Chapter 10

Two weeks after her return to Litchfield, there was finally a peaceful sense of homecoming for Alex. With a black bag in one hand, she entered the vacant room last occupied by a former resident, Mercy. Unlike the rooms in the North, rooms in the South were much smaller with enough space for only a single bed and a set of desk and chair. Dusty, cracked, narrow walls that could make one goes claustrophobic, much like the SHU, but better only with a tall window provided.

Alex wasn't complaining. She must admitted that she had missed this place more than she had imagined. Even with the damp air and tiny space. The loud, rude chatters in the graffiti-walled hallways. She put her bag, which contained some clothes and other personal belongings, down on the floor, and sat down on the creaky bed. She had stayed in the infirmary for the past week, waiting until Red finally gave her Mercy's room. It was far from the fancy apartment she used to rent, but she was just grateful for the privacy right now. At least she didn't have to sleep in a public place like the lounge or staying in the infirmary like a homeless.

Lorna followed Alex into the room, a set of creamy-colored sheets and a folded blanket in her hands. "You might wanna change the bed sheet and pillowcases. Here they are, and my spare blanket for you. Not brand new, but washed and clean. Nicky told me to prepare them for you when you move in."

Alex got up to take them from Lorna. "Thanks. Really appreciate it." She smiled. Lorna had been very kind and sweet to her.

"Nicky and I will go out for a dinner tonight. Would you like to come with us?" Lorna asked.

"I'll be fine. Don't wanna be the third wheel." Chortling, Alex began to pull the old bed sheet off.

"You can bring Wedge with us. She's been visiting you every day at the infirmary. A double date is cool." Lorna smiled knowingly, leaning against the doorframe.

Alex carefully bent over the bed and spread the new bed sheet over it. Her thoughts instead mulled over a certain blonde who hadn't bothered to visit her at all during the past week. Why was Piper so threatened by their kisses that the woman had literally run away? It wasn't the first time they had kissed. Far from it. But Alex knew better to resign. Perhaps it would be unfair to expect Piper to be the same, seeing as the woman was now committed in a serious relationship.

Alex sighed. "Yeah, I'll ask. I don't think she's gonna come though. I'll let you know later. I'm going back to trainings today, thanks to Red. She doesn't think that I'm in control of my powers after the incident. Damn. I'll be like the oldest student in there." She grumbled as she changed the pillowcases.

Lorna smiled sweetly. "Nicky still goes. I do, sometimes. A lot of people do, old and new. Our powers can go wonky just about any day, so we have to keep it in check." She knocked on the wall lightly and walked away. "Catch ya later, Vause."

Alex quietly nodded. She was feeling much better now even though she still needed to take some medications. But the exhaustion persisted. She hadn't much sleep at all, knowing that she wasn't safe anywhere. Fiona's death and Mendez's attack had deeply shaken her. She had been sleeping with one eye open, and dedicated all three phone calls allowed per day to her mother. She would do everything to keep Diane safe. Anything.

"You're asking me out?" Jessica raised a brow, her slender arms across her chest. "On a double date with that disgusting Nichols and her psychotic, little slut? You're kidding, Alex."

Inside the large Gym 1, four lines were formed, each with an eighteen-foot tall robot as their target. Alex and Jessica were queuing in the second line. They were in their blue jumpsuits for trainings. Jessica faked an ice incident during dinner yesterday, giving her a sound reason to attend trainings today without her friends growing more suspicious. Perhaps they were already suspicious, but it wasn't as if Jessica could help it.

"Nicky is my friend. Watch your mouth. And Lorna is a sweet girl."

Jessica rolled her eyes. "That bitch keeps saying that she's dating Christopher, while in fact she's imagining things. Chris is my friend. He told me everything. He said that she's absolutely insane. A stalker! You better be careful, Alex. Don't surround yourself with crazy bitches."

Alex just shrugged, not really interested in the topic. "I'll take it as a 'no' then." She secretly moped about having dinner alone again. She just wasn't used to being single at all.

"I cannot be seen with those losers! My friends will question me!" Jessica hissed at Alex's ear, keeping her voice low.

"Well, Jess, you've been calling me a loser my whole life, and have only stopped two weeks ago," Alex droned.

"Why can't we just go together, just the two of us?" Jessica moved in closer, if that was possible. Her eyes narrowed. Her lips parted as she gazed hungrily at Alex's lips.

Alex stared back at Jessica, amused by her audacity. The woman wasn't even subtle, or care to be anymore. Whatever happened to Richard, Jessica's boyfriend, Alex hadn't heard her mention him again since that night.

"We can't leave at night. No ferry," Alex stated matter-of-factly. Nicky earned extra money for being the only transportation mean available in Litchfield other than the ferry. There used to be some flyers around, but the people with those abilities were usually harmless, and they could leave the island much faster.

"My room then," Jessica suggested.

Alex chuckled. Jessica was real hungry. "Don't you North people have roommates?"

"Yours?" Jessica breathed. "You got your room now, don't you?"

"Don't think you can stand the room in the South. All the smell and stuff."

Jessica made a face. "You don't want me." Her accusing tone had Alex's full attention.

"Of course, I do." Alex lightly groaned. She hadn't had sex for over three months, stressed out over the escape plans for both her mother and herself. The money transfers she had to make. Planning and finding a safe place for Diane. Trying not to get her boss suspicious, or getting herself killed too soon. Alex had finally found a bit of peaceful time now, and she was horny as hell. "But I don't want you to come to my room and then start complaining, Jess. That'd be such a big turn off."

"I'll shut up, I promise. Tonight?" Jessica edged closer to the taller woman again, and their faces nearly brushed.

"Next!"

Both Alex and Jessica flinched at the shout. Alex then stepped up pass the red line taped on the gym floor, a sort of safety line. She stood about twenty meters from the rusty robot. Number 48 was painted on its left chest alongside the name, 'Falcon'.

Falcon raised his left hand, and Alex readily shot a small bolt of lightning at his red-painted palm. It was to demonstrate her controls and gauges over her powers. How precise her hits were. How hard it had hit. Alex had done it numerous time before.

Then Falcon started the second phrase to test the lightning striker's endurance. To her own disappointment, Alex began to miss targets the longer she spent her powers. Her strength declined only fifteen minutes in, a result from her injuries and the continual lack of sleep. She was slightly out of breath, and failed to keep up with Falcon's rapid body movements. Instead of hitting the target on his chest, she sent a blue bolt at his head. The shot proved to be way too strong, causing Falcon's head to snap. The robot froze, stuttered, and then shut down.

"Enough for today, Vause. 56 out of 100. Come in again tomorrow," Bennett said, holding a chart in his hand.

"56? Are you fucking kidding me?" Alex wiped the sweat sheen off her forehead with the back of her hand. She knew that she had been slacking off in powers-control practices during the past few years, largely due to a love life problem, which she could never quite know how to solve. But the score was simply humiliating for an old resident like her.

Bennett dutifully reread the chart. "86 hits, 105 missed. Your speed was at 72.5%, which was not bad, considering your health. Your score was drastically cut due to your last hit at Falcon's face, causing him to malfunction. If he were a real, actual human, his face would have been blown out completely." He cleared his throat. "But we all know that you've been exhausted. Don't take it personally."

At Jessica's giggle, Alex turned to glare at her. Jessica could never quite drop their childhood antics, Alex being the butt of the joke as usual.

Jessica moved besides Alex, their shoulders brushing. "I'll show you how it's done... tonight," she whispered, her voice thick with desires.

Alex smirked and walked off the line.

"Concentrate!"

Red's scold pulled Piper's attention back to the task at hand. She looked away from the thick, fiberglass windows, which revealed the vast assembly of Gym 1. Piper and Red were occupying a smaller room, separated from everyone else. It was her first day back at trainings.

"I'm sorry. I'll try again." Piper's gaze fell to the floor, where several hundreds of empty, tin cans were scattered around Red's feet. Her mind had wandered off, and those cans must have hit the instructor. Red was glaring at her, and rightly so.

Her left arm still cast, Piper was in a gray hoodie and a pair of sweaty pants. She was standing in the middle of the room, staring down at the cans with full concentration. Slowly and carefully, those cans began to gather, roll up to their standing positions, and form up to a six-row wall of cans. Neatly. Just as Red had instructed.

Red nodded approvingly. "Good."

Piper smiled in relief. Sometimes moving a small object could be more frustrating than moving a cruise liner. But what appeared to frustrate her most easily had proven to be a certain brunette amidst the Gym 1 crowd.

Why is Alex here...? And Wedge!? Piper swore under her breath at the thought of how close the two women were standing together.

"When will I get to train with other people?" Piper asked as she continued to the next stage. The wall of cans began to lift off the ground, steadily at first, but a few eventually slipped and fell. Piper flinched at the mistake, and the wall descended fast at her loss of concentration.

"Don't stop. Keep going," Red commanded calmly.

The wobbly wall stopped just a few inches above the ground, several more cans falling off. The clinks resonated the word 'mistake' ten times louder than Piper would have liked.

"Don't pick them up just yet. You're doing fine. Don't stop. Concentrate on the bigger picture," Red continued.

Piper nodded as she carefully moved the wall of cans to other side of the room. "When… when will I get to train with the others?" She repeated the question.

"When you learn to concentrate on your powers instead of your girlfriend."

Piper froze, and half of the wall fell tumbling to the ground. She gulped. Now she was just holding the remaining of the wall in midair, not daring to even move it. "She is not my girlfriend."

Red sighed. "You did not honor your words to us. There has been no progress on your part."

"You've been spying on me?" Piper frowned. "Well, I… I just need some times to, you know, let things go back to normal for a bit, or she might get suspicious." She glanced out the window again, watching Alex testing her powers against the robot. "Why is she here already? She still looks ill... Yeah, I heard that she got a room in the South now. But why is Wedge here? Why is she here? I mean, aren't these trainings are for newbies? She must—"

Red scratched her chin, lazily watching Piper watch Alex. "If you are so determined to glance at her only from the distance, then maybe I should acquire Wedge as our spy instead."

"I know." Piper snapped. She turned her attention back to the floating cans. "I'm working on it."

Larry sat edgily at the dining table, glancing at Howard as he was having a bowl of soup. Amy went about between the kitchen and the table, serving them foods. His father had been very busy the past week, and Larry only had the chance to catch him now.

"Aren't you going to say something? I have only half an hour before I take off again," Howard said, holding the soup spoon in one hand.

Larry nodded. "Yeah, you're right. Yeah, I should probably get to it. I, uh… we… umm… I'm getting married. I'm marrying Piper." His parents stopped whatever they were doing, and just stared at him. "That's the longest time you both have been silent."

"What's the hurry? She's still in training. Not only that she hasn't made much progress on her powers control, she's just got into trouble one after another. I know that it isn't all her fault, but the truth is that it's an insane life for 'gifted' people. She needs time."

"I—I know, dad. But, I mean, can you let her come home for a day, so we can get married? Then she can go back to Litchfield for more trainings. Just one day. That's all we need." Larry smiled nervously.

Amy glanced worriedly at her husband, and then smiled at her son. "Why, Larry? She's likely to stay in Litchfield for a year or more. For our—her safety. Everyone's safety. Lord knows she might not be the same person anymore when she gets out. Don't you want to wait and see if you're still compatible by then?"

"A—a year or more?" Larry frowned at his father. "You told me that it was going to take half a year at best."

"I never said that for her case. I said that some people had gone through the trainings and completed their requirements in just a few months. I was, and still am, convinced that, in Piper's case, it will take quite a while," Howard explained.

Larry felt his cheeks hot. He got up from his chair, clenching his fists. "You can't do this to her. She's not a criminal. You have to let her out."

"She isn't incarcerated, Larry. She willingly submitted herself to Litchfield's trainings, and rules are rules. She almost got her brother killed, son. She knew that she needed help, and you know that, too." Howard put his spoon down, and clasped his hands across his stomach as he leaned back in his chair. "What's troubling you? What happened?"

Larry sighed as he reluctantly took the seat again. "It's… I don't know what it is, but It's been only a month, and she already seems… distant."

"What makes you think so?"

Larry looked away from his father's scrutinizing gaze. "Well, uh… she forgot to call sometimes, and… and she didn't seem to be very enthusiastic when I proposed to get married as soon as possible. It seemed almost like that she didn't want to… that she didn't want to leave the island. Like she's forgetting her life outside of Litchfield."

"It's a hard life for gifted people, Larry. She needs time to adjust—"

"I don't think that was it. I feel like—like she's been distracted. I think that... maybe she's met someone new." Larry sternly gestured at nothing in particular. "She calls me twice a day, but sometimes it feels like she wasn't really there. Her attention waned really fast. I'm losing her. Fuck, I'm losing her, dad."

"I can imagine that it's been tough for her since Alex Vause has recently returned to Litchfield as well. Piper is still new to all of this, and having Vause around her doesn't really help—"

"Wait. Wait, what? Vause? You mean 'Alex Vause'? What—no. Why didn't Piper tell me?" Larry's voice was slightly shaken, overwhelmed by anger and fears. "Why is she there? Wasn't she the one who deliberately triggered Piper's powers? You said she worked for the bad guys. Why didn't you arrest her, and…" He stopped take a deep breath in. "I don't know, send her to a government division or something? Put her away. Just put her away. Why did you shelter her, not to mention letting her hang around Piper?" He growled in frustration, clenching his fists.

"There are things that you may not understand about our kind. We're different. A rare minority. We can't afford to have too many enemies. We must forgive or forget when we can."

Larry felt his blood boil. "Forgive? After what she did to Piper? She endangered Piper's life! She's a very dangerous woman!"

"So is Piper." Larry halted at the words, and the old man sighed. "I think that Piper is learning of that fact too. It's a very lonely world for people like us."

"But you still have Ma. You have me. You can have a normal family. Piper can be just like you. She has to remember that," Larry said, trying his best to keep his voice steady. He just watched as Howard looked away in silence.

Lies.

So many years of lies that his father had kept from his family. Could it be different for Piper and him? He somehow dreaded what was waiting ahead of their future. Would Piper be the same girl he once knew? Would she lie to him like his father did? But she did lie, didn't she? She had kept her powers secret for years before Cal incident.

More lies.

Larry eventually looked away, and there were no more words exchanged between them.

Piper shifted on her bed, trying to find a more comfortable pose. It was almost midnight, but she was wide awake. She'd been calling Larry a few times today, but he didn't pick up the phone. She couldn't help but worry if something terrible had happened. She couldn't reach Howard either. The man wasn't in Litchfield today.

Did I say something wrong? Did I upset him somehow?

The thought of the proposal came across her mind. Larry had sounded very serious, and was skeptical when she didn't seem to be equally enthusiastic about it. She wouldn't know what had gotten into her. A stable life with him was what she wanted, but for some reason Litchfield had started to become fast her second home. A new life she had never thought that she would be leading, and somehow what was outside of Litchfield started to feel 'detached'. She was scared of what she would become, but she knew that it was inevitable.

Piper lied flat on her back again, puffing out a breath as her mind still processed wildly. For all the reasons that she knew she should not feel, she was glad to have Alex around. At least there was a familiar face she could turn to on this strange island.

No. No, Alex is… she's a wrong idea. Wrong. Just wrong…

Piper held her breath as the thought rushed through her mind over and over again. But it was Alex. It was her firm, yet gentle embraces. Her careless smirks. Her sometimes warm, even shy, reluctant smiles. Her contemplative, piercing gazes, and her husky, needy whispers. Alex was everything Piper had wanted, and it destroyed her inside to realize how wrong of a choice Alex was.

Fuck…

Before Piper could stop herself, she quietly got out of bed. She put on a black coat over her silky, blue nightgown. She slipped out of the room, careful not to wake her roommate. Across the vast yards, she headed towards the South. She knew that Healy had banned her from entering the South, but hopefully no one would notice her in the dark at this late hour into the night. Nicky had told her about Alex's room, and Piper moved around to the back of the building, heading to the designated room. There it was, the room was on the second floor, third window from the right. It was dimly lit with possibly just a desk lamp. Its curtains were pulled down, leaving a gap to reveal some space inside.

She's still awake.

Piper bent down and grabbed a gravel off the ground. She straightened up again, arching her right arm for a throw. But she froze upon seeing two figures moving about inside the room. Their bodies pressed, their hands roaming over each other's faces, shoulders and backs. Their lips connected, then parted in a breathy rush, and connected again in a heated clash. Slender hands moved through the wavy, blonde locks. Those slim shoulders. That shadowed face. Piper knew who Alex was kissing, having and holding instead of her tonight. It shouldn't have mattered anymore after all these years, but it still stalled Piper somehow. The gravel sat still in her cold palm. Remarkably, she hadn't thrown it at the window, interrupting whatever that was going on in that room. She hadn't the time to process what she wanted to believe—to feel. She hadn't the strength to look away.

Loss.

All Piper saw was the wrong choice she would have made if she had stayed with Alex. It would be the loss of a perfect life that she could have with Larry. She should feel relieved now. She should be glad that she had made the right choice. Yet she was still reluctant to marry him. She wondered why. She knew that it would hurt to know, yet it would hurt not knowing either. Defeated with her inability to come up with a satisfying answer, she let the gravel slip from her grasp, and quietly walked away.