Resubmitted because of a few errors I didn't notice until I read over it!

Firstly, thank you for the encouraging reviews. This chapter is designed to fill in the blanks during episode 3. It's kind of angsty and heavy but I really wanted to get to the grips with their characters and help identify what they were feeling and going through. Not every chapter will be so feeling-orientated but I want to acknowledge their problems and the fact that they need to work through them, and of course, that doesn't happen overnight.

Piper watched as the girls from class approached her, three of them, none of them towered over her lanky frame, but somehow their eyes filled her with a sense of trepidation. She knew what they wanted – it was her own stupid fault. They had just finished last period English, Piper's favourite, where they were studying Of Mice and Men. She had enjoyed the book herself and had read it cover to cover three times. For homework, which was due that session, they'd had to write an essay on the character of Curly, she threw herself into the essay, keen to impress Miss Sparks. As the lesson drew to a close, the teacher didn't mention the homework, Piper figured that it had slipped her mind, so reminded her. Only, she hadn't given much thought to how it would make the rest of the students feel, she'd only wanted feedback on her efforts. There was a collective groan when Piper raised her hand. Oh, right, she was that kid.

Her friends were in a different class, so she was pretty much on her own here. Every lesson she would hear those three girls laugh harshly behind her, in the way only teenage girls could. She knew their names from when the register was taken. Grace, Lauren and Naomi. Grace was the one who seemed to have formed a rather intense hatred for Piper, who never went looking for trouble, but somehow it always found her.

She'd stayed behind after class for ten minutes to enthuse about the book with the teacher. However, when she'd exited the building, the girls had formed some sort of weird triangle around her and each time Piper tried to escape – she came uncomfortably close to one of them. So she stood and looked up at Grace's tanned face and hazel eyes. "What?" She said slowly, pushing a fierceness into her voice.

"Because of you, Piper Chapped-lip or whatever your name is, we have after-school detention for the next fortnight."

Piper wasn't sure what approach to take. Words wouldn't really work in her favour here. So she shrugged. Oh – no, no, that was the wrong road to go down. Grace's shoulders rose, her expression reminded Piper of a cat ready to pounce. Somehow Piper found herself pressed up against the wall of the English building, gravel digging into her back. Although skinny, she had considered herself to be rather strong, but she was no match for three teenage girls with a vendetta.

"If you don't write our papers for us – we'll make your life a living hell. Freak." Grace held her by the back of her new shirt, and put her face so close to Piper's that she could feel the girl's venomous spittle on her face. With one final back-breaking shove, she was alone again, panting against the wall.

Later when she had gathered herself, she eventually made it home, her mother was cooking dinner. After the whole, her father-having-an-affair thing, Piper was wary of confiding in her mother – but she was embarrassingly, afraid, and felt the only person she could tell was someone whose job it was to protect her. Surely her mom wouldn't brush something like this under the carpet?

"Hey, honey." Piper's mom said, "How was your day?" She began humming to herself as though she didn't really expect a reply. God forbid anything was other than hunky-dory.

"Not so good, actually," Piper began.

"Oh," her mother said, not taking her eyes off of the potatoes that she was peeling. "Why?"

"I think I'm being bullied."

"You? Why ever would you be bullied, don't be so silly, Piper."

"But Mom, they cornered me. They don't like me because I… I don't know, I actually like English. I guess they think I'm a loser. Anyway, they threatened me after school and said I had to write their papers for them."

"I'm sure you've got it all wrong, they're probably intimidated by your intelligence and just want a bit of help."

"Mom it wasn't like that!" Piper felt anger rising within her, she just wanted to be taken seriously, to be listened to, for once.

"They're just teenage girls. It's just playground stuff. Go and tell your brother dinner is almost ready."

"But-"

"Piper!" Reluctantly, Piper sauntered off. Was she being stupid? Irrational? Making a big deal out of nothing? She was sure that she wasn't. Feeling hot shame crawling up her body like a boa constrictor ready to consume her, she climbed the stairs and sighed deeply, she was on her own with this one.

Every bit of Piper ached as she lay staring at the ceiling. The hate sex with Alex was so amazing, and so fuelled with hatred and passion that it drained her. It made her tingle just thinking about Alex's powerful orgasms earlier that day, her back arching in pleasure, moaning Piper's name over and over again. It felt good to have that sort of power, for Alex to crumble beneath her fingers. To give the woman she so deeply loved the sort of loving she deserved. It was the sort of thing that had kept her lying awake this her mattress-less bed for hours at a time, turning her on as she thought of the key moment her eyes connected with Alex's at her point of climax – she was so vulnerable at that very moment. Piper had never felt more connected to another human being on that level before. The hostility between them lately meant that, when they had sex, it was the only way that they could communicate effectively. It was during these moments that she understood how deeply she had hurt Alex. She still felt incredibly guilty, she managed to push it away during the day, where she was either busy working on electrical or having the most amazing sex. At night, however, she was a feeding bed for emotions - there were no voices to distract her from thinking about the person she was becoming. What had given her the right to take away someone else's freedom? Because she wanted to? Did that make her actions justified? No one would give her sympathy for what she had done but she had been so worried for Alex's safety, and she missed her so much, in theory it had made sense.

The funny thing about theory though, was that when it actually became reality it was very different. Her own actions had changed Alex. She was the reason why Alex felt so angry and alone. What made her happy caused the woman she loved pain. And for what? So she could have a fuck every now and then? She wondered if that was how Alex perceived it. It was so much more than that, Piper couldn't put it into words. She just needed her, whatever the consequences. She tried to push from her mind the gut-wrenching guiltiness. She wanted to be stronger. She wasn't a weak little girl anymore. Yet every time she tried to inject a bit of strength in her veins, she thought about Alex crying on the other side of that bathroom door, and she couldn't handle it – the tormenting pain she was experiencing was because of her. Every tear that fell from Alex's eyes was another knife twisted into Piper's heart. She let Alex hate fuck her because she deserved it. She wanted Alex to relieve her pain and she wanted to relieve her guilt. She couldn't live with herself in a world where Alex was hurt. She adored every bit of that power hungry, impossibly sexy woman – but she found it hard to deal with her pain, her hurt, because she was the one who had inflicted it. She didn't know how to fix Alex when she couldn't even fix herself.

As she mustered the courage to get out of bed, the guilt, as it usually did, subsided a little and she was able to function as usual. The darkness suffocated by the daylight, she knew that it would come back again but it didn't stop her trying to push it away. There was no way that she could survive in this prison being the Piper she was when she came in here, she needed to change – prison was dragging her down. The loss of Larry and her best friend kick-started her downward spiral. Her perspective on the outside world was becoming more and more blurred. The only world she knew was the world here. The world in here was the world that she had to adapt to survive in, she had to mould and shape herself to be the person to fit in amongst these people. Without this front, she wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning, this façade was the only thing that stopped her disintegrating on the inside. It was protecting her. It was protecting Alex. Piper knew that the only way to get through this was to put herself away, metaphorically, inside herself – she didn't know if this version of herself would every come back again, but she needed this armour to hold herself together. She couldn't keep using other people to make herself complete, because what if Alex decided after all of this hate-fucking that she didn't want her selfish, weak, narcissistic ass. She couldn't let herself fall to pieces. She had to be her own crutch she could to lean on. She had to be there for herself.

As she stood up and took in the bland walls – she couldn't quite reign in all of her thoughts. If she gave herself completely to Alex, and Alex left her, which she deserved – she couldn't be that hollow, empty shell of a person. She couldn't keep filling that void with people. She needed to fill that void within herself, with concrete strength and power. Eventually everyone would leave her. She was sure of that. She mentally shook herself. Feelings would kill her. With Alex vulnerable and wounded, She needed to be strong enough to help her through this. The sex was a welcome distraction, to lose herself in Alex with her spine-tingling, intoxicating moan, expressive eyes that bore passionately into hers, telling a thousand stories, laced with pain and hurt and love. Alex loved her. For some strange fucked up reason, Piper had the love of this woman and she did not want to it fuck up. She wanted to be the sort of person that Alex needed, even if she later chose to walk away and leave her.

As she walked from her bunk to the shower, she was shocked to find, as she always was that life continued to go on around her. She was happier instantly because she was less in her own head. But maybe it was a dangerous thing to not be self-aware in here. She spent too much time thinking about the type of person she was becoming, but in here – it worried her constantly. As the lukewarm water fell over her naked body, she thought about how the barriers between her and the other inmates used to be so clear. In her head there were clear markings separating them, she was different from them. Slowly she had realised that they had all made wrong choices somewhere along the line to make them end up here. If she was exactly like them – a criminal - then where was her place on the outside world anymore? With these thoughts lapping over each other, running around in the confines of her head – she felt as though she needed an escape.

It was a few moments before she realised she was being watched, she looked up slowly, Alex stood there with a towel around herself, hair wet – jet black and dripping as her darkening eyes drank her in.

"Library, ten minutes." She said with her sexy, husky voice.

Piper was stunned for a while, until she shook her head – free of the crippling thoughts, and the self-pity and guilt, and quickly moved to get dressed.

Shortly after her meeting with Rogers, Alex confronted Piper about the blatantly obvious hickey on her neck, she strode back into her bunk – the anger and hurt still prominent in her heart. She wanted to get her power back from Piper, she didn't like how the roles felt reversed. She didn't like being this fragile wisp of a person, it was all her Piper's fault, she had taken away a fundamental part of herself and she wanted it back. She wouldn't survive in here if she was this paranoid, insecure wreck.

She inspected her bunk. She was sure she had left her bed neatly made, yet her blanket lay crumpled at the foot of her mattress, her pillow at an angle. Strange. This wasn't right. She wasn't being paranoid, surely? She distinctly remembered waking up and making her bed. Hang on, she had left her book closed, with the page folded. Yet somehow the book was open, but faced down. Someone had been in here, she instinctively knew that it was none of the people that she shared this room with. They knew not to touch each other's things, it was an unspoken rule. She felt as though someone had walked over her grave. That sort of cold-sweat inducing fear formed in the pit of her stomach. Someone had deliberately moved her stuff. The rest of the beds were untouched. The fear expanded. Fuck.

She didn't have the mind-set to sit and think about this right now, she had to keep her worries at bay, she had enough on her mind right now - Piper being one of the most prominent factors. She'd have to go to that stupid drama class. If there was any way to clear this fog in her brain, it was watching people make a fool of themselves.

An hour or so later, Alex returned from the drama class, which had helped enormously in dissipating her anger. She hadn't meant for all of the hurt, and the anger to come out in front of everyone like that, exposing her vulnerability in the most extreme way. Yet her fury has lessened some – a lot actually. With that ridiculous grocery store metaphor they had aired their problems out in the open. It had felt good. Therapeutic even. Annoyingly, she began to see things from Piper's point of view. Even when she didn't want to forgive Piper, she always, always did. She couldn't hold a grudge. Maybe it was her the type of person she was, to be forgiving and just move the fuck on 'cause life was too fucking short. Or maybe she couldn't stand the pain of not having her. Or maybe, just maybe it was because her love for Piper overpowered everything else. While the hurt still resonated within her, and she still needed some time to lick her wounds, Alex felt something subtle but significant shift inside her.

Now that anger had packed her bags and set on her merry way, Alex wondered how soon it would take for fear to take centre stage. She climbed up to her bed and inspected it – this time, her book was gone and replaced with something else. It was a copy of You're Next by Gregg Hurwitz. It was a warning. She suddenly felt cold, very cold.

Startling her, Morello appeared behind her.

"Hey, jus' bringin' a new inmate in here." A thin, red-haired girl appeared behind her, she avoided eye-contact, sat on the bed and quickly folded herself in two and faced the wall. "You alright, honey?"

"Uh…" Alex mentally flailed. "Yeah. Yeah, course." She reached up to her glasses and put them on her head, using them to push her hair away from her eyes

"You and Piper airin' all your stuff out in the open there, was good, don't you think?" Morello leaned up against the door frame.

"I guess." She didn't feel like talking when her heart was pounding this fast.

"I wanted to talk to you," Lorna said, "about Nikki, actually. She's actin' kinda strange."

"Really? I hadn't noticed." Alex raised her eyebrows, something clicked then, Nikki had seemed a little out of sorts today, she'd been a touch too self-absorbed sinve she arrived back here, she hadn't been paying that much attention to her friends, she was so lost inside her own head.

"I'm worried, that, y'know, she might be back on the drugs."

"She wouldn't do that. The fear of Red killing her is too much of a risk to take." She needed to be a better friend.

"I don't know."

"Hey," She picked up the heavy weight of the book in her right hand and held it up to show her. "Have you seen anyone with this book before?"

"No. Should I have?"

"No. Don't worry about it." Alex put it down, Morello shrugged and walked off.

Piper stood at the end of her road, with blood dripping from her nose onto her white shirt. She didn't cry, but stood there in a stunned sort of trance. She had followed her mother's own advice, and ignored those girls. She tried to push the paranoia away. She locked herself away in the library during lunch that week, and told her friends that she was studying. She was scared that she'd see Grace's face, contorted with hatred – asking where the fuck her homework was. As scared as she was, Piper had a firm rule of not being anyone's bitch, she wasn't going to let herself be controlled or used. However now she had to let it play out and accept the consequences. Consequences to something that she hadn't done wrong, she knew that she'd have to suffer in some way. Only, as the days passed, nothing happened and she wondered if she had exaggerated the magnitude of things. Although today was the day she had spent all week dreading – and she never dreaded English.

The girls hadn't been in class, much to Piper's relief. Maybe they'd bunked off. Maybe they were all talk.

For that one hour session, the relief was utter bliss. She'd actually enjoyed the lesson without their childish muttering behind her and as she walked home, she let her mind wander. All of a sudden she was disorientated by a hard blow to her back, she met with the pavement – her jaw connected with the concrete, Piper heard a sickening crack.

"That's how you want to play it, Chap-stick, huh?" She heard Grace's voice taunt.

The fear had almost swallowed Piper whole, she slowly got to her feet. She wanted to look Grace in the eye. She was knocked instantly back down with a punch to the nose, it felt as though she had been hit with a brick. They hissed such cruel words at her that she quickly buried in the back of her mind. The relief was astonishing when they moved away - it quickly escalated to humiliation. How could they just hurt someone like that? She had never done anything to them, yet they seemed to hate her with a burning passion.

Mericfully, when she returned home, her mother was nowhere to be seen. It took an hour for her to have a shower and clean herself up. Once the blood was gone, she was left with a small cut under her nose. The bruise on her chin she covered with make-up. When her mother came in, Piper buried her head in a book.

"How was your day?" She said.

"Fine."

"Pull my hair!" Piper instructed.

"Like this?" Alex obliged.

"Ow!"

"Sorry."

"Don't apologise…" She pulled Alex towards her, "fuck me like," she tried to demonstrate how rough she wanted it to be.

Alex felt wrong. "It feels weird now. It's not the same," She stopped. "It feels weird, I don't like…" realisation dawned, "I don't want to hurt you," She leant against the bookcase in defeat.

Piper look surprised, then smiled, "fucking empathy!"

"I knew that class was a bad idea."

Piper sighed. "What are we going to do now if we can't have hate sex?"

"Hate snuggle?" She found herself smiling at Piper for the first time since she revealed her betrayal.

"I don't really think that's a thing." Piper returned.

They looked at one another, at a loss. Alex pressed her back against the shelves and slunk down to the floor, Piper followed – neither spoke for a while and stared into the near distance, contemplating the change in their circumstances. Alex silently berated herself, why did she always forgive Piper, and why did Piper always forgive her? She thought about all the times she had hurt her – all the times that she cut so deeply into her heart she wasn't sure if she'd survive it. Despite everything, hurt, the pain, the loss – it was a package deal with them. The hate made their love stronger. The pain was so prominent and so severe because their love was etched forever on each other's hearts. What was it about this woman, Alex idly wondered, that made her go so bat-shit crazy?

"So you're not angry anymore?" Piper broke the silence.

"It's as confusing to me as it is to you." She turned around so that she was facing Piper, who mirrored her movement, "maybe it's that inevitable thing, y'know?"

Piper twined her hands around Alex's, her eyes were shining and the corners of her lips rose up into a beautiful smile. "Maybe."

"Who knew drama class had so much power?"

"It doesn't mean I'm still not pissed at you. Pipes, we gotta stop doing this to each other. I mean," she stopped and thought about what she was going to say next, "this is gonna sound pretty heavy, but, I don't want to mess this up again," her voice broke, "I need you, okay?"

"Alex." Piper whispered softly.

"Please." She stopped her, wiping the tears away beneath the lenses of her glasses. "Please stop breaking my heart. Jeez, look at me. You've never wanted me more, right?" She looked up to find Piper's intense expression humourless.

Piper moved closer, until she was kneeling over Alex, "Don't cry. I will never ever hurt you again. Great you've got me started," She laughed despite the stream running from her eyes, "I'm sorry, Al. I'm so fucking sorry. About everything, I love you," she parted her legs so that she was straddling her without putting her weight on her, she put her hands either side of Alex's tear stained face. "I didn't mean to hurt you."

Alex looked at her then, with the most heart-breaking expression she had ever seen, the pain echoing through her pained features. If this was power that Piper was experiencing now, she didn't want it. It felt dirty, evil to make someone feel like this. Alex's eyes searched her own, each were seeking out the good in one another, the parts that they cherished, the parts that they held onto with such determination and force.

"Fuck. What do you do to me, Pipes?" Alex sniffed. She wiped Piper's eyes with alternating thumbs and then ran them down her face, caressing them. "Now that all the shit is out of the way, can we just be us?"

"No more bullshit. No more lies."

"I know you find this stuff hard. Emotions and shit. I won't say this to everyone but Piper I feel really fucking shitty and I'm scared. Please don't run away…" Alex never thought she'd see herself like this, with her fragile heart in someone else's hands, letting another person see her at her lowest and weakest. Letting someone see the fear she rarely caved into.

"I won't run." She Piper simply. Coming from an emotionally fucked up family, she was glad that someone understood that empathy and compassion weren't always her strongest points, but somehow, with Alex it just sort of happened. That terrified her. When Alex cried, Piper cried too, when Alex's heart broke – hers shattered. She had to stop being so self-absorbed and realise that Alex needed her now. Neither of them knew who leant forward first, but their lips were suddenly together and this time it wasn't a kiss fuelled by hatred, but a kiss that warmed them both from the inside and out, numbing the tips of their fingers and setting their hearts alight. Their tears mixed, and their arms tightened around each other. It wasn't a furious dance of tongues, but something so real and so intensely raw – that something new between them thickened and blossomed, and was never the quite same again.

I wouldn't say it's quite happily ever after for them just yet, I don't want to just ignore the things that happened in the season – I just want to change the order around a bit, and rewrite the fundamentally wrong things that the writers did with Piper and Alex. Seriously writing this helps me so much, and maybe I can eventually help readers a little, too. Please leave a review if you have any thoughts. Thanks for reading.

Indigogold