Empty Spaces Chapter 15
This is a short one from Fischer's POV. Should have another longer one up tonight so be patient.
The prison game of telehone tag being what it was, it didn't take long before a dozen different girls were waiting anxiously in the yard for today's arrivals. Fischer glanced around the yard taking stock of who had come out to keep watch for Chapman. Boo and Little Boo were playing near the infirmary, while Taystee and Poussey lingered further up toward the gate. They'd be the first to give the heads up when the ambulance finally did show up. There was a nervous energy lingering in the air, a sense of excitement that they weren't quite willing to give in to. There were still too many unknowns in the equation. If the blonde woman was alright, would they even be able to see her of if she'd be able to stay at the Litch at all. Very little information had been forthcoming and the prisoners had been kept collectively in the dark on the status of their friends well being.
The activity in the yard looked about the same as it usually would to an outsiders, but the COs could feel the difference like it was being forced somehow. Fischer was doing her usual time watching the track while Watson did laps and a few of the golden girls shared a leisurely stroll. She noticed though that the unusually fast runner would slow her pace a bit when she rounded the curve that allowed her a view of the gate that allowed access to the prison. The CO felt for the women in her care, she liked Chapman and she could tell that so very many of the other inmates seamed to feel the absence of her presence so poignantly.
She ached to be able to set them at peace, tell them that their friend was okay and that everything would be alright. Unfortunately she just wasn't able do that for them. It wasn't about her job or prison politics like most of them probably suspected, sadly it was knowledge that she didn't have any good news to give them beyond the fact that the blonde still lived. Her injuries hadn't been a secret to any of the corrections officers and while the damage to her hands had been severe the trauma of the event would be the hardest part to heal. The story that Caputo had told her after his last visit to the blonde had just about broken her heart. He'd clearly still been shaken hours later telling her about how the tiny little woman had come completely undone when she'd learned the truth about Doggett's demise.
It was the quiet she realized suddenly that was making everything around her seam so foriegn. Usually there would be a cacophany of voices echoing across the yard. Sometimes angry, sometimes boisterous but always loud. Everyone seamed to be speaking in nervous hushed little whispers today. Despite their attempts to keep up the appearance of normality there was a discreet lack of activity. There was a slight rustle of voices much like a flock of seagulls taking flight when Morello drove up in the van with todays new arrivals, but even that was muffled and stilled quickly.
Usually the new inmates would be subjected to all kinds of stare down and verbal assaults to wake them up to their new surroundings. Todays new arrivals came and went without any of that, no one cared about scaring the fresh meat today. They all just continued to stand their watch, knowing now that the next time the gate slid open their friend would be coming home to them. Fischer returned her attention to the track before her, Jenae's endless endurance keeping her rounding the track over and over while the golden girls began to shuffle on back towards the yard, but not the prison because they were keeping watch too.