After her brief stay in the hospital, Piper was back to her schedule. She got an offer to work in the public relations department of a firm that handles non-profits. It was more salary but also they offered her a chance to work with charities that meant something to her. She talked about it with her therapist, Polly and her mom but she waited to speak to Alex about it during one of their phone calls.
"Hey, I got a job offer." Piper said to change the subject. Alex had just finished talking about how Sophia's son came to visit her and how emotional it was for everyone.
"Oh?" Alex asked and waited for Piper to dish all the details. She told her what it was and the work she'd be doing. "Money?" Alex prompted her. Piper blushed. She was raised not to discuss salary or money matters in public. Roger looked up at her and smiled.
"It is more than I make now. Enough I could start paying for my own therapy, which would make me feel better about it." She had been wrestling with cutting her sessions down because of guilt. Her uncle was refusing rent from her and her mom was paying for her medical. Piper didn't like it one bit.
"That weighs on you, I know, Kid. Well, from what I know about you ..is that you like to help people. I also know you don't like to be beholden to anyone." Alex stated. Piper had almost convinced her to allow her to get a burn phone so Alex could call her directly using the cost issue. Alex had offered to help financially. Piper was well aware that her girl had squirreled away some of her ill gotten gains. It didn't set well with her so she had refused. Alex was still considering the phone.
"True. I think I'm going to take it." Piper stated.
Alex's next question floored Piper. "What does Larry say?" she asked in a casual tone. He had not been mentioned in their conversations or letters in months. Piper was a bit upset to realize she hadn't asked him. She flushed with shame. They were dating still but Piper always talked about his job and not hers.
"Um I haven't really asked him yet, is a new development." Piper covered. Alex was quiet for a moment.
She cleared her throat and said,"Well talk to him, I'm sure he has valuable advice about the job market since he was looking for one while you were in here." Piper agreed. She didn't want to analyze why she hadn't even thought to discuss it with him. She had a feeling it may be the topic of an upcoming session.
"Look I may not be able to call again for awhile. It is nothing to worry about but I wanted to tell you so you didn't think I had been shived in the yard." Alex said, making the worst possible joke considering how that very thing almost happened to Piper.
Piper sat up and looked at Roger. He wouldn't meet her eyes so she knew he had already heard this fact, "Why? Explain to me Alex and I will not worry then. Are you going to lose privs again?"
"You know that project I was working on well it is about time it comes to fruitation." Alex said reluctantly. "Please be careful what you said, kid." She warned in a very low voice.
Piper was instantly terrified. Whatever plan Alex had been cooking up for Dawson and Mendez was about to happen. Her hands started to shake and Roger reached across their table and held her free hand. "Please don't. I...please," she begged.
Alex made a calming sound with her voice, "It's okay and I gotta Kid, I have no choice."
"Do you think..are you saying SHU here or transfer?" Piper tried to get more information out of her without really saying anything.
"Who knows...just be prepared. My lawyer has information for you if something happens. Roger is my contact now with the Prison and my lawyer. So no worries about that okay?" she tried to console Piper. Piper asked her if her friend in the Admin, meaning Fig, could do anything to help. Piper had never asked her about her on the phone or mentioned her in a letter. She was well aware that her name would have been a red flag. But now she had to know if Alex could use her relationship, as fucked up and unequal is it was by definition, to keep herself safe.
Alex responded with a careful tone, "Um no. You know me I have no friends in admin. I'm surprised you asked actually." Alex admitted.
"I don't like to think about it but now I have to." She responded.
Alex cleared her throat. "It's been okay...but I am on my own," was her final answer.
Piper heard the sound that signified Alex's time was up. "Be careful...remember please that someone out here loves you very much and they care about what happens to you. Please be careful." Piper said then the phone went dead. She handed it to Roger and stared down the street in a daze. She saw people walking along, going about their day. Businessmen and women with their phones to their ears or carrying on animated conversations as they went to and from lunch. The world just moved on around her and the heartbeat of this City, the City she loved, kept on beating while her world shattered. The false sense of security she felt these months evaporated with one phrase, "I may not be able to call for awhile." Piper had allowed herself to forget that Alex had been forced to sell drugs to protect her date.
Roger sat and let her process for a moment, then Piper pushed her plate away. "Tell me." She said quietly.
He shifted in his seat and pushed his food away as well. "She told me when I visited on Saturday that she had to do something that may put her in SHU for awhile." Piper closed her eyes hearing her fear confirmed. "She said it wouldn't be easy but she would survive and had done it before. She also said that at least this time she knew you were alright. She asked me to look after you and she most likely called Polly before you spoke and did the same thing. I wouldn't be surprised if you came home to find her on your stoop."
"What was it she has to do?" Piper pushed him to explain.
"You know Alex, it was need-to-know and what I needed to know was she had me down as her contact and my job was to take care of you. As always kid...no different." Roger said this gently. His use of Alex's pet name for her is what caused silent tears to start falling.
"Do you know anything about what is going on with her?" Piper asked. He shook his head. "Well let me see, a sadistic fuck guard named Mendez felt me up after her first trip to SHU and Alex attacked him. I got her off of him and she miraculously didn't get in trouble...but he did.. as it was witnessed. In what i thought was total retaliation for that I was patted down numerous times daily, especially by a set group of male guards. They did it in front of Alex often and their hands roamed where they wanted if no one was around. It was hard but we dealt. Then she got a fat lip that she wouldn't explain...but the pat downs slowed. " Piper swallowed and looked out in to the street. She could still feel hands on her sometimes but thinking about it now, talking about it made her see Alex's face as it happened to her. The impudent rage that changed her features to one of an unknown creature, caged and full of such hatred.
Piper closed her eyes and continued, "I was due out in a few days and I snuck to see her in the laundry. She was working late and I overheard a conversation I shouldn't have heard. Alex was talking to one of the guards, one of the worse. He was instructing her on how to sell pills from the laundry. She got smart with him and he threatened me again. Apparently for some time he'd been trying to get her to do it and they used me to make her." Piper's voice broke. Roger moved his chair over and leaned close to her, giving her the warmth of his hug.
From the relative safety of his arms she continued, "He had been the one that hit her. He told her that he'd plant the drugs on me and I would lose my date if she didn't comply. I don't know how they did it...I mean I had heard stories of girls that actually fucked up their girlfriend's date out so they could keep them there. He just kept pushing her buttons and Alex couldn't hide her fear for me. I begged her, I begged her so much to go to Fig and tell her. But she said it would do no good as she didn't want drug activity on the record." Roger asked who Fig was and she explained. He then cursed like she had never heard him before about the prison system. She let him have his little rage and just leaned her head on his shoulder.
"She is smart. If she is ready to make a move now, then she has it all thought out. I know it is scary but we will be here for her. " Roger was so rock solid that Piper almost believed him.
She did come home to Polly. She was hoping that Alex would try and call one more time that night but Polly crushed that hope. "No she said she'd probably not call me at all again. Look I asked as much as I could on the phone. She could tell I knew about things. She just said she had to do something and that was that. She told me she sent you three letters and wanted me to tell you.." Polly stopped and swallowed. Piper was stunned because rarely did she get sentimental over Alex.
She continued, "To tell you that loving you had saved her. That if she did anything else with her life that was good, it was because of you." Piper hugged her. Polly stayed the night and slept with Piper in her bed. She awoke twice screaming.
Her Doctor pushed her appointments up to three times a week for the next short while and insisted that go back on some meds. She went from being numb to a nervous wreck. She took the job and went through all the paperwork with her PO to switch. He had been considerably nicer since the flu incident . She got her letters from Alex but couldn't open them. She took them to one of her sessions and Dr. Speer sat with her when she opened the first one.
Hey Kid,
I know this is hard. I know what could happen and I want you to know I'm not afraid. All I wanted was for you to be safe and now you are. I realized that taking care of you anyway I could was the most important thing I've ever done because it meant for the first time in my life I did good.
So when you worry about me, remember I am feeling just fine. No matter what comes my way, I feel fine because I can close my eyes and see you walking down the street free. I picture you playing with Finn or drinking wine with Polly. I picture you entertaining all the people at work with your casserole stories. I picture you running in Prospect Park. My mind is free with you. That is what matters now doesn't it?
They may chain my body, abuse me and lock me away but they can't hurt me.
As Morrison said, We fear violence less than our own feelings. Personal, private, solitary pain is more terrifying than what anyone else can inflict. And my personal, solitary pain isn't so terrifying now that I have your love.
I love you, A
Dr. Speer read the letter with her and Piper just cried. She helped by stating, "You weren't exaggerating, that girl can write a letter." Piper smiled some and put the letter back in the envelope carefully. "You ready for another one?" The doctor asked.
Piper nodded and took out the next letter. "It is an observation one, where she writes down things she thinks and would share with me if I was with her." Piper explained as it was a random set of sentences.
Today, a Spanish Mami girl, Daya, the one that had her baby, she showed me a picture. Some people think it is he-who-shall-not-be-named's kids but most of us know it isn't. One cute kid! Don't tell Polly but he could give Finn a run for his money
Polly called me a white cracker drug lord wannabe today when I pointed out she was being a bitch about Pete on the phone. I laughed for three hours.
Lorna sent a care package to Nicky and it had Curve magazine in it and it actually made it through check. She is very popular with the lesbians, let me tell ya. I'm third in line to read it. Red has it before me because she said she is curious. So does that make her 'bi-curious"?
I had a bad day today with missing you. I was tempted by another. I got close, I admit it, but then I saw your face and burst in to tears. I was bad ass, now I'm a pussy. I'm trying to care.
When I spent that day not knowing where you were, it brought back my time in SHU. I thought it would leave my mind but it keeps creeping back in and whirling around until I can't focus on simple tasks. I had been wearing eyeliner again but I think maybe I should opt for constipation.
I saw the damn chicken again. I was alone in the yard, reading under that stupid tree. What are we, fowl magnets?
Piper actually laughed. She translated some of the items to the Doctor so she'd understand why they were funny. Piper put the letter to her chest and swallowed back her tears. If Alex could do this, so could she. She wasn't the same person that went in to Litchfield over two years ago now. The one about being tempted made her stomach roll. She had stopped asking Alex but had pretty much resigned herself to the fact Alex was getting laid in prison. She herself was horny most of the time. Her dates with Larry had begun to heat up though she had never let him stay the night with her. She clung to the facade that Alex was celibate too. It was a comfort to her.
"That's right. Shore yourself up Piper. You can do this. Now, want to read the next one?" she gently prompted. Piper nodded and put the letter carefully back in the envelope.
Hey Kid,
Some poetry excerpts to ponder...let's see if you can pick each poet without google ;)
Love shook my heart,
Like the wind on the mountain
Troubling the oak-trees.
Piper smiled and murmured Sappho then read on...
One ought not to have to care So much as you and I Care when the birds come round the house
To seem to say good-bye; Or care so much when they come back
With whatever it is they sing; The truth being we are as much
Too glad for the one thing As we are too sad for the other here -
With birds that fill their breasts But with each other and themselves
And their built or driven nests.
"Frost, the Hill Wife," she said with a smile. Of course Alex wouldn't pick a well known one like The Road Not Taken, Birches or Stopping By the Woods On A Snowy Evening.
Oh do not die, for I shall hate But yet thou canst not die, I know;
All women so, when thou art gone,
That thee I shall not celebrate,
When I remember, thou wast one.
To leave this world behind, is death,
But when thou from this world wilt go,
The whole world vapours with thy breath
Piper read it twice trying to figure it out. It was Elizabethan but she wasn't quite sure. Then it hit her, it was an excerpt from John Dunne's Fever. She smiled as it was so appropriate. She looked up at the Doctor and explained.
"This must have taken her sometime. Is she as educated as you are?" the doctor inquired.
Piper shook her head then said, " Well yes, not formally but she is one of the most well read people I know. She didn't come from money so she didn't get a formal education. " Piper read the last one.
I need her in the morning light,
When the harshness of day has not yet sunk,
Its fangs into my body.
I need her in the garish light,
Of a midday sun as it,
Exposes all of my faults.
I need her in the dimming of the day,
When weariness claims my
Good intentions against my will.
I need her when night is falling
And its blackness covers me like
A lover no longer desired.
I need her in each moment,
And it is a need that defines,
Who I am and Who I will be.
Piper burst in to tears when she finished. The words all swam around and she felt dizzy. Dr. Speer gave her a tissue as she said, "Alex Vause, I need Her."
**** So here we go...Please review! Faecym***
