Chapter Twenty Seven

Flashback

For the first time in years, Piper didn't choose to smile. She simply felt it happen. From some place deep in her gut right up to her blushing face, she felt an inescapable form of giddy joy as she gazed into the tall brunette's eyes. She had never felt this way before about anyone, she hadn't thought it possible. Sure she'd read everything, she knew all the ins and outs of romanticised literary love and knew the most vivid and beautifully crafted descriptions of how she was supposed to feel when it happened.
But this was something else. The woman stood opposite her who grazed her nose gently against Piper's in anticipation, was something else. With the slightest touch of her skin against Piper's own, Piper felt electric. Every cell in her body longed for this stranger, in a way she never knew she could long.
Piper leant forward, pressing herself up against the brunette's athletic but soft body. Her heart hurdled with each second as it past, each sensation sent ripples of euphoria through her senses. But Piper still wanted more. Abandoning her hesitations, Piper pressed her curious lips slowly against Alex's. A barely audible moan escaped Alex's lips as she pulled Piper closer. It was the sort of moment people spent their entire lives searching for, that moment when you realise who your entire being was made to love. It was as if Piper's sole purpose of existing was to love Alex. To be in love like this with Alex and to together be of love itself. Nothing else mattered more than being in her embrace.

End Flashback

Piper struggled against the C.O.s and guards as they pulled her away from Alex's still body.
"No! NO...!" Piper wailed, Nicky and Red helped the guards pull Piper back. The inmates' expressions were ashen as they stared at Vause's limp body. Leanne was marched out of the prison in handcuffs. She was being sent to SHU, never to return. But it wasn't enough, Nicky thought. Nicky felt tears stream down her own cheeks as she saw Piper's agonised face. She looked as though somebody had reached into the very core of her and ripped out her heart. It was horrible. Nicky pushed Piper back, making room for the paramedics to reach Alex's body.
"No, please! Please! Alex...!"
Morello knelt beside Alex's body, she was searching for a pulse. The paramedics ushered her aside and took over.
Was this the sordid end to a tumultuous tale? A deafeningly silent end to a stormy, real and passion filled affair?
"Please," Piper crumbled in the hands of the C.O.s, her knees buckled as she wept, "please I can't leave her." Piper was utterly broken. Mendez seemed sympathetic to her plight, he raised a hand at the other officers and gestured at them to let her stay as the paramedics checked Alex's vitals. It didn't look good.
"No pulse..." one paramedic said to another. The third paramedic began pumping his fists against her chest, then counting. Alex's body shook against the force, but there was no sign of a pulse, no sign of life.
Nicky watched all hope fade from Piper's face, and it was the most dreadful thing Nicky had ever seen. The way Piper sat there, like a lifeless doll staring emptily at Alex's body was brutal.
"Chapman, come on..." Nicky tried, as she tugged Piper's arm. Piper was like a deadweight. She didn't speak, nor did she move.
The paramedics pulled out the defibrillator and began setting it up.
"Everyone step aside!" one paramedic cried. The inmates leapt back, either they were eager to see a miracle or were fascinated by the macabre.
BEEP..."CLEAR!" A paramedic roared before jolting Alex's body with the defibrillator. Piper stared at her closed eyes, willing her to open them. The third paramedic hooked Alex up to a monitor. It let out a steady beep, indicating that there was no pulse. It's deafening and jarring truth was unignorable. Alex was gone.
Alex, don't leave me. Please don't leave me. Don't you fucking leave me. She had never prayed in her life, but now seemed like a good time to start.
BEEP!
"CLEAR!" Another shock was delivered to Alex's chest. With each passing second, Piper's world darkened. The unapologetic beep of the monitor made reality difficult to ignore. She really was gone. Piper's body grew cold, it was as if a part of her soul had left with Alex. Piper's own body felt rigid, as if this moment had left her transfixed in time and space. Her destiny lay before her, this was who she belonged to and with. This was inevitable to her, it always had been. And she was right here, all this time. She was right here, yet somehow out of sync.
The paramedic seemed less enthusiastic now, it was clear the other paramedics had accepted the fate of the prisoner. But still, he placed the defibrillators on her chest one final time and gave it all he had.
"CLEAR...!"
Once again, her body shuddered violently then fell limp. The room fell silent as everyone listened to the continuous, uninterrupted monotone emitting from the monitor. Piper's face crumpled up, producing tears of heart wrenching agony as she gazed at Alex's unmoving body.
Taystee pulled Piper into an embrace, "don't look." Taystee begged, "stop looking."
"I can't." Piper confessed, a prisoner to her own actions. She just stared at Alex's corpse.
"She's right Piper. Stop watching..." Nicky said sadly.
"Let her mourn how she pleases." Red said tersely, her own eyes were tinged with tears. "Everybody gets to grieve for loves ones how they want."
Nicky nodded, doing her best to hold it together as her own tears began to stream down her cheeks. Vause was one of the good ones, the strong ones, and the brave ones.
The monitor stared the inmates down, it blared that same repetitive heart destroying beep, indicating there was no pulse, throughout the prison. Gradually, the inmates began to look away, all except Piper. She simply couldn't and wouldn't. If this was the last time she would lay eyes on Alex, she would etch every detail about her into her mind. As the paramedics began loading up their gear, it was the initial falter of the recurrent steady tone from the monitor that lifted heads. It faltered again, and again. The paramedic's expressions turned to ones of excitement and purpose. They had a pulse. The inmates cheered.
Piper was too paralysed to move as she watched Alex's chest gently rise and fall, it was the greatest moment of Piper's life.