Disclaimer: I own nothing apart from the writing and plot. Everything is credit to Orange is the New Black


Reality Will Always Be Waiting For You


When Lorna arrived at Litchfield, just her and a young Hispanic girl named Gonzales, she couldn't think of anything but Christopher. She knew he would visit her and it would all be okay.

He would apologise.

Knowing he wouldn't be able to see her outside of prison visits for 34 months would drive him crazy. He would realise Angela was the reason she was in here.

It was all going to be okay.

Lorna knew that if she kept telling herself that, it would come true.

On her way in, regardless of how calm she looked, and strangely enough felt, she knew one thing for certain.

She couldn't tell anyone the real reason she was in prison.

Ever.

She knew she had gone a little too far in warning off Angela, she could admit that to herself now. However, she also knew she didn't really deserve to be here.

Lorna may have been called 'delusional' by the Judge in court, but she sure wasn't stupid.

Stalking, which is what they had charged her for, was a serious crime. She had no idea how other prisoners would react if they thought she was violent and crazy. There was no need for that sort of unnecessary bother.

Nobody in here knew her – she could be whoever she wanted to be. She could be the head-over-heels in love fiancee that she knew she was.

Nobody would question it. They would have no reason to.

So when she was taken to a room where her temporary bunk was, and a woman named DeMarco asked her what she was in for, she replied with a simple answer.

'Mail fraud.'

DeMarco had rolled her eyes, shot a sarcastic look at the woman with cancer whose name Lorna didn't know yet, and started to make Lorna's bed for her.

Lorna looked around the room and noticed the woman with cancer staring at her curiously. She looked down a little; she felt like this woman could see right through people. DeMarco noticed how uncomfortable Lorna looked.

'That's Miss Rosa. Don't worry about her. Chemo makes her cranky.'

'It doesn't make me deaf, DeMarco.' Miss Rosa shook her head. She assessed Lorna again. 'How long you got?'

'34 months.' Miss Rosa looked at her sceptically.

'Must've been a serious amount of mail fraud.'


Her old enemy reality visited that night. She couldn't sleep and her mind was taken over by the repressed state. A tear ran down her face as her cloudy thoughts suddenly became too clear. The edges of each memory and realisation were sharp, cutting through even her strongest fantasies.

The venomous voice was back, its words like daggers.

Christopher doesn't love you. Why would he love you? Her face screwed up, another tear fell.

You're a psychotic stalker. Her small hands gripped her knees to her aching chest.

You're childish and pathetic. She balled her trembling hands into tight fists.

You're not normal. Her fists slammed into her forehead, pressing against her temples as though the pressure would force the horrible voice out. Her sobs were audible now - heartbroken crying that she tried desperately to quieten.

'Shut up, shut up, shut up!' she whispered harshly to herself, streams of tears dripping onto her dry lips. She shook violently, tensing her whole body as she pushed it into the corner of the bed, as though trying to compress herself into nothing.

It had been so much easier lately to get rid of this poisonous voice when it came along to taunt her.

So why couldn't she make it leave now?

Because you're crazy.

'I'm not, I'm not, I'm not! Go away, shut up!' her whispering voice cracked, more tears began to drip from her worried eyes, her chest heaved with her uneven breathing.

She couldn't quieten down.

She tensed up immediately when she heard movement across the room. Her eyes were wide open in fear.

Rosa had been for her treatment the day before and she always struggled sleeping the night after. The new girl's sobs didn't help.

But Rosa felt a twinge of sympathy towards the young girl and she wasn't sure why. Usually, she was a rather impatient woman. She had been in prison long enough to lose sympathy for the new inmates.

'Kid. You're gonna wake everyone up.' Rosa said it quietly so the girl could only just hear her. Lorna held her breath when she heard the gruff voice of Miss Rosa. There was an awkward pause of silence. 'Are you holding your breath?' Lorna let go of the breath she had been keeping in.

Rosa couldn't help letting out a short laugh. 'First night's always the hardest. Be selfish in here kid. Think of yourself. It will help you survive.'

Another awkward silence. Again, Rosa broke it.

'You should sleep kid. You got a long day tomorrow.'

She heard Rosa shuffle around a little.

'Thank you.' Lorna whispered in a tiny voice. Think only of herself. Focus on herself. She could do that, if she had to. She could survive. No, she would survive.


After that first night, things weren't so bad. She woke with a big smile painted on her face, nervously, but seemingly happily, chattering away. The women in her room shook their heads at her.

DeMarco called her 'The happiest girl in prison.'

Gonzales called her 'Fucking crazy.' But Lorna didn't care.

One thing everyone silently agreed on was that this bizarre optimism would soon be knocked out of her by the harsh reality of prison life.

How wrong they were.

Although, however happy she seemed that morning, she was dreading breakfast. Who would she sit with? She took her tray and scanned the canteen. Nobody from her temporary dorm room was there.

'Come sit with us.' She looked around to see who had spoken. It was a small, thin woman with blonde hair. She was quite a bit older than Lorna. She smiled gratefully and perched on the end of the bench, sat opposite a woman with a mass of wild hair and eyes that were intensely fixated on Lorna's. She looked a similar age to herself.

It wasn't only the girl with wild hair who was staring at Lorna.

She could feel everyone's eyes on her.

Not wanting to meet anyone's gaze, she quickly spooned a large amount of the greyish oatmeal into her mouth. It was pretty disgusting, but she could live with it.

She looked ahead and saw the girl opposite her still staring at her, but now she was wearing an amused smirk. She had playful glint in her dark, heavily mascaraed eyes.

'Sure your mouth can fit any more in there, kid?' Lorna's cheeks burned and she could feel them flushing bright red.

'Leave her alone Nichols, Red'll be pleased she enjoys the food.' It was a young girl with dark brown hair who was speaking. 'What's your name? I'm Mercy. This is Big Boo, that's Yoga Jones.' She pointed to the woman who invited her to sit with them. Yoga Jones gave her a warm smile. 'And this,' she playfully punched the wild haired girls arm, 'is Nichols of course. Aw, shit, Sister just left. You'll see her soon though.'

'Fucking hell Mercy, it's prison not fucking high school.' Nichols said, shaking her head.

'I'm Lorna…Shit! Morello, I'm Morello.' Lorna quickly said after she had swallowed her mouthful of thick oatmeal.

'Italian huh? I always did hear Italians were pretty fucking hot.' Nichols smirked arrogantly at the girl, one of her eyebrows raised teasingly. Lorna, again, flushed bright red and spooned some more oatmeal into her mouth.

'Ignore Nichols, she's a bad influence.' Mercy said, nudging Nichols' arm with her shoulder.

'Hey! You're giving me a fucking horrible rep here, Merce. Don't fucking listen to her Morello, I'm the most well-behaved here.' She winked and Lorna could tell she was holding in a larger smile.

'So, enough of the bullshit, what're you in for?' Big Boo said. Just as Lorna opened her mouth to answer, Big Boo suddenly threw her hands up and shouted.

'Wait! Let us guess. It's more fun, we can make a game out of it. I'll go first. Drugs?'

'Is she fuck in for drugs Boo, what a shitty guess.' Nichols frowned. 'I can tell the type of people who are in here for that sorta shit and she definitely isn't. Am I right kid?' Lorna nodded. Yoga Jones put her fork down and spoke.

'Now you all stop right now. Guessing what someone is in here for is not a healthy game.'

'It was mail fraud, ya know?' This made a few of them snigger. She would rather people think she was dumb and foolish than crazy and scary. She stuffed a waffle in her mouth and focused on chewing the dry food. Seeing a slight shadow pass over her tray, she looked up to see a stern older woman with flaming red hair standing there. The woman threw to each of the others at the table a pot of strawberry yoghurt. She looked at Lorna, who was still battling through her mouthful of food. She realised she must have looked like a complete idiot.

'Who's this?' her voice was heavily accented. Lorna was pretty sure it was a Russian accent.

'Morello.' Nicky answered. She turned to Lorna. 'And this is Red. Head of kitchen.' Red studied the girl and nodded.

'Here. Since you seem to like my food so much.' She placed a pot of the yoghurt next to her tray. Even with the kind gesture, Lorna found the woman intimidating and she felt anxious. In this high state of nerves, she bobbed her head much too enthusiastically in agreement. She saw a hint of amusement flicker in Red's stony eyes before she walked back to the kitchen.

'You got anyone on the outside Morello?' Mercy asked. Lorna nodded excitedly as she felt her heart lighten at the thought of Christopher.

'My fiancé, Christopher. We're getting married as soon as I get out.'

The freedom she had now was immense. She chatted endlessly to them about her wedding plans, just as she had rehearsed to herself in her head. It became more extravagant, more beautiful.

She no longer had boundaries. Nobody would question her. Why would they?

Lorna was good with details, she always had been. And her wedding story was so intricately detailed, from the description of the venue, to the design on the invites.

The inmates of Litchfield thought they knew everything about the annoyingly cheery newbie, Lorna Morello.

They were blissfully unaware that, actually, they knew nothing.


Her first few days went well. She was glad to finally be dressed like everyone else and be out of the garish orange. Some inmates tried to scare the new inmates and it made her feel isolated, but now she could blend in.

CO O'Neill showed her to her newly assigned bunk. She found out she would share with Big Boo, which wasn't too bad in Lorna's eyes.

Big Boo had been trying to jokingly scare her, and kept making mean remarks about her wedding and her being heterosexual, but it could be much worse.

She placed her small amount of possessions onto her new bunk and hung her jacket on one of the hooks. She heard Nichols' voice from behind her.

'The good news is you now have a cube and you have escaped sharing with DeMarco's irritatingly loud and shitty heart machine! The bad news, and this is fucking terrible Morello, you've now gotta share with the irritatingly loud and shitty Big Boo! That's a rough trade kid.' She was leaning against the wall at the entrance, a bag of pretzels in hand, smirking at her. Boo shook her head.

'Jealous, Nichols?' Boo had a wicked but knowing look in her eyes as she regarded Nicky. Lorna felt like she was missing something and assumed it was some sort of inside joke. She grinned mischievously at Nicky.

'Jealous? Aww Nichols, I never knew you liked me so much.' Lorna suddenly regretted her joke, hoping she hadn't overstepped the line and acted too overfamiliar. After all, she had only been there a week and had only sat with Nichols at mealtimes. And people easily got annoyed in here.

But Lorna just felt so comfortable around her, like she had known her for much longer than a week.

She saw Nicky's confident smile twist in an attempt not to laugh.

'Don't flatter yourself, kid. Just thought I'd welcome you in and warn you about the hazards of sharing a cube with an inmate like Boo.' Back at ease again, Lorna replied.

'And what hazards are those, huh?'

'Well, after your smart remark, I decided I'm gonna let you find that shit out for yourself Morello.' She tossed a pretzel in the air and caught it in her mouth before walking back to her own bunk. Lorna began to unpack her things and she heard Boo sigh loudly.

'Ahhh fuck. You're not gonna plaster your walls in wedding shit are you?'


Lorna quickly realised that with not much to occupy her, her thoughts began to roam a little, developing a mind of their own.

Snippets of reality began to grow where they never had before.

She knew she had to keep busy. She hadn't yet been assigned a job and wasn't sure when she would be. She began to throw herself into wedding planning, just like she had done before she got in here. Lorna could tell a few of the other inmates were sick of her talking about it, but she didn't care.

This was her future and she wasn't about to give up planning it just because others found it boring.

Lorna was sat alone at a table in the TV room, writing down the guest list for the wedding. Her mouth was pouted as she concentrated on how many guests they would be able to have and who could be cut out if necessary.

She was so engrossed in the list she didn't notice Nicky had sat next to her.

'Hey Morello.' Lorna looked up and smiled as Nicky carelessly threw some magazines down in front of her.

'Nichols! Aren't you supposed to be working?' She shook her head and propped her boots up on the table.

'I'm so fucking bored, y'know?' Lorna nodded and sighed, putting the pen down and looking enviously at the magazines. 'You can look through them if you want.' She beamed at Nicky and grabbed the nearest one, relishing in the feel of the glossy pages. As she looked through, she made subconscious mental notes of the things she would've cut out and stuck on her scrapbook wall at home. She sighed again, and Nicky looked over.

'What's up?' Lorna stroked the strikingly red lips of a model on a make-up advert.

'It sounds stupid, but I miss wearing this stuff. It sounds like such a pathetic thing to miss, but I do.'

'Look who you're fucking talking to kid. I'm surprised my eyelashes haven't fallen off with the amount of mascara I heap on them.' Lorna caught Nicky looking at her lips. She looked away from them and stared straight back at her eyes instead. Lorna frowned.

'Ya know, you don't seem like someone who would talk about make-up and girly things Nichols.' Nicky sat up straighter and laughed at the girl.

'What, because I'm a junkie lesbian who doesn't give a fuck about looking nice? Wanna hit me with any more shitty stereotypes Morello?' Lorna's eyes widened in worry and she put her hand on Nicky's.

'No! No I didn't mean it like that Nicky!' She was getting more flustered the more she spoke. Nicky laughed again.

'Relax, I'm kidding with you. But that red lipstick would look fucking hot on you.' Lorna looked down self-consciously.

'Yeah right.' She mumbled.

'I'm serious! You'd have to fight off all the women in here if you wore that shit.' Nicky stood. 'Later, kid.' Lorna smiled after her.

She had never met anybody like Nicky, but there was something about her that she liked.


A few days later, as she put on her khakis, she felt something in the breast pocket. Picking it out, Lorna felt a rush of happiness as she held a tube of scarlet lipstick in her hand. Leaning forward to the mirror she had taped to her wall, she applied the bright colour. She pressed her lips together and smiled at the deep shade of red.

When she reached the canteen for breakfast, she saw Nicky already sat down with her tray of food. Lorna walked past with her head held high and her newly painted lips in a noticeable pout. From the corner of her eye, she saw Nicky look up at her with a satisfied smirk upon her face.

Lorna tried to keep from breaking out into an embarrassingly large grin as she felt Nicky's eyes follow her all the way to the food line.

If Lorna had to pick out just one thing that made her first couple of weeks in prison as easy as they ever could have been, it would have been Nicky Nichols.

The problem was, not even Nicky, the best thing in her prison life, could keep her true enemy away.


Author's Note: I'm not sure how I feel about this chapter. The next one will be tons better, I promise! Please leave a review, they really do help :)

This chapter was less dark but I needed Nicky/Lorna cuteness in my life. And I also needed my second favourite otp of Lorna/food haha.

The next chapter will probably be darker again (I'm a horrible person, I'm sorry)

Anyway, please leave any comments you might have :)