Coursing Through My Veins Like Fire
A/N: So here it is, the big reveal! I've re-written this one about three times, as much as I try to incorporate suggestions, too many tends to throw me off my focus. Hopefully, you guys won't be too angry after reading. Enjoy and thanks for all of the reviews.
Disclaimer: OitNB does not belong to me
Chapter 4: Fan the Flames and Walk on Water
Tightening her grip on the plastic food tray, Piper takes a fortifying breath and quickly walks up to the Suburbs table, plopping down onto a stool before she loses her nerve.
"Hey, stranger." Lorna is the first to greet her, "how's your weekend going?"
"It's good," Piper smiles at the woman sitting across from her "I had a visit with my family earlier and my mother only expressed her disapproval twice, it's a new record."
"Was that your brother I saw out there?"
"Yeah, that was Cal...it was his first visit here so..." Piper tries to focus on answering Nicky's inquiries but there's a flurry of whispers that's becoming too distracting. Alex and Jess are at the other end of the table and judging by Alex's tense posture, whatever Jess is saying to her, she's about a minute away from snapping.
"I said drop it already Jess, fuck!" the dark hair woman groans.
"No, I've let it go for too long."
"You've only been here for like a week."
"Exactly, six days of suffering through your pigheaded bullshit. Look, I get you trying to protect me and you know I appreciate and love you for it but Lex...you're being a total dick!"
Alex purses her lips silently fuming and, pushing her food listlessly around her tray she suddenly becomes aware of the blanket of silence that has fallen over their table. Lifting her head to see, Nicky, Lorna, Boo and Piper studiously not looking in her direction but also not speaking to each other like they were moments before.
"Just let it go Jess, I'm fine." Alex all but pleads with the redhead.
"You're not fine, " Jess says exasperated with the other woman, "it's like Paraguay all over again. You're fucking miserable when you don't have to be and I'm getting real fed up being your goddamn beard."
"Hey I never said that you were, if people automatically assumed shit then that's on them." Alex argues.
"See that's my point! You're content to sit back and let her think the worst like it's not affecting you meanwhile I'm getting daggers burned into the back of my head all damn day long..."
"Leave her the fuck alone!" Alex suddenly snarls at Piper, "you got a problem with me, you deal with me."
Piper freezes, fork poised at her open mouth, chilled to the bone as Alex gives her the coldest scowl imaginable. She can't remember ever pissing the other woman off this much, not even when Piper announced that she wouldn't accompany Alex back to the States for her mother's funeral or even so much as help her book a plane ticket.
"Oh stop acting like a jerk, we all know you'd never do anything to hurt her!" Jess scolds, "And it wasn't Chapman so back the fuck off of her."
Alex stares at Piper for a beat longer, presumably weighing the consequences of spending time locked in solitaire or just letting this go. Piper knows for a fact that being alone is one of Alex's biggest fears so Montgomery must mean a lot to her if she's actually considering fighting.
"Fine," Alex apparently decides to back off of Piper but isn't finished interrogating Montgomery, "then who's been messing with you? Was it Lozano, Adams or has Doggett's crew of fucktards done something? I swear to Christ I will..."
"You aren't going to do a Goddamn thing," Jess shuts that train down before it picks up too much steam, "there's a good chance my appeal will turn in my favor and if you'd quit behaving like a mobster Lex your first parole hearing is in two years. Just keep your nose clean and the next time you get the urge to throw around large sums of money to assuage your guilt," her soft blue eyes flit down the table at Piper before continuing, "think about Quinn. What's more important, petty revenge or being with the people who love you?"
Old habits are hard to break, especially for someone as stubborn as Alex but Jess knows that using Quinn as an example is a sure fire way to get Alex to seriously rethink her actions before doing anything stupid.
Knowing she was defeated the instant Jess mentioned her blond visitor, Alex pushes her glasses on top of her head and rubs the bridge of her nose. "Quinn told me today that she got into St. John's University."
"Really, that's amazing but hold up, St. John's? I thought she was leaning towards Fordham considering...?"
"St. Johns is a Roman Catholic school?" Alex answers Jess' unasked question, "yeah I did too, I mean after everything she grew up dealing with, that poor fucking excuse of a stepfather and all of the stuff she's been writing me about lately, I figured religion would be the last thing that would factor into where she goes to college, you know?"
Jess nods sadly, she would like to discuss this further but Alex is weirdly paranoid about speaking of their outside lives in front of the other inmates. Sure this is the small group she trusts more than anyone else locked up in Litchfield and Nicky seems to be the only true friend Jess has ever seen Alex interact with. But one can never be too careful about giving out personal information, it was all too easy to locate Pennsatucky's home in Waynesboro after all.
The tension that was previously suffocating their meal has lifted and regular conversation ensues but Piper is even more befuddled over what she's just heard. Alex's niece would be a teenager by now but Piper is almost certain the girl she met years ago was named Grace not Quinn.
The longer she sits, staring dumbly at the woman laughing casually with Big Boo, the more frustrated she becomes. It's like all of the answers are staring her right in the face but she's too close to see them clearly. She stands but changes her mind a second later and her tray hitting the table makes an attention garnering clatter.
"You didn't name me." She's not sure if it's a statement or a question but it appears Alex has already deciphered the meaning. "My lawyer gave my parents a copy of the indictment, nowhere in those 300 pages does my name appear in association with you, not in the warrant issues, not the DEA indictment, not even in the transcript of your trial. It was Madison fucking Sinclair, that bitch that hated my guts who gleefully turned me in. But you...you stood there and took credit for getting me sent to prison, you let me hate you for something you didn't do. Why! Why would you..."
"Because it's what you wanted, Piper. You needed a reason to end it so you could run back to your precious fucking fiancé without having to feel guilty for once again fucking me over. So I did what I always do, I gave you what you wanted,"
"What I wanted," Piper asks incredulously at Alex's illogical answer, " how could you, lying to my face about something so important, possibly be what I want?"
"You needed a villain, someone to blame for your problems and what better scapegoat than your evil drug dealing lesbian ex-lover!" Alex stands, "I'm the villain." Her voice cracks slightly and she blinks away tears but Piper knows Alex is seconds away from losing it and she will hate herself if she breaks down in the middle of a crowded cafeteria.
More than anything, Piper wants to race into those strong arms and scream at Alex that, 'no she isn't the villain who ruined her life.' Sure, she could do without being in prison, they all could, but Piper made their relationship sexual again. She was the one who pulled a clueless Alex into the chapel and tore her clothes off. It was Piper who suddenly remembered she had a different life waiting for her outside and ended their romance while filling out forms for a jailhouse wedding. Maybe apart, they are good people but together, Piper and Alex are a mess. That doesn't lessen the love she still feels for Alex, if anything their tragic circumstances only makes Piper want to push harder.
"Hey um, Vause," Nicky's voice breaks their staring contest, "you promised me a rematch in Scrabble. I've even been boning up, reading a thesaurus and everything, what say we head to the rec room before everybody else finishes lunch, huh?"
Piper's never been more grateful for Nicky's friendship, not even when the woman let her purchase items using her commissary her first week to help solve her Red issues.
Martinez pairs Jess with Piper peeling potatoes for dinner, essentially leaving them on their own for at least an hour as they work through the large pile of vegetables. Piper tries her best to ignore the younger girl and focus on the music blasting from the radio but the furtive glances her companion is giving her begins to irritate the hell out of her.
"Alex would talk about you sometimes, when she was sad or drunk or both." Jess casually breaks the silence. "Little things like, 'She'd get really shitfaced off of tequila' or 'She read The Romantic Manifesto a dozen times'. You were always present no matter how many years went by or whomever she was seeing at the time. Alex only holds a grudge against people who really hurt her, you must know that right?"
Piper, pretending not to be listening to that soothing southern lilt, simply picks up another potato and grinds her teeth. It hurts too much to hear that Alex kept her memory close when Piper tried so hard to erase their relationship the second she stepped onto that plane home.
"My mom died when I was eight, my dad was...not around. All I knew was a name but, I was tossed into foster care for most of my life, minus a year and a half spent in juvie. When I finally turned 18 and tracked him down...worst fucking idea ever! The only good thing Lee Burley ever did for me was giving me the name of my sister."
That seems to catch Piper's attention, she fumbles the potato she's peeling and turns to the other woman, realization peeking through her resentment. Jess smiles, her words finally breaking through the blondes unnaturally hard head.
Jess hesitates for a moment, debating with herself if she should divulge more. Alex's instructions concerning Chapman were very clear, 'the bitch is poison, keep away!' But Jess also noticed the longing glances that contradicted Alex's words, ultimately she decides to risk an asskicking and help her sister out.
"It took me another five years to track her down, I was busy working my ass off in med school, and as you know Alex never stayed in one place for too long. When I found her...god she was an absolute train wreck," a visible shudder racks the redhead as she recalls the terrible state she found her sister in, " she'd only been using for about a month but the damage was already done. She was drowning in grief and heartbreak and heroine, a deadly combination for most but Alex Vause is definitely not like most people. She made me a promise that day, to get clean, to be there for me, that we'd be a family. At first I thought, the junkie's theme song, 'this is the last time, etc' but Alex is full of surprises. Finding my sister has been the best thing that's ever happened to me and as much as she'll deny it at the moment Piper, Alex is still very much in love with you. "
Piper is flummoxed, the most egocentric part of herself is ecstatic that someone as amazing as Alex loves her and has been in love with her throughout their decade long break. But the other part imagines punching the taller woman in the face hard enough to break those incredibly sexy glasses.
"That...shitty fucking asshole shit! Why didn't she just tell me you two were related instead of...ugh!" Piper takes her anger out on the potato, scraping off much more of the vegetable's flesh than necessary while imagining its Alex's delicate pale skin.
"She's written to me about how you guys were feuding with the slack jawed yokels and she didn't want me to walk into her crap. An innocent ex they can ignore but a blood relation, that would have had me sleeping with a shiv under my pillow."
"But I still don't get why she just didn't tell me"
"Because she's an idiot." Jess rolls her eyes fondly, "Look I love my sister but Alex tries too damn hard to hide her vulnerabilities from other people and it almost always comes back to bite her in the ass. You hurt her and instead of working through the pain of yet another breakup with you, she chooses to act like you don't exist even though she's hyper aware of every move you make. That's just Alex,"
"I'm not with him anymore, not since Christmas." Piper quietly admits. Larry has cut off all forms of contact with her since she was released from the SHU. It was Polly who had the misfortune to inform piper over the phone, of Larry succumbing to the pressure of his parent's wishes that he dump the incarcerated shcikza and find himself a nice normal Jewish girl to marry. Piper had always known that Larry relied too much on his parent's opinions, as well as their money but it angered her more than hurt that he finally caved to their demands that she wasn't good enough to become a Bloom but didn't have the balls to tell her in person.
"She knows, and she's pissed at herself for knowing. Lex told me what she said to you, to never come to her again which I have to say I absolutely agree."
Piper scoffs, "then why are you telling me all of this? Is this another one of her twisted 'long games,' she's trying to punish me for choosing Larry?!"
"Lex doesn't know I'm talking to you. She would flip the fuck out if she knew. And what I meant was that if you are really in love with her, like your stalking suggest, then you need to find a way to convince her that you want her and only her, no take backs or change of hearts when what's his name comes calling. If you want Alex prove that you're all in."
They peel in silence for another twenty minutes before Piper screws up the courage to ask another question.
"I know we're not suppose to ask but... Nicky said that you never worked for Alex so...?"
"How did a classy dame like me end up in a lousy gin joint like this?" Jess gives her a cock-sure grin too reminiscent of the ones Alex used to bestow upon her and she feels like an idiot for not spotting their similar mannerisms sooner. "Because of drugs but not the way you're thinking. My mentor started a clinic in Haiti, he used most of his savings to fund the project and we nearly had to close the doors on several occasions. With a little persuasion, Alex set up a medical relief aid Foundation, she funneled money from her 'business' into an endowment that allowed us to keep that clinic running and also open five more in the most war torn, disaster ravaged countries in the world. "
Piper was stunned, in the two months they spent getting closer, Alex never once talked about any type of philanthropic work she's done, then again she never mentioned having a half sister by her faded rocker father either. Maybe she was right, they weren't really friends, just because Alex loved to fuck her that didn't mean she trusted Piper enough to tell all of her deepest secrets. Piper proved how fickle her affections were so Alex had technically been correct to hold something of herself back. She just wishes the raven haired woman wouldn't hide her big heart behind a cold mask of indifference all the damn time.
"I'm guessing from your constipated expression that she also never mentioned volunteering in the clinic in Darfur either?"
Piper shakes her head not really sure why she felt so completely confounded. She' d always known that Alex was a shrewd investor as well as a kindhearted person, her loving and close relationship with her mom was something Piper envied with a white-hot passion.
Most drug dealers, or importer as Alex preferred to be called, spend their money on wasteful, lavish trinkets and while Alex did enjoy the comforts of first class and designer dresses, she would always slip a handful of bills to the homeless woman down the street from their loft. Piper once snubbed the bedraggled woman as she walked by but Alex stopped, backtracked to give the woman another handful of bills and whispered softly to the woman before rejoining Piper on their trek to a restaurant in midtown. Alex held her hand the same but something felt odd about her silence, it wasn't until she gathered the nerve to ask Alex what she said to the woman that she felt like a kid playing dress up in her girlfriends presence. 'You think she likes begging strangers for change just so she can survive the night? You don't have to give her money but you don't have to pretend she doesn't exist just because it makes you uncomfortable either. It's going to be cold as fuck tonight, I told her about a safe, warm place she could stay.'
Alex then picked up her menu, avoiding Piper's astonished gaze. There were so many questions Piper wanted to ask but Alex's cool demeanor and the sting from her chastising was too fresh so she let herself become distracted by the waiter and buried the unpleasantness under a river of Sauvignon blanc.
"She was really great with the kids, so gentle and sweet." Jess was still talking, unaware of Piper's trip down memory lane. "She'd read to them and taught them how to read in their own language! You don't know how amazing it was that she would learn another language just so she could read Harry Potter or Dr. Suses, they just really loved her. And of course the women just flocked to her. In South America, there were a half dozen women who threatened to throw themselves from the mountain cliffs when she left. One even erected a sort of statue in her honor, can you believe that shit? There I was, literally elbows deep in a tribesman chest cavity saving lives and all Alex had to do was help dig wells for fresh water and fuck a few natives into unconsciousness and suddenly she's their Amazonian Goddess. It was surreal, I swear, if she were a guy there would be at least three villages in the Philippians over run with tall bookwormish, gorgeous yet visually impaired kids." Montgomery shakes her head at her sister's legendary sexual prowess.
Jess hides her smirk when the blonde standing next to her emits a low growl. Jealousy is clear as day on Piper's face and though she's pretty sure she can take the boney woman, Jess decides not to press her luck.
"Leave it to Alex to find someone to warm her bed in the middle of the freaking jungle." Piper blinks away the tears threatening to fall. She has no right to judge how Alex handled her walking out, of course she would rather lose herself in random hookups instead of talking things out. Especially after the one person who she felt completely safe with unexpectedly died alone while she was so far from home.
"Those were bad examples," feeling bad about causing more grief, Jess backtracks to only focus on the good, "it wasn't all hedonistic resort debauchery, I mean we were in a fucking jungle with wild animals and crazy assed soldiers with itchy trigger fingers. Anyway, you threw me totally off topic, one of our doctors who was in charge of ordering supplies got too damn greedy. He and a pharmaceutical rep decided to switch out the malaria vaccines for placeboes. Not only did the bastards endanger hundreds of children's lives but when the FDA got wind it completely under minded all of the good the foundation had accomplished. Now that fucking twat Daniels in rotting in jail hopefully getting a human booster shot from a lifer named Tiny and I... I lost my medical license, my freedom and I had to give up the clinics."
"I'm sorry, that's ...awful." What exactly does one say in a situation like this. The old Piper would have pulled out some esoteric quote to express her empathy . But what the new prison harden Piper has learned is that a good portion of the time she had been talking out of her ass. The old Piper knew nothing of strife, she grew up privileged, she knew nothing about true struggle and comparing her shit to other people's shit was really insensitive, no matter how well intended.
"It is, what it is ." Montgomery shrugs in resignation like she's gone over this issue from every angle yet still came to the same screwed up conclusion. "I have a shot at petitioning for my medical license to be reinstated when I get out but Interpol will bar me from working in international aid relief for the rest of my life."
"And I'm also sorry for my behavior towards you before when I thought..."
"When you thought I was having sex with Alex," Jess interrupts with a snort, "who do you think we are, the Lannisters?"
"Yes, well in my defense she never told me she had a sister." Piper bristles at Jess' flippancy, "And there was another redhead that visits twice a month that she never speaks of, I just figured she has a type."
"Lena," Montgomery nods her head, instantly knowing to whom Piper is referring , "yeah, I forgot about that one. They were only married for like two and a half maybe three years, it was the most amicable divorce in the history of litigation."
"Alex is Married?!" Piper screeches and in her distraction, nearly slices her knuckles open with the dull vegetable peeler. Wincing a little at the volume of the outburst and the unwanted attention being drawn their way, Jess calmly exams Piper's hand then continues talking in that genteel unperturbed tone she's been using throughout the entire conversation, seemingly unaffected by the blonde sputtering indignantly next to her.
"They're divorced now and it was never really a romantic relationship. Lena's brothers were into some really despicable shit, human trafficking and the like. They basically tried to sell Lena to Alex to pay off a debt. I've never seen her go ballistic on anyone before, Alex is always so calm and in control to the point it kinda pisses you off. She literally burned their house down, there was nothing but ashes left of that house of horrors they kept the women locked up in. Two died when the place was raided, one's in prison in Serbia. Alex got Lena out of the country, they only got married because it was the easiest way to get Lena a green card and start a new life. Lex even helped her open a bakery, Lena makes these amazing cupcakes, they're so addictive."
"You two keep gossiping about la chica alta, my potatoes better be ready on time." Martinez warns them as she rushes through the kitchen carrying a crate of produce.
Montgomery smiles sweetly at the older Hispanic woman, sincerely apologizing. Martinez clucks her tongue in return but there's a fond smirk on her lips when she walks away. Piper is impressed, it's rare that the Spanish mami's show any kind of respect for inmates outside of their tribe.
"I guess charm runs in the family, she didn't even call you white girl." Gloria was always the friendlier of the tribe, she even stops by Piper's cube to make sure the other women aren't hassling her too much. And now that she thinks about it, Piper's seen Alex and Gloria with their heads together a couple of times.
"Yeah I like to think that unlike my siblings, I've managed that perilous balance between charming and total sociopathic behavior." The red head jokes. "The key to fitting into a hostile environment is to find out what people want and be the person they have to go to, to get it. Little tidbit I picked up in the Louisiana Juvenile Detention Center."
"So there's more than just you and Alex? Siblings, I mean."
"Mmhmm, you saw one earlier today in the visiting room." Jess counts off her fingers, "Quinn is the youngest as far as we've been able to suss out. Mary's the oldest, then Lex and Jennifer who look like they were separated at birth, they're a few months apart. Then Damon, he was the easiest to locate because he took our dad's surname, me and Quinn's the baby."
"Wow," Piper mutters in astonishment
"What can I say, papa was a rolling stone, or a Death Maiden." The redhead shrugs.
Piper chuckles softly as they fall back into silence, each focusing on completing their task on time. So Alex finally has the family she always wanted, of course she would be insanely protective of her kid sister. Alex was always fiercely protective of Piper when they were together all those years ago. But her mind soon wanders and it doesn't take long to realize what was staring her right in the face.
"The food," Piper places a hand on Jess' arm, halting her movement "when I was in the SHU, the guard would bring me food, real food...it was Alex wasn't it?" She has the presences of mind to lower her voice then asks. "Alex bribed a CO to give me edible food so I wouldn't starve to death?"
From the startled expression on Montgomery's face Piper knows she hit the nail right on the head and she feels a crushing weight of guilt suffocating her.
"How?" The words are strangled
"Everyone has a price, Chapman. A couple thousand dollars for each week you were stuck there was worth it for a little piece of mind."
"But we weren't even...Alex hated me, she didn't want anything to do with me" the blonde still protests.
"If Lex hated you, you would have met a highly suspicious end years ago. Or woken up in a mental hospital with total amnesia under an assumed name. I told you Chapman, she loves you."
Piper runs the numbers in her head, "I was in the SHU for almost eighteen weeks! She paid someone nearly twenty thousand dollars to slip me sandwiches?"
"It was closer to forty." Jess reluctantly admits, this was definitely something Alex wouldn't want her to talk about but Piper deserves to know the lengths Alex went to for her sake, "I don't really know the specifics, Damon's her go to for things of that nature, mostly because he doesn't ask questions."
Picking up the tub of now peeled potatoes, Jess hands them off to Flaca and returns to help a now pensive Piper clean up their station.
"You two should talk, honestly all this unresolved sexual tension is excruciating. But make sure you do it on a Monday, I have that day in the betting pool."