Piper was quiet as they prepared for the show. She was friendly when approached but she did not make small talk or engage in any of the ususal pre-show banter. Alex could accept her silence as she knew the ultimatum she had laid out was not an easy thing to hear. She knew because it did not come easy for her to say.

Thankfully, Larry was not there and when Red questioned his absence, Piper was ready with the excuse that he had to work on a big project. Alex suspected the real reason was that he couldn't face her and along with that, the knowledge his perfect Piper had strayed. She was completely fine with it. The part of her that was human couldn't help but feel pity for him but she was also certain that Piper didn't love him in the same way he loved her so staying would've been miserable in the long run for both of them.

The concert itself was mediocre, at best. Not exceptional like Alex felt it should've been but it was completely her fault; she took full responsibility for Piper's guardedness and her own anxiety which she tried to ignore by playing at full throttle. Still, it was always there, lurking at the edges and the audience, while enthusiastic and responsive, fed off the tension, she felt, and wasn't as energized as the previous night's.

"You wanna tell me what just happened out there?" Nicky grabbed her arm the second they departed the stage (without an encore). "Cuz it was fuckin' painfully obvious Poussey and I were playing a completely different show than you and Chapman were. I don't even think you guys were on the same planet."

"I know, dude...I'm sorry." They hadn't been so scattered since right before Morello jumped ship and everyone was at each other's throats. "I can't talk about it yet but I spoke to Piper earlier..."

"Say no more," The bassist replied conspiringly. "One question though, if things don't work out with you two, is every show afterwards gonna blow like this one just did? Cuz if we keep playing like that, we're gonna be bussing tables at Denny's."

"I won't let that happen. This was a fluke, alright? A shitty fluke. It'll be fine." The last thing she ever wanted to do was compromise them and she had vowed it would never happen. If Piper turned her down, they would have to find some way to keep Solitary Confinement from suffering.

"The chemistry will be all sorts of fucked. For awhile, anyway. You gotta accept reality, Alex. I really hope things work out, you know I do, but you gotta have a game plan for if they don't."

Brushing past her, she went to talk to Poussey and Alex walked glumly back to the dressing room, Piper trailing behind her.

"That was bad, wasn't it?"

Alex paused outside the door, looking at Piper, her swooping shoulders and downturned mouth indicating that she too was just as defeated as everyone else. "Let's just enjoy the two seconds of peace before Red comes here to hand us our asses."

As soon as the words had left her mouth, the older woman barged through the door, past Alex and Piper, her flaming red locks sticking up furiously, her mouth set into a thin, hardened line. "You two," She growled, "In here. Now."

"Jesus Christmas, Red," Nicky grumbled. She had been in the process of pulling her shirt over her head and the sudden entry had startled her. "OK, so we didn't play as good as normal, so what? Everyone has an off day. Did the fucking building collaspe? Did anyone ask for a refund? Are they refusing to pay us? I don't see why you hafta come storming in here like the fucking gestapo while we're getting dressed."

"You know, Nichols," Red was right in her face, "If you were my child, I'd slap that shit eating grin right off your face for speaking to me like you do, you spoiled little brat. Now you're going to shut your big mouth for the only time in your pathetic little life and listen. Do you understand?"

Startled into silence, Nicky glowered at her but nodded. "Good. Now do you girls think that shit you just put out there was worthy of paying $100 for? Washington?"

"Uh, no?"

"That's right. No. You were acting like a bunch of hacks up there." She began to pace, staring every one of them down. "Maybe no one else noticed, but I sure as hell did and I guarantee you, if Gordon from The Globe had been here tonight as opposed to yesterday, he would have written one very different review. Trust me. Consider yourselves lucky."

"Red-" Alex began but the manager put up a hand to stop her.

"It's my time to talk, Vause. You listen to me. All of you. Now I don't know what the fuck is going on with you girls lately or where your heads are at," she glanced suspiciously between Alex and Piper, "but whatever it is, you need to straighten it out or you can find yourself a new manager. Understand?"

With a final scowl, she exited the dressing room leaving silence in her wake. They were all used to Red's mood swings but her disappointment was a different story and though they joked about how annoying she could be, the fact was she was an excellent manager and not one any of them was willing to lose.

"Well on that note," Nicky finished changing quickly and slung her backpack over her shoulder, "I need a drink."

"Right behind you, girl," Poussey agreed, putting her make-up back into the case. "I'm gonna need a few." Waving to their bandmates, they headed out of the dressing room and down the hallway to the stage door.

"What a fucking diaster," Alex muttered more to herself then to Piper who was quietly changing back into her street clothes. She was pissed beyond belief that she had allowed her personal issues to fuck up a performance and she silently vowed that no matter what happened between them, it would never effect her band again..

"Take me back to your hotel room," Piper watched her from across the room as she got changed. It was not a request but a gentle demand. Even as Alex tried to gauge what she wanted to say from the tone of her voice, her demeanor betrayed nothing to suggest a decision either way.

"Ready when you are," She wiped off any remaining traces of make-up and grabbed her things, shutting off the light and leaving the room in darkness.

They shared a cab ride, without speaking or looking at one another and Alex, who had not fed into any self-doubt since she was a gangly and unsure preteen, began to worry.

As they made it to her floor and Alex shut the door behind them, Piper gave her one of her trademark half smiles (which almost wasn't a smile at all, more a slight tug at the corners of her lips that Alex found adorable) and not for the first time (not by a long shot), she was completely disarmed by her beauty. It wasn't just physical beauty but it was something else too, a light, a warmth...something that was just Piper. The unnamed thing that made Alex fall completely, hopelessly, in love.

The blonde stood a foot away, her arms splayed at her sides, open but not moving toward her. "I wrote you a song, you know. A while ago, actually. I don't know if it's any good but it kind of wrote itself."

"You did?"

"Yeah. If I had my guitar here, I'd play it..." She trailed off, her eyes unreadable pools. "You completely changed everything," The singer met her gaze, "My life was going in one direction and then I met you and...nothing will ever be the same. I don't know how it could be."

"Me too, kid." There was more she could say, more she wanted to say, but unless they were lyrics, words were not her strong suit. Often she found herself tripping over them, blurting out things that ended up hurting those she cared about most, all good intentions going out the window. "Pipes-" she started and stopped.

"I know," She said so softly it was almost a whisper. "I know, Alex."

Of course she does. Alex thought dizzily. It was part of what they shared...the chemical, magical, insane thing that she had never felt with another living soul. Stepping toward her, she paused, asking an silent question, unmoving, afraid of rejection, afraid of being pushed away.

But Piper stepped forward too, right into her arms, and kissed her with an intensity that Alex returned without question because all that mattered at that moment was beautiful Piper with her lips pressed to hers and the body Alex had memorized every curve and conture, every peak and valley of, arching against her hands as clothes were swiftly discarded.

Mouths replaced fingers and there were quiet, urgent moans as Alex concentrated soley on how fucking amazing it felt to touch her again, like being in the desert and coming to an oasis and to be touched by Piper in return. Her body had missed, no craved, the pleasure, but until she held her again, until she had consumed her again, she hadn't fully grasped just how imcomplete she had been without her.

After, they lay cocooned into one another, light and dark hair spilling over to mix together on the pillows. Alex stroked the small of Piper's back lazily as she buried her face into the crook of her neck. The bed was warm and decidedly better than all of the other shit going on in the outside world and Alex didn't see any good reason for leaving.

As she allowed her eyes to close, sinking further into Piper and her own illusion of safety, she suddenly felt the onset of hot tears on her skin.

And just like that, Alex was presented with Piper's decision.

"I am so, so sorry," The blonde pressed her face into her palm to stifle a sob as she lifted her head. "I'm not brave like you and we both know it. I'm a fucking coward."

"What? What are you so scared of?" She immediately sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest. While her voice was ice, Alex had begun to tremble inside.

"Oh my God, everything. Of being with you, of not being with you...of what this all means," She swiped at her tears, "All my life, I was just who everyone else thought I should be...I don't know how be anything but that nice blonde lady Larry, and my family, and Polly expect me to be, Alex. This whole time I thought I could be Piper Chapman, rock star, but maybe that's just not me. I'm just a singer, that's all. I was fooling myself into believing I was this confident, bold woman. But that's how you made me feel."

"So I was just a part of your little girl game of playing pretend? Is that it, Piper? Did you just decide that fucking me would make you feel special and bad ass?"

"Alex," She said pleadingly, "It wasn't like that. I love you."

"Don't you fucking throw that word around. You're marrying him. You're choosing to be with him. You don't get to tell me you love me but you're going to go ahead and break my fucking heart in the same breath." Her face was hot as she desperately tried to maintain control.

"What do you want me to say? That I'm not in love with him...that I'm marrying him for the wrong fucking reasons...that I've never felt with him for a single second, the way that you make me feel?" Piper shook her head, eyes flashing, "You know all of that already."

"Then why are you doing this?" The brunette asked through gritted teeth. "Why would you just throw away the chance to be happy?"

"Because it's safe. And familiar...and I can't be who you need me to be, Al. Eventually, someone would wanna know things...my parents, the press...I'd want to bury my head in the sand and that's not what you deserve, OK?"

"What was this then? A pity fuck? A good-bye fuck?" She knew she was being hard but she couldn't bring herself to give a shit.

"I needed to be with you again." Piper said thickly. "I'm not proud of myself. I know Larry will give me a good life but he-" she lowered her head, "He isn't you." Meeting Alex's eyes, she continued softly, "And I'll wish things were different, that I was different, that I met you a lifetime ago. But please...Alex, please I'm begging you, please don't doubt my love. I'm the biggest asshole for letting someone like you go but...I love you so much. I always will."

Emotions whirled through her like wildfire as she listened to Piper's passionate speech, some of which included the impulse to cover her ears and scream like a two year old, to run away, to tell Piper she was a liar...but instead she found herself nodding.

"I know you do...that's what's so fucking sad, Pipes. You're gonna wake up next to a man you aren't in love with and you're going to know you made the wrong decision. And you're going to have to live with that every single day. Because we can't exist anymore...not even as friends. We'll have to find a way not to fuck up the band and yeah, I'm well aware I'm doing the last fucking thing I ever wanted to do. I'm not trying to hurt you, Piper...but if I can't be with you, I can't accept anything else from you either. I couldn't handle it." Tears blurred her vision. "Have you talked with him?"

"Before the concert. I told him he didn't have to worry for the rest of the tour because I knew that if we went ahead and got married, you would stay away."

"Jesus Christ, does he think I'm some sort of asshole that preys on straight girls? I'm not a fucking monster." Larry's skewed perception of her wasn't Piper's fault and though she was angry and hurt, she trusted the other woman enough to know she hadn't twisted how their relationship had developed. Larry was going to see things how he wanted to see him and she acknowledged it was easier for him to paint her as the bad guy and Piper as the victim.

"He knows it was a mutual thing, Al."

"It doesn't matter now." None of it mattered anymore except that she had to walk the fuck away again and not look back and she had to find a way to face her in Connecticut and then again in New York, knowing after that last show she would be married and she would have lost her for good. Diane told her to fight but what was there to fight for? Piper had made her decision and she would have to accept it even if it felt like her heart was ripping in two.

"Alex, I don't expect you to understand why I'm doing this-" She briefly touched her wrist pulling away when she saw the look on her face. "I don't fully get it myself..."

"One question, Piper," Alex got up from the bed, picking up her bra from the floor, "Do you think this is the right choice? Do you think Larry is the right choice? Because if there's any chance for us at all, even a small one, you need to let me know...I'll take him on, hell, I'll take on the whole fucking world, if it means being with you. But you gotta be honest with me." She spoke delicately, keeping any pleading out of her tone but her eyes told a different story.

"I don't know if it's the right choice," Piper began to put her own clothes back on, her gaze downcast, her movements slowed and pained, "but it's my choice, Alex."

"Then I'll see you on the bus."

"Please," The singer began, looking as though she wanted to reach out but she stopped herself, resting her arms by her sides in a show of surrender. "See you on the bus." Crying openly, Piper opened the door, stepping out of Alex's room.

The sound of the door shutting behind her was defeaning in its finality and with it, Alex's mouth went dry. Instead of the familiar ache, a numbness had seeped into her skin. Piper was gone. Really gone. Who she would see on the bus in the morning would look like Piper and sound like Piper but in reality, she would be a stranger. Alex would have to forget how she tasted and forget the intricate network of freckles on her shoulders and forget how she could make her body come alive under her touch and forget, forget, forget how fucking much she had loved her, how Piper was never truly hers to begin with, even though for a brief second, she felt like she had been.

The numbness continued to wash over her until there were no more tears left in her body and her eyes and cheeks were raw from trying to erase their path. The pain disappated until there was a nothingness in her, a blankness which had alarmed her in the past, something that had signaled that she needed help. Now it soothed her, a welcome alternative to feeling that deep sorrow which threatened to take her under.

She did not want to call Nicky or P or her mother. She did not want their sympathy or their anger or empty comfort. She did not want to play or write or even try to work through anything. What she needed, what she really fucking needed, was not to feel, not even for a second...for the blackness to take over so she could no longer remember why she had been naive enough to fall in love with Piper in the first place.

So it was in the darkness that Alex began to erase Piper's smile from her psyche, the burn of the of the needle replacing the burn left by the memory of her laugh, her touch, her endless ocean eyes. As the heroin coursed through her veins, she began to remove her, piece by piece, until she could no longer discern if she had ever been real at all.

It worked but not completely so she had to find small, desperate comfort in someone who wasn't her, who, that even in her clouded, drug addled brain, she knew was completely the opposite; dark hair and copper skin and sharp, angled features. But the fact that it was not the blonde was what made it feel wrong and even as she fucked to forget the pain, she screamed out internally for someone who was not there.

MIraculously, she made it back to her room, her arms ravaged and used, smelling like a stranger, and crawled between the cool sheets in search of some sort of respite, but like the whole evening, unable to find any. She could only lay silently in the swirling darkness, praying to a God she had never fully believed in for it to completely consume her. Because try as she might to erase the devesation by any means possible, it was there and it would remain, etched in her heart and her head and every strained breath that she took.

Piper was gone.

Authors Note: I want to thank all of you for the wonderful reviews, follows, favorites, etc. I'm so invested in this story and these characters and it means so much to me that so many of you are too! That being said, I know this chapter was super angsty and dark and as it hard it may be to read, it was hard to write and take Alex (who I love both canon and non canon versions of very much) to such a dark place. Please hang in there! Our girls are not done on this journey, not by a long shot, so I hope you can all forgive me for putting them through this!