A Place For You

"If you wait for me,

then I'll come for you.

Although I've traveled far,

I always hold a place for you in my heart."

Really, she had Delia to thank for it. Her new intern had insisted on the flowers. She promised they would brighten the entry and draw customers in from outside. Never one to let a sales opportunity pass her by, Alex Vause recruited Judy King hard to make her newly opened bookstore A New Chapter the first stop on her Con Carne: Missing the Meat While Taking the Heat book tour. Despite never having served any time together, when Alex pitched the potential media frenzy over two of Litchfield's finest debuting their success stories together, King's team could hardly say no. And she was right.

They booked interviews with almost all of the major papers in the city and even landed a national gig–a ten-minute spot on Good Morning America. It was more than Alex ever could've hoped for, and she was still riding the high of that publicity when her phone rang with that eerie voice: An inmate from Litchfield prison is attempting to contact you...

Heart thundering in her chest, Alex answered immediately, ready to atone for her long list of sins. And that's how Tasha Jefferson strong-armed a surprised and disappointed Alex into agreeing to sponsor an internship for one of the inaugural recipients of a microloan from the Poussey Washington fund–a fifty-six year old factory worker from Detroit who was locked up for brandishing a gun at her ex-husband after he showed up drunk on her porch one night and kicked her new Shih Tzu puppy named Honey.

Delia had arrived a month ago with no recollection of an inmate named Piper Chapman and already acting like she ran the place. Hence the flowers. So maybe it was more accurate to say that she had Taystee to thank for it, which was much more fitting when Alex really thought about it. No matter who the credit belonged to, Alex was elbow deep in potting soil when it all finally came to a head on a blustery April day in the middle of Queens.

"Vause? Alex Vause? Holy shit."

Alex looked up from her geraniums to find none other than Gloria Mendoza staring at her like she was a ghost. Beside her, two teenage boys glanced at Alex with mild curiosity, trying to place her. A similarly curious little child peered at Alex with wide brown eyes from the stroller Gloria was pushing.

"That's a nickel for the jar, Mami," the younger boy said, pointing to the blonde toddler.

"Mendoza?" Alex squinted and pulled her glasses from her pocket. "Gloria Mendoza, is that you?"

"In the flesh."

But instead of smiling and acting even halfway friendly, Gloria's face was a tight mask of concern. Alex looked again at the boys for some sort of clue to Gloria's standoffish behavior, but they were already looking beyond her at the bookstore.

"It's good to see you. I'd give you a hug, but..." Alex lifted her dirty hands. " You live around here?"

"Not exactly, we are just visiting–" the younger boy started.

"¡Cállate!," Gloria hissed to her son. "Lleva al bebé a mirar los libros."

Deflated, the boys pushed the stroller toward the front window and pointed out various colors to the little girl in both English and Spanish as they glanced furtively over their shoulders at their mother. Gloria was staring straight at Alex like she could burn a hole through her chest.

"Those your boys?" Alex tried again to be friendly. "I don't remember you having a daughter."

"Got two, actually," Gloria said. "But they grown. That's–" Gloria cuts off and bites her lip like she wants to say a lot of something but knows better. Instead, she grinds out, "Yeah, that's my Benny and Julio."

"Big," Alex tries a placating smile like the one she imagines might grace the face of someone who was genuinely interested in Gloria Mendoza's offspring.

Alex couldn't care less why Gloria Mendoza is pushing around a little white baby, and Gloria clearly doesn't want to talk to her. Gloria is still looking livid, and Alex is about to excuse herself to go inside when Gloria's oldest son gives a shout and waves at someone turning the corner. Alex is following his gaze when Gloria grabs her chin, forcing Alex's eyes back to her own.

"You, be good!" Gloria's voice is low and deadly. "You, be good."

Alex is too stunned to do anything but gape. She is still processing Gloria's order when she hears a voice she would know anywhere, even though the last time she heard it around a corner, it was screaming obscenities. But the puzzle pieces aren't fitting together–Gloria, the teenagers, a tiny little girl in a tiny little denim jacket–and it's been so long.

But.

She would know that voice in any context, after any length of time. So when she turns to see Piper Chapman rounding the corner with a grin on her face, Alex is still shocked, but not at all surprised. When Piper finally meets her eyes after three years and four months since Alex made that fateful deal, Alex is staring with her mouth open like an idiot.

Piper stops short and cuts Gloria a look brimming with betrayal. She is abruptly furious and stunning. Her hair is fuller now, and longer, hanging just past her shoulders. She's wearing slim black jeans and converse sneakers. A turquoise polo is peeking out from underneath her grey windbreaker. The polo has some sort of emblem stitched in the corner, like a uniform. Her cheeks are pink from the bite of the late afternoon wind, indicating she's been walking at least some distance. Piper's eyes are bright with barely contained hurt. The little girl in the stroller is oblivious to the sharp silence that has fallen around her. She reaches happily for Piper and crows in the bubbling voice of an excited child, mama!

Then lots of things happen at once. Delia pokes her head out of the store with the phone in her hand, gesturing to Alex to take a call. The toddler overturns the stroller to go running into Piper's arms. Benny, Julio, and Gloria start up a low but heated argument in Spanish. For Alex, it's like all of it is happening at the end of a very long tunnel because the world around her has shrunk down to a single sound reverberating in her head like a gong: mama, mama, mama, mama...

"Basta!" Piper finally barks, breaking Alex out of her reverie.

She approaches the boys to fasten the little girl back into the stroller. They quiet immediately, cowed. Gloria rattles out two or three more sentences that Alex can't understand before Piper wheels on her as well.

"I said enough," Piper repeats.

Delia is looking between everyone like she's discovering her very own soap opera. She raises her eyebrows at Alex, "I'll take a message. Need some help out here?"

"Not at all," Alex says, finally spurred back into action by the delighted mirth in Delia's face. "Just having a little Litchfield reunion. Delia, this is Gloria Mendoza," Alex nods toward Gloria, then turns to face Piper squarely for the first time. She has to try very hard to keep her voice from breaking when she says, "And this is Piper Chapman."

Delia's eyes shoot up her forehead, but to her eternal credit, she doesn't utter a word about the endless questions Alex peppered her with upon her arrival in an effort to ascertain any intel on Piper that she could. Alex is savagely grateful because the last thing she needs right now is fodder for another eruption. Already, she can feel Gloria smoldering beside her and Piper has that tell-tale expression on her face that says she's one emotion away from bolting.

"My pleasure," Delia smiles. "Y'all want to come in out of the wind and catch up? I just put some tea on."

"We have to get going," Gloria looks pointedly at Piper. "Julio has the science fair this afternoon." She can't resist a smug smile in Alex's direction, "Top fifty in the state."

Alex raises her eyebrows in what she hopes to be an impressed expression, but she can't stop staring at Piper. This is made easier by the fact that the blonde is trying to look everywhere that is not at Alex. The boys follow their mother toward the bus stop across the street with the baby in tow, but Piper seems frozen in place. Alex takes a tentative step forward, and it seems to break through whatever trance Piper has been occupying the last few minutes.

"Do you work at this bookstore?" Piper still can't seem to force herself to look at Alex, so she turns to study the building, instead. Alex watches her take in the flowers and the display in the front window.

"Actually, I own this bookstore," Alex replies.

"Own it?" Piper repeats. "How do you own it?"

Alex scoffs, hurt despite her intention to appear aloof, "That's really what you want to ask me right now when you show up out of the blue after three fucking years with Gloria Mendoza and a goddamn baby? How do I own this bookstore?"

Alex's anger has the usual effect of sparking a reaction in Piper. Alex has always prided herself on being able to read Piper with ease, but Piper's face is cycling through a variety of emotions at the moment, few of which Alex recognizes at all. A dull sort of panic grinds to life in her gut, but she can't seem to stop the cutting snark.

"Let's see. I lease the building, fill it with books, and persuade people to buy them when they come in," Alex snaps. "Not that different from heroin, really."

"No, I guess it's not," Piper deadpans.

Across the street, Gloria has settled herself at the bus stop and realizes Piper isn't behind her. She takes three menacing steps into the street and shouts again in Spanish.

At the sound of Gloria's voice, Piper shakes her head like she's waking up. Her eyes are the clearest they've been and Alex can read both fear and desire in them. Desire for what, she's not sure, but she's not ready for this moment to end. Suddenly ashamed at her snappishness, Alex grabs for Piper's wrist, desperate to feel any part of her, but Piper yanks it away.

"Don't," Piper says, touching the fingers of her other hand to the place where Alex touched.

"Listen, this isn't how I wanted this to go, seeing you again," Alex softens her voice. "Do you want to maybe get a drink later? When you're done? We have a lot to say to each other."

"Do we?" Piper asks.

The steel in Piper's tone surprises Alex so thoroughly that she can't help but answer frankly, "Well, I know I do."

Piper is already turning to cross the street. She's just about to step off the curb when she turns back to Alex as if on a whim.

"Eight o'clock. The Corner Bar," Piper says. "Have a drink waiting. I'm going to need a solid buzz for this."

And just like that she's gone, again. Tucked into Gloria's side and ushered onto a bus taking her to a science fair with people that seem to know Piper Chapman better than Alex does, now. It makes her feel shaken and off-balance. Even after six years apart before–double the time of this last separation–prison sent Piper running right back to Alex with her heartache, so easy to put to heel. This is not going to be like that. Alex can see it already. She glances at the bookstore to ground herself. Delia is peering at her from behind the door. Alex rolls her eyes and heads back to the familiar haven of her books.

"So that's Piper." Never one for small-talk, Delia dives right in with a devilish grin.

Alex collapses on her stool behind the half-wall that blocks off their office space from the rest of the ground floor. "That's Piper."

"She's pretty," Delia presses.

Alex sighs deeply and presses her hands into her eyes, "She's fucking gorgeous. Still."

"Well, what did she say?" Delia leaned over the wall to implore Alex with greedy eyes. "What's the business?"

"The business?" Alex cocks an eyebrow. "What are you fresh out of a Lifetime special? The business is none of your business. You are here to work."

As if on cue, a young couple pushes open the door of the shop. The woman has her arm threaded through the man's, and she's leaning into him, laughing at something he's just said as they walked in. It sends a lance of pain through Alex's chest. She kicks her chin toward the couple as she turns away to check her message from earlier.

"There's your business, Nancy Drew," Alex says.

Delia rolls her eyes but leaves Alex alone. Alex leans back, tipping her head to lean against the wall. Her mind is doing double-time, trying to sort through the surprise encounter. She tries to recount the words Piper said or the lines of her face, but her brain keeps autocorrecting back to the sound of that little girl squealing for her mother.

For Piper.

For Piper who is now apparently someone's mother.

No matter how many times the moment plays over in her head, Alex can't make sense of it, and all of a sudden, she is fighting back tears. She remembers that morning in the library, the way those words–I pick him–burrowed into her chest like a parasite, eating away at her sanity while Piper rotted in the SHU. She probes at the rest of it–the churn of her stomach as she waited for her turn to testify, knowing Piper was just out of reach like always; the icy fear that crept up her spine every time a car backfired or a door slammed in that shitty Queens studio; the heady adrenaline rush as she swung the baseball bat with all her might into that windshield; the grief wrapped around her like a blanket as she swept through city after city for the feds, leaving the possibility of Piper a little further behind each time. It's too much. Being with Piper had become like trying to follow footsteps on the shore that are constantly being washed away by the tide. Somewhere in the mess of it all, Alex lost the trail, and she isn't sure how to find it again or if she ought to just start enjoying the horizon, instead.

With a low growl in the back of her throat, Alex swipes at her leaking eyes. Ruminating on corny beach metaphors and letting yuppie, hetero couples make her jealous? Jesus. She has got to get her shit together.

Okay, you guys. This one is a big risk because I'm back to work now and super busy, but I do have it about 1/2 done, so I thought it was safe to start posting.

My deepest apologies again to any native Spanish speakers if I butchered the translation. I got a bit of help from my brother who is currently living abroad, but I'm not sure I totally nailed it. If anybody would be willing to help, let me know. I definitely don't want to demean the language by constantly messing it up, so let me know if you think I should just put the English in brackets to show the speaker would deliver it in Spanish. I went back and forth forever trying to decide.

The lyrics are "The Promise" by Tracy Chapman.