7. Never let your guard down.

AN/ As promised.

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There was an unusually increased din of activity permeating the prison hallways. Everywhere Alex looked inmates were huddled in groups or pairs their excited chatter blending into one stream of noise.

Lunch had just finished. She headed back to her cell and walked into Dee and Shay engaged in what looked like deep conversation. Normally, their interactions with Alex didn't go beyond the hi's and bye's but today Shay turned around when she saw Alex walking in. She turned her back and spoke to her, "Hey glasses, you heard what happened?"

"No," Alex had no real interest in maintaining dialogue and instead busied herself in organising her bed hoping her cellmate would get the hint.

"Oh you wanna know this," Dee chipped in, "Yolanda's done a girl in real good, she's either in solitary or dead."

Alex stops what she's doing and turned around, "Who?"

"Some new gal, blonde, yay high," Dee gestures the height as above her head, "She talked back to her and was giving a proper once over."

Alex narrows her eyes, "So why you are telling me this, specifically."

Shay rolls her eyes, "'Cause prison news is better than the super bowl and ain't nobody who don't watch the super bowl."

Yolanda, There's a discernible discomfort when Alex recognises the name as the one Piper had mentioned when they'd last seen each other. She sits down on the bed, her face carefully void of expression, "You happen to know her name?"

"Fuck knows," Shay answers. She's already lost interest when Alex hadn't engaged in the same level of excitement. "All I know she's from block six and she got herself a good beating."

Alex tried her hardest to quell the rising dread bubbling up just beneath her skin.

Piper was from block six

Dana placed a comforting hand over Alex's, "Hey, you've got to learn how to relax. I'm going to risk playing devil's advocate here but I'm willing to bet my life savings your friend is going to be fine."

Alex gave a sheepish smile, "Sorry, I've just been quite tense lately. I mean look at this place - it doesn't exactly inspire calm and relaxation."

"What you mean the graffitied walls with pleasant phrases like kill yourself and I want to die are not relaxing?"

Their eyes met for a brief moment. Alex felt the heat of Dana's hand still resting atop hers. Without realising she roughly pulls her hand back and smiling awkwardly, "I'm going for a quick walk before count."

"We can walk together?"

"I'd rather be on my own if you don't mind."

By the time Alex got up and and levelled into a steady pace the disconcerting moment had already passed which made her wonder whether she had just imagined it.

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"Do you know what happened?" Alex asks as soon as she's close enough to the metal bars that separated her cell block from seven. The woman, a young but confident thing turns her nose at her and jerks back, her face a picture of over the top anger.

"Who the fuck are you? Get the fuck away from me?"

Alex holds back a frustrated sign and starts, "Listen…please just listen. You're in cell block …right? I just want to know what happened."

The woman regards her for a moment as though deciding whether or not Alex was worthy of her time.

She cocks her head to the side, "Why you so interested anyway?"

Alex stays quiet, all of a sudden feeling as though she wants to hurl. She barely hears herself above the din of rapid fire thoughts crowding her brain right now. "I just…I just need to know."

A combo of unease and pity fill the woman's eyes, "Some new gal walked into Yolanda's path and decided to talk back." She scoffs, "Errbody knows Yolanda is one stone cold bitch. I mean the bitch is responsible for at least four other gals ending up in solitary. She don't give a shit about shots and added sentence. Wha's the worse that's gonna happen to her? She gonna get another thirty years added to her six life sentences? She know she ain't never getting out…might as well make the fun last."

Alex's stomach clenches shut. She balls her hands into fists, forcing the wave of nausea down, "What does she look like?"

"Yolanda, you mean? Butch as fuck, built like a tree and niftier than a fox."

"No, the other person."

The woman seems to mistake Alex's impending fear for excitement and carries on spilling without answering the question. "Anyway new gal got knocked around pretty bad – two matching shiners and a sure nosebleed. God knows about her insides, surely fucked up too. Anyway, fucked up thing is, shes the one who gets sent to solitary." The woman laughs, "Fuck knows how she's gonna survive in there – she looked like some gal ripped straight outta the how to be white and rich catalogue." She eyes Alex with a purposeful rove, "You though. You look like you could hold yourself up in a bust-up."

Alex felt a dread stirring up inside her forcing her to take deep breaths. Her voice all wooden and measured, she asks, "Do you know her name?"

"Who? Solitary girl?" The woman was distracted by the spectacle of an inmate being manhandled by a CO. There was a hunger of excitement in her eyes. Alex resisted the urge to pull the woman against the bars and throttle the answers out of her.

But she settles for a calm response, "Yes."

"Fuck knows."

"Can you at least find out?"

The woman suddenly jerks her head, speaking to a person outside of Alex's line of vision, "Hey, B, who's the white gal that got sent down to the dungeons?"

"You mean Garrison?"

"Yeah, that's the one."

Alex nearly drops to her knees – the overwhelming relief so gut-wrenchingly welcomed.

The woman stares at her as she tentatively backs away , "You're fucking weird."

The only words registering in Alex's brain right now was Piper was okay and that's all that mattered.

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"Chapman? Piper Chapman!"

Piper jolted off the bed, the loud baritone voice of a guard jerking her out of fitful sleep. The encounter from a couple of days was still rolling around in her skull. Piper still couldn't help but flinch when she remembered the sharp point of the shank digging into her stomach. Then the only thought that had raced through her mind was who was going to explain to Alex what had happened? And how she was going to cope?

Of course, dying was also a very visceral fear Piper had had but it had still been a secondary feeling. Luckily, two patrolling guards had turned the corner and Yolanda had quickly scarpered, leaving Piper all but collapse to the floor. The guards had questioned her a little, knowing the reputation Yolanda held and after Piper's shrugs of indifference they had eventually left her alone.

Now Still groggy, Piper slowly squints her eyes open, and was met by the unimpressed face of a guard looking straight at her her. "Stand up, inmate!"

Piper scrambled out of her bed and stood against the wall, "What time is it?" She peered out of the window and noticed the sky outside was still dark - it couldn't have been past six am.

He ignores her question and instead barks, "You have a prison appointed meeting with the assistant warden."

Piper's face twists into confusion, "Now?"

"Didn't you hear what I just said?"

"Nobody told me I had a meeting." She looks down at her grey nightie, "I mean I'm not even dressed yet."

The guard releases a rumbling guffaw, "In case it's escaped your knowledge…this is prison, Chapman. We don't do pre-made appointments. Here, everything happens in real time." He pointedly stares her down, daring her to protest, "Unless this clashes with your social calendar?"

"No, no."

Piper quickly grabbed her slippers and hastily starts following him out. She feels the gaze of her cellmates burning into her back.

"I've been asking to see the warden for the last seven moths and she gotta go? Just like that?" Gutierrez retorts angrily. "What she got that I ain't?"

"Simmer down, inmate!"

"Fucking white privilege. Progression my damn ass." Piper hears her mutter. She's glad when the guard rolls the door open and shuts it behind them.

It was a few steps down the hallway when Piper asks, "Did they say what it's regarding?"

The guard's face showed no signs of acknowledging her question, instead he hurried his pace even faster, forcing Piper to take quicker strides, barely able to keep up with him.

"Is it good or bad?" She asked again, a perceptible fear brewing in the pit of her stomach. There were an infinite number of reason why she was suddenly beckoned to see the administration; the riot, Piscatella, Aydin…Alex. Her brain jolts still when it catches up with her thinking - Alex. Had the DOC found out about Alex's involvement in Aydin's death? Was this why she was now being dragged to the assistant warden for an interrogation?

The guard continued to pace along long, grimy corridors, deeper into the bowels of the unknown. They head outside, carrying through a narrow pathway lined with high fences dotted with angry signs warning inmates of severe punishment in the event of attempted escape. It's irrelevant to her situation but it instils a further notch of panic inside Piper's stomach. The morning was frosty, the air so dry and wintry it tingled against her skin. She could see her breaths, tiny wisps of white clouds moving back and forth.

"Look," She started pleading, the reality of what was happening all of a sudden hitting Piper all at once, "I just want to-"

"We're here." He barks, suddenly stopping in front of an expensive looking oak door adorned with a gold-rimmed name plate: Asst. Warden S Hughes.

The gaudy door looked so ludicrously out of place, set against the drab, mostly dark hallway and its cheap plaster walls. Before Piper could ask anything further the guard knocked on the door and swung it open and all but pushed Piper inside.

Half stumbling in, Piper managed to take the room in. The assistant warden's office was a large spacious room with high ceilings and pastel decor. A large antique desk took up most of the space, a few shelves above it lined with haphazardly placed stacks of paper and files. There was an attempt at trying to inject some personality into the room by way of a snow globe and a crystal paper weight resting on the left of the desk.

Piper inwardly scoffed - it would take a hell of a lot more of knickknacks to turn a fucking prison no less into a nostalgic grannies front room. The murderers and rapists roaming about the place made sure of that.

"You must be Piper Chapman."

Piper glanced up and nodded - the assistant warden was a woman - athletically built, bespectacled with dark blonde hair. She wore a tailored dark suit that fit so perfectly it made Piper all too sudden aware of her own shapeless prison pyjamas. The warden, with her sharp and scrutinous gaze looked more suited to leading a security detail for the federal bureau than be running a woman's prison.

"Please," She gestured, "Take a seat."

Self conscious of her night gown and bare feet in slippers, Piper quickly explains, "I wasn't told until five minutes ago I was supposed to have this meeting. I would have got dressed otherwise."

The warden warmly smiles, "I informed the duty CO to make you aware of this meeting some three days ago." She shakes her head, "I have come to expect the women in this establishment not to have any idea of a meeting until just before they come to see me."

Piper watches the woman shuffle a few folders before her hand settles on one in particular and starts flicking through it. She stops at a thickish looking manila folder and folds it open.

Now sat in her chair, Piper felt a rising dread grow insider her - the same out of control fear bellowing through her right now. Truth be told, she was expecting this meeting from the moment she'd stepped foot in this place. So she shouldn't even be surprised.

The news coverage of the Litchfield riot must have been humungous. Piper remembers the immediate aftermath - dozens of media vans with their mounted satellites parked outside the prison - reporters and their camera crews eagerly lapping up the drama and snapping everything in their sight in the hope of it turning into a juicy centre piece for the six o clock news. There was bound to be photographs with Piper in it - it was almost inevitable.

The assistant warden starts speaking, "I have been following the events at Litchfield with great interest and I'm sure you understand by now - we, the federal corrections department have a responsibility to appropriately deal with inmates who have played significant roles in these riots."

Under the desk, Piper could feel her foot shake so hard that her shoe was about to fall off. She strangled her fingers together in the hope of confining her anxiety beneath the table. There was a dull ache in her jaw from clenching her teeth for too long as her mind's eye conjured up images of grimy solitary cells and added time and visits where Piper would have to explain to her family she wasn't going to be released anytime soon.

"I understand your sentence was due to expire in a month."

She remembers to speak, "Uh yes."

"Of course, there are procedures when a significant change is made to an inmate's sentence which is why I requested to expedite this meeting." The warden pauses, searching Piper's face with an ambiguous intensity that brought no solace to Piper.

"I- I would like to add, that I-" Piper starts , her voice wavering with panic, the distant thunder of added sentences quickly turning into lightnings of reality. But her words trail off when the woman removes her glasses and starts speaking.

"Ms Chapman, I don't think you quite understand ," She shuffles a few papers and looks back up, "We've been watching each and every one of you since your cohort arrived at our premises and you have been nothing but a model inmate. You have not incurred a single warning or infraction or even a caution." She takes a pause, "You're entitled to an early release."

Piper's head snapped up in surprise, unsure whether she heard the woman right, "Sorry?"

"You're getting out in five days. Congratulations."

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Tuesday couldn't have come any slower yet on one hand Piper felt as though time had been deliberately fast forwarded.

It's the first time the library work was allowed to be extended into the storage room, a small place located at the back of the library which held most of the prison's relinquished books. It was a small space with dusty shelves stacked up high against mouldy walls.

Piper was tasked with separating the fiction from non-fiction books and process them all into boxes, already marked and ready to be recycled to other agencies and charities. It was presumably the prison's attempt at goodwill which was something Piper found quite odd. But the job was challenging enough to require her full concentration, providing Pioer with a reprieve she so desperately welcomed.

She's reaching upwards to pick up books of a shelf much higher than herself, when someone walks up behind her and wraps their arms around her.

"Alex! I-"

But she's cut short by Alex's rather enthusiastic greeting. Alex's hands are grabbing onto her top, almost grappling for purchase, like she can't quite believe Piper was a real and living thing.

Alex pulls her in for a long and deep kiss that seemed to go on forever not that Piper minded but it made her seem weary somehow, the permanently etched what if ballooning itself into something more tangible. Had Alex found out about her early release and this was some form of a goodbye kiss?

Alex finally breaks the kiss and nuzzles her mouth into the juncture of Piper's neck and shoulder, before whispering, "Woah, you're really here." She placed her chin over Piper's shoulders, and delivered a chaste kiss on the side of her neck.

"Hey." Piper turns around, hoping the smile plastered across her face looked vaguely joyful, "You're really happy this morning."

Alex scoffs, "I wasn't until about two minutes ago." She catches Piper's stone-faced expression, "By that I mean you were the changing factor of my mood. Unless you've grown tired of me, Chapman?"

"You're being ridiculous." Was all Piper allowed herself.

They looked at each other, the silence once comfortable to Piper but was now so mentally draining. Alex's face looked as though it was wrestling in trying to keep up a happy front. It's another few moment when Alex speaks, "No, but in all seriousness I thought something had happened to you," She waves her hands dismissively, "You know prison rumours...they can get out of hand sometimes." Alex shakes her head, "But that's all in the past now."

Piper had the distinct feeling she was downplaying a lot and it had her temporarily forget her own anxiety over how she was going to break the news. She could could pick up on the carefully contained tension darkening Alex's eyes. She also knew, the tight clasping of hands, was Alex's way of dealing with emotional conflict.

Piper grabs Alex's hand and says, all understanding, "What was the rumour?"

Alex scoffs unconvincingly, "Some dumb rumour one of the women had been beaten and ended up in solitary. I guess I let my imagination run wild."

Piper didn't push harder, completely able to read in between the lines there. Piper couldn't even come close to imagining how she would react if there was an indication something bad had happened to Alex, so she doesn't tell her about the real encounter she had with Yolanda.

"Thanks." Alex says some half hour later when they've already sorted at least three boxes full of books.

It was a contextless statement and without prelude, yet Piper emphatically answers, "It's fine."

Piper lets Alex push her back against the shelves, feeling her hands roam all over her before escaping under her top. Piper follows Alex's hands with her own, placing them on top of hers and tried to swallow past the immovable lump of growing anxiety lodged in her throat.

She closed her eyes, thinking this couldn't have come at a worse time. Piper tells herself that this was only going to be as hard as she made it.

They'll be fine. Alex would be fine - she'd be out in a year - that's not long. Only twelve menial months - just three hundred and sixty five days. But a lot could happen in that time. Piper should know; she was not the same person she was she first entered the world of prison. She would never recognise that naive and gullible blonde forced to navigate the alien world of incarceration.

But there was still that nagging loose end of Kubra and Aydin that worried Piper the most.

Eyes clenched shut she opens them all of a sudden and rests them on Alex. Alex - all flushed cheeks and genuine happiness, radiating an energy too uncomfortably out of synch for Piper. It was in her eyes and and mouth and the way she absent-mindedly touches Piper. Alex's fingers warm and wanting, generously smearing Piper with all the affection and love a person could give.

Piper was too glacially removed from it all - her mind falling to future scenarios - Alex alone in her bunk while she, Piper was Out enjoying whatever frivolities a free life offered. Then the visitation days would come, where she'd have to hide the smiles of freedom from Alex all the while holding her hand and whispering bullshit reassurances of time will fly and keep your head down. Fuck. Fuck.

Hands slide down her pants, fingers burrowing themselves deep in her centre sending shockwaves of pleasure through her body. But the surge of gratification compete with the images of Alex and Piscatella and broken arms and extended sentences and above all - the overarching menace that was Kubra.

Piper sees it all and it's suddenly too much to compute. She pulls back, back digging into the hard edges of the shelves behind her. She forces herself to take deep breaths trying to ward off the feeling akin to a panic attack. Something collapses inside her, this horrible folding in of her stomach, it was as much the what-ifs as well as the glaring omission of truth that were trying to dig themselves out of her.

'Alex…" But she's already faltering. It's like she's deliberately nicked an artery but now cannot figure out how to stop the bleeding.

Alex mistakes her reluctance, "Hey relax…if you're worried a CO is going to catch us, don't worry." She worries a strand of hair around her finger, "It's Higgins on duty and you know the guy would be registered blind from all the shit that happens right under his nose and never sees anything." Alex casually brushes her lips against Piper's, "Also I'm already bummed work duty is coming to an end. I was beginning to-"

"Alex! Stop, just stop." Piper jerks back, surprised at the power in her voice. Alex's stops, her face a picture of bewilderment, "What?" She pushes her glasses into her hair, all startled, "What's wrong?"

There's a prolonged silence that lasts too long. Alex holds Piper's jaw, her confusion making way for worry, "Hey, what's going on? Piper, did something happen with your bunkies?"

Piper feels herself recoil from Alex's searching gaze. She was silhouetted against the setting sun behind her, green eyes darkened, mouth turned into an uncertain grimace. It's only when she's certain the hammering of her heart slowed down that she eventually speaks, "I wanted to tell you…but the time was never right and now it's too late and I-" She stops when Alex's hand reaches up and gently cups her face, soft fingers tracing her skin. Piper cannot understand why she was finding this so fucking difficult.

Alex's eyes are brimming with such quiet regard, Piper has to physically wince. She cannot help but imagine them holding a different glint: one of loneliness and desolation.

That's when she understands; Piper didn't want to be the one to ruin things.

"Hey, hey, take your time."

Piper finally finds a lull in the waves of anxiety and decides this was the only chance she was going to get, "I'm getting out."

"Okay." Alex heaves a sigh of relief, "We knew that-"

Piper's voice was steady even though every syllable felt as dangerous as a surgical knife pressed to her throat "I'm getting out tomorrow."

'I don't understand?" It's asked as a question but Piper could already feel her heart sinking when sh watches Alex's hand slowly fall back down and dropping to her side. Her face was inscrutable. There was some faraway primal inhibition of acknowledging it when she sees Alex pointlessly rearrange a stack of books. There's too much precision in her actions, too much deliberateness to it.

"I've been granted early release but the paperwork isn't through yet and…and I still have another meeting to attend to finalise things with the deputy warden and-"

"You're getting out tomorrow." Alex suddenly interrupts. Piper wasn't sure whether she'd been listening at all. Her face was void of any expression, there's nothing for Piper to go off on, no cue that would help her figure out what to say next.

"That's great, Piper." Alex's voice was perceptibly flat, "We both knew it was coming and I'm super pleased for you, really I am."

Piper could read Alex like a book, the teeming effort to maintain a happy facade, the flashes of weakness in the shield when she saw those split seconds of apprehension. It was heartbreaking.

It was worse than Piper could ever have envisaged.

"Alex, you okay?"

"Sure, absolutely." Alex took a step forwards, doing away with the distance between them She brought a hand up and kissed Piper, gently and forcefully all at once. When she pulled back, she smiled with everything apart from her eyes.

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"Hey, Alex!"

Alex barely hears her name being called. Her mind was still firmly rooted to the conversation back in the library. She was still trying to process what Piper had told her, and what that meant for them.

Alex should be happy, more than just happy.

And yet, all she can register was this growing sense of unease, like watching the first sways of the imminently collapsing house of cards and not being able to do anything about it. But it wasn't so much that other feeling she really didn't want to acknowledge. No it wasn't jealousy but something resembling alarm.

Alex scarcely notices Dana falling into step beside her, "Hey, you okay. I called you."

"Yeah, sorry. Must have not heard you." Alex murmurs, feeling a daze coming over her.

"I just wanted to tell you Dr Lebowski wanted to see you." Dana shrugs, "I just came from medical and he told me to pass on the message."

Alex barely looks up, her hands shoved inside her pockets, "Did he say what about?"

"No idea."

"Thanks."

Alex thinks it may actually be worthwhile asking the doctor to see whether he could up her pain meds or better still, maybe finally take him up on that offer of anxiety meds. Now was as good a time as any.

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Alex walked straight up to Dr Lebowski's clinical room after getting clearance from the head CO of her block.

Alex opens the door, surprised the usual two guards manning the door outside the room were absent. Maybe, they were on breaks, but that would be ridiculously stupid timing for both to go off simultaneously considering this was a maxim security jail with supposedly harsh rules.

Alex thinks nothing of it, when she opens the door and steps in.

There's a moment of confusion when she spots two different guards hovering just immediately to her right, two she didn't recognise...but what was even more surprising was Dana sat casually on the examining bed with a coy smirk plastered across her face.

Alex frowns her brows, trying to figure out the situation and noticing the hairs on the back of her neck were stood upright. There was a niggling discomfort slowly creeping up on her, something was off but Alex couldn't quite figure out why.

"What is going on?" Alex scans the room, "Where is the doctor?"

Dana jovially jumps off the bed and walks up to Alex, the two guards seemingly unbothered, "You really don't recognise me, huh?"

There was an air of confidence radiating off the woman that Alex had never seen until now, "What?"

Dana does a dramatic twirl, "How about now?" She looks disappointed when Alex draws a blank face, "Not even from this angle?" She juts her butt out, "You always told me that was my good angle, Jesus."

Alex backed away towards the door, hit by a sudden adrenaline rush of survival. But the quick flash of the darkly dressed guards easily blocked her exit.

Alex swivelled around, "What the fuck is going on here?"

Dana swaggers forwards and pops a phone out, an item strictly forbidden. She gets way too close to Alex but almost lazily starts, "There was a very interesting video that has been circulating the World Wide Web for some time now...and you know what they say about the Internet; nothing remains hidden, absolutely nothing."

She presses a few buttons and plays the video. Alex soon realises it's the video Gina had recorded from when Piscatella had held them all captive. Alex's face was clearly visible in several frames, easily identifiable to people who knew her.

Dana's face hardens all of a sudden, "Kubra doesn't like people running with their mouths and he especially doesn't like when he's being lied to."

It's the first time Alex can feel a heavy weight of fear hit her hard, her insides recoil in a tight bundle of pure shock.

"Did you really think you were gonna do your time and live a happy free life." Dana laughs, almost maniacally, "People don't leave Kubras organisation." She laughs again, "Except of course in a body bag."

Alex felt the blood drain from her face, the reality of the situation quickly catching up with her.

"You think it's just a coincidence that I happened to talk to you that morning in the canteen? What did you think of my innocent girl lost in the prairie face? It's good wasn't it?"

Alex glanced up at the guards stationed at the door, emphatically blocking the exit.

Dana follows Alex's line of vision, "Oh these?" She clarifies cheerily, "People will do anything for the right price. Even our boys in blue aren't immune."

"You see, money is power." Dana smiles, "You told me that once, remember?"

And it finally hits Alex like a bad nightmare she had all but forgotten. One of those bad but easily forgettable nightmares in the pleasant day of light that occurred once in awhile but remained forgotten until something so irrelevant reminds you of every single minute detail, where you can play it out frame by frame. And relive it as if it was happening all over again.

"Yeah!" Dana cheers, clapping her hands, "I was your drug mule! We met in Madrid, in that cute little dive bar in the middle of town, remember. God, you are such a fucking charmer, no wonder you were Kubra's best gal."

Alex didn't say anything. Anger at herself intensifying over how stupid she could be trusting people, letting her guard down so easily.

"But look," Dana declared, all traces of incongruent humour gone, "I'm the new you, but better. And unfortunately for you, Alex. You decided to fuck with a man who does business with the Mexicans and Colombian cartels. And I think it's time you got what's been a long time coming."

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AN/ Catch me on tumblr (girlfromthevillage) for any updates etc !