A/N- Well, first off I want to apologize for the delay. It couldn't really be helped (this one just had a hell of time getting written), but I try not to be the person who leaves you hanging with new chapters and stuff, so I'm sorry about that... Particular thanks (just, like, in perpetuity) to the Person Who Read This, for reading it approximately fifty million times until I got it right (or as right as it was going to get) and also for the chapter title. You are a champ and without you who knows whether I'd have gotten this done or not. Also thanks to reverse-swing once again for the poem (pronounced powm) at the beginning of the chapter, the title of the fic and general all around awesomeness and encouragement (i.e. prodding me to finish).

Chapter 3- we could be immortals

There's a promise in your eyes
An invisible thread that binds
A blooming fear within your heart
But remember this my love
Black Roses never wilt
In the pale moonlight

Piper had expected something to change about the world around her or how it interacted with her after she had spent the night with Alex the first time. To somehow reflect just how different she felt now. She wasn't as naive as some of the others seemed to think she was. She didn't expect the late summer sun to shine brighter or the burnt out grass to be any greener but she'd expected... something...

But all the changes were inside of her, the quickening of her pulse when she saw Alex's smile or heard her voice, the way her heart lifted or her stomach flipped when Alex touched her in even the most causal way.

The rest of the world just kept moving along steadily. There were still patrols to run, training sessions and drills to attend, duty rotations to adhere to, Infected to scrape away from the outer wall with well placed sniper fire. By day, Alex and Piper treated each other much the same way as they always had although it seemed as though everyone knew exactly what had happened as soon as it did. Even the shit she might have taken from her own squad (who she now considered her friends) was minimized by the fact that Poussey and Tasha had been injured.

And so life went on as it always had, and probably always would in the world they were forced to be a part of: boredom and routine accompanied by the all too frequent burst of sheer terror.

The obvious main difference in the routine was that, now instead of going back to her barracks at lights out she and Alex tried to find a private place to... broaden Piper's horizons.

Alex warned her the first time (as they lay tangled up in one another after Piper had woken up) that there was no point in trying to keep quiet or keep their activities concealed when two thirds of the beings in camp had enhanced senses.

" My people will be able to sense the connection before they've even smelled anything... the werewolves... well, they'll smell it on us."

"Smell it? Eww..."

"Heh, well, kid, some things can't be helped..."

"I'm going to start bathing more..."

"It's not like what we're doing is against the rules, Piper..."

"No I mean... I know it's not against the rules, but... are people going to be... angry about it?"

"It doesn't have to mean anything, at least in terms of how we conduct ourselves day to day when we're on duty. Some people won't like it necessarily, just because I'm me and you're human... but they won't give us any problems. They trust me. They know I'd never... get carried away."

"Okay..."

"And during duty hours I treat you just like I have been, no different than anyone else..."

"I wouldn't want you to..."

"Don't get defensive, Piper. I've never underestimated you, remember?"

"Yeah... I know."

"Once we're off duty, all bets are off."

"Mmmm... good..."

"Ha! you say that now..."

"Seriously? You're acting like I wouldn't want to do what we just did... three times I might add... any time I can?"

"Well, first off, you couldn't afford to lose that much blood..."

"You don't have to... take the blood do you?"

"No, but it's certainly better if I do..."

"Hmmm, yeah it is..."

"Heh... but secondly... remember what I was saying about enhanced senses? We'd have to literally get a thousand yards from camp before the wolves and most of the vampires wouldn't be able to hear you..."

"Really? That far? But I thought people did this and..."

"Oh they do. But not all of them are as... vocal as you..."

"What? You mean the werewolves and vampires... heard that?"

"No I'm pretty sure anyone with two ears heard that..."

"Oh God..."

"I didn't say I minded... hey, you're cute when you blush like that..."

"Oh shut up..."

"Anyway, as much as I'd like to do it all the time, we have to at least attempt to keep the peace, and keeping the peace means not disturbing everyone all the time."

"So... we can do it..."

"Probably every couple of days..."

"Are you fucking serious!? Look, I don't know about you, but I'm only human and you're... I mean look at you!"

"I know. Pretty irresistible... but everyone who's together does it like this. Out of respect for everyone else..."

"There are other people together?"

"Well yeah... in fact I think I can hear Bennett and Diaz doing..."

"STOP!"

"Anyway... that doesn't mean we still can't... be together, but... just not like that. Not all the time."

"Ugh, fine..."

And Alex had been right. Most people either pretended it wasn't happening (no one was quite willing to annoy Alex by openly objecting, and they weren't obnoxious enough to cause real problems anyway) or, if they were comfortable enough, gave them unending shit. Piper knew that some people didn't like it but it hardly affected her. There wasn't much that could quite bring her down from the high that was being with Alex.

In fact the only thing that could puncture the bubble she was floating around on at the moment was Alex herself. Most of the time, when they were alone together, Alex was as relaxed and content and happy as Piper had seen her (and it wasn't just her personal bias... Nicky had taken to making exaggerated retching noises every time she encountered them off duty, muttering comments about how she never thought she'd see the day when the great Vause was a "fuckin' sap"). But every once in a while, Piper would catch Alex looking at her with a distinct air of melancholy, a shadow falling across her eyes, and she knew that the vampire was thinking again of Piper's mortality.

Piper had tried to broach the subject the first few times, but Alex had always shaken her head, smiled and seemingly by sheer force of will had made the melancholy disappear from her gold tinged green eyes. Piper let it go, but she knew that eventually they'd have to actually talk about it, because the longer she spent with Alex Vause, the more firmly she realized she had no interest in letting her go. Ever.

There was part of Alex that hoped (worried?) that nothing would change after she slept with Piper. That once whatever was between them had gone from fascination or infatuation or whatever it was on Piper's part to reality, that Piper would lose interest, that perhaps actually being with someone who was technically dead would prove to be too overwhelming. However, it turned out that all the time spent in close proximity to her had gotten Piper used to her absolute stillness, the fact that she didn't breathe, that she was always perpetually cool to the touch, to the intensity of her nearly unblinking gaze. Those were the little things that usually worried humans enough to put them off getting too close, but they only seemed to intrigue Piper more.

And there was a part of Alex that worried (hoped?) that, despite the weight of the decision she had made, she herself would lose interest. That her own affection for the girl might have just been a sort of passing thing, something that she could get out of her system with a night of mutually beneficial incredibly pleasant fucking (it had been a long time since she'd done anything of the sort with anyone, let alone someone she actually felt an emotional connection to). But all it had proven was that her feelings were much deeper than she'd allowed herself to fully contemplate, even after what had happened with the Scavengers, even after she'd practically broken a man in two for trying to hurt the girl.

Despite her blithe assertion to Piper that no one would care, there had been some wariness amongst the others (particularly the humans), the natural worry that Alex had used her abilities to seduce Piper, but that notion was quickly dispelled by Piper herself who was happy to snap at anyone who wanted to claim such a thing.

In truth, if Alex had wanted to enthrall Piper (or any of the other humans in camp really), it wouldn't have taken much. Piper was more intelligent and stronger willed than many of the humans in camp, but Alex had been around for awhile and knew how to use her natural gifts (even if she didn't fully understand them, something about pheromones combined with the very intimate act of feeding off someone but not killing them). It would've been enough to rob anyone of all their free will. But Alex had never been interested in a mindless drone, and Piper was most certainly not that. Not even a little bit.

Piper seemed blithely content with the entire arrangement. During working hours, they were just as they had been, but off duty, Piper was always with her, and for once Alex (never one for clingy) didn't mind. But the closer she got to Alex, the more Alex allowed herself to care for the girl, the more she thought about all the things Piper was ignoring... all the things that Nicky (perhaps the only person in camp aside from the commanders brave enough to talk frankly to her) had been more than happy to remind her of...

Alex was sitting in the common room of her squad's barracks when Nicky walked in, reading a book, mentally preparing herself for Nicky barging in to interrogate her about what had happened. The rest of the squad had gone straight to the mess hall for lunch after debrief but Alex knew Nicky had sensed the change the second she walked into camp, could smell it from a mile away. Just like vampires were attuned to certain things, werewolves could ferret out specific things as well. Nicky had been with Alex for decades.

"Wow, Vause. You really aren't good at taking my advice."

Alex said nothing, simply put down the book she was reading and leaned back in her chair, arms folded over her chest, sighing as she waited for the inevitable.

"Was it any good?"

One eyebrow quirked up. Just about anyone else she'd have told to fuck off but Nicky knew her too well. It was pointless to deny anything and the shaggy dog wasn't intimidated by her in the least. "It's always good."

"Hmmm... the old Vause ego... missed that," Nicky tossed her pack in the general direction of her bunk, pulled a chair from under the table and slumped in it, "And you've thought about this? About the implications."

"I always think of the implications."

"So... you ignored 'em then?"

Alex grimaced but said nothing.

"She know what's up?"

"I tried to talk to her about it Nicky. She wouldn't listen."

"Oh, and you were suddenly incapable of fighting her off?"

"Look, I know it's not a great idea, Nick.. I know that!"

"I'm sensing a but here..."

"But... there's something about her. She's different..."

"Why because you..." Nicky air quoted, "...'love her'..."

Alex glared, "Because she's different..."

"All right, Vause, all right..." Nicky sighed, "I can't stop you doing anything, obviously... just, be careful, you know?"

"Yeah. I know..."

It was foolish, of course, to think things into the ground, to take them to their worst logical outcome... to think about a day when Piper would no longer be with her... it had been a very long time since she'd cared about someone this much and she really should have just been savoring things, enjoying the time they did have together. Normally, she was able to do that but sometimes... sometimes she would start to overthink, to take everything that was happening to its worst possible outcome. She had always tried to live in the moment, as they all did, but Piper was making her think of the future... of growing old and dying...

And it didn't necessarily help that Piper herself would periodically bring up aging or getting older, usually playing it off as her kidding, which would lead to a conversation of Alex turning her... which would inevitably devolve into an argument. One that always seemed to end in a stalemate, both of them storming off in opposite directions or just going silent, waiting until calm settled again before meeting again in the middle, not bringing it up again, but knowing it was always there, hovering in the background.

Alex knew that they couldn't go on like that forever. That Piper was persistent and eventually she would have tell the girl why she so steadfastly refused to turn her. Why she wouldn't even consider it... she wished she could put it off forever but life had never really been that accommodating to her.

Red walked into the command tent for the weekly meeting and nodded hello to the others. Claudette smiled. Mendoza returned a curt nod of her own. Red took her usual seat and took a sip from her coffee cup (lukewarm blood... Red hated drinking directly from a pack), opening up her notebook and glancing up at Claudette who was running things this month.

"Chapman's probation is up," Claudette said, pulling a piece of paper out of a file folder in front of her, "She's excelled at everything. She's got an 'A' rating from Vause..."

Mendoza grimaced, "Oh yeah, I know Vause thinks she's an A plus... we have to listen to it three times a fuckin' week..."

Red rolled her eyes, "Vause wouldn't rate her an A if she wasn't, extracurricular activity or no..."

"Yeah yeah... I know she makes her toe the line when they're on duty," Mendoza sighed.

"You have a problem with them?"

"You know I ain't ever jumping for joy when one of you bloodsuckers goes fucking around with a human... but Chapman seems fine. She's infatuated with Vause's tall ass all on her own."

"It's been nearly three months," Claudette said, bemused, "You'd think you'd have gotten accustomed to it."

"Oh I'm accustomed," muttered Mendoza. "Everyone's accustomed..."

Red waved a hand, impatient, "Unless you have an official objection then can we get on with business? We've got a camp to run..."

Mendoza said nothing, just took a gulp of her coffee.

Claudette continued, "I want to assign her to Washington's unit. She's been patrolling with them and bunking with them this whole time. She works well with them and Washington supports Vause's rating."

"Fine," Mendoza muttered.

Red nodded in agreement, "Perfect..." she made a note on the paper in front of her, "Means Vause can go back to her unit. They're about to shove a silver bullet up Nicky's ass..."

Mendoza snorted, "That girl wasn't meant for command."

"No," Red agreed, half smiling, "She's even more annoying than the rest of you."

"Fuck off," said Mendoza mildly, "She's done fine with them. She'll be happy to go back to being the resident smartass..."

As Claudette went to move to the next item on the list, Red laughed sudden, short and sharp. The other two looked at her, frowning. "What?" asked Claudette.

Red was still grinning, "I was just thinking... Vause may be the first person in the history of the camp to be unhappy that she doesn't have to babysit an exile anymore..."

The squad welcomed Piper by passing around a flask full of Poussey's almost decent moonshine, each of them taking just a big enough sip to get a taste and the slightest buzz because they were on day patrol duty that week and had to go to their briefing and gear up almost as soon as they got the news about her becoming a full fledged member of the team.

Piper was used to the pre-patrol routine by now: the way Tasha always recited a bad poem (usually cribbed from the lyrics of one of the songs on the stack of records she played on her quite literally ancient record player); the way Black Cindy went from person to person punching them on the arm just slightly too hard to really be joking; the way Maxwell just at back with the battered copy of some novel she was reading for the hundredth time, letting the rest of the squad's talk flow around her; the way Poussey went about her business with practiced professionalism but always had a slight grin on her face as her troops tried to lighten the mood.

But as they left the barracks, heading in two loose columns of five towards the armory, she was suddenly hit with the thought that this would be the first time she would ever go on a patrol with Alex by her side. That she would walk in to suit up and Alex wouldn't be there, pulling on her heavy black armor and cursing under her breath about the helmet she was forced to wear for day patrols.

Piper had known that, eventually, her probationary period was going to end, and she had a sense of immense pride that she'd learned so many things so quickly, that she'd proven that she could do anything they asked of her, that had earned the right to be one of them. However, it also meant that Alex would no longer be around her all the time. She'd gotten used to the vampire's presence, found it comforting and solid, even when she couldn't touch her... but there was some comfort in knowing that Alex would always know where she was even now...

Even though she'd prepared for it, there was still a pang in her chest when she walked into the armory and Alex wasn't there. She went to her locker, letting her mind drift as she geared up...

The night before, they'd been pulling a guard shift in one of the towers near the rear of the camp. Piper had looked over at Alex and said, "This is our last guard shift together..."

Alex had half smiled, even though she'd continued to scan the horizon, "I know, Pipes," she said, quietly, allowing herself the use of Piper's first name while on duty because they were alone and their radios were keyed off. "Although I'm not going to miss being trapped in close quarters with you for six hours at a time without being able to touch you."

Piper grinned back, "You could if you weren't always insisting on following the rules," she said this last with heavy sarcasm.

"Yeah I know... if only you'd met me in the 60's... I could've given two fucks for the rules back then..."

Piper sighed, "I'm not looking forward to it you know..."

"What? Being assigned to a squad? It'll be fine. You're better than half the soldiers in this camp at almost everything... And anyway they'll probably put you with Washington's squad. You know them..."

"You know that's not what I mean..."

"I know..." Alex sighed, turning to face Piper. Piper saw a brief, almost imperceptible look of concentration cross the vampire's face and knew she was taking stock of their surroundings, gauging where everyone near them was, what they were doing. Then she nodded to herself slightly and took a step forward, putting her arms around the blonde.

Piper was so surprised it took her a moment to relax into the embrace. Normally, Alex was almost frustratingly disciplined, determined not to step out of line or treat Piper any differently than any other solider in camp. They held each other for a long moment before Alex drew back slightly. Piper looked into her eyes, the eyes that had captured her attention all those months ago in the worst possible situation and had never let it go.

Alex leaned down and kissed her lightly, briefly on the lips, and Piper understood that this was all she could allow, although even that, the barest touch, was enough to send a jolt through her system, even after they'd been together for all these months. "I'll always be here for you... you know there's nothing that can truly separate us..."

Piper had nodded, knowing that there most certainly was something that would eventually separate them, but aware this was not the right moment to bring it up. "I know..." Alex had kissed her once more then taken a swift step back and gone back to staring out the guard tower.

Piper half smiled at the memory as she cinched up the last of her armor and straightened up. She turned by instinct to Cindy, whose locker was next to hers, and they checked each other's armor to make it was secure. Cindy grinned at her, "You gonna be all right, without tall dark and broody to watch your back?"

"Oh, what you're not going to do it?" Piper asked. Three months ago she would've had no idea how to respond to Cindy's constant stream of good natured insults and jokes, but now she at least tried to give as good as she got.

"Course I am... can't have our token white girl gettin' tore up on her first patrol as a full fledged fuckin' squad member... "

They geared up, checked out their weapons and headed towards the gate. As they filed out of the gate and onto the road, heading north towards the sector they were patrolling today, Piper felt the weight of someone's gaze on her back. She glanced over her shoulder and saw Nicky and Alex in the central guard tower just to the right of the main gate.

Alex gave her the smallest of smiles and a wave. Beside her, Nicky rolled her eyes but grinned at Piper all the same. Piper nodded back an acknowledgment, then turned back to her squad. She felt Alex's eyes on her until they disappeared into the trees.

It didn't take Alex long to get back into the routine of running her squad. They were all heartily relieved to see her back again, including Nicky, who just wasn't built for long term command assignments. There were very few idle moments in her day to sit and think about how Piper wasn't around her... which didn't necessarily mean she didn't miss the girl's presence. They had gone from being around each other all the time, to occasionally not seeing each other for a day or two (sometimes due to schedule rotations not intersecting, sometimes because one of their squads had to go on overnight patrols, sometimes simply because being a squad commander, especially one who didn't sleep, was time consuming). Alex didn't like it, but it made the time they did have together seem even more precious, and it reinforced just how important they had become to each other... and it wasn't like seeing each other while they were on duty was always a blessing either.

Alex couldn't decide whether it was better or worse when Piper was on patrol with her. On the one hand, when Piper went out with Poussey's squad and Alex either stayed at camp or went with her own on a different mission, Alex had low key anxiety for her all the time. The vampire had gotten used to always being aware of Piper, even if it was just in the back of her head, on the periphery of her consciousness, and the loss of that when Piper was out of the range of even her enhanced senses, not so distracting that it affected her work, but like something was just slightly off balance in her head.

On the other hand, however, being on patrol with the blonde presented the opposite problem. She was hyper aware of Piper's movements, her heart rate, when her breathing went shallow, when her steps quickened. If she was in danger, Alex had to work to keep her mind on the matter at hand. The fact was they were all in danger every moment they were on patrol. The Infected were everywhere, the danger was all around them. Piper had been well trained and had survived enough and demonstrated enough skill to be trusted to take care of herself. Poussey was one of the best squad leaders in camp, her unit one of the most skilled (which was why they were chosen to accompany Alex's). Although death or injury was always a possibility, Piper was about as safe as she could be.

Alex always managed to keep on task, because she was a professional and she had to, but she never stopped being aware of her. This mission was too important to get sidetracked. There were some things that were more important than what she wanted.

"Have you ever?"

"Hmmm?" Alex glanced over at Piper, who was lying, fully clothed, in her arms. As much as Alex would've enjoyed lounging around naked as the day she was born, the circumstances weren't exactly ideal for it. No one really knew when they'd be called upon to run a mission... or in Alex's case, when Nicky might decide to barge into her quarters.

"Turned someone?"

Alex frowned, "Piper..."

"What?"

"We're not having this discussion again. I've already told you I'm not going to turn you..."

"I know," Piper said, sighing, "I know that, but... I'm just, curious..."

Alex sighed. The blonde was always curious... and normally she didn't mind that. Normally, she actually liked it, but there were some things that she kept hidden for a reason. Things that were too painful to talk about, even for someone like her, who had lived so long that nothing fazed them.

In the end it was Piper's expression, wide eyed, open, concerned, that tipped the scales. She wasn't asking out of morbid fascination or some desire to have something to use against her. Alex found that she trusted the girl implicitly, which was something she never thought she'd do again.

Another deep breath, "Once. I did it once," she said, her voice barely a whisper. Although it was something that haunted heroften, she had never really shared it with anyone else before (Red knew but only because she had been the one to find Alex right after it had happened and had seen everything) and she hardly knew how to put it into words.

"It was... not long after I'd been turned myself. I was trying to... deal. It wasn't easy. When you're first turned, it's so... confusing. Your heart doesn't beat. You don't have to breathe. You don't know your own strength... and the hunger. It's... all consuming. For the first few days after, I didn't know anything else existed. It was just a blur of... red..."

Alex was looking at the ceiling of the tent, but her eyes were unfocused, far away, a century distant. She felt Piper take her hand as though she were trying to anchor her. The vampire plowed on, not wanting to stop because she wasn't entirely sure she would allow herself to start again. She hadn't exactly been hiding from the memories of those early days, but accessing them was not something she relished.

"...the one who turned me... he... tried to make me into a disciple. I'm sure that's in one of Jefferson's books. Usually... the one who turns you has a special bond with you, you know? He can tell you to do shit and you sort of have an... inclination to do it. He led me through that first month. Taught me how to handle things, how to feed... I barely remember it, but I know... I know he told me to kill and I did it...

"After that first month though... I got a handle on things... began to realize what he was telling me to do was wrong... I'd like to say that it was my willpower, and maybe that was part of it, but I think mostly it was just because I didn't want to fuck him..."

Piper laughed at that, a sort of surprised snort. Alex allowed herself a short smirk, remembering quite vividly the look on Marcus's face when he realized that she was actually walking out on him.

"A lot of our control depends on the ability to seduce, and seduction requires attraction," she glanced at Piper, eyes softening briefly, "as you know... but I wasn't the least bit attracted to him... for obvious reasons. To cement the whole connection, he wanted me to... fuck him. I told him that I wouldn't do it... that I was leaving... and he ... well he wasn't used to that. he tried to stop me so..." she trailed off, "...he wasn't that experienced himself, he'd only been a vampire for 30 years, otherwise he might've known better. Someone who's newly turned is stronger than someone who isn't. I... fought him to a standstill. He let me go... and I went back to my mother."

Alex faltered slightly over the words. Closing her eyes, feeling her dry tear ducts burning. "Fuck..." she muttered.

"Alex, you don't... you don't have to tell me if..."

"No. I want to... it's important that you know... I need you to understand why."

"Okay..." Piper said softly, nodding.

"She... she took me back in without hesitation... she was so fucking happy to see me again. She thought I was dead... there'd been no body... so the cops told her I was probably a runaway. She never believed it. Knew I'd never leave her if... as long as... we were both alive...

"I told her what had happened, explained what I was, and she didn't blink an eye," a small, sad smile appeared, "said it meant I'd be cheaper to feed now... we were fuckin' poor, it's what had made me so easy to attack in the first place. My mom worked as a waitress at a diner and she took in washing and sewing when she wasn't at the restaurant. She knew everyone, was friends with everyone. Everyone... everyone loved her. One of her best friends was the butcher's wife. They... helped us out sometimes when they could afford to. They didn't ask questions when she started asking for... well, I kept fed. I had enough self control I could feed off people without killing them, but...I didn't want to be... like that..."

She sighed, "It was fine for awhile. I couldn't go out during the day, but I didn't have to sleep, which meant I could help mom with her work. Then, about four months after I got back, she got... sick. Cancer. She had no money for treatments and back then they wouldn't have done much good anyway. It was basically a death sentence. The doc gave her six weeks at best..." Alex turned to look at Piper, but the softness she found there, the profound sympathy (not pity... Alex was intensely grateful for that) made her turn away again... she didn't deserve it... and Piper would know why soon enough...

"She was all I had, Piper. My entire fucking life. Without her I was alone. I mean, I knew people, but I didn't love anyone the way I did her. As she got worse and worse, I started.. I started to think that maybe there was a way I could keep her alive. I... had seen Marcus change people, during that month I was with him. It's... a delicate thing. If you've been around for awhile, done it a few times, it gets easier, but... the first time it's not easy. If one thing goes wrong, the balance is off, you kill the person rather than changing them..."

She stopped again. Piper said nothing this time, simply stayed where she was, clutching Alex's hand, burrowed into her side. Without even realizing it, Alex had been drawing her closer and closer with the arm wrapped around her shoulder. If it was painful or uncomfortable, Piper wasn't saying anything about it.

Alex closed her eyes again, "I went back and forth about it... wondered if she'd even want it. I talked with her about everything but I couldn't... ask her about it. I knew what she'd say. She'd say if there was any chance I might slip up, she wouldn't want me to do it. She wouldn't want me to live with the guilt... and then she got to be in too much pain to talk. She was just... in and out of consciousness, delirious... when it got to that point, a doctor who'd been a regular at the diner brought us some morphine... enough to 'ease her through her last days'...

"That's when I decided. I was going to do it. She was so good... so fucking good Piper, the best person I've ever known. It was fucking unfair that she should die while I just..." she shook her head, "...I gave her some morphine... so she wouldn't feel anything... and then... then I tried to do it. I tried to turn her... but something went wrong. I... I don't... I don't even know what it was... and she... she regained consciousness... and she was in terrible pain. The... substance that turns you... it's basically poison. If it doesn't kill you and turn you, it... hurts. she died... that night. I don't think she would've lasted much longer anyway... but she died in so much pain...

"I should've just let her go. I should've just given her the full dose of morphine and let her slip away but... I was selfish and I couldn't let go and..."

If she'd still been capable of it, she would've been weeping. As it was, she was drawing in sharp shallow breaths, sobbing without tears. She didn't need to breathe, but her body still remembered what it was to double over with grief. She felt Piper pull her closer. For once, the blonde didn't speak, and Alex was immensely grateful for it. She didn't need to hear words of comfort. She wasn't sure any of them would've worked at this point. She'd lived with this for nearly 100 years, and she understood every angle of it. She only needed Piper to understand why it meant she would never do it again. And by her comforting embrace and the silent tears Alex could feel against her neck, she knew that Piper did...

After that night, Piper hadn't brought up the subject of being turned again, and Alex had gone back to silently hoping that it wouldn't be something she'd ever really have to contemplate. Hope was something that had never been particularly kind to Alex, and she had grown used to never giving into it, but being with Piper had stirred the unfamiliar impulse within her, just as it had stirred so many things that she wasn't used to feeling.

The world was dangerous, but they were one of the best Resistance units in the Region, well trained and highly disciplined, their commanders tough and capable. It had been nearly nine months since they'd lost anyone altogether, although they'd suffered numerous injuries, some of them serious.

It was nearly a week after Alex had told Piper about her mother when Red called her into the command tent.

"Mendez. He's re-surfaced."

"What?" snarled Alex, her fangs involuntarily extending at the sudden burst of anger. They hadn't seen or heard from him since the incident with Dickie and his friends. Alex figured the little bastard had known that his betrayal would be obvious, that his name would go on the hit list they kept of smugglers who couldn't be trusted, of people who should be put down at the first opportunity. The Council had transmitted his details to every Unit in the region, so it was doubtful he'd be doing business here ever again., but it was evidently too much to hope that he'd stay away.

"No," Red said, grimacing, "He was spotted not far from here..."

"Smuggling?"

"No he knows he can't deal with any of us anymore, knows that all the other Units and Settlements in this area won't go near him. He's actually taken over what was left of that gang of Scavengers who tried to kill you."

"Christ," muttered Alex... she'd known Mendez was a slimy bastard, but he hadn't ever been a Scavenger. Scavengers were the lowest of the low. Men and women who had lost all their humanity, who were barely more than Infected themselves. At least Smugglers still pretended to have purpose, principles...

"Yes. He ambushed a unit from ARAC 12. Killed them all, took everything. Didn't do it pretty. Used the Infected against them..." Red gestured to the map of their Camp's Area of Operations and the ones surrounding it. "We think he's making his way back towards us, our territory."

"Fuck."

"We have to take care of him. Scavengers can't be allowed to operate here."

Alex sighed. Part of their mandate was to offer aid and assistance to their allied Smugglers, who lived in much less heavily fortified camps than they did, and to protect the scattered settlements, where those who didn't want to join the ARAC units huddled together. A guy like Mendez might not be able to take out a well protected ARAC camp, but he could sure as hell take out their friends.

"We're sending your unit and Washington's after him."

"That's not overkill?"

"Reports are he has at least that many with him. We ought to be sending more, but you know we can't spare any more than that. It'll strain us to send you," Red leaned forward, "This pig fucker has betrayed us, has become an animal. You do what you need to do to stop him ever hurting anyone again, yes?"

Alex nodded grimly. There were no prisoners out here, no courts, no arguments for mitigating circumstances. Mendez had fucked them over. Mendez had killed other humans with intent. All that was left was to find him and ensure he didn't do it to anyone else.

Red pointed towards the map again, "This was where he was last spotted. You'll leave tonight after sunset... we'll brief your squads in an hour."

They made it 30 minutes before the distress call came in. One of the smuggler's camps about 5 miles out was under attack from what appeared to be a group of Scavengers. The two squads were nearly done with preparations and they accelerated everything and headed out immediately.

With the trucks, it took them no more than 10 minutes to get to the camp. By the time they arrived, the outer wall, just sandbags and some barbed wire really had been breached. The defenses had been meant mostly for the Infected, not for other humans, and it didn't look like it had been difficult. There was smoke rising from inside the little camp, and they could hear gunshots and shouts.

The twenty yards between the woods they'd just driven out of and the front of the camp had concrete blocks covered in barbed placed at strategic intervals as another way to slow the Infected (whose limited problem solving skills meant obstacles of that sort were always effective in bunching them up and making them easier to dispose of, at least in smaller numbers). However, the blocks also meant that the trucks couldn't get any closer. The squads deployed, weapons at the ready, leaving their drivers in the reinforced troop carriers keeping watch on their backs with their rifles (each vehicle was heavily armored and locked up tight as soon as the squads deployed, the drivers' compartment equipped with open slots their rifles could fit through). Alex's squad went left, Washington's went right. Alex cast a glance at Piper and caught Piper doing the same. There wasn't time for anything else.

They were halfway to the camp's entrance when Nicky, the keenest nose in the squad, frowned and slowed up. Alex, sensing her hesitation, brought the whole squad to a halt and radioed to Washington, "Hold up, Washington. Nichols has something..."

Poussey's voice, "She sure? Gonzalez and Frank don't have anything here..." she said, referring to the wolves on her squad.

"I'll check..."

"Vause, there's some bad shit going on in there..." Poussey said, and Alex could hear the urgency in her voice.

"I know..." she turned to Nicky, "What is it Nichols..."

"This ain't right, Vause... it feels off... the smell is wrong..."

Alex stood up straighter, taking a deep breath. She smelled burning and blood and dirt and the scents of her squad and of Washington's, further off she could smell the people inside the little smuggler's camp, although she obviously couldn't separate friends from enemies. She could hear sounds from camp, indistinct, blended together, people shouting, yelling...

She turned to look at Nicky, frowning and preparing to signal them forward again, "Nichols, I don't..."

... before she could finish her sentence, she heard a strangled moan from behind them. Her head whipped back to look the way they had come... and she heard Morello, the driver of their squad's truck , call out a warning... and then at least three dozen Infected, a bona fide fucking pack, came crashing out of the woods behind them...

"Washington!" she called into the radio

"Yeah I see!" Poussey said.

The Infected were already between them and the trucks, and though they were slow and impeded by obstacles, this was not the place to fight them, they were closing in too fast. A pack could overwhelm even two dozen troops in short order, especially if they killed or turned a couple. The open field was the wrong place to make a stand.

"Make for the camp, fast!" Alex said. Poussey had the same idea. They headed for the camp, the troops bringing up the rear picking off the individual Infected with precision shots when they could. They were almost to the gate when a shot rang out and Nichols went down hard, the bullet slamming into her shoulder.

The bullet clearly wasn't silver because all it did was piss Nicky off. She swore loudly and immediately morphed, her wolf shaking off the wound quicker than her human form was capable of. She glared at the camp and snarled loudly at Alex. Alex knew Nicky well enough to understand what she meant. The bullet had come from the camp itself.

"Washington! Cover! Enemy fire coming from the camp!" even as she said it, more shots rang out. Another of her people was grazed before they all managed to find some cover.

"Well fuck!" Washington spat as they got their squad behind cover and began advancing more slowly, taking shots at the camp itself now, where Alex could now clearly see enemies concealed behind the sandbags and wire.

Why couldn't anything ever be fucking easy?

Later, when all was said and done, the post op investigation would find that they'd been duped by Mendez and his newly augmented group of renegade smugglers. They'd actually taken the camp the day before, quickly and quietly disposing of every single living person within it before proceeding to set a trap that the feral Scavengers that he'd taken on could never have come up with themselves.

They'd corralled Infected in twos and threes over the course of the day until they had a fair number and concealed them in the forest in an airtight cargo container they'd stolen from the ARAC camp they'd raided, thus making the fuckers impossible for even the wolves' enhanced senses to hear or smell immediately (given enough time to recon the area, they would've eventually sensed them, but they didn't believe they had that kind of time). As soon as Alex and Poussey's squads had arrived and were far enough away from the safety of their vehicles that they couldn't get back easily (but not close enough to the camp to sense that the shouts and yells coming from that direction were all fake), the container had been opened, and the Infected had made tracks for the warm flesh in front of them... which left the squads surrounded, Mendez's assholes on one side, Infected on the other.

Of course, none of that came up until later, and none of it made any fucking difference in the moment, as everything devolved into chaos. The squads made it to the camp and began engaging the ferals on the other side, who were too undisciplined to follow Mendez's orders to stay behind cover and began emerging to attack the squads.

The Infected converged on them as well (Mendez perhaps being a little too clever, forgetting that Infected would go after any live being they could find, not taking into account that they would attack his people as much as the ARAC troops), and suddenly the field became complete chaos as the ARAC troops fought the living and the dead alike.

The end result of the fight was never really in question. Mendez had surprised them, hoping to take out enough of them in the initial chaos, or hoping that they would panic with the Infected at their backs, but he underestimated both their training and his own troops' complete lack of discipline. But that didn't mean that any of it came easy.

The wolves morphed and began tearing into the nearest enemies they could find. Everyone else advanced into the camp and began fighting Mendez's men (his group was at least two dozen strong, though not nearly as well armed, armored or trained) with guns and knives and fists as the Infected flowed in behind them...

Alex focused her senses down to her immediate vicinity to avoid being overwhelmed with the sounds and smell of it. There was no longer any point to issuing commands, everyone was just trying to survive as best they could, to take out the enemy before the enemy, in whatever form, destroyed them instead..

One of her human troops was fighting off two Infected and had lost his rifle. Alex shot the two zombies off him and tossed him her pistol before turning back to find one of Mendez's goons, a tall, broad, wild eyed man caked in mud and blood with a smell so overwhelming it nearly knocked her over on its own, coming at her with a machete. Someone had shot him in the side and there was long gash in the right side of his forehead that was gushing blood down the side of his face, but he hardly seemed to notice. There was nothing but madness and the thrill of violence in his eyes.

The man's first swing was wild, but he was so deceptively quick that even with her unnatural speed, the blade still glanced off the body armor on her shoulder with surprising force. Even for a feral he was strong and fast. He reversed his swing almost instantly, trying to come back at her before she could recover, but she ducked that as well, having instantly adjusted for his speed and came in under his arm, driving her right fist into his ribs hard. She heard bones shattering, and the air rushing from his lungs in a wheeze, growling incoherent curses.

The blow was enough to make him drop his weapon, but even though he had doubled over with the force of it, and was in obvious pain he still hadn't gone down. Using his position to his advantage, he drove his legs forward, wrapped his arms around her midsection, and slammed the crown of his head into her midsection, tackling her hard and taking her to the ground. Her helmetless head hit the ground hard and for a split second she saw stars. The feral grabbed another knife from his belt and raised his arm to thrust it down at her. His speed and the fact that he was essentially kneeling on her arms meant that stopping the blow was going to be near impossible.

Alex was bracing herself to move her head as much as she could, try to mitigate the effect of the impact, when a growling blur of untidy light brown fur and snapping teeth came flying in, seemingly out of nowhere, slamming into the man's already injured left side and knocking him off her with such force that he didn't stop sliding for five feet. Nicky... Alex sprang to her feet as soon as the man's weight was off her and looked over to make sure Nicky had things under control... but judging by the unhealthy gurgling noises he was making and the blood that was soaking the ground underneath him, the wolf was fine.

Alex turned and headed back into the teeth of the fight..

Piper's gun had run out of ammo within the first five minutes, which was fine because one of the few things she hadn't excelled at was marksmanship. The thing worked much better for her as a blunt object with a knife attached to the end of it. She was near the entrance to the camp, where all the Infected were most concentrated. The noise of the fight and smell of living flesh had attracted more than just the initial herd. She couldn't tell how many more, just that their numbers didn't seem to be diminishing at all.

She and one of the wolves, Flaca, had somehow ended up working as a pair, holding their particular patch of ground against the waves of undead assaulting them. Not many of Mendez's men had strayed this far towards the entrance of the camp after the initial burst of action, but given the sheer number of Infected, she and the wolf had more than enough to keep them occupied.

Flaca was normally attached to Gloria's squad, but one of Poussey's wolves had been injured in the last patrol. Normally they'd have gone out one short, but this mission had been too important, so they'd drawn a replacement. Poussey wasn't necessarily fond of the tall, skinny, extremely talkative girl, but she was one of Gloria's best and when push came to shove she could be relied upon to do what needed to be done.

The girl had stayed in her human form. Staying human could often be a more effective way for a wolf to deal with large groups of infected. Wolves were good at tearing out throats, which would do no good against a zombie. Better to stay upright and use her enhanced strength, reflexes and senses to fight them off with a weapon in hand.

Piper put her bayonet through the eye of one Infected, while elbowing one that was coming up behind her in the face, hard enough to drive what remained of its nose back up through its brain, which cleared out the ground in front of her at least temporarily. She turned just in time to see Flaca get grabbed from behind by an Infected that had gotten too close while the girl had been trying to take out the three in front of her.

Flaca morphed to get out of the grasp of the one that had bear hugged her, but one of the three in front of her grabbed hold of her leg. She turned and snapped at it, but she was surrounded now. Piper ran at them as the zombies began to overwhelm the struggling wolf. She smashed the first one in the head with the butt of her rifle with enough force that she heard bones crack. The zombie fell to the side, and she used the momentum from her swing to carry her forward, kicking one of the other three in the head while she put her bayonet through the eye of a third. Flaca had enough room to move that she sprang up and tackled the fourth to the ground, before setting her powerful jaw at either side of its head and biting down hard, cracking it like a nut.

The wolf grimaced and made an annoyed grunting whimper. None of them liked popping Infected like that. They knew it wouldn't transfer the infection like a bite would, but it tasted awful. Then she looked over at Piper and dipped her snout sharply, an acknowledgement. Piper nodded back... and then Flaca yelped loudly and shifted into a defensive stance, growling at something behind Piper.

Before Piper could even turn, she felt a set of teeth sink into her calf. She cried out and pivoted... the Infected she'd hit with her rifle butt had crawled up to her and grabbed her leg. Its face had been pulped by her blow, but evidently the cracking bones hadn't been enough to take out its brain... and now it was fucking attached to her leg.

Panic started to rise up in her throat... being bitten was a death sentence... but she pushed it back down. She couldn't dwell on this while there was still a fight raging around her. She brought the tip of her bayonet down into the top of the zombie's head hard, piercing its brain. Immediately she felt the excruciatingly painful pressure on her leg let up. It took everything she had to stay on her feet.

Flaca had morphed back and frowning at her, concerned, "It got you, Chapman, we have to..."

Before she could finish, a gunshot rang out, and Piper saw a bullet tear into the girl's side... it must have been silver because Flaca went down hard, swearing profusely and grabbing at her side.

Piper looked up and saw a figure running at them from the direction of the camp, where she could see the fight was winding down. From what she could tell the squad was winning, but clearly this Scavenger wasn't prepared to concede anything. the Scavenger was small, thin, compact, and could've been either a man or a woman. Piper's leg was in agony, she was concerned about Flaca and how badly the wolf was hurt, and by the time she spotted the attacker, they were already nearly to her. The attacker slammed into her (sending her gun flying) before she could consider a defense, bearing her to the ground and snarling, "Well, aren't you a pretty one, Blondie!" (the voice confirmed she was a woman, her accent, rather bizarrely, marked her as Australian)

She was wearing the usual random collection of threadbare clothes and mismatched armor, covered in a sheen of mud and blood and other substances that Piper didn't want to think about too hard, and her scent, like that of most of the Scavengers, was powerful and distracting. Her arms were bare, and Piper noted they were covered in tattoos as the woman punched her in the face.

Piper barely felt the blow, and she could hardly concentrate on the woman now raising her pistol to point at her face. All she could feel was the pain radiating from her leg, all she could think of was the poison leaching into her system. The longer she fucked around here, the more time it would have to work its way through her bloodstream. The average zombie bite to a lower extremity would take a day to kill someone depending on the person, and maybe twice that if they got the drugs fast enough... she did not have time for this.

Gritting her teeth, she whipped her hand up and knocked the woman's gun hand out of the way just as she pulled the trigger. The noise was deafening and the impact close to Piper's ear. A wave of adrenaline hit her and, in a sudden movement, she jerked her right hand up and hit the woman hard in the face, staggering her just enough that Piper could buck her off. She flipped over and scrambled on her hands and knees the two feet towards where her rifle had landed. She laid hands on it and turned over again raising it, pointy end first (the first lesson Alex had ever taught her, she thought darkly), just as the Scavenger rather unwisely jumped to tackle her again.

The Scavenger couldn't stop her momentum and ended up taking the knife on the end of Piper's rifle right in the middle of the chest. A loud, dying animal moan ripped itself from the Scavenger's lungs as she collapsed, and Piper, the danger over, and unable to support the other woman's entire weight, let the rifle slip from her hands again. Her attacker's body collapsed onto Piper's legs, causing a new wave of agony to rip through her... and all she could think was how fucking unfair it was that she was going to leave Alex this way.

Lorna and Washington's driver Ford had called in back up and a medical unit the minute they'd reported the ambush. By the time the reinforcements and med truck arrived, the fight was nearly over. As the fresh troops arrived and the med teams deployed out into the field to help the injured, Alex, covered in blood and Infected guts, finally allowed herself to relax her battle focus slightly, expand back to her normal level of sensory awareness, to take a deep breath and try to calm herself.

On instinct, the first thing she did was try to locate Piper, and it only took seconds for her to realize something was wrong. Piper's scent was off, her breathing tortured, she was making a low moaning noise that could only mean she was hurt. Alex was at her side before the medics even noticed she was injured, just in time to see Piper try to push the body of a Scavenger off of her and try to stand. She collapsed almost immediately, and Alex caught her, lowering her gently to the ground. Alex didn't even need to look to see that Piper had been bitten, she could sense it... and it took everything in her power to keep the devastation off her face.

Piper's eyes were unfocused, she was sweating and shaking and every movement seemed to cause her tremendous pain. Once she was lying back down, Alex turned to the nearest medics, who were working on Flaca, and called out, "We got a bite here!"

She could hear a med team breaking off to run towards them. "Help's coming, Pipes, just hold on..."

Piper looked into Alex's eyes and shook her head sharply, "I've been bitten..."

"I know, but..."

The medics arrived, and knelt down, assessing the situation. Before they could do anything, even ask Alex to move out of the way, Piper reached up and clamped her hand around the vampire's neck, pulling her closer, but speaking loudly enough that the medics could hear as well, "I want you... to turn me..." she said, forcing the words out as her eyes lost focus again. Before she could say anything more, she lost consciousness, sinking into the black fog of the infection.

Alex looked up. Ingalls, the senior human medical officer in camp, kneeling on Piper's other side, was looking at her, her eyes wide, stunned by Piper's words. Alex met her eyes and let out a long breath, "Jesus..."

The med unit had quickly identified the most severely injured troops and loaded them on to the fast, agile, lightly armored med transport trucks for the trip back to the camp.

Every single second that passed seemed interminable to Alex. They'd made one pass at trying to get her to leave Piper's side, but after she'd straight up bared her fangs at the medic, they'd backed off. When the truck got there, she stayed next to Piper and held her hand as the blonde, in immense pain from the bite in her calf and the poison slowly leaching through her veins, gritted her teeth and groaned even in her unconscious state.

As they drove, they determined that amputation wasn't going to be an option. It had spread too far by the time they reached her, well and truly leached into her bloodstream. Alex cursed herself again for not getting to Piper fast enough, even though objectively she knew there was nothing she could've done. The fight had been in full swing, and no one had even realized she'd been bitten until she'd pushed the little Aussie off of her and tried to stand up... it had been too late even then.

When they got back to camp, Washington's squad and Alex's all went into the quarantine building, but instead of just being checked and released into general medical like everyone else, Piper was put into one of the quarantine rooms. It was a 12 by 12 room split in two, one half a standard medical room, the other an observation room where someone stood guard 24 hours a day when the room was occupied. The outside walls were sturdy, thick concrete, the inner door made of heavy steel and secured with two huge physical locks and mechanical one that only admitted medical staff and the highest ranking officers in camp.

It was where they kept people who'd been infected and it was rarely used. Generally if someone was bitten, they were in a desperate enough situation that they died in the field, either consumed by whatever had bitten them, or killed by one of their squadmates, usually at their own request (aside from Piper, three other troops had been bitten, two had died, one had asked to be shot). Piper had asked for something else altogether, something that no one had ever asked for before, and it automatically changed procedures.

So now she lay in the bed in the quarantine room, restraints on her wrists and ankles, drugs flowing through her veins to try to arrest the inexorable progress of the virus and keep her unconscious and at least marginally pain free... and Alex sat by her side Red wasn't happy about having her so close to someone who'd been bitten, no one was, but Piper was restrained and Alex was fast and strong, so she allowed it, in part because she knew moving Alex would be impossible.

Alex was silent and stoic, getting out of the way of the doctors when they came in, but otherwise never letting go of the blonde's hand. Listening to her slow, shallow breathing, to her heart laboring to pump the blood through her veins even as the poison inside her was turning it sluggish and thick in a way that would eventually kill her.

The doctors gave Piper 48 hours, and that was if the drugs continued counteracting the poison at their current rate, and Alex was not going to leave her. She wanted to curse herself for loving Piper. She wanted to tell herself she was an idiot for allowing it to happen, for letting Piper get under her skin and burrow into the heart that hadn't beaten for over a century... but she couldn't bring herself to do it. She couldn't force herself to regret a single second of their time together. It hadn't been ideal, it never could have been, not with the lives that they had to live, but they had forged a connection and carved out room in their lives for one another and it had felt really fucking good, better than anything she'd felt since she'd been human.

No. She would never regret what they'd had... but she could sure as hell curse every god in the universe for taking it all away from her like this. Curse herself because she had forgotten just how fragile life was out here... allowed herself to think that maybe this could've been, if not forever, than at least for decades.

And deep down, maybe she could hate herself too... for having the power to keep Piper with her but hesitating for even the barest moment to use it.

It was two hours after the squads had returned. They'd all debriefed and had medical assessments, going either to the med tent or off to their barracks, and now the three commanders had cleared the command tent to discuss their next move.

Mendoza paced restlessly, her jaw set, her eyes blazing, "Girl could've made it a whole lot easier she'd asked Vause to put a bullet in her rather than fuckin' turn her..."

Claudette, who was leaning on the command table, staring at the map in front of her, unseeing shook her head, "Chapman has never been one for the easy way..." her voice was heavy with worry. She had become fond of Piper, seeming to find her amusing rather than grating as some did. She sighed, a deep, heavy breath, and then stood up straight, folding her arms across her chest, getting to the matter at hand. There would be time to grieve later, "... but she did request to be turned, and so it must be discussed..."

Mendoza stopped and glared at her, "What's to discuss? The answer's obviously fuck no..."

"And why is that, Mendoza?" asked Red, one eyebrow raised. She was sitting calmly in one of the camp chairs scattered throughout the command room, her preternatural stillness in direct contrast to Mendoza's restlessness. Even when she wasn't agitated, Gloria was seemingly always in motion.

"Cause it ain't allowed!" Mendoza growled. "My people don't go around biting whoever wanders a-fuckin' long..."

"Your people can't turn anyone immortal... becoming a wolf doesn't stop the Infection... becoming a vampire does..."

"That's only if the process actually works..." muttered Claudette, frowning. " that's why we don't usually allow it..."

"But... it's not specifically forbidden," Red put in.

"Don't go there, Red," snapped Mendoza, "You know turning folks is breaking the rules. Just cause we never set it down in stone doesn't mean it's all right..."

Claudette sighed, "The girl wants it."

"I don't care what the fucking girl wants!" Mendoza smacked her hand on the table to emphasize her point, "We've had other people want it before too, didn't allow it then neither."

"Those other people were idiot wannabes," said Red, frowning, "Kids who thought being a vampire would be fun or powerful. This girl was dying when she asked... she knew what she was asking for..."

Mendoza sighed, running a hand through her close cropped hair, "Yeah, I know..."

"Dying because she was saving Gonzalez's life..." the Russian added, pointedly.

"I get that. And don't think I'm not grateful. I am... but... people get bit all the time. Human, wolf... even you pale motherfuckers. Don't make her any more or less special'n anyone else."

"None of them have ever requested this," Claudette said, "This is a situation that is unique. Unprecedented in the fifteen years we have been here..."

Mendoza shook her head, "Look, even if I agree the girl wants it... and I'm not even going to go into the fact she may not be thinking so straight right now, we have to think about Vause..."

"You're so concerned about Vause now?" asked Red, raising her eyebrows.

"She ain't my favorite, but she's good. Helps keep all of us alive, and I like people can help keep all of us alive... anything happens to her, it weakens us... this girl... she was just a regular human with regular human blood, that woulda been one thing... but she's been bitten... you know what happens when you all drink from someone's been bitten."

An uncomfortable hush fell over the tent. After a long moment, Red sighed, "That doesn't happen every time. Or even most of the time. There's so few documented cases, there's not even reliable proof that it's because of the tainted blood that..."

"Well there's enough documented cases that I don't want to see it happen anywhere near here. The infection gets her..."

"If she does it fast enough, doesn't actually ingest the blood, maybe it won't..."

"It goes wrong, Chapman will still be dead, but Vause will be a slavering fucking maniac. You want to risk that?"

Red sighed, "We'll take them out somewhere. That development where Vause found her in the first place. Put a guard up..."

"Use all those resources for this one thing? Chapman worth it?"

"It might be a moot point," Claudette put in.

"Why?"

"Vause may refuse."

Mendoza frowned, raising an eyebrow, "She'd refuse her girl?"

"Make your argument easier wouldn't it?" asked Red coolly.

"The fuck you mean by that?" Mendoza narrowed her eyes, "You think I want Chapman to die?"

Red shook her head, "No... no of course not..." she sighed, "Vause made a promise a long time ago never to turn anyone. Doesn't think being a vampire is such a treat, necessarily. Doesn't want to curse anyone else with it. Especially not for selfish reasons..."

Mendoza sighed, "But if she does?"

"Then I say we let her. The pact was made to prevent us turning people for our own purposes or for the selfish whims of humans who just think they want immortality for sport. This is not that. Because she wants it..."

Claudette nodded, "I... agree... if we can make it safe..."

Mendoza sighed, releasing a stream of Spanish swear words under her breath, before finally looking up, brown eyes clouded but still fierce as they bit into Red's crimson edged blue ones, "Fine... fine... if she wants it..."

"She wants it," Nicky said. She was standing with Alex in Piper's room, watching the blonde. The Infection was far enough advanced that she was turning a bit gray, but her heart still beat, and her chest still rose and fell, slowly but steadily. Every so often she would stir, not enough to wake, but enough to put a furrow between her brows, a grimace on her face. And it hit Alex hard every time, knowing that the pain was so great that it was affecting her even in this state.

Alex ran a hand through her hair and let her eyes drift over to where Piper lay, "I swore I would never do it."

"I know you did. All you bitey motherfuckers did to even get in here..."

"No, Nick, I swore before that... way before that. I was never going to turn anyone. Ever."

"Alex..."

"What if she hates it? hates me for it? It's not easy, Nicky. I went through it. The first week feels like you're going to die. The first year feels awful..."

"It did for you since you were pretty much alone. It might not for her. She'll have you and the other bloodsuckers to help her out..."

"I've seen people go fucking insane. So have you! To go from being a goddamn normal person to suddenly seeing every other human being as a snack? "

"She wants it, Vause," Nicky repeated, "And you know the most important thing?"

Alex sighed, dropping her head into her hands, "What?"

"She's gonna die if you don't. The infection's gonna spread, and it's gonna kill her brain and then someone's gonna have to put a goddamn bullet in her..."

"Nicky..." Alex's eyes were squeezed shut, teeth gritted.

"It's the fucking truth... we both know it. The second she was bitten she was dead. Unless you do this."

"It could kill us both."

"Yeah. I know. But somehow I think maybe you're under the impression that it might be better that way."

Alex didn't look up.

"Alex... Alex, look. You know you'll never forgive yourself if you don't. You'll always wonder what if... and quite frankly you can talk about being all noble and shit, but I'm the one who has to fuckin' live with you for the next hundred years if you don't do it. You'll be all brooding and morose and..."

"I'm hot when I brood."

Nicky half smiled, "Yeah I know you are... I know what happened in the past was bad. Real bad, and I know that the consequences of this could be just as bad, but for once you've gotta give into your damn heart a little bit, you know?"

Alex sighed deeply, running a hand through her hair as she looked through the window at Piper. She couldn't help but think that giving into her heart was a large part of the reason she was in this situation in the first place...

Alex had been sitting, turning Nicky's words over in her head for little more than twenty minutes when she sensed Red coming. It was a sign of just how distracted she was by Piper's condition and the way her proximity was overwhelming her senses that she didn't become fully aware of the elder vampire's presence until she was just outside the door.

She squeezed Piper's hand gently before standing up and turning towards the door just as Red entered the room. For anyone else who wasn't medical staff, she'd have stayed seated, but Red was different. Most of what humans thought of as the whole "vampire deal" with everyone being , as Piper had put it, "all courtly and polite" was bullshit, but if there was one things vampires recognized it was seniority. Anyone who had been around as long as Red had didn't have to demand respect, it was simply something they were given.

Red glanced over Alex's shoulder at Piper, then met Alex's eyes. She didn't have to ask how the blonde was, she'd probably known before she even entered the room, even without looking at the medical reports. Never one for sentiment in the first place, Red got right to the point.

"She hasn't got more than four hours at this rate."

Alex didn't reply. She knew it was true, but acknowledging it felt like it would make it more real than she wanted it to be.

"Mendoza, Claudette and I have talked it over..."

"'Talked it over?'"

"Well, Mendoza and I glared at each other while Claudette talked sense."

"And?" Alex felt everything inside her tense.

"We've decided. We're going to allow you to turn her."

"What?"

"She wants it. And as long as you want it..."

"And if I end up a superpowered mad dog?"

"Then we'll put you down. If we must. But that's a chance we'll have to take."

"Piper won't be able to be around people for at least a month."

"I know. You can take care of her, yes? Show her the way."

Alex frowned slightly at that. She'd never had to show anyone any sort of way before. She nodded tersely, then added, "And everyone was okay with this?"

"Everyone who matters. In every way that matters," Red fixed her with an appraising look, "The only thing left now, Vause, is whether or not you wish to do it?"

Alex looked over at Piper's still form. her breathing rate was getting slower by the minute at this point. She didn't have long. "I'll do it..."

Things moved quickly after that, the logistics being worked out moment by moment, everyone hoping that they were covering everything they needed to. Red immediately called two members of the med staff in to start securing Piper for transport. She sent Nicky, who had been lingering outside the quarantine building, to get Alex's squad and Mendoza's up and ready to move. Two squads seemed like overkill to Alex, but Red wasn't taking any chances. If Alex was turned, she would be far more dangerous than anything they'd faced for a good long while, possibly ever.

The two squads would leave their human members at home and backfill the ranks with other wolves and vampires, the better to keep any portable feasts away from a newly turned vampire (or, if it all went wrong, a mindless, rabid Infected one). If there was one blessing about all this bullshit it was the timing. It was near midnight, a week before the full moon. The wolves were as strong as they were going to get without being forced to transform. A few days later, they'd all have been out on their monthly run...

As the troops got suited up and equipped, Piper was loaded onto a med transport truck, Alex and one of the medics, Jones (a vampire nearly as old as Red, but not nearly as ambitious), in the back with her, Nicky driving. The two squads loaded into two of the troop carriers, Mendoza muttering all the while about the waste of fuel and resources, Red glaring back at her. They set off less than a half hour after Alex had said yes. Red stayed behind.

Mendoza was the ranking officer, and was fully prepared to call the whole thing off if there was even the hint of trouble but the convoy ran into nothing more than a couple of stray Infected on their way back to the development Alex had initially found Piper in.

After the house and surrounding area had been cleared, Alex and Nicky had carried Piper up on a stretcher and deposited her on the bed. Mendoza followed them up and she and Nicky did a final security check on the room. Mendoza gave Alex a hard look (as though Alex needed a reminder that she wasn't happy about any of this), then turned and headed back out of the room.

Nicky looked from Piper, pale and gray in the light of the nearly full moon streaming in through the windows, back to Alex before she hooked her thumb back over her shoulder, "I'll be right outside the door, a'right? Keep your radio live. I'm the only one keyed into your channel. I hear things go to shit..." the wolf stopped abruptly, not quite able to bring herself to continue.

"Yeah," Alex clapped her hard on the shoulder, held her eyes for a long moment. There were a lot of things she wanted to say, but none of them would even begin to be adequate.

Nicky nodded, short and sharp, and then turned back towards the door, "See you on the other side, Vause..."

"yeah..."

The door shut behind Nicky with finality and Piper and Alex were alone again...

Alex knelt down next to the bed. She was wearing only her fatigues. Her weapons and equipment had been taken from her, just in case this didn't work and she was Infected. The drugs that they'd used to keep Piper knocked out were wearing off, and she was drifting in and out of consciousness. Alex took her hand. There wasn't a lot of time...

"I'm so fucking selfish. I'm risking everything, my life, yours, even the unit's for this... because I'm too weak to let you go..."

"No..." Piper managed, "... no..."

Piper's eyes were half closed, unfocused, looking at Alex, but only occasionally seeing, the Infection reflected in the fact that the cobalt blue had slowly faded... so light that it almost blended with the white. The pain she must have been in was probably immense, although the drugs were keeping the very worst of it at bay. She was clutching at Alex's hand weakly, reflexively.

She was too weak to argue anymore, probably mere moments away from death, even with the drugs, but Alex could hear her voice echoing in her head. Telling her that it wasn't selfish to want things, to try to save people you loved. She closed her eyes, took a deep shaky breath. Maybe. Maybe she was right. If this worked, Piper could make all the arguments she wanted. And if it didn't... well, Alex probably wouldn't be around long to regret it...

Nicky often asked Alex what it was like, to feed off another person. Alex had always told her to fuck off, not just because she didn't like to talk about the times she had done it (not her proudest moments generally), but because it was nearly impossible to put into words. It was more like a series of feelings, sensations she felt deep within herself... It was blissful and lovely and terrifying and horrible and it made her feel like a god and a monster at the same time. Once a vampire started feeding, the sensations were usually so overwhelming it was nearly impossible to stop.

It took a particular kind of vampire to drink from someone without killing, a great deal of willpower, and an even more particular kind to actually turn someone. It required precision and control and not everyone could do it, something that Alex had learned much to her (literally) eternal regret when she'd tried to turn her mother. And to turn someone who was Infected, especially as far along as Piper, without getting a secondary Infection... well, that was even more difficult, not least because no one knew exactly how secondary Infections worked.

For all Red's blithe assertions about things that would and wouldn't happen, there hadn't been nearly enough attempted, and the stories were so scattered and anecdotal that no one knew what the common denominators were, what made one person into a slavering, near unstoppable vampire zombie hybrid and what let another walk away completely unharmed. So really, Alex was just guessing.

The process was as far from the other times she'd fed off Piper as should could get and the fleeting thought that she hoped this didn't affect their sex life negatively ran through her head before it was chased off by a low, tortured moan from Piper. Being turned was a painful process under any circumstance, but with the Infection already putting her in terrible pain already. The key to turning someone was balance, taking just enough blood, giving her just enough of the substance she produced that would turn Piper... Too much either way and it would kill Piper rather than turning her, and knowing how much was enough was all instinct.

And she couldn't actually drink any of Piper's blood, which made the whole thing messy as hell in addition... another pained groan... Piper didn't have long. She couldn't hesitate anymore, couldn't worry. She'd made her decision and now she had to just do it. There could be no more hesitation. Piper's life hung in the balance.

Alex took a deep breath, leaned down, kissed Piper once, said "I love you," and then sank her teeth into the blonde's neck...

Piper Chapman's first life ended with a quiet exhalation of her last breath, so quiet that the only people who heard it were the vampire who was working towards turning her and the werewolf immediately on the other side of the door who tensed immediately, waiting to see if the blonde would come back... and if she would be the only one shut in the room who was transformed.

Her body, up until that point held rigid with the pain that had been coursing through it ever since the drugs wore off completely some thirty minutes previous, relaxed and went limp, her heart, tortured and struggling with the effort of pushing blood full of the Infection through her veins, beat its last and went still.

Alex detached herself from the blonde's neck and leaned back on her heels, exhausted from the effort of what she'd just done, watching Piper intently. It took several minutes for the change to take hold after the person being turned had died. She didn't spare a thought to whether she might also be changing. She figured if that were going to happen Nicky would take care of her as she had promised.

It was the longest five minutes of her existence...

Piper's second life began with a scream. A long, horrifying scream torn from the depths of her soul. If she had thought the pain she had felt after being Infected had been intense, she had been sorely mistaken. It felt as though every cell in her body was on fire.

The pain was so severe that it blocked out everything else: who she was, what she was... which led to a brief but all consuming terror at this lack of knowledge... but that lasted hardly twenty seconds before the pain began to intermingle with something else... something much, much worse...

hunger

She inhales a breath, not because she needs to breathe, but because she's trying to find food, and she smells it... living blood, at least a dozen beings outside, and she can hear them, voices and footsteps and the sound of people getting into vehicles, trucks starting... as though it's in the room with her... so many sounds, so many sensations... it almost drowns out the pang in her stomach...

She sits up on the bed... opens her eyes... there is no light in the room except the soft glow of the moon, but it's as bright as day to her. She can see everything with crystal clarity (though tinged with red)... including the person sitting next to her... the pain is slowly fading, but the hunger and the assault of her newly enhanced senses are now combining to muddle her brain. She can't think straight. But she knows the person sitting next to her.

Another breath. A familiar scent, a combination of disparate elements that triggers something deep inside her rapidly waking brain. A name floats to the surface... Alex.

It stops her from springing off the bed and out the window, from pursuing the beating hearts that are rapidly disappearing down the road in their trucks, leaving only her and Alex in the house.

Alex looks into her eyes, and there is relief and some anxiety in her face, but she doesn't speak yet. She opens up a sealed cooler at her feet and pulls out six clear bags... they are filled with blood and the scent is overwhelming. She loses her resolve to be calm, grabs the bags one after the other and drinks them dry.

By the time she finishes draining the sixth one, the pain has gone, the hunger has abated (though not disappeared entirely), and she can think again. Her senses are still so highly attuned that she feels like everything in a half mile radius is inside her head with her, but it's like Alex can read her mind. She reaches over and grasps Piper's shoulders. Alex looks into her eyes for a long moment, neither of them saying a word, neither of them needing to.

Piper knows the misgivings Alex had about doing this. Knows that Alex feels selfish for having risked it, that she fears that Piper will regret it, will hate this life. But she also knows that Alex is relieved that it has worked and that, in the end, she will live with whatever guilt and regret she might have because Piper is here with her, alive.

And for her part, Piper isn't sure she cares whether she ends up hating immortality, if she will feel like a monster with her heart that doesn't beat and her need to drink the life's blood of other living creatures. Because in the long run she will pay that price for the possibility of being with Alex Vause forever.

She leans forward and kisses Alex hard, and Alex puts her arms around her and kisses her back, and their new life together begins...

They're away from camp for nearly a month and a half while Alex teaches Piper all the things that she herself never had the luxury of learning during those first few months of her own second life. It's strangely reminiscent of when Piper had first gotten to camp, with Alex patiently teaching her how to live her new life, training her in all the skills she would need to survive. Learning how to control the hunger, how to harness her strength, how to manage the powers.

Alex expected her to regret the decision, but she didn't understand that as far as Piper was concerned, it was the only decision she could've made. The choice was between losing Alex or having her for eternity... Piper would've sacrificed about anything. Immortality wasn't such a bad thing to have as long as they had it together.

On midnight of the forty sixth day, they packed up their equipment (the squad had left a cache of equipment for them as soon as they knew Alex had succeeded in turning Piper) and set off into the night, heading in the direction of the ARAC camp. Alex had decided the day before that Piper was ready, that she had enough control over her appetite that she wouldn't give into it on a whim. There would obviously be a period of adjustment, where she'd have to get used to being around all those beating hearts, where the blood of the living would call to her, and it would be more difficult than being out here with Alex, miles away from the nearest person, the only live creatures nearby the animals in the woods, but Alex believed she could do it, and Piper didn't want to let her down.

As they walked, weapons ready, alert for any sign of anything, living or dead stirring in the trees around them, Alex thought about her own past, her own life after she had been changed. There had been some very rough years, especially after she'd first been turned, years when what she was doing was more like existing than living. Red had kept her from simply walking out when the sun was up, letting it do its work, and then she'd met Nicky and had finally found someone she could truly call a friend, and things got tolerable, better... but she still had no direction... the Infection, tragic though it had been, had given her a purpose, put her skills to good use... allowed her to feel useful.

However, walking back up the road towards the camp that had been her home for nearly two decades, side by side with Piper Chapman, she realized that what she had felt before had been nothing in comparison to this, that perhaps what she had really needed in her life was someone to share it with. And as reluctant as she had been to turn Piper in the first place, it was a comfort to know that that person would be around forever...

A/N- Well there ya go. That one was extra long, like a double sized bonus issue of a comic book or something (yes I am a nerd). Thanks to everyone who stuck with me for this long and endured the whole "waiting for chapter 3" thing. Review if you feel like you wanna. Extra special super end of fic shout outs to NightsLightss and reverse-swing for being spectacular and inspiring people. :)