The sun was long gone. The only source of light that remained was the moon and the headlights of occasionally passing vehicles. The downpour had transformed into a slow drizzle, pattering on the car roof with a rhythmic tup-tup-tup.
They had fallen into a dazed dream state. Piper's shirt hung from Alex's sweaty pale shoulders. A half-burned cigarette held between her fingers and smoke filling the space, making it even hazier. Piper had brought the soggy packet of cigarettes along with a blanket and a half-filled hip flask that she kept in the trunk just in case of emergencies.
"And, Jakarta?" Alex picked up the conversation they were having about Piper's previous missions. Piper had found herself uncharacteristically open; almost too eager to share.
Piper hugged the blanket close over the borrowed leather jacket she was wearing and put her head on Alex's shoulder.
"2009, I was a journalist, writing about Indonesian wildlife," Piper said, playing with Alex's glasses that she was trying to put on her face. "I had to wear glasses and dye my hair. I also got quite fluent in Javanese by the end of it. We arrested a group of arms smugglers who were communicating through video game chats."
"And Moscow?" Alex asked again.
"Two years ago. Just before this one." Piper paused, she did not want to share this, too afraid to break this bubble of security with a story of betrayal. "She was one of the best hackers in KGB." Piper smiled distantly. "She was also a very skillful dancer."
"Is that how you knew Russian?" Alex was soaking up all this information with glee. Piper nodded in answer. "Did you arrest her?"
"Not exactly." Piper sighed. "The mission was compromised. She knew who I was all along. I couldn't bring her back to the states. I had to terminate the target. It was a success, anyway." Piper answered in the cold detached tone she often used in official reports. Alex decided not to probe the topic further.
"So, all those times I was showing you these cities and my half-baked language skills, you had already been to them and knew those cultures more than me?" Alex said, placing a hand over her heart dramatically.
Piper laughed. The mood shifted easily. "Not all of them. Besides, I loved visiting cities with you. I never had a nerd girlfriend spewing facts about every monument. I knew you were reading books beforehand to tell me about them. You were cute and I adored your broken Russian."
"If you are saying that to make me feel better; it's not working." Alex pouted. Piper's heart melted at the sight. She did the only thing that came to her mind. She kissed that little pout until it changed into a smile. "I would like to go to those places again with you. And to other places too." Piper hummed in agreement.
They sat huddled together in comfortable silence. Alex turned to Piper after a moment.
"What were you going to say… before?" Alex asked with an almost shy lilt to her voice.
Piper grinned and scrambled to the front seat to find her laptop bag. She sat back with the laptop on her lap and turned it on with her encryption key. "Here" she turned the screen to Alex. "Take a look at this."
Alex was a little bewildered. "Pipes, these are parole papers? How?"
"I had Poussey dig up some dirt on the Prison corporations. Polycon, in Litchfield's case. I had known about the mass incarnations that they were engaged in. As expected, they were in deep shit. Especially that V.P., Linda Ferguson. Money laundering, human rights violation, all sorts of dirty business. I visited her this morning. She agreed for your parole in exchange for my silence after I showed her all the evidence."
"Does she know who you are?" Alex asked in a worried tone.
"Of course not. I said I was a journalist from some local newspaper." Piper said. "She believed me. The parole board and prison officials are all under her thumb. She was actually unbothered by the whole thing. I was just waiting for the parole papers to come through. Poussey forwarded them to me back in the graveyard. That was what I wanted to talk to you about."
"So…" Alex said tentatively, "I don't have to go back to Litchfield?"
"No. But you will need to meet your lawyers to finalize everything. It should be a standard agreement. No drugs, guns, house arrest, a tracking device. No travel without permission."
"Still better than Litchfield." Alex's growing smile dimmed a little. "The prison corporation is fucked up. A lot of people are serving sentences that they don't deserve." And none of them have a girlfriend like you.
Piper hummed in agreement. She held Alex's hand in hers and rubbed slow circles on the back. "Once the parole is finalized, I was thinking of releasing the intel to the media or the IRS. Poussey is already looking for more incriminating evidence. Linda Ferguson cared so little because she thought she could take care of a lowly journalist. I couldn't do it before because you needed to be out of Litchfield for it to happen. I didn't want them to have any control over our situation. Once this is over we will send the right people behind bars."
Alex nodded. A small smile was gracing her lips. "You blackmailed Polycon for a parole deal, Pipes…"
"Ethics has never been one of my virtues," Piper said with a smirk.
"Mine neither." Alex chuckled and leaned in to kiss that annoying yet cute smirk away. Alex's gratitude was in the form of the kisses she showered on Piper from her lips to jaws to collar.
When they finally pause for much-needed oxygen, all Alex could think was that she loved Piper. She loved Piper like her life depended on it. Perhaps, it did. She wanted all of Piper, every day and forever. The realization didn't come as a surprise because somewhere deep down she had always known it. They were inevitable.
The question was almost on her lips. But she thought, what if it's too soon? Who was she kidding? What exactly did she have to offer? A couple of maybe-s and promises? Piper had already given her so much that she couldn't want to ask for more. She would probably wait a few days until at least she has parole. Until she was someone Piper truly deserved. Then, maybe, just maybe, she will ask. But, God, she wanted it to happen now.
"Pipes?" Alex asked to make sure that Piper was still awake and listening.
"Hmm…?" Piper's eyes were half-closed and voice dreamily.
"Have you ever woken up from a really good dream and tried to get back to sleep? Or were stuck in traffic and thought about all the time you were not stuck in traffic? Or you got the flu and promise yourself that you'd appreciate normal so much if you could just go back to normal."
Piper sat back up straight, trying to figure out where this was going. Alex was looking at her like she was the moon and the stars and everything good in the universe.
"That's the way I feel. I just want things to go back to the way they were between us. I want us to be normal for once. Then I think, what's our normal anyway? Drug lords and corrupt politicians?" Alex chuckled a little. "I think I wanted to fall in love with you again but the truth is I never stopped loving you, Pipes. I love you so much. I didn't even know I could love someone this much."
She kissed Piper. Softly. But Piper could only see the glint of tears in her eyes and the unfinished sentences. Alex was looking at her earnestly now. Like she was asking for Piper to decipher what she actually wanted to ask. Like she wanted Piper to know that if she asked, the answer will only and always be yes.
Piper did know what she was asking. How could she not? How could she not know it when the same question flowed like an undercurrent in all her thoughts. So she broke the sweet, sweet kiss and took a long swig from the age-old whiskey flask. She needed liquid courage.
She glanced at Alex and saw the understanding dawn on her. She scrambled back to the front seat and yanked out the car keys from its groove. She used her fingernails to dismantle the ring that was holding the key. This wasn't the ideal situation nor was it how she had imagined this moment to go. But she was an expert at improvising and this will have to do tonight.
"Pipes," Alex chuckled in disbelief. "What are you-"
"Just hold on a minute." Piper was too excited, too happy, and too nervous to reply something witty. And besides, she was saving all her words into coherent sentences for a little bit later. Finally, the key was out and a small metal ring was in her hands. She inhaled deeply.
When she came back to the back seat, her eyes had this unique glimmer. This glimmer that she always gets when she does something extraordinarily stupid, Alex thought.
"Pipes," Alex said, barely concealing the grin that was threatening to show on her face.
She gave Alex her glasses back, "I thought you would want to go back to your sexy librarian look." Piper was smiling like a kid in a candy shop.
"Because it has nothing to do with having to see things?" Alex raised an eyebrow teasingly.
Piper laughed and felt the tension leave her body. This. This was the woman she was proposing to. These eyes and jokes and fingers and thoughts. This feeling of wholeness. She was in love with Alex's stupid face. She was in love with Alex's everything. Whatever she did in her life to deserve this woman, she wanted to thank her past self for that. And wanted her present self to be brave enough to keep this woman.
She fidgeted with the ring in her hand until Alex grabbed her wrist, steadying her. Piper inhaled again. She smiled or tried to.
"Pipes," Alex said, her eyes softening, "This is just me. Now, what do you wanna say to me?"
"Okay, yes," Piper sighed and started again. "You have taught me that love… hurts. You have taught me that life…" she paused exhaling a breath that was scorching her insides. "... it hurts. And I wanna be there for you. And I want us to be there for each other. So that maybe… it hurts a little less." She let out another breath and held up the small metal ring between her fingers, "Alex Pearl Vause,"
"Yes, Piper Elizabeth Chapman," Alex's voice sounded deeper and wetter. Piper could see the thin layer of tears covering her eyes.
"Will you be my partner, through love and through pain, forever?" It should be a crime to look this gorgeous, Piper thought as she looked at Alex.
Alex furrowed her brows. God this woman was going to be the death of her, Piper thought. And she will gladly let Alex kill her.
"Is that your real question?"
Piper bit her lower lip just to make sure this was real and then said, "Alex, will you marry me?"
"I figured this was what you were doing?" Alex disguised her sniffle in a snort. Piper waited as if she was standing on a cliff and a little wind could topple her over. And…
Despite all her bravado, Alex could feel fear gleaming inside her like water. This thing. This love had drowned her before. Her father had left her feeling like she had done something horribly wrong. That she wasn't enough for him to stay. Or she was the reason he left. Piper had lied to her and left her. Her mother was gone too. She remembered Kubra and Aydin and Fahri. And Jason Figueroa who was still alive somewhere, hating them, waiting to take his revenge. Her imagination conjured up horrors. He would come for them. She would be abandoned again. Piper would realize she was broken. She would somehow fuck this up.
But perhaps, she told herself, it would be not like that. Perhaps all she hoped would come to pass, and she and Piper would go to those cities. To Paris and Milan and Moscow and Geneva and Tokyo and all other places without any pretense or deadlines or secret missions. They would cross and recross the seas, living on Piper's charm and Alex's broken language skills. She would write in her little journal and Piper would read all the classics she never had time to read. They would click pictures like those tourists they used to make fun of, posing and kissing and touching each other in front of every monument.
The vision blossomed as vivid as the cool glass of the window behind her, as black as the sky over her head. They would visit Nicky's greasy bar, where she would officiate Nicky's impromptu wedding. Her eyes would find Piper's in silent mirth as Piper would walk Lorna down the aisle on a dance floor. They would settle in the brownstone and sell the little house in Jericho so that Alex could open up a bookstore in downtown New York.
She would sleep with the lights on and she would panic whenever a cop would come too close. She would get claustrophobic in small spaces and lie awake with sadness. She would weep and think that she would not be able to survive this time. But she would also hold onto Piper and ask for help. She would get therapy and get better and get sick again. The therapist would say, Write it down, how you got here.
So she would, in writing it down realize, love is not miserable or tragic or sad. But love is hope and freedom and warmth. That loving Piper means she can love and can be loved, that love is what she wants and what she can do.
Perhaps she would find a rusty old typewriter in Piper's library. She would brush a hand over it and it would draw her in a spell. She would type the first few chapters of a story she had been thinking about. She would bit her lips when Piper will read them. By the end of it, Piper would be crying. And Alex would think that her writing was bad enough to make her cry. But Piper would say, "No, you idiot, you should seriously publish this. It's too good to be laying around here. This should be in a book!" She would make love to Piper that night. Little by little, she would feel worthy again.
The book she will write would become moderately successful and then eventually be adapted into a movie. So, she will write another and another and another. Because all these words in her would not stop spiraling.
There would be asshole parole officers and repetitive court dates. But there would also be real dates with Piper under moonlit skies and in hole-in-the-wall restaurants. She would give Piper a real ring on one of these dates and Piper would wear it on her finger for the rest of her life.
They would get married in North Hampton, in Bill and Carol's beachside holiday home. She would hide and cry and wish that her mother were there on her wedding day. But Piper's father would find her and say, "Your mother would be proud of the woman you have become,". He would offer her his arm and walk her down the aisle. She would laugh at Nick's stupid grin. But her breath would get caught in her throat when eyes will fall on Piper. Piper in her white minimalistic wedding dress looking like an angel on earth.
She would know how lucky she is, crammed with luck, stumbling drunk. They would dance to whatever song Nicky will choose for them. They would get drunk with Poussey. Red will begrudgingly give them her blessings, complaining that there are too many CIA agents in the party. But then Red would dance with Caputo anyway.
One night she would say to Piper that she wanted children, and Piper would say, "Are you sure?", and she would reply in an instant, "yes, yes and yes!"
They would have a daughter, then another. Nicky would be there making fun of her swollen tummy. Piper would hold her hand as she will give birth to the twins. There would be pain, but it will pass. They would grow up with Bill and Carol who will love them immensely. She would love them and wonder how much more love she could give to them.
They would spend Thanksgiving in North Hampton and Christmas in Brooklyn with their daughters and Piper's niece. Bill would become a literary companion for her and the bitterness between Piper and Carol will cease to exist with time.
Their daughters will different from them and different from each other. One will chase the labrador puppy they had adopted, while the other would snuggle with the snow-white cat in a corner. They will be wild with love for their children, standing over their sleeping faces, whispering about what she said today, what she did. They would bring them to meet Diane. Their daughters would bring their favorite flowers, lilies and plumerias, and say that they miss her. Alex would sniffle, hiding her face where Piper's neck and shoulder meet. Piper would clutch her tighter and say, "Motherhood has made you soft, Vause." Alex would smile and say, "Yes, but don't tell anyone."
One day she would pause to look at the mirror in the hallway and realize she has aged. There would be lines on her face and her skin would be growing loose. Piper would appear behind her, her hands on Alex's hips, hugging her. Piper would kiss her behind her ear and say, "How is it that I keep falling in love with you every day?" And Alex would soak up those words like dry earth on a summer's day but say, "Too cheesy, Pipes." Piper would grin in reply, "But it's the truth." And she would stupidly believe it with all her heart.
She would lie awake sometimes in the dark terrified by her life's unsureness. Beside her, her wife's pulse would beat in a steady rhythm, her children sleeping soundly in their beds. She would think that the world is full of disaster and disease and corruption and people like her who sell drugs for a living and pain in its thousand variations. She would not forget all the things she and Piper had to do and endure in order to survive. Her breath would catch in her throat. How would her daughters survive in this harsh world? How would she protect the people she loved?
Piper would stir awake beside her and sit up in the darkness, holding her hand. Their faces both lined now, marked with their age.
Al, Piper would say, it will be alright.
She would know that these are the same words that Piper uses with their daughters, when they scratch a knee or when Piper rocks them back to sleep. But strangely it would bring comfort to her. Piper's skin would familiar as her own and warm beneath her fingers. Piper will not mean that they are not scared. Only that: they will be there, together. That time will take care of it. And that Piper would sit with her in the dark and wait for the light to come.
But underneath those constellations, Piper's hand - no, their hand - in hers, she didn't know yet. She didn't know that she will serve her time, go to college, find a job, make a life, see it unbuilt and rebuilt. But it's a freefall she was willing to take with Piper. She knew that hope can make her go insane, but hope can also set her free.
Beside her at this moment, Piper was waiting, patiently. Piper didn't know the hopes and fears and revelations that were breaking and mending Alex from the inside out but she was willing to stay by Alex's side through it all nonetheless. Piper still looked at her with this earnestness that shone in her like the last rays of sun before sunset. It was hope, Alex recognized, it was hope that shone through Alex.
"Yes," Alex answered and Piper's face broke into a smile like somebody told her that she could choose the colors of the sky at sunsets from now on.
"I assume that means you'd like me to kiss you now?" This wasn't at all like Piper had imagined, but it was just so perfectly them that she wouldn't change a thing about it.
"You assume correctly," Alex rolled her eyes at that, but couldn't hide her smile. Alex slipped the slim metal ring on her finger.
"Yes?" Piper asked again, her voice half disbelief, half amusement.
"Yes," Alex answered with more certainty this time because only those who dare to go too far in life, only those who risk loving too much, can possibly know how far they can go, how much they can truly love and be loved.
And Alex did dare.
To the readers,
First of all, thank you for your patience and love. I couldn't have done it without you. I might have started because of my overactive imagination but I came back and finished this because of all the reviews. In the early days when I had all these ideas and scenes in my head I used to think there are better Vauseman stories (obviously there are), better writers (ofc), English is not even my first (or second) language, how am I going to convey what I was trying to say (still can't) and blah, blah, blah. One day, I said what the heck? I wrote the first couple of chapters and man, it was something else. It was like someone told me I get to choose the colors of the sky at sunsets from now on. I loved writing! Of course, as it is quite evident from the first couple of chapters, I had never written anything other than school work in my life, especially in English. And now I have finished an 80k word story.
I know there are mistakes and errors in this story and I am going to edit them soon. So, no I am not completely leaving this ship. I will edit and work on a couple of other ideas. Whenever in life I get time, I will come back here and write something.
I am also writing this to tell you that if you have an idea or a scene or just a drabble from any fandom - write it. If not for the readers then for yourself. You don't even have to publish it. Seeing it in flesh will make you realize that you have the power to create heroes and monsters and peace and war, at your fingertips. And it is important in life not necessarily to be strong but to feel strong. With that, I will end this journey.
May we meet again. Have a happy new year and merry Christmas next month! Shalom, everyone!
P.s. - Loved it? Hated it? Good enough? Let me know your thoughts in the review section one last time.
