The week has felt like a decade. Like time couldn't possibly pass any slower. Every step takes an hour, and every word takes a year to leave the lips. Everything's just harder to do. Cold showers aren't as bad as they used to be, but getting up for them is. The ice cold water hits the body, violently racing down every curve, but not even a finch is executed. Not a shiver. Not a goosebump. Just numb. But for the last week, that's all that Alex has felt.

She can hear the muffled sound of people talking at the basins that line the bathroom, but that's all that it is. Just background noise. A continuous haziness that follows Alex wherever she goes like an ominous cloud that has left everybody to freely look up at a clear sky, except Alex. For her, the sky is a concoction of greys, pushing each other away in fear of being too close.

But there's one name that gets her out of that numbness.

One name that forces Alex to perk her ears up and listen instead of being trapped in the labyrinth that is the cloud around her.

One damn name that has the power to change Alex in an instant.

"How about Piper?" Alex has to think about if the words are said in her mind, or if it's reality. Piper. Piper. Piper. The name with an infinite amount of strings attached to it. The one that grabs the numbness straight out of Alex and throws it into the sun. Did someone mention Piper or is she just losing it even more than she thought she was? She second guesses it. Forward and backward in her mind until she wraps her naked body in a towel and steps out of the fungus filled shower to see a gang of blurry Latinas staring back at her. Alex's hand rummages through the top of the basin until her hand knocks her black framed spectacles. The second she brings them up to sit on her nose, the Latinas look a lot more ominous than what was originally thought.

"Piper was a joke." Maritza makes sure to retain eye contact with Alex for the duration of her comment. It's a direct dig that she knows will sink underneath Alex's skin. But that's the whole point. Alex has no one to protect her. It's just her and this vulnerability that she still hasn't become accustomed to. She's never acted like the vulnerable one, even in times of direct fear. But ever since her attack with Aiden, she can't help it. She's scared. Paranoid of the things that follow her. Constantly looking behind her back.

"I hope that white bitch rots in max" Gloria says with a deathly undertone. The words hit Alex right in the face. Aggression searing out of her skin.

"Watch your fucking mouth." The words escape Alex's mouth before she is even able to think. Before she is able to retrieve the breath that she had knocked out of her. She has no control over the need to protect. The need to speak up, even though Piper isn't around. It's a mixture of the history, the feeling, the time and effort put it to Piper as a human being. Or maybe it's just the fact that Alex knows exactly what it's like to have people not like you.

"Who the fuck was talking to you four eyes?" Gloria makes her way over to Alex in an attempt to intimidate. Head held high, but Alex's height still has Alex looking down on her.

"Four eyes? Is that the best you've got." Alex lets out a sarcastic laugh that comes from deep within the place she thought she could no longer reach. A place of strength, triggered by anger.

"You're just pissed that your psychotic girlfriend got what she deserved. I'm waiting for the day that news comes back that she's dead. They're going to kill her in there, you know that right. That big fucking mouth's finally going to stay shut and there's nothing you can do about it." It's the feeling of Gloria's cold breath on her skin and the genuine belief of Gloria's words that send Alex over the edge. Completely and utterly thrown off the edge, plummeting to the ground just waiting for the moment she hits the pavement.

Alex doesn't say another word, but she says everything she needs to when she sends a violent shove in Gloria's direction, resulting in her landing on the floor with a loud thud. Physically, Alex isn't weak, especially when she is inflamed with adrenaline, but having three girls on one is a match Alex could never win. And one shove is all it takes to prove that theory true.

While Gloria's lagging recovery still has her face kissing the floor, Maritza and Aleida do not hesitate in pushing Alex against the wall and connecting their fists with Alex's skin in a violent confrontation.

Alex fights back, attempting to unlock herself from the retraining position that she is in, but fails miserably when Gloria joins the fight.

Hit after hit, Alex can do nothing more than take it and hope that it will end. She can already feel the blood trickling down her forehead and the bruises formulating on top of her skin.

Alex sinks down into the wall, covering her head as her back hits the floor. She makes sure she doesn't let anything out. Not a sound. Nothing. She just shuts her eyes, bracing herself, waiting for another part of her body to be hit with a powerful force that leaves everything to ache.

With eyes still closed, Alex feels the spray of saliva on her face accompanied by the sound of it leaving an unknown persons mouth. "Puta".

There's a long moment of silence in which Alex still keeps her eyes shut, scared that once she opens them, she'll be greeted by a blow to the face. So she keeps waiting and waiting, until finally she has the courage to open her eyes. There's no one else in the bathroom. Only Alex's naked body in a foetal position on the cold tiles. She smears away the blood on her forehead, and painfully sits up, wrapping the damp towel next to her around her battered body.

Her breathing hasn't subsided, in fact it's becoming more intense.

It feels like she's been here before. The same feeling just being mimicked in a difference circumstance. It takes Alex a while to realise why this all feels too familiar, but when she does, she not only feels it; she sees it.

Alex can see Aiden directly in front of her. The image of him is begging to be seen, begging to be feared and begging to rip any strength that's left out of Alex's body. Aiden never thought Alex deserved the strength she once had. They were never friends; just envious acquaintances that had to march under the same ruler.

"Stop, please stop." Alex grips the edge of her towel within her fist and tries to fight back the lump in her throat, but she knows Aiden can hear it in her voice already. The weak croaky tone that's as fragile as the moment glass hits the ground.

Aiden stands still, not a move to be seen. Not a twitch, or a jerk. Just completely still.

Alex feels every ounce of pain that she felt when she was attacked. Every piece of it. And it's not just the physical pain. It's the fear. The debilitating fear that death was standing right in front of her just waiting for the right moment to put a bullet right between Alex's eyes. She can't remember much, but she sure as hell can't get that fear out of her head.

She keeps blinking, again and again in an absolute panic, trying to rid her cloudy subconscious of the thing that terrifies her the most, until finally Aiden disintegrates, straight out of Alex's subconscious and vivid fantasy that has managed to end up in her reality.

Alex agonisingly gets up to look in the mirror. When she does she can see the Alex she once was in the hospital after she woke from her unconscious state. Every bruise in the exact same position. Same size. Same colour. A mirroring image to the person she thought she left behind. The broken Alex she thought she slowly got rid of.

She can see the imprint of the gun handle on the side of her face where Aiden smashed it, longing to hear the sounds of Alex's bones break and her moans consume the space surrounding them.

It's vivid. So very vivid.

Alex traces the marks with her fingertips, and caresses the uneven skin as the purples start to make an appearance on the many wounds Alex is playing show and tell with.

It's all too familiar.

...

Alex doesn't want to see Berdie Rogers. She doesn't want someone sitting on the edge of their chair waiting for a new piece of information to fall from Alex's mouth. She doesn't want help. Ever. Regardless of if she needs it or not.

"What am I doing here?" It's hostile. Dry. With the complete absence of any depth.

"I just wanted to check up on you." Rogers displays a sympathetic smile in Alex's direction. She cares, she really does, but the lack of effort Alex has put into their conversations alarms her.

"I don't need to be checked up on." The words escape Alex's mouth through the gaps in between her teeth as she keeps her jaw tight.

Rogers doesn't bother challenging Alex's belief. She knows exactly how it will end; in a hostile mess that stains the both of them like blood.

"How are you feeling with Piper not being here Alex?"

Alex can feel Rogers' objective piercing her skin, trying to dig for any information that she can get her hands on, but Alex isn't going to let her."Why?"

"Because I know how much she means to you Alex. And I care about your feelings surrounding it."

With a loud, obnoxious laugh, Alex throws her head back in complete hysteria "I don't believe that for a second. You only act like you're caring because it makes you feel better about yourself."

"You make my job a lot more difficult than it has to be. We can sit here and talk and you might surprise yourself and feel better after it."

"Or I will just feel even worse."

"Is that why you won't talk about yourself then?"

"Or I just don't want to fucking talk to you." Alex observes Rogers' facials shift into disappointment and hurt. She tries not to let herself feel sympathetic towards Rogers by trying to remember that Rogers doesn't actually care about her. It's always been the easiest way to stop Alex from getting hurt. Pretend that no one actually cares and you won't open up enough to let anybody in. But Alex's pretending has always seemed to turn into reality. People she thought she could trust turn into the biggest enemies of them all, full of manipulative words and empty care. All lies for their own personal benefit.

"You can't keep doing this alone Alex. You have a person sitting in front of you that wants to listen and wants to help you."

"Because it's your job." There's an eery silence that trickles on for longer than it should until Rogers finally breaks in.

"What happened?" Rogers points to the wound vividly situated at the start of Alex's hair line with Alex becoming immediately self conscious, brushing her hair to hide the fresh mark.

"Nothing happened."

"Why do you feel like you have to lie to me?"

"Nothing. Happened." All the defence mechanisms that Alex can get her hands on are out in full force. She's doing everything in her power to make sure she doesn't let Rogers in.

Rogers twists her chair around to the right side of her desk and gently opens up the top draw, revealing a mirror that she rests in front of her, pointed in Alex's direction.

"Stop. I know it's there." Alex can't look at herself. Not one bit. She knows she will see everything she hates. Every demon. Her reflection is a haunting reminder that she's back to where she started from. This bruised and beaten version of herself that's so far from where she wants to be.

"Look at yourself Alex."

It's so hard for Alex to do. To physically shift her gaze and have it land on herself shouldn't be this hard. The confrontation between Alex and her reflection is creating a build up of anticipation that is unbearable. It's a vicious fight between knowing and hoping and the worst part is that Alex doesn't know which side is going to win.

After a strenuous few moments, Alex inches her head little by little until she is straight on with her reflection in the mirror. She can't stop looking. Like a sick addiction that will never suffice. Her gaze follows every part of her, making sure to stop at the places she's haunted by the most.

The fresh wound at the top of her forehead.

The severe swelling protruding from her cheek.

The eyes that just aren't the same anymore. A hollowness. An emptiness. They look like the eyes of a dead person. No life. No spark. Just hollow. And the realisation of this is physically painful.

A tear drops from Alex's lifeless eyes, smoothly flowing over the bruise on her cheek. The tear is the only movement in the whole room. Slow and delicate down Alex's face, but the reason for the tears is far from delicate. It's harsh and painful and the one person that can save her is drowning in her own ocean.

Water upon water until finally there's only room to sink.

And right now Alex is sinking too.

Sinking in front of a person that thinks she can save her too.

Author notes:

Once again, I apologise for the delay! Life gets messy sometimes (NO OITNB DIRECT QUOTE INTENDED ;)) I've been itching to write the next chapter so hopefully it shouldn't be too far away.