I lied. I'm giving this another chapter. From Alex's point of view, this time around.

….

Despite how much you want to, you are incapable of shaking yourself out of this. You wish it would ease, wear off, just fucking leave you alone. But it doesn't. You feel misplaced and awkward on your feet; horribly off-track.

Perhaps part of that is to be expected. You did just land yourself back in prison. It's still a shock. A familiar shock – one you expect and greet with a wrangled, fickle nostalgia for the place, the people, and even the sound of boots knocking against metal bedframes. But you can't seem to adapt or adjust, and no matter what position you shift yourself into – you can't get used to anything.

It's strange, because honestly, before Chicago - before Piper took her fist to a meth head that really wasn't worth it - when just for a fragile movement in time, things were almost good – you regarded this place as your home.

One with absolutely no privacy and fucked conditions and horrible people you were forced to stay in the same vicinity with. But at least there was no Cartel. No one to disappoint. No real opportunity for you to make it worse.

Or maybe it was because of Piper.

Piper always felt a lot like home.

You follow her blindly, your hand secretly linked to hers as she gently pulls you through the halls that feel colder than they used to. Maybe it's because Piper is leading you differently now. She's not leading you out of desire, or lust, or even blossoming frustration. You always used to get this hot, wonderful fire ignite deep in your gut when she started dragging you to the Chapel. But that's gone, because she's leading you now because you're visibly broken, and your feet barely feel like they will support you.

When Piper shuts the door to the Chapel behind you, you loose your unsteady grip on your resolve, slowly unravelling. You wish this hadn't started now – because you'd much rather do your crying and delving your knuckles into hard surfaces in the hope you can process something – alone. But the prison is full of people, and you're silently glad it's her.

It doesn't change the fact that you are filled with an odd sense of shame when your hands tremble and your eyes unmistakably oversaturate. You've never broken down in front of Piper. You always managed to slip away just in time, so she wouldn't have to see what a mess you really were. How much you fell apart when you'd finally been pushed too far.

It's too visible.

You have to lean against the wall – sink in it really, and your already uneven breath speeds up tenfold. It's all threatening to spill lose, and it's with more than just a punctured ego that you realise you don't have the energy or determination to hold it back. You really can't.

Everything in you seems to slip like tangible liquid out of your hands, and every piece of matter you're made of seems to trickle down onto the scuffed floor of the chapel. Or maybe that's just the steady stream of tears that sting against your bruised cheek.

The words I can't cope with this bleed out from your mouth, sounding muffled and fractured.

Piper comes up behind you, arms tightly pressed against your ribcage, and you wonder if she did that on purpose – to make you slow your breathing. It fills you to the brim with an odd sense of nostalgia that pushes everything else from you mind – you used to do that to her.

Your arms would twist around her, anchoring you close, so she couldn't break away. You were always her point of safety. Even when you had to protect her from herself, and that dreadful, ferocious temper.

But now it's you that needs protecting.

You try to stamp down your breathing – not wanting Piper to hear the way your body tremors. But it quickly falls out of your control, and she clutches at you a little tighter.

"It's okay." Piper breathes into your shirt. "It's okay."

It's so far from the truth.

You're in prison. You're back in prison. Because apparently, just once wasn't enough to learn your lesson. You have built nothing that hasn't been torn down. You'll be dead soon, and you haven't even scratched the earth in significance.

But you feel Piper's breath against your shirt, and you feel her warmth, and her arms that are tighter than they used to be – strengthened with worry and hopelessness and desperation.

And something makes you believe her.

Just for a second. Because your brain kicks in to stamp down your moment of peace, reminding you of how fucked everything is, how fucked you are, and you cry a little harder.

Piper stays quiet, apart from the occasional whisper that filters though. You just focus on how she feels pressed up against you, because it's been so long since the last time. You try to think back to when that was.

Definitely before Chicago. You hardly got to touch her there. So it must've been here – back at Litchfield – before she didn't choose you, and you didn't let her come back. The more you think about it, the more it was probably here. Right here. Hardly a few fractured metres from this very spot.

You think back to the strength you had. You wonder where it went.

Now, you can barely stand without her help. You are weak and hopeless and a lost cause.

You can't be saved.

Piper finds your hand, clasping it in her own as she turns you around and leads you towards the altar. She doesn't say a word. And something about that strikes you as strange – Piper always peppered you with questions. Even when she knew you were suffering. She would tread carefully – make it soft around the edges. But she would always ask.

You wonder if you should be more concerned about that. Because there's something distinctly off about her silence. But you dismiss it a second later, because honestly, it belongs at the bottom of the pile of things that are fucked.

Piper sits down first, gesturing to the space beside her. You follow, and it's a relief not to rely on your shaky legs anymore. Because they always feel a second out from failing you. They've felt like that since your parole officer wedged himself through your door, and the hopes you secretly held on to died behind your eyes.

Suddenly, you feel ridiculously unsure of yourself. You don't know where to place your hands; if you can look at her. If you have the right to anything with her, after that shit you pulled in Chicago.

Although in your defence, you really didn't know.

You are pulled out of your hazy thoughts when Piper presses her palm to your cheek, and you turn to see her eyes clinging not to lose track of your own, illuminated they way they always are when she's scared.

But scared for what, you don't know.

It flickers somewhere dark that it might be you she's scared of. That you've landed yourself back in here because you did something terrible – killed someone, maybe. But if you pulled something like that, surely you would end up in max. But your thoughts diminish, logic leading you to the blackened edge of uncertainty.

"Alex…"

Piper pulls you closer, and you follow blindly without a second thought. You let her reset the parameters; tell you where you stand. You both start afresh, because keeping count of how many times you've fucked each other over feels so goddamn futile.

There is just a moment of realisation you are allowed before Piper kisses you, lips patient and warm against your own, with just the right amount of cautiousness that transfixes you enough to diminish the thought of pulling away. Not that you want to.

For the first time in the long, drawn out weeks since the gun incident, you're glad it wasn't Kubra's assassins that came through the door. Because at least you get this again. At least you get to have it – her – just for a little while, before reality catches up to you, and you end up dead somewhere. You already panic as you go around corners.

You wonder how much time you have left with her. You make a note to make it count.

She pulls away before you do, a small smile hiding in the corner of her mouth. It makes you think about all the times she's done that. In clubs and hotel pools, art galleries and national landmarks. No matter where you went, that smile was your grounding. Your chest aches, and you just hope there weren't too many occasions when you missed out on that smile.

Piper takes your hand, squeezing lightly. You try to stay focused. "Tell me what happened."

And you do. She already knew about the gun, so perhaps it's not unexpected when she doesn't react to the story. But you think back to that visitation, the way she'd leapt forward, voice scaling several inches higher, not quite reprimanding and not quite insistent.

Just pure surprise at you – probably for going and doing something so stupid.

But when you tell her you almost used it on someone, you don't get nearly the same response. She just pulls you down into her lap, threads her fingers through you hair…and doesn't offer up even a single piece of commentary.

It doesn't fit. You start to search for an answer, start watching her closely, looking for a broken circuit you might have overlooked, but you come up empty. Piper and moral guilt went hand in hand. Even when it wasn't her own.

Something's missing, and you know it. You just can't pinpoint what it is yet.

Facts gets tangled up with an onslaught of personal blame – because really, how stupid are you to land back in here. It's literally impossible for you to screw up more royally than what you have now.

Piper just shakes her head, catching tears that escape with her thumb, and you try to let as little fall as possible.

(You're not all that successful).

Piper knows you well enough to know you are not looking to be corrected. Your attacking and taunting and goddamn torturing of yourself isn't done out of self-pity, it's done because you need to punish yourself more.

You need that.

When Piper finally speaks up, she stays well clear of the whole breaking your probation thing. She asks things of comparably no significance. About the apartment in Queens. If you were sleeping. If you were getting yourself out of bed each day. If you had a high enough fruit and vegetable intake.

You're still not over how off it feels – her uncharacteristic it is of her, but it does do a wonderful job of taking your mind off things. Maybe that was her intention.

It helps.

You take a breath, pause for a moment, take in Piper's fingers murmuring through your hair and across your cheek. In all the years you were together, you hardly ever had this. It was always you comforting Piper.

You remember that it's mother's day. Not that it means a lot to you (not anymore, at least), but Piper still has a reason to acknowledge it – coming in the form of a stone-faced mother Piper never failed to wail about for hours following the mothers days you were around for. You ask if she's coming today, absently fiddling with the edge of her sleeve.

She makes you laugh – just barely, but no small victory. You honestly can't remember the last time you laughed.

You think of Diane. You must be such a disappointment to her. She wouldn't judge you for prison. But she would be disappointed to see you back. She never held expectations for you. You were free to make yourself something (or not). That was your choice. But she was still your mother, and she wanted the best for you, and even now - all these painful years later, all the things you regret…you can still picture a wrangled smile on her face. Eyes painted with nothing but fresh, pure worry for you.

She'd probably smack some sense into you, too.

You tell Piper that. Because Piper is the only person in this world you can share this with.

"She's probably looking down right now, just…vomiting angel dust." You try to stop, but words keep coming, fuelled with a desire to be spoken that you are not capable of halting. "I feel so stupid."

Piper stays passive, countering it with a remark about Queens making prison much more attractive. You keep ploughing through – you need to – and she knows that. So she runs her hand through your hair and lets you combust until you start with the fuck-ups, and then she steps in.

Piper leans off you, your name spilling watchfully through her lips, and you know that look of concern all too well. She wants you to stop, because it's starting to get to her – starting to hurt.

The words I had a chance to make a life slip past before you even think to hold them back. Your voice splinters, all too coarse and thick and wet.

You wonder if Piper understands just how much you wanted things to work. Just how much getting out meant staying out. It meant no more drugs, no more business. It meant actual living. And on nights where your mind ended up playing out scenarios of what comes after Queens, you included Piper in that life too. Sometimes in Cambodia. Sometimes not. All you really wanted was to do something that would make your mom proud. Even if that was washing dishes or something equally humiliating. And even if you couldn't do that, even if nothing else went to plan, you wanted Piper.

Because you just couldn't envision a future without her. Your mind just went black, and there was nothing to fill in the corners. You just stayed stationary, stuck.

But with Piper, your future moves forward.

Just thinking of that now makes you choke harder on a fresh circulation of tears, hot as they run down your cheeks.

She tells you you need to shut up right before she puts your mouth on hers, and she's soft but firm to make sure you are incapable of replying. But she cuts off your air supply too, something you desperately needs to compensate for the sobs that break out of you. You end up whimpering right against her mouth.

She pulls away from you, muttering something about not hot when your snot drips in my mouth like that. You're so thankful she isn't instantly disgusted, which she would be entitled to be (it's not exactly the prettiest kiss you've ever given her). You play along; tell her you thought she'd be into it.

You're teasing, really. Because she's got so many kinks (and a few you're sure even you don't know about yet). And you've obliged every. single. one.

"No, I don't like that." She strokes your cheek, wiping away remnants of tears. For the nanosecond where your mind goes blank and stays blank, you wish it could stay like this. But your mind is your own worst enemy, and you can't shut it out when it all comes tumbling back it. It's unstoppable.

There's too much pain for everything to stay perfect.

Piper looks anxious when you start up again, and even more so when you sit up instantly, fuelled by the odd determination to distance yourself from her. She's quick to try and comfort you again, the familiar phrase No, Alex… spilling from her mouth.

Words relentlessly thrust forward; sounding more desperate by the second as she tries to trick you into believing that you have to stop, and it wasn't your fault.

But it is your fault and you can't stop, so you just shake your head and refute. You hold that guilt tight to your heart, and you won't give up on it. You tell her no one put that gun in your hand. Because no-one did. You really shouldn't have picked it up, hell; you shouldn't have bought it to begin with.

But you were stupid and you were scared, because you knew what was coming.

"But you didn't know!" Piper insists. She believes that, and that's the worse part. That you're miraculously cleared of guilt, that this was all just circumstance, that this is just the way the cards fall.

And the more you protest, the more Piper insists. She grows more desperate by the second, frantically trying to get you to listen. She grabs at your forearm, and strains her voice, dancing on the razor's edge of hopelessness. You feel her fingertips brush your hair back, and you listen to her attempts at it wasn't you.

She's more persistent than you anticipated.

She runs out of words – comfortable, soothing words that you have come to depend on the steady, never-ending stream of. She tilts your chin back towards her, and she struggles to swallow. You know she's clawing at words, fighting to find the right thing to say.

It was the system. You notice the way she narrows her eyes, the tell-tale sign she's trying to gage if she has persuaded you into believing. You got caught in the system. But she's always really desperate when she resorts to that.

"I'm just a fly, in the web of the prison industrial complex? Christ."

"But at least we're in the same web, right? I mean, at least we're in it together."

Yes, you think. That's true. You don't know how you would have survived being dumped in another prison. Lockup was hard enough. And even though it's incredibly likely you'll be killed before your long, protracted sentence ever ends; Piper is your last comfort, really.

And you wouldn't have it any other way.

So you nod, agree, and she nods back. You wonder if you could tell her your whole mental dialogue. The one that ends with you dead.

You're both pulled out of your convex little universe that barely extends beyond the physical space between you, and you know instantly you've been caught out. You both jump a little, still not acclimatised to it.

You don't want to go back out there, so you don't make any move to get up. But this is prison – you don't have the choice, you don't have the freedom. So you drag yourself up behind Piper, and you hide your face as you walk past Donaldson, bringing your hand up to remove evidence that you've been crying. But this place isn't blind – even though it's full of idiots – and people are going to know if they so much as cast their glance in your direction.

You keep your head down all the way to back to your temporary bunk, sliding your glasses back on and pushing your hair messily forward as you stand for count. When the humiliation is over, you crawl onto your mattress, burying your face in your elbow as you shield yourself from the world.

….

Thanks to DarkestGayMoon, Vausemaniac, Guest, nickyjg and moanzs.