#07.08.26

wherever the pebble falls

her leashed heart follows,

The fluorescent lights of the Litchfield library hummed a low, irritating note that Alex had long learned to tune out. She sat at the scratched wooden table, her dark-rimmed glasses perched on the bridge of her nose, slowly turning the page of a worn paperback book she had already read three times.

Around her, the usual prison symphony played on—the squeak of correctional officers' heavy boots on the linoleum, the distant, echoing laughter from the commissary line, and the quiet murmurs of inmates gossiping in the corners. Alex kept her head down, her posture relaxed but her eyes sharp, tracking every movement in the room out of sheer habit.

There was only one person who could completely disrupt that careful focus, and that was Piper Chapman. Their history was a messy, tangled web of betrayal, passion, and codependency, but at the end of the day, Piper was the one vulnerability Alex could never seem to cut out of her life, no matter how hard she tried.

Piper had a knack for trying to play tough, making a massive mistake, and panicking when the reality of the consequences finally set in. It wouldn't take a high-level cartel scheme to get Alex involved; it would just take Piper getting herself into a situation completely over her head and looking at Alex with that familiar, desperate plea for help.

If Piper managed to cross the wrong person or got tangled up in a high-stakes contraband mess that went entirely sideways, Alex wouldn't hesitate to step in. She would use her pragmatism and sharp street smarts to completely take over the situation, keeping her composure while Piper fell apart.

Whether it meant outsmarting an aggressive inmate, manipulating a corrupt guard, or hiding illicit contraband to protect Piper from an extended sentence, Alex would handle the fallout step by step. She would coolly compartmentalize her own anxiety, orchestrating a solution to keep them both safe from corporate bureaucracy.