Disclaimer: I don't own the show or characters. All I own is the writing and story.

Author's Note: So, I have watched all the way to halfway through episode eight of the seventh season and am very disappointed with it. I can't even finish watching it right now. The love that Lorna and Nicky so clearly share seems to have been completely butchered by the writers. I am appalled at how little Lorna is in this season. And Nicky has so suddenly become entranced with some girl who has a thing for tater tots? Are you kidding? I'm sick to my stomach, literally. So here I am with a little chapter series (this first part is mainly a short prologue/insight) to make all of this right for my own piece of my mind. I will not stand for this nonsense these writers have bestowed upon my beloved and cherished couple. No one is more right for Nicky than Lorna and vice versa. This tater tot loving girl has got to go. She needs to find someone else. That's where this story comes in handy. Again this is only for my own satisfaction...so people who get offended that I don't want this random character with Nicky, I'm sorry; you'll have to find a different story to make you happy. Nicky's soulmate is Lorna. I don't care what anyone else says. Okay, on with the story. Feel free to leave your thoughts. I'm sorry if I offend anyone but I have to make things right between these two soulmates. *(I am still writing a one-shot for my season six collection and the next chapter of Valley of Sorrow; this was just something I needed to get out)* Thanks. Enjoy.

Faulty Wiring

Lorna Morello always had a knack for story-telling. It began as a creative outlet in childhood but soon drifted into young adulthood as a fantasy of lies that she truly and utterly found herself enthralled in. Christopher was the start of it all. The reason she was in the predicament she was in at this very moment. Why she was locked away in Litchfield max, secretly missing her beloved redhead lover/best friend. Why she was pretending her deceased infant son was going home with her husband Vince Muccio. It was all thanks to that Christopher, she told herself as she lie miserably awake on her bunk each night.

Where she put the blame on Christopher, it was everybody else who said it was really all her own doing. She chose to believe in her own fantasies. She created this disastrous destiny all on her own. The several therapists she talked to throughout her teens and even into her early twenties deemed she had 'faulty wiring'. Her brain hadn't seemed to be wired the way everyone else's had. Which made believing her own embellished stories that much easier. She was born to get herself into prison was what one of them had told her during a session. It saddened her that such a statement, years later, turned out to be completely true. She was locked behind bars because of her own faulty wired brain.

The same brain that also had her trapped in a marriage with Vince Muccio rather than being with the person she truly loved. And, now, that seemed to be something that would never be in her grasp again. That realization only made withdrawing into her fantasy even more enticing. She couldn't have Nicky anymore but she was able to hold onto the memory of her beloved baby boy. No one in here had to know he passed away from pneumonia. And, she told herself, it wasn't like anyone would care either way. All she had these days was herself. Nicky was already moved on with some tater tot loving girl and Red seemed to have her own issues to deal with. Lorna had to fend for herself. The only way she knew how to cope was to fantasize.

Nothing hurt worse than to watch one's soulmate make sexual advances to another being right in front of her. But that was exactly what Lorna had to witness each day during kitchen duty at the ICE detention center. It felt like a piece of her had been ripped away every time she saw Nicky and tater tot lover snickering together. Or sending sexy winks back and forth to one another. It made her skin crawl. Her face and knuckles turn a deathly shade of white. It took everything in her to not utter a word. She did this to herself. The faulty wiring in her brain made her choose that fucking Vinny over Nicky. This was what she got for being so wishy-washy. No Nicky and no baby boy to go home to in a year. Life was falling apart and she had no one but a beat-around-the-bush husband to turn to. The man who hadn't called or visited since the news of baby Sterling.

The routine continued everyday for weeks. More and more, she found herself spending whatever free time she had left lying on her bunk and staring at pictures of random babies on her contraband phone. Wishing her little boy was still alive. That she had a reason to live after her time in prison. At this point, she had slim to nothing waiting for her when she got out. Nicky was still freezer-fucking tater tot lover; Red was regressing gradually (almost like her own self) and Vinny was as useful as a doornail. He hadn't come by in almost a month. Hadn't answered any of her calls. Lorna had to rely on herself to get through the lonely hours—days.

"Morello," a voice called out.

Barely peeping her head up from the tiny device in her hand, Lorna sighed and looked out at the person in the doorway. "Hmm?"

"Heard your name on the loudspeaker. Ya got a visitor—might wanna get down to the visitation room before they shut it down."

Lorna sighed. She watched as the random inmate walked away from her cell. Was Vinny finally coming to see her after so long? Shaking her head tiredly, she shut the phone off and tucked it securely into her pillowcase making sure to adjust it so that it couldn't be noticed. The walk down was a long, silent, one. She didn't know how she felt about seeing Vinny again. After not hearing from him since the passing of their son. She sucked in a breath when she turned the corner into the room. It was too late to change her mind now, she knew.

"Hey," he greeted once she sat down on the other side of the window and picked up her phone. The expression on his olive-toned face wasn't exactly the most comforting.

"Hey," she muttered back. Her shoulders bouncing up and down.

Vinny swallowed, visibly uncomfortable. He tapped his fingers against the bottom of the receiver. "So, uh, I've been doing a lotta thinking," he slowly began, eyes looking anywhere but at Lorna's face. "I think…I think it'd be best if we divorce."

Lorna's eyes widened at such a suggestion. As if things weren't hard enough right now, he wanted to add a divorce to the mix? She couldn't comprehend where this was coming from, no matter how hard she tried to think. "A divorce? You—you want a divorce, Vinny? You haven't answered any of my calls and haven't visited me since you told me about our baby's death…and-and you want to fucking divorce me?"

"Look…I know it's a bit shocking. But, uh, I just—I can't deal with this right now. I'm not husband material. The baby's death made realize how much I don't want this right now. How I was never ready for this to begin with. I'm sorry, Lorna. Ya gotta understand though, right?" He pleaded, his face a desperate mien.

"What? Huh? I don't—what the hell? I can't," Lorna whispered, her cheeks dampening with a fountain of tears. She shook her head in disbelief, hands trembling as they slammed the phone down. "I can't," she repeated in a louder, shrieking, tone. She frisked her way out of there, running as far as her legs would take her. Everything was seemingly crumbling in around her. She realized she finally hit rock bottom. At this point, she truly had no one to turn to. No one to help her anymore. The faulty wiring would be the end of her.