A.N Hey everybody I'm back :) this idea has been floating around my head since writing 'Everything comes at a price' and it just won't be ignored any longer. This will be quite an angst ridden fic so if all you want is hearts and flowers this one won't be for you not for a while at least … or maybe not ever! ;)

I don't know how often I will be able to upload new chapters but I will do my best to upload as quickly as I possible can!

As always reviews would be greatly appreciated as I really would love to read your thoughts. This first chapter is a short one just to set the scene but I hope you enjoy ...

It wasn't supposed to be like this…

It wasn't his fault he had tried, really he had, a much better candidate than the previous tolerable although unwanted suitors. His jokes were effortless, his stories interesting. He asked all the right questions and made all the right sounds when she answered, the perfect mix of interested but confidant. He was smart in his designer suit but casual with the shirt unbuttoned and no tie, the restaurant he picked not too fancy but not cheap either he was everything at one point in her life she would have wanted, wished for but not anymore.

Piper felt sorry for him, struggling to keep the guilt from her face when, once the bill had been settled and her coat was firmly buttoned, she had told him it had been nice, pleasant, one of the better dates she had endured, but not good enough for her to do it again. His face had fell slightly but he had covered his disappointment well his face smiled and he nodded gracefully but his eyes said a different story. Piper could tell he had expected more.

It wasn't his fault that she didn't want this, this life she now found herself living. Her mind and body only wanted one other living soul but that soul didn't want her. Not her mind, not her body and not the heart that she had given so willingly with everything in her being. No, her heart had been returned to her no longer whole but broken and bruised no longer functioning as it should and it would never be given to another, no matter how much others wished she would move on.

Her mother had insisted on this date worried about her only daughter and wanting to bring some stability to her life determined that if she 'Got herself back out there' she would be happy. He was the son of one of her friends, a doctor with his own practice. Recently divorced with no children a perfect match in her mothers eyes and Piper didn't have the fight in her to decline, argue that she would never want for another life partner. Instead she had nodded as though in a trance and agreed to meet at this upmarket restaurant in a dress that she could not remember buying. Her interested expression had been painted onto her face like a mask, something to hide behind, because she was never going to give her true self away again. It was something she was quite certain she would survive not for a second time.

If she could call this existence she lived in surviving

Now after a short taxi ride home in the cold November weather she sat in the apartment lovingly paid for by her father, the parent who understood exactly how she felt deep underneath the façade she painted on for everyone including her mother. Sitting there in her old pajamas, with her hair scraped back and the make up wiped clean from her face, she felt the loneliness return and she struggled not to cry.

Her arm reached out on impulse and her fingers wrapped around the worn cashmere sweater draped across the arm of the chair faithfully waiting in its place just as it always was every night. Feeling the familiar material under her fingertips caused Piper's breath to hitch in her throat and the tears built in her eyes. Memories assaulted her minds eyes her brain flicking through each scene at a lightening pace before lingering on the image of the visiting room at Litchfield the place she had first seen the comforting garment clutched in her hands.

It had been four years she had been incarcerated within those oppressive concrete walls and she sometimes couldn't decide whether those four years felt like an age or whether it had passed in the blink of an eye. She still spoke to some of her old inmates either by phone or by letter the one she conversed with the most was her wild haired ex drug taking friend Nicky. Recently though their letters had become slightly strained as they both tried desperately to ignore the figurative 'elephant in the room' that Piper had no desire to discuss in any further detail. Piper mused that as it had been 3 months since she had last heard from Nicky and she realised it would be round about now that Nicky would be released from Litchfield, for a moment she smiled as an image of Nicky grinning joyously outside of Lichfield's gates crossed her minds eye in vivid detail.

Four years, three and a half of blissful happiness, 6 months of what Piper could only describe as pure hell. Some days Piper wasn't certain how she had survived at all the emotional turmoil had drained her physically and mentally. Tiredness and sickness where symptoms she had come to live with they had become nearly as commonplace in her new life as the figurative hole that seemed to permanently sit within her chest. If heartache was a medical condition Piper knew she would be a prime candidate for examination. With shaking hands she brought the soft grey garment up to her nose, knowing that she shouldn't but unable to stop the reflex action, she inhaled deeply the tears that had been lurking just beneath the surface for most of the evening finally falling unchecked down her cheeks. The scent invaded her senses wrapped around her thoughts and made her body thrum with want and ache with longing. This smell would always be home to Piper no matter how hard she tried to make her mind forget the memories that seemed to haunt her constant waking thoughts her body would never forget it's reaction to the scent that was purely Alex.

Piper began to sob the emotion taking hold as her vision swam with image after image of her raven haired lover laughing, smiling, grinning wickedly, eyebrows raised in surprise and mischievousness before they morphed into that same face but this time scowling, shouting her eyes hard with anger, her frantic gestures showing her rage. Piper found it harder to remember the good times now her brain quickly moved from the smiles to the arguments and it hurt just as much now as it did the days they happened and she screwed her eyes tightly shut as the dreaded last image clearly materialised before her. Alex her expression cold her face void of emotion turning towards their apartment door her suitcase in one hand, jacket in the other her parting words:

"I don't want this anymore"

So caught up in the memory Piper didn't acknowledge her phone ringing until the tell tale bleep echoed into the room indicating a voice mail was being left from her unknown caller. Thinking that it was her mother Piper huddled deeper into the couch and waited for the inevitably fussy message her mother would leave. Instead Pipers eyes snapped open in shock her body turning rigid as Nicky's voice echoed into the small room.

"Chapman its me I need you to call me back asap...

I know this isn't want you want to hear but we really need to talk ...

It's about Vause"