Alex silently cursed at herself. She knew she was weak and all of the excuses she came up with in her head couldn't convince her otherwise. What was it Piper had once said to her? That they were inevitable to each other. She was right, it always boiled down to Piper one way or another and as infuriating as that was, it couldn't be helped.
"Damnit Piper, why'd you go and get yourself into such a mess?" Alex asked, her voice muffled by Piper's hair.
"Mess finds me, Alex. You know that." She responded.
Alex chuckled and shook her head, "Hmm, yeah. It was one big mess that landed you in here, huh?"
Alex felt Piper stiffen at that, she wasn't sure what Piper thought she was referring to but whatever it was seemed to touch a nerve because Piper withdrew herself from Alex and hugged herself with her arms. "It was my own fault that I'm in here. Thank you for checking on me, you've done all you need to do and you don't need to bother yourself with me anymore. Thank you, Alex." Piper said, her voice cold and her face devoid of emotion. Piper didn't seem to be looking at Alex anymore, but rather through her. Alex frowned at Piper's words. That wasn't the Piper she knew, Alex could tell that her face resembled the hurt she now felt at Piper's rejection and she looked behind her at Red and saw the pity in her eyes. That was when Alex got angry.
"No Piper, you know what? Fuck you. How dare you try and push me away again after everything that we've been through. Yeah I told you to stay away, but look at where that got you. I'm so sick of wondering all the goddamn time whether or not you're okay. I'm sick of relying on other people to tell me if you're eating, sleeping, whether your bruises are healing and if you're not fucking crazy yet. I just want us to talk, I don't care that you're getting married to Larry and even though it hurt like hell when you chose him over me..." Alex paused, looking away from Piper to take a breath, "I miss you and I just want us to be okay. Even if we're not the type of okay that I want." Piper remained silent and Alex could feel her eyes burning into her. Alex couldn't look at her though; she was sure she would break. She felt so conflicted, she wanted to be okay with the fact that Piper would never choose her over safe Larry and she wanted to believe that she would be able to be just friends with Piper. She knew, in her heart, that it wasn't possible. It had always been all or nothing with them and Piper's silence seemed to confirm this for her. She sniffed, put on her best poker face and stared Piper square in the eye. "But you know what? You want me to leave you alone, so I will. Then we're even right?" Alex wasn't really sure that even was the right word for what they had going on but it would have to do. She stormed out of the kitchen, pushing past Red and ran straight to the track. Alex hated to run but it was the only thing she could think of. She stared down at her feet as she ran, almost to the point where she felt like her lungs were going to explode. Alex dragged herself to her bunk that after dinner and fell into an exhausted sleep.

"Piperrr" Alex sang into her sleeping girlfriend's ear.
"5 more minutes" Piper groaned, rolling over.
Alex laughed and shook her head, "Fine." She grumbled and walked into the kitchen. She drummed her fingers on the counter and looked around her apartment. She didn't feel like reading, TV was just a waste of time and cooking was pointless. She walked over to her laptop that lay on the coffee table and picked it up before falling onto the couch. She opened it up and went through her files, she huffed and closed them all after a moment. Working was boring too. She stared at the screen for a moment before going into her pictures. She found the folder that she had made that contained all of the pictures she and Piper had ever taken, there were thousands of them. She went through them one by one, year by year; smiling at memories made which led her to think about memories to come. She was so engrossed in the pictures that she hadn't noticed Piper come up behind her till she wrapped her arms around Alex's shoulders.
"Who knew Alex Vause was so sentimental?" Piper chuckled, her voice still hoarse from sleep.
Alex slammed the laptop shut, embarrassed about how lame she was being. "Oh please, you would flip your shit if I hadn't kept all of those." Alex replied, trying to play it off.
Piper wasn't fooled and she laughed gently, "Uh huh, you keep telling yourself that Al." She reached around to kiss Alex quickly before standing up, yawning and stretching. "I feel like I just rose from the dead, ohmygod."
It was Alex's turn to laugh now, Piper never had been good at recovering from hangovers. "Oh please, I was at least three times more drunk than you last night." She stated, putting her feet up on the couch as she watched Piper try to wake up. It was somewhat amusing.
"Liar." Was all Piper replied before grinning sweetly at Alex. She ran her hands through her hair and then suddenly launched herself over the couch, landing heavily on top of Alex. The result leaving Alex winded.
"Piper..." Alex breathed, flailing around on the couch as she tried to get her breath back. "Are you kidding me?" She moaned at her girlfriend, trying not to laugh for fear that she would lost all ability to get any kind of oxygen back into her lungs.
Piper almost fell off of Alex laughing, "You...Should...Have seen...Your...Face!" She managed to say between fits of laughter. She then tried to do an imitation of what Alex's face had looked like that sent her into yet another fit of laughter. Alex pushed Piper off of the sofa then, laughing now too.
"Well you woulda' looked that way too if someone damn near knocked all the air out of you!" She defended herself, "Piper. I could have died." Alex placed a hand on her heart, doing her best to look serious.
Piper sobered up a little and wrapped her arms around Alex's waste. "I'm so sorry, baby. You know I just love it when I get you all breathless like that." Piper exploded into another fit of laughter as Alex pushed her away again, laughing.
"Bitch." Alex teased.

Alex sat up from her bed, feeling the ache from her run in her calves. She tried to wipe that sad look off of her face that her dream, or rather memory, had provoked. She made a note never to run till she was out of air again. She gathered her shower stuff and walked straight into the bathrooms, it was still early so she didn't have to wait before getting into the hot water. She thought about how Piper had told her what Crazy Eyes said to her that one night in the bathroom. 'You gotta start from the inside or you'l get the clean dirty.' She liked that. Alex knew that she had a lot of shit in her life, stuff that wasn't clean in both senses of the word. She had no desire to make any contact with the outside world but she knew that she couldn't avoid it forever. She wrote a few letters once she was done with her shower, one to Robert and another to her aunt and cousins. She even debated about writing to her dad for a moment but she dismissed that idea almost as soon as it came into her head. She wanted nothing to do with him. When she was done, she went and found Nicky and they walked to breakfast together. Talking about nothing. She liked that about Nicky, they didn't always have to have something to talk about. They could just talk about everything and nothing. They were laughing together when they entered the canteen. Alex scanned the room as she always did now. Locating Pennsatucky and her gang and Piper and her own friends. She nodded once to herself seemingly satisfied that Piper was with Morello and so wouldn't be bothered by anyone. As she was looking over there, she saw Morello look her way except it was an odd look and Alex turned to Nicky about to ask her why Morello was looking at her that way when she saw Nicky staring straight back at Morello. Alex realised then that the look hadn't been shared with her but rather Nicky. She waited until Nicky looked at her and then raised a brow quizzically at her.
Nicky shrugged, "She told me she broke up with Christopher." She stated.
"Oh, right well that's good." Alex paused, "I mean, for you... right?"
Nicky laughed, "Sure. Now I get to be her fuckbuddy again. Great." She walked towards the line to get her breakfast.
Alex frowned, deciding that she would ask Nicky about it later. Once they had both gotten their food they sat down at the table with Piper, Morello, Big Boo and Yoga Jones. Alex didn't acknowledge Piper's presence and did her best to avoid looking towards her at all times. She didn't want to look weak, not again.
"Oh!" Nicky exclaimed, making everyone jump. "I completely forgot!"
The whole table looked at Nicky confused.
"What? Can't a bitch be forgetful sometimes?" She defended herself as the rest of the table went back to eating. "Vause, how was your surprise?" She added.
Alex stiffened and she saw Piper do the same out of the corner of her eye.
"What surprise?" She asked nonchalantly and went back to eating.
"You know what!" Nicky prompted, clearly not getting the message.
"I'm sure it wasn't the way you pictured it to be." Alex said simply before getting up from the table.
"Alex..." Piper began.
Alex held up her hand, stopping Piper and looking at her properly for the first time that day. "No Piper, don't worry. You don't need to bother yourself with me anymore." Alex repeated the words Piper had said to her yesterday, her eyes cold and her tone icy to match. She dumped her tray and then headed to work. She could feel the table's eyes on her as she walked out but she kept her stride. She could stay strong this time. She already knew that she was lying to herself though.

Alex looked up at the clock again. Almost lunch time. Nicky strode into the laundry room, Piper in tow. Alex saw Nicky and smiled, pointing towards the broken drier.
"Pieces of shit..." Nicky mumbled as she walked in the direction Alex pointed.
Alex went back to her work, trying to ignore Piper's glare. After a few minutes it was unbearable though. "Want me to give you a picture? It'll last longer." Alex snapped, childishly.
"A picture wouldn't be bad..." Piper replied.
Alex sighed and ignored her, concentrating on folding the sheets.
She heard Piper walk but didn't look up till she saw her black boot standing in front of hers. "What do you want Piper?" She asked quietly, searching her face. "I can't keep up with your mood swings anymore. Just decide what you want and stick to it. I'm not going to be your binky anymore. I'm not some two-bit second choice, someone that you just use when things go bad."
Piper was silent again and Alex sighed, looking back down at the half folded sheet. She felt a hand under her chin that pulled her gaze back up. Alex locked eyes with Piper.
Piper's voice was quiet but the next three words seemed to fill the whole room. "I want you."

Authors Note:

Okay, don't hate me. I know this is short buuuut I've got so much to do but I didn't want to not update you guys! I'm going to try and add more flashback scenes in here and there to try and expose the more sweet side of Alex and Piper's relationship that we haven't really seen/heard much of yet and I just enjoy seeing them be super cute :3 Thanks for all of the reviews! They really are encouraging and making me want to write more. I'm going to try and update this daily but that means that the chapters may be a little short. If you guys want longer chapters then I can work on them but it means the updates with probably be every few days. Let me know what you want!
As always, review and let me know what you think - I love hearing your feedback. Thanks for reading and stay tuned!