Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters.

Dead of Winter

The Beginning of The End

Survival comes first, sentiments later. What are you willing to sacrifice, for ambition, power, love, or to just be a little higher on the food chain?

Ever since recorded time, people have always fought over religion. A reason for too many wars and too many deaths, like death was a sign of conversion and on a cold Christmas night, Piper Chapman was faced with this dilemma. Conversion or death.

"You ain't worthy of God's love. You ain't worthy of nobody's love. So I think it's time...that you die."

She barely registers the words out of the filthy mouth of that psycho hillbilly Jesus freak, Pennsatucky, she'd been out to get her for days. You ain't worth nobody's love. The gash on her arm begins to throb as the anger inside her boils and her heart pumps blood and adrenaline. So many things had gone wrong in so little time. You die.

"Nooo!" A violent hoarse screeching sound exits from her throat.

In two seconds Pennsatucky hit the ground, like a block of bricks falling from the sky and landing on her head. An angel...of death.

… … …

As the singing subsided, Alex tries to slip out of the makeshift theater of Litchfield Penitentiary. An unsettling feeling had come over her as her emerald eyes had caught sight of a familiar blonde head of hair leaving before the end of the nativity and a certain angel of God wasn't singing the Ave Maria with the cast on stage.

"Inmate! Where do you think you're going? You're out of bound." A voice called out before she reached the doors. She turns around to find CO-Bennett and as she was about reply a scratching sound came from the officer's radio.

"All officers...entrance...now." Alex could only make out a few words before a female voice resounded throughout the room, "Inmates please return to your bunks immediately. Count will be in twenty."

"Sir, I saw Chapman come out before the end of the show. I'll just get her incase she didn't get the announcement," she says to the officer. Alex Vause could charm and lie to get her way. "I'll keep her out of trouble officer Bennett," said a familiar voice a few strides away from her. She raises an eyebrow at Nicky as Bennett walks away to attend to the radio call, waiting for some kind of explanation from her crazy maned friend.

"I smell dyke drama," she says and shrugs.

Alex nods in reply, allowing Nicky to follow her. Partly because she wasn't sure she wanted to handle Piper alone, the fear of the possibility of fall back into her merry-go-round, she swore up and down she wouldn't anymore, if they did end up talking. But she couldn't well leave Piper with the meth head bible basher. She wasn't stupid, she knew Tucky was out to get her ex-girlfriend, prison after all, didn't have shit on Twitter. The guilt has built up since she had Nicky's fingers beneath her waistband and turning Piper away. However, unlike the WASPy princess Piper Chapman, Alex was no runner. No, she faced her shit and took pride in it. Life never gave her the time to just sit on her butt blaming others when her life sucked. So here she was facing her problem behind those metal double doors.

… … …

All she could see was red, as her knuckles broke skin and bone. Only when she was falling backwards did she realize a pair of arms wrapped around her middle and a hand pushing her back from the punching bag she was turning Tucky into.

"Jesus Christ, Piper! Shit," a raspy voice from behind her. Unmistakable. Alex.

"Holy shit, Chapman…" Nicky says, as she tries to assess Pennsatucky. Suddenly, the rush of memories hit you and the reality of you actions sink in.

"Fuck. Is she okay?! Is she breathing?" They could charge her with manslaughter for this. Move her to SHU for months. Or worse max.

"She's unconscious but alive," says Nicky as she checks the pulse and breathing, "but shit, whatever teeth she had left, well they're gone now. What the hell happened?"

"Nicky we can chitchat about this later, need to get her inside, winter's weather isn't a good place to sleep," Alex cuts in on Nicky. She then proceeds to check Piper, quickly assessing the bleeding gash on her hand, "and we need to stitch this up."

Looking down on Piper's hand, Alex spots the shiv used to injure her and a screwdriver with some blood on the snow around it. Enough to tell the story. She quickly picks up the screwdriver and faces Piper.

"Alex, I-I didn't…" but before Piper can finish, Alex cuts in, "Save it, Pipes. Take this with you and do not let anyone see you with it. Self-defence, that shiv has Tucky's prints on it."

Piper simply nods weakly,feeling the adrenaline flush out of bloodstream. She's trembling a little now, from the cold air of winter or the broken feeling she has inside for that outburst or what caused it, why she just couldn't stop, she didn't know. But Alex wraps her hands around her fingers, as the prison sirens sound, a clear sign it was time to go back inside for count. Maybe she's averted this crisis and Alex is right about self-defence but that wasn't what they needed to think about because none of them could have prepared for what was to come…

On this night in the dead of winter.

The siren goes off as they return to open the metal doors.

… … …

Piper could feel the warmth spread through her skin as Alex held her uninjured hand, the gush of winter air had become increasingly cold in the night. The prison alarm ringing away had prompted them to hurry inside, Nicky and Alex on either sides of Pennsatucky, Piper closely behind Alex. A strange eerie feeling had befallen them as they quickly walked through the hall to the dorms hoping to find a CO they could report to and tend to the wounds.

They looked at each other in confusion as they arrived to an empty dorm room. "Count should be in five minutes, where the fuck is everyone?" says Nicky as they laid Pennsatucky on her bed and wonder if this had anything to do with the siren going off.

Like an omen a group inmates come rushing into the dorm. Something was wrong, there was a look of shock in the girls faces as they walked, in a rushed manner in complete silence. Lorna Morello, who was in high alert looking out to find Nicky, arrived first and hugs her tightly, a slight panic sinking in.

"Morello, what the fuck's going on? Where did you come from and where are the COs?"

"They're gone, Nic…" Lorna could not finish before her eyes widen in a look of realization as she sees Piper and the bloody mess on her wrist. "Chapman...where did you get that? Oh my god. Are you one of them?" Heads turned to Piper as the group of women now stood behind Lorna. Fear and suspicion etched in their faces.

"What are you talking about? Who are they?" asks Alex as she steps in front of Piper, a little protectively.

"No, child. It is a cut wound," a voice thick with russian accent from the crowd slowly steps forward, looking to have a better view of Piper's wrist, "this may need stitches."

"The meth head attacked her with a shiv claiming to be the angel of god," explained Nicky.

"She is the angel of god," says someone from the group. Nicky and the woman proceeds to argue about the 'meth head crazy Jesus freak/messenger of god'.

"Shut up, you, go and have your little bible study in your little meth head leader's cube. Nicky get a gauze from my bunk and tend to Chapman," commanded Red. Nicky and the woman grunting but doing what they were told.

"Red, can someone please explain to us what the fuck is going on?" Alex speaks up, annoyed at the confusing situation they had landed themselves and no one explaining.

"Zombies Vause. Killed all the COs who tried to fight them off outside."

"Red stop kidding me. That's a one-way ticket to psych and we were just out there."

"You were out? Which door? Did you lock it?"

"Why does it matter if we did? There's nothing there, other that meth head's shiv. Piper can testify. In fact we can go over there to prove it to you." Piper nodded even though she was exhausted, unwilling to part with Alex. The peculiarity of the circumstances prompting her to stick by her side. Alex might have been a ruthless pragmatist but she was reliable in most situations.

… … …

Alex had felt shock and confusion at the genuinely suspicious and apprehensive faces of the crowd of inmates as they looked at the gash on Piper's arm. Alex was naturally a skeptic, she didn't believe in ghosts or spirits. Whatever religion was selling, she wasn't buying. She was, however, a good judge of character. She could smell bullshit a mile awayand they didn't look like they were giving any.

Red had given her an opportunity. In fear of another threat to Piper's life, of what she initially thought was some sort of deadly infection going around, she could prove Piper didn't have it by going outside and showing them the was her ex-girlfriend, broke her heart twice, but she didn't ex-love her, much as she tried her best.

Now as she was walking through the same corridors less than ten minutes ago. What the fuck were they thinking? Zombies? Who believes in that shit. Her hand on Piper's and Red following closely behind, Nicky and Lorna behind her, as they neared the metal double doors to the outside. "See there's nothing to worry ab…" she cuts off as her hands open the door to a bloody decay of gore in a human mold smiles at her and her eyes widen in disbelief.

"Vause!"

But she's stuned into inactivity, her mind unable to catch up. With a little jump the undead reaches for her neck with its teeth.

In that split second she hears her name, "Alex!"

Piper flashes before her eyes. Screwdriver in both hands with grey matter now at the end of it. Piper falls backwards, putting too much strength into pulling the screwdriver out of zombie inards.

The adrenaline finally kicks in and Alex quickly kicks the zombie out the door, closes and locks it. She turns towards Piper, still on the floor and breathing heavily. She mutters a quiet Fuck me as she grabs Piper's arms to get her up and squeezes her tight, one hand on Piper's back and the other stroking her hair. Piper hugs her back, thankful for just having both of them alive.

A/N: Hi, so I haven't done this in awhile and I was never that good at it in the first place, thus your input would really be helpful. I haven't decided how I'm gonna proceed (if I will proceed even), if I go with different scenarios per chapter or just go with one long plot. This first one is just to establish a premise and give me enough leeway for chapter 2. Let me know what you thought.