Hands

I do not own the characters, they belong to the WB and Spelling and Burge, I just write for my own purposes.

Hands. They were capable of doing so much. A gentle caress, a loving touch. Holding a child and wiping away a tear. Building, creating, making something, a house, a painting, dinner for a family. They shaped hearts with a touch, destroyed relationships if raised in anger. Holding a child’s hand as they learned to walk giving support or holding the hand of a loved one as they said there good-bye’s, letting them know that they were not alone.

Hands had aloud people to rise from the dirt and mud eon’s past, shaping the world as they grew, from making fire and hunting to the wheel and taming the wild beasts to pull the carts they crafted. Hands, with out them, people would be no different then the animals that roamed the world.

But what happened when you failed to use them? What happens when your hands hold magic in them, yet when you need to use it the most, you fail? Like I did. I failed my sister, because I did not use my hands, hands that could have saved her.

I sat on the steps, looking down at my hands, staring at them, but not really seeing them. I have washed them a hundred, a thousand times, yet I can still feel, still see, the wet, warm blood that was my sisters. Rubbing at them, I tried to erase the sight, the memory, of my failure, but still it remains.

I hold a great gift in my hands, I have used it so many times in the past, and present, to help save an innocents life, reacting on instinct, trusting in my powers, in my sisters to make everything right. Why did I fail the one time I truly need to use them? The one time that I should have been able to react with out thought, and I froze, just for a instant, and it cost me my world.

I ball my hands into fists as I feel the tears start once more, closing my eye’s to try and fight them back, yet still, they fall, in pain, in sorrow, in anger ,in guilt. I’m alive, but my sister is dead, and it’s all my fault. If I had been faster, if I had been a better sister, then maybe I could have saved her, like she would have done. But I did not, and now, I can only sit here and hope that she will forgive me.

I feel someone place their hand on my shoulder, and I know who it is with out even looking. She too feels the loss, but it was not her fault, how can she stand to offer me comfort, knowing that I failed our sister?

It’s time to go to the service, her memorial, a tribute to a life cut short, but how can I go knowing that I am the reason? I failed her, it should have been me. I do not want to go, but I have to. I need to tell them, let them know, that I was the reason she died. The blood that I still see on my hands tells me I’m right. If I was not guilty, her blood would not have stained them so deeply.

We are sitting on either side of our father as he holds our hands, his grief, his loss just as powerful as ours. How will he react when he knows that the hand he holds to tightly is the cause of that pain? Can’t he see the stains they carry?

We have already had the service for those who did not know our secret, the secret that cost us our normal lives from the moment we discovered what powers we held in our hands. The lives we lead, double lives, apart from those we were sworn by our heritage to protect, the only clue to who we really were was the priestess that performed the service, but even she had not know just how true our faith in Wicca was, how real.

Beside us, around us, the one’s who knew, the one’s who we saved, the one’s we shared it with had gathered, wanting to give back just a measure of their gratitude, their thanks, to the one we had lost. She helped save so many of them, her heart leading the way as we struggled to fight the evil that was ever present in our lives.

It’s my turn now to speak, but as I take the offered hand to rise, I can not help but think how pale their hand looks next to mine for mine is the color of blood, dark, red, blemished. But I am the only one who sees it, because I am the guilty one, my punishment for failing.

Standing, I walk up towards the casket, seeing the pristine beauty of it. The flowers bright against the white oak that we picked out, something else that is my fault, making my other sister go through this. Another reason my hands are stained. Not with my sisters blood, but with my other sisters spirit.

I can not go any further, I just stand there, looking at the coffin that contains her body, knowing that I will never see her again, hear her laugh, see her smile, feel her touch. I feel my fingernails digging into my palms, feel the wetness that starts to flow, but there is no pain, for my hands, for my soul, I deserve what ever punishment I receive.

A clock chimes in the background, the tower clock, telling me that time is running forward still. Time, how ironic. For what good did the power of time do us? Tempus reset time, and still we lost. I’m alive, but my sister is dead. I had the chance to stop time, in one instant, one split second, and I failed.

Prue and Phoebe sacrificed for me, and I repaid them by letting Prue die.

“Good-bye.” I whisper, so softly no one hears and I lay my hands on the smooth wood, letting the tears fall, not caring that anyone sees, that anyone else is there. My guilt is the only thing I can see, surrounding me as I fall into it once more.