanted to try :) Maybe I need more practice. Anyway, here it is guys, this little Vauseman-parenthesis. I thought it would have been interesting having them interact in a similar way and, you know, for Piper to actually comfort and reassure Alex.
