Piper's prison

by secretkeeper0024

Piper life after Alex Vause was not at all the way she had imagined. She spirals into a life of drugs and crime by the time Piper and Alex cross paths a second time she is all but unrecognisable.

Piper's Prison

Chapter One

Alex Vause was shitting her pants. It didn't happen often but more importantly, it was happening now. She was handcuffed hands and feet, holding a large laundry bag with a prison issue mattress roll, another bag with sundry items and a large yellow envelope with her personal items and being herded toward a minivan with several others wearing orange coveralls. The judge had refused her request for bail and Alex's worst nightmare was unfolding, she was being led directly from the courthouse jail to the prison. The fear was making her giddy and not with excitement.

She had thought Ayden shooting Fahri in the head was the most frightening thing to ever happen, but that was immediately eclipsed when he turned that same pistol on her. He had marched her directly to Kubrik with a gun literally to her head and the weapon, or its potential, was far less terrifying than facing Kubrik and being asked to explain herself. That had put things in a new perspective - she had almost shit herself that time.

But now, there was a new fear; the reality of entering Litchfield minimum security Correctional Institution had her clenching her sphincter. Alex Vause would be the new fish and she seriously doubted that her street smarts would be of any real value behind this razor wire fence. In here there were real criminals; violent, psychotic criminals who would not hesitate to cause her harm.

It turns out that the driver of the minivan was a fellow inmate, she was prattling on about wedding dresses, showing Alex a magazine and asking her opinion but Alex was having enough difficulty just breathing in and out. She had apparently failed her first prison assignment and the woman snatched her magazine back in apparent disappointment.

"First time down?" she had asked.

"First time here?" Alex had asked, unsure of the woman's meaning.

"First time in prison," she clarified, and then asked her name, explaining, "everyone uses last names here. I'm Morello, and that is Watson."

"Vause." said Alex, her voice cracking with emotion.

Morello looked her over again and must have taken pity on her.

"It's not so bad. Everyone's okay. How much time you got, Vause?"

"Five years."

Morello and Watson looked her over again and then another body was pushed into the van and Morello started the engine. The drive was relatively short and silent, Alex noticed the the grounds looked relatively green and she began to have hope that maybe this was going to be survivable, unpleasant, of course, but survivable. The van pulled up, everyone got out and the driver led them through a crowd of interested onlookers all wearing beige coveralls, there was some whistling and heckling but it lacked the anticipated menace, bolstering Alex's confidence a little more.

They were sent through for 'processing'; first up a strip search where she was introduced to the 'squat and cough', she then had her photo taken for her prison identification badge, a basic medical followed by a meeting with her assigned counsellor, Mr Healy. They moved through like sheep, one after the other and Morello collected them at the other end of the hall and Vause understood that the prison was designed with an eye to optimal efficiency.

They had entered the processing loop via a door off one end of the hall where the photos were taken, a door on the other side of that room led to the medical wing, the door to the left of medical led to the counsellor's offices and the door leading away was at the other end of the hall from where they started. Morello had dropped them off, walked to the other end of the hall, opened her magazine and waited for them to finish, exiting through the door she was now waiting by..

Morello then led them to their 6 person dorm room explaining the ropes as she went, she handed Vause a pack of travel tissues saying "First night is always hard," and a toothbrush saying, "They don't give you one but we look after our own." Vause was not sure what 'our own' meant but she thanked Morello regardless. Morello pointed to Vause and Diaz, indicating that this was their stop.

"DeMarco, you will show you what's what." DeMarco nodded to Vause, confirming her acceptance of the assignment.

Next Morello introduced Diaz to Mendoza who greeted her in Spanish and when Diaz replied that she didn't speak Spanish - Mendoza was obviously disgusted. And with that, Morello swept out of the room taking the Black inmate with her to another room.

DeMarco introduced Vause to the other girls and the Hispanic women were left to their own devices.

"That's Miss Rosa," she said pointing to the elderly bald woman under Vause's bunk, and then pointing above her own she says, "That's Nichols, she just got out of the SHU."

Miss Rosa gave Vause a wan smile but Nichols kept her face in her reading materials. Vause understood that SHU was solitary confinement.

"Here's some toilet paper," DeMarco threw a full roll to Vause, "you got to take it with you."

Vause fumbled but caught it, nodding.

Vause began sorting through her belongings and prepared to make her bed but DeMarco made it very clear that she would make the bed for her. Vause felt conflicted, of course she was perfectly capable of making the bed but prison culture was so foreign that she felt unable to read and interpret correctly the most basic signals and messages. Was this a favour that she would later be called on to repay? She wanted to slot into the group, hell, she needed to; she could appear neither strong nor weak and she could not afford to offend anyone.

This unexpected offer created a dilemma - should she accept the offer or insist on making her own bed? In the end her deliberation had taken so long that it would have been weird to insist so she settled for a simple nod. A buzzer sounded throughout the building and Vause looked to the other women for an appropriate response. A male voice calling "Count time" repeatedly could be heard followed by the shuffling of bodies as prisoners raced to meet the demand of the situation.

DeMarco explained, "When that light comes on," pointing at a small red globe on the wall, "You need to be where you are supposed to be. And you don't move until it goes off. Dinner is after."

Vause mimicked their positions and stood at the end of her bunk realising the implication of DeMarco's words - dinner was to be served at 4:30 pm! It was going to be a fucking long evening.

Mendoza suddenly calls out across the room to Vause, "Hey, Blanca, you speak Spanish?"

Vause replies in rudimentary Spanish, "A little. I learnt it when I was travelling."

"You see," says Mendoza to Diaz, "Even white girls speak Spanish. Fucking coconut!"

A prison guard comes through with a small counter in his meaty paw, going from room to room, clicking once for each prisoner. Followed by a second guard repeating the process. No one moved and Vause was observing the routine carefully, her top priority was fitting in and drawing no attention - so far so good.

"Recount!" a male voice bellowed from the hallway and five of the six prisoners in the room sighed.

"How hard is it to fucking count?" said Nichols, albeit quietly.

The two clickers marched up and down the hallway once more and finally a buzzer sounded, the red light flicked off and dinner was announced. Vause got in line with DeMarco and Nichols and collected her dinner tray, she tried not to look too closely at it because it looked like the most disgusting mess of slop she had ever seen and it smelled worse. She had seen more enticing food served to a dog.

When she turned to face the dining hall the most obvious feature of the room was that it was divided into a neat T shape along racial lines; blacks sat at the back tables from wall to wall, there were a couple of tables of mixed race older ladies, then the room was divided length ways with whites on the right and hispanics on the left.

She had lost sight of DeMarco and Nichols and was now unsure where to sit, her stationary position was causing a bit of a bottleneck in the dinner line, one of the cleaners grabbed her arm and pointed, "Go sit there, she's a nice white lady."

That was all the direction Vause needed, she moved her feet and approached the 'nice white lady'.

"Hi. Is it okay if I sit here?"

"Sure newbie," the woman replied, but she said it with a smile and Vause felt relief wash over her.

After introducing herself, Jones began talking about a mandala and Vause used the opportunity to take in her surroundings and also to take a closer look at the coloured mounds on her tray.

Jones was just explaining to Vause about avoiding the pudding when another woman joined them - a nun named Sister Ingalls. Nichols joined the table followed by a woman named Red who ran the kitchen. Vause was not able to participate in conversation because she was so intent on reciting everyone's names in her mind, and that was probably a good thing, the last thing she wanted was to put her foot in her mouth.

Red handed out single serve containers of yoghurt like they were Christmas puddings for which everyone was grateful, she slid one along the table to Vause who thanked the Russian. The yoghurt drew the attention of a butch dyke named Big Boo who came to request a share in the bounty which Red refused on the basis of some transactional deficit and this conversation interested Vause. This, the currency of prison, was clearly going to be essential knowledge going forward, but for now, Vause kept her head down and mouth shut, except for the yoghurt which, along with a slice of bread, was the only edible thing on her tray.

The following morning Vause was grateful that she had kept quiet during dinner because one of the other newbies was handed a McTampon burger as punishment for insulting Red's food within her hearing. An actual bloody tampon in between a pair of English muffins! Now, this was the prison Vause had been expecting, not that she felt relieved, only relieved that it hadn't happened to her.

Chapter Two

The first couple of days were long but Vause had enough on her plate observing prison culture, learning people's names and grasping the ropes of prison life. She learned about getting 'shots', the SHU, Psych, how to manipulate the medications system, when to take a shower, the value of various tradable commodities, which guards to avoid and the best prison jobs available, and so on.

It was going to take up to two weeks for her commissary funds and phone credit to come through and not that she had anyone other than her lawyer on her visitors list but that also was going to take time. It seemed that prison bureaucracy was a slow moving beast. The orientation was a fucking joke but again, finding her strategy so far effective, Vause kept her mouth shut and her eyes down.

Vause and Nichols became friendly after Nichols said she picked up on Vause's 'sapphic vibes', they were both New York natives, Vause was a heroin smuggler and Nichols was a heroin addict so they had a lot in common. Morello was Nichols' girlfriend and a core group of them ate their meals together and hung out when they weren't on work duty.

Vause must have given off other vibes as well because she attracted the attention of some other 'white ladies' who were not so nice as Jones and Sister Ingalls. There were a half dozen meth heads who were keen to make her acquaintance for the purpose of assessing the likelihood of scoring drugs, also they were fairly low in the pecking order and so liked to get one over where they could. Vause was generally very good at reading people and now, having found her feet somewhat, she immediately assessed the situation and made it clear that she had no drugs, had no intention of taking or dealing any drugs whatsoever and was not going to be anyone's bitch.

They were desperate and bored, and thus chose not to believe her. Instead they followed her around making unwitty and inoffensive comments, trying to intimidate her, tripping her up and pushing her around. Vause was not intimidated, they were no more menacing than a group of fifth graders, irritating but not posing a genuine threat to her safety. That said, however, there were more of them than there were of her.

Things took a turn for the worse when Vause was assigned to work duty in the laundry with at least four of them, including their Born Again Christian leader called Pennsatucky. Pennsatucky was also not an immediate concern primarily, she had offered to baptise Vause in the laundry sink but when the offer was politely declined she just gave a fiery speech about the Lord Jesus Christ, forgiving thy neighbour seventy times seven and something about John the Baptist which Vause failed to understand.

Vause had said nothing to Nichols about the meth heads, preferring to try to manage the situation as quietly as possible. And if that meant that she worked on her own folding laundry while Pennsatucky spewed bible verses at her threatening her with the flames of hell, and the meth heads congregated making jokes at her expense, occasionally throwing small projectiles at her and making her do the chores they enjoyed the least - so be it.

Big Boo was laying on the charm pretty thick but it was totally wasted on Vause. She kept popping up all over the place, winking and smirking, making alternately crude suggestions or pretty promises - none of which made any impression. Vause thought Boo must have been used to love bombing much younger, much less experienced, much more vulnerable women than herself because she seemed incapable of switching gears even whilst she was spinning her wheels and getting nowhere.

On day four of laundry duty Vause noticed an immediate change in her work colleagues and she deduced that something had made its way into the prison. Adderall if she had to guess. The meth heads were secretive, giggly and completely absorbed in their own worlds, ignoring Vause altogether, none of which was a problem for her. Pennsatucky was absent from the laundry room which created a temporary power vacuum that Leanne Taylor seemed to be attempting to fill.

Vause enjoyed her work day more than usual but she was already concerned about what was going to happen 24 hours from now when there was no more Adderall. Vause had survived the high stakes world of the importing/exporting of heroin as long as she had because she had good instincts, especially for her own survival and she was damn sure going to survive prison as well. As far as Vause was concerned, playing by the rules, prison or otherwise, was only worthwhile if it secured an outcome you could live with - otherwise, all was fair in love and war.

In that sense, Vause was more or less prepared for what came the following day. The meth heads were all experiencing the harsh reality of coming down and with no fix in the foreseeable future and things turned predictably nasty. Leanne Taylor, Angie Rice and Loretta Fisher had switched from asking Vause to help them to demanding that she provide for them. Pennsatucky, having cottoned on to what she had missed out on the day before, was struggling to manage her anger and regain control of her little clique.

All of their combined aggression was directed toward the weakest link, Vause, who had tried valiantly to side step each new onslaught but was eventually roughed up and locked in a large commercial clothes dryer. The meth heads were debating whether to turn it on when Nichols entered the laundry room wearing her electrical tool belt and interrupted the 'party'.

"What the fuck are you all doing?" she asked, having observed them for several moments.

The meth heads all jumped as one unit in surprise and then crowded around the dryer in an attempt to block any sight of Vause.

"Nothing," they all said, shrugging, and attempting to look completely innocent.

"Where 's Vause?" The meth heads looked all around, wide eyed and shrugging their shoulders.

Nichols didn't buy it for one second and keen to assert her authority and uncover their secret, she began to approach the group. Vause sensing a glimmer of hope - she would choose humiliation over being burned in a commercial clothes dryer any day, began bashing on the dryer door and calling out.

"Well, well. What have we got here," Nichols approached and as much as the girls would have liked to have told her to fuck off, they knew all too well what they would face if they did not obey her. They parted reluctantly revealing a frightened and humiliated Vause behind the industrial plastic door.

Nichols did not look very surprised,

"It's alright, Vause, I'll have you out in just a jiffy," she turned to the group, smiled and said, "Chapman will hear about this, now scram!"

The women scrammed and could be heard blaming each other by the time they had left the room. Nichols tried opening the door but it wouldn't budge. Vause pointed to the control panel and said,

"They ripped it off,"

Nichols looked at the panel and sure enough it was hanging by a single wire.

"I've been fixing these machines for years, Vause, I'll have this open in a New York minute."

Vause watched Nichols work, concentrating on taking one deep breath after another in order to manage her anxiety. The last thing she wanted to do was have a panic attack and show those meth heads, or Nichols for that matter, any weakness. Any more weakness. That had been much easier to do before she heard the name 'Chapman'. Now she was closer to freaking out than she had been when they were going to turn the machine on.

Of course it had occurred to Alex that naming Piper as part of her plea deal would likely end up with Chapman ending up in prison as well, but she had thought the chances of them ending up in the same prison relatively low. It had been eight years since Alex had seen Piper and she had no idea where in the world Piper was. Probably in the US, probably on the East Coast but right here at Litchfield?

"Did you say Chapman?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Piper Chapman?"

"Yeah, you know her?"

"You could say that."

Nichols waited for more information and when it did not come she looked at Vause for a moment, nodded and said,

"Right. Well, Chapman is in the SHU right now, but she basically runs this place. When she gets out she will put a literal or metaphorical boot, depending, up Pennsatucky's ass and there will be no more of you getting locked in a dryer."

Vause's brain was racing to synthesise the information that was being revealed to her. Piper Chapman ran this prison? Piper was here, in the SHU? But Vause had only just signed her plea deal, how could they have picked up Chapman already? Unless…

"Hey, Nichols, how long has Piper been here?"

"Chapman." Nichols corrected.

"Yeah, Chapman," Vause agreed.

"I don't know, five years? Six."

"Six years? What is she in for?"

Nichlols didn't answer, she had been busy repairing the wires on the circuit board and now pressed a button which unlocked the door. Vause pushed from the inside at the same time as Nichols pulled the door open,

"Voila!"

"Thank you so much,"

"You're welcome. Those meth heads aren't really dangerous, just fucking stupid."

"Noted." replied Vause, taking Nichols' hand to climb out and feeling like a fucking idiot herself.

Nichols must have guessed her feeling because she said,

"Hey, it was five to one. Don't feel too bad."

Chapter Three

Vause, alone again in the laundry room and folding hundreds of prison uniforms, took her time to thoroughly review the information she had just come by. Piper Chapman had been in prison for six years, prior to Alex's having named her for her part, minor though it was, in Kubra's drug ring. That meant that Piper - Chapman rather, would likely have received an extended sentence. That was not good news for Chapman, and probably worse news for Vause.

Nichols had said that Chapman ran this prison. That statement could only mean that pretty little Piper was top dog at Litchfield. How could that be? Good, innocent, naive, WASPy Piper Chapman. Whole wheat, whole foods, wheat grass, recyclable packaging only Piper Chapman. What had she done to get six years in prison? And what had she done to be top dog? Vause just could not imagine it, the data just did not compute. Nichols had invoked her name with such authority and those girls had fled.

Vause had accepted that Nichols did not answer her question about Pi - Chapman, and that was fair enough. She had known that it was not kosher to ask anybody who did what or how long they had to serve. The only thing she wanted to know now - well there a great many things she would have liked to have known, but at the top of the list was

a) how much longer would she be in the SHU? and

b) how badly was she going to want revenge on Vause for naming her as a co-conspirator?

So much for keeping her head down!

"Hey there, sexy," Vause's eyes involuntarily rolled as Boo stepped around the corner.

"Hey." said Vause, in a voice as dry and uninterested as she was.

"Heard you had some trouble," she nodded upwards in the direction of the dryers.

"Yeah, well," Vause had nothing else to say.

"If you need me to speak to Pennsatucky, I'll be more than glad too. Everybody knows not to mess with Mrs Boo."

Big Boo, Vause could not help but think, what a fucking stupid nickname that was, leaned up against the wall like she was god's gift. Vause shook out the clothes with a little more vigour.

"That will not be necessary, thank you."

"If you change your mind…"

"Not going to happen." This line Vause delivered with a direct stare.

"Oh, come on Vause, prison is a tricky space, all sorts of unexpected things happen. Like I said - "

"You will be the first to know."

Boo made a gun shape with her hand and made an imaginary shot in Vause's direction and winked at her before slinking out of the room. She was wearing a wife beater singlet with her prison issue shirt tucked into the back of her pants and trailing along behind her. Fuck, that dyke was stuck in the 1950's, thought Vause and she shivered, the very thought of having Boo leaning over her body was disgusting to her. She was not attracted to Boo but the real problem was what she represented - that domineering, controlling flavoured exchange which was not Vause's style at all. Not any more.

The following day Vause was assigned her beige uniform and a new bunk. Her new cell was a two person cube with half walls and no door, one of twelve cubes in a large room with a guard viewing room at the top of the cell. Her bunk mate was called Miss Claudette, an elderly Haitian woman, who upon Vause's arrival attempted to lay down the rules with all the intimidation and hectorring power she could muster. Vause replied with a calm,

"Very nice to meet you, Miss Claudette," before removing her shoes at the door as requested. She began unpacking her belongings and setting them up neatly around her side of the cube.

Miss Claudette watched her with a vigilant and discerning eye, alternately huffing, tsking and sighing with disapproval over Vause's every move. Knowing full well that her bunk mate's desire for total control over their space remained uncemented, Vause expected ongoing animosity between herself and Miss Claudette until things were settled, one way or another. And although she had more important things to concern herself with, Vause thought it neither necessary to her peace of mind nor good for her overall reputation to allow her bunkmate to lord it over her so publicly.

Once settled in her cube, Vause took a walk giving her bunkmate some alone time to consider and adjust to her presence. She headed for the library to see what was on offer and met a couple of women who were assigned to the library as their work detail. That would have been a sweet gig if she had been so lucky but she was certain that there would be worse assignments than the laundry. All jobs had their perks, she just had to figure out what it was about laundry that could be considered 'perky'.

She browsed the shelves making a mental note of what was on offer that she would consider reading and ended up leaving with the Quran, it was a decent sized read, hopefully by the time she finished it some of the good books would have been returned to the library. On the way back she decided to stop by and see if her commissary funds were available and to her surprise they were. She was able to make some very necessary purchases; flip flops for the shower, body wash, shampoo, conditioner, tampons, tweezers, eyeliner and coffee.

By the time she made it back to her bunk, she had clearly given Miss Claudette plenty of time to remove nearly all of her personal effects and place them out of sight, underneath Vause's bunk. Vause did not react but while her bunk mate was at dinner she got it all out again and arranged it neatly on her side of the room. One of them would give up eventually but as of right now, Vause had plenty of gas in the tank for this particular conflict.

She followed the stragglers to dinner and as soon as she stepped one foot in the dining room a hush fell over half the room and 100 heads turned to look at her. Vause was paralysed with fear and her anal sphincter began involuntarily spasming. What now? She looked down at herself and a low ripple of laughter spread over the tables like a wave, when she looked up her eyes landed directly onto the eyes of Piper Chapman. She was frozen.

It was a movie moment, two past loves coming back into contact to pick up where they had left off. It was like when Harry Potter and Voldemort's streams crossed, the camera spun around them, isolating the two of them in the moment - time stopped and an unspoken conversation seemed to occur between them. All of the past and the future were suddenly present and this seemed a moment of universal significance. Except that it wasn't. After a moment, Piper looked back at her plate and continued eating, people looked away and began conversing and Vause forced her janky legs to walk and join the dinner queue.

As she passed Pennsatucky's table, Angie stuck her leg out catching Vause's foot and Vause tripped, her glasses flying off her face and skidding along the floor. She did not actually fall all the way over, but with a lucky hop step she managed to keep upright and another ripple of laughter broke out. Fuck. Fuck. Several people from Chapman's table stood up and Vause thought that they were coming for her but Nichols reached out a hand to steady her and someone else picked up and passed her her glasses.

Three or four women passed Nichols and strode menacingly over to Pennsatucky's table where Nichols apparently related a few home truths in low threatening tones. The whole table stood up, emptied their trays and left the dining hall without a word. Fuck. Fuck. What was going on?

Vause was desperately trying to make her legs walk, she was clawing at any semblance of coordination and nonchalance she could manufacture because she understood that continued perceived vulnerability would only make her more of a target. She wanted so much to turn around, to get a better look at Pi - Chapman, she wanted to hear what Nichols had said to the meth heads but she knew better than to turn around.

She moved along with the queue, and it took at least a whole minute to realise that her glasses were smashed. She could not see clearly. Fuck! She took her tray and wondered whether she had not better avoid her usual table but Nichols called out,

"Vause! Over here."

Half relieved and half tremulous, Vause squinted and headed over only to find that Chapman, Red and a couple of the others had vacated the table and the room.

"Rough afternoon, Vause?" Nichols asked, smiling but not in her regular shit stirring manner.

"Give her a break," said Morello, reaching over to pat Vause's hand.

"What? I was being nice!" declared Nichols, her eyes round in innocence.

"Oh shit, they broke your glasses?" asked Morello.

"Yeah, well…" Vause did not know what to say.

She was finding more and more that saying nothing was not a terrible option. She shovelled mouthful after mouthful in an effort to retain her silence. One pile of mush was so vile she wondered how she got it down her throat without projectile vomiting across the table.

"Hungry, Vause?" asked Nichols, shit eating grin back in place on her smug mug.

"Not really," she said, around a piece of bread.

"Well, Chapman is back now, so everything will be okay," said Morello, sounding to Vause's ears like a complete innocent.

Nichols winked at Vause and she understood that to be confirmation of her own assessment; Vause and Nichols' idea of everything being 'okay' seemed to veer markedly from that of Morello.

"Whyn't you head back, babe? I'll walk Vause back and check out her new cube and then come and tuck you in."

"Okay," said Morello, again quite childlike, compliant and willing to please.

Everyone else seemed to think that Nichols words applied to them too, at least as far as them leaving the table. They all rose as one, emptied their trays and left the dining hall. Boo joined them without ever once looking in Vause's direction, which Vause also put down to Chapman's arrival. That was one positive thing, at least.

Vause bit the bullet, "I see Chapman is back from the SHU."

"That she is."

"Is she angry with me?"

"Why would she be angry?" asked Nichols, fishing for information.

"I don't know." replied Vause, evasively.

Nichols was watching Vause closely, "She did make it clear that no one was to fuck with you."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I wonder why?" still needling Vause for information.

Vause simply shrugged.

"Come on, I'll walk you back."

Vause stood and picked up her tray, resigned, she would get no information out of Nichols, who apparently had come to the same conclusion about her.

"Things will settle down, Vause, just give it some time."

"If Chapman is mad at me, I might not have much time."

"If Chapman had a message for you, you would know it. If she wanted to hurt you, you would be in medical and…"

"And?"

"And if she wanted you gone, you would be."

"Gone as in dead?"

"Dead. Or in Psych… or the SHU."

"I can't imagine Pi - Chapman going around killing people."

"Do not, whatever you do, call her Piper. And I can assure you that if Chapman wants someone gone - they disappear."

Vause nodded but she was not convinced. From the limited look she got of Chapman the woman had changed a great deal; she was larger, bulkier and covered in tattoos and had a mean scar down one side of her face, her hair seemed much longer and there was a hardness in her face, a coldness about the eyes. But still, Vause could not imagine Pi - god damn it! Chapman going around offing people.

Chapter Four

After her work assignment Vause had frequent meetings with Sam Healy, her councillor, who was as misogynistic as he was homophobic; she had seen a well worn copy of 'The End of Men' on his desk and shook her head. Upon their first introduction he seemed to quite like her, he asked her about her charges, whether or not there was an ongoing appeal, whether she had any specific concerns and he listened and smiled at her in a fatherly sort of way. Or what Vause had seen on tv to pass for fatherly interest and genuine care.

In those first few meetings he had warned her numerous times about the presence of lesbian inmates in the prison, giving her a penetrating glare as if trying to send her detailed psychic message about the dangers of meeting such a specimen. In order to avoid the 'lesbians', Healy suggested that she simply keep to herself for the duration of her sentence rather than making friends, just on the off chance that one of those friends should turn out to be 'one of those'. He assured her that should she ever meet one, she should let them down gently and under no circumstances give in and allow them to have lesbian sex with her.

His whole obsession with lesbians was off the scales, he spent more time talking about that than everything else combined; educational programs, trades skills, available religious services, AA and their fellow programs and things like anger management. Under different conditions Vause would have been proud to tell Healy where to stick his outdated attitude and inappropriate advice but she was in prison now and pissing people off just because she could would not serve her. In any case, the truth must have dawned on him at some point because he went from friendly and helpful to angry and troublesome - perhaps it was her friendship with Nichols that gave her away?

Miss Claudette did not touch Vause's belongings again after the first dinner that Chapman was back. They greeted each other politely, at one point Miss Claudette asked her what she was reading - which was totally for conversational purposes because she could have looked the book over at any time Vause was not present. She seemed impressed with Alex's choice of reading material especially as she was not religious but pursuing an academic interest. Vause kept her part of the room neat and tidy and made sure to give her bunk mate plenty of personal space, partly in the hope that she would not be asked to participate in too much cleaning - washing the cube floor with maxi pads was not Vause's idea of a good time.

Chapman's presence, or at least her connection to Chapman, made itself known in other quarters as well. For example, Boo kept well clear of Vause. She ceased following her around, coming into her workplace for shits and giggles and when they found themselves in close proximity by virtue of sitting at the same table, for example, Boo never so much as looked at her let alone spoke to her. All of her previous assurances of protection were as dust in the wind and Vause understood that Boo knew that no one could protect anyone against Chapman.

The meth heads left her well alone after tripping her in the dining hall - whatever Nichols had said to them had a lasting effect because they neither ignored her nor provoked her in any way. The following morning Angie had handed her some glue and apologised about her glasses and from then on they all organised the work between them in a very democratic manner. Vause was given plenty of leeway to choose her work assignment and whoever happened to work with her showed her the ins and outs of the various jobs within the laundry. They went out of their way to assist her but not to speak to her, which suited Vause just fine.

A woman named Sophia had stopped Alex in the bathroom one morning and complimented her hair. She had explained that she was the prison beauty stylist who did everyone's hair and she invited Vause to come down and check out her salon. Vause, unwilling to let her beauty standards drop for the next five years, agreed to come in when her next month's commissary funds were available. She pegged the woman as transgender instantly, hard to miss actually, but she was super attractive, friendly and seemed genuine so Vause made time to go and sit in the chair.

Despite Sophia being excited to create something quite unique with Vause's hair, Vause insisted on a trim only but allowed herself to be talked into blue streaks and a more full body style than she was used to. Sophia accepted the compromise and as she set to work the pair fell into varied conversations about New York, fashion, literature and their families. Vause left with a luxurious pelt of shiny black hair with blue streaks in the back and a new friend.

Chapman and Vause frequently seemed to miss each other at meal times, and if one was late the other had left the table by the time the other had collected their tray. It suited Vause for the first few days, she got a much better look at Chapman, noting all the changes wrought over the best part of ten years. The changes were not just physical but those physical changes alone were considerable.

She seemed taller but that could not be possible, perhaps it was the way she carried herself? Gone was the perpetually innocent, nice, well mannered, compliant young Piper and in her stead was a confident Chapman who looked entirely ready for a brawl. Her arms were as big as Vause's thighs and her eyes were everywhere, it was as though she had learned to Xray the entire room and taken the temperature of everyone present before she crossed the threshold. Vause had caught Chapman looking at her as part of the general survey of the room, but her eyes never lingered and never returned to her.

Through determined observation Vause developed a much better understanding of Chapman's personal routine and her more professional role as top dog of Litchfield. She worked in electrical with Nichols, she conducted some kind of business with Red out of the kitchen - contraband was Vause's best bet. Probably drugs. She still ran everyday, rain, hail and shine and not just a jog around the track but hard running like she was in training. After running she worked in the outdoor gym lifting weights, doing sit ups, push ups, pull ups and other strenuous exercises.

Vause had never been attracted to butch lesbians but there was something about watching Chapman in motion that made her mouth go dry. The contradiction between Piper then and Chapman now was immeasurable. Pretty feminine Piper, a dress wearing, makeup wearing, smiling, laughing, fresh faced flirty girl was not even a shadow of Chapman ten years later. Serious, calculating, capable Chapman with a web of scars on her arms and her hands permanently fisted… But for some reason Vause was still attracted to this version of Piper Chapman. Very much so.

Vause watched the informal little meetings happening all over the prison from morning to night; one of dozens of women rushing in to report something to Nichols or Morello, or Red or Gina who appeared to give a direction or refer to Chapman who would make a swift decision and give a concise order. A woman called Taystee appeared to be the Black representative who most often conferred with Nichols, and Mendoza, who had been in Vause's room on arrival, seemed to be the spokesperson for the Latina population and she often went through Red. Either Yoga Jones or Sister Ingalls kept Nichols up to speed with anything that might have been happening with the Golden Girls - which appeared to be both infrequent and inessential.

Aside from that time the meth heads got high while Chapman was in the SHU, Vause had not seen anyone else getting high, coming down or jonesing for a fix and she wondered what kind of contraband Chapman and Red were really bringing in, if not drugs? In the meantime, Vause waited for the other shoe to drop, she waited for Chapman to corner her, to dole out some kind of punishment, to extract some kind of atonement, but it never came.

Seeing Piper again after all these years sent Vause's mind into overdrive, at night particularly, she lay there for hours watching her memories play in her mind like a film. Images of when they met, their travelling to so many cities, the time Vause's girlfriend Sylvie attacked Piper punching her in the face played over and over. Piper dancing for her in lingerie, Piper laughing with her head thrown back and her hair flowing, them snorkelling together, having hot sex all over the place.

It always ended on the last memory she had of Piper, her back as she walked out of the hotel room and out of Alex's life less than 15 minutes after being informed that Alex's mother had just died. Alex's heart had broken hearing that dreadful news and then twenty minutes later it shattered into a thousand pieces with Piper breaking up with her and abandoning her in Paris.

If Alex was honest about it, at least to herself, she had never recovered from those twin blows. She still continued to miss her mother everyday and likewise, not a day of the last ten years had passed without Alex thinking at least once of Piper. For a long time she accepted that she had never gotten over her, that Piper was the love of her life, but more recently, the last couple of years she thought that she had finally begun to heal. But that notion went out the window when Vause was arrested.

From the moment of her arrest the authorities had been keen to offer her a deal. Fahri was dead and there were only two more names that the State needed to successfully convict if they were to finally put a pin in the whole cartel. Letting Ayden or Kubra go free would only serve to see the whole operation start up again with entirely new faces and heroin once again flowing freely over borders. So from the moment Vause began considering which names she might disclose - Piper took up residency in her mind full time and rent free.

That was when Vause realised that she would always be in love with Piper Chapman. Not that that knowledge had stopped her from eventually naming Piper and not that it had stopped her being totally vexed with her and wanting revenge. Vause argued with herself, on the one hand who would not want to save themselves years off their potential sentence and on the other it's not like she sent an anonymous text to the criminal hotline and dobbed her in just for the sake of it. Fuck it.

She had taken her revenge on Piper and now she would have to wait and see what revenge Chapman would take on her.

"Stop thinking," Miss Claudette whisper-shouted across their cube.

"What?" asked Vause.

"You are thinking too loudly and it's keeping me awake."

Vause supposed that her body had been as restless as her thoughts. She tried to clear her mind and regulate her breathing, going through a meditation exercise in her mind; tensing and then relaxing all of the parts of her body, from her toes to her scalp. She had to continually block out mental images of Piper then and Piper now; Piper on the beach wearing a bikini and Piper lifting weights with her massive arms. Piper dancing in their hotel room and Piper giving orders, running Litchfield Prison.

Chapter Five

After that night, Vause became more infatuated with Chapman. Clearly Chapman did not want a bar of Vause given that she avoided her at all costs, even avoided looking at her. At first they had avoided each other but once Vause had gotten her head around the whole concept of potentially having Piper in her life again, she found that she wanted nothing more. She just wanted to have that first conversation, gauge how much Chapman hated her guts and assess what it might take to get past it. She didn't expect that they would necessarily become friends again, but she hoped.

She found herself watching Chapman, she found creative ways to watch her covertly in the exercise yard and watched her doing yoga. She saw her around throughout the working day doing her electrical chores; carrying a ladder, wearing her tool belt, working on various fans, fridges, machines and appliances all over the prison. She saw her chatting to people, sometimes laughing and joking with her inner circle or having a more serious discussion with others that Vause didn't always recognise. She saw her with guards too, again sometimes just chatting casually other times getting told off, frisked or roughed up by some of the less pleasant guards.

The changes Vause found in Piper were extraordinary. When they had been together Vause had been the pursuer, the more dominant personality, she had the job, the money, the contacts, the knowledge, the resources. Everything had been in her favour and Piper had been in her world entirely. But this time, Vause was very clearly in Piper's house and she could not even get close enough to start a conversation with the woman.

Ten years ago Piper had been pretty and young, virtuous and self righteous, and Vause had taken great pleasure in breaking her in, spoiling her entirely; travelling, good food and wine and of course, sexually. She had rocked Piper's stoic, straight little universe, she had fucked her and made her cum in ways Piper had never contemplated. But in the end none of it had mattered and she had left anyway.

Vause heard stories about Chapman, that she had fucked a lot of women, that alot of women were attracted to her, they flirted with her, chased her and hoped to become her prison wife. She had also heard stories about how she fought a lot of women too. And guards. She had saved some girls from bullies and cut others off at the knees for inexplicable, seemingly inconsequential infractions of unwritten rules. But for all that, she appeared enormously popular with many of the inmates.

When Chapman entered the bathroom people signalled her to cut ahead in the line, and she did. It was the same in the dinner line, Chapman would walk to the back of the line and people would usher her forward and she would end up walking directly to the front of the line and collecting her tray.

One day CO Mendez saw this, ripped the tray out of her hands and threw it up against the wall and screamed in her face,

"We don't have no royalty in prison, inmate. Get to the back of the line, Chapman! Now, unless you want a shot."

She did not even flinch. Instead Chapman walked to the back of the line and everyone ahead of her vacated the line immediately and left the dining room. Chapman looked at CO Mendez and raised her hands as though asking for permission to proceed. He laughed and shook his head at her,

"This is not a game you can win," he said, clearly pissed.

As soon as she approached the serving bay, all the other diners flooded seamlessly back into the dining room and joined the line as though nothing had happened. Two women came out of the kitchen and began cleaning up the mess Mendez had made, giving him filthy looks. He remained in the room as long as he could but eventually, unable to bear having lost the moment to Chapman, he left.

After dinner Vause, hungry for information, chased Nichols down,

"Hey, Chapman was pretty cool under fire," she said.

"Yeah, well, she's had plenty of practice,"

"Not something college prepares you for."

"Is that how you know Chapman?" The two looked at each other, clearly both keen for more information but neither were willing or able to get into it.

"Kind of." Answered Vause, cagily.

"What the fuck went on with you two outside?"

"Things." replied Vause, avoiding Nichols penetrating glare.

"And stuff." she added, not giving an inch.

"Fine." conceded Nichols, forced to withdraw in the face of determined inscrutability.

As interested as she was, she had to respect Vause for keeping it tight. It was an important skill in prison and would earn her highly valued respect, with Chapman, and in general.

The following day the prison went into total lockdown - a tool went missing from Electrical and all inmates, except those from Electrical, were returned to their bunks while the entire prison was searched. It was rumoured to be a screwdriver, a tool or a weapon in the right hands, and either way a security concern.

Vause lay on her bunk reading the Quran and Miss Claudette pottered around the cube cooking an egg in a homemade cooking appliance called a 'stinger' and straightening things that were already straight. The pair had come to a reluctant truce; they were polite and chatted on occasion, Vause was extremely neat and often absent and in return Miss Claudette ceased criticising her and bossing her around. Both were satisfied with the change.

The COs could be seen searching in and around the Electrical building from the windows and several inmates on that side were perched on the window sill watching and reporting every movement. When the Electrical inmates were dragged outside and forced to lay down in a row on the grass and searched everyone in the cell, including Vause and Miss Claudette approached the windows to observe.

Vause could see nothing because her glasses lenses were still cracked, the glue was helpful only in repairing the frame but from the shocked reactions of the others she could tell that things were getting rough down there. The COs who were watching over them from inside the observation room began ordering them to return to their bunks, Miss Claudette and Vause were the first to obey but many others were reluctant to tear their eyes from the unusual happenings downstairs.

When the second and third commands to return to their bunks did not achieve the desired response an alarm was triggered and suddenly, their cell door smashed open and several guards came pouring through, batons out, shouting,

"Everybody on the floor, on the fucking floor, right now!"

Vause and Miss Claudette hit the deck, their hands above their heads and they could hear that anyone who did not immediately comply were forcibly shoved to the ground and struck with batons. When everyone was on the ground a count was taken and then they were all told to stand at the entrance to their cube in preparation for a thorough cell search and an inmate search. It was not pleasant.

Guards, unlike the inmates, do not enjoy moments where things went off script. For inmates it meant diversion from boredom, for guards it meant extra work, increased scrutiny and additional pressure from the chain of command. They took their frustrations and resentment out on the inmates with aggression and where possible, violence. One by one, their cubes were tossed, not just searched - personal items were thrown, damaged and broken. Inmates were bodily searched, roughed up, pushed and pulled around, their hair pulled and their faces pushed into the wall, just because they could.

Many items of contraband were found; food, cigarettes, alcohol, pornography, chewing gum, phones and stamps but no drugs, no weapons and no screwdrivers. Nothing illegal or prohibited was found in Vause and Miss Claudette's cube - thank god, Miss Claudette even deigned to give Vause a nod of approval. Right now Vause would take all the good will she could muster, it had been stressful enough to be at the business end of a vengeful CO's baton but she was also concerned for Nichols and Chapman down in Electrical.

It was a long day for them all in the cells and by dinner time some of the inmates began to get rowdy when they were informed that rather than leaving their cell for dinner, their meal would be brought to their cells; sandwiches, no hot meal, no fruit and no pudding. Next they were informed that there would be no evening showers - rather they would all be taken down to the shower room at 5am, further angering the women. The lockdown would continue until the screwdriver was found.

Their cells were tossed again when they returned from the bathroom at 5.30, not quite as violently but just as thoroughly and breakfast, more sandwiches, was delivered at 7am. Having their workday interrupted two days in a row was really going to affect many women's income the following month and that was already causing some distress. But by 9am all the fuss was over - the screwdriver had magically reappeared on the wall in the tool room by persons unknown and inmates were ordered back to work.

Chapter Six

Chapman, Nichols and the others from Electrical had all been more than roughed up, some had obviously been beaten, including Chapman. She was clearly bruised, sporting fresh cuts and abrasions on her face and arms - Vause had to assume there were more underneath her clothing. She found it odd that Caputo, the Captain of the Guards, didn't seem to notice the marks on Chapman even though he seemed like one of the nicer COs and spoke with Chapman regularly. Perhaps he had come to the same conclusion that Vause herself had - that Chapman was a beacon for trouble.

But later, when Nichols confided that Chapman stepped in to stop some of the younger girls from being terrorised, Vause was proud of her. It was still a contradiction; on the one hand Piper had always been good, righteous with a passion for justice, on the other it was difficult to believe that she would be able to take a beating for someone. But that was the old Piper, clearly the new Chapman was far more physically capable and mentally prepared.

And Vause's assumption about CO Caputo? Also wrong. By Nichols' account - Caputo had torn up the shots that Mendez had written and pulled the paperwork that would otherwise have seen her back in the SHU. Vause understood why it would be difficult for the COs to stand up to each other - most were corrupt, some were even sociopathic perverts who frequently abused their authority, assaulting, sexually abusing and humiliating the inmates at every opportunity. But Caputo was in a position to intervene and he did - it rejuvenated her faith in the system. A little.

She wanted to see Piper. She wanted to see how she was after yesterday's troubles and she wanted to clear the air between them. She wanted to move forward. Vause was sick of avoiding and being avoided - they were in prison together for the foreseeable future and there was no reason why they could not be friendly. Okay - there were a number of reasons why they were not friendly, perfectly valid reasons, but that's why she wanted to speak to her.

She waited by the window until she saw Chapman on the track and then walked in that direction hoping to catch her when she was finished, but Big Boo happened to spot her loitering near the track and approached.

"What are you up to, Vause? Meditating the pros and cons of taking up exercise?"

"Something like that."

"It's a bad idea, in my opinion."

"Noted."

"I was not referring to the exercise."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"If Chapman wants to talk to you, she will."

"Oh, no. That's not…" Vause, caught out, scrambled for an excuse.

"Sure, sure." said Boo, with a smug look on her face, "My guess is that she's seen you, waving your white flag from the sidelines. Like I said, if she wants to speak to you, she will."

Boo walked off swaggering that 1980s bull dyke strut. Vause looked around to see if anyone had overheard or was looking in her direction, no one was. She looked out across the track and saw Chapman running like a professional athlete. Boo was right. Vause kicked out at a stone and turned around to return indoors when she spotted a chicken - a real life, well feathered reddish brown chook!

Vause blinked and looked again, it turned and strutted away. She followed it for a few minutes but it disappeared as quickly as it appeared and she couldn't find it anywhere. The whole experience had her wondering if she had really seen a chicken, if she was actually beginning to lose her mind or if her impaired vision from the cracked lens in her glasses was causing hallucinations. Chicken or not, she had already spent more time in the sunshine than her pallid complexion could safely tolerate.

She returned to her bunk only to find a brand new pair of glasses sitting neatly on her locker at the end of her bed. She took off her broken pair and tried on the other - they were perfect. She looked at Miss Claudette,

"How? Who?" she asked, holding up the frames.

Miss Claudette shrugged and made a face to convey that she did not know.

Vause looked at her closely in an attempt to divine whether she knew and wasn't saying, but in the end left it alone. It was Chapman, one way or the other, no matter who placed them in her cube. She had to be at the root of having her prescription glasses replaced so quickly - even the doctor had told her that it was going to take weeks.

She lay down on her bunk. She had to see Piper, she had to thank her for the glasses, if nothing else. Vause needed to understand how this was working; Vause named Piper in an effort to reduce her own sentence yet in return for extra time Chapman protects her, replaces her glasses yet otherwise ignores her? If Chapman didn't care about Alex at all she could have, like Nichols suggested, had her removed or let the meth heads beat her to a pulp. If she cared, why not speak to her? Vause needed to see her, she needed to understand.

That night at dinner, Vause hung around the rec room where she had a perfect view of those entering the dining hall, the moment she saw Chapman she followed her in. There was only one or two people between them in the line and Vause had been certain that Chapman was unaware that she was behind her. Then Chapman stepped out of the line, crossed the dining hall and walked into the doors leading to the back area of the kitchen. After a couple of minutes she walked back out holding a brown paper bag and left the dining room. She had managed to evade Vause's attempts to approach her yet again.

So Vause sat at their usual table and enjoyed the camaraderie of the others; Nichols, Morello, Yoga Jones, Sister Ingalls, Boo, Freida, Norma, Gina and the others. She could not lie and pretend that she didn't miss Chapman. She had hardly ever even heard her speak and she was curious as to what her conversation would be these days.

Years ago, she had been a wonderful conversationalist and Alex had been proud to enter any room with Piper on her arm. She had been attractive and well dressed, happy and curious, she had been well mannered and was widely read. She had been interested in others, she was a great listener yet had a good grasp on all the general areas of interest; food and wine, politics, culture and current affairs, politics, history and geography. Vause realised how much she had missed Piper all these years, she had not let herself think too much about it because her absence had remained a source of deep pain.

But now… Now she was forced to think of Piper. Chapman. They were so close. They were virtually living together yet there was a world between them - ten years at least. Vause had never thought she would get the chance to see Piper again but here she was, close enough to touch but too far away to speak to. She had to find a way to bridge that gap.

"Yo, Vause!" Nichols was waving her hand in front of Vause's face.

Vause shook her head, "Sorry, what?"
"Where were you just now?"

"Trying to recall the elements of the periodic table," she said, picking up her tray.

"Were you a science major in college?"

"Ah, no." They began walking back to Vause's room together. "I just lived on campus and went to parties. No mullah, no schoolah."

Nichols grinned at the non joke and looked at her like she was trying to figure her out.

"New glasses?"

"Yeah, thank god. Earlier I thought I was having hallucinations,"

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah, I thought I saw a chicken in the yard."

"No shit?"

"It was either the blurred vision from the cracked lens or too much sun,"

"Well, let me offer a little free advice," said Nichols, hesitantly. Alex raised her trademark eyebrow.

"If you value your sanity, leave well enough alone. You know what I'm saying?"

"No."

"Leave Chapman alone," Nichols was doing her best to deliver her message with sensitivity.

"Chapman? Who says I am not leaving Chapman alone?"

"Come on, Vause. You're living in a fishbowl, even your thoughts here are transparent."

Vause stopped walking and folded her arms, giving Nichols a hard stare.

"Come on, don't make this hard on me. She's my friend, you're my friend…" Nichols shrugged fearing she was going to have to say it. Vause was still staring.

"The meth heads are quiet, you got your glasses replaced, what more do you want? She doesn't want to talk to you."

"Fine. She doesn't want to talk to me." Vause threw up her hands and stalked away.

Later that evening, it struck her. That's what she would do! She would tamper with the washers and dryers in the laundry room, report the damage, a repair or maintenance request would be raised and someone from Electrical would come and take a look at it. She would just have to find a way to damage the electrical cord in a manner consistent with accident or frequent use. It would appear on the work order like a legitimate claim and whilst she fully expected Chapman to avoid her in the laundry room as far as possible, she would have to come sooner or later.

Chapter Seven

Several days later Nichols came swaggering into the laundry room with a work order in hand. Vause could not help but flick her eyes behind Nichols at the door in the hope that she was not alone.

"She's not coming," said Nichols.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Vause shot back, continuing to fold linen.

"Uh huh. So… I heard you got a real rusty old thing that needs fixing?" she said, winking lecherously.

"Oh my husband's not home and he has the check book," said Vause, in a faux southern accent, "Hopefully there is some way I can pay you?"

"Well, I have been feeling a little tense lately - " They both broke into laughter knowing exactly where this line was going to go.

Pennsatucky approached to let Nichols know which of the machines was not working, Nichols rolled her eyes, disappointed that her rare opportunity to see Vause during the work day had been squelched. She stopped by again on her way out and held up a piece of cord.

"You know, if you want to make it look less contrived you should try burning it at either end rather than cutting it with a clean blade in the middle."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," but Vause could not stop the little colour from rising in her cheeks.

"Get rid of the blade, immediately."

"If I had one, I would." Vause was unable to acknowledge that Nichols' accusations were closer to home than she was comfortable with.

As soon as Nichols was gone, Vause looked around for somewhere to hide the tiny piece of decades-old half razor she had found by virtue of being taller than the average prisoner. She ended up wiping it clean of her fingerprints and placing it above the door jamb - it was not original but she hoped being kind of obvious might actually work in her favour. She had been lucky enough to find that old thing, but now where was she going to find a flame source? The kitchen came to mind but she knew she would never get in there - Red was like fucking CO of the kitchen and she allowed no plebians behind the iron curtain.

Vause spent a week tracking down smokers. She knew there had to be some because cigarettes had been found in their cell during the search for the screwdriver. Where there were smokers, there had to be a lighter but she wasn't above rubbing two sticks together if it came to that.

Her investigative ventures led her to conclude that one spot for smokers was at the back dock delivery area for the kitchen. She had not seen that area with her own two eyes but she was pretty sure Mendoza was a smoker and she and Red were pretty tight. If cigarettes were a thing that Red and Chapman were smuggling in - what better place to smoke? Also, if they were stashed out there, she would never get caught with contraband in her cube. Ingenious. But also, ultimately unhelpful as far as Vause getting her hands on a lighter or matches.

It occurred to her in her sleep of all things! She didn't need a lighter - electricity created sparks! Electricity from an electrical appliance or even a socket. God she was such an idiot! All this time wasted. As close to the solution as she was right now, Vause had to admit that she was not the world's most technically savvy person. She didn't know exactly how to elicit a naked spark in any case, it was not like in the movies where you have to cut the red cable! Actually, she had already tried that and failed.

The next day, Vause made her next attempt at staging an accidental or faulty electrical hazard - she unplugged one of the washing machines and put the cord, plug and all inside a dryer, overfilled it with dry clothes and cranked it up to maximum heat. After an hour she checked the plug and although the metal prongs were exceedingly hot there was no obvious damage, so she threw it back in, restarted the dryer and waited.

Chapman's protection of Vause had bought her a certain level of independence from the meth heads in their work detail. Once she had proven competent in each of the various processes of the laundry they let her choose her preferred work station each morning and took their reluctant turns in buddying up with her for the day, but largely they left her well enough alone. And that was good news for Vause, especially today.

After several hours of exposure to heat and friction and still finding no obvious damage, Vause recalled that water and electrics were not supposed to mix. So she plugged in the cord halfway and then threw some water on it which produced a significant spark and a smokey smell emitted from the power source but no fire. Happily however, Vause wrote up a work order and took it to the nearest CO who agreed to pass it on to Electrical.

Within an hour, Nichols came bearing the work order.

"I love you, Vause, I do. And you are easy on the eye. You can request my presence all day long and it won't bother me at all."

"I have no idea what you are talking about," replied Vause.
"Let's see, what we got this time," Nichols went straight to the washing machine and looked behind, "Oh water on an electrical outlet! Very creative."

"Nichols, it wasn't me!"

"No? Well, there is no tap around here - and yet there is a very specific puddle right at this outlet! So where did the water come from?" Nichols looked around and Vause wanted to kick herself in the ass.

Her water bottle, with her name written in black permanent marker up the side. was sitting on top of the corresponding washer. Nichols followed Vause's eye line and lit on the answer to her question. If Vause had not looked at the water bottle Nichols would not have found it because she was far too short to have seen up there without something to stand on.

"Oh Vause! God love ya for trying," She chuckled to herself for ten minutes straight and Vause pretended that she was on a beach in Cambodia while she folded sheet after sheet and blocked out Nichols' annoying laugh.

Finally when Nichols came out from behind the dryer, she said,

"You are just gonna have to give it some time, Vause."

Vause had fully intended on denying all knowledge but instead she found herself saying,

"Time. Okay."

Nichols clapped her softly on the upper arm,

"She knows. She's just not ready."

Vause nodded and when she was alone she let a few tears fall, only the most necessary ones, enough to release the pressure - the rest she could hold back without imploding.

Chapter Eight

The following day, dinner was more than an hour late. The kitchen was locked down and the dining room was off limits. COs were planted along the length of the dining room, at the entrance to the kitchen and several COs could be heard shouting out in the back of the kitchen. Other noises could be heard as well, and Vause, having recently had her cube tossed, recognised the situation for what it was; Red's kitchen was being searched and the inmates interrogated.

Chapman was standing in the doorway to the dining room with her arms folded across her chest, clearly concerned for her friends, observing what she could from a distance. Vause was sitting with Morello who was looking upset and Nichols was pacing angrily. Red and her kitchen staff had not been seen since lunchtime.

The inmates were hungry but more importantly they were distressed by the unexpected disturbance to their routine and perceived injustice. Vause understood that Red was like a mother to some of the inmates, they called themselves a family, she had heard them say things like 'its what you do for family'. Red was particularly close to Nichols, referring to themselves as mother and daughter, Red was the only person to refer to Nichols as Nicky and Nichols often called Red 'Ma'.

Vause was wondering what Red and Chapman were smuggling and whether they would get caught. She wondered how much time Chapman actually spent in the SHU. Finally something began to happen, CO Bennet came out of the kitchen with a piece of paper and began calling out names,

"Chapman, take a seat," he called, pointing to a dining table.

"Nichols, Morello, Berlin, Black, Dwight, Miller, Ingalls, Jones and Vause."

Vause was more than a little surprised at hearing her name, but she did eat with them, so perhaps it should not have been a shock. Bennet ordered the rest of the inmates to return to their cell blocks and when some resisted COs Fischer and Bell moved to assist him. Mendez came storming out of the kitchen like a bull and gave Chapman et al. a spitfire speech about how he knew what was going on in the kitchen with contraband and how he was going to 'crack the case'.

It was a shock to Vause, if not to any one else, but he grabbed Chapman by the hair and threw her up against the wall, pushing her face into the plaster and began searching her forcibly. She must have been either expecting it or used to it because she did not resist at all, nor did she make a sound. Even some of the other guards looked uncomfortable at his treatment of her, Mendez kicked the insides of her feet to open her legs wider.

Nichols was ropable and began arguing with him in hopes of diverting his attention away from her friend, but CO O'Neill, grabbed her and began searching her, although he was far less rough with her than Mendez. He was threatening Chapman with every punishment he could think of, appropriate or not, legal or not. When he found nothing on her he said,

"Last chance El Chapo?" She did not respond.

Quite unexpectedly he advanced on Vause, grabbing her by the hair and throwing her against the wall.

"You're an animal Chapman, you don't feel pain any more. But this one, a newbie - oh she is going to feel it. I will make sure of that!"

He took great pleasure in roughing her up, his hands were all over her, up her shirt, grabbing her breasts, down the back of her pants squeezing and spreading her ass cheeks. Vause was scared but she also knew that that was the point, she closed her eyes, focussed on her breathing and prayed that her glasses did not get broken. This is what she had thought prison would be like - this is what she had prepared herself for, as much as anyone can.

Mendez was watching Chapman as he 'searched' Vause,

"Oh, did you think I didn't know about your old sweetheart? I know everything, Chapman. You think this is your playground? I promise you, you filthy lesbo cunt - this is my house! MY Fucking House!" he roared.

He pushed his hand down the front of Vause's prison issue underpants.

"Oh! Oh! What do we have here?" He pulled out a plastic wrapped foil package about the length of a tampon and half the width. He held it up for all to see and then he sniffed it like a lecherous pervert with a heavy dose of misogyny.

"That's not mine," Vause said, immediately.

Mendez virtually punched her head into the wall,

"Shut your fucking mouth, dyke." he said, and she did.

He turned to his left and pointed to the other inmates and said "get them out of here," but Chapman was to his right and didn't move a muscle. Nichols looked like she was about to argue but a small shake of the head from Chapman dissuaded her and she left reluctantly, with the others, Morello crying and pulling on her arm.

"Ah Chapman! Do you know how long I have been waiting to get one over on you? A fucking long time of putting up with your bullshit. Of having to eat crow while you get away with doing whatever the hell you want."

He looked around and lowered his voice,

"Now you are going to do what I want. This one," he whacked a meaty hand down on Vause's shoulder, "is going to the SHU and you are going to tell Red that the next time my shipment comes through she is going to put it to the side. Top shelf, in the walk-in. When I get my stash, I will think about letting your bitch here," he slapped Vause's ass, "out of solitary. Am I clear?"

"That shit is mine," said Chapman, "I'll go to the SHU,"

"I am the fucking CO here - not you, Chapman!" He was really on a power trip, thought Vause. "You don't get to decide who goes to the SHU. Besides, solitary is not a sufficient enough deterrent for you anymore, I think you've lost too many brain cells. I'm going to try a new tactic and if this doesn't work, I will try it on Nichols and Morello, on Red, Ingalls and Jones. You won't be quite so cocky when all of your little friends are locked up."

"Don't do this, Mendez - she has nothing to do with it,"

"I'll go." said Vause, turning her head to face Chapman.

"I said," he punched Vause in the back of the head, knocking the side of her face into the wall, "shut the fuck up - the pair of you!" and he pointed menacingly at Chapman.

He shook his head, he was really pissed,

"See Chapman, this is what you don't get. You are not in charge here - this is not a negotiation. If you speak out of turn one more time - she is going to pay for it. Clear?" Chapman did not speak.

Mendez grabbed Vause roughly, handcuffed her tightly and dragged her away. Vause looked at Chapman over her shoulder and Chapman watched her go, her powerlessness written all over her face.

Chapter Nine

Vause spent the first few hours in the SHU trying to come to terms with the shock and pain that CO Mendez had perpetrated against her. Her shoulder was dislocated, of that she was certain and she had suffered multiple blows to the head but the thing that stuck with her the most was the look on Chapman's face as Vause was being led away. She still cared. Even after all these years. As much trouble and pain as she was in - that knowledge made it all totally worthwhile.

She meditated in an attempt to manage the pain that radiated out from her shoulder like a lighthouse in the dark, it seemed to pulsate with the beating of her heart. She tensed and relaxed her toes and all the parts of her body up to her scalp, sometimes getting distracted, sometimes falling asleep and having to start over. Every time she heard someone pass by her door she called out, "I need to see a doctor." No one appeared to even slow their footsteps let alone look through the sliding panel.

It was probably a common tactic prisoners used to gain attention or relief, she supposed, and if that were true then the most effective response would be to ignore the plea - which they were employing effectively against her, only this time, her plea was genuine. She didn't have much faith that anybody would respond to her but she had seen COs Bennet and Fischer being nice to inmates for no obvious reason. Regardless, the only chance she had of securing medical attention was to speak up and hope that at least one of the less evil COs would give her the benefit of the doubt.

She had tried to make a sling with her shirt but that had proved difficult to do with one hand, besides they would need to handcuff her when she came out again, so it wasn't an entirely viable option. The pain was intense but there was little recourse to be had - this was the prison she had envisaged. She lay partly on her side, propping her shoulder against the wall so that at least gravity would not be working against her injury, and tried to hold the limb in place with her other hand.

Having physically done everything she could, the rest would have to be mental. Directly following this realisation, Vause's mind was flooded with catastrophic thoughts; she recalled horror stories she had heard about people surviving months alone in the jungle after a plane wreck or people trapped under wreckage and having to saw off their own limbs - or was that a movie? Needless to say, she need not look so far abroad for such stories - her own pre-incarceration research about the prison experience had clearly demonstrated how frequently inmates under state care died as a result of either abuse or neglect.

Speaking of abuse and neglect, Vause was unsure under which category the first meal offered her in the SHU fell. It was completely unidentifiable and utterly inedible and she had no idea what time it had been served to her - it felt like hours and hours after she had been placed in the little concrete box. It could be breakfast after the kitchen debacle the night before but between the pain and the interrupted sleeping she really could not be certain.

As she took the tray she had repeated her request to see the doctor and there had been no response. She spent a great many hours calculating things she would be willing to give (not her secret bank account, not yet) and all of the terrible things she would be willing to do (straight sex with a CO? Maybe, if it were Bennet) for some pain relief.

There were no windows and the unnatural fluorescent light in her room was on permanently so Vause had no way of telling time, instead she counted time in food trays. So far she had received two and she didn't know whether inmates in the SHU were supposed to receive one or two food trays per 24 hour cycle. Being alone didn't bother her as much as the boredom, and that didn't bother her as much as the pain, it kept her from thinking clearly and sleeping decently for any period of time.

It got so that when the pain became too much to bear, she would think about Chapman. The first thought was always their last contact - Chapman watching her being taken away to the SHU. The first true look of recognition, of affection, she had had from Chapman in nearly ten years. If Vause had ever denied her feelings for her, she knew now that it had been a lie. She had been heartbroken, absolutely. She had been irate, undeniably. She had been unforgiving, true. But she never stopped loving her, not for a minute. And now she had proof that Chapman still cared for her too.

It was noisier in the SHU than she had anticipated, in her ignorance she had presumed that it would be silent, but every sound seemed to bounce around and echo off the bald concrete walls and between the high ceilings. Incidental sounds of movement in the passageway; footsteps, the observation windows being opened periodically and slammed shut again, trolleys were being pushed around to deliver food or for cleaning. The noises of fellow prisoners moving around, calling out, kicking the door and flushing toilets.

Worse than the noise was the cold, Vause was cold at the best of times, she had always had cold hands and feet since she was a child. Minimal bedding had been supplied, one blanket - no sheets and no pillow. They were being kept in some kind of basement facility, she guessed, and the thought of moisture and mould thriving in the dark for decades in the walls really creeped her out. Again, her only weapon was her mind. Sure, she was in agony and freezing her tits off but Chapman had survived injuries and being thrown in the SHU regularly for years. Vause had this opportunity to be of use to her - she was not going to waste it.

"My name is Alex Vause. Drugs were planted on my person and I have been falsely punished by being sent to the SHU. I have so far received six meal trays."

She had read a story as a student about a soldier who was captured by the enemy and tortured for intelligence for years, or maybe just months, she couldn't remember, but he apparently kept his sanity by repeating a similar statement, counting off the days he had been held in captivity. So Vause began standing upon receiving each meal tray, first requesting to see a doctor, then repeating her statement - between statements she either slept, meditated or entertained herself with mind games and counting.

She had not eaten a morsel of food since she had been brought down, she supposed she would get hungry enough at some point. She always looked at it but left it on the floor by the door. It looked, in her estimation, to be the leftovers of several meals from upstairs, mashed together into a sort of unrecognisable dry loaf. She was certain she had seen mould on the food, more than once. She wondered again how long prisoners got sent to the SHU for, attempting to rate various infractions and estimate a reasonable period of punishment.

After her eighth meal tray she was informed that she would be taken for a shower, Vause immediately communicated her injury and requested medical attention which was ignored. The meal slot was opened again, which doubled as a place to put her hands through to be handcuffed for the journey down the hall. The pain was excruciating. She repeated her claims of injury several times on the way to the shower, during her wash and on the return journey, she thought the guard did look her over, but they said nothing and she was returned to her cell without comment.

All was not in vain however, within hours, she was collected again and taken to the medical wing where her dislocated shoulder was put back in place and strapped. She was given pain medication and handcuffed to a medical gurney, the relief was so profound she fell into a deep sleep and when she woke it was to a meal tray like none that she had seen since her arrival at Litchfield. Oatmeal, a stack of waffles, a double helping of eggs, sausage and beans with several fruit and pudding cups. Vause knew that someone was looking out for her and she consumed as much of the food as she possibly could without risking bringing it all back up.

When she was returned to her SHU cell, she found an extra blanket with a book and several candy bars and biscuit packs concealed beneath. Someone was definitely watching out for her.

Chapter Ten

She was given the opportunity to shower every fourth day, which coincided with the cleaning of her cell. She returned smelling of the acrid home brand liquid soap provided in a bottle bolted to the wall - apparently meant to serve as body wash and shampoo. And each time she found a new book and a renewed stash of candy and cookies hidden between the blankets. She had hoped for a note from Chapman, but she knew that the reading material and treats were already a huge risk that could result in the provider being accommodated right alongside her.

Meals were still inedible and if it weren't for the contraband snacks, Vause feared she may have had to consume at least one in the end. Clearly the guards were not keeping tabs on what or how much she was consuming, if she had been on a hunger strike they appeared completely unaware and unconcerned. This would be one of the signs of neglect that saw prisoners' lives endangered by the state, Vause supposed.

All in all, Vause was in the SHU for a month, but the final 26 days were almost a pleasure compared with the pain of the first four. She emerged far thinner and her skin was so white it bordered on translucent but she was so happy to be out that she really could not care about anything else. She was welcomed back to the group with a surprising warmth and wondered if she was on her way to becoming part of their family. Vause ate with gusto, not at all minding Nichols grinning at her all the way through dinner and Morello's lengthy and detailed recitations of a good many conversations, incidents and activities that had occurred in her absence. It would have been better only if Chapman had not been missing from among their number.

One of Morello's stories was of particular interest to Vause concerning one CO Mendez. According to Morello, Chapman was furious with him both for smashing up the kitchen and for setting Vause up with the heroin. Apparently he had been trying to force Red to facilitate his drugs alongside her own smuggled contraband but she would not do it. Not only did she and Chapman have a strict policy about avoiding any involvement with drugs, but she feared working with a CO would further compromise their activity and she hated Mendez and took no small pleasure in denying him.

Red had flushed several of his shipments down the toilet and he was losing money and becoming increasingly incensed, applying pressure to various perceived weak points of her operation, her kitchen and her family. Unable to access the kitchen pipeline he turned to one of her girls, named Tricia, forcing her to sell H and provide sexual favours. Tricia, caught between betraying the family and unable to unload Pornstache's inventory, she overdosed herself on the pills. Nichols swears up and down that Mendez covered up her death by staging a suicide by hanging.

Nichols and Red were hit particularly hard by her death and Chapman and Red who were already scheming to discredit him decided, after Tricia, that screwing with him would not be enough - he had to go altogether. Red had noticed that one of the Hispanic girls, Daya, had become pregnant by CO Bennet, and in an effort to hit several birds with one stone, they concocted a daring plan - Daya would seduce Mendez, claim it was rape and use the pregnancy as evidence.

It seemed fairly convoluted to Vause, hearing all the moving parts of this plan and learning of the many actors involved, yet by all accounts it actually worked! The Captain of the Guards, Joe Caputo, himself walked in on the pair of them fucking in the broom closet and sacked him on the spot. Not only was Pornstache sacked but he was arrested and charged as a sex offender carrying a minimum prison sentence of 18 months and Bennet was by turns exonerated of his own misdeeds.

So after 30 days in the SHU and a dislocated shoulder, Vause had some level of retribution and would never have to see that bastard again. They all had a good laugh and Morello got a lot of mileage out of miming the significant highlights of the story. Slipping back into their old routine, Nichols walked Vause back to her cube after dinner.

"So, you survived your first visit to the SHU,"

"I did. It would not have been half so bearable if someone didn't sneak me in a book every week,"

"Huh," said Nichols, which was neither a confirmation of her awareness of the gift nor an utterance of surprise. "How's your arm?"

"Fine. My shoulder was dislocated, pretty unbearable there for a hot minute, but once it popped back in it was fine. I've been doing the recommended physiotherapy in my cell to make sure I retain full strength and range of motion,"

"Yeah, you're right handed, uh?" Nichols said, making lewd gestures.

Vause rolled her eyes.

"So where was Chapman tonight?" Vause asked.

"Busy, I guess."

"Busy avoiding me?"

"I couldn't say."

"Couldn't or wouldn't?"

"Potato, tomato."

"Listen, Nichols, I've got to see her, to speak to her," Vause stopped walking and turned to Nichols.

"Believe me, she's aware," Nichols turned and continued strolling.

"I went to the SHU for her!" Vause took longer strides to catch up, speaking quietly so as not to be overheard by passers by.
"No. You went to the SHU because of Pornstache."

"Right, yes. Of course." Vause realised the truth of Nichol's assertion.

"Look, I don't know what went on between you two. I mean, Chapman generally plays her cards close to the vest, but when it comes to you - the woman is a vault."

"So she has mentioned me?"

"Not to me."

"Tsk. Could you just tell her that I want to speak to her?"

"Like I said, Stretch, she's aware."

After her spell in solitary, Vause decided to begin walking every morning before breakfast, she needed exercise and fresh air but she did not need sunshine and company. She rolled out of bed, put on her glasses, pulled on her boots and headed out to the track. After several laps, she estimated that it was a 200m track which she thought was actually pretty decent for a prison, the surface was grass which was evidently not mowed with any great frequency but still…

Out here at dawn she could see the mist beginning to evaporate from the ground as the sun warmed the earth, there were the occasional birds, which reminded her of the time she thought she had seen a chicken. Five laps, one kilometre, half a mile, it was more than enough exercise for Vause, she was more of a swimmer if anything but given that was not an option, a quick walk would have to suffice.

She returned to her cube, showered and went for breakfast. There was no sign of Chapman and she tried to make the best of it. Vause was expected to meet with Mr Healy before attending the laundry room for work detail so she headed to his office. His demeanour was markedly different from what it had been before her 30 day isolation vacay and after a tense 60 second stare off between the pair, he began voicing his displeasure.

"I'm disappointed in you, Miss Vause. I made it very clear when we first met that mixing with people, trying to make friends, was not in your best interest, but you didn't listen. On top of that, you have chosen the very worst group of people in the prison to befriend; drug addicts, delusionals, thieves, smugglers and lesbians."

Vause had to clamp her jaw and lips shut, at one point she even covered her mouth with her hand - the urge to inform Healy that being a lesbian was not a crime was urgent.

"I told you - lesbians can be very dangerous, it's the testosterone. But for whatever reason, you ran headlong into a group composed almost entirely of them; Chapman, Nichols, Morello, Black. I can't help you, now." He threw his arms up, as though he had personally scraped the bottom of the options barrel and regretted the inevitable findings.

His conclusion that testosterone filled lesbians were dangerous was laughable in the face of the actual facts - testosterone filled men had always been, and continued to be, the most significant danger to women on the planet. Family, domestic and sexual violence by perpetrators known to their victims, bullying, harassment and sexual harrassment in the work place, as well as aggression and violence by men perpetrated on random women - this description was only skimming the surface but Vause bit her tongue hard and succeeded in saying only,

"For the record - those were not my drugs."

"Of course. That's how they get you, Vause. They entice you into their friendship group, you feel obliged to hold something for them - "

"You think I was born yesterday? I wasn't holding someone else's drugs. What I am saying is that they were planted on me - CO Mendez had the drugs in his hand when he put it down my pants - "

"You know, I've been doing this job a long time, Vause. I've heard it all. I thought, when you came here, that you were a decent person, a nice lady in the wrong place at the wrong time, but I see it now, that was my mistake.

You gravitated toward Chapman's posse because that's what you are; a delusional, drug addicted, drug smuggling lesbian."

Vause raised an eyebrow, shook her head and folded her arms, the urge to respond was totally absent, her words were wasted on this prick.

"Well. You reap what you sow, Miss Vause. You're on your own. Now, get out of my office."

"Good meeting, Councillor Healy," she said as she left.

Morello was leaning against a wall nearby, waiting for her.

"Follow me," she said. "How was your meeting?"

"Oh, you know," Vause replied. "Where are we headed?"
"You'll see,"

They headed down a long hall in the direction of the cells and took a series of turns until Morello turned off into a particular cell and led her toward the back to the last cube. Chapman was talking to an older woman, one of the kitchen staff, Vause thought, who stood and left upon seeing their arrival. Morello tapped Vause lightly on the back before leaving, it was either a show of support or sympathy and Vause was unsure which.

She looked around the cube, one bed was made up with a thick crocheted blanket covering it and the other was unmade with the sheets and blankets neatly folded as though awaiting the arrival of a new inmate. The room was perfectly neat, with Chapman's locker sporting several books and bathroom products, her coat hanging on one of 'her' two hooks and the other side of the room was perfectly bare. Vause would have been tempted to spread out a little more if she was alone in a cube - to make use of those spare blankets at the very least.

Chapman was sitting on her bed watching Vause get her bearings and collect herself.

"So, this is where you have been hiding," said Vause, finally.

"Have a seat," said Chapman, gesturing to the spare bed, and ignoring her opening salvo.

Vause entered the cubicle, looked around again and sat down. The pair looked at each other for several moments.

"You wanted to speak to me?" Chapman was all business.

"Yeah. I did, I do. It's been, what, ten years?"

"You could have looked me up on facebook, any time."

"You have a facebook account?"

"No, I don't. But you not knowing that just proves that you are only speaking to me now because we have incidentally crossed paths. I'm busy, Vause. What is it that you want to say?"

Her manner and her tone were matter of fact, completely devoid of animosity. What she said was true, Vause could not deny it, but at one point they had meant something real to each other, and incidental or not - they were here now.

"I named you," The words ejected out of Vause like a projectile. She could not keep them in. She wanted to mend this breach so badly and the only way she could think to start was to break through this wall between them - to engage Chapman by any means necessary - even if it were detrimental to herself.

"I know."

"They gave me more time off in my plea deal, the more people I named, so…"

"I gathered as much."

"I'm sorry."

"I doubt that, Vause. You've always been pragmatic," Chapman shrugged, "It's an admirable trait."

Vause nodded, a lump forming in her throat. Chapman was right, she was not really sorry, less time is less time and only a fool would not take the deal.

"You look so different. What happened to you?"

"Ten years is what happened to me."

"Yeah but I mean, what actually happened to you?"

"It's not prison etiquette to ask people what they are in for, how much time they are serving or how much time they have left."

"No, I know that, I just thought - I was hoping we could be friends?"

"We were never friends. I don't blame you for naming me, you gotta do what you gotta do, right? So we're all good."

Vause opened her mouth and took a breath to speak but she had no idea what she was actually going to say. Luckily, Chapman, cut her off,

"I got people to lay off you for old times sake but you gotta understand that being associated with me ain't good for your health, right? I mean you've already been to the SHU, that oughta tell you something?"

"I don't care about that, Pi - Chapman - "

"Well you should. I'm not the same person from ten years ago - not the same person at all. I have responsibilities now, a purpose, people counting on me and I don't have time for 'hanging out'. What's past is past, Vause, you should look forward."

Chapman stood up, a clear signal that their conversation was over. Vause just stared at her, wanting to take in every detail of her face, her eyes, her mouth, her scars - she felt like this would be her last ever opportunity to do so, although she was going to fight like hell to make sure that was not the outcome.

She stood slowly,

"Thanks for seeing me,"

"Goodbye, Vause." Chapman turned her back and began fussing with her locker, dismissing Vause from her cube and her presence.

Chapter Eleven

Human beings were never satisfied. Never. Schools of philosophy, literature, psychology were full of allusions to the intricacies of human emotions, relationships and the perpetual longing for something more. Vause had been so certain that simply speaking with Chapman would assuage her mixed emotions about the past. She had been hoping that they would reconnect, that they would reminisce about the past, apologise and move forward together as friends. But that had not happened.

Things were so different now, Piper was not at all the same person, and everything was all jumbled up. Their days together had been ones of passion and opulence; of expensive wines and exorbitant dinners, and top of the line dresses, of first class flights and five star hotel suites. There had also been danger; extravagant parties with drugs, weapons and prostitution, illicit meetings, secret messages, threatening phone calls and urgent problems requiring immediate and creative solutions.

Alex had worked long hours and was always on call, Piper had grown bored of touring art galleries, museums and famous city architectural delights alone, she complained of feeling neglected. They had both made mistakes. Looking back, Vause had to admit that she had been arrogant, supremely excellent at her job and very well compensated but she had been such an asshole. And now she was in prison. Not for being an asshole of course, she had broken the law and she had gotten caught - it was no one else's fault and she could take full accountability for her choices.

She had probably - no, definitely, ruined the lives of many, many people, as well as herself, most of them drug mules and drug dealers and at least one of them named Piper Chapman. She had reeled Piper into the web of the cartel - that was on her. And whether she loved Piper or whether Piper was different - that had all been irrelevant at the end of the day. They had parted, lived for ten years scratching at the itchy scabs of the past, and now they were here. They were still connected, Vause had felt it and she was certain that Chapman felt it too.

Aside from that one time Piper had agreed to take a suitcase of money through customs, she had made it abundantly clear to Alex that she would never do it again. It had been a mistake to ask her, both times. Things had become strained between them even before their final argument and Piper had been right when she had pointed out that Alex's drug dealing was ruining everything good in her life. Looking back, asking Piper to make that flight to Istanbul was only the straw that broke the camel's back and that was all on Alex.

She wondered what had happened to Piper after that. She had taken a flight back to the States, probably to her parents home, maybe Cal's or Polly's. But what had happened to cause her to be in prison for six years? She looked older, more than ten years older, she looked tired and pained. Vause had been fooling herself pretending that she wanted to simply be friends with Chapman, when they had been sitting on those beds, so close that Vause could have reached out and touched Piper's face. All she had wanted in the world was to lay down with her, to hold her, to learn everything that had happened to her since they had last been together.

All the old feelings had come rushing back. The love, the attraction, the connection. Vause was still in love with Piper Chapman. Ten years had not dissipated the strength of her feelings at all. That connection was as strong today as it had ever been and that could not only be one sided - Chapman had to feel it too. Did she know? Would she admit it? Would she be willing to take another chance? It seemed unlikely, Vause had to admit.

"Yo Vause!" Alex looked up, to see Nichols heading her way. "You spoke with Chapman?"

"Yeah."

"All good now?'

"More or less."

"Hm. Sounds like less, but what do I know?" Vause just shrugged and returned to her book.

"I got one rule - only give 'em one chance to break your heart, Vause." Nichols took a seat on the grass next to her friend.

"Self restraint. Impressive for a junkie,"

"That's with drugs. You gotta remember, I got a mother who sent me to overnight camp when I was three. I have mastered the art of shutting people off."

"Maybe I should go into training with you,"

"What, Chapman?" Vause didn't respond. "Sucks. I'm sorry, kid."

Vause didn't say anything further but in her mind she was forming a resolution. Piper was the only woman she had ever loved and this, to her mind at least, was a second chance. She knew she was a flawed human being, she had made mistakes, big ones - but who hadn't? Vause was convinced that Chapman still felt something for her no matter what fucked up shit had gone on between them in the past a connection like theirs didn't just burn out - clearly. She had to find a way to work herself back into Chapman's good graces, earn her friendship. If she could get herself that far, she felt certain that they could find a way back to each other.

Meanwhile, her opportunity came sooner than she expected. The following month Vause received notice of Kubra's pending trial and a formal summons for her to appear as a witness to give evidence. Her lawyer had explained the terms of yet another plea deal, evidence against Kubra in exchange for more time off her sentence. She strongly suspected that Chapman would likewise have received a similar notice but Chapman didn't appear to think it was a discussion worth having - not with her at any rate.

A month after that the pair were handcuffed and footbound, alone, in the rear of a prison transport on their way to county jail for the purpose of being available on short notice at the mercy of the court. Chapman nodded by way of greeting and seemed prepared to leave it at that but Vause, being presented with a rare opportunity to be face to face and alone with Chapman, could not let it pass.

"How are you?" Vause asked.

Chapman looked surprised to be spoken to and appeared to take her time mulling over her options. Finally she said, "I'm fine. How are you?"

"I'm shitting myself. Giving evidence at Kubra's trial is no easy feat."

"Feds promise you time off for testifying against him?"

"Yeah. You?"

"Yeah, but it's fuck all."

"How long?"

Chapman looked uneasy, and again considered her options.

"A year, 18 months, depending," she said, shrugging.

"You don't consider that significant?"

Chapman looked out the window and didn't answer.

"How long are you serving?"

Chapman huffed and shook her head, almost imperceptibly, but Vause had been watching her closely.

"Come on, Piper - "

"Don't fucking call me that."

"Fine. But I don't understand why you insist on keeping me at arms length?"

"I don't need you to understand it."

Vause stared at Chapman, searching for a way to pierce her armour.

"What are you going to say? On the stand?" Vause asked.

"Undecided." Vause was surprised to hear that.

"Why? Why would you consider not taking the time off?"

"Snitches get stitches."

"Kubra can't get to you inside Litchfield?"

"I'm not concerned with Kubra." Chapman almost scoffed.

"Then what?"

"Just what I said."

"Oh," the sound escaped Vause before she could stop it.

"What?" asked Chapman.

"Nothing." replied Vause.

"No, that was something," Chapman was defensive.

"It doesn't matter."

"You think I'm institutionalised." said Chapman, hitting the nail right on the head.

"Aren't you?"

Chapman took a good long while to answer and finally said, "Perhaps."

"I'm scared." said Vause, eventually.

"Of Kubra?"

"Yeah,"

"You just said he can't get to me in Litchfield, what's to be scared of?"

"You don't have as much dirt on him as I do. He would definitely try to get to me in prison."

"Choices." was all Chapman said in reply.

Chapter Twelve

Chapman and Vause were housed in cells adjacent to each other in the jail. They were taken from the van, into the jail house, they were processed and shown their accommodation. Vause watched Chapman's every move, hungry for more details about this strange familiar person. She was also nervous; the trial had disturbed her equilibrium, the transport had stressed her out, being in proximity to Chapman had excited and upset her in equal measure and she still did not know what to say on the stand the following day, or the day after that depending on the pace of proceedings.

Chapman on the other hand appeared completely at ease with everything, but her demeanour was so practised, her defences so impenetrable that Vause could not tell if it was genuine or for show. Chapman used the toilet briefly, washed her hands, made her bunk and lay down in it, placing her hands under her head. Vause watched her and then unable to relax she began pacing and rehearsing various pros and cons of giving truthful evidence versus denying she had ever seen Kubra before in her life - all while he was sitting mere feet away at the defence table.

"Are you going to pace all night?" Chapman asked.

"Maybe, why? Does it bother you?" Vause asked, relieved for the contact, limited as it was.

"Forget it,"

"No, I'll stop."

"You're stressed."

"Well, yeah. It's kind of a big deal, don't you think?"

"No."

"That's it? No big deal?"

"You take the early time and the risk that he comes after you or you don't. Flip a coin."

"I think it's a little more complicated than that."

"Maybe that's the problem."

"What's the problem?"
"Look, it's only an extra 18 months. It's not a big deal."

"That's like 20% of my sentence, Chapman."

"Exactly, no big deal."

"Wow, I thought I was pragmatic - you take that to a whole new level."

Chapman didn't respond.

"Ten years ago you would have urged me to tell the truth, regardless of the consequences. You used to have integrity, you were so righteous, with an implacable moral compass. What happened to you?"
"I was never those things."

"You were. Miss Wholegrain, 100% Recyclable - "

Chapman jumped up in a rare display of temper, scaring Vause, despite the bars between them.

"I was a spoiled, annoying, sanctimonious fucking prig and if I met that me now, I would punch the living shit out of her. I was a dishonest, selfish, self centred, control freak who needed hard lessons to grow the fuck up."

"Pipes - "

"I am not her, not any more. I am Chapman."

"Okay, okay."

"Look, Vause, I mean you no harm, but I can't help you. Either lie or tell the truth, I mean what else can I say?"

"You can acknowledge that I feel conflicted."

"Okay, so you're conflicted?"

"I'm scared,"

"So? You think that shit is real? It's not real, it's just feelings. In the end it doesn't mean shit."

"Why, why doesn't it mean anything?"

"Look, if you can fight, Vause, defend yourself, then take the deal and take your chances if Kubra comes for you. If you can't, then shut your mouth and do the time. It's not rocket science."

"Yeah, there's that. But where is your humanity, your compassion?"

"What the fuck are you talking about Vause? You know I'm inhumane."

"What are you talking about?"

"I fucking abandoned you when you mother died - I mean, if you are expecting anything more from me after that, fuck. I don't know what to tell you."

"That was ten years ago? You said that you're not that person any more?"

"I've always been a cunt."

Chapman flopped back down on her bunk and put her forearm across her eyes - the prison equivalent of walking out and slamming the door. Vause sat down on her bunk and tried to unravel the whole conversation.

Chapman was called first thing in the morning. She had pushed her hands through the slot to be handcuffed and the guard led her away. She had paused briefly outside Vause's cell to say,

"I'm confident you will make the right call." She had kept her eyes on her shoes and then walked on.

Vause did not care for the message as much as she cared that Chapman had thought to give her one. That she tucked it away to enjoy for later when she was feeling less distressed. She had hardly slept and was more nervous than even at her own court proceedings. Even heading into the courtroom Vause still did not know what she was going to say on the stand. It wasn't until after she had been sworn in that she realised that Chapman had been right - about everything.

Vause could not defend herself against Kubra's likely revenge. Snitches get stitches. And it was, after all, only 18 months, but crucially - it would be 18 months in prison with Chapman.

Vause lied on the stand and could hardly keep the smile off her face as she left the courtroom. Relief flooded her system and she felt giddy with joy. How she had ever considered going up against Kubra now seemed like such utter madness - she had worked with him for almost fifteen years and she knew that he would never have let her testify against him without retribution. He had had Fahri shot in the head right in front of her. Lying had been the best choice - the only choice.

Chapman feigned sleep for most of their journey back to Litchfield and Vause allowed it to pass unchallenged - she now had 18 more months to make things right with Chapman.

Chapter Thirteen

Vause's laundry job was starting to take on a new angle with Pennsatucky experiencing a crisis of faith and a subsequent falling out with her other meth head friends. That left Vause and Pennsatucky on the outside and it was convenient for all, except for Vause, to have the two of them partner up more often than not but it was not worth her complaining about. So the pair of them moved throughout the laundry building together from day to day; from intake, to sorting, washing, drying, folding, distribution and collection.

Pennsatucky talked all day long while Vause remained largely silent and thoughtful, nodding and giving the minimum amount of feedback while they worked. As tiring as she found the constant chatter, she began to detest the woman less and less and have more compassion for her. She had had a shit life from conception until the present; her parents were drug addicted and poor, she had received virtually no education and had been trading sex to cover her basic human needs from a very young age. From the sound of things she been raped more times than she had had hot dinners and seemed hardly aware of the fact.

As the days passed the tension and conflict between Pennsatucky and the meth heads began to heat up and Vause was unfortunately trapped between them. At one point, Leanne had been bitching about Pennsatucky for hours and hours, day after day with Angie laughing and repeating her stupid half jokes and petty insults when Vause lost her temper. She approached Leanne saying,

"You know, I'm with you hun, really. She's a pain in the ass. I get it, I do. But I'm going to need you to shut the fuck up about her and get over your shit."

Leanne, Angie and the others looked at her with their mouths open - even Pennsatucky looked amazed. It was only when she turned around to walk away that Leanne, who had stepped into the role as group leader so recently vacated by Pennsatucky, felt the need to answer the challenge.

"Or what?" was her ingenious and non fear inducing comeback.

Vause turned back and stepped up close to her, causing her to step back and hit the dryer.

"Or I will fuck you, literally. I will sneak into your bunk in the night and lick your pussy."

Leanne looked half disgusted and half fascinated and Vause added,

"So, you know, choose." tucking a strand of hair behind Leanne's wing nut ear.

Then she picked up an armful of linen and beckoned to Pennsatucky,

"Come on."

The pair left the laundry room and spent the afternoon walking around carrying the linen, looking busy and doing absolutely nothing.

"You wouldn't really do that, would you? What you said, about her um…"

"Licking her pussy? Not if I could help it."

"But you said that, just to stick up for me?"

"Well, yeah. I mean, there is just a limit to how much bullshit I can tolerate before I explode."

"I suppose I hit your limit when I was talking about God and Jesus all them times?"

"More than you know," she grinned at Pennsatucky who grinned back.

As the pair grew increasingly friendly, things with the meth heads turned decidedly ugly. In the following days and weeks, their comments became nastier, more personal, which of course didn't bother Vause but did occasionally upset Pennsatucky. There were some growing aggressions; throwing things, pushing, shoving, tripping, hiding their work dockets, locking them in and out of parts of the laundry, sending them to COs who had not requested their presence.

Pennsatucky had been confronted, threatened and choked in the shower and although they didn't risk Chapman's ire by going after Vause in so public a place, they did manage to waterboard her in the sink of a cleaning closet. Then on the night of the Christmas pageant, Mr Healy lured Vause and Pennsatucky outside and watched as they were set on by the four armed meth heads in the snow. As Vause tried to negotiate - plead would be more accurate, with Healy, he simply stared at her for a moment before returning inside and the lock clicked loudly forcing them to confront their attackers and defend themselves.

Vause was no slouch when it came to a quick game of fisty cuffs, she had been bullied at school, had grown up in NYC and had roughed up the odd reluctant drug mule and feisty drug dealer. But she was not an experienced fighter, she was more proficient with her words, buying time, diffusing tension, proposing creative options and attractive solutions. Pennsatucky was shaping up nicely beside her but there were four on two, who were not prepared to listen and those homemade shivs looked like they could cause a real bleeder if they nicked the right spot.

For some reason, Vause was not as frightened as she should have been, she was more angry, and not even with her attackers - she was angry at Healy. He was a goddamn CO, her prison Counsellor who had gotten butt hurt because she had not turned out the way he had expected - and this was his retaliation?! The fucker! She would get him if it was the last thing she would do! But right now she had to find a way out of this situation and she had to find a way to get Pennsatucky out of this too.

It was her own fault that her little shadow had been caught up in this moment - it was Healy's resentment at her that had put Pennsatucky at risk of very real harm. She grabbed the smaller woman by the arm and they ran with the other four chasing them through the yard - the snow coming down in front of them. It would have been romantic or at least picturesque under different circumstances; Vause remembered the time that she and Chapman had trudged through snow in northern Burma. Vause had been inconvenienced and irritated but Chapman had been delighted and entranced by it.

The Vause and Pennsatucky ran toward the track only because it was the most direct route away from their pursuers, they had made considerable distance, impetus being a great motivator and Vause was grateful for all the early morning walks she had taken. She led Pennsatucky toward the little old gardening shed, they rounded on it, and burst through the door.

Vause had been hoping to find something to defend themselves with inside the old shed, a hammer, a saw, a pair of shears - anything, but it was sadly empty except for some wooden crates and a table, which they immediately dragged over to bolster the doorway. Vause stepped on the end of an old plank which caused it to flip up like the cartoons she had watched as a child, she stepped off of it and the plank fell back into place. But she had caught a glimpse underneath the plank, in the dirt below. She looked at Pennsatucky to see if she had seen it as well, and found her own interest reflected in the smaller woman's brown eyes. They had both spotted something of interest, but now was not the time for exploration.

"Later," said Vause and Pennsatucky nodded in agreement. First they had to find a way to escape the meth heads who were pushing their way through the door, the table scraping along the wooden floor as it was pushed back - it was not going to hold. Vause ran to the door on the other side, but there was a thick chain binding the double doors together and neither would budge. It was a dead end! The door and table were suddenly breached and Vause and Pennsatucky were trapped.

They both copped a beating that night, with several cuts and stab wounds, Vause woke up in the hospital wing thinking that prison was turning out to be at least as dangerous as she anticipated - but from very different sources. Both times she had ended up in medical had been as a direct result of very deliberate choices and actions of COs. She looked down at her body trying to assess the damage when Nichols came strolling in pushing a cleaning cart.

"Cleaning duty?" asked Vause, crooking an eyebrow in disbelief.

"Nah, just pushing the cart," she left the cart at the door and came to sit on the side of Vause's bed. "How are you doing, Stretch?"

"Those fucking meth heads…" She lifted her hand and felt the pain.

"Yeah, well they are all in the SHU so you don't gotta worry about them right now."

Vause knew that not worrying was a semi permanent solution.

"Hey Nicky, I've been thinking about little garden shed out past the track,"

"Want your own studio apartment, a bachelorette pad?"

"Something like that. Listen, there are many advantages to a hobby such as gardening."

"Gardening? I didn't know you had a green thumb, Vause."

"I'm not saying that I do. Think of the benefits of gentle exercise, improved mental health, team work, the produce could supplement the kitchen ingredients saving the prison money…"

"Uh huh." said Nichols trying to figure out Vause's end game.

"And after what Healy pulled on me and Pennsatucky, he owes us."

"Healy? He knew about this?"

"He lured me and Pennsatucky to that little pile-on and locked the door on us."

"And what? You want him to pay you in magic beans?"

"Exactly. I would appreciate it if you would run this up the flagpole, to Chapman."

"I don't think Chapman could give two shits about the food budget,"

"Believe me, this is something she is going to to want very, very much,"

Nichols' eyes pinned Vause's, not comprehending but her instincts told her she should pay attention.

Chapter Fourteen

One of Vause's stab wounds, the one in her abdomen, was especially nasty and a subsequent infection caused her to become quite ill, indeed. It was all worth it however when Chapman came to visit her personally. Like Nichols, she had pushed a cleaning cart over to the medical wing, and leaving it at the door of Vause's room, she approached tentatively.

"Hey," Vause croaked out, unable to hide her joy at seeing Chapman.

"How are you feeling?" asked Chapman, loitering by the door.

Vause, patted the side of the bed, the chains of her handcuffs rattling against the rail. Chapman looked reluctant but eventually approached.

"I heard you got an infection?" she said, looking Vause over.

"You're worried about me?" Vause asked and Chapman flushed a little.

"I thought we had already established that I don't wish you any harm."

"Not quite the same thing." Vause insisted, raising her eyebrow and bordering on flirtatious.

Chapman looked as though she was going to leave.

"I am glad you came to see me."

"I just wanted to make sure that you were alright."

"You wanted to see me, Chapman, admit it."

"I was concerned."

"Come closer, I can't see you," Vause said, squinting. Her glasses were on the side table and with her hands cuffed she could not reach.

Chapman's eyes flicked to the glasses and she walked around the bed, she took them up, unfolded them and carefully slipped them onto Vause's face, without touching her skin.

"There you go," she said.

"Thank you. It's really good to see you, Chapman."

"Well, like I said, I just popped in for a moment,"

"Don't go," Vause's voice cracked with emotions and Chapman looked torn.

The plea was an echo of the last time they were together ten years ago. Vause had virtually begged Piper not to leave and Piper had turned her back and left the room, left the country and left Alex. The memory was as keen for one as it was for the other, the air was suddenly thick with emotion.

Vause reached out her hand, "Admit that you want to see me as much as I want to see you."

Chapman looked at her hand and back up again,

"I've already explained to you that it's not safe for us to be in contact,"

"I'm in the hospital wing with stab wounds, Chapman, and that has nothing to do with you,"

"Yeah, well…" she appeared to have no real argument and Vause reached out for her again and this time Chapman took her hand.

"The meth heads are in the SHU," she finally said.

"Oh, you got retribution for me?" This time Vause was flirting. Chapman smiled and said,

"For Pennsatucky,"

"Ah yes, Pennsatucky. How is she?"

"She's fine, like a little cockroach, that girl - she's a survivor."

"Yes she is."

Vause tugged Chapman's hand, bringing her closer, she could not take her eyes from Chapman's face.

"Nichols said you got the gardening bug?"

"Yeah, I do. I think it could be an extremely beneficial project,"

"Oh yeah? Planning on establishing a pot farm?"

"It crossed my mind," said Vause, laughing until a searing pain in her abdomen pulled her up short.

"Hey, take it easy," Chapman was immediately concerned.

Coughing and wracked with pain, Vause grabbed Chapman's hand harder,

"Don't leave me, Chapman, please,"

"Hey, I'm here," Chapman said, bending over Vause, stroking her hair.

Eventually her coughs subsided and the pair of them were left in a moment of unexpected intimacy.

Uncomfortable to find herself feeling compromised, Chapman stepped back,

"I gotta go, Vause,"

"Ah, there it is," Vause replied.

"I don't know what to tell you, Vause. It's dang - "

"And I told you, Chapman," referencing her hospital bed.

They just stared at each other, finally Vause said,

"You always feel so inevitable to me."

Chapman coloured slightly and shrugged. Vause pushed on,

"When you have a connection with someone, it never really goes away, you know? You snap back to being important to each other because you still are - always have been. Time means nothing."

The mess of emotions seemed to be at war, playing out across Chapman's face.

"But I've changed so much since we were together. Haven't you?"

"No, not really. I'm pretty consistent."

A bark of laughter burst forth from Chapman's chest,

"I don't know whether that's better or worse."

"You always were a romantic." Vause smiled at Chapman and squeezed her hand. "I am more realistic, Chapman, you're here, I'm here."

"I'm not sure that's going to be enough, this time, Vause."

"What do you need from me? I'll do anything."

Chapman shook her head, unclasped their hands and stepped back.

"Nothing. There's nothing."

"I know you. And I know things have been messy, I'm not perfect - but you and me, Chapman, we fit. You know that we do."

Chapman was backing up toward the door,

"I have never stopped loving you. I never even pretended once, in ten years, that I didn't love you. I want you, I want to work this out. I will do anything."

Chapman almost bolted out of the door, forgetting to take her prop cleaning trolley with her.

Chapter Fifteen

The following month Vause was 'supervising' the cleaning out of the old shed and the clearing of the land about it, having drawn up rough plans for the design of a little vegetable patch and worked out a little budget for basic tools and seeds. These were submitted to Counsellor Healy who, through a combination of guilt and lightly masked coercion, became the Garden Program's biggest supporter, he even pledged to donate the fertiliser out of his own money upon suggestion.

Healy advocated the idea directly to plant loving Caputo, who genuinely cared for the inmates and their wellbeing. He latched on to the idea of the Program's produce being supplied to the prison kitchen in an effort to supplement the food budget and used the financial angle to sell the Garden Program concept up the chain of command to Natalie Figueroa. She eventually tentatively signed off on the idea as an experimental prison program and approved a miniscule one off 'establishment' grant which was shaved off the education budget and used for essential tools and seeds.

Healy reluctantly approved Vause as the project leader with Pennsatucky as her 2IC and the meth heads were among the first 'volunteers' to add their names to the list of interested parties (under duress). Pennsatucky enjoyed ordering them to carry out the dirtiest, hardest tasks and the heaviest lifting and some of the golden girls took great pleasure in the planting of seeds. Frieda had some great practical ideas regarding the program and Vause encouraged her to implement all the changes and innovations she liked while she focussed on cleaning out the old shed.

After hours she and Pensatucky secretly returned to lift the floor planks to investigate their accidental findings - directly underneath the loose floorboards was a sort of screw cap manhole, fucking impossible to loosen after being closed for so long. Vause asked Red the price for a small amount of olive or vegetable oil and when she asked what it was for, Vause invented a foot condition involving very dry and cracked skin on her heels. Red nodded and immediately agreed to supply her with the oil at no cost, which Vause accepted.

At every opportunity she and Pennsatucky rubbed the oil around the seal and tugged at it with all their might and after a week of straining every muscle in their body, the seal finally gave way. The unscrewed and lifted it out carefully, it was a heavy fucker. They managed to turn it upside down between them and slide it onto the table to keep the thread clean and dust free - something that Pennsatucky insisted on and it seemed like a reasonable suggestion to Vause.

The manhole covered a large vertical pipe with a ladder fixed to one side, making ascending it a cinch for someone as petite as Pennsatucky. After a little persuasion, she finally swung her body down onto the ladder, amazingly the pipe was clean and dry and Pennsatucky followed the tunnel all the way to the end, coming out outside of the prison perimeter. Recognising that they are sitting on a valuable resource, a literal prison pipeline, they agreed to keep their discovery secret until they could decide how best to make use of their boon. They dragged the table to the middle of the room and stacked the wooden crates beneath it in an attempt to disguise the loose floor boards.

It took a couple of months for the garden to really start flourishing, Vause knew nothing about gardening and allowed Freida a free hand to lead their efforts with all of her expertise and considerable ingenuity. They had planted all the basic herbs which had taken and were growing quickly, as well as salad items lettuce, tomatoes and cucumbers and vegetables zucchini, spinach, eggplant and pumpkin. The inmates were proud of their hard work and it was a special moment of celebration the first time their product was served to them at dinner. In fact it bolstered the whole inmate population - even those who had not contributed directly.

Vause and Pennsatucky had still not made any decisions regarding the pipeline. Pennsatucky had been keen to sell immediately to the highest bidder but Vause had started playing chess with her protege in an effort to explain to her the value of the long game. Not that Vause was any chess master, but she knew enough to make her point and finally Pennsatucky began calculating the potential worth of grander schemes somewhere down the line.

Ever since her medical room visit Chapman had kept her distance from Vause and Vause let her, she stopped pushing but she didn't stop hoping. Occasionally they were at the dining table at the same time for the entirety of the meal, but Vause gave Chapman as much space as she could, she didn't single her out for greetings and salutations, she didn't attempt to sit by her and she didn't attempt to gain her attention or engage her in conversation. She had delivered her message and had sensed how conflicted Chapman was feeling - as much as she wanted Chapman, she didn't want her under duress.

In the meantime Vause was vigilant, watching a very busy Chapman who was running around the track, working in electrical, consulting with Red in the kitchen, liaising with her generals, chatting with COs and resolving inmate and clan disputes. There were fights; she beat a few inmates and was beat on by some of the guards. There were trysts too; Chapman fucked a quite a few girls, some were new intakes and others she had clearly fucked before.

Vause wasn't jealous, she never had been the jealous type. She knew what had been between herself and Chapman once and what could be again, and the sex that Chapman was having in the showers, in broom closets, in the chapel and anywhere else there was half a chance of getting away with it, was not comparable. Vause and Chapman had all the right ingredients; intensity, heat, tenderness, aggression, salty and sweet. She was willing to wait, to do as she had been advising Pennsatucky, and play the long game.

Over time Vause settled into prison life, having a routine and friends really helped. She continued to walk every morning, she went to work six days a week, if she had any spare time in the sunlight hours she would read out doors, in the evening she often played cards or checkers or watched tv. Sunday was a non-work day, except for the kitchen and essential cleaning like the toilets and the change of pace was a welcome relief for everyone in the prison including Vause.

On Sunday morning she and Miss Claudette cleaned their cube together, the one day she allowed her bunkmate to boss her around a little. After her walk and breakfast, she went to church, not because she was religious - she preferred to think of it in more academic terms; sometimes there was something of interest in the sermon, which Vause preferred to think of philosophical, historical or literary rather than religious, or sometimes the choir sang a familiar hymn which was pleasant.

As far as friendships went; Vause became close friends with Nichols who was one of the few people inside that Vause considered her intellectual equal, along with Sophia, Sister Ingalls and even Yoga Jones on occasion. She had enjoyed quality conversations with Taystee and/or Poussey in the library, but the two could become rather immature given the slightest provocation putting an end to any interesting or meaningful dialogue. Vause and Pennsatucky had become quite close although their relationship was more akin to a big sister/little sister than one of any genuine intellectual reciprocity.

Morello was always pleasant and diverting company, she was often upbeat and friendly, caring and liked to cheer people up. It did take Vause quite some time to cotton on to the fact that sometimes Morello's stories were entirely fantastic; Vause had been confused when Morello had mentioned being engaged and put it down to not paying close enough attention and that what she probably meant was that she had been engaged because there were some references to a fellow named Christopher and another named Vinnie. And from what Vause could tell, Morello was in a fairly committed relationship with Nichols.

Nichols was sometimes present during these monologues and she would largely smile and nod along, adding to Vause's confusion. There were times when Morello became, what could only be described as obsessed, manic even, about planning her wedding, not a past wedding but an imminent wedding. The colours were pink and yellow, the theme was 1950s, there were to be six bridesmaids although one cousin was being a bitch, so it could go down to five. The menus received a great deal of attention, the invitations, the first dance and on and on.

Sometimes Morello claimed to already be married, a newly wed mind you, and sometimes she was pregnant. Vause had been confused numerous times and not finding any answers with Morello she began observing Nichols during these times for a clue as to what was actually happening. Nichols was ordinarily a very plain spoken person and normally Vause would not hesitate to ask her what was what - but she judged that this might be too sensitive a topic even for Nichols. Plus, she was very protective of Morello so Vause could hardly ask, "Hey is your girlfriend crazy or what?"

She continued to doubt herself repeatedly primarily on the basis that she had a great deal of respect for Nichols and it had never occurred to her that Nichols could or would form an attachment to someone who was essentially mentally unstable - actually delusional. The word reminded her of what Mr Healy had called their group, 'drug addicts, delusionals, thieves, smugglers and lesbians'. Morello must be the delusional he had in mind.

Nichols was like everyone else in their friendship group, or family, she swallowed as much of Morello's bullshit as she could tolerate and then made an excuse to move on before she exploded. So Vause adopted the same tactic, nobody ever said, "No, Morello, you are not pregnant," or "No, Morello, pink and yellow do not go together,". Instead they all just nodded along and made suggestions about ideal places for a honeymoon or delicious starters they once tried at a community meeting or church fundraiser.

Chapter Sixteen

In the new year some dramatic changes unsettled the prison population, inmates and staff alike; the government contracted out the management of Litchfield prison to a private corporation. They shipped in new private corrections officers who were dressed and acted like the gestapo and they doubled the population of the prison without investing in either resources or infrastructure. The quality of the food plummeted, the population of the cubes doubled from two to four with the installation of bunk beds and the lines for the toilets and showers became unmanageable.

Joe Caputo was promoted to Warden, a new Prison Counsellor named Berdie Rogers was hired, and feeling threatened, Healy became depressed and isolated himself in his office with his anti-lesbian literature and his sociological textbooks. The new Chief of guards was a huge tower of a man, a sadistic authoritarian fuck called Desi Piscatella. He was loyal only to the men under his command, showing little care - contempt even for the prison hierarchy above and the prisoners under his care. Under Piscatella's watch and with his support, many CO's became more abusive and cruel, instituting increasingly difficult and dangerous conditions within the prison.

That was not all. Among the new inmates was a calculating, powerful black woman named Yvonne Parker, aka Vee, who was a charismatic, intelligent, highly manipulative person with an uncanny ability to read people and exploit their weaknesses. She presented herself as a caring maternal figure, gathering her young chicks about her, but the price that those chicks would pay for the illusion of comfort was almost deadly.

In addition, Vee worked to increase the hostility and tension between the black and the caucasian factions, on the one hand marshalling the African Americans on one side and pointing them at an imagined enemy, enabling her to operate in the shadows. Chapman et al. watched her systematically making friends amongst the black community, stating that the blacks ought to be running the prison due to sheer numbers if nothing else, that they ought to be controlling contraband, commanding respect and power amongst the other inmates. Initially the response was tepid but Vee started with a profitable little tobacco rort that raised the interest of her group and enabled Vee to start moving her pawns around the board.

It was not Vee's first time down, nor was it her first stay at Litchfield. The way Red told it, she and Vee had history; a history bathed in blood. The last time Vee had been incarcerated at Litchfield she saw an opportunity for running drugs through the kitchen and to that end, befriended Red, 'sharing' the idea with her. Red jumped on the opportunity, using one of the produce suppliers to bring contraband into the prison, which Red then sold on to the inmates for a profit. Refusing to deal in drugs of any kind, Red traded in stockings, make up, hair dye, beauty products, razor blades, food and candy that was unavailable through the commissary.

While Red was establishing her smuggling operation, Vee was employing her considerable charisma, intelligence and manipulation to install herself as the leader of her own crew. Once Red's kitchen operation was established and her customers primed for business, Vee and her generals returned to take over the 'pipeline' through coercion and violence, beating Red severely. She then began importing heroin into the prison, increasing her power and financial independence. Red and Chapman were immediately concerned by her presence, they had long maintained a strict policy about not tolerating drugs in the prison and they didn't want to allow Vee any foot hold that might enable her to do that, again.

In addition to Vee, came another ambitious inmate, a vicious and violent white sociopath, Madison Murphy who introduced herself as Badison. The pair were as different in presentation as they were similar in personality traits and intended goals; Vee was quiet, watchful and precise whilst Badison was loud, vulgar and grasping. Murphy was desperate to form her own gang to corner the Litchfield mercenary market but she was opportunistic and would attempt to muscle in on anything profitable including drugs, phones and weapons.

Like Vee, Murphy was excellent at spotting and exploiting opportunities but she was far less subtle about it; she started with the disenfranchised meth heads and expanded from there. She basically went around intimidating people for commissary funds, phone credit, visiting privileges and anything else she saw and wanted. The general prison population disliked both Vee and Badison but few had the means to strike back, one seemingly innocuous form of revenge came and stayed was that everybody refused to call Badison by her preferred nickname - rather they all persisted in calling her Murphy. It was a small stand but an important victory.

Murphy desired many things; power, notoriety, money… above all, the one thing Murphy saw and wanted on arrival was Alex Vause. She started with the obvious Big Boo style flirting which, like Big Boo before her, Alex passed with a wide berth. Murphy didn't take rejection as comfortably as Boo, but she did her best to conceal her humiliation and rage.

"Hello, baby, look at you getting your sweat on,"

Vause shuddered. She had seen Murphy hanging around the track and in an effort to avoid her entirely Alex stayed on the furthest side of the track, rather than walking around and around, she simply walked back and forth. Clearly that had not been enough. Murphy had given up waiting and decided to waddle over in Alex's direction.

Everything about her repulsed Vause, from her physicality to her character, and there were no circumstances, inside or out of prison that would ever tempt her to even befriend the girl, let alone exchange some romantic or sexual favours. She ignored her as best she could but it was a dangerous game - Murphy was emotionally unstable, unpredictable and violent. Vause had witnessed her knocking inmates clean out, with one strike over almost nothing.

"So are you always a loner or you got something on your mind?" Murphy was breathing hard, having to time her walk to catch Vause, before she turned back. Now she walked alongside her, her shorter and considerably wider legs pumping out of time with Vause's long lean ones, the sheen obvious on her pink skin.

"I'm pretty much a loner." Vause felt compelled to engage for the sole purpose of avoiding her ire.

"I seen you hanging around with that toothless little gnome, what's her name? Pennsabama?"

"Pennsatucky. Yeah, we work laundry together." Vause neither looked at Murphy, nor showed any interest, merely answered her as a bored cashier might.

"And I seen you eating with Chapman and her crew. You in with them?"

"I'm not 'in' with anyone."

"Well, you could be in with me?"

"No thanks."

"Oh come on. I'm new here, sure, but where I come from, I was like fucking Oprah. I ran my own crew and I will again just as soon as I find my feet. Somebody like you could benefit from being friends with somebody like me."

"Not interested." Vause picked up the speed and left Murphy behind.

With her arm in a cast, Murphy was exempt from work duty but she still found her way down to the laundry more than Vause liked. Sitting around, observing the interactions of Vause, Pennsatucky and the meth heads, joining the conversation and attempting to establish a formidable reputation. The meth heads laughed at every thing she said, but Pennsatucky stuck close by Vause and the pair of them tried to escape her presence as frequently as possible.

At dinner Murphy brought her tray to the table and attempted to sit with Vause but Nichols and some of the other girls told her to fuck off. Murphy tried to laugh it off with a comment about 'making friends' but Vause had two goals and they were intrinsically linked; a) stay safe and b) win over Chapman. She did not want to get caught up in Murphy's games, the woman was dangerous.

Nichols, Morello and Boo talked about Murphy after she was gone, sharing what they knew about her; what she was in for, her extra curricular activities, her penchant for violence and how they intended to freeze her out on every level. Chapman, Red and the crew wanted to maintain the status quo as far as possible within the chaos of the recent change, that meant stopping drugs from getting into the prison and not allowing other leaders and gangs to get established.

After dinner Nichols and Vause walked back to Vause's cube to find a very pissed off Miss Claudette, packing her belongings into several garbage bags.

"I have been in this cube for more than five years - and you have the audacity," she pointed a long index finger at Vause's chest, "to have me moved. What did I ever do to you?"
Vause looked at her roommate wide eyed,

"Miss Claudette, I have no idea what you are talking about,"

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, what's going on here?" asked Nichols, authoritatively.

"She has asked for me to be relocated to a new cube so she can bunk together with her lover!" Miss Claudette now spoke directly to Nichols who looked at Vause for confirmation.

"I don't know anything about this," said Vause, looking around at several bags containing Miss Claudette's belongings. She felt sad at the thought that her bunkmate would be replaced, they had initially formed a reluctant friendship but had grown to respect each other.

"I swear, I have nothing to do with this." Vause was looking from Nichols to Miss Claudette and back again, when a smiling Murphy arrived holding a bag of her own.

"Well, howdy roomy," she said, smiling brightly at Vause.

"No!" the word ejected from Vause's lips before she could stop it.

"What's going on here?" Nichols asked Murphy.

Murphy forced a look of innocence onto her face and replied,

"Just doing as I'm told." she said, then added, "Guards!" by way of explanation, but then a wide smile lit her face as she eyed Vause again.

Nichols looked at Vause,

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Vause felt defeated.

"Of course she will be, we are going to become best of friends, right roomie?" Murphy hip checked Vause who rolled her eyes and moved away.

Vause and Nichols helped Miss Claudette to pack and carry her belongings to her new room. Vause apologised profusely along the way, declaring again that she had nothing to do with the change and would rather have Miss Claudette as her cube mate than Murphy any day of the week. Miss Claudette was eventually convinced and she was even more mollified to find herself in a cube that had yet to have its single beds converted into bunks.

Nichols spoke to Vause as she walked her back to her cube for the second time that night, asking her about Murphy and whether she anticipated any trouble with Murphy. In an attempt to downplay the scenario, because she did not want to appear weak to either Nichols, Chapman and her crew, Murphy or any one else. By the time they returned Murphy was laying on her freshly made bed, hands behind her head with a huge grin on her face.

Nichols gave her a filthy look and said meaningfully to Vause,

"I'll be back for you first thing in the morning, okay?"

Vause just rolled her eyes and lay down on her bunk, a feeling of dread surging through her.

Murphy was the roommate from hell. Vause was not surprised, she had anticipated as much and was convinced that Murphy exaggerated her behaviour in order to get a rise out of Vause. She snored, she farted, she was messy and dirty, she helped herself to Vause's well, everything. She did weird things like crawling into Vause's bed to wait for her and refusing to get out until Vause kissed her or some equally unpleasant and unlikely request. Murphy spent a lot of time posturing in various states of undress, asking for moisturiser to be rubbed on her back, trying to either attract Vause or repel her, Vause was no longer sure.

Nichols stuck close to Vause, monitoring the situation, giving Murphy filthy looks, shooting her sharp remarks and warning her to keep her distance and so on. Murphy always sniggered and grinned like a fool but she never smart mouthed Nichols too much and she never made a move against her like she would had it been someone else. Outside the cube Murphy was getting restless, she was getting no traction with Chapman's crew and Vee was making a mint with the tobacco and practically churning out disciplined black soldiers.

Chapter Seventeen

As if Vause didn't have enough to worry about, a new female guard, CO McCullough, was beginning to show an interest in her. She had been reassigned with Piscatella's group of guards, she was less aggressive than many of the others and more quiet, so much so that months had passed before Vause even noticed her. At first Vause noticed her occasionally standing in a doorway, guarding, but then she began to notice her more and more often. It became so that she was nearly always in the same room as Vause, or outdoors at the same time, at the vegetable garden.

If that had been the sum total of their interaction that would have been fine but Vause felt that there was something more, it was almost as though McCullough was watching her. Perhaps not looking at her directly, at least not often, but always in her general direction - it happened far too often to be coincidental and it happened with no other guard. Their initial direct contact happened so slowly that by the time it occurred Vause was almost dying of curiosity.

It took weeks and weeks for McCullough to cross the room, one inch at a time. First she stood in the doorway between one room and the next, then one foot inside the room, a week later she was standing halfway along the wall. And so on until she made her way to the places Vause was most likely sit in various rooms and spaces - still not looking directly at her. Vause had so wanted to break the tension, breach the silence, take control of the situation, but she was also curious as to how it would play out.

At first they just exchanged a look here and there, and after a week of that, McCullough would nod and say "Vause."

Vause would respond in kind, "CO McCullough," accompanied by a nod and then she would return to her activity.

Their first conversation was out of doors where Vause correctly thought that McCullough presumed that there would be less chance of them being noticed speaking together. She appeared excessively nervous and finally choked out,

"Nice day."

Alex could not believe it - she had all that time to think of an opening line, and that's what she decided on? Pathetic.

"You come here often?" she shot back.

McCullough looked confused for a moment and then nodded, turning her body away in an attempt to look less conspicuous.

"Yeah, that was a terrible opener," she admitted. "Got any tips?"

"Yeah, but I'm not giving them away!" Vause softened her tone ever so slightly to signal that she was not entirely serious.

"You seem really smart,"

"Is that another attempt at a pick up line?"
"Maybe, is it working?"

"No. Maybe you should just try to act like a regular human being,"

"Wow!" McCullough gave Vause a sidelong look, "Harsh but fair."

"Yeah, I guess it's hard to be human in here - on both sides."

"I guess it is. I know the guards, some of them, are pretty terrible people."

"Yeah, I don't know how you stand them?"

"I have to put up with them the same as you," McCullough shrugged in defeat.

"You're a veteran?" Vause asked.

"Yeah, how'd you know?"

"I'm pretty good at reading people."

"Oh yeah? What else do you read, about me, I mean?"

"You grew up poor, you're a loner, you can't open up to people, you can't hold down a job. You probably have PTSD, trauma, anxiety, insomnia,"

"Holy shit!"

"Don't freak out, those are all common symptoms of people having worked for the US government."

McCullough turned away even more now.

"You probably have tatts, in discreet places, like on your back. Something meaningful, something large, something that reminds you of where you come from?"

McCullough spun back to face her.

"You've seen it?!" She charged Vause angrily.

"Relax. You know what these girls are like? They look up everything about everyone, besides they think you're hot."

"Who thinks I'm hot?"

"Ha! You really think I'm going to answer that?"
"That's not what I meant."

"I'm sorry, okay. I was just trying to be funny but I guess it was pretty shitty - I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well… I gotta go."

McCullough turned and walked back inside.

Vause didn't see her for a few days but then she was back, standing in the doorway between two rooms, looking in Vause's general direction. This time it only took her two days to make her way over to Vause, she nodded once and said,

"Vause."

Vause nodded back and replied, "CO McCullough."

"I took that image down, from online,"

"Great, now there's probably only 800 copies saved as people's personal spank bank material, in this prison alone."

"Ew!"

"To each their own."

"That wasn't all a joke, what you said the other day, about me being a vet?"

"No. I am genuinely good at reading people and I pegged you as ex military, the rest is basically essential for anyone who has served. And someone showed me your picture, that's it."

"It's not where I'm from, Texas. It's the meaning of the word Texas in Hasinai, a Native American Tribe, means Hello Friend. Just, stuck with me."

"Couldn't have gone with Aloha?"

"Could have, but didn't." There was a glint of steel under the words which caught Vause's interest.

"What about you, any tatts?"

"Yeah, my lucky star on the back of my right hip."

"Are you sure it works?"

"I'm sure," and Vause felt the steel of her own words.

They were provoking each other and she wasn't sure how or why.

"You were right. About the PTSD, the trauma, all of it."

"I'm sorry. I'd much rather have been wrong."

"I hate myself," McCullough's words came rushing out as though she had been holding them in for a lifetime. "I have extreme PTSD from the fighting, aggravated by the shit I had to put up with from my own platoon - like these assholes." she waved her hand to indicate her fellow COs.

"I can't sleep at night and when I do I wake up in sweat puddles. Everybody claims they want to help soldiers coming home, "thank you for your service", but no one is ready to put up with the reality that comes with that. I jump when I hear a loud noise, I can't control my temper, I fucking burn myself, I cry all the time."

"Jesus, McCullough - "

"I know, I'm fucked up!"

"No. I was going to say, that situation is fucked up."

"Oh, yeah, right."

"And then you get to come here everyday! You might as well be in here!"

"Seeing you everyday actually makes this place survivable."

Chapter Eighteen

Piscatella was an especially nasty guard who believed that all inmates were less than human, deserving of zero consideration and worse he was head guard, leader of all the other dipshit guards. He entered Litchfield on his own personal crusade to disband all gangs, to identify and effectively neuter their leaders and to disrupt the supply of contraband, permanently. Okay, so that was probably his job description, but he didn't have to enjoy it with special relish! He arrived with his own gang however, hard core Correctional Officers many with their own special interest rorts to keep Litchfield entertaining and to supplement their meagre wages.

Piscatella and the guards enjoyed exercising extreme control of inmates, intimidating them privately and humiliating them publicly, frequently bending and breaking the rules and regulations to do so. Some guards participated in the supply and movement of contraband including drugs and cell phones, using their knowledge and power to further exploit inmates for sexual and other favours. Between the guards and the escalating conflict between inmates and gangs life at Litchfield was becoming unpleasant, frightening and downright dangerous.

Many of the guards played a game they called 'Fantasy Inmate'; the buy-in was $100, they each selected inmates who were added to their 'squad' which then competed against the squads of other guards to earn points. Inmates would earn points based on the level of harm they dealt or received; accidents, injuries, infractions, self harm, sexual exploits, fights and so on. It was sick enough if guards were simply observing activity and tracking points, guards would intervene, setting inmates up by planting contraband and then initiating searches, bribing them to fight and fuck, and so on.

Piscatella pushed and pulled the inmates around for no reason, screamed at them for minor infractions or none at all, and wrote up shots for anything and everything, valid and not. He did not like Chapman on sight but he had a special place in his hateful heart for Red who he pursued, interrogated, humiliated and abused at every turn and he searched her kitchen repeatedly. His inhumane treatment of the inmates in general earned him more hatred than fear, although the fear was real and significant enough.

Between Piscatella's suspicion about the goings on in the kitchen operations and subsequent searches and Vee's not too subtle interest in the kitchen pipelines Vause saw an opportunity. Vause was no fool, she had been moving fifty kilos of black tar through three continents by the time she was 21 years old and she knew the value of the otherwise unknown garden shed pipeline that she and Pennsatucky were sitting on. If managed carefully, this resource had the potential to fulfil a variety of requirements, and Alex was nothing if not careful, pragmatic and successful. She would have to make time for and Pennsatucky to discuss their options in absolute seclusion and privacy.

In the meantime, Vause could see the pressure mounting on Chapman, directly and indirectly. She was a target of the guards and Piscatella more than most, their business was frequently interrupted but Chapman's primary concern seemed to be the safety of the members of 'the family'. Red was in enormous danger from both Piscatella and Vee. Vee who had her mind set on taking over the kitchen pipeline to import her drugs and having amassed the loyalty of nearly all of the black prison population - she was a potent and persistent problem.

Vee's demand for unyielding respect and desire for absolute control saw her people struggle under the weight of the burden she placed upon them, she dealt only in heavy handed punishments without regard for the concept of 'proportional response'. Vause had seen a reluctant Poussey forced out early on for a minor infraction and the price she paid for standing up to Vee was brutal; she was shunned, intimidated, humiliated, threatened and beaten. Vee knew how to turn the knife, she made Poussey's own friends carry out the retribution, former close friend Suzanne bashed her in the shower and her best friend Taystee turned on Poussey in a stunning display of callousness.

But for all that, the cigarette business was going well. Vause had her eyes and ears open and she knew that Red and Chapman suspected that the tobacco was only a trial run for the harder drugs. But for now the smokes were garnering her the interest of her target group and Vee used that to establish her crew and the required infrastructure - Vause could identify from her own drug running days.

Murphy's 'gang' was nothing in comparison to Vee's, she had fewer in number, less able recruits who were less disciplined and she was still trying to find a way to galvanise her crew, still looking for a way to make some money and a pipeline into the prison. But for the moment she was an intimidating thug, running around poking her nose into other people's business and holding them hostage to her demands for shiny things. Her hangers on were just thrilled to be on the giving end of the brutality for once in their otherwise miserable lives.

Murphy had not given up on Vause, and Vause had given this a great deal of consideration. Vause was not unattractive, not necessarily model beautiful like Chapman, but above average attractive with unusual features - her height, her sexy voice, her pale skin made even more so framed by her black hair. She was a sleek, striking figure, with a devastating ability to read people and a biting sense of humour. Usually women with low self esteem and a fragile self image would not attempt to punch above their weight or would quit quickly upon rebuff, but strangely, not Murphy.

How to explain Murphy's persistent interest in her… Was it her? Or was it Murphy? If Vause had to guess, she would say it was Chapman. Like Mendez, Murphy had cottoned on to the idea that Vause had a connection to Chapman, despite or perhaps because of the distinct lack of contact between the pair. It was the only theory that explained Murphy's apparent persistent thirst for humiliation and rejection which was so obviously going against the grain, Vause could see at least that much. Hell, Murphy had beaten women for less in her short time at Litchfield.

She had thought that no one, but a very few people, were aware of a connection between herself and Chapman but Mendez had obviously picked up on it from a distance. He had noted that Vause was a weak point for Chapman and had used it to effect. And now Murphy was potentially doing the same, although she appeared to be prepared to play a longer game - Vause was impressed, she would not have thought Murphy had that level of intellect or self control.

Chapman was a different kettle of fish to Vee and Murphy as far as running her own crew. For a start she shared her leadership position with Red which neither of the others would ever consider. Also Chapman and Red had a set agenda - not that Vause was privy to the details of their organisation, but given her own background as recruitment officer for an International Drug Cartel, she was interested in such things, she considered herself a student of the sociological organism.

Chapman was interested in the goings on within the prison in a general sense, even before the arrival of Vee and Murphy, but she rarely involved herself in other people's business. For example, she did not set out to recruit everybody, dominate everybody or require shows of respect from everybody; she had her crew and they did their business and that was pretty much it - except for drugs. They would immediately flush any drugs they discovered straight down the toilet, regardless of whose it was or how much it was worth.

She didn't intimidate or humiliate people for the sake of it, she didn't interfere in other people's affairs for no reason and threats of physical violence were measured and minimal. She focussed on her business and her people, she helped out where she could, especially the golden oldies, and people seemed to respect that. She was very popular amongst the general population, if that meant anything.

But Vee and Murphy were sticklers for detailed knowledge about everything and every one, they would take it upon themselves to interfere in all sorts of irrelevant shit, their methods were harsh and random, within their own crew and outside. Snitches were sometimes rewarded and sometimes punished and everybody feared them, making Chapman a more aatractive option still. They exploited even the most vulnerable inmates over nothing at all, for shows of obeisance, labour such as cleaning their cubes and commissary taxation.

The tension was everywhere in the prison, taking a toll on everyone. The disenfranchised, like the Golden girls were pushed around, made to leave their seat in the dining room whenever Vee or Murphy decided they wanted to sit at that particular table. They were also, like Miss Claudette, moved in and out of their bunks and cubes by COs on their payroll, but there was trouble within the factions as well. Vause could feel the prison like the place was a pressure cooker and she needed to make sure she was safe as far as possible, herself and those she cared about.

Chapter Nineteen

Vause and Pennsatucky took some snacks out and had themselves a secluded little picnic, both with eyes to the perimeter for their circle to ensure complete privacy.

"This where you tell me what the plan is?"

"This is where I tell you my idea, and we decide together."

"Oh." said Pennsatucky, cramming her mouth full of peanut m&ms.

Vause knew that Pennsatucky had never been treated as a true partner in any relationship, she had either dominated those weaker than her or been dominated. If she was honest, her own experience had not been so different - albeit hers had a more sophisticated gloss. It was a dog eat dog world. But Vause understood that this opportunity had the capacity to create a lot of change and whilst she could have ditched or taken advantage of her unlikely partner who would have little to no recourse - Vause wanted to expose her to a different experience.

"As I see it, here are our options; we do nothing, we 'sell' our pipeline to one of the three gang leaders; Chapman, Vee or Murphy. Or we make use of the tunnel for ourselves, bringing in and selling our own contraband."

"We could make a fortune!"

"Yes, we could. We would also be putting a target on our backs."

"Yeah, I see what you're saying - Murphy would beat us to a bloody pulp and Vee would kill us."

"And we would need help, inside and outside, it would be a lot of work, a lot of risk.'

"Something tells me," said Pennsatucky, pointing and circling her index finger at Vause, enjoying this little tête-à-tête immensely, "This is not your favourite option."

"You are right, it is not. I also don't like our chances of working with either Vee or Murphy - I don't trust them and they are not team players."

"That leaves Chapman."

"Chapman and Red are not violent psychopaths."

"I don't know, Vause, I have seen Chapman go after people pretty hard."

"I have no doubt that she could and would - but she is not unpredictable, she doesn't go after people randomly."

"Oh no, they deserved what they got," said Pennsatucky, nodding and reviewing the evidence in her mind, and stuffing her mouth full of pretzels.

"But you know her, Vause - Chapman." she added, as a clarification. "How do I know you haven't already made a deal with her and this just looks like a partnership?"

"Essentially, any partnership is based on trust." Vause admitted. "I give you my word that I have told no one about what we know, just as I believe you have kept your word and your silence. But if you are asking for evidence - I don't have any."

"Trust. I don't gotta lotta reason to trust anyone, Vause."

"I understand. All I can say is that you and I were running for our lives when we found what we did, we swore we would tell no one and I haven't. But, I think I may have a way to prove my loyalty to you in the future."

"In the future? How do you mean?"

"Let's say that we decide to hand over our knowledge to Chapman,"

"Let's say that for now," agreed Pennsatucky, keen not to get trapped by clever words.

"I think we could easily ask for 10% - "

"10! More like 50!"

"Again, I don't want to be directly involved and I don't want to incur anyone's wrath. Chapman will have to take this idea to Red, Red being her partner and all."

"Say we settled on 10, how does that make me trust you?"

"We go to Chapman together, we suggest that we may have a pipeline, tell her we want 10% each, that she is to put it in our commissary every month. That way we are both present for the conversation and a third party is responsible for splitting the proceeds between us."

"How do I know that you haven't already spoken to her and she's agreed to give you 50%."

"How can I make you believe me?"

"Tell me how you know Chapman?"

"How is that going to prove that I'm telling you the truth?"

"You and she are old friends, you and me are new friends…"

Vause sighed and looked out over the track where some people were walking and jogging. She did not want to tell anyone anything about that time in her life, also she didn't want to tell anyone about her feelings for Chapman - it was private, deeply personal. She also did not want to disclose personal information about Chapman, who according to Nichols, was as secretive as a bank vault. She sighed again and Pennsatucky was occupying herself by twisting apart the oreo cookies and licking the icing.

"You know why I am in here?"

"Something smart, like fraud," Pennsatucky replied quickly like she had given this plenty of previous consideration. She peered over at Vause to gauge the accuracy of her calculation.

"I was senior management of a global import/export organisation." Pennsatucky looked impressed, but sceptical.

"I developed a loyal customer base by anticipating and providing products at a reasonable cost in a timely manner. I identified high quality, low cost product suppliers and set up safe, reliable and prompt delivery methods. I identified, recruited and trained dependable team members, ensuring that outlets in cities across three continents were operating smoothly. I established tight inventory control, processed up-front payment for products, promptly collected any outstanding debts and successfully established and managed import/export budgets."

Penssatucky's mouth was hanging open but finally she said, "Sounds like drugs."

"Exactly. I moved heroin across international borders,"

"You were a drug mule?" Pennsatucky looked very disappointed.

"No, I recruited drug mules."

"You make it sound… legit."

"All part of the deception."

"So, Chapman was a drug mule?"
"No. No, she wasn't. But she and I dated for a while back in the day."

"Oh, I get it." Pensatucky was nodding seriously, and Vause wasn't quite sure what Penssatucky thought she got, but she did feel as though she had earned the woman's trust. At least a little.

Chapter Twenty

Vause and CO McCullough had become particularly friendly, romantically involved some might say. McCullough was still careful in her approaches to Vause for a variety of reasons but her desire to be near Vause was difficult to restrain, also for a variety of reasons. Stripped down to the basics McCullough genuinely liked Vause and became almost dependent upon their friendship but she was struggling too, emotionally she was always somewhere in the small space between drowning and exploding. In addition her life was barely being held together by her job at Litchfield which she both detested yet needed.

"So, look, there's something I want to ask you," she said to Vause, standing several feet away and trying to look casual.

"God, let it be dinner at a nice restaurant!"

"Litchfield kitchen not good enough for you, inmate?" She was getting used to Vause's humour.

"Not by a long shot."

"No, what I wanted to know is, I need money, like really badly - my transmission just died in my car, my credit cards are all maxed out,"

"You asking me for a loan?"

"No, No. I, I just know that Hellman and Luschek are making bank selling contraband in here and - "

"You want to get in on the act?"

"Yeah. Sort of. I get paid less than they do, Hellman calls it a tittie tax,"

"Yeah well, Hellman is a prick."

"So, what do you think?" McCullough asked.

"I'm not sure what you're asking, exactly?"

"I want in, on the action,"

"Are you asking me to sell contraband for you?"

"No. Not exactly, but I mean,, if you were willing…"
"You know this kind of behaviour changes who you are, McCullough?"

"How do you mean?"

"At the moment, you're one of the good guys - you cross this line and you become one of them."

"No, I will never be like them."

"You know Hellman rapes the inmates?"

"What?"

"Yeah. He chokes them, beats them, rapes them and forces them to sell heroin,"

"Oh shit, I knew he was a bad guy…"

"And Luschek, Piscatella, Hellman, Humphreys and the rest - they are all criminals too, just like us. They bend the rules and break the law on a daily basis."

McCullough looked close to tears.

"In the four years since coming home I've been through like eight jobs. I got fired from Dairy Queen after I snapped and cussed out a kid. Then Walmart let me go when I cussed out another kid. Ha, you will never guess what happened when I dressed up as Little Mermaid for a kids party… At first I took out credit cards to buy groceries, then I used the cash advances to pay rent, I got underwater, like immediately."

"McCullough, I hear that you are struggling, but this is not the answer."

"I don't know what else to do!"

Vause thought about their conversation for a long time after. She had a lot of empathy for the woman, McCullough was attractive but could have been even more so if she had not been so totally broken by life and she had been all but crushed. Bit by bit, McCullough told Vause the details of her story; it wasn't just the horrible things that she had witnessed in combat, it was also the horrible things she had been subjected to by her fellow soldiers. She had worked hard with the intention of winning the respect of her peers however her achievements only made her a target of their resentment that she was more capable than they. So they bullied, humiliated her and sexually harassed and assaulted her.

Since leaving the military she had struggled to maintain housing and employment, and the eight jobs she had been fired from were all demeaning and low paid, crushing what might have been left of her self esteem. As a result she struggled to keep her head above water financially, with a car loan, a personal loan and maxed out credit cards. She had no friends, no life and hated her job, she was miserable and had no hope that anything was ever going to change.

Vause began to formulate a plan which she thought might help her friend - one which did not involve participating in criminal behaviour which, in Vause's estimation. could only end in disaster. McCullough was not a criminal, she had neither the instinct nor the strength of conviction to ensure her success, she was simply desperate and Vause wanted to help her. Her idea was coming alive in her mind complete with details - she would have to talk to Pennsatucky again.

Vause first approached Nichols.

"I have a gift for your boss."

"Luschek? He loves gifts - anything from a snickers bar to a baggie of pot, but if it's friendship you're after, let me advise you…"

"Wrong boss. This one is for Chapman."
"Oh ho!" Nichols stepped back and looked her up and down, "Her taste is a little more discerning,"

"You think this," Vause ran a hand down her side, "is less than desirable?" she bantered back.

"I would never say that!" The pair laughed for a moment.

"So, this gift, what is it?"

"It's a secret. Pennsatucky and I both need to meet with Chapman."

"Pennsatucky? She is definitely not Chapman's type."

"And you think I am?"

"Aren't you?"

"Just tell her, Nichols!" she said, punching the other woman in the arm.

"Alright, Alright!"

Vause had been a non judgemental sounding board which, to McCullough, was the equivalent of a grand declaration of love and in response she sought ways to approach Vause when she was alone, in the library, out in the yard, in the bathroom, alone in her cube. She began to make her feelings known, tentatively, discreetly at first, and without a definite refusal or rejection, she began to press a little more firmly - her desire for Vause and her need for companionship and love was bigger than her.

They had shared a few kisses, Vause had not intended to let it get that far, but with every inch McCullough wanted a mile and it became a challenge to hold her off. The problem was temporarily resolved when Murphy walked in on them. Perhaps if she had just turned around and walked away things might have been different but Murphy had had so few wins out in the yard and seeing that McCullough had succeeded where she failed, it was an opportunity too good to pass.

"Well," was all she got out before McCullough jumped about ten feet in the air.

Murphy laughed, incorrectly presupposing her situational dominance, she attempted to lean against the half wall,

"Oh, I've walked in on an expression of true love - "

McCullough exploded, shocking all three of them. Normally retiring and laconic the CO had her baton out and extended with a flick of the risk,

"Get on the ground, inmate!"

"Oh oh oh, look at this!" Murphy, still cocky, thought she had a pretty heavy bargaining chip against a vulnerable opponent.

"Get on the ground, now!"

"Or what? You going to attack me for no reason?"

McCullough lost her shit and started whacking Murphy who decided that shutting her mouth and hitting the deck was actually not such a bad idea. McCullough continued to strike her as Murphy tried to protect her head and curled her legs up to cover her abdomen. Vause came forward hesitantly, her hands outstretched,

"It's okay, you're okay, breathe, just breathe," she said in low tones.

She wanted to put her hands on McCullough, to touch her back as a gesture of comfort, to disrupt her state of mind which was now in full fight mode, before she did something that she could not come back from. But Vause was afraid of the consequences of touching a guard - even if it was one she had just been kissing moments before.

She kept talking and McCullough finally responded, she stopped swinging her arm but remained bent over Murphy who was now in a foetal position, white as a ghost and silent for once in her fucking life. McCullough looked down at her victim and seemed to calibrate the information, she turned to look at Alex whose hands were still out, prepared to help. Feeling overwhelmed, vulnerable and humiliated McCullough whacked her baton against the wall and said,

"Back in your bunk! I think you might have forgotten where you are, inmate."

Alex backed up immediately and sat on her bunk, as McCullough's eyes continued to pierce her own, she lifted up her feet and rolled onto her back slowly. Finally McCullough left the cell, stepping over Murphy as she went, saying,

"Your time here is over."

Several people who had heard the commotion tentatively approached the cube to assess the damage, apparently no one was terribly concerned about the injured Murphy but many looked for Vause to see if she was okay.

"I'm okay," she said, rolling out of her bunk to demonstrate that she was unharmed, "Just a misunderstanding," she said.

The inmates looked from her to Murphy, and finding it completely believable that the woman on the floor had started the trouble and had gotten what she deserved, they returned to their cubes.

"Are you alright?" Vause felt compelled to ask. She didn't generally wish people harm - but Murphy was so determined to make an unpleasant annoyance of herself it seemed a good beating was the only impetus to momentary relief.

Murphy was shaken and hurt but not severely injured, her biggest concern, as always, was looking like she came off the winner. She struggled into a sitting position, hauled herself up using the end of the bunk and sat on her bed, feeling all her sore spots.

"I'm tough. But this explains why you have been putting off my advances, Vause, very strategical."

"You just got struck because you will not stop speaking, Murphy, and here you are still talking."

"Oh Honey, I know when I'm on to a good thing,"

Chapter Twenty One

"Vause, wake up, Vause!" someone was whisper-shouting in her face and shaking her body.

"Wha - what?" asked Vause, coming out of a deep sleep.

"Shh, get up," Vause identified Nichol's voice and reached for her glasses.

Nichols stepped back and Vause swung her legs over the side, gathering up her hair and letting fall down her back. Nichols moved out of the cube, Vause pulled her boots on and followed her friend, ducking down and keeping to the shadows. They crept throughout the prison, Nichols like she did this on the regular, seeming to know precisely when to pause and when to dash. They went through the empty dining room and into the kitchen where Chapman and Red were waiting. And to one side stood Morello and Pennsatucky.

"Hey," said Vause, nodding around to everyone.

"Nichols said you had something for me?" said Chapman, straight to the point.

"Pennsatucky and I do."

"Okay. What is it?"

"An undetected pipeline into the prison."

"Where?" asked Red, disbelievingly.

Vause and Pennsatucky shared a look, Pennsatucky seemed happy to let Vause handle the negotiations, she was just happy to be part of it.

"This is something that will help you avoid Piscatella. This is also something you could use to set a trap for Vee to be busted using the kitchen pipeline."

"We are going to need details."

"If this pans out," said Vause, "Pennsatucky and I want 30% of the profits of all contraband moving through 'our pipeline'."

Chapman and Red shared a glance.

"We are prepared to do a dry run, at our own expense - "

"We don't deal in drugs," said Red.

"Library books," said Vause. "Pennsatucky and I will arrange for new books for the library. Afer that, the pipeline is all yours, you put our share into our commissary accounts and we never speak of this again."

"Library books!" said a loud voice from outside the kitchen.

Chapman and Nichols dashed to the door only to be confronted by Murphy and her gang of meth heads - Chapman immediately turned into a fighting machine and Nichols urgently told everyone else to leave, "Back to your bunks, right now!" she hissed.

Red moved like a woman who had never experienced back pain in her life, she pushed Morello who grabbed Pennsatucky and they ran, Vause bolted too. Chapman and Nichols knew what they were doing and she would only get in their way, she hunched down, stuck to the shadows and moved as quickly and silently as possible back to her bunk.

The following morning the prison was alive with a heightened energy, inmates could be heard gossiping about the latest happenings. Vause woke to find herself blissfully alone in her cube and as thrilled as she was at the thought of Murphy being in Medical or SHU - she was more concerned about Chapman and Nichols. Were they hurt or in trouble, too? She skipped her morning walk and rushed to the dining room to find out the latest.

Neither Chapman nor Murphy could be seen, Nichols was sitting at the dining table looking the worse for wear with a black eye and split lip and a couple of the meth heads were similarly attired. Vause took her breakfast tray and as she passed the doorway to where the scuffle broke out last night she noticed something on the ground, on closer inspection it looked like a piece of tooth. She picked it up and put it in her pocket.

"Murphy and Chapman are both in medical, and then they will both be in the SHU."

"Fuck," said Vause. "Is she badly hurt?" No one had to ask who she was referring to.

"Knocked each other clean out, the meth heads ran for it and I managed to get away as well."

"Fuck," said Vause, again.

"On a brighter note, Red has agreed to 20% if it pans out."

"Great! I will make a move right away."

"Vause."

"CO McCullough."

"I heard your roommate is in the hospital?"

"Yeah, I am going to have a cube to myself for a little while."

"Small mercies."

"I got one for you, too."

"A room or a mercy?"

"You want to get in on smuggling, I have a one off job for you, it pays 10k."

"10k? I thought you said moving heroin would make me like them?"

"I did, but this isn't heroin."

"What is it then?"

"Library books."

McCullough looked at her like she was crazy.

"Like I said this is a one off job and I need you to promise me that anything I say, any information you come by, can go no further,"

"Okay."

"No, I need your word. And you can't decide three months from now to try this again, or share this information with anyone - it will ruin me in here if you do."

"Okay, I promise, Vause."

"Right, this is how it's going to work…"

Vause instructed McCullough on the details of the plan, everything except the drop off point, paying half now and half on completion of the job. McCullough was to buy $10k worth of secondhand books online; text books, self help books, law books, religious texts, historical and geographical books, action and adventure, horror, romance, science fiction, classics, fantasy, comics and anime, books about music, art and photography, mystery, autobiography, fiction, satire and thrillers.

Vause used 20k of her own money to complete this exercise, it didn't matter, she had plenty of money that no one knew she had stashed away when times were good. It would help McCullough get back on her feet and it would give her something to read over the next five years. All she needed now was to give Chapman something of value to make her rethink her hard stance against friendships and romance - with Vause, specifically. There was just one more thing that she wanted.

Every day for a week, a book from the series A Song of Ice and Fire is found under Vause's pillow and on the last day there was a lunchbox. Inside the lunch box was ground, single origin coffee beans, tinned cream and florentines. Vause carried them all to Nichols' cube and asked her to get them down to Chapman in the SHU. Nichols' eyes went round when she saw the coffee and Vause relented and told her she could have some if she made sure Chapman got boiling water with hers.

Chapter Twenty Two

Feeling that she had done as much as she could for now, Vause continued in her routine; the early morning walks, the laundry detail with Pennsatucky, reading in the afternoon and dinner with the family. She made use of her new single dorm status by helping herself to everything of Murphy's and masturbating frequently, something she would never give Murphy the satisfaction of witnessing.

Even before the first delivery of contraband library books, Vause and Pennsatucky began carrying around a book or two with them everywhere they went. Then Nichols, Morello and Boo got in on the act, Sister Ingalls, Yoga Jones and the Golden Oldies all began carrying books around - at first that's all they did. Then without a word, Vause and Pennsatucky began leaving the odd book in the dining room, the tv room, the gardening shed and other places, and someone else would leave their book and pick up the other.

By the first delivery of second hand books - many prisoners were picking up a random book, wandering around with it for an hour or two, putting it down and picking up another. In the meantime, books without the Litchfield Prison Library stamp and the little yellow envelope and the borrowing card were making their way with all haste to the library. Knowing Poussey was on the outs with Vee and virtually all of the black prison population, Vause was confident that she could convince the woman to participate. The new books would be left on a particular shelf and Poussey would stamp it with the official Litchfield Prison Library stamp and glue a little envelope to the inside front cover with a borrowing card inside.

It was smuggling and it was contraband but who, inside the prison, would not participate in the facilitation of an influx of free new books available for the prisoners to read? Well Piscatella and his band of beasts would intercept it and burn them out of pure spite and Murphy would probably inform on them for the same reason. But, soon enough everyone picked up on the idea that new books were making their way to the library and began helping out by picking up random books, new and old, from around the place, checking them discreetly and returning them to the library.

Soon hundreds of prisoners were walking around with books, leaving them in the dining room or tv room, in the bathroom only to pick up another book from another room and transport it somewhere else. The guards began stopping and searching prisoners with books, suspecting the books to be smuggling apparatuses of contraband rather than the contraband itself. They would thumb through the pages, turn the book upside and shake it out but no contraband was ever found.

Even McCullough got in on the act, stopping inmates she saw with the newer books, the very ones she had lowered down the manhole outside the prison grounds, patting them down and shaking the books, hoping that would leave more of the older books for the other guards. Vause watched her and smiled to herself, she knew that McCullough was feeling the sweet fresh relief - her 5k upfront having been used to repair her car and pay down a large chunk of her credit card debt, and she was enjoying getting one over on her fellow guards.

The more frustrated and annoyed the guards became the more people began to carry more books, people wandered to and from the library with books, leaving them all over the place. The new books all made their way to Poussey to get 'legitimised' and through the multiple handlings of each book, they quickly began to get that special 'Litchfield scent'. Vause and Pennsatucky carried an old book out to the gardening shed everyday and brought back several new ones throughout the day, they went largely unnoticed, lost in the bigger picture. And other people, of their own accord, simply picked up the old books and returned them, not realising how close they were to the source of the bounty.

The guards knew something was afoot but they could not identify exactly what the issue was and Piscatella went absolutely ape shit, or bat shit, depending on your perspective, about the book situation. He set up random stop and frisk points at various high traffic areas around the prison for the purpose of searching inmates and their belongings for contraband. This went on for a whole week! Not only do they find no contraband but inmates start reporting to medical with 'injuries' and other symptoms apparently due to the frequent heavy handed searches.

Warden Caputo himself did not notice the sudden and drastic rise in claims upon medical services and resources, but his boss did and when Natalie Figueroa phoned him demanding answers, he decided to take a tour of the facility to see if he could uncover the cause of the disturbance. He spoke to guards and inmates alike, the inmates having a lot to say about the new guards, their abusive and brutal tactics and now they said that Piscatella had banned them from reading.

Caputo saw the stop and frisk points, witnessed the rough measures being taken against the inmates and called an immediate staff meeting. Before that could happen however inmates began running around screaming about the burning of books, they were urgently trying to gain Caputo's attention. Piscatella stepped in with his max tac guards who all had their batons out and were forming a wall as though to defend the Warden but Caputo waving them away, telling them,

"Stand down, stand down, this is not a riot for god's sake!"

He pointed to one of the inmates, one who had been there for a long time but who had her intellect intact and generally went unnoticed.

"What is it?"

"Well, Mr Caputo, Sir," said Frieda Berlin, "They," she pointed at the guards, "Are burning all of our library books, Sir."

"You're what?" Caputo turned on Piscatella.

"The inmates have been using the books to transport contraband,"

"What contraband? Drugs, phones, cigarettes?"

"Well, Sir, to be fair we haven't actually found any contraband, it's more like we suspect it," added McCullough who earned herself several looks of both incredulity and hatred from her 'teammates'.

Caputo gave Piscatella a look of disgust and stormed outside to view the situation for himself. Outside he found a pile of Litchfield Library Books up to his shoulder with hundreds of weeping inmates all standing around in apparent great distress.

"We have a constitutional right under the first Amendment to read the bible!" Someone called out and another person stepped forward and plucked a copy of the bible out of the pile and held it up.

"And to assist with our own defence!" someone added, stepping forward to grab a law book.

Caputo asked Piscatella,

"How many shots have been written up the last month for contraband found smuggled in books?"
"None," he replied, "Sir." he added bitterly.

"Staff meeting in the lunch room right now!" said a clearly irate Caputo, then he turned back to the prisoners and said, "Please return these to the library."

Caputo could be heard in the hall shouting at the guards about misuse of their authority and damaging valuable prison resources. Several people were heard responding to his claims but their voices could barely be heard and their words only guessed at. Half an hour later the guards came out of that room even more angry than when they went in but the inmates knew what was good for them and remained in their bunks until dinner time. Dinner was a speedy and sedate affair, people kept their eyes down and when they opened their mouths they put a forkful of something in it.

Everybody thought that would be the end of the whole affair, the guards would get their revenge on the inmates and then everything would settle down to business as usual but then the whole thing really blew up! Apparently footage of guards throwing hundreds and hundreds of books in a pile out of doors to the apparent horror and devastation of hundreds of female inmates was running on every internet site and television channel! No one could work out how the footage had been taken but then a fifteen year old who had gotten a drone for her birthday was being interviewed live on one of the networks.

"And tell us Stacey, why did you want to take footage of prisoners, specifically?" the host asked.

"Well, in school we had to do a project on human rights and the constitution, and my birth mum is in prison so I was interested in learning more about prisoners rights."

"Wait, your mother is at Litchfield Correctional Facility?"

"No, she's in prison in Utah, Hi mom!" Stacey added, waving to the camera.

"So you simply popped your drone over the fence, so to speak, to sneak a peek?"

"I really didn't expect for it to work, I mean I thought they would have security,"

"And when you saw the guards hurling the books, Stacey, what did you think was happening?"

"Well, it was really crazy, the guards were all like, shouting and pushing the prisoners around and the women were watching and crying, some were comforting one another. It's like that book The Book Thief where the Nazis burn all the books - it's like those guards were Nazis."

The inmates could not believe what they were seeing - a fifteen year old girl calling Piscatella and his gand Nazis on an international platform!

Chapter Twenty Three

Sadly, Caputo was fired immediately and not so sadly Piscatella and the main instigators of the whole unauthorised stop and frisk program were all stood down without pay pending an investigation. The prison was a dream, after all the recent excitement and in the absence of imminent brutality all of the inmates seemed to have unanimously decided to not cause anymore difficulties.

They went to work, ate their meals, had their showers and a great many of them began reading some of the newer additions to the library, some even began reading them aloud to other prisoners. It was a very peaceful prison. The garden club was still flourishing with an expanded list of herb and salad items and vegetables being grown and enjoyed on the dining table.

McCullough and Vause were making good use of Murphy's absence given that she was still in the SHU; sometimes they made out on Vause's bunk, sometimes in the shower room, or CO McCullough came and escorted her to an office somewhere. It was a passing thing for Vause but she fully understood that McCullough was beginning to have some very real feelings for her and expectations as to how this was going to end. Vause was going to have to put a stop to it at some point, not only was McCullough not the woman for her - Chapman still very much was.

A month later, the library was more than 400 books more populated, McCullough was debt free and Chapman and Murphy were finally out of the SHU. Vause felt that this was the time to put an end to her dalliance with McCullough and to share her secret with Chapman about the pipeline. McCullough did not take the news well. At first she thought Vause was concerned about Murphy returning but Vause was completely up front with McCullough, telling her that she was in love with someone else and although she cared about her, her feelings were not strong enough to pursue further.

McCullough flew into a rage, whipping out her baton and threatening to strike Vause who cowered in a corner with her hands up to defend herself. Then McCullough burst into weeping, pitiful tears wanting to know who it was, was she inside the prison or out and how long had Vause been having 'other feelings'. Vause did not answer any of her questions, she said very little and only when pressed did she repeat that her feelings for McCullough were not strong enough to pursue.

Vause went to bed early that night but she hardly slept a wink that night, wondering whether McCullough was going to seek retribution for ending their affair. As the sun peeked in through the high window opposite, she dragged herself out of bed and headed outside for her daily constitutional. She was so deep in thought as she made her way around the track that she got a fright when someone spoke to her.

"Vause?" Vause swung around.

"Chapman? Oh my God!"

"It looks worse than it feels," she said, smiling weakly and revealing, on top of everything else, a broken front tooth. "Can I walk with you?"

"I have your tooth!" said Vause, falling into step, "I mean the chipped part,"

"You do? How is that possible?"

"I saw it, quite by chance, on the floor where you and Murphy were fighting. I grabbed it, put it in my pocket but then forgot about it."

"You still have it?"

"Yeah, in my room."

"How did you know it was mine?'

"I didn't, I just grabbed it. I don't even know why."

"So… you were saving it in case it was Murphy's?" Chapman was smiling, revealing the great ugly chipped tooth.

"If it had been hers I would have charged her 1k for it!"

"Shit - how much is it going to cost me?"

"Nothing, you can have it. Back, I mean."

"Thank you for the coffee."

"Good, hey?"

"Bloody amazing! Felt like I was in Switzerland."

"I am glad to have been able to do something for you."

"You did, thank you, Vause."
"You are welcome, Chapman."

"Red said your pipeline checks out."

"It does."

"Thank you for that too. You have no idea how much that is going to help us."

"I am glad."

"She got you down to 20%, is that okay?"

"It's all I wanted, 10 for me and 10 for Pennsatucky."

"Of course, I should have known. And you got some books for the library?"

"Yeah, we needed them sorely,"

"That was nice of you."

"It was for me." Vause said, it was the truth but somehow not the whole truth.

Vause had a feeling that she knew why Chapman was there - McCullough. Word had got back to Chapman of their intrigue and she had come to - what? Warn her off? Declare herself? Whatever it was, Vause was primed to hear it, just seeing her though, being with her, talking to her was enough.

"I hear you're having trouble with Murphy?" Chapman's opening salvo is searching.

"I believe everyone is having trouble with Murphy."

"True that. Would you like to move cubes?"

"I doubt it would make much difference,"

"That bad? Has she hurt you?"

"No."

"What about CO?" she didn't need to say which one.

"No, she hasn't hurt me, either."

Alex deliberately misconstrued Chapman's intended meaning, she meant it as a sort of invitation, a lure rather, an effort to entice Chapman to say more. Her involvement with McCullough had been in passing and had never been intended to make Chapman jealous, but as ever, she would like to see, to feel, some kind of emotional response from Chapman - in truth she would love nothing more than for Chapman to reveal a little of her old jealousy, to lay claim to her as Mills and Boon as that sounds.

"Do you have feelings for her?"

"No," said Vause, shaking her head.

Chapman stopped walking, "Then why?" she asked, her eyes searching Vause's face.

"I'm weak, Chapman. I can't get through this without somebody to touch."

Chapman stared at her, Vause could see the storm behind her eyes but could not interpret it.

"Just be careful. CO's can seem very humane, but they have the power and they can turn on a dime."

"McCullough is not like that."

"McCullough is an emotional basket case, she has PTSD with violent outbursts and has shown a willingness to break the rules. I'm not saying she is a bad person, Vause, I'm saying that none of us know what we are capable of until the moment presents itself."

"Speaking from experience?"

"You could say that."

A silence opened up between them, a pregnant pause, a moment filled with unspoken tension and uncertainty. Vause clearly wanted Chapman to show some interest in reigniting their relationship and Chapman appeared determined to refrain from such at all costs. Eventually Vause reached down and squeezed Chapman's hand,

"Thank you for looking out for me, Chapman."

"You're welcome," she replied and used that as her excuse to leave.

It was no explicit declaration of love but Alex knows Chapman far too well to feel disheartened, if anything it could be argued that Chapman made an explicit and public declaration of interest! So long as Alex survived Murphy, McCullough and prison in general - she would wait for Chapman.

Chapter Twenty Three

Vause and Pennsatucky lost interest in the garden club once they had handed over control of the pipeline to Chapman and Red and funnily enough seemed to lose interest in each other as well. Things ended fairly amicably and they continued to work together in the laundry but after work, Vause spent more time reading and Pennsatucky spent more time with Big Boo. Vause didn't worry about reminding her little friend not to blab about the pipeline - she was Chapman's problem now, and if she liked having her commissary filled every month she should not need reminding.

Murphy got out of SHU but no one ever saw her again, she came out of the dungeon, walked upstairs, exited the prison and was transferred to Missouri State Penitentiary. It was then that Vause remembered McCullough telling Murphy that she was 'done here'. She would have liked to have asked the CO if she had a hand in getting her moved but the thought of opening up communications again was unpleasant. What if McCullough admitted that she had done it, and done it as a favour to Vause? That would be uncomfortable.

McCullough kept her distance, occasionally Vause felt her eyes upon her but she never looked to check if she was correct. As far as she was concerned, thay had enjoyed a brief affair, done each other a favour and were even - she wished McCullough well, hoped her heart break would mend quickly and she would meet the love of her life. She certainly looked better these days, not quite so tired and stressed and her hair was no longer stringy and straggly but thicker and more lustrous - from what she could tell from a brief glance across the room, anyhow.

Everybody thought CO Hopper would get Caputo's old job as Warden, he had certainly been there a long time and was one of the more experienced guards. But to everyone's shock and surprise, even her own - CO Ward was promoted over and above him! She was a less experienced guard but it was rumoured that she had been taking college classes on the side. The inmates were thrilled, she was Black, young, and a woman and she had never been hasty to aggression or violence and had been known to share a joke with inmates on occasion.

Their support of her was justified when her first act as Warden was to close down the SHU indefinitely, because she said it was cruel and unusual punishment. Her second act was to complete a thorough investigation of the book burning incident during which all kinds of unsavoury evidence was unearthed. In their absence, she found Fantasy Inmate betting documents, there was heroin in Hellman's locker and inexplicably in Humphrey's locker were a number of snaplock bags with dead flies, dead mice and dead frogs inside them.

Forwarding her findings to Figueroa, Ward also included a spreadsheet suggesting how much cheaper it would be to cancel the max tac squad contract and hire new guards, especially returned vets who come with government incentives. Figueroa, pleased to have the whole scenario closed with as little trouble to herself as possible, approved Ward's suggestion. Ward's third act was to institute equal pay for all guards across the board, with experience being the only differential.

While the new guards were in training, Vee made her move on Red and the kitchen. Red played her part convincingly, at first claiming that it had been years since she had moved illegal contraband through the kitchen and then finally begging Vee not to disturb her little side hustle. But Vee had primed her soldiers up for a massive move and she had to make it look good - she gave Red a thorough hiding and then tore the kitchen apart until they found her 'stash'; make up, skin care, hair dye, beauty products and razor blades. They took the lot for themselves as well as eating into the food stores and making such plans as would secure their incoming heroin supply.

Red was in medical for a week, not that her injuries were so bad, but she had a reason for making them appear worse than they were. In her absence some of her own loyal foot soldiers were carrying out the orders they had been given in advance. When the time was right Morello and Mendoza tipped off McCullough, who had been prepared in advance and arrived quickly and with backup, to bust Vee with the Heroin in her hand. Whether it had started there or not, no-one could quite tell, but to all intents and purposes, it ended up there.

Those who informed on Vee were promised not to receive extra time, which they all but one did, many recalling details of speeches she made from almost the first day of her arrival. Her plans that the Blacks should run the prison, the tobacco scam, the intimidation of other inmates, the beatings at her behest and the heroin pipeline through the kitchen plan whereupon she personally beat up on Red.

The news of the massive drug bust remained in house, McCullough received a special commendation and a bonus and Ward was praised as being the right person for the job! Vee spent a month in the SHU before she, too, was whisked off to greener pastures in a state far, far away. Life was good at Litchfield Correctional Institution, very, very good.

"Vause." Vause spun around and seeing her visitor, responded in kind.

"CO McCullough."

"I wanted to thank you."

"Thank me?"

"Yeah. You were right, about what you said about me becoming like them. I would have tripped into that racket more or less accidentally but the things I would have had to do to avoid exposure? You are right, it would have changed me."

"I am glad."

"The money you paid me really helped, too. I don't have any debts now and I get by okay on my wage from this place. It's kind of not so bad now, with Ward, and some of the newbies."

"Oh, Yeah?"
"Yeah. I just think, that was a really bad time for me, and you were a friend. Someone else could have really taken advantage and I could have ended up in a worse place."

"So, we're friends now?"

"Yeah, I'd like to be, if that's okay?"

"Yeah, friends would be great."

McCullough nodded at her, smiled and wandered away. Everything was tied off nicely, except for one thing. Vause sighed. Then she saw, out of the corner of her eye, a familiar shape. Chapman was jogging across the field toward her, she arrived hot, panting heavily and sweating.

"Hey, don't flick your sweat on me!" she faux scolded, wiping her arm.

"You love it!" Chapman grinned, her tooth was repaired and for a moment Vause saw a glimpse of the old Piper, just a glimpse.

"What did she want?" Chapman asked, nodding her head in the direction McCullough had walked.

"None of your business," she replied, opening her book and pretending to read.

"I thought you and she were over?"

"Chapman, did you spot her talking to me, feel jealous and then run all the way over here to what? Tell me off? Challenge her to a duel?"

A blush overspread Chapman's neck and face, she looked away.

"You are jealous!"

"Shut up, Vause,"

"Well, what are you going to do about it?"

Chapman stood completely still for several moments and then she hauled Vause up and kissed her full on the mouth. Vause's arms went instinctively around Chapman's shoulders and she felt Chapman's around her waist.

"I can't help but think this is a very bad idea," said Chapman ruefully, but still not removing her arms.

"Probably. But if we can get through all that we have got through I am sure we can survive anything."

"You are probably right."

Chapter Twenty Four

In the coming days and weeks Vause came to fully appreciate just how much pull Chapman had in Litchfield prison. Red asked for and received permission to host a private dinner party in the garden shed, a sort of celebration of her long service in the kitchen, her recent recovery from her efforts to stand against importing heroin into the prison and in honour of the garden club whose efforts went a long way to saving money on the food budget.

Really, it was just Red and her family; Chapman at her right hand and Nichols at her left. Morello, Vause, Norma, Gina, Frieda, DeMarco, Lerman, Sister Ingalls, Yoga Jones, and Boo. The food they ate that night was going to be the closest thing Vause would get to gourmet for the next four years and actually it was pretty good. Even better than the food was the sense of friendship and family Vause was experiencing - it would be these people, Chapman in particular, who were going to make the rest of her sentence survivable.

Like Nichols and Morello, Chapman and Vause were quickly sharing a cube and falling in love all over again. It was different this time, like all the stuff they thought was important last time was just not. And all the terrible things that one might fear happening in a relationship (like being abandoned, or being used as a drug mule) they knew now that they could survive. All that was left for them were the little things, washing each other's back in the shower, single origin coffee beans and fucking hot sex all over the goddamned prison.

It took a long time, but bit by bit, Vause got Chapman's story out of her. Sometimes she would ask how Chapman came by a certain scar or why she had such a strict rule about drugs. At first Chapman was, as Nichols had said, a vault. So, Vause began sharing details with Chapman, sometimes about her childhood, innocuous little things, sometimes about her life post Paris, sometimes terrible things, like her spiral into heroin addiction, Fahri's death and Kubra sending her to rehab.

Through their intimacy Chapman began to open up, unlike Alex's story which came out in random puzzle pieces, Chapman's came out organised like an autobiography. After she had left Alex at their hotel room, she had felt nothing, sad about Alex's mother of course, but not about leaving. She returned home intending to get a job and an apartment, to grow up and get a life. But that didn't happen, that didn't happen at all.

Her older brother Danny, a doctor, and winner of Most Adored Chapman Sibling, had completed his medical training in Rajkot, India and during that time had impressed a billionaire philanthropist with his modern skills and out of the box thinking. Danny had just married the man's eldest daughter in a lavish 7 day extravaganza to which none of the family were invited, reasons unknown.

On the heels of that disappointment their parents had decided that something had to be done about Cal, Most Disappointing Chapman Sibling. They had forced him out of home in an effort to make him find a job and an apartment, basically to grow up and take some responsibility. In response, Cal turned his back on civilisation, living undetected and off the grid in an old trailer on government land out the back of god knows where.

Her best friend Polly had been dating Chapman's ex, Larry Bloom, in secret from the moment Piper left the States, and had more or less let their company dissolve through lack of attention and inaction. Piper's parents had attempted to lay down very strict guidelines for her return in another effort to stir another one of their less successful children into action. At first, things were looking up. Piper applied for jobs diligently, modifying her resume for each application was pretty successful in securing interviews but that was as far as she got. After more than thirty unsuccessful interviews, feeling hopeless and dejected and unable to bear her parents disappointment and advice she began applying for waitressing and bartending jobs, telling herself it was what actors did between jobs, but potential recruiters looked at her face and then down at her resume and saw the word 'Smith' and shook their heads.

She finally understood that they understood that by the time they trained her she would be moving on. She fell into a hole and stopped applying for anything at all. The moment she stopped moving her grief over her broken relationship with Alex hit her like a wall. Her parents did not understand her dispiritedness at all, and she could not cope with their constant criticism, one day likening her to her brother Cal and the next comparing her unfavourably to her brother Danny.

She went to stay with Cal for the weekend which turned into two weeks, the pair of them smoking weed all day, as well as taking acid and shrooms, and Piper unburdened herself to a very understanding and supportive Cal. Until the septic system failed, at which point Piper sobered up enough to drive home - that was one shituation that she was not willing to deal with, in any way, shape or form.

She returned home but only briefly. Piper began couch surfing, staying at friends' places and friends of friends, partying and clubbing, drinking, smoking weed and sleeping around. She fell in with a group who partied pretty heavily and then she was exposed to heavier drugs and she just simply followed along. It was not long before alcohol and drugs took on a more significant role and to ensure their provision she needed a boyfriend/dealer.

It was easier when her boyfriend's drug and alcohol issues were more significant than her own, masking her own downward spiral - her parents disowned her and she began doing behaviours that shocked and appalled her; shoplifting, stealing purses, witnessing beatdowns and eventually participating in those.

Finally, the boyfriend claimed he was going into detox and then rehab but she discovered that he actually just wanted to get free of Piper, whose own drug addiction was competing with his. He stole their stash of drugs and money, ripped off their dealer into the bargain and returned to his old room in his parents basement. Piper was pissed, doubly so when their dealer demanded that she repay him what was stolen before he would sell to her again.

Chapman recruited a small band of thugs and followed the boyfriend home where they proceeded to rob the place, recover the stash and cash at gunpoint. She was out of her head at the time, strung out and angry, the job was ill conceived and poorly planned - they got busted. Everyone fingered her for the ringleader, she pleaded out and copped eight to twelve years.

In prison Piper's initial drug addiction landed her into a series of scrapes but she eventually got clean with Red's help and the two of them became quite close. Chapman explained how ill she had been and how motherly Red had been, and that was the start of their little 'family'. Then Nicky came in and they did the same for her, making Chapman and Nichols more like sisters than they might otherwise have been. They both continue to feel indebted to Red and vow to always keep their promise - no more drugs, never ever again.

One night they were lying together, spooning in the little single bed, when Chapman said,

"I am glad I told you all that,"

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. I feel like it's been locked up inside of me all these years, keeping me prisoner; the shame, the pain, the guilt, the hopelessness - all that."

"Don't you think you have made up for all that?"

"I don't think I could ever make up for what I've done,"

"Prison is supposed to be about punishment and reform. I think you have been punished enough and you are reformed. Think of all the good you do for people around here - this prison is safer now than when I arrived and that is down to you."

"Maybe."

"Do you ever think about what you will do after?" asked Vause, tentatively.

"Only recently."

"What do you think?"
"The terms of my release will involve parole, I will have to get a job and an apartment. I will have to piss in a cup for god knows how long."

"Jump ahead five years after that?"
"Five years? I think just a simple life, a nice apartment, a job I don't suck at, near a library. Maybe I could go back to school?"

"What would you study?"

"Law."

"That sounds decided."

"Yeah, I have thought about it."

"You don't have to wait until you get out,"

"That's true. What about you?"
"I am thinking of studying business,"

"Oh really, what sort of business?"

"I'm thinking… artisanal soaps…" they both burst out laughing.

"I just know that whatever I end up doing, I want to do it with you, Chapman,"

"What does that mean, exactly?"

"It means - hold on," Alex rolls out of the bed and pops down on one knee.

"Piper Elizabeth Chapman, will you marry me?"

"Yes. I will marry you, Alexandra Pearl Vause,"

"You will?"

"I just said I would,"

"I know, but I thought there was a fair chance that you might say no,"

"Then why did you ask?"

"My plan was just to keep asking until you finally gave in!"
"Come here," Chapman pulled Vause back into bed, they looked at each other and kissed.

"So is this prison married or real life married?"

"Hey, prison is real life - for us anyway, for the next four years."

"So?"

"Both. Prison married now and real life married later."

"And you are going to apply to business school?"

"Yeah, I think so. I mean, you will probably have to help me, college!"
"Of course, I will help you. I will apply to study law and then by the time we get out we will be that much closer to… to… whatever it is we end up doing."

"So, we are really doing this?"

"Yeah, I guess we are."