A/N: Hey y'all, sorry for the delay on this. My brother was in town for almost a week, and not only could I do no writing while I played hostess, but I also couldn't do much work, so I had to do extra on either end of his visit. So I've been pretty busy. This is a fairly long chapter though, hope you enjoy!

General Fic Warnings: PTSD, depression, lightly evocative of self-harm

I'm trying but I'm gone through the glass again (just come find me)

This isn't working. Not for either of them.

Piper has to do better, but so does Alex.

Slowly, she sits up, running a hand through her hair.

Then she pulls herself together and walks back to Piper's cube to find that goddamn tattoo gun.

Everyone's still at dinner, the dormitory empty, leaving Alex free to start ripping apart the cube. She upends the mattress and tugs off the sheets, then turns her attention to Piper's cabinet.

She finds the bundle of her old letters, a thick stack representing all those terrifying weeks in Queens...dozens of unanswered attempts to get Piper to talk to her. Alex holds her own apologies in her hands, anger flaring again, overwhelmingly loud for the few moments before she remembers the phrases from the letters that are now residing forever on Piper's skin.

"Alex?" Piper's voice comes from behind her, small and confused. Alex just keeps pawing through the contents of the cabinet. The pitch rising in panic, Piper adds, "What are you looking for?"

Alex doesn't answer; she's already decided, she's not saying another word to Piper until she destroys that thing.

Piper does nothing; doesn't even repeat her question, definitely doesn't come over and try to stop Alex. She just watches, and after less than a minute more of searching Alex finds it in a box of ramen.

Relief waterfalls through her as soon as the tattoo gun is in her hands, and Alex doesn't even look back at Piper, just sets her grip and snaps it in two, separating the handle. Behind her, a crooked, gasp of a sound unspools from Piper, but Alex keeps going, ripping off the extension cord before dropping the remaining pieces of the gun on the floor and driving her heel deliberately onto the needle.

She picks it up, urgently untwisting the paper clips holding bits together. When it's mangled into the smallest possible sections, she stomps on any part that seems crucial.

Only when she's certain it's beyond repair does Alex look up.

Piper's stone still in the door to her bunk, face ashen, eyes huge and stricken. It's an expression Alex recognizes - from old clients, from patients in the detox unit of her rehab center, from herself in the mirror at too many different points in her life: junkie panic.

"Sorry," Alex says. She's panting a little, and it's a half-truth. She's not sorry for smashing the godforsaken thing, but she can't help being sorry for making Piper's face look like that. "But I...I can't talk to you when you have that thing."

Piper's got her arms wrapped around her torso, and even from her place on the floor Alex can see her shaking. It winds her stomach into knots, and Alex turns to put Piper's letters and snacks back into the cabinet, buying herself a few moments to toughen back up. Then she drops the metal bits of the tattoo gun into the trash can and gets to her feet.

"Will you come sit?" Alex asks, nodding at the bed.

It takes Piper awhile to drag her gaze away from the trash can; she looks a little dazed, but she eventually walks forward and sits down beside Alex on the edge of her mattress.

"I don't know if you know this," Alex starts in a hard, calm voice. "If you've figured it out or whatever, but...Berdie's been counseling me for PTSD." That draws Piper's attention back, her eyes grazing Alex's face for a flash of a second before dropping. "She was on me as soon as I got back, because of nightmares in the hospital...I know you at least woke up once, when I was talking in my sleep. I wake up scared pretty much every night. Actually, lately, it's more like I'm just not sleeping. And I haven't even been outside since I've been back. I've had a few flashbacks, and that's a more literal thing than I ever thought. Makes me feel fucking crazy. Mostly I'm just...on the edge, all the time, like I still think someone's gonna jump out and attack me. I get freaked out even when there's no reason to be anymore. And," Her voice sharpens a little. "I get panic attacks. Which I guess you know now."

Piper isn't looking at her, her face tilted down in the direction of the mattress, and she's tracing her finger on her thigh. What little Alex can see of her expression is pained.

"So...that's where I"m at," Alex finishes. "I've been trying to hide it from you, but I'm thinking now that was a bad move." She lets that settle long enough that Piper sneaks a look up at her.

"I think I wanted to protect you. You were torturing yourself about what happened, Pipes, and I didn't want you to feel more guilty than you already did. And also...I've been so fucking worried about you. I didn't want my own shit to get in the way because helping you seemed more important, but now I'm thinking...why aren't you doing the same thing when I need it?"

Piper physically flinches. She's moved against the wall in the corner of the mattress by now, seeming to shrink into herself even more, properly shamed, and it makes Alex's chest hurt but at least she knows the words are said and now they're gone. Piper has no way of keeping them.

"I'm actually asking, Piper," Alex adds firmly. She's all too familiar by now with the signs of Piper shutting herself off, but Alex is done letting it happen. She can talk freely to Piper, now, and that's important, but she's also going to make Piper talk to her. She's been letting her get away with five to ten single syllable words a day, and in the silences between them Piper found space to hide herself somewhere Alex can't find. "I want to know why."

But Alex has made a decision; she's finally sending out the damn search party, aggressive and determined and brandishing torches.

Panic and guilt are devouring Piper, gnashing their teeth and competing for the final bite.

She isn't even looking at Alex, but she feels caged in by her. She hadn't expected this - she'd thought she'd finally, inadvertently succeeded in the goal she'd given up: pushing Alex away.

Instead Alex is sitting beside her, she's talking so much and Piper's skin is buzzing with need, but the tattoo gun is in pieces and she doesn't know what she's supposed to do about that.

And she can feel Alex waiting for an answer. Somehow, Piper can sense she'll have to give one.

"I...haven't..." Each word has to crawl out of her, and they come out all scrunched up and puny. "...been telling you...I haven't wanted to apologize or...explain anything because...I don't want you to tell me it's okay."

"It's not okay," Alex's voice is flat, and the speed of the reply startles Piper. "I needed you, Pipes, and you just walked away. I have no interest in telling you that's okay." Piper squeezes her eyes shut, and then Alex's voice catches. "But if you have a reason for that besides just not caring...it'd be nice to hear it."

This, again, fires directly into Piper's selfish weakness; she can't stand the idea of Alex thinking she doesn't care. She doesn't have it in her to let Alex think that.

But tears are pushing insistently at Piper's eyes, and any words she has are wrestling against the thick, familiar silence that usually closes her throat.

"Pipes..." Alex's voice is gentle again, and closer. "Talk to me."

"I..." Piper sucks her lip between her teeth, not confident she can get through a single sentence without breaking down. It takes so long, but then something inside her snaps and the words wrench themselves free, "I hate myself, Alex."

Fuck, she doesn't want to do this, doesn't want to cry like someone who deserves sympathy, but it's happening anyway. "I thought you died. You almost did, and that's because of me, and I feel that...all the time." She's glad Alex isn't touching her. "So when I hear you at night, or when I have to look at what he did to you - " Her eyes flick to the scar before she can stop them. "...or when I saw you today, it just...it feels like..."

She's always been good with words, comfortable with her books and her speeches and her logic, but she can't find the words for that feeling.

Like her chest is going to detonate. Like she's getting smothered in darkness. Like breathlessly wishing she were the one he tried to kill.

"I will never want you to hate yourself," Alex says quietly.

Piper wipes her eyes with her sleeves. "If you won't, at least one of us should."

A long silence follows that pronouncement. Alex is sitting right beside her now, leaning against the wall. Their shoulders brush, barely, and then Alex asks, "Piper when you got me sent back here...did you think Kubra was going to be able to get to me?"

Her throat is tight, so Piper just shakes her head hard and doesn't stop.

"Okay. So that matters, Pipes."

Her skin is crawling, and she's still blinking out tears. "It wouldn't have mattered if you had died."

"But I didn't. And I know my face is fucked up, and I keep freaking out in public but...I'm okay." She pauses, and a few degrees of strength drain from Alex's voice. "But I still need you sometimes, Piper. And..." She hesitates, but only for a second. "I needed you before, too."

Slowly, Piper lifts her eyes to Alex's face and keeps them there no matter how it makes her feel. "I know." Her throat feels lined with broken glass. "And I was...I was awful to you."

Alex's smile is sad but her eyes are soft; she reaches up and touches a strand of Piper's hair. "Tell me why," she prompts, like she's just nudging Piper toward saying something she already knows.

Her hand stays where it is, absently winding Piper's hair around two fingers, and it loosens the knot in Piper's chest, makes it a little easier for her to admit, "I didn't send you back because I wanted to protect you. But I...think I kind of convinced myself that it would." She feels so far away from that, from whoever she was then. It takes forever to get the words out, she has to crawl back over months and months of hurt to get to them. "I thought that made it okay, or something. And then you were here, and you were so upset. I wasn't expecting...then you started saying how he'd know exactly where to find you, that you were in even more danger..."

Piper stops talking, her throat scraped raw with the effort, and it takes a minute or so to work herself up to what she needs to say. Alex just watches her a patient, waiting look.

"I needed you to be crazy," Piper finally clenches out. "I really, really needed you to be wrong."

"I know," Alex answers almost gently.

Piper lets out a stuttering whimper, suddenly so tired from everything she hasn't said. "I'm sorry, Alex." The words feel like something tangible, solid and heavy, a boulder lifted from her chest. "I'm so, so sorry..."

It actually feels better, saying it out loud, maybe because Alex really doesn't tell her it's okay. She doesn't offer forgiveness. But she does nod and say without a single note of doubt in her voice, "I know you are."

"I'm sorry," Piper says it again and again and again, hoping to extract more stones from inside her. "I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm so sorry..." At some point, the litany of apologies get lost dissolves into a fresh wave of sobs, and Piper drops her face into her hands and cries.

Her legs are crossed on top of the bed, and she feels Alex wrap one hand around her ankle, the other sliding around the nape of her neck, like she's trying to figure out how to hold all of Piper together at once.

"I know you are," Alex repeats, quiet but close enough to her ear that Piper can hear. "I know, Pipes, I know, I know..."

After a few minutes of this, like a habit, Piper's brain starts choosing a place for the words, for an I know you are followed by a string of repeated I know's, across her unmarked leg, maybe, and then she remembers with a jolt that Alex destroyed the gun.

In a sudden whirlwind of panic and determination Piper scrambles off the bed and hits the floor on her knees, digging into the trash can.

"Piper..." Alex says her name with weary disappointment as Piper arranges every dismantled piece in her palm, paper clips and all.

She doesn't want to think about Stella, not ever and especially not right now, but Piper's still frantically trying to remember how Stella had said the gun worked. The round part that spins, the bit she took from a discman, is cracked and a little bent. Heart sinking, Piper realizes it probably won't work even if she remembered how.

Her fingers are starting to tremble, her skin tingling and tight.

"It's fucked, Pipes," Alex comes to sit beside her on the floor. "But you don't need it."

"Yeah, I do," she clenches out, the pitch of her voice quickly scaling a ladder toward hysteria. "I do, I need it..."

"Why?"

The question pins Piper down, corners her. Alex hasn't asked since that first day, and Piper refused to talk about it. But here's a patience to Alex's voice, and a force that hasn't been present in awhile. For some reason, it makes Piper feel afraid of her; she'd almost had a handle on herself, on the silence and stillness, but Alex clearly has no intention of letting her go back.

Again, she prods, "Why do you need it, Piper?"

Unconsciously, Piper's fingers curl around the edge of her shirt. She doesn't say anything.

She's not so far gone that she doesn't know how it looks. For months, keeping the tattoos in hidden spots hasn't just been because she's breaking the rules; it's just as much about avoiding psych.

She knows how they must seem.

But she needs them. And Alex has never judged it, never made her feel crazy; she just wants to know why, but Piper at a loss for what to say.

When she started, that day she found Alex's list of songs, it was simply because the white ink on her arm had turned into a neon sign announcing her guilt.

Once, she'd spent an entire sleepless night obsessing over the fact that she's never actually seen the fish tattoo she'd gotten after a scuba trip with Alex. She can just catch it in the mirror, out of the corner of her eye with a precise turn of her neck, and Alex had taken photos on the digital camera right after she had it done, and then in every stage of healing, but she's never actually seen it firsthand.

In her grief stricken, disconnected state, that had seemed unfathomable.

Stella's tattoo, the three words she chose...it's right there on Piper's arm, unavoidable in spite of her perpetual long sleeves, glaring at her during every shower or quick change of clothes.

So Piper started telling herself she needed to drown it out. The song list had been a manic, out of her head whim, but after that she'd been more deliberate, scouring her memory and her letters for Alex's words, wanting them to outnumber the three words on her arm.

At some point, though, the reasons shifted. And Piper doesn't have words for the why anymore.

"I don't know," she answers finally, a trembling, childlike confusion to the words that makes it sound true enough that Alex believes her.

Alex reaches over and unfurls Piper's fingers, pointedly guiding her hand back above the trash and brushing the metal pieces back into it. "Look. I need to be able to be honest with you, Pipes, without worrying about it ending up fucking...marked on you forever."

Without meaning to, Piper's hand drifts to her leg, splaying her palm across the spot that holds her newly inked list of Alex's harshest honesty.

She thinks if something's honest, she deserves to have it marked.

Alex's scar is honest, though she's not the one who deserves it. For maybe the first time, it occurs to Piper that Alex must have a second scar on her stomach.

The thought makes her hands feel slick. She wipes dry palms against her khakis.

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Piper's a little amazed at how automatically the word leaves her, no thought or decision behind saying it, as though no alternative answer exists. Like singing a song she knows by heart.

"Piper." It's Alex's no-bullshit tone. "Don't do that. What is it?" Then, softening, "Really?"

She fumbles around for an acceptable answer. "I know how crazy it must seem to you."

There's a silence, and then Alex touches her cheek, subtly turning Piper's face to look at her. "You aren't crazy, Pipes. You just got into a bad habit." She pauses long enough to manage a smile. "I'll be your sponsor to quit. Anytime you want a new tattoo, tell me about it, and I'll convince you that nothing I say is worth it."

All across her torso and chest, Piper's tattoos start murmuring at her, at each other, loudly reasserting their own worth.

But Alex is looking at her, so soft and patient, and maybe Piper shouldn't but she can't help thinking about what Alex told her, that it mattered that she hadn't meant to put Alex in danger.

She is still a bad person.

But Alex is saying she could have been worse.

A few pieces of the tattoo gun have fallen to the floor, unnoticed by Alex, so Piper steels herself before and picks them up, then dumps them. She has to suppress a shudder as she does it, but she wants to give Alex something, so she maneuvers her lips into a clumsy, fragile smile and meets Alex's gaze. "This is kind of a harsh detox."

Alex's whole face breaks into a smile, so wide and delighted Piper feels her whole heart snag. "Piper Elizabeth Chapman, was that a joke?" She lets out a soft, weightless laugh that's a breath away from crying. "Don't get me wrong, it wasn't funny. But still..."

Piper's still holding the smile. It hurts a little less, now. "I try."

Every plane in Alex's face softens. "I know you do." She taps her knuckles on Piper's knee. "C'mon. I'm done sitting on the fucking floor."

Alex stands first, then offers a hand and pulls Piper after her. They sit on Piper's bed, and for some reason Alex turns to her expectantly, like the next step is up to Piper. They're an hour away from lights out, and she doesn't think she can handle any more heavy talks, but she still wants to give Alex more. She wants to make her smile like that again.

She can't seem to stop wanting, all of a sudden.

So Piper gets up again and rummages around in her cabinet until she finds a deck of cards. She catches Alex's eye and then tosses it to her. "Wanna play?"

Alex grins; it feels as good as Piper hoped.

So they play Speed and Gin Rummy and Crazy Eights for the next hour, through Red's return and undisguised surprise at the sight. Alex keeps losing but she doesn't seem to care.

When the light flashes for the final count of the day, instinctive fear washes over Alex's face and Piper wishes she hadn't seen it. But then Alex covers her hand, just for a second, on top of the a pile of scattered cards between them.

"I'll see ya tomorrow, okay?"

Piper holds her gaze; she's even a little bit proud of herself for how much she's looked, tonight. "Yeah."

She stands up when Alex does, heading to the door of the cube to be counted, and just before Alex walks away, she leans close and says in an almost nervous voice, too soft for even Red to hear, "Don't go anywhere, okay?"

For a half a second, Piper feels the bare bones of another too obvious joke, about prison and the lack of opportunity to go places. It would make Alex happy, but she can't grab onto it. She's too fixated on the worried vulnerability in Alex's eyes.

God, it's been so long since Piper really looked at her.

Misreading the silence, Alex raises her eyebrows. "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I know. And I...I won't."

"Good." And, God, another heart stopping smile. Piper wants more. She doesn't want Alex to go. "Night, Pipes."

"Goodnight, Alex."

She leans against the edge of her cube and watches Alex walk away. Her fingers come up to the edge her lips; they might even be smiling, too, without effort.

An amused grunt from Red breaks her reverie. Piper glances over to see her bunkmate watching her in surprise. "I heard about your little early exit at dinner...surprised that one forgave you."

"She didn't."

Red squints at her, makes a scoffing sound "You seem strangely okay with that."

Piper touches her lips again; she's definitely close to a smile. "Yeah," she says softly, almost to herself. "I really am."

She's so wired it takes an hour to fall asleep, and no sounds of Alex's nightmares wake her up.

It all falls apart by morning, when Piper's standing in the shower looking at the bloody skin around manipulative cunt and selfish fuck and remembering that they're the last ones she'll get to do.

She ends up snapping her pink plastic razor in half, it cuts her palm when she does it but one side breaks sharply enough that an edge would probably work. She scrapes it lightly across her unadorned thigh, testing, and she's a few seconds away from carving out I know you are and maybe so that matters, Piper until she remembers that Alex is just outside, probably brushing her teeth or plucking her eyebrows in the mirror and waiting for Piper to be done.

It's enough to make her stop. Because a lot happened yesterday, but one of the big things is that, in spite of herself, she'd really hated the way Alex looked at her after she walked away in the cafeteria. For the first time in so long, Piper had been almost desperate to fix something.

She'd thought she'd given up on trying.

Now, she hides the pieces of the razor in her shower bag, forcibly telling herself that she doesn't need it. She tattooed herself yesterday afternoon; even on a normal day, she wouldn't have been able to add anything else by now. She's only panicking because she knows the gun is gone.

She remembers Alex saying it's just a bad habit, that she'll be Piper's sponsor.

Alex would know about that, because she used heroin and apparently went to rehab. Piper wonders sometimes when she started using. If maybe it was after the phone call Piper didn't answer on the day of Diane's funeral, right before it started, Piper knows because she googled the obituary on Polly's desktop computer the day after she got back from Paris, memorized the time and date and name of the funeral home but never even considered going.

Piper hates thinking like this.

She toys with the zipper on her shower bag. She can see the razor through the plastic. Her skin is asking for it.

She tucks her chin into her chest and looks down, eyes tracking I don't want you hurting yourself, diagonal across her sternum. There's just room underneath for another sentence, she could have added I will never want you to hate yourself.

Alex would ask her why she needs to do it. Piper still doesn't know how to explain it.

The water's gone from steaming to lukewarm in the time she's been standing under the spray, but Piper doesn't notice until she hears Alex say her name from the other side of the plastic curtain.

"Coming." She flips off the water immediately, grabbing her towel and wrapping it around herself on autopilot. A few seconds later, her stomach sinks in horror as Piper realizes: the towel will no longer conceal enough skin. Covering up the highest tattoos on her chest reveals the lowest two sentences on her thigh.

There are a few tattoos visible up high: I'm a little worried about her an inch beneath her collarbone and scrunched up you can go now somewhere between her breasts and her throat. They'll attract more attention, closer to people's eyelines, but she doesn't want Alex to see the list on her leg.

So she tucks the towel in at the side, tugged low enough to hide the newest tattoos, then holds her shower bag awkwardly against her chest, mostly hiding the old ones, before she steps out of the shower with a carefully constructed smile.

"I want to talk just a little about Piper Chapman."

Berdie's waited until the last ten minutes of a fairly inoffensive session, their first since the panic attack, to drop that bomb. Alex boards up her expression, instantly impassive. "No, thanks."

"Why not?"

"Are you supposed to talk about other inmates? Seems unprofessional."

"I'm only interested in discussing her in how she pertains to your recovery," Berdie counters smoothly. "She's the person you spend the most time with...we've talked about how important a support system is."

Alex's face heats up, assuming the implications in spite of her counselor's neutral tone; Berdie obviously saw Piper walk away in the middle of Alex's public panic attack. Angry as she'd been, she suddenly feels defensive on Piper's behalf.

But not defensive enough to start discussing her with a prison employee.

"I'm not talking about her."

Berdie looks at her for a long beat, like she thinks Alex is just going to crack under silence. Getting nothing, she finally says, "Do you talk to her?"

Alex makes a face. "What? Obviously we talk." More in the last two days than in the past several months, but Berdie doesn't need to hear about all that.

"Have the two of you ever talked about the day of your attack?"

Alex tenses, the way she always does when Berdie brings up the day itself. Like the question is unspeakably rude, she demands, "Why?"

"I've told you how important it is that you're able to talk about the trauma, and your feelings about it. That doesn't just mean with me." Berdie pauses, the slightest moment of hesitation before she finishes, "Talking to someone you care about is probably even more beneficial. Especially considering you both experienced that day in different ways..."

Alex makes a scoffing sound, like she doubts what Berdie is saying. She's just started discussing the aftermath with Piper, making Piper listen to it without allowing her to shrink further into guilt after. Alex thinks it's good, she thinks it's helping, but she's not ready to talk about that day. She doesn't want Piper to have to hear about it.

She doesn't let herself linger on Berdie mentioning Piper's experience.

So Alex just reiterates, firmly, "I'm not talking about her in here."

"Alright," Berdie agrees. "Just...at least think about what I said."

Sometimes Alex catches herself stealing Berdie's tactics when she's talking to Piper - tell me about it, what are you thinking, tell me what's wrong - and she always has to stifle a groan, because she doesn't want to be Piper's goddamn therapist. Things between the two of them should be easier than that.

But there's no getting around the fact that Piper's traumatized, too, much more than Alex is, and no one else is helping her. Even Berdie would probably take one look at Piper's black ink handiwork and recommend a trip to psych.

So, fuck it, sometimes she steals a trick from therapy, and it's hard to care because it's working.

Piper talks to her. It takes her forever, sometimes, to get the words together, and they come out sounding painful, like sentences constructed out of broken glass, but she talks. Sometimes Alex can even guess what she's going to say. And she almost always understands it.

Alex talks, too, and not just filling silences now; she tells Piper everything she was holding back before: how Berdie says eventually she should try going outside, but just imagining having to look at the fucking greenhouse freaks her out. How much she hates getting suddenly, randomly afraid even though she knows there's nothing to be scared of.

When she says things like that, and Piper's face twists with barely restrained guilt, Alex makes her talk about it. Makes her realize, over and over, that she'd never thought that would happen, and that Kubra wanted Alex dead even before Piper sent her back to prison. That Piper wanted Alex to be crazy because it meant nothing bad would actually happen to her.

They don't talk about that woman, about the cheating. Alex doesn't know yet if she can make that okay.

They're draining, those talks, and Piper usually ends up spent and tearful. Alex never thought she'd be glad to see Piper cry, but it's almost a relief compared to the empty silhouette Piper had nearly turned into.

Alex pushes her into easier, better things, too. They leave the dorms now, play cards and scrabble in the rec room or meet in the library toward the end of Alex's shifts, pouring through the new donations of books and always talking. They even eat breakfast with Lorna and Boo and Sister Ingalls and Yoga once, though Piper doesn't say it word throughout the meal and Alex hates it so much she doesn't suggest that again.

Sometimes when they're mid-conversation, no matter how well it's going, Piper will get a stricken, wild eyed look on her face. She gets good at wiping it within seconds, but Alex will catch her hand slipping under her shirt, or her fingernail spelling out words across her leg.

Once, they're in Alex's bunk when it happens, and in a sudden flash of inspiration, Alex hands her a pen. "Try this. Wean yourself off." She smirks, just a little. "Sponsor, remember?"

Piper takes the pen and grips it so tightly her knuckles go white, but all she says is, "That kind of defeats the purpose."

Alex goes still, instantly on alert. "Which purpose?"

Piper swallows, her throat working furiously with effort, her eyes on the pen. She's getting better at looking at Alex, lately, but the pained effort of it still shows.

(She still doesn't look at herself in the mirror. Alex knows she should ask her about that, someday, but she's afraid the explanation might hurt more than she can handle right now.)

"The permanence," Piper says finally, but she doesn't offer anything else.

"I liked that you missed me, you know?"

"What do you mean?"

It's a few minutes before the final count of the day. That always makes Alex feel anxious, and a little bit desperate, like the seven hours of separation that sleep requires will be enough to unravel any progress. She always finds herself scrambling around for something good to hand Piper, some confession that convinces her to stay familiar for another day.

"In Berdie's godawful drama class, remember? You said you weren't sorry you got me sent back because you missed me." Alex smiles, almost sheepish. "I liked that you did. Cause I missed you like hell, Pipes, all that time in Queens."

Shadows pass over Piper's face, fuck, that isn't what Alex was going for. "You missed me because I wouldn't answer your letters."

"Jesus, I didn't blame you, Pipes. I wouldn't have answered if it were the other way around."

"Yeah, you would have," It's an unusually fast answer for Piper, hardly a heartbeat of silence between their voices.

Alex opens her mouth to protest, but the thing is, Piper's right. Alex would have answered. The third or fourth, maybe, but no more than that. Not the twentieth. She doesn't have the staying power.

For once, she's the one to look away, the acknowledgement of that truth a dull kick to her gut.

Then, so quiet she barely hears it, Piper says, "I missed you then, too."

Alex searches for Piper's gaze again; her eyes are shining, and so sorry. Alex smiles so maybe Piper will, just in case she can catch an old reflex. "One thing I will hold a grudge on, probably forever..." Her voice is all warmth and teasing. "The missed opportunity of your furlough. Both of us in Queens and totally celibate is a fucking tragedy."

Piper smiles, maybe more from surprise than anything, and though she isn't actually laughing her eyes are, somehow, and it makes Alex's chest go warm.

For a second, she wants to kiss Piper so badly it physically aches.

The impulse surprises her, and within seconds, the surprise surprises her as it occurs to Alex how long it's been since she so viscerally wanted that.

Piper's feeling it, too, Alex can tell, and for a loaded moment they look at each other in an old way that feels new.

Then the light flashes, directing them back for count, and Piper moves away from her too fast.

"Well. Goodnight."

"Night, Pipes." Alex winks at her, playing it up. "Don't miss me too much."

Piper laughs with her eyes again, and Alex's blood speeds up with triumph.

When the lights dim in the dormitory, Piper fills up a page and a half of her notebook, margins and all, with anything she can remember Alex said today. She knows she has no way of making another tattoo gun, but she feels better telling herself she's saving up.

Every day she runs her finger over the list on her thigh, silently mouthing the words to herself. They still feel true, she doesn't want to forget that they are, but Alex says other true things, too, and she really, really wishes she could see them all together.

Sometimes she catches herself falling into moments with Alex, loving her so much that Piper believes anything she says. So much that she forgets not to trust herself.

But any time she's on her own, at work or in the shower or in the hour or two it takes her to fall asleep, those moments with Alex barely feel real and Piper starts craving a needle.

She digs her nails into the nearly healed scabs on her left forearm until the pain turns her vision white at the edges.

It's almost two weeks after Alex's panic attack in the cafeteria before she wakes Piper up with the sounds another nightmare.

Piper's barely asleep when the first stuttering gasp reaches her. Right away her throat tightens, her chest gearing up for an explosion.

"No..." It's so quiet, but Piper can hear the tears soaking the single syllable anyway. Her own flood her eyes like a reflex. "Don't...please..."

Piper touches her fist to just below her right hipbone, to the words Don't leave me. They're the first of Alex's words she tattooed on herself, two days after she impulsively inked the list of song titles.

Her thumb frantically circles the phrase as Alex lets out a muffled whimper, and Piper tries to think of what Alex would say to her right now.

What are you so scared of?

Don't you feel more guilty lying here and ignoring this?

Guilt is dangerous, that much Piper has learned, but it's also measurable. And somehow, there's always room for more.

She gets out of bed with a burst of determination, her legs unsteady beneath her as she hurries two cubes over to get to Alex.

Lorna's stirring in the bed beside hers and lifts her head to blearily stare at Piper when she comes in. "Go back to sleep." Piper whispers. "I got her." It's the first thing she's said to anyone but Alex or, occasionally, Healey or another CO, in months.

"Hey..." Piper gets on her knees beside Alex's bed. She touches her hair, voice barely audible. "Alex?" Alex's face contorts into a childlike mask of fear, her lips trembling as she lets out a frightened whine.

The crying takes over, just like that.

"Alex, it's okay," Piper whispers thickly, her voice falling apart like an avalanche because she doesn't believe it. It's been so long since she believed it. Then, something true, "I'm here."

Alex's eyes fly open, terror and adrenaline galloping through her. Her nervous system is more awake for the rest of her, and for a second she's too disoriented to recognize anything around her.

But then...

"I'm here, Alex."

Piper's hand is in her hair, swimming between strands, impossibly tender.

Alex blinks her vision clear and sees Piper only inches away, watching her. Her eyes are huge, shimmering in the dark, and she keeps sniffling loudly.

She's really there.

Alex can usually stop herself crying as soon as she wakes up, it's not even real, just a physical reaction to the dreams, but this time she starts crying harder, before she's even properly awake; she has to turn her face into the edge of the mattress to keep quiet.

"Ssssshhhh." Piper's holding her head, her voice is so close. "You're okay, Alex, you're safe, you're..." Her breath hitches sharply. "S-sorry. I'm sorry. I'm here. You're okay..."

God, Alex hadn't realized how much she's been needing this.

She wants to fall back to sleep right away, with Piper this close, Piper reaching for her instead of the other way around, but after a few minutes she wipes her face on the sheet and looks up, choking out, "You should go, they'll be coming around."

"You sure?" Piper whispers, soft and wet, and Alex loves her so much for asking she nearly starts crying again.

"I'm sure. Thanks."

"Don't thank me."

Alex's arm shoots out to catch Piper by the elbow, and she waits until she looks back to repeat firmly, "Thank you."

Piper doesn't protest again, just holds Alex's eyes for a moment before gently pulling away.

Alex listens to the pad of her footsteps, back across the dorm. She wipes her face with her hands and just before she falls to sleep, she thinks if she had to get a tattoo of Piper's words, anything she's ever said, she would choose I'm here.

A/N: So this was a lengthy chapter, but also kind of comparatively quiet. Hope you enjoyed...it's obviously an important one, but pretty talky as well, and that first scene could have almost been the fanfic equivalent of a "bottle episode". Hope it didn't feel too filler.