Chapter 4 – Out of Mind

It's dank and putrid in SHU but that's the least of my problems. Nicky is glaring at me with daggers like icicles – I think Piper bit her while she was still disoriented and struggling...Piper. I'm seeing her finally and rather than being filled with relief, I am near-petrified with fear. Her cheeks are gaunt, the skin tightly stretched over her protruding cheek bones in a way that looks anything but natural. The baggy prison uniform is making her emaciated figure appear even worse; it's almost unbearable to look in her direction. But that's not why I'm scared. It's the look in her eyes: they're brimming with unadulterated sadness. I know that my Piper has given up hope, and by the looks of things she must have given up long ago. I rub her shoulder and squeeze her hand gently; she needs to know I'm here and that I'm real.

I desperately want to have her in my arms instead, but she looks too lost and if I'm honest, utterly spaced out – for all I know she'll claw at us again in a few seconds, convinced we're spirits or something. What the fuck was I thinking when I left this woman to deal with her problems on her own? Actually, I remember thinking I was trying to teach her a lesson. Now I know for sure that karma's real. My 'lesson', has left me with a half- dead ex-girlfriend who stands before me pitifully depressed and refusing to meet my searching gaze.

"No, no, no…" Piper suddenly mumbles and staggers backward as if coming out of a trance. Our physical contact is broken and I instantly feel a cold darkness creep over my heart once more. The backs of her legs hit the metal frame of the pathetic excuse for a bed the SHU provides and she immediately falls backwards and curls up against the wall. Her elbows touch as she tucks her arms into her chest; her hands, skeletal headphones, smother her ears. Piper's desperate tone of voice is like a bucket of ice being thrown against my spine and I hear a sharp inhalation of breath. Nicholls' narrowed eyes mellow slightly and I realise the sound must have come from me.

"We don't have a lotta time, Vause. Look I know it's hard, but you gotta tell her what's what and then we need to split, before-"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it… be on lookout or something while I explain," I interrupt her distractedly, still staring at the wasted figure on the bed, now curled into the tiniest ball possible and murmuring incoherently.

"Yeah, I'll just keep watch from a grey box cell with no windows and a locked door. Keep your fucking head Vause! At least two of us need ta keep our heads! If anything, you'll need me to help you restrain her when she actually realises who you are," Nicky says in a serious tone for once, which does not help the raging nerves in my stomach in any way.

"You think she's… lost it? Like completely?" I ask her cautiously, dreading the answer she might give. Nicky blows her fringe off her face and without warning takes hold of my shoulders in a firm grip, getting my full attention.

"No, not completely. At least, not yet. But a few more weeks alone in here like this and you wouldn't have got the same Piper back at Litchfield, or ever. We're here just in time Vause – now hurry the fuck up, talk some sense into your girl, and we can get the hell outta here; preferably before the shit hits the fan?" Nicky gives me a wry grin before turning me around to face Piper once more and giving me a forceful shove. I glance back to see her walk swiftly to the other side of the cell, a matter of a few paces, and cross her arms with her back facing Piper and I. At this moment I don't know what I have ever done to deserve a friend like Nicky.

Snapping out of my reverie, I walk towards Piper and sit on the bed. She's trembling worse than some of the girls I've seen go through withdrawal and it's painful to watch. I have to make her okay again.

"Pipes? Piper? I'm going to speak now and you need to listen because it's important. I need you to give me some kind of sign that you can hear me and that you understand what I'm saying," I tell her in as collected a voice as I can fake whilst my mind is in total turmoil. I watch for any kind of reaction to my words. If anything the mumbling becomes louder and I make out the words: 'not real', 'hates me', 'snap out', 'going mad'.

Oh. I finally realise the problem. It's my worst fear confirmed. Piper doesn't believe that I'm really here, and worse, she's had four months, one week and three days to cement into her fucked up mind the idea that I implanted before she left: Piper Chapman can never go to Alex Vause for help – ever.

"I don't hate you" I say with a lump in my throat that makes the words come out choked, "I came here to talk to you because no matter what I will always care about you Piper. I promise you I'm really here. See…"

I stroke some wisps of blonde hair out of her face and behind her ear, careful not to touch her skin too much: that seems to freak her out the most. Before I can speak again I find my hand trapped in a vice-like grip by Piper's fragile fists. I'm shocked she can grip so hard, but the surprise is quickly dashed from my mind when she places my hand over her heart. I can feel the straining organ beating at an incredibly fast pace – it's no wonder she's almost hyperventilating.

"Alex…? Why?" A robotic voice comes out of my ex-girlfriend's mouth, so eerily different to how I remember it that for a moment I remain silent just taking in the change. Nicky coughs meaningfully and lets out an exasperated sigh.

Piper is still not looking at me. Her eyelids are tightly scrunched up and I long to run my fingers over them to relax her, only I don't think it would work. My hand is beginning to lose all feeling in it, so rather than reply I extract it carefully and wrap my arm around her undernourished body instead. She looks up at me then. Her flitting gaze is wary, like dog that's been kicked all its life would look at a human. Fear with the basest hint of hope. My heart stutters in my chest and I make my eyes bore into hers, trying desperately to show her my good intentions. There was a time that I would only have to look in her direction and she would either perk up or deflate at some small expression on my face that only she could decipher the meaning of. Now she only hurriedly looks away.

"Piper, I'm just going to tell you the facts," I whisper, trying a different approach. "I'm here because I had to know that you were at least alive. We, Nicky and I, came through the ventilation shafts. Morello managed to drive us and Nicky had already figured out, from when she was here, that the vents were our only option, so-"

"You… didn't answer… question," Piper shakes her head from side to side as she mutters the words in my direction.

"Why am I here?" I question Piper and she nods almost imperceptibly. "

"I told you earlier Pipes," I say weakly, hating the tremor in my voice, "I… I care about you… still. You need to forget what I told you at Christmas. I was being an asshole and treating you like a mule. Only you were never a drug mule to me, Piper. I didn't realise what I'd done and how fucking unfair I'd been until I saw you covered in that fucking Jesus freak's blood. It's not your fault that you were engaged to Larry befo-"

Piper shivered and clawed at her ears again, seemingly for no reason. I thought back. When I said Larry's name? Why would that agitate her? Surely thinking of him would be the one thing she had to hold on to whilst she was in here?

I notice that Nicholls has turned around and is eyeing Piper with a strange expression on her face.

'What?' I mouth at my partner in crime. 'Ask about dick-face,' Nicholls mouths back, including some hand gestures that in another time and place would have made me crease with laughter. I nod once and look back at Piper, who is staring at me as if seeing me for the first time in her life.

"How are you and Larry? Does he know you're in here, do you think?" I place my glasses on my head as I speak. I hate even saying that low-life bastard's name.

"We… we're…" Piper's entire being seems to collapse in on itself. Her body, previously tensed to the extreme, relaxes and before I can register what's going on the sound of anxious sobs fill the air. Tears pool on her cheeks and her nose begins to run. I can't stand the fact that she doesn't look to me for comfort. So I comfort her myself, gathering her into my arms as best I can and tucking her head under my chin. I hold it there carefully and hope that she doesn't push me away. She doesn't. Her body heaves and I can't even think straight I'm so distressed at seeing her this empty and miserable.

"What is it Piper? Alex will understand, you know she will," Nicky says cautiously after looking into my panic-stricken face and seeing that I am at my limit. I think it's the first time I've heard her refer to Piper by her first name. Nicky's flabbergasted expression alerts me to the fact that I've missed something important. Being so lost in thought I must not have heard Piper's answer.

"Piper, please could you repeat that baby? I didn't hear you," I say apologetically, pressing my arms around her more forcefully, but still nothing at all like how I would hug someone who hasn't just spend the last four months in SHU.

She turns her head and the blue depths of her eyes make me hold my breath without meaning to.

"Before the pageant… Lar-Larry… left me. We broke up. I'm alone now…"

I can't prevent myself. I kiss Piper with every feeling I've been holding back. Every worry, every fear, every single heart-ache. When I pull away, I think Piper's eyes reflect a little of their familiar spark, but surprise and confusion are still the predominant emotions. I wipe her tears away tenderly and feel an involuntary smile playing on the corners of my lips. It's weird because I haven't smiled for so long.

"You're not alone Piper. You have me," I say with much more confidence than I truly feel.

I turn to glance at Nicky, but Piper catches my cheek and stops me and I start to smile until I see the expression on her face. It makes my blood run cold. I've never seen her so angry in my life and I wonder if Nicky and I are going to make it out of here in one piece.

A/N: I've had an unenviable workload recently, hence how slow my progress has been with all of my stories on here. I can't promise a quick update, but I can promise that when I put the new chapter up it will be high-quality and detailed. I'd like to know you're thoughts, so feel free to leave a review - long/short whatever you like. Also, if you are reading this fellow OITNB writers, I can't tell you how happy I get when I see that someone has added a new story or updated an older one. So keep up the great work!