Chapter 3
Familiar hands wrapped around her neck, she couldn't speak.
Couldn't breathe.
She was over her, on top of her.
Pinning her down.
She pushed and shoved as hard as she could, but her arms were weak and unresponsive.
Dark hair fell into her face as she struggled.
She did everything she could to break her grip, her vision was starting to fade.
A..Alex... please...stop. She breathed out between gasps. Her body heaved one last attempt.
Al..ex...
"Piper!"
She was being shaken. She felt hands on her. She tried to pull away, but the arms that the hands were attached to, encircled her.
"Piper, wake up." She could feel her breath on the back of her neck as she spoke. "It's ok... You're ok. You're safe." She could feel her chest rise and fall against her back with every breath she took. She didn't know where she was but she knew she was sitting up. The room was pitch black, but she knew without looking that Alex was behind her. She'd know her body anywhere. She felt her relax as soon as she realized that she was awake and out of the nightmare. Piper sunk back into her welcoming warmth, exhausted. So many times, she'd taken it for granted. Now, it was what she craved. What she needed. She closed her eyes and relished in the feeling.
It was at that moment, she hated the fact that Alex knew her so well. She felt her whole body tense and start to pull away.
"Can you just forget about the fact that you hate me for two seconds and just be?" Even as a whisper, Piper felt like it echoed through the room. She heard Alex sigh behind her, the heat from her breath sending a sensation down her spine. She felt it in her toes. She always did with her. Piper found her hand in the darkness and entwined their fingers together. Alex gave in and reclined, resting her back against the cheap faux-wood headboard. It creaked against her weight.
"I don't hate you, Piper." As she said it, the sound resonated through her chest and Piper could feel the vibration against her shoulder blades. "I hate how selfish you can be, yes. I hate how sometimes, the only person that exists in your world... is you. I hate how fucking stubborn you are when it comes to admitting that you're afraid of being alone." She took in a deep breath, weighing her words. "But most of all, I hate the fact that no matter how much I hate some of the things you do, no matter how many times you make me feel like I'm not good enough, I can't fucking hate you. Sometimes I think I do... But I just... cant. And it drives me fucking crazy."
Piper drew in a shaky breath as she felt Alex's head rest against hers. She knew that this didn't mean that they were ok, but she would definitely take it over the cold silence they had been coexisting in. This, she could work with. She lifted their hands and pressed her lips against Alex's knuckles, sucking in a quick breath when she bumped the gash on her hand.
"You ok?" Alex asked, feeling Piper's body tense.
"I think so... my hand. Doggett cut me before... " The words stuck in her throat. The realization of what had transpired the night before starting sinking in. What had she done? She'd never reached that point before. She didn't even recognize the person in her memories.
Bile and panic began to rise in her throat and she'd barely made it to the bathroom before it erupted. She heaved until she was exhausted, her body trying to expel whatever it was that had caused her to do the things she'd seen in her memory. She wasn't a fighter. At least she had never been before. I wasn't fighting... I was surviving. She tried to quell her racing mind. Her head spun and she wearily rested her cheek on the brim of the toilet seat.
"Ah, kid. Don't do that..." She felt Alex's arms slide under hers as he helped her to her feet and led her over to the sink. "Do you wanna talk about it?" She rubbed her back gently as Piper splashed water on her face and rinsed out her mouth. The water tasted different. Better. She gulped down a few swallows from the faucet before she braced her arms on the counter and took a deep, steadying breath. She locked eyes with herself in the mirror
"I walked outside to get some air. I felt like I was about to have a mental fucking breakdown with everything that's been going on. Then she was there. Ranting."
Cause you ain't worthy of God's love. You ain't worthy of nobody's love.
The words echoed in her mind. Her chest tightened and she felt like she was going to be sick again. "She said she was going to smite me. That no one could love me. That I wasn't worthy of love. And... and I just snapped. Everything that's been building up... With you, with Larry. With fucking Healy... I mean, he just left me there to die..."
"Wait a minute," Alex interrupted. "Healy was there?" Piper ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back from her face, before finally turning and looking up at her.
"Yeah. He came outside and I tried shouting for him and he just turned and left."
"Could he hear you?"
"Yes, he could hear me, Alex. He knew exactly what was going on. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if he'd set the whole thing up."
"Motherfucker..." Alex shook her head and pushed her glasses up before rubbing at her eyes. "Let me see your hand." Piper brought her right hand up. Most of the blood had dried and worn off, but there was a fresh new streak where she had disturbed it in her sleep.
"I guess scars are hot though, right?" Piper attempted a smile as Alex inspected it closely in the light.
"Yes, but staph isn't."
The next time Piper awoke, it was to Nicky jumping up and down on their bed, showering them with bags of chips and candy bars. "Merry Christmas, bitches!" She laughed and jumped the gap between the beds, pegging Bree in the back of the head with a KitKat. She mumbled something incoherently into the pillow before pulling the cover protectively over her head. Piper burrowed closer in under Alex's arm. After the episode in the bathroom, they'd finally made their way back to bed and were able to get a bit more sleep before sunrise. Nicky sat down on the bed and tore into one of her spoils.
It was Christmas.
For a brief second, her mind had forgotten reality and she had the urge to call her mother and wish her a happy holiday.
And say what? 'Hi mom! The feds may be calling you shortly, but just to let you know I'm out and ok! Yes, I'm eating. And yes, I'm aware that my anatomical clock is ticking. But it's ok. I don't need them anyways, since I've escaped prison with my lesbian lover.'
Had Piper's eyes been open, she would've rolled them. Fuck. Not that they'd really had a lot of time to discuss specifics, but what did this mean about contact. She assumed that it would have to be sporadic... and from some form of communication that couldn't lead anyone to their location. She wondered if anyone from the jail had contacted any of their relatives to deliver the news. Bree's comment about if they would even make an official report about it crossed her mind. Surely they would have to. After all, it was the Federal Government...
Hah... exactly.
She stretched and rolled away from Alex's still sleeping body, immediately missing the warmth. She knew it'd take a healthy dose of caffeine to coax her out of bed this early, especially considering their mid-slumber interruption. She caught sight of the small coffee pot on the counter outside of the bathroom and was able to convince her aching body to make the transition out of bed. She glanced at the bedside clock. It was four in the afternoon. Just after afternoon count. She smirked at the thought of them counting and recounting. Repeatedly coming up 4 short.
The smell of the coffee as the carafe slowly filled was heavenly. A person could go their entire life never truly appreciating a simple beauty in life, like good coffee, until you spend months or years heating instant coffee in a community microwave that, as Big Boo had so delicately put it, "smells like a salmon farted in it."
She fixed Alex a cup and set it on the side table, then repeated the gesture for Nichols and Conner. Nicky smiled her thanks and flipped on the small television. There were only a few stations that came in clearly, two of which seemed to be the same station on different channels. She shrugged and decided on the nearest local channel.
Piper slid onto the bed, careful not to spill her coffee and got comfortable against the headboard. Alex mumbled something unintelligible and scooted closer, laying her head in Piper's lap, eyes still closed and hair covering the side of her face that would've been exposed. Piper smiled a brief smile and ran her fingers through Alex's hair.
"So what's the plan? Or is there one really? I know Bree said that we'd only be here for a day..." Piper asked, taking a sip of her coffee. Nicky kind of shrugged, a worried look crossing her features.
"Honestly, I don't know. We weren't expecting to be jumping into it so soon. We've discussed it before, but we never agreed on a solid decision."
"I'm sorry, Nick.." She started, but Nicky cut her off.
"No, no. Don't do that. We all wanted out of there. And sooner is definitely better than later. We'll figure something out. Besides, I'm just along for the ride." She gave Piper her signature smirk and turned back to the TV.
Piper continued to absentmindedly play with Alex's hair, occasionally running her fingers softly down the side of her face. She used to do it long ago, on the nights she couldn't sleep, after Alex had worked herself to exhaustion and would come crashing into bed, barely hitting the pillow before passing out.
It felt like it had been so long since she'd been able just to sit and look at her. The tips of her eyelashes resting on top of her cheeks. Fluttering every now and again as whatever dream she was having played out in a world only she could see. Her lips slightly parted in her relaxed state. Piper didn't have to touch them to know how soft they were. She knew all too well how they felt. She missed them. She missed Alex. This woman in her lap had been a mere memory in her life for so long. A memory that she had buried so well. Piper knew that she had never completely lost her feelings for her. She'd just gotten used to ignoring them. Out of sight, out of mind. It didn't take long after seeing her again for her to realize that those feelings had just been hibernating in the recesses of her mind. Somehow she'd always known that she hadn't seen the last of Alex Vause. She just didn't expect seeing her again to be under such drastic, and unexpected, circumstances.
"I forgot what it felt like to shower barefooted." Bree walked out of the bathroom, towel-drying her hair. "Not to mention having an actual door."
"That you didn't even close." Nicky laughed and stood from the bed, ready to take her turn in the shower.
"Baby steps, Ma. Not like you're complaining." She made a sarcastic face and laughed as Nicky smacked her ass as she walked by.
After she'd finally managed to crawl out of bed, Bree had made a few phone calls to some of the people that Piper assumed she'd been working with on the whole escape plan. From the side of the conversation she could hear, she could tell that none of them expected things to be falling into play this soon. She felt a pang of guilt when she realized that it was because of her that things were being rushed. But after a few conversations, they'd finally arranged for a ride to somewhere a bit more densely populated. Somewhere they wouldn't be so easily found.
"We're going to Philadelphia?" Piper found herself somewhat excited. She'd only been to the city once or twice, both times just passing through, but they were always decent experiences.
"The City that Never Sleeps, huh?" Nicky asked, flipping through the channels again. Bree snorted out a laugh.
"That's New York City, Nick." Alex called from the bathroom, the humor audible in her voice.
"What do I look like, a fuckin geography major over here?" Piper attempted to hide her smile behind her third cup of coffee.
A short while later, Alex emerged from the bathroom wearing only her bra and her grey sweatpants. They sat low on her hips and Piper's eyes drank her in as she walked towards the bed. Piper didn't notice that she was biting her lip until she heard Alex clear her throat. She looked up and was met with a single raised eyebrow. She dropped her gaze. She could feel her cheeks burn and she hated that Alex got the satisfaction of seeing it. She sat her now cool cup of coffee on the table before standing and grabbing one of the extra towels they'd taken off of the maids cart that had been parked in front of the room next to theirs. She smirked as she walked past her, never meeting her gaze.
Yet another thing Piper silently decided not to ever take for granted again: Clean, hot showers. She stood there, the water turned up as hot as she could stand it, eyes closed and head back. She enjoyed the feeling of it as it ignited her skin, melting away the grime and filth that felt like it had accumulated on her body over the past few months. Like some sort of putrid shell she'd been forced to inhabit, never able to completely scrub off in the luke warm water of the prison's very public showers. She didn't think she would ever experience what it felt like to be truly clean again.
Finally, she shut off the water and rung out her hair before pulling back the shower curtain. She jumped, startled, as Alex was standing in front of the sink, using the mirror to comb out her hair.
"Jesus, Alex..." Piper tried without success to cover herself with the hotel issue miniature towel. Alex laughed, turning and looking her up and down.
"Relax, Pipes... It's not like I haven't seen it before" She turned back to the mirror and Piper stepped carefully out of the shower. Reaching for another towel to use to dry her hair. After she was through, she tossed it over the rod to dry and walked over to the sink. She looked at her reflection in the mirror, then over to Alex's.
"For what it's worth... I know how much you've risked, and what you've stuck out on the line... I just want to tell you tha..."
"You don't have to thank me, Piper." She turned to face her, leaning against the sink. She looked at her for a moment and brought her hand up, pushing a thick strand of her wet hair behind her ear. "The way I see it..." she thought for a second before continuing. "You were in a situation. And considering the circumstances, there were no other options. I can only imagine what would've happened if you would've gotten caught... And I... I couldn't have just sat back and let that happen to you..." She paused, reaching out and grabbing Piper's hand. She laced their fingers together. "I heart you, kid." Piper let the words filter through her brain. When she looked up at her, she was given a half smile, but she could see the emotion in her eyes. She gave her a soft, reassuring smile in return.
"I heart you too... you pussy."
A/N: I really hope you all are enjoying it so far! Thank you for the reviews/follows/favorites! They're my motivation! Thank you all for reading and dont forget to let me know what you think!
-C