The only stool left in the electrical shop when you arrive is the one beside Nichols. You consider standing, but Luschek stares at you like he's cruising to send somebody to the SHU today. You sit.

He gives you a different lamp with a different problem, and in a new height of oblivious cruelty, he does not send either you or Nicky out on a job. You feel her watching you as you work, shaking her head each time she remembers some particularly damning thing you did. You itch to throw yourself on her mercy and ask about Alex—if she's sleeping, if Mendez has been harassing her since he got back, if her new prescription lenses came in.

To keep your tongue inside your mouth where it belongs, you think of how many times they could possibly have fucked in fifty-six days. You think about whether you should count by incidents or orgasms, and, if by orgasms, whether you should count each of theirs separately. If they fucked and then got interrupted and then started again, was that one or two?

"Chapman, yo, Chapman." Nicky snaps her fingers under your nose, and you realize she's been talking. "You, me, the dishwasher. Sound familiar?"

You look up to find Luschek watching you expectantly. "If you don't feel up to it, I can always send you back down the hill for a few days until you're ready," he says, mocking concern.

"No, no, she's up for it," Nicky says, digging her fingers into your upper arm and steering you off your stool and toward the door. "See ya."

She doesn't let go until you reach Red's reclaimed kitchen, where she shoves you backwards into the chainlink fence of the pantry.

"Shit, Chapman," she says. "Last thing I need is your fucking ass back in the fucking SHU."

"Sorry," you say, because what else is there?

"Do you think it's fun to watch Vause lose her fucking shit for two months," she says, as if you haven't spoken, "wondering if you're going to come back all mangled and deranged? You think that's easy?"

"No," you mumble.

"I didn't fucking hear you, Chapman."

"No!" You don't mean to shout, but you do, and you don't mean to push Nicky away from you with all the strength you have left, but you do that, too. "Don't you tell me what it's like to care about her. Don't you fucking tell me."

"Girls." Red comes out of the open fridge with a can of tomatoes in her hand, peering at you over her blue frames. Nicky looks smug, until Red steps closer and smacks the back of her head. "You want to fix my dishwasher, or you want to go downstairs to tell Vause you've been pushing Chapman into walls? Which do you prefer?"

You don't bother telling Red that Alex isn't likely to give a rat's ass. But what's strange is that Nicky doesn't either.

"All right, Ma, shit, I got it," she says, rubbing her head.

Nichols refuses to speak to you for the rest of the morning, except to ask for screwdrivers or criticize your wiring.

You know it's lunchtime from the growing din on the other side of the kitchen wall, but Red can't make it through another meal without her dishwasher operational. Norma brings you trays piled high with the best side dishes, as payment for your trouble, and the two of you eat in silence on the kitchen floor.

That is, Nicky eats. You pick at a chicken patty and shove powdered mashed potatoes from side to side until your tray looks like a Van Gogh. You starved in the SHU, and now that you're out you don't have the stomach for eating. The irony isn't lost on you.

"Nicky?" A strained, low voice comes from the hallway. Her voice. Alex rounds the stove in a fury. "Where the fuck—?" She stops abruptly when she sees you sitting together beside your toolbox. "Oh."

You force yourself not to look down at your lap like a jilted, lovesick teenager. You and Alex have to coexist in the same place for another ten months—plus whatever gets added to your sentence for Doggett—and you're going to learn to be an adult around her even if it fucking kills you.

The longer you look, the more the anger in her eyes seems like worry. Had she noticed Nicky didn't show up for lunch and thought she'd been electrocuted in the shop? Had she heard the two of you were working together and thought you might have taken a screwdriver to her new toy, à la Pennsatucky?

"Calm your tits, Vause," says Nichols, chewing on a biscuit. "I didn't let Blondie go back to the box, though she did try."

They're talking about you like you're not there, like you're a child, and you feel your ears turning red. But mostly you feel your insides doing flip-flops, because apparently what Alex was worried about was, well... you.

Her lips come together in a thin, stony line, one you remember from her meetings with disappointing business associates. For a second, you think she's about to rip you a new one. In the end she glances down at your still-full tray. "Finish that," she snaps, and then she walks away.

You do it, not because Alex is your goddamn keeper or because Nicky gives you her bored stare until you pick up your spork, but because you know you owe her one. And if this is what she wants—for you to choke down cold chicken product and colder potato mush until you're ready to gag—well fucking fine. You can handle it, because what you did to her was worse, and at least this means she cares in some tiny, minuscule way. Even if it's just so she can stop worrying about your scrawny arms and get on with her life.

After dinner, while everyone is at the send-off for the inmate you don't know, you take your first shower since the SHU. You wanted to do it this morning, to get the stale smell and the feel of Mendez's hands off of you, but the closest stalls to the newbies' bunks are the ones in the Suburbs, and Alex showers in the mornings.

Beneath the biting spray, you take stock of your jutting hip bones and knobby knees. You shave every shaveable inch of your skin. The last time you had a razor in the shower was when Pennsatucky held one to your throat. You lather up twice just because you can, and you try not to think of the time in Brussels when Alex washed you six separate times in one shower because you couldn't get enough of her soap-slick fingers between your legs.

"You flooding the Nile in there or what?"

Alex, on the other side of the curtain, sounds amused.

You freeze, the soap clutched between your hand and your neck. Does she know it's you?

"I've been waiting twenty minutes, Morello, Jesus Christ. You've gotta start fucking Nichols again so you can take care of your needs in the chapel instead of my shower."

You open your mouth to tell her it isn't Lorna, but she jerks the curtain to the side before you get the words out.

You stumble backwards into the corner, and the cocky grin falls from her lips. She moves as if she means to turn away, but can't—can't tear her eyes from your ribs and the way your hips protrude. You fold your shaking arms over your chest, where you used to have boobs. Her knuckles clench white where they're holding up her towel.

"Sorry," you say. "I wasn't... I thought you showered in the morning."

She looks you in the eye, finally, and tells you things change. But her startled gaze falls right back to your torso. There's nowhere for you to hide even if you wanted to. Her mouth is open and she licks her lips, but not in the way you'd want her to when she's looking at your naked body.

"Shit, Piper. I could tell from your face it was bad, but... shit."

In your mind, you make a crack about the ever-articulate Miss Vause, but you don't say it out loud. Neither of you is anywhere near there yet. You're miles from there—leagues, football fields, lightyears. You stand stock still until at last she lets the curtain fall, and your heart slows its jackrabbit pace.

"Take your time," she says softly, from outside. "I'll shower in the Ghetto. Fischer owes me one."

It's quiet in the bathroom after that. Which is lucky, because it takes a good five minutes for your muscles to loosen up enough to wash all the soap away.

As you step out of the shower, wrapped in a towel and wishing for a robe, you see a rose tattoo and a flash of black hair disappear into the hall.