Empty Spaces Chapter 18
Piper's POV in the infirmary.
Sorry this update took so long, spent a day binge watching orange to get caught up with the new season and all I can say to that is... Damn! It's gonna take me a few days to process all of that. Meanwhile and gonna try to step up the updates cuz all this dasrkness is bringin' me down and I need to get to the happy.
It had probably been a week since Piper had been returned beaten and broken to the Litchfield infirmary, but she just couldn't find the energy to care anymore. There were fewer people buzzing around her in here, longer stints of alone time when her mind would wander off to dark and scary places. There was a doctor and several nurses who were here checking up on her from time to time. They gave her a button to call them when she needed water or the bathroom but she didn't use it. She'd just lay there blankly staring at the ceiling until they came around to prod at her again in a painfully cruel attempt to keep her alive. She couldn't for the life of her understand why they kept wasting their time with it.
Inside her mind, all she could see was the never ending movie of all the people she had hurt in her life. Everyone she'd ever cared about was in there, her parents, her friends, her lovers. She just couldn't seem to stop hurting people. Even putting her into prison hadn't helped, she'd actually managed to kill somebody in here. No it wasn't enough just to lock her away with the simple small offenders, she wasn't sure max was enough. The only way for the violence to stop was to make it stop for good. If they weren't gonna do it for her, she'd just have to wait and watch. There were more than enough opportunities to get yourself permanently messed up in here.
As Piper's mind turned over these destructive little thoughts she didn't hear the noise at the entrance to the infirmary where another inmate was being escorted in by a corrections officer. Din't hear the muffled whimpers or the muttered explanation from the fight that she'd picked a fight and would be headed down to SHU once she was all patched up. The noise as they helped the inmate to the bed next to hers should have been audible, but it just didn't register. She ignored it the same as she tried to ignore the quetions from the doctors when they poked her in all of the places that hurt.
She was still staring up at the ceiling when the curtain blocking her from sight was pulled quietly aside as a large figure stepped passed and slowly moved towards her. Her mind vaguely acknowledged the possible presence of one of these dark possibilities she'd just been mulling over, and she couldn't help the way her eyes closed or the ghost of a smile creased around the edges of her lips as she felt that sisnister touch descending. She waited patiently, grateful for an end to the suffering she'd inflicted on everyone around her. She waited, but the touch didn't come.
She opened her eyes to see the tall dark form of her ex leaning painfully over her.
This wasn't what she was waiting for. She was apalled to see the tall brunette bleeding profusely from her nose and lips, to see even more pain in those deep soulful eyes and known she'd done it again. Even now lying in this bed unable to move or even touch anything or anybody, she was still hurting people. It was this thought that brought the tears cascading down her cheaks while Alex stood frozen above her. Unable to move with her hand hovering hovering just an inch or so the from the skin she'd been dying to touch for so long now.
She'd been afraid to touch the woman lying immobile oon the bed before her, afraid she'd scare her or startle her somehow. So she'd hesitated, her hand so close she could feel the warmth she'd been crazing, and when the blonde had opened her eyes she'd somehow been swallowed whole. She'd looked into those eyes, it felt like at least a million times over the years. She'd seen love and passion and seething anger reflected out of those depths back at her. She'd seen joy, heartbreak and a million wonderful futures spent in each others arms. Looking into those eyes now, all she could see were the empty spaces that her lovers soul used inhabit.
She saw endless waves of pain and anger crashing down on the woman she loved destroying her inside. She saw the tears welling up, could feel the inconsolable misery trying to claw its way out of her body. She'd heard plenty from the others, and everyone had said that the blonde half of her heart was in a bad way, but she find herself realizing the situation was worse than she'd even realized was possible. The tiny woman laying before her was completely broken and Alex couldn't fight the fear that she might not be strong enough to bring her back fom this place. The tall brunette couldn't fight back the tears running down her own face making tracks through the blood that was already drying there.
She leaned down even further trying to wrap her arms around Piper but struggled with the pain lacing through her side. She'd actually had to pay off Big Boo to break her nose and crack a couple ribs so she could get into the infirmary for a couple of days, she'd asked Nicky first but had met a flat out refusal. It was worth it though, after the sleepless weeks she'd been left to lay awake, wondering how she was. Trying to come up with plans to get to the blonde back in her arms so she could save her somehow. She didn't know how long it would take or how much it would cost her in the long run, but she made up her mind then and there to never give up on the blonde.
Piper just kept on weeping for the woman she'd never be able to stop loving, stop hurting. Her love was poison, and she was toxic. She knew that the only way to save Alex would be to send her away or chase her off, but she was starting to think it wasn't really possible. After all she'd done to the woman over the years, she just kept coming back. Was still here crying with her in this hospital bed and Piper just didn't have the strength. She didn't have enough strength to lift her weak and battered arms to hold Alex back, how would she ever have the strength to push her away.