Description: After rejecting Healy, Red makes an impulsive decision that irreversibly changes their relationship. Not a songfic, but it was inspired by "Breakdown" by Tom Petty, hence the title.

Set during the last few minutes of the Season 3 finale, possible Season 3 spoilers.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or any of the OITNB plot points referenced in this story. They are the property of Netflix and Jenji Kohan. I write fanfic for funsies, not monies.

Breakdown

With Norma's hand comfortably encased in her own, Red stared out at the women playing in the lake. She resisted the urge to smile, always careful to keep her fierce, severe mask from slipping. In spite of herself, she felt the corners of her mouth begin to tug upwards—what she was witnessing was a celebration of life; for many of these women, it was the only time they'd been allowed to feel alive since they were processed into this shithole.

Red herself felt her heart leap, her throbbing pulse announcing that she, too, was alive, despite her best efforts to brick herself up in a self-constructed prison of denial and let her soul slowly suffocate there. She swallowed around the lump that had become a permanent fixture in her throat ever since she had put her hastily-constructed flower bracelet in his hand and walked away from him. "Our ships passed too late in the night for one of them to change course." She turned the words over in her mind, replaying the way his face had fallen as she said them, allowing herself to feel the pain that she had tried to block out since the incident. Impulsively, she squeezed Norma's hand, and the other woman turned to look at her. Red was the last person to believe in the "powers" that the most ignorant among her fellow prisoners ascribed to Norma, but she took the meaningful look that her friend gave her as one of understanding and affirmation, encouragement, even.

Red turned her head back to the women reveling in their momentary freedom, reflected that, although she was outside of the bars, out in the open air, she still wasn't free. She turned back to Norma, patted her friend's hand, and then dropped it. She ignored the ache in her lower back as she stood up and headed in the direction she had come from. God, I must be crazy, she thought to herself, walking back into prison…of my own free will. She slid her shoes back on when her feet touched the grass, and then hurried across the yard, back into the building.

Once inside, she made her way to her intended destination on autopilot. After more than a decade, she could find his office blindfolded. Her hand hesitated above the doorknob for a split second, but her determination won out over her nerves, and she grabbed the handle, opening the door and storming in as she had done so many times in the past. At the sound of the door closing, Healy looked up from his computer, his eyes registering shock at seeing her standing there, her skin flushed and eyes flashing with an unfamiliar light.

He said her name—no, her nickname—but instead of responding, she crossed the room quickly, coming to stand in front of him. She leaned over him, placed one hand on each arm of his chair, and bent down until her eyes were level with his and he could feel her breath, hot and sweet, on his face. Now that she stood before him, Red felt her courage wavering, and she began to chide herself for her foolishness. She had been so determined when she entered the room, but now she hadn't the first clue what to do. It had been so long, so maddeningly long, since she had done anything remotely like this, and, now that the promise of intimacy was before her, she found herself frozen in the face of it.

He must have sensed her apprehension or, at the very least, read it in the quivering of her lower lip and the trembling of her hands on his chair. His own hands came up to grasp each of hers, and, as he looked into her eyes, he whispered her name, her proper name: "Galina."

Her name on his lips shook her to the core, and Red surged forward, capturing his mouth with her own. Her knees buckled slightly; whether it was because of the foreign sensation of contact or the strain on her back from the awkward angle, she didn't know. His hands left hers, arms sliding around her waist, and his body gently pushed hers up to a standing position, pulling her hard against him as his tongue dipped into her mouth. Red gasped at the feel of his tongue sliding over her teeth, but then desire took over and her own tongue brushed against his, shyly at first, and then with passion.

"Oh, Sam," she breathed when they finally broke apart and he rested his forehead against hers.

"Galina, I…" Red silenced him with a swift press of her lips to his.

"No," she said, reaching up to cup his cheek in her hand, "Don't talk." She kissed him again, slowly, softly, knowing that if she allowed him to speak now, he would make some wildly romantic declaration of undying fidelity, and his overtures and the time it took her overstimulated brain to process them would bring her back to reality and kill the mood. For now, she only wanted to feel, to be foolish and reckless, to love and be loved back. Who knew when she would ever have this chance again?

He kissed her back eagerly, one of his hands tangling in her hair and the other stroking lightly along the small of her back. His touches electrified her. Red pulled away from him, backing up the few steps that it took her to reach his desk. Gazing purposefully into his eyes, she lifted herself up to sit in the space between his computer and the edge of the desk, grabbing his hands and moving them to her hips, which he eagerly explored before moving his touches upwards, brushing against her sides and sending shivers throughout her body. As he did this, his lips roamed from her mouth to her cheeks, then down to her neck. She let out a primal moan when she felt his tongue at the juncture between her earlobe and her jaw.

"Oh, yes," Red sighed, bringing her legs up to wrap around his waist, "yes, dorogay moy, touch me, yes, yes."

He had just gathered the courage to lightly palm one of Red's breasts when she suddenly pulled away, her eyes wide open and registering not desire, but shock. Briefly, Healy wondered what it was that he had done wrong, but then he, too, heard the noise that Red's sharper, more attuned ears had picked up on. Footsteps, the squeak of shoes against the linoleum floor, heading straight for the office where he, a federal corrections officer, was currently feeling up one of the inmates under his care like a teenage boy in the backseat of a car.

Red pushed him away, a bit more harshly than she had intended, and jumped down from his desk.

"I'm telling you, Healy, it's fucking broken!" she suddenly barked, "How do you expect me to serve that pre-packaged pig slop if I can't even use my steamer to heat it up?"

Healy recovered his wits just as the door opened and a very enraged Caputo burst through, yelling his name in frustration.

"I don't know what you want me to do, Red," he said tersely, "You got a brand new refrigerator not even six months ago; now you want the Federal Department of Corrections to buy you more kitchen appliances? You think the DOC is made of money?"

"Inmate Reznikov!" Caputo thundered from the doorway, "Get back to your bunk right the fuck now! Healy, I got a situation I need help with. Now!"

Hesitantly, Healy turned away from the woman whom, just seconds ago, he had been ready to ravish on top of his desk. Playing along with their necessary ruse, Red shot one of her trademark withering glances at Caputo, and then followed both of the men out of Healy's office, yelling at their retreating backs. "This isn't over, Healy!" she said, her voice breaking as he disappeared down the corridor. Once he was out of sight, she turned around to return to her bunk, only allowing a stray tear to slip down her face because there was no one around to see her.