Alex spends hours poring over the contents of the folder Piper brought her. It's mostly postcards, the ones she sent her mother during her years of travel. They span from that first trip to Amsterdam to two weeks before Diane's death, when Alex was still sober. Reading them is like hearing the echo of her own voice bouncing of the wall of her past happiness, distorted by the distance it had to cross to reach her again.

Was she really so unconcerned about her job back then? So carefree as to pepper her letters with stupid jokes and exclamations? She must have been. The postcards read like laughter. Alex can picture herself smiling as she wrote them, can imagine her mother's grin as she read the words and then flipped the cards over to look at pictures of beaches and foreign city skylines. So glossy and clean, so comfortingly deceptive. Alex had managed to make the travel sound like one long vacation.

She didn't write, "I slept with a girl and then convinced her to swallow a balloon filled with heroin, so she could shit it out when she got back to the states." She never said, "I taught a nineteen year-old how to sew two pounds of smack into the lining of a suitcase and walk through security without sweating."

Instead, she wrote, "I miss you. Berlin is amazing."

And, "I love you. I wish you were here."

After that, she didn't write anything. There was no one left to send postcards to.

Alex spreads all the memories out on top of her bunk, arranging them like a portrait done in mosaic. A double, really—hers and her mother's. Alex doesn't know how to separate them. Some part of her will always be a trailer park kid waiting up nights while Diane works the late shift, always hoping her mom might still come home. Some part of her is still an international phone call answered on the second ring, her mother's voice saying, "Hi Al! Where are you?"

That question haunted her after the funeral. It echoed in her ears for months, most often when she was drunk or crashing. She'd crumple in a heap upon the cold linoleum in the bathroom, wiping vomit from her chin, and think: where are you? The words would have a sad cadence, less of her mother's inflection and more of her own, but she still couldn't get them out of her head.

She would extricate herself from someone's bed in the morning having already forgotten their face. Where are you, she'd wonder, slinking half-naked out of the hotel room.

Even sitting on the veranda of the rehabilitation home in Northampton, her entire body engulfed in afternoon shadow—

Where are you, Al? Where are you?

Focusing on the postcards, Alex turns the fragments of her past over in her fingers and pretends she can still remember what whole felt like. What clean meant. What happiness was. She touches each memory, each mosaic tile, wondering how long it will take for time to wear the edges smooth enough that she's no longer afraid they'll cut her open.

Outside, the sky is a soft pink blush. Rays of sunlight spread wide as they slant through the window. Alex nestles into their warmth, aiming her cheeks toward them in the expectant way a child waits to be kissed. But no lips brush ever her skin.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

"I don't know where to start."

"Start at the beginning," Piper tells her.

They no longer meet in the isolated legal office. Instead, now that Alex is back in Gen Pop, Piper comes to the regular visiting room. They sit at the table nearest the soda machines, their conversation blanketed by the steady hum of refrigeration.

Piper is wearing another one of those grey suits she looks all wrong in, like she's muting herself to fit the prison color palate. Alex wishes she wouldn't. She wants to see what Piper looks like underneath that dull camouflage—what kind of shine she has, how much sunlight.

"The beginning," she echoes. "Okay."

The beginning, she supposes, was when she met Lee Burley— the man she'd called dad her entire childhood but never actually spoke to until she was eighteen. So that's where she starts: describing to Piper how she descended the stairs to the club basement with her heart in throat, the wild excitement in her chest edging toward panic as soon as the words "I'm your daughter" spilled out of her mouth. How the next half hour unfolded like the stuttering film reel of a horror movie as Alex played the unsuspecting protagonist, the nauseous upset building until she was forced to excuse herself in search of a bathroom to fall apart in.

"He was… the biggest asshole I've ever met," she tells Piper, "which really, I should have seen coming." It still hurts to think about it— how quickly the image you build of someone can fall apart, paint running grotesquely down the canvas and mucking up all the colors.

"But there was this other guy there," she continues. "Fahri."

Fahri was cool. The kind of cool Alex had hoped her dad would be. The kind she desperately wanted for herself. Fahri offered her a bump, which she declined. He offered a ride home, which she accepted. And then, a few weeks later, he offered her a plane ticket and a chance to get out of the trailer park life she grew up in, and all she had to do was carry a bag through the airport for him. Alex snatched it up with eager fingers, too full of reckless need to spare a thought for the consequences. That was how it started: with a heartbreak and a bad rebound decision she kept finding ways to validate.

"Eventually I became a recruiter, like Fahri. It's amazing how easy it was, turning girls out as mules. I'd approach them in clubs, bars, wherever barely legal kids still in their I-hate-my-parents phase were hanging out. I'd size them up, talk to them for a while, get to know them. Then I'd offer whatever I thought they needed: money, drugs, attention, escape… whatever. The same way Fahri had done it to me."

She pauses, checking her lawyer's face for a reaction, but Piper isn't looking at her — she's busy jotting down notes on her legal pad, her pen scrawling messy shorthand across the paper.

Alex wishes she'd stop being so professional. She wants to feel like she's talking to a human rather than a recording device. She's never done this before, telling the story in all its uncensored, inglorious detail, and the words are erupting out of her like clouds of dust beaten from an old carpet. She tries not to be embarrassed by the choke-and-wheeze that accompanies them. She learned, when she was in rehab, that sometimes making a mess of yourself is the only way to come clean.

"And that wasn't… difficult for you?" Piper asks after a moment of silence.

Alex leans back and looks away. "Not really," she says, staring at the soda machine. "I was making ten grand a week— I hardly felt like I'd been scammed. You have to understand— for the first few years, I never felt like I was in danger. I felt invincible. I was on top of the world."

"So you didn't feel bad," the lawyer persists, "putting girls in the exact position you'd been put into?"

"Um, wow. Okay. That's pretty accusatory. Aren't you not supposed to blame the victim?"

"I'm sorry." Piper at least has the grace to look embarrassed. "I didn't mean it like that. Just— you were being used to turn a profit. Didn't that bother you?"

"We're all being used to make a profit," Alex says impatiently. "Even in this fucking place. Did you know that I actually owe money to the DOC for the privilege of being locked up in here? It would take me, like, thirty-five years of prison labor to pay it pack. So, sure— I could have been working at McDonalds for seven bucks an hour while the CEO makes millions. I know what that looks like, because my mom did that her whole fucking life."

Alex can't help the bitter downturn in her voice. She remembers her mom's rotating schedule of part-time and minimum wage jobs—Friendly's, Macy's, Dunkin Donuts, Walmart—and knows Piper must have no idea what it's like to live that way. Alex can read people. It's a skill she honed during her time with the cartel. And she can read, plain as the florescent light illuminating Piper's white collar, that her lawyer grew up with the kind of money kids like Alex hardly ever even sniffed on the school bus. She probably has more in common with Alex's childhood bullies, the Jessica Wedges of the world, than she does with people like Alex and Diane.

"I could have worked for the same exploitive corporations my mom did." Alex continues, "or, I could work for Kubra. I could go on all-expense-paid trips across Europe. I could ensure that I never had to worry about credit card debt. I could save money to buy my mom a real house instead of trailer. So yeah, I chose the fucking drug cartel. What would you have done?"

Her voice rings with a self-righteous resonance, rising about the drink cooler's hum. It's not that Alex never felt guilty about it; she did. The weeks she spent in rehab were some of the worst in her life, not just because of detoxing but because it was the first time she saw so closely the effects of the black market she'd chosen to participate in. She slept, ate, and spent her days surrounded by people whose lives had been ruined by heroin; of course she felt guilty. But what was she supposed to do? You can't just resign from a drug cartel. There's no retirement plan for trafficking, unless the kind of rest you crave can be found inside a body bag in a morgue freezer.

"You're right, Alex. I don't have any right to judge you."

"It's okay," Alex says wearily. "I don't expect you to understand."

"I know. But I'm trying."

She sounds sincere when she says it, and Alex is struck anew by the notion that Piper probably knows her past better than anyone. She's seen the pictures, the letters, tons of things from Alex's childhood that were supposed to be private. Ordinarily she would be upset by the intrusion, but it's hard to be mad when Piper is the only reason she has those mementos in her possession again at all. She's probably the only person in the world, besides her aunt, who understands how much Alex's mom meant to her. Why the fuck should I trust you? Alex had asked, and in reply her lawyer had gone out and recovered the skeletal bones of her identity. For that, Piper deserved at least the benefit of the doubt.

"I know what you're getting at," Alex says. "That I was as much a mule as any of the girls I recruited. That Fahri was using me. I know that's how it seems, but it was different with him."

"Different how?"

"He cared about me. I know that sounds really fucking naive, given the situation. But it's true. When my mom died, he was there for me. He showed up at the funeral. It was supposed to be a business call. He didn't have to come in person, he could have just phoned. But he showed up. He was fucking there."

How relieving it felt, to walk out of the cemetery with leaden feet and look up to find a familiar face. To sit in the passenger seat of the rental car with its lingering whiff of smoke from Fahri's cigarette, and to know that she wasn't alone.

"He convinced me to go back to Paris with him. Told me it was going to be okay, that he would help me through it."

"And then what happened?"

Alex snorts. "We went on a bender. I can barely remember anything after touching down on the tarmac. I'm pretty sure we went right from the airport to one of our favorite clubs."

Piper has re-entered lawyer mode, scribbling Alex's dictation so frantically the side of her hand is smeared with ink.

"There was… there was a job that we were supposed to be doing. A pickup at the airport, a girl coming in from Fiji with several pounds of product. But I was so high. We all were. I convinced them to stay, to let the mule find a ride on her own."

Alex stares down at her lap. Her hands are shaking. She feels too small inside her skin, or else not small enough. "She got arrested," she says, her voice so thin it's practically a whisper. She doesn't want to tell Piper the rest. She wants to crawl under the table, hide from the past, hide from Fahri's ghost and Kubra's anger.

"Alex," Piper says softly. "Tell me." She's leaning forward on her elbows, no longer writing. The pen sits abandoned on the table.

"They shot Fahri. They… killed him."

"Jesus," Piper whispers, holding her fingers over her lips.

Alex swallows, trying unsuccessfully to resist the memory. She didn't hear the pistol until it was already over; Fahri was dead before he hit the floor, before the echo of the shot even reached Alex's ears. She thinks of his last cigarette and how the ash spilled onto the floor afterward. The finality of the image, like some horrible epilogue.

"It was my fault," Alex croaks. "I fucked up, and I made the decision." Her fingers clench into fists, nails digging into her palms so hard it feels like they might drawn blood.. She glances up at Piper, finally meeting her eyes. Staring until the blue until she thinks she might drown in it.

"What happened to Fahri—it shouldn't have been him. It was my fault. Piper… it should have been me."

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

Somewhere beneath a pile of papers, Piper's phone is vibrating.

"Shit," she whispers, unfurling herself from the facedown crumple she's been lying in. A piece of paper is stuck to her cheek; she rips it free and shakes it out of her hand, still struggling to get her bearings.

It's dark. The building is quiet. The clock on her office wall reads 8:52.

Shit.

Her phone keeps buzzing, and she thrusts her hand into the pile of papers and shoves them around until she finally finds it.

"Hello?"

"Piper!"

"Hey, Pol."

"Okay, so you're not dead in a ditch somewhere."

"Um… no?" Piper runs her fingertips through her rumpled hair, attempting to tame the mess it somehow became while she was napping. "I'm at the office," she says. "Why?"

"Because I just got a text—actually, like seven—from Larry. He wants to know why you stood him up?"

"Oh. Oh, crap. I forgot that was tonight."

"Jesus, what are you even doing at the office this late?"

Piper rubs one eye blearily with the heel of her palm, surveying the disaster zone on top of her desk with the other.

"Working on a case. Well, actually, sleeping. But before that I was definitely working."

She'd been at it all afternoon, typing up the notes from her earlier meeting with Alex and then trying to match her story up with the testimony from her deposition. The dates were still a little murky; she'd have to ask Alex to clarify them, to ensure that her witness statement for the prosecution was precise. But there was no doubt that once they established Alex's credibility, her testimony against Kubra would be damning. She could vouch for his presence in specific cities during specific periods of time. She could testify about the large sums of money that were moving through his accounts—money that she herself was often responsible for handling. And then there was the other allegation— that he'd ordered the execution of at least one of his employees, which could induce a whole slew of charges in addition to the counts of conspiracy, money laundering, and illegal trafficking that were already being sought by federal prosecutors.

By all appearances, the case it was on its way to becoming a grand slam of an indictment. As long as they played their cards right Alex could be out of prison within the month. As long as she didn't back out of testifying. As long as Piper managed to keep her focused and calm— which, after their discussion today, was still very much a concern.

"Well," Polly tells her, "your workaholic ways just cost you a date with a really nice guy who's super into you. You're way overdoing it with this case, Piper."

"Yeah, Polly. I know."

"I'm fucking serious. I've barely seen you in two weeks! You spend all your time driving back and forth from prison, or falling asleep in your desk chair like my eighty-four year-old grandpa Dennis. I know you think this case is, like, your big break as an attorney, but at this rate you'll probably exhaust yourself into a coma before it even goes to trial."

"Wow. Thanks, mom."

"Oh, that's a good idea. Maybe I should call Carol."

"Ha ha. Really funny, Pol. Don't you dare." Piper slumps back in her chair, pressing her fingertips against her forehead. "Was Larry mad?"

"Well, he wasn't happy."

"Tell him I've been swamped at work and I'm really sorry, okay?"

"Why don't you tell him? I gave you his number."

Piper suppresses a groan of frustration. "Fine, okay? I will. Look, I gotta go."

"Fine. Pipe…" Her voice softens. "Promise me you'll get some rest. And that you'll start taking better care of yourself. Your job isn't worth this much insanity, okay?"

"Yeah, thanks Polly. Love you."

Piper hangs up the phone and lets her body go limp, arms dangling exhaustedly over the sides of her chair. She knows her friend is right—she's been working too hard, devoting way more time and energy to a single case than is really reasonable.

It's just that this particular case feels too important to set aside, in ways Piper can only vaguely admit. It's certainly the most dramatic and consequential one she's been assigned so far. A federal suit: a conspiracy involving half a dozen convicted individuals, several additional alleged participants, and one of the most wanted cartel bosses in the country.

But push all that aside, and what matters most to Piper is still her own defendant. She finds herself thinking of Alex even when she's not working on the case. She'll be home, halfway through a glass of wine, and suddenly she'll remember something Alex said during their latest meeting. It'll be enough to make her pause, the glass halfway to her lips, while a blush or a smile takes over over expression. It's ridiculous. It's childish, even, like a schoolgirl crush on the upperclass bad girl.

But Piper can't help it. She likes Alex. She's intrigued by her, and she wants to help her, and she wants to know everything about her. Nothing else feels as important right now as this case does— as Alex does.

Polly is right: she's in too deep. But even if she could pull herself out of it, Piper isn't sure she'd actually want to.

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

At breakfast the next morning Alex sits alone, mindlessly swallowing a serving of something that vaguely resembles scrambled eggs. She keeps replaying the previous day's conversation over in her mind like a broken record, the needle of her memory always getting stuck at the same moment of playback— Piper getting up from the table to leave, her eyes wide and wet and full of pity.

Alex doesn't want to be pitied. She doesn't want to be treated like a victim, because she doesn't want to accept that she was one. She spent so many years clinging to the delusion that her life was under her control, and it's destabilizing to have years of self-deception wrested away from her all at once.

But it's also freeing. It means she can unclench her fists a little, stop trying to keep them closed over her secrets. It means she could finally admit what she's been wrestling with for years: that Fahri took a fatal fall for her bad decision. The guilt has been trailing Alex ever since Paris, as dark and unshakable as her own shadow. It danced around her all through rehab. It followed her back to Europe, to southeast Asia, to Chicago, to Litchfield, never spoken, a silent and unflappable presence. She wonders if finally saying it aloud will make a difference. She hopes it doesn't change Piper's opinion of her, whatever that opinion actually is.

Sometimes when they're talking, Alex studies Piper's face: the tilt of her lips, the set of her brow, the subtle lapses of indifference in her expression. Always that determination to remain businesslike; always that moment when the determination fails—the smile that steals furtively across her lips, the self-conscious laugh that comes out in short, shy echoes. Alex wishes she would let it out in full.

Prison is always so muted, so colorless. It starts to feels like purgatory. Then Piper walks in like some visiting Persephone, eyes incandescent as a summer afternoon, and it's hard not to hunger after glimpses of her.

"Yo, Vause." Another inmate, Nicky slides into the seat across from Alex. "Got yourself a nice little side piece, huh? Saw you with your girlfriend during visiting hours."

Alex snorts. "Uh, yeah, no. That's my lawyer."

"Sure she is. Everyone loves a good role play. Bet you have her put the power suit on and read you your rights, 'cause you've been such a naughty criminal."

"God." Alex's face scrunches up as she tries to hold in her laughter. "You're disgusting."

"I'll drink to that. But listen—" Nicky leans forward to make herself heard over the general buzz of conversation "—maybe you could put in a good word for me. You know, get me on her client list. Because if you're not hitting that—"

Alex scoops up a spoonful of eggs and flicks them across the table. They miss, flying past Nicky and landing harmlessly on the floor behind her.

"You're fucking lucky a CO didn't see that. Pretty gallant, though. Defending your girl's honor…"

Alex rolls her eyes.

It kind of makes her wonder, though, about Piper's personal life. If she has a boyfriend. Or a girlfriend. What she does in her free time. Where she lives, who she talks to, what her life looks like on the outside. Because Piper knows everything about Alex, but Alex doesn't know anything about her.

She moves like a floater across Alex's vision: a mysterious afterimage, impossible to pin down, the kind of daze that comes from staring too long directly at the sun.

A/N: Predictably I could not wrap this up in two chapters, so there will be one more forthcoming.