The screeching noise wakes Alex out of her might-as-well-be coma slumber.
She can't be angry for long upon hearing that airy, light voice that she has associated with the words 'darling' and heart', that has made her breathing catch in the back of her throat since day one. The brunette breaks into a coughing fit immediately and Piper's giggling flows through the phone.
"Are you okay? Is this a bad time?" She can practically hear the slightly present laugh in her voice.
"Yes, no, I just - I just woke up," Alex laughs breathlessly, happy, "how are you this awake right now?"
"Al, it's one in the afternoon! Of course I'm awake! Why aren't you?"
"What else do I have to do? You're not home and the house is clean. Come dirty something. I miss you." The last three words stumble out of her mouth before she can catch herself and she inwardly cringes. Alex has never been one for being open and clingy towards anyone in relationships, instead of 'I miss you' it's usually 'I have to go' but with Piper, it makes sense that it would come out of her mouth without thinking.
Despite the inner argumentative battle in her head, she manages to catch "god, I wish I were back at home with you. I miss you so much it makes me cranky" which sends her thoughts to static and all she can think about is how irrevocably in love she is with Piper Chapman.
"Al, you've had my heart for years."
Alex hums and her smile melts into the sheets.
They thought that the phone call from Alex's company stating she had to leave everything and move to the other side of the country to keep her job was the most difficult process they had to work through.
Piper stays in the city, tells Alex they could make it work ("we've dealt with worse, we can deal with this"), she sends updates on the strange neighbor across the street ("Al, she's eating a strawberry the size of a watermelon! With the top on! That can't be right, right? Is that a thing?") and they remind each other daily that it will all work out (we'll come back, we'll come back, I'll make you coffee and tea and kiss you in the morning and we'll come back) (oh no).
When work calls them away from the other, their time becomes more limited each day, going from four phone calls a day to a few texts before bed to one phone call on a Thursday before emptiness settled in.
Alex unlocks the door and her cat Cherie goes through her legs, rubbing against them and purring. She checks her phone for the 70th time today, expecting something from Piper. Anything.
(You are going to break your promise, I understand) (I hold my hands over the ears of my heart, so that I will not hate you) (oh god).
The last time they talked, they fought for what seemed like the millionth time but probably only their fourth about how Alex isn't trying hard enough and Piper seems too quick to push.
"Work has been fucking hectic, Alex. I can't always drop everything to send a text. You can't expect me to. When we're not so busy, we will figure it out. I promise." Piper hastily speaks into the phone, noticeably frustrated and undeniably sad.
"I don't expect you to drop anything. I don't expect anything out of you, I, fuck, I at least want to know I somewhat still exist in your life. Like, do you even understand how much you're fucking hurting me, Piper? Any chance we get time together, this is all it is. It's fight after fight. You're pushing me away. Do you want me to leave?"
"Al, stop…" Piper breathes heavy, wet into the phone.
"Tell me this is what you want. Tell me you want me to walk away, Piper." Alex's face was streaming with hot tears and her hand has been balled into a sweaty fist the whole conversation, knuckles burning white. (I won't blame you.) "Tell me you're never going to get on the plane. If you want me to walk away, tell me you won't." Her voice doesn't sound like her own anymore. (I won't blame you.)
"Alex, baby, I am so sorry." The empty dial tone after the last syllable cut worse than if Piper just slashed her chest down the middle.
(Sometimes I wonder why words can't actually make us bleed.)
Alex dreams of Piper in a green dress, they kiss with more passion, hold each other tighter forming bruises on the skin, it didn't feel poisonous, and when Piper starts crying (she does this in every single dream), Alex dried off her baby blue eyes and holds her even closer when Piper wraps her small form around her.
The silence is tangible and they stare at each other using fingertips to trace over the other's knuckles soft and steady, she wants to bottle up this Piper and keep the jar above her mantle and never forget.
Piper smiles up at her with her sleep hazy cold eyes, "we gotta live the best way we know how," and when Alex wakes up, she can't stop shivering.
When weeks turned into seven solid months of no contact, 12 conquests, 3 malice-tinged sent voicemails to Piper that still smelt like cheap Bourbon and iron ("You're a fucking coward, Piper Chapman. You broke my heart, god, you were my heart."), and a growing list of things she regrets, the thoughts still ring in the back of her head like a mantra but softer than it used to be. A quiet dull numbness you want forever but can't admit it.
(You're only a painful dial tone but I never thought I'd have to remember not to say I miss you.)
Now Alex is on the phone and Piper is on the phone, both of them are on the phone with other people. The years between them never once preparing them for sleeping with other people, never imagining they would be in this position.
Alex, reading the books Piper loved, writing out lists when shopping because Piper said that it's better to be prepared, Piper singing, Piper laughing, Piper holding her hand and blushing and staring at Alex like she was something worth dying for.
Alex breaks up with her girlfriend of five weeks because she smelled too much like Piper. She was sweet, kissed her in grocery stores and Central Park and in front of her parents without worrying if people are watching.
"We should explore the road together. We could be in control of our own destiny. Would you like that, baby?" The woman purrs as they lay on the back of Alex's car together in a drive in.
Alex thinks to herself, yeah, I'd like that. I'd like that if you were someone else. Someone with lighter hair, and bluer eyes and skin reminiscent to the sun.
She hates herself for thinking it, but the thoughts groan more. Kissing someone else's lips felt wrong, it was too awkward and forced and could never be that subtle bliss without that smile attached to that face attached to that person who still manages to crawl under her skin and has she ever really not been under Alex's skin?
(You're never going to get that again and that's why your regret looks like artwork that would have been a masterpiece if you'd finished it.)
(How are other people making it through life? Where do they put their body, hour by hour, and how do they cope inside of it?)
Upon hearing from one of Piper's friends that she found someone new, someone helping to carry the Chapman lifestyle that she seems so fucking happy to acquire now than she ever was, Alex feels stuck in a wormhole of dark.
(What a fool I was, to face the abyss and think I wouldn't fall in).
(I'd like to have become a person who actually deserved to be with someone like you.)
If this wasn't a conversation in a crowded coffee shop, Alex would have punched her bare fist into the glass panel of the shop repeatedly hoping the burn would stop the ache in the pit of her stomach, but this wasn't the place so Alex told her to send her congratulations, threw away her full coffee and managed to make it to an alleyway a block down the road before vomiting everything she had left.
They meet again in the middle this time, Nebraska of all places.
A shitty party, the air is hot and clothes are sticking to skin and everything tastes like saltwater.
Alex was up to her knees in flat beer and whiskey shots and smoking joints next to the pool. Piper walked out of the house, hair a bleached blond mess of waves and what looked pretty close to the same tribal tattoo on her left forearm and Alex has to make a double take and freezes to the spot.
Piper notices and freezes too, the estranged lovers watching each other from across the yard like timid creatures, scared one more step to bring them closer would mean apocalyptic warfare and tanks exploding.
Piper used to be too nervous to make any first moves, but she was making the way over to Alex, determined although the blue in her eyes is brighter, wetter, terrified.
When she's a foot away, Alex stands up with no hesitation or waste of time, they grab each other in a hug, everything prior to this forgotten because the sharp shock they receive upon touching for the first time in five years hits them and their bodies are asking each other why they ever stopped doing this, how they could ever want to.
The party gets significantly less shitty, Piper fails at teaching Alex how to properly swim but she does give her dry socks and warm soda and Alex tells Piper conspiracy stories and they banter and lock hands, pushing hair behind Piper's ear and smiling.
It's less awkward and tentative.
Piper tears the knot from her hair, they run bareless through the grass with stomachs full of lemonade and vodka, sweat pooling at the back of their knees and when Alex kisses Piper for their second first time, she tastes like chocolate frosting and berries and they whisper how good this feels on each other's necks and in hushed kisses on the trampoline after numerous falls.
(Did I say that that there was a madow in my stomach? Did I tell you that you are every flower inside of it?)
Piper tells Alex that she had finally come out to her parents last year, in the safety of another town and they told her they didn't want her to shame the family more than she already has.
She speaks the story in a steady voice, eyes glancing up and then back down towards her sleeves, when she tells Alex she has gotten over it because if they really love her, they'll come around someday, she stares at her with an unverwavering oceanic view and she can tell that she means it.
Alex makes sure to remind her every day that she'll still always be proud of her.
Piper dyes Alex's hair blue and they get tattoos of a Led Zeppelin album cover because they saw it performed live when they were in high school and could still shout the lyrics even if they were two bottles in and full of ecstacy.
Piper is usually never at her own house anymore, always staying the night with Alex underneath her satin sheets and wrapped in the warmth of her girlfriend's arms and ever so fluffy Cherie tucked by their side.
(It's Wednesday, and I will wake up tomorrow on Thursday and we will do this all again.)
"...forgive me Darling, for every word I say - my heart is full of you, none other than you in my thoughts, yet when I seek to say to you something not for the world, words fail me. If you were here - and Oh that you were, we need not talk at all, our eyes would whisper for us, and your hand fast in mine, we would not ask for language-"