A/N: Written in lieu of the whole 'rumor' thing, because I have too many feels that needs to be spilled out and ranting out is not a solution.
The whole thing jumps back and forth and I don't really have a specific timeline. Just take note that these events took place in the years they were apart plus bits and pieces of their life together.
Enjoy.
Disclaimer: All the characters are not mine. Anything similar to other OITNB fics out there are purely coincidental.

You get accustomed to being in SHU.

All walls and no windows.

A toilet.

A sink.

A bunk.

The smell. The yelling. The crying.

Constant noise and constant light.

Your mind gets loud. And you can't block anything out.

Piper would drink the water, but she almost never touched her food. But after a while, it became more about survival more than anything else, and that much she knew. Her eyes were bloodshot, her lips were chapped, and she could feel the bones on her shoulders.

She started to pace. Slowly, at first. And then faster. And faster.

She thought about what Larry had said the last time they spoke.
"I don't think I can do this."
It had hurt and somewhat blindsided her at the time, but Piper was relieved that Larry had said it first.
She wasn't sure if she had enough strength to admit that she felt the same way.
It worked after a while. Piper leaned against the wall by the grate and sat down. Then she remembered the first time she was sent down here.

Alex.

She didn't know if she's going to get out.

She had started to think maybe she'll serve the rest of her sentence locked up in SHU.

She didn't expect that the mental exhaustion would wear herself down more than the physical.

It didn't take long for her to lose sense of everything.

She was pacing around when the door slid open.

"Chapman. You're going back."

She stared at the guard, and he had to call out her name again before she realized that he actually called her name.

Piper tried to look for some sense of time after she got back in Litchfield, but she couldn't find anything.

How long was she in there? A week? Two? Three?

The first place she went to was the rec room. Yoga Jones was there having a session, and she gave Piper a smile. Piper smiled back and sat on the far end of the room. She looked around, her eyes vacant of expression. Boo was attempting the full forward bent but failed to do so and cursed loud enough for Piper to hear. She couldn't help but chuckle.

"Chapman!" O'Neill called out. "Found you a bunk. Come on."

They walked in to the suburbs and O'Neill pointed to Alex's bunk.

"She was transferred two days ago," he whispered closely in her ear so no one would hear.

Piper could feel her whole body shaking. Her mouth quivered and felt panic rising within her. She turned her head away from the bunk and held her eyes shut. O'Neill gave her a gentle pat on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry."

Lunch time.

Piper could feel most people at the cafeteria were staring at her.

Daya handed her a tray with some mashed potatoes, string beans, and a small casserole.

"Thanks."

She walked to her usual table and Morello gave her a side hug. Piper flinched. She hasn't had contact with anyone for a while and it had startled her.
"You look like you've been brought up from the dead."
Piper chuckled. "Wow."
"I tried to find out where they sent Vause, but..."
"Lorna. Stop." Piper shot with a stern voice. Morello lifted her palms as a sign of apology and dropped the subject.

Later that night, Red approached her bunk.
"For you," she said, stretching out her hand with a book in hand. Jonathan Tropper's 'This is Where I Leave You'.
Piper frowned, but rose from her bunk and took it. "Thanks."
Red leaned onto the bunk wall and stood there, waiting. Piper got the message. She flipped through the pages until it landed on a page with a note slipped inside. Her heart skipped a beat.

See you soon, Kid.

-A

Polly gave her a long hug when she came by to visit. They sat facing each other for a while, not saying anything. Polly's eyes began to water.

Piper only just shook her head, signaling Polly she couldn't take to see her cry, and went straight down to business. "I need you to do something for me."

Polly could sense the urgency in her voice. "Yeah, anything."

"I need you to find me a new lawyer."

Polly blinked.

"What?"

"I don't want to talk about it, please just find me a new lawyer."

Piper could tell that Polly wanted to know more, but for now she nodded. "Okay. First thing tomorrow."

"Thanks, Pol."

That afternoon she removed Larry from her contact list.

Piper served the rest of her time in prison mostly in silence.

She did her duties, choosing to work at the library with Taystee and Possey.

On Mondays she would join Yoga Jones.

On Wednesdays and Fridays she would go out for a run.

She helped Boo teach Little Boo some tricks, and allowed herself to think about maybe having a pet once she got out.

She called Polly and Pete and told them what happened with Larry and what it would mean going forward. She would stay with them until she could find a decent place to live.

Slowly, just slowly, she was starting to build her life back from prison. She realized she couldn't go back to being the same person she was before she went in.

That person doesn't exist anymore.

The inmates threw her a goodbye party at the rec room as they usually do. Piper smiled and laughed as they shared stories, reminiscing back to when she first got in. Even Red had joined in on the action. Over the past few months she had become Piper's maternal figure, which is a major improvement.

She couldn't wait until they released her. One day away. But she was also sad to be leaving the women she'd come to know and called friends.

That night before curfew, she went to the laundry room and stayed there for a while.

Officer Mendoza handed her all of her personal belongings in a zipper bag. Her jeans. Sweater. Shoes. Piper fit into those rather loosely, and for some reason the thought of wearing something other than a prison outfit felt foreign on her body.

Before she returned her uniform, she took out Alex's note and folded it in her jeans.

"You're free to go, Chapman."

The first thing she did was to eat bacon burger.

It took some time to adjust herself living outside of confinement, even if it was only 15 months. Polly was quick to brought her up to speed on their company, and soon enough Piper could grasp how things work. She'll be in charge of the operation, and Polly had decided to work with a small company for production. It was all going very well.

Sometimes Litchfield would show that it still holds a piece of Piper. She would dream about being back there again, as if serving her sentence all over again.

In one dream she could not find her jumpsuit and the guards refused to give her one.
In another, she missed count time and got sent to SHU.
Once, after a particularly stressful day, she laid down for a quick nap. She dreamt she was trapped in her cell, with Healy approaching her slowly, his eyes staring cold and blank towards Piper. She was stuck solid in place, unable to run or call anyone out.
Polly shook her body and called out her name. "Piper! It's just a dream. You're having a dream."
Piper took a moment to realize where she is, and drew a deep breath out of relief.
"Jesus," Polly exhaled.
"Sorry, Pol."
"No, it's fine. It's just..." she hesitated for a moment before she decided to speak again. "Did you realize you called out for Alex?"

Piper got herself a nice apartment in Upper West Side. Their business flourished and they decided to move their office into a small warehouse near her place. Polly and Piper were now supervising all the production, and they have several shops throughout the city. She met Yoga Jones when she was getting on the train and the two ended up having coffee and catching up, and Piper offered her a job. Now she works as a manager in one of their stores.

Four years had passed and Litchfield has released its clutching fingers from Piper. She didn't dream as frequent as she used to, and even if she did she would mostly ignore it. It all seemed so long ago.

"I want to thank you," she said to Jones one day as they were doing stock inventory.

"For what?"

"For the whole... Mandala speech you told me when I first got in. It really helped me a lot."

Jones flashed her a smile and went back to arranging the lotions.

That day she went home and found a book in her mailbox.

Lonely Planet's 'Cambodia'.