The whole team is preparing to head down to the pub for a few well-earned drinks and a few hours of unwinding. Piper is filling Taysee and Tasha on the final case paperwork that needs to be filed tomorrow before they depart.

The one latitude the prosecutor affords herself is a day off following her court days. It's a nice coincidence when that day coincides with Friday but it means all the loose ends need to be clearly delegated and tied up in her absence.

Polly notices her boss' phone buzzing on the ledge behind her and quietly hands it to her. Essentially finished with her comments to her researchers, Piper looks at the readout on her phone as she confirms, "We're good?" They both nod and begin thumbing through the stacks of forms they've just received.

Not recognizing the number, Piper answers formally even though it's her personal cell, "Hello, this is Piper Chapman."

She reaches for the ledge of Polly's desk to steady herself as the deep gravel she would recognize anywhere rumbled over the line, "Do you pick one from every jury to give your personal number to or is it my lucky day?"

The words are flirtatious but the tone is anything but. Polly notices the body language radiating off of her boss and straightens in concern. Holding up a finger indicating she needs a minute, Piper quickly crosses the corridor to her office and shuts the door behind her.

"Alex. I'm...wow. Hi. I was not expecting this right now." Piper hates how unsteady she sounds.

She could have almost predicted the cutting sarcasm hurled in the brunette's response, "Oh, I'm sorry. Is this a bad time? I could call back later, say in about twenty years? This is stupid...you know what? Forget it."

Piper is just waiting for a breath on the line and quickly interrupts, "Alex, please. I'm sorry. I'm just finishing up at the courthouse and I'm a little scattered. Can we talk?"

Several seconds of silence tick by as Piper waits for a response. She can hear background noise on the line so she knows Alex is still there.

The brunette takes a long sip of whiskey and muddled orange slices while she weighs up the situation in her head. She did not want to 'talk' over the phone but she wasn't sure she was steady enough to see Piper in person either. She also knew that if this didn't happen right now, it wasn't happening at all.

Setting the drink down on the bar, she closes her eyes and exhales sharply, "The Williamsburg. Presidential Suite. Fifteen minutes." She lowers the phone and hangs up.

Picking up her drink again, she thinks to herself, "Your move, Chapman."

Piper opens her mouth to respond but the line goes dead before words have a chance to form on her lips. Looking at her phone screen just to confirm, she says aloud into her empty office, "I'll be there."

The prosecutor takes a few moments to gather herself. She walks to her window and surveys the street below. The Williamsburg is directly across from her office. She shakes her head in silent amusement. It's like a damn movie.

She turns suddenly at a knock on her door. "Yes?"

Polly pokes her head in with concern written over her face, "Is everything ok, Piper?"

Smiling softly but not trying very hard to mask the apprehension in her eyes, Piper responds sincerely, "I've had a personal matter come up and I'm not going to be able to join you guys tonight."

"Anything I can do? You know all you have to do is ask." Polly's faithful default to make herself available to her boss is appreciated but unnecessary this time.

"Thanks, Pol. Go have fun and we will regroup Monday morning. I am thankful for my personal day tomorrow. I have a feeling I'm going to need it." She smiles reassuringly at her assistant as she closes the door with a nod.

Through the door, Piper can see Polly rally the troops and usher them out, no doubt explaining that Piper has been called away and the drinks are calling anyway.

The blonde turns her attention again to what lies before her. What actually does lie before her? She wonders. What she has no ambiguity about though, is her need to wear something very different than what she is. She looks like a lawyer and she's done with that hat for a few days.

Thankful now for her habit of leaving half her wardrobe in her office, she sheds the formal pant suit and heels, opting for her favorite pair of jeans and a casual cashmere. She takes her hair down from the pin-up she'd held all day and gives the locks a good tussling before checking her reflection in the office window.

She looks much more relaxed than she feels but tries to remain positive. She refrains from planning things to say. She plans everything she says and she doesn't want to do that in this conversation. This needs to be real.

She has rolled the dice big time on this opportunity and she's not going to waste it being scripted. Transparent and genuine are her only options.

Given the demeanor Alex presented on the phone a few minutes ago, Piper knows she will have her work cut out for her to remain calm and not react. In all honesty, Alex isn't out of bounds with her skepticism or her short fuse. Piper has made bold moves and been unable to contextualize any of them until now.

Precisely fourteen minutes after the phone call, Piper slides the keycard in the elevator and presses "P". Some things never change, she muses.

She had given her name at the front desk and said she was here for a meeting in the Presidential Suite. Checking his screen, the concierge smiled, handed her a keycard and said, "Ms. Chapman, welcome. Ms. Vause is expecting you."

The elevator opened directly into the main area of the suite and Piper tentatively stepped out, letting the door slide shut behind her. Her eyes move immediately to the brunette leaning back against the kitchenette counter, arms folded across her chest in that familiar criss cross Piper had seen a million times.

She smiles at her 'host', venturing a few steps deeper into the room. "Hi."

"Hi," the brunette returns, offering Piper a glass and motioning to the sofa. "Would you like to sit down?"

The air is tense. Thick with unspoken answers to unasked questions. Piper can almost see the twisting of Alex's nerves, despite her valiant attempts to mask her discomfort.

Thanking her for the drink, Piper sits on the edge of the couch and is immediately aware that Alex is still standing. "Are you going to sit?"

Shaking her head from side to side nervously, Alex is quickly losing her composure. "No, I'm good to stand - I've been sitting a lot the last three days."

"Alex...I didn't," Piper begins but is immediately cut off.

"I don't know what you want from me or what kind of demented game this is you're playing Piper, but it ends here. Is this how you get your kicks now? Is this how you feel big and powerful? Fucking holding the marionette strings - parading me through this dog and pony show?"

Alex paces back and forth in front of the couch, counting her steps and trying to calm herself. "How long?"

"Excuse me?" Piper is trying to follow as Alex blows off a few decades of steam.

Alex continues her line of questioning, "How long did you know? About me being on the list?

Piper steadies herself and answers in as disarming a voice as she can come up with, "Monday night. I saw the list the night before jury selection."

Alex stops pacing and puts her hands on her hips as she looks to the ground, muttering, "Un fucking believable."

Offering the start of a defense for herself, Piper continues, "It's not like I put your name there, Alex. I don't get to choose who gets summoned and who doesn't. Don't put this on me like I orchestrated some grandiose scheme to rope you back into my life after twenty years. This is my fucking job. Seriously."

When Alex doesn't have more than an eye roll to fire at her immediately, Piper continues, "I could have struck you from the list then and there. Not 'could' have…'SHOULD' have. I put everything important to me on the line when I didn't and I think you know that. But I couldn't. I hesitated and justified and told myself you would never make it into the courtroom anyway, all the while hoping to God you would."

Alex whips her head around to meet Piper's eyes, clearly impacted by the unexpected honesty coming from her ex. She expected more layers of self-centric grandstanding and is caught off guard when all she encounters is a straight answer.

"Would you rather me have crossed off your name? Seen it there screaming at me and just put a fat black line right through it and gone on with life never knowing what would have happened with that second chance? Would you rather have gone on with this week like every other week and never seen me?" Piper gives the brunette an opportunity to return the olive branch of candor and respect.

Alex is still spooling up to this evolved version of the blonde who's sentences she used to be able to finish. She's working off of a two decade old model and she's beginning to second guess herself, "Well that depends, doesn't it?"

Piper isn't impressed with the cryptic response and moves the conversation quickly to last name level, "Depends?! Depends on fucking what, Vause?"

Unphased by Piper's shift toward a more aggressive stance, Alex is too focused on not showing too much of her hand, "Houndstooth."

"If this is some sick Sherlock Holmes riddle, I don't have time…"

Alex cuts her off, patience with the angst of this conversation waning, "Henry fucking Houndstooth from the courtroom. Second to last row. I'm sure you remember the one. Tall, dark and handsome? I saw the way he looked at you - the way looked at him. Who is he to you?"

Alex was grasping at straws now, desperate to form some sort of grid in which to operate. She swings frantically toward the buttons she thinks might get a reaction from the blonde. She just needs more information so she can posture herself safely.

Piper is thrown completely backward by this turn in the conversation. Is Alex jealous? Is she threatened? Piper has never known her to give a second thought to any obstacle in her way to something she wants. Then again, maybe Piper is being presumptuous that she is wanted by the brunette.

She splits her attention between interpreting Alex's sudden interest in her romantic attachments and actually answering the question. She stumbles awkwardly though the response, "Trevor. The guy I'm dating. Was dating. He's the guy I was dating."

"Well which is it, Chapman? Is or was?" Alex can play the last name game, too.

Piper looks directly into Alex's eyes. She is well past cloaking the truth. "Was."

Still unsatisfied, Alex probes, "Since when?"

Piper sits back on the sofa and takes a drink of what she is now realizing is a screwdriver. It wouldn't be her first choice but it's not like Alex has access to a full bar in here. "Since I walked out of court after closing and told him I wasn't interested in furthering our relationship. We've only been seeing each other for three months. He wants more and I want…"

The confident prosecutor falters. Alex raises her eyebrows and leans back against the counter again, waiting as she watches the blonde trail off her sentence suddenly absorbed in the pattern on the carpet in front of her.

Piper throws caution to the wind and kicks open the floodgates holding back twenty two years of heartbreak "Jesus, Alex. YOU. I want you. I've always wanted you. I've never fucking stopped wanting you. I wanted you then and I couldn't have you. I couldn't trust you. You weren't safe for me anymore. Hell, maybe you never were but you felt like home and I nearly died without you. I tried to hate you.

I tried so fucking hard to hate you but it never stuck. I couldn't do it. I worried about you. You could have been dead in a goddamn gutter in Thailand, for all I knew."

She stands from the sofa and begins her own pacing, breaking her gaze from Alex every few thoughts as she let it all out.

"I tried to distract myself and make something of myself and clearly - I haven't done half bad at that. I'm proud of my work and what I do but I can't help thinking I wouldn't even be doing this if it weren't for you. If it weren't for the fact that this fucking drug stole you from me and left a hole that has never been filled.

You're everywhere, Alex - even when you were nowhere to me. Eventually, I was able to go a whole day without thinking about you and I felt like I deserved a damn trophy. Then I could make it two days and then even a whole week."

The intensity and volume of her voice escalates steadily. Alex is riveted to her every word and is also glad she has the whole floor.

"I got to the point where I could live most of the moments without you there in my head. But the big moments, Al...the life moments. The one when I got my acceptance letter to law school. The one when I bought my house. The one when my grandma died. The one when I held Cal and Neri's son for the first time. The one when I was sworn in as a federal prosecutor...those were the moments I wanted to spend next to you, Alex. Waking up with you. Coming home to you. Going to bed with you. The big moments were supposed to be lived with you. Jesus, AL...EVERY MOMENT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE WITH YOU."

Piper's crescendo is one click short of shouting before she reels herself back in. Alex's stomach is doing flips in her gut and she is struggling to believe the words filling the room. This is nowhere near how she foresaw this conversation going. A knot in the back of her throat threatens her breathing and she feels her eyes blur with the heat of unfelt emotion.

"It was always supposed to be with you. And so yeah...when I saw your name on that list Monday night, I could have crossed it off. But that was the last fucking big moment I was willing to live without you. I had to take the chance to have this conversation we're having right now."

Piper stills the movement of her feet and takes that green-eyed gaze with hers, refusing to let go. She drops her hands to her sides - a physical statement that she's laying everything on the table.

"I've lived half my life trying to accept the fact that you aren't in it. I never would have dreamed in a million years this would happen. And as hard as it was to put myself back together after losing you, I will do it again now if I have to but what I won't do...what I won't do, Alex, is pretend that I don't know you for one more god-forsaken second.

I won't pretend that I didn't want to see you...that I didn't want to talk to you...that you aren't important. I won't pretend I don't miss you. Fuck. I won't pretend I don't love you."

The silence is deafening. Alex's face is trailed with tears that just wouldn't stay in her eyes, her face flush in the presence of such unguarded vulnerability. The two women stand facing each other, separated by half a room and what remains of half a lifetime of loneliness and unfulfilled longing shattered to a million pieces on the floor.

Piper has said all she has to say and waiting for a response feels like another half of a lifetime.

Alex wipes her face with the back of her hands and sniffs in a futile attempt to compose herself, "So was that an opening argument or a closing one?"

It's Piper's turn to cry now, "You tell me."

Closing the distance between them, Alex attempts to break the tension, "Do you always make the jurors cry?" She wraps the chuckling, exhausted, spent woman in a long overdue hug.

Piper buries her face into the shoulder she has ached for all these years. It feels the same. Alex smells the same. "Apparently. Apparently, I do."

A/N

Happy? ;)