Gaaaah, you guys are wonderful, thank you all so much for all the lovely reviews, especially the few of you who are commenting on every chapter! They're definitely keeping me going, and to show my gratitude here's a short update for today :)
Well this was going to complicate things. Piper hadn't considered that she might end up bunking with Alex, and she wasn't sure how to tackle the situation. In doubt, she decided to take the safe route of not pushing her too fast, too soon, and simply wait to see how Alex would react. Except that her current reaction wasn't exactly to Piper's taste. Alex was giving her the silent treatment, pointedly ignoring her and never even looking at her.
At least this gave Piper the liberty to stare at will. She couldn't help herself. She wondered whether Alex could feel the weight of Piper's eyes on her but was being so stubborn in her silence that she even refused to ask Piper to cut it out. As they both lay on their respective bunks in the evenings, just before lights out, Piper would observe Alex reading a book with intense concentration as she had done many times before, almost a decade ago. And Piper would look forward to the moment when Alex took her glasses off in that way she had of making such a simple gesture unbelievably hot. That woman sure could rock a pair of glasses.
Piper was staring at Alex, who was sprawled on the white wicker sofa on the terrace, reading a book. She loved seeing Alex like that, so wrapped up in a fictional world that she was oblivious to everything around her, her expression changing if she read a particularly happy or sad passage.
Not for too long though. Piper loved it even more when Alex's attention was focused on her. "Watcha reading?" she asked in a childish voice as she approached her girlfriend.
"The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. It's a lovely little allegorical fable about a shepherd who follows his dream and searches for his destiny."
Piper found Alex adorable when she became this enthusiastic about her books. It was quite a few months into their relationship when she first realised that Alex Vause could geek out like the best of them. Piper guessed it didn't quite fit with her tough girl image.
Alex pushed her thick glasses up on top of her head and smiled at her girlfriend. The tall woman readjusted herself on the sofa so that she was a little bit more upright, and patted the space between her legs to invite Piper to join her. Piper was more than happy to do so. She sat in the space Alex had created and leaned back into the warm body, enjoying the feel of Alex's breasts on her back and her breath on her neck.
"Do you believe in destiny?" Piper asked.
"Mmm." Alex started drawing random patterns with her hand on Piper's stomach, while nuzzling the blonde woman's neck and inhaling her sweet smell. "I believe in doing what I want to do, where I want to do it and with who I want to do it. Wherever I want to be is where I'm meant to be, and right now that's right here with you." Alex placed a soft kiss on Piper's cheek, and both women stayed there enjoying the moment, the sound of the Indian Ocean nearby and the feeling of being in each other's arms.
Piper was getting increasingly frustrated with Alex pretending she didn't exist though they had to see each other everyday. Although she supposed she couldn't quite blame her, after all she had been quite clear as to what was going to happen after Piper picked Larry.
Meanwhile Alex was openly flirting with Nicky, and Piper couldn't help but think that some of the suggestive grins that Alex gave Nicky, that the way Alex laughed too loudly at some of her jokes, were somehow partly directed at her. Well, they had already established that she had a tendency to be self-involved...
As she observed the pair chatting from afar in the canteen, Piper felt herself get irrationally angry. When Alex left to start work in the laundry room, Piper got up and marched over to Nicky, determined.
"Taystee's right you know, I'm not going to walk away."
Nicky's eyes widened in surprise, and she looked unimpressed as she realised what Piper was talking about.
That expression was quickly replaced with an amused smirk, however, as Nichols taunted, "What you gonna do, Chapman, fight me?"
Piper was thrown by how dismissive the other inmate was being – she wasn't really sure what she had expected.
"No... but I am going to fight for her. I just... just wanted to let you know", she finished lamely.
"Oooookay then Romeo, duly noted", Nichols replied before walking away.
So Piper decided that she had to step up her game, and that it was time for Part 2 of her Big Wooing Operation. She knew Alex loved her, she just had to convince the other woman that she truly wanted to set their messy past aside and be with her. Chapman enlisted Taystee's help, and the prison librarian was happy to get involved with Piper's plan, which provided a welcome distraction from the monotony of prison life. Piper also suspected that Taystee had a hidden romantic side to her and was rooting for Chapman to get her girl.
That didn't mean that Taystee would do things for free however, and Piper had to supply large amounts of commissary candy in exchange for the woman using her limited library budget to place an order for a specific book.
When it finally arrived, Piper took a deep breath to gather her courage, and placed the book prominently on Alex's bunk along with a note that said "In your arms is where I'm meant to be". Even Piper, the hopeless romantic, thought it was a bit on the cheesy side, but if she was going to do this whole wooing thing, she was going to do it properly. Piper was never usually the one to do the chasing, but now that she was finally 100% sure of who she wanted to be with she wasn't going to stop until she got her. Piper then scampered away to busy herself elsewhere, her heart pounding in her chest. She was absolutely terrified of how Alex would react.
What was Piper doing to her? It was difficult enough living with her, spending so much time so close that she knew she could get up and hold her in her arms with only a couple of steps. And now the stubborn woman was insisting on these grand romantic gestures that sent Alex into a turmoil of emotions she found it difficult to cope with.
Staring at The Alchemist, placed with care on her bunk along with a ridiculously sweet note, Alex was reminded of all the good times with Piper, of the lazy afternoons spent cuddling and basking in each other's company. Alex wanted nothing more than to believe Piper, to give in to the comfort she knew she would provide in the crowded yet lonely place they were stuck in, and to go back to the time when the two women were everything to each other.
But she was still angry at the other woman and wasn't sure she would be able to forgive Piper for crushing her a second time. There was no way of knowing whether Piper's newfound confidence in her decision was merely the result of Larry taking himself out of the equation, and she was convinced that if she went back to her, Piper was going to break her heart all over again. She couldn't let herself get sucked back in.
She grabbed the book and, mustering all her strength, ripped it in half right along the edge. She placed both halves on Piper's bed, where they looked out of place like the sprawled victim in a crime scene. "Well, if this isn't a metaphor for my own heart...", Alex thought.
But she couldn't help herself, she took the lovingly handwritten note and placed it with care in her secret box under the bed, along with her most precious possessions from the outside world and a single, yellow flower. Just because she was trying to wean herself from her Piper Chapman addiction didn't mean she couldn't keep mementos of the good times, Alex reasoned with herself. Although if anyone ever found this uncharacteristic display of sentimentality, she would deny ownership vehemently.
Looking at what she had done, she wasn't sure she could stomach being there to witness Piper's reaction, and left their cube until it was time for the last check before lights out. Piper was already in bed when she returned, having moved both halves of the book to her bedside table, and as the blonde woman stood up for count Alex noticed her puffy eyes, purposefully looking anywhere but at her.
"Shit", Alex thought. As she lay in bed that night, hoping that sleep would come, she heard her ex-girlfriend cry herself to sleep as quietly as she could. Alex felt guilty and sad at having done that to her, and then became angry at Piper for making her feel that way after having stomped on her heart so recently. Part of Alex wanted Piper to hurt just as much as she had hurt her. What was Piper doing to her?
So things still aren't great between the two, but as one reviewer pointed out, I do think it's more realistic that Alex would need time to forgive Piper. I promise things are going to get better very very soon ;)