Here's a short, but I think suitable, final chapter. I know I basically abandoned this, but if I'm being honest, I sort of forgot about it until someone mentioned it in a review of another story of mine recently!
I hope this is a good enough ending for you all.
4 years later:
"As for Alex, I knew from the moment I saw her I was in trouble," Alex reads from where she's sitting next to her wife in their living room. "If anything, I found her more attractive than when we first met - something I struggled to admit to myself for quite some time."
Laughing at what she had just read, Alex turns to the blonde.
"I didn't know that," she says through her entertainment.
"I thought you probably assumed it," Piper shrugs, somewhat nervous to hear Alex's opinions of her work.
"Of course I assumed it," Alex raises her eyebrows. "You've just never admitted it."
"There's a lot of things in there I've never admitted before," Piper juts her head forward, looking at the book in her wife's hands.
Although writing a memoir was something she wanted to achieve, the blonde didn't realise just how long it would take. From a legal standing point, she had to change the names of some of the people she was incarcerated with, and more so for herself and Alex's safety, there is less of a focus on what they had been involved with before prison, only parts of their relationship.
Now out for members of the public to read, Piper is letting Alex read the book for the first time. Of course, she'd read most of it already when Piper requested for her assistance, but the blonde wanted some parts to be a surprise - mainly the chapters that focused on the roller coaster that is their relationship.
"When we again connected sexually after 8 years, I realised what I'd been missing out on. Yes, I did spend time in solitary for it, but I soon learnt that when it comes to being with Alex, I'd just about do anything."
After reading the small paragraph, Alex pauses, licking her lips as she thinks of what to say.
"I guess we never really spoke about the SHU," she continues, thinking back to the Thanksgiving dinner she spent worrying about the woman next to her.
"It sucked," Piper states quite obviously. "I wasn't myself in there, but it taught me I never wanted to go back in."
Nodding at the blonde's response, Alex looks back at the book and turns to the next page.
"Is all of this chapter about me?" she asks, again seeing the first sentence featuring her name.
"The majority of it," Piper reaches over and runs her finger to roughly 5 pages before and opening it wider. "See," she places her finger down onto the bold font reading the number 3 with the words A Blast From The Past.
"Ah, okay," Alex nods slowly, almost as though trying to take in the fact that details of herself and Piper's relationship are being told to the world. "Do you," she pauses trying to think of a good way to ask what she's thinking. "Do you go into a lot of detail?"
"Only what I thought was relevant," Piper tilts her head slightly, placing her hand on her wife's bare forearm. "I told you all the things I wasn't going to include. I wanted to talk about you when you're mentioned, Alex. Why you being in prison with me was one of the thing to have happened."
Giving a close-lipped smile, Alex looks back towards the page, feeling reassured that Piper won't be spilling all of their history onto paper.
"I told Alex I loved her when I was trying to fix a toaster in the canteen kitchen. I also told her I hated her in the same sentence. That's the thing I learnt about loving Alex; no matter how much shit we went through, it was always just that. I am in love with her."
Smiling to herself, Alex can feel Piper's trimmed fingernails running along her forearm, providing a reassuring touch.
"Sure, we both ended up in prison together, but who wouldn't want to be locked inside with the love of their life?"
Again stopping, Alex turns her head to the left.
"You mean that?"
Piper knows the woman next to her can sometimes still harvest guilt for how she landed her in prison. She can't exactly blame her - she herself feels her anxiety grow when she thinks back to how she left Alex alone in Paris all those years ago. They're over it now, but memories are something that inevitably appear every now and then.
"Of course I do," Piper says, giving a toothy smile. "Otherwise I wouldn't have agreed you marry you again, Al," she moves her fingers down to Alex's left hand, fiddling with the simple, silver wedding band on her ring finger.
They'd gotten legally married close to a year after Alex's release. Although it was something they'd been planning throughout the rest of her sentence, Alex insisted they waited until she had enough money to buy Piper a ring. Of course, that caused the odd argument - more so Piper being stubborn about not having to save up when she already has savings for the pair of them, but Alex wanted the gesture to be more meaningful than that. Special.
Piper was surprised her parents both came to their wedding, and although it was awkward whenever they tried to converse with Alex, she was just glad that they finally seemed to accept that this is her life: she's married to Alex and will be spending the rest of her life with her.
"I even said that at the trial. You know… Chicago," Piper reveals, noting that she had never shared that information with her wife before.
"Hmm?" Alex hums, clearly wondering what Piper is alluding to from what they had just spoken about.
"I called you the love of my life during my testimony."
"You did?" Alex asks, and Piper wonders whether she's thinking back to the conversation they'd had hours before she had spoken on the stand. They were in the prison transportation van and spoke about things being romantically over between them.
"Yeah," Piper leans forward, delivering a light kiss to her wife's cheek. "That's the one thing I never lied about on that stand," she adds jokingly.
"You're something else, Piper," Alex smiles, placing her hands on either side of the blonde's cheeks to pull her into a kiss. They both ignore the sound of the book hitting the floor, finding their attention focused on nothing but each other.
"Oh, I don't know, Pipes," Alex says to the blonde who is animatedly trying to persuade the brunette next to her.
It's been a week since the blonde's memoir had been released, and despite its popularity throughout the media, there's only one thing people are craving to see and hear more about.
"It's just a picture, Al," Piper chuckles, placing her hand on Alex's hip from where they're both still lying in bed having woken up just 5 minutes before. "People want to see what the great Alex Vause-Chapman looks like."
"People don't need to know what I look like, Piper," Alex protests, finding the idea of her image being out in the world somewhat daunting.
"They're going to find out sooner or later," Piper wiggles her eyebrows. "They've already asked me to bring some pictures along for my interviews," she adds, also excited about the opportunities her memoir is opening doors to.
"Fine," Alex huffs as she watches Piper give off a bright smile before instantly turning over to grab her phone from her nightstand. "Are you going to be in it," Alex asks as she watches Piper settle onto her back and unlock her phone.
"Do you want me to be in it?" the blonde asks, turning her head to the right.
Thinking for a moment, Alex concludes she'd feel a lot more comfortable with Piper by her side - not that it would make too much of a difference.
"It would make things a lot less scary if you were in it with me."
"Then I'll be in it with you," Piper smiles, moving her body so that she's now invading her wife's personal space. "I'll make it worth your while after we're done," she says in a lower register, kissing the brunette on the lips innocently.
The blonde then adjusts herself so that she's lying on her back and prompts Alex to do the same, making sure they're both close together.
"Aren't you forgetting something?" Piper asks once she feels Alex rest her head against her own, looking at the front camera that is currently open on her device.
Looking at her wife confused, Alex furrows her brows before Piper turns her head to look at her.
"Your glasses," the blonde prompts, knowing they're on her wife's side table.
"Oh, right," Alex turns to grab the frames, having not thought Piper would have minded if she had them on or not.
"Much better," Piper smiles once Alex again settles into her previous position.
The brunette surprisingly complied more than she thought she would, and after what must have been close to 20 seconds, Piper snapped a suitable picture of the two of them smiling into the camera. Upon reflection, it was obvious they were both still in bed and hadn't long been awake, but it doesn't bother her. If anything, Piper knows it will get people talking more than they already are about herself and Alex's relationship.
"So, what're you doing now?" Alex asks.
Although Alex is up-to-date with modern technology, social media is less her thing. It's something Piper learnt very quickly when Alex would voice her disdain whenever she would show her something from her own phone.
"Putting it on Twitter," Piper responds, already attaching the picture into a tweet.
"What are you typing?" Alex continues to question, and Piper laughs in reply.
"You don't need to be so paranoid, you know," she smiles at her wife. "I thought I would just settle with the glasses emoji."
"Isn't that a little weird? No writing?"
"Well what else do you suggest? I put our address?" Piper asks sarcastically, enjoying watching Alex squirm.
"Alright, fine. You do your thing," the brunette relents, raising her hands as though surrendering.
After posting the image, Piper places her phone on the side and turns back to her wife.
"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" she asks, turning onto her side as she again places her hand on Alex's hip.
"I guess not, no. Now you'll just have to deal with all the marriage proposals I'm about to get," she jokes.
"Oh I think not," Piper squeezes her wife's flesh. "I'm afraid you're stuck with me."
"That, I am," Alex mirrors Piper's wide smile which soon melts as their lips once again gravitate towards one another.
Thanks for reading!
It's been an interesting time spent writing since I started this, so I appreciate anyone that does manage to read the ending.
Until next time.