Another Secret Revealed


I do not own Charmed, nor do I own any character you recognise.

This is an alternate universe fiction set around the same time line as Season 7

When Phoebe’s powers are returned to her and she has a vision, the older Halliwells discover that Paige is harbouring a secret, possibly even more traumatic than the death of her adoptive parents.



Chapter 1

It was Monday morning and Phoebe Halliwell had overslept. She ran down the stairs full throttle, and made a beeline for the kitchen, passing a startled Piper on the way. She cradled baby Chris in one arm and threw her free arm out in front of herself to stop the kitchen door from swinging into her face.

“Good morning to you to too Phoebes! You’re lucky I didn’t blow you up you know!” Piper yelled, with a hint of irritation in her voice.

“Oh sorry! Morning Piper, morning Paige, but I’m late for a meeting with Elise and she’s going to…” Phoebe had brushed past Paige making contact with her elbow on her way to the coffee maker and stopped abruptly in mid sentence. She flinched, her eyes closed, her head arched upwards, and her body stiffened.

Paige and Piper knew exactly what was happening to their sister. Phoebe was having a premonition. Paige looked at Piper, who was still standing by the door. “Her powers are back.” she remarked with surprise.

“Well that was shockingly quick!” Piper riposted, while rolling her eyes briefly heavenward in disbelief and then back at Phoebe.

The sisters watched and waited for Phoebe to come out of her premonition. She stood frozen for roughly twenty seconds as the vision played out in her head and then something totally unexpected happened – she collapsed. Paige was standing behind her and caught her as she fell, easing her gently to the floor.

Piper gasped and quickly put Chris in the baby carrier, which was conveniently sitting on the kitchen table. Then she ran to her fallen sister’s side. She placed one hand on Phoebe’s neck to check her pulse and used her other hand to brush a few stray hairs from her sister’s clammy face. “Paige, get a cold cloth please.” Paige quickly complied and returned with a damp cloth, placing it gently on Phoebe’s forehead.

“Come on Sweetie, wake up.” Piper coaxed. She looked at Paige. Piper was starting to get a little panicky and was about to call for Leo when Phoebe began to come around. She moaned softly and her eyelids fluttered open.

“Paige…” Phoebe mumbled as both Piper and Paige helped her to sit up. Piper caught the cloth as it slid off of Phoebe’s forehead and tossed it into the sink.

“I’m right here Honey. I’m not going anywhere.” Paige responded.

“Come on Phoebes, let’s get you up and over to the chair.” Piper said.

The oldest and the youngest sisters guided their middle sister to the chair and she eased herself onto it. Piper stood beside Phoebe and placed her hand on her shoulder “That must have been some premonition. Are you okay?” Piper asked.

“Yeah, just feeling a little woozy. Guess I’m just not used to getting visions anymore.” Phoebe replied.

“Plus your premonitions do have that energy draining empathic edge to them.” Paige remarked. She then squatted so that her eyes were level with Phoebe’s, placing her hands gently on Phoebe’s knees. “What did you see Sweetie? Did you see me? You said my name when you came to.” Paige questioned.

Phoebe looked at both of her sisters before answering. “Uh… no, not at all.” Phoebe lied. “It’s just that you were the first person I saw when I opened my eyes.” Paige looked up at her oldest sister sceptically and remained silent.

“Well, what did you see then?” Piper persisted gently.

“Oh, it was nothing really, just a vision of the past, something unimportant. It was probably just the Elders’ way of letting me know that my powers have been returned to me, although I’m not entirely sure what I did to earn them back.” Phoebe lied again. However, the last part of her sentence was the truth.

She thought back to when she and Paige were caught on tape and the Cleaners, who prevent magic from being exposed, covered up by making Darryl look like a murderer and sent him to death row. She and her sisters went before a special council of Elders and demons known as the Tribunal to try and save his life. Inspector Darryl Morris was a close friend of the Halliwell family who had put his job and his life on the line more times than Phoebe could count. The prosecutor, Barbas (the demon of fear), had manipulated the proceedings and it was the Charmed Ones themselves who ended up being put on trial for recklessly abusing their powers. The end result was that although they were able to save their friend, Phoebe had been stripped of her active powers - empathy, premonition, and levitation. As much as she disliked the Elders and hated Barbas, they were right. She had misused her powers, forcing premonitions for her own personal gain.

"Sweetie, since when did a vision of something that happened in the past ever make you pass out, because, hello, you’ve been there before?” Paige was not convinced.

Phoebe put her right hand on top on Paige’s left hand, which was still resting on her knee. “Um, Paige, don’t you have a dentist appointment today? Just because I’m already late for my meeting doesn’t mean you have to be late too. You should go.”

Paige knew that Phoebe was avoiding her question but decided to let it go for now. “Ugh. Don’t remind me. Are you sure you’re okay?” Paige asked.

“I’m fine, or at least I will be until Elise gets her hands on me. Besides, Piper’s here.” Phoebe gave her younger sister a weak smile.

“Alright. I’m just an orb away if you need me. See you guys later.” Paige glanced at Piper as she got up from her squatting position and reluctantly left the kitchen, grabbing her purse from the counter along the way. As she walked through the living room she paused in front of Wyatt, who was playing contentedly in his playpen. She seriously thought about turning around and marching right back into the kitchen. She shrugged it off though, deciding she would question Phoebe later, and ruffled her nephew’s hair instead before exiting the Manor.

Piper and Phoebe waited silently until they heard the sound of the front door closing. Piper then grabbed another chair and moved to where Paige had been moments ago. She sat down, facing Phoebe. She touched her little sister’s hand and noticed that Phoebe was still trembling slightly. “You DID see Paige, didn’t you?” Piper asked.

Phoebe nodded. “I didn’t know what to say in front of her. But it wasn’t a premonition, it was a vision of the past – Paige’s past. Watching her parents die in a flaming car crash wasn’t the only terrible ordeal she’s been through. I felt her pain. It was intense. Piper, I think there’s another skeleton Paige hasn’t let out of the closet yet.”
Chapter 2

Piper waited patiently for Phoebe to recount what she had seen in her vision.

Phoebe took a deep breath and began to talk. “I saw teenage Paige. She was in what looked like her room, and he was there, waiting for her in the darkness of her closet. She opened the closet door to put a jacket away and- ” Phoebe was interrupted by the ringing of the phone. She put her hands to her head and sighed. “That will be Elise and I so can’t deal with her right now.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of her.” Piper got up and grabbed the phone off the counter. “Hello? Oh hi Elise…no, this is her sister Piper and I was just about to call you. Phoebe asked me to tell you that she’s really sorry but she has that bad stomach flu that’s going around right now. She hasn’t left the bathroom all morning and she-” Suddenly Piper flinched and held the phone as far away from her ear as her arm would extend. Elise was shouting so loudly even Phoebe could hear her clearly. Piper rolled her eyes and put the phone back to her ear when Elise’s little outburst had ended. “Yes, I’ll tell her. Bye.”

The phone beeped as Piper pressed the disconnect button and she put it back down on the counter with a thump. “Elise said that she understands your need to go on a sabbatical for a while and she’ll handle the meeting today, but technically you’re still working this week so if you’re not back at work by tomorrow, she’s going to hire your new ghost writer permanently.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Phoebe replied.

Piper then got a mug out of the cupboard and filled it with coffee before returning to her younger sister. She sighed as she placed the mug on the table beside Phoebe. Then she lifted baby Chris, who had begun to fuss, out of the carrier and held him in her lap.

“Anyway,” Phoebe swallowed hard and continued, “He lunged out at her and screamed, ‘Boo!’ with a fat grin on his face like some stupid sicko. He grabbed her from behind and covered her mouth with his hand so she couldn’t shout for help. He was really young, maybe a bit older than Paige, and bigger, stronger. Paige was terrified and I could feel everything she was feeling as if it were happening to me. It was horrible Piper! She tried to struggle out of his grasp, but he slapped her and then he threw her against the wall, making her face bleed. When she fell onto the floor he kicked her. I could feel the pain of every blow on my own skin. Then he threw himself on top of her, tearing at her clothing. He…uh…the vision ended there, but I think he…I can’t say it Piper.”

Phoebe shook her head in an effort to rid herself of the images still lingering there. Her heart was pounding and she struggled to calm herself. She held her coffee cup in her trembling hand and sipped the hot liquid slowly.

“Whoa. No wonder you collapsed. Just take a nice deep breath for me please.” Piper brushed a few stray hairs away from her sister’s forehead with her fingers in an effort to soothe her. “It’s okay, honey, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay Piper. What are we going to do?”

Chapter 3

An irritated Paige squinted as she walked into the midday Sun. She was just leaving the dentists office and held a hand to her sore mouth. “I can’t believe he did a root canal,” Paige mumbled angrily to herself made a mental note to kick her lollipop habit as she walked down the sidewalk towards her lime-green Volkswagen bug.

As she fished through her purse, searching for her keys, Paige stopped abruptly as she heard the tinny sound of trashcans clattering to the ground and a high pitched scream piercing the air. She whirled around and ran back in the direction she had just come from. She turned into an alley and froze in horror, not merely at what she saw, but at whom she saw. A man stood not twenty feet away from Paige, clutching a terrified woman by the throat. The woman’s eyes bulged out of their sockets and she let out a blood – curdling scream as he applied his touch of death. His hand was glowing like the burning embers of a fire. Patches of facial skin turned red, then black as the woman’s flesh burned away. He released his grip on the woman, now reduced to a smoking corpse, and she fell to the ground like a rag doll.

“Well, isn’t this a cosy little reunion, Paige. I knew you’d come.” A crossbow appeared in his hand. He aimed it at Paige and pulled the trigger.

Consumed by her own fear, Paige remained unmoving and speechless, as if caught in one of Piper’s freezes. She gasped in pain as the arrow pierced her left lung and she collapsed onto the pavement, clutching her side. “Leo!” Her voice was little more than a whisper. She didn’t have the strength to orb. And Leo was nowhere to be seen.
She couldn’t breath and took sharp desperate breaths as the man of her nightmares walked towards her. He knelt down beside her, twisted the arrow in his hand and plunged it deeper into her wound, smiling as he savoured her cries of pain. He was about to remove the arrow completely when he heard shouting and footsteps approaching. “Damn it!” His face turned crimson with anger. He looked down into her frightened, pain filled eyes, relishing her tortured expression. “Don’t worry, I’ll keep in touch, not that you’ll be around much longer, baby.” He vanished in a flurry of dark orbs just seconds before two plain clothes officers who had also heard the commotion, reached the alley.

Both officers stopped in their tracks when they saw the barely conscious woman with an arrow embedded in her chest at their feet and the charred corpse at the far end of the alley. One of the officers knelt down beside Paige to assess her condition. “Can you hear me?” he asked.

Paige didn’t respond. Instead, her body began to convulse as she went into shock.
Chapter 4

Sirens wailed. Paramedics burst though the emergency room doors and raced a gurney carrying an injured woman through the corridor. Doctors barked out orders and nurses hurriedly complied. A phone was ringing somewhere. A female voice was paging a ‘Dr. Johnson’ to neurology. The ER waiting room was crowded with an assortment of people of different ages with various types of injuries. Some people sat anxiously awaiting news of injured or sick loved ones. A mother attempted to comfort her crying child.

More paramedics rushed through the doors, and a frantic Piper and Phoebe followed behind them. The sisters headed straight for the reception desk. “Matthews - Paige Matthews! She’s our sister. She was brought in here! Where is she? Is she okay?” Piper was almost hysterical. Phoebe wrapped an arm around her big sister in an effort to calm both Piper and herself.

The nurse looked emphatically at the women standing before her as she tapped away on her keyboard. “Miss Matthews is in the trauma room at the moment. Please have a seat and I’ll see if I can’t get the doctor to come out and have a word with you.”

One trembling sister guided the other to two empty chairs in the waiting area and Phoebe clutched her sister’s hand as they sat down. Phoebe glared at the ceiling as she battled the silent rage boiling within her. She wanted to scream, she wanted to utter every expletive she could think of. She wanted the Elders to know exactly what she thought of them, but she couldn’t. She was in a public place and now was not the time to lose control. She sat instead with her head bowed, staring at her feet.

Piper gripped her sister’s hand tightly. She knew what was going through Phoebe’s head but remained silent as she fought with her own emotions. Here she was in a place that she and her sisters spent way too much time in, faced with the possibility that she might lose yet another sister. Also, the fact the Leo wasn’t responding to her calls only added to her anxiety. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on keeping herself from having a full - blown panic attack.

Both sisters were so lost in their own thoughts they were oblivious to the arrival of Inspector Darryl Morris, but he had noticed them. He was reluctant to approach them and remained stationary at the reception desk, choosing to observe them from a distance instead. The memories of his near execution were still too fresh in his mind, yet for some reason he still felt compelled to check up on them. He wasn’t even on this case, but because the officers who had found Paige were from his precinct, he had taken on the responsibility of contacting the next of kin. He knew them after all, and even if he was a little pissed at them, he did have compassion.

Morris turned his attention from the Halliwell sisters to a dark haired man standing beside the coffee machine and walked up to him. “Any news yet Harris?”

“No, but I’m on the case now.” Harris replied, taking a sip of his coffee and grimacing. He had been one of the officers who discovered Paige lying injured in the alley and rode with her in the ambulance. “She’s in really bad shape. I don’t know if she’ll make it. It’s a shame. She’s so young and beautiful. I’d like to nail the bastard who did this to her. Is that her family over there?” He asked, nodding his head towards Piper and Phoebe.

“Yes.” Morris answered. “But believe me, you don’t want to know them,” he muttered under his breath as he turned to leave, ignoring Harris’s look of incomprehension, choosing instead to take one last look at the two distraught sisters.

Harris shook his head as he watched Morris exit the building and turned his attention back to the sisters of the young woman who was now fighting for her life. Sooner or later he’d have to talk to them, but now was not the right time.

***

Piper and Phoebe snapped to attention as the nurse reappeared, accompanied by a doctor.

“Are you Miss Matthews’ sisters?” the doctor inquired. She was a kindly looking black woman in her late forties. Her hair was cut very short, which suited her rounded facial features. She wore the regulation white lab coat and a stethoscope hung loosely around her neck.

“Uh, yes. I’m Piper Halliwell and this is my sister Phoebe. How is Paige? Can we see her?”

“My name is Dr. Phillips. I’m looking after your sister.” She spoke calmly and smiled sympathetically at both Piper and Phoebe. “Miss Matthews was attacked in an alley and hit in the left side of her chest with a crossbow, causing her lung to collapse. She’s in surgery now to have the damage repaired. The lung will be re-inflated and a chest drain inserted- ”

“Did you say she was hit with an arrow?” Phoebe interrupted.

“Shh, let the doctor finish.” Piper reprimanded gently.

“That’s okay,” Dr. Phillips continued. “Yes, that’s correct. I’m afraid Miss Matthews’ condition is critical but we’re doing everything we can for her. She’ll be in surgery for at least another hour. I’ll come and get you then.

“Thank you, Dr. Phillips,” Piper said.

Both Piper and Phoebe watched the doctor leave.

“Why don’t you both go to cafeteria and have something to eat while you’re waiting?” the nurse suggested. “It’s just over that way and down the stairs.” She pointed to her left. “My name is Nancy. I’ll just be at my station if you need me.”

“Thanks,” Phoebe responded. The nurse nodded and walked back to the reception desk.

Phoebe watched her sister storm off to the ladies room and followed her. Piper threw the door open and went in, nearly walking into a woman coming out of the rest room.

Phoebe apologised to the woman for her agitated sister. “Piper, take it easy.”

Piper ignored her younger sister and checked every stall to make sure they were alone. When she was confident that there was no one else in the room, she turned her attention back to Phoebe.

“You and I both know she’s been hit by a darklighter’s arrow and if we don’t do something soon she’s going to die! Leo! Leo, please, Paige needs you, she’s hurt! Leo!” Piper raised her arms in despair when he failed to appear yet again. “I don’t understand. Why isn’t he coming?”

Phoebe threw her arms around her now teary eyed big sister to comfort her, while choking back tears of her own. “I don’t know Sweetie, I don’t know.”
Chapter 5

Piper and Phoebe had decided to go back to the waiting area since neither one of them had an appetite anyway. Piper had a magazine in her hand while Phoebe leaned her head on her big sister’s shoulder.

“You’ve been reading the same page for over an hour now,” Phoebe remarked.

“Actually, I’ve be reading the same line for the last hour. I can’t concentrate.” Piper threw the magazine back on the table in front of her and sighed heavily.

It was then that Harris, having returned from his search for better coffee in the cafeteria, decided to make himself known to the Halliwell sisters. He approached the two women cautiously.

“Excuse me, I don’t mean to disturb you but I just wanted to have a word with you. My name is Inspector Aidan Harris. I’m the officer who found your sister in the alley and I’ve also been assigned to the case. I’m really sorry for everything that’s happened. I hope Paige pulls through.” He extended his hand and Piper stood to shake it.

“Thank you.” It didn’t surprise Piper that Darryl was not assigned to the case, as he had been distancing himself from the Halliwell sisters for quite some time now. “Morris told me about you over the phone. I understand that if you hadn’t found her she wouldn’t have made it this far.” Piper added.

“I was just doing my job, Miss Halliwell.” The young officer looked down at his shoes.

“Please call me Piper and this is my sister Phoebe. How did this happen? Did you see who did this to her?” the oldest Halliwell questioned.

Harris shook his head. “There was a body, a woman. I think Miss Matthews was trying to help her but got there too late.”

Both Harris and the girls noticed Dr. Phillips approaching. That was his cue to leave, but before doing so, he handed Piper his card. “We’ll talk later. If there’s anything I can do for you, just give me a call.”

Piper took the card from him. “Thanks.”

Piper and Phoebe’s attention was now focussed on Dr. Phillips. They both couldn’t help but notice that the woman was wearing the expression of someone about to deliver very bad news. Piper swallowed and Phoebe held her breath as she reached down to grasp her sister’s hand in her own.

“Your sister is out of surgery and in ICU,” She paused momentarily and took a deep breath before continuing. “But, I’m afraid Miss Matthews’ condition is still critical. We’ve done everything we can for her, but for some reason I cannot explain her body is systematically shutting down. If I can’t figure out what’s causing this, she only has a few hours at most. I am so sorry.” She paused again to give the sisters time to process her devastating prognosis.

Piper and Phoebe exchanged glances. They both knew very well that it was darklighter poison that was slowly killing their sister. Phoebe had a horrible feeling of déja vu as she remembered when Piper had Oroya fever and the words of Dr. Williamson echoed in her mind: “Either Piper pulls out of the coma on her own, or, I’m afraid your sister’s not going to make it.” She covered her mouth with her hand. Piper remained silent, too numb to react.

“Come with me, I’ll take you to her.” Dr. Phillips led the girls down the corridor and stopped in front of a set of sliding doors with a sign beside them with big bold letters that read ‘Intensive Care Unit’. “Now, I want you to be prepared for what you see in there before you go in. Your sister is not able to breathe on her own and is on life support. You’re going to see a lot of equipment, tubes and drips running in and out of her body. As horrible as it looks, these things are keeping Paige alive. You’re both welcome to stay as long as you like, given the circumstances. Are you ready?”

Piper and Phoebe exchanged glances with one another. “As ready as we’ll ever be.” Piper responded solemnly.

Dr. Phillips nodded, punched a code into the keypad and the doors whooshed open. A nurse walked up to them. “This is Tracey. She’ll take you to your sister. I’ll be back in a while." With that, Dr. Phillips left.

Tracey led the girls to their sister’s room, and they froze in front of the clear glass window that gave them a full view of Paige. Nothing could have prepared Piper and Phoebe Halliwell for the sight before them.
Chapter 6

The sisters stood at the foot of Paige’s bed. She lay motionless, sandwiched between crisp white sheets, unaware of her sisters’ presence in the room. Both guard-rails were up around her, tubes and drips ran in and out of her body, as the doctor had warned. Wires that protruded from the neck of her equally white hospital gown (with the words San Francisco Memorial written all over it in small blue lettering) connected Paige to the medical equipment surrounding her. A cuff wrapped around her right arm just above the elbow inflated and then deflated automatically as it measured her blood pressure. There was an underwater seal on the floor by the bed, a drainage bottle that collected fluid from a tube inserted in the side of Paige’s chest. With watering eyes, Phoebe studied the bottle that was filling with crimson liquid at a steady pace, and covered her mouth with her hand. Feeling nauseated, she focussed on Piper instead, giving her a look of disbelief.

The room was quiet except for the incessant beeping of the heart monitor and the rise and fall of the respirator as it breathed for Paige through the tube in her mouth. At the same time these noises provided Piper and Phoebe with the reassurance that their baby sister was, although barely, alive.

Piper was the first to touch her. She moved to the side of the bed and reached over the rail to take Paige’s limp left hand in her own. She held onto it gently, not wanting to knock out the needle embedded in her little sister’s wrist. Piper couldn’t help but notice that with her fever and even paler than normal skin, Paige had a complexion like a glazed porcelain doll – a doll on the verge of shattering into a thousand pieces, Piper thought solemnly.

“Paige, sweetie. I’m not going to tell you to squeeze my hand because I know you can’t at the moment, but I am hoping that maybe you can hear me. Phoebe and I are here with you. I don’t know where Leo is right now, but I promise we WILL find a way to make you better, so you hang in there, okay? You know you keep this family together, sweetie. I don’t know where we’d be without you.”

Piper fought back her tears, but one solitary teardrop managed to escape. She wiped it away with her free hand and continued. “Uh, I know I’ve never really told you this before, because I haven’t found it easy to say these words since Prue-” She couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘died.’ “- but Paige, I DO love you. That’s why you have to get better, so I can tell you when you wake up.”

Phoebe had not moved from her spot at the foot of her sister’s bed, nor had she spoken a word since she and Piper had entered the room. She was too consumed with her own guilt and helplessness, too busy fighting her own inner demons, to get any closer to Paige.

When Piper grew silent, Phoebe lost her own battle and exploded with fury, staring upward as she shouted, “I don’t understand! What good is it giving me my powers back if you weren’t going to let me stop THIS from happening!” She motioned with both arms towards her dormant sister. “Why the HELL did you give me a DAMN vision of Paige’s past if you’re just planning to let her die anyway! How DARE you do this to us again! Are you a bunch of SADISTS up there? Do you ENJOY seeing us SUFFER? How DARE you!” Phoebe had completely lost it. She had never been so angry in her life.

Piper rushed, unnoticed, to Phoebe’s side and wrapped her arms tightly around her trembling sister. “Shh…shh. You’ll draw attention to us. Shh. I know exactly how you feel, believe me.”

Phoebe tried to resist her big sister’s embrace at first, but then accepted it, and hugged her back. She went limp now in Piper’s arms, her rage expelled for the moment, and let her tears fall freely. Piper held Phoebe and let her cry, knowing that her sister needed the release. “I wondered when you were going to let go. You’ve been fuming since we first got here.”

After a couple of minutes, Piper broke the hug but left both of her hands firmly planted on Phoebe’s shoulders. She stared straight into her distressed sister’s eyes. “Listen to me. This is NOT your fault. DO NOT blame yourself, okay? Look, maybe Wyatt can heal Paige or we can write a spell, or-”

Phoebe was so pre-occupied with letting go of her pain and Piper was so busy trying to take it away, that neither one of them noticed the orbs appearing off to the side of the room.

“…I can help you.”
Chapter 7


“Oh!” Phoebe and Piper exclaimed simultaneously and they both jumped in surprise at the sudden appearance of the figure standing before them.

“Sam? Hi! You’re not the Whitelighter I was expecting but you’ll do. Heal Paige. Now. Hurry!” Piper ordered, pointing a slightly curved thumb and index finger towards the bed.

“That’s what I’m here for. You think I’d stand back and watch my daughter die when I’ve only just recently found her again?”

Just as he was about to move to Paige’s bedside, Phoebe suddenly positioned herself in front of him. “Wait a second! Uh, I really want you to heal Paige, but won’t Dr. Phillips get suspicious? I mean, we don’t want another Dr. Williamson scenario.”

“Don’t remind me,” Piper moaned.

Sam nodded in understanding. “The Elders told me about that. That’s why I will only be able to neutralise the poison in her system. I won’t be able to heal her actual injury.”

Phoebe stepped out of the Whitelighter’s way and went to keep watch by the window instead. Once he was standing at his daughter’s side, he held a glowing hand over her upper torso and applied his healing touch. When he was finished, he rested his large hand on top of her slender fingers and bent over to kiss her forehead. “She probably won’t wake up for a little while yet and she’ll be very sore when she does, but she’ll be okay. She’ll need your support though, more than she’ll be willing to admit if she’s anything like me.”

Piper and Phoebe both sighed with relief. Phoebe looked up at the ceiling with narrowed eyes. “Don’t think that I’m not still pissed off with you people!”

Piper wasn’t feeling all that happy with them at the moment either. “Thank you, Sam. Not that we’re not grateful for what you’ve done, because we are, but why isn’t Leo here? Why wouldn’t he answer when I called him? ” she questioned.

Sam stepped away from his daughter and out of sight of the viewing window. He rubbed thoughtfully at the stubble on his chin and gazed sympathetically at Piper. He knew she was going to ask that question and he dreaded having to answer it.

Phoebe had now moved to her quiescent sister’s bedside. She held Paige’s hand, stroked her hair gently and remained silent.

Piper was focussed on Sam, holding her breath in anticipation of his response, her hands balling into tight fists as every muscle in her body tensed. She saw the troubled expression on the discomfited Whitelighter’s face and knew that whatever he was about to say wasn’t going to be good. “Well?” she pressed.

Realising he could no longer delay the inevitable, he began to speak. “Piper, there’s no way to break this to you gently, so I’m just going to come out and say it. The Council revoked Leo’s Elder status as a consequence of his killing Gideon and they clipped his wings.” Sam paused momentarily, seeing that Piper had been jolted by this revelation.

“Wh- What?” Piper was reduced to stuttering. “Wh- Where is he now?”

Sam shook his head, knowing that the worst was yet to come for Piper and he spoke softly. “He was out of control with his anger, his grief. He attacked another Elder out of rage as well as a Whitelighter who tried to stop him. They erased his memory and sent him away. They said that if the two of you were truly meant to be together he’d find his way back to you. I’m so sorry Piper.”

Piper was in a complete state of stupefaction. Her eyes were glazed over with grief and she threw a hand to her a mouth in an effort to stop all sound from coming out. After everything she and Leo had been through since they had first met she couldn’t believe the Elders would have the audacity to tear them apart yet again, rendering her sons fatherless in the process. They had just found each other again, consummated their love and brought another beautiful child into the world. How much more pain would they have to endure to prove it was their destiny to be together?

Suddenly, Sam heard that all too familiar jingling sound in his head and looked up at the ceiling. “Uh… I have to go now. I’ll make sure that the doctor and any other medical staff in contact with Paige won’t remember anything about poison in her system. I’m so sorry I can’t do more. I’ll be back soon.” With that, Sam orbed out and was gone as quickly as he had appeared.

Phoebe approached her older sister quickly, with the intention of providing her big sister her with support, but was caught completely off guard when Piper pushed her away.

“Don’t, Phoebe!” Piper threw her hands up in the air. “Just stay with Paige. I’m going to Dad’s place to get my sons and then I’m going back to the manor. I just want to be alone right now.”

Phoebe could only watch in bewilderment as Piper stormed out of the room.
Chapter 8

Shadows danced across the dimly lit room, illuminated only by a small fluorescent light above Paige’s bed and Phoebe sat alone at her still unconscious sister’s bedside. Although she had held Paige’s hand before, she was reluctant to now, not in the mood to play Russian Roulette with her powers. She was unsure she’d be able to handle a premonition in her current fragile state. She focussed instead on watching Paige’s chest rise and fall rhythmically as the ventilator breathed for her, finding it soothing.

Nurses had come and gone throughout the day and well into the night, changing drips, taking readings and administering meds. Dr. Phillips had been back in as well to check up on her patient and was pleased to see a slight improvement in her condition. Even though it was after visiting hours and Phoebe looked exhausted, Dr. Phillips didn’t push her into leaving. She could clearly see that this was where Phoebe needed to be, and as it wasn’t doing Paige any harm, here was where Dr. Phillips had left her.

It was two in the morning but as tired as Phoebe was, she knew that sleep would not come. Her mind was full of thoughts and still reeling from the day’s events. Getting her powers back would have been enough to deal with, never mind Paige nearly dying and Piper’s abrupt departure. She leaned her elbows on the side of the bed, rubbing her temples with both hands and closed her eyes. The anger she had felt earlier had subsided, only to be replaced with disbelief and sorrow, emotions she knew her big sister had to be feeling at this very moment as well. Phoebe knew exactly what Piper was going through, not knowing if she would ever see her soul mate again. At least Phoebe had had closure. For one fleeting moment she found herself wishing that Cole would shimmer in, wrap his arms around her, plant a tender kiss on her lips and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he could never come back. Cole was in the past, vanquished for good, although deep down Phoebe would never stop loving him. A part of her would be with him always.

Distracted by her own thoughts, Phoebe failed to notice as her elbow slid across the bed sheet, barely touching Paige’s little finger, but that was all it took to throw Phoebe into her second premonition in under twenty four hours. She saw and felt what had happened to her youngest sister in the alley as if she herself were standing there. She felt Paige’s horror as she recognised the darklighter standing in front of her, her helplessness and guilt as she watched the innocent die and the pain of the arrow hitting her chest. Phoebe clutched her side and lost complete control of her breathing, feeling Paige’s panic, followed by sheer agony as the darklighter tortured her. Phoebe found herself involuntarily emulating her sister’s state of shock.

It was at precisely this moment that the night nurse had entered the room, only to see Phoebe, unable to bring herself out of her vision, slump against the edge of the bed and slide to the floor, her body convulsing. “Miss Halliwell!” The nurse pressed a buzzer and there was a sudden flurry of activity as two more nurses, and an intern entered the room. A still fitting Phoebe was gently lifted onto a gurney and rushed away.

***

The grieving Wicca sat in a rocking chair in her bedroom cradling her youngest son in her arms. The room was dark, she hadn’t bothered to switch on any lights. She rocked back and forth, as much for her own comfort as for her baby, too numb too even cry. She hummed a child’s lullaby instead from Winnie the Pooh, something her own mother sang to her when she was a little girl.

Come out moon
Come out wishing star
Come out, come out
Wherever you are

Ironically, the light of the full moon shone through her open window and a gentle breeze caressed her cheek, as if to console her.

I'm out here in the dark
All alone and wide awake
Come and find me
I'm empty and I'm cold
And my heart's about to break
Come and find me
I need you to come here and find me
'Cos without you I'm totally lost
I've hung a wish on every star
It hasn't done much good so far
I can only dream of you

Wherever you are


Piper remembered that her mother seemed particularly sad when she sang this song and now she began to realise why. She continued to sing softly, her voice beginning to crack. Baby Chris was awake and gurgled, reaching up with his tiny hand, as if he were attempting to take away all of his mother’s pain.

I'll hear you laugh
I'll see you smile
I'll be with you
Just for a while
But when the morning comes
And the sun begins to rise
I will lose you
Because it's just a dream
When I open up my eyes
I will lose you

She paused for a moment , struggling to remember the rest of the words, struggling with her emotions.

I used to believe in forever
But forever's too good to be true


Piper could no longer sing, her emotions overcoming her. She let her tears fall freely down her cheeks and they came in torrents. She didn’t bother to wipe them away, whispering the remaining words to the lullaby instead.

I've hung a wish on every star
It hasn't done much good so far
I don't know what else to do
Except to try to dream of you
And wonder if you are dreaming too

Wherever you are


Piper held her baby close, slowly rocking, back and forth, back and forth. She allowed herself this release until there were no more tears left to cry. Leo’s voice echoed in her mind as she remembered the day Leo had proposed to her. You know we’re meant to be together, Piper. You know that. You went to the future, and you saw that we were married in it. That means that somehow they didn’t stop us. Somehow we found a way to be together. Would they ever be together again?

Piper was ripped from her thoughts as the phone rang and her heart skipped a beat. She hurriedly placed baby Chris in his crib by her bed and picked up the cordless on the nightstand. “Hello!” She rushed. It was the hospital calling and Piper’s face paled visibly as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line. “What? I’ll be there as soon as I can.” She pressed the disconnect button and dialled her father’s number. She would need him to look after the boys while she went back to the hospital. Her thoughts turned to Phoebe and she felt guilty for leaving her alone. If anything happened to her she’d never forgive herself. With an inner strength she didn’t know she had, she pulled herself together. Both of her sisters needed her now.

After her father had arrived at the manor, Piper stepped into her jeep and paused a moment before putting the key in the ignition, gazing once more at the full moon. She remembered her own bitter words after Leo had been taken away from her the first time and Prue had tried to console her. I don’t understand. Why are they doing this to us? It’s like destroying lives is how they amuse themselves.

As the world of the Charmed Ones slowly crumbled around them, somewhere in the depths of Hell beside a bubbling Seer’s cauldron, a Darklighter smiled.


Phoebe lay curled on her right side between crisp white hospital sheets wearing the same type of hospital gown as Paige and she was receiving oxygen through her nose to help her breathe. Like her youngest sister, she too had a blood pressure cuff wrapped around her left arm and there were wires running out of her gown from her chest that connected her to a heart monitor positioned beside the bed. Piper sat next to the bed and watched Phoebe as she slept. She brushed her hand through Phoebe’s thick brown hair and gently stroked her cheek with her index finger. “Oh sweetie I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have stormed away and left you alone.”

Piper sighed heavily and turned briefly to gaze at the morning sunshine streaming in through the window from a cloudless sky, which did nothing to cheer her up. She felt like Mother Nature was mocking her instead.

A soft moan broke the silence and Piper turned her attention back to her sister, who appeared to be waking up. Piper relaxed and smiled for the first time in the in twenty - four hours. There was movement behind Phoebe’s closed eyelids as she struggled to open them. She blinked several times and slowly revealed her brown eyes to her big sister. Phoebe was momentarily disoriented. She looked at the medical equipment she was attached to and down at the gown she was wearing before registering that she was lying in a hospital bed.

“What happened?” Phoebe asked softly, as she turned herself so that she was lying flat on her back. She suddenly answered the question herself as the fog clouding her brain lifted and the memories came flooding back. “Oh god! I had a vision of what happened to Paige in the alley. I felt it. She recognised the darklighter and she froze. I think it was the same guy who attacked her as a teenager in my first vision. I couldn’t come out of it. I tried and I was stuck!” Phoebe had become visibly distressed, and the monitor at her bedside, picking up on her accelerating heart rate, beeped more urgently.

“Shh…you’re okay Phoebe, just calm down. Breathe for me sweetie. I don’t want to see your blood pressure shoot through the roof again. That’s what put you here in the first place." Piper relaxed as Phoebe’s breathing grew steady and the monitor beeped normally again.

As if on cue, a nurse walked into the room carrying a syringe. “Good morning Miss Halliwell. How are you feeling this morning?” The nurse was almost too cheery for Piper.

“Okay. Tired.” Phoebe responded.

“I’m just going to give you something to keep you calm.”

Phoebe looked alarmed. She hated needles as much as Piper did, if not more. “Uh, I don’t need any injections, thank you, but I could do with a glass of water. I’m really thirsty.” As the nurse approached her with the syringe, she squeezed her eyes shut tightly in anticipation of the sting that was to follow. When nothing happened, she opened an eye.

“It’s okay, I’ve injected it into your drip. It’s completely painless,” the nurse chirped.

“Oh.” Phoebe opened her other eye and her cheeks flushed in embarrassment.

Piper had occupied herself by pouring her sister a glass of water from the pitcher that was sitting on the table by the wall.

“You rest Miss Halliwell and I’ll see if I can get you some breakfast.”

“Wait!” Phoebe cried. “When can I get out of here? I need to see Paige.”

Piper answered for the nurse, who, seeing she was no longer needed, left the room quietly. “You’ll go when the doctor says you can. Paige isn’t exactly going anywhere at the moment.” She smiled lightly, ruffling her sister’s hair gently as she handed her the glass of water. Phoebe accepted it gratefully.

Phoebe was not deceived by Piper’s smile. She saw the lugubrious expression in her big sister’s eyes and knew that on the inside, she was suffering insurmountable pain. Her eyes, normally so vibrant were now a dull brown, with a mesh of vessels crossing the sclera, making it difficult to distinguish the whites from the dark. She could see that Piper hadn't slept all night and had cried instead. “Are you okay?”

Piper wasn’t good at lying and she knew she’d never get away with saying she was fine. “Not really. But there isn’t time for me to have a meltdown right now. You need me, the boys need me and Paige needs the both of us.” She sat on the edge of the bed and held Phoebe’s hand between her palms. “I shouldn’t have left you on your own yesterday. I wasn’t mad at you. I hope you know that.”
“I know that, and I don’t hold it against you. I have to admit your behaviour shocked me a little. You’ve never pushed me away before, but I know you’re hurting and you needed time to deal. Piper, I know more than anyone what you’re going through. At least you didn’t have to vanquish your own husband. Leo’s alive and he’s out there somewhere. You were both lost before and you found each other again. You two have a bond no one can break, not even the Elders. You will always find each other.” Phoebe gazed into her sister’s sad brown eyes and saw a dam that was about to break.

Piper was hit with a fresh wave of grief. She let go of Phoebe’s hand so that she could place a hand over her own chest. She could feel her heart throbbing with pain as it responded to the sound of his name. Her eyebrows furrowed and her voice cracked as she said his name herself. “But now Leo doesn’t know who he is anymore. He doesn’t remember that he’s married and is the father of two sons! God knows where he is and he can’t hear me call him anymore. I don’t see how he can come back this time. I just don’t.” The dam broke and the floodwaters burst through.

Phoebe leaned forward and wrapped her arms tightly around her big sister. Piper gratefully accepted the hug and wrapped her own arms around Phoebe, burying her tear stained face in her younger sister’s shoulder. Phoebe remained silent, knowing her sister needed comfort, not words. She listened to Piper’s stifled moans of grief and held her even tighter.

They stayed that way for several minutes until Piper heard the younger Halliwell yawn and she broke the embrace, wiping furiously at her tears with both hands. She paused for a moment to study her sister’s features and noticed that Phoebe looked much paler than before. Piper stood up abruptly and backed away from the bed, throwing a hand to her lips. “Oh Phoebe, I’m so sorry! You can feel what I’m feeling, can’t you?”

Phoebe nodded slowly in response. “The empath-blocking potion that Leo gave you and Paige probably wore off when my powers were taken away. Do we still have any of that stuff left?”

Piper shook her head. “We’re not going to be able make any either because I can’t exactly pick up kotochu eggs at the supermarket, or any magic shop for that I know of for that matter, considering how extremely rare they are.

Phoebe sighed. “We’ll, I’ll have to come up with a spell or something or I’ll end up driving the two of you crazy again.” She tried unsuccessfully to stifle another yawn and laid back on her pillow, feeling the relaxant she had been given earlier beginning to kick in.

Piper had picked up on the signs of Phoebe’s fatigue as well. “I should go and check on Paige and then I need to go back to the Manor and make sure the boys are okay. Dad’s probably run out of bottled milk for Chris by now. You relax. I’ll be back later.”

She turned to leave but was still close enough to the bed for Phoebe to lean forward and grab her by the wrist. “Piper, it may take time, but Leo WILL come back to you. This is NOT the end, okay? And Piper, when you get home, please try to get some sleep. You’re exhausted. Phoebe let go of her big sister and watched as Piper lingered momentarily. “I love you,” she added.

“I love you too Phoebes.” Piper forced a smile, and walked towards the door.

Phoebe watched as the door closed behind her sister and sighed heavily, leaning back on her pillow once again. She took in a shaky breath. She was completely drained now. The emotions she had picked up from her older sister were intense, much like what she had experienced when they had vanquished Cole in the penthouse - sorrow, grief, anger, resentment, all rolled into one. But there was one emotion that overpowered the others. Piper was overwhelmed with guilt. Why was this emotion so strong? Phoebe’s eyelids drooped as she pondered this thought and she soon fell into a light slumber.

***

He stood in the shadows and watched her as she slept, listening to the raspy sound of the ventilator as it provided Paige with oxygen and the hissing sound it made as it sucked out used air from her lungs. When he was sure no one was watching from outside he approached her. When he was beside her, he touched her cheek with his finger and sang softly, but slightly off key.

Wouldn’t you agree, baby you and me
Got a groovy kind of love…

“Hello love. I said I’d drop by again. I do have a job to finish off. It’s a pity you’re not awake though. I’d take you first, but in the state you’re in, you’d never even notice, and where’s the fun in that?” He grinned as he placed his hand on hers and her fingers twitched slightly at his touch. He hummed again as he lifted her head and removed a pillow, letting her head fall back on the bed. He switched the ventilator off, placed the pillow on top of her face and slid a hand underneath to disconnect the breathing tube. He worked quickly now, knowing an alarm would sound at any second. He pressed down firmly on the pillow with both hands. His weakness, though, was that he always threw caution to the wind and this occasion was no different. He was so obsessed with killing Paige that he failed to notice Piper enter the room.

“Son of a…!” She screamed, and threw her arms in the air, just as he turned to face her, dropping the pillow on the floor. Her aim was a little off and she only managed to blow up the darklighter’s left arm, but that was all that was needed to deter him. He roared in agony, clutching the bloody stump and orbed out. Piper looked at the mess left behind from the explosion and used one of Paige’s spells to clean up the mess, reciting the words rapidly. "Let the object of objection become but a dream, as I cause the seen to be unseen."

Alarms shattered the silence as the heart monitor flat - lined, nurses and interns rushed into the room followed by a crash team. Piper stood amidst the chaos, mouth open in shock, caught in a never - ending nightmare.
Chapter 10

Paige sat on a piece of driftwood and listened to the gentle sound of the waves washing ashore and she watched as the waters receded. The sky above her was blue and the sun shone brightly above her, causing her to squint. Her feet were bare and she drew pictures in the sand with her toes. A Cormorant diving for fish in the distance caught her attention. It disappeared beneath the surface of the blue-green water leaving a small whirlpool in its wake. Moments later it shot out of the water, flipping a small fish in the air before catching it again and swallowing it whole. She looked on as the bird repeated the process.

Paige didn’t know quite where she was or why, but it was obviously where she wanted to be at this moment in time. For as long as she could remember, she had always retreated to the Ocean when she was upset or needed time to think. It soothed her to be near the Sea and it was certainly better than being trapped in an alley with her worst nightmare. Her fingers twitched involuntarily, as if something unpleasant had touched her, and she looked down at her hand. She felt a strong desire to stay here in this place, where she was safe, where she couldn’t be followed. She sighed heavily and closed her eyes in an attempt to block out the memory of him.

“Hello, Sweetheart!” Paige’s eyes shot open and she turned to see her adoptive father walking along the beach towards her, with a smile on his face.

“Dad!” She jumped up and ran towards him, arms outstretched. When their paths met, they wrapped their arms around each other. She buried her face in his chest and took in the musky scent of his cologne. She used to wrinkle her nose at the smell when her father was alive, but now it was the most beautiful fragrance in the world to her. She hugged him tighter, not ever wanting to let go again.

“I’ve missed you so much Daddy.” His heart melted and he kissed his precious daughter on her forehead. He hadn’t heard her call him ‘Daddy’ since she was a little girl.

Paige stepped back to look up at her father but kept her arms around his waist, afraid that he might disappear if she let go. “Am I…”

He shook his head. “Not yet, honey, but you have been badly hurt.”

Paige could hear frantic voices in the distance and a long flat beeping sound, but she tried to block it out.

“Dad, I don’t want to go back there. I can’t face him again. I want to stay with you.” Tears formed in the young wiccan’s eyes.

“I had no idea what happened to you back then. If only I had known…but I know now, and I’m so sorry Sweetheart.” He wiped away her tears with his thumbs and brushed a few stray hairs behind her ear. “Paige, you have to go back. You have to face this. It isn’t your time yet. I have to be honest with you and say that you will have some hard times ahead of you, but you’re strong, you’ll get through this.”

Paige frowned. “No. No, I can’t.”

He lifted her chin with his finger so that he could look in her eyes. “You can. You didn’t know who you really were when you lived with us, but now you do, and you’re far more powerful than him Paige. You know you can beat him. Besides, you have two sisters who love you very much and who are lost without you. Phoebe is struggling with her powers and Piper is dealing with a crisis of her own. You need each other to be whole again.”

“Crisis? What kind of crisis?” Paige’s questioning voice was full of concern.

“Go back and find out.” Her father responded simply.

Paige heard a faint but familiar voice calling to her, and turned towards the sound. It was Piper. She knew her father was right. She looked back at him and nodded slowly, hugging him tightly once again. “I love you, Dad.”

He smiled. “I love you too sweetheart and I always will. You have so many wonderful experiences to live through yet.”

“Daddy?” When Paige opened her eyes, she realised he had vanished and she was hugging thin air. The scent of his cologne lingered and she breathed in deeply. More tears fell, and she was terrified, but she knew she had to face her fears. She took one last look around her sanctuary and was gone.

***

A voice echoed through Piper’s mind, but she couldn’t seem to process the words. She had backed up against the wall, eyes bulging in shock at the scene before her. Piper’s vision blurred as doctors, nurses and interns fought to save her sister’s life. Her senses were overloaded, she was no longer able to register what was happening around her. It was more than she could take. This couldn’t be happening again. She couldn’t lose another sister.

She felt someone shaking her gently, and the voice penetrated her thoughts once again, bringing her back to reality. “Piper? Can you hear me?” As her vision began to clear, she recognised the face of Dr. Phillips.

One word came out of Piper’s mouth. “Paige-”

“-is fine, honey. It was a close call, but we brought her back. Look.”

Piper looked over and saw that not only was Paige alive, but her eyes were open and the ventilator had been replaced with an oxygen mask. Piper covered her mouth with her hand in surprise.

“We had to give her a strong dose of morphine for the pain, so she’s not very lucid at the moment. She’ll be fitted with a pump tomorrow so that she can self medicate.” Dr. Phillips guided the trembling woman to her sister’s bedside.

Paige was awake enough to recognise her sister and reached out clumsily with her hand. “Piper.” Her voice was barely audible beneath the mask.

Piper reached over the railing and took Paige’s hand in hers. She laughed and wept tears of joy.

Paige looked into her sister’s tired eyes. “Love you,” she whispered.

“Love you too, sweetie.” Piper responded, squeezing Paige’s hand at the same time. She watched as her sister finally succumbed to the effects of the morphine and closed her eyes. "Sleep well.”
Chapter 11

Inspector Aidan Harris stood quietly in the doorway of the hospital room and watched both sisters as they slept. Unable to fight off her own exhaustion, Piper had nodded off while sitting in the chair next to Paige.

Although Piper’s spell had made the magical mess left behind by the darklighter disappear, it couldn’t cover up the fact that the ventilator had been disconnected and that someone had very nearly asphyxiated her injured sister. Harris had arrived a couple of hours ago and he knew he would have to question the oldest Halliwell sister, but he didn’t have the heart to wake her. He busied himself instead by arranging for an officer to be posted outside Paige’s hospital room and then questioning Dr. Phillips, who had been completely baffled as to how her patient could have been attacked in such a heavily staffed intensive care unit without being seen by anyone.

When he was finished speaking to the doctor, Harris had gone to the hospital cafeteria to have some coffee and had returned to the ICU when he had finished. He put it off as long as he could but he would have to wake Piper now to question her as well. Still, he hesitated for a few moments, focussing his attention on the injured sister. He walked cautiously through the doorway and approached the bed to get a closer look at her. Even in her current vulnerable state, everything about her was beautiful and perfect: her long brown hair, the shape of her face, the fullness of her lips, the dimple in her chin and the curves of her body beneath the sheets. How anyone would want to harm such a lovely woman was beyond him. Harris shook his head and suppressed his feelings deep within himself. Now was not the time or place to let them take control. He was a professional and he had a job to do.

He turned to the other sleeping sister now. “Miss Halliwell?” When she failed to respond, he reached over and placed his hand on her shoulder, shaking her gently. “Miss Halliwell?”

Piper jerked awake, startled by his touch. “Inspector Harris. What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to wake you, but I need to talk to you about what happened here today. “How are you holding up?” Harris asked.

“I think it’s pretty obvious how I’m holding up by the way I look,” Piper mumbled. “How long was I asleep?” She knew the Police would want to question her and she was afraid of this, because she didn’t know how she could explain what had happened. She couldn’t exactly tell the inspector that a darklighter attacked and she blew it up. She decided to tell truth minus the supernatural part.

Feeling awkward, Harris cleared his throat. “For about an hour. How is Miss Matthews?”

“She was awake earlier and she’s off the ventilator, as you can see, but she’s in a lot of pain so she’s been heavily sedated. What is it you want to ask me?” Piper was in a hurry for Harris to get to straight to the point so she could get this over with.
“Can you tell me exactly what you saw when you entered the room?” Harris asked.

Piper took a deep breath before responding. “I saw that Paige’s breathing tube had been disconnected and she wasn’t breathing. I heard the monitor flat - lining and alarms going and then the room was suddenly crammed full of medical personnel. Everything was a bit of a blur after that.”

“So you didn’t see who attacked you sister?” Harris continued.

“No,” Piper answered simply, shaking her head.

Looking around him, Harris decided impulsively that a direct approach was the best way to handle this situation. There was no sense beating around the bush. “Miss Halliwell, I know that you saw who attacked your sister and that the attacker was a darklighter. You-”

Piper cut him off. She stood abruptly, causing the chair to skid backward, which bumped into the nightstand, knocking over a glass of water and spilling its contents. She took a defensive stance between her sister and the inspector, nostrils flaring, arms at the ready to release her explosive power. “Who are you?” She demanded.

Harris took a step towards her. “Don’t you come any closer or I’ll blow you to pieces.”

He stopped immediately. He had seen how good she was at doing just that and he didn’t want to experience it first hand. He put his hands up and spoke calmly. “It’s okay. I don’t want to hurt you or your sisters. I know what you are because I’m a witch too.” Harris paused for a moment, allowing Piper to absorb the information. Seeing the look of scepticism and distrust in her eyes, he continued. “I have the power of transmogrification. I can-”

“-change shape or form, I know what it means,” Piper finished. She lowered her arms but continued to stand her ground between her sister and the Inspector, narrowing her eyes at him.

“I can prove it to you.” He turned to glance out the window into the hallway, making sure no one was watching or passing by. Then looking back at Piper, he morphed into a bedpan, which made a clattering sound as it hit the floor. Piper snickered as the bedpan morphed back into Harris, who smirked back at the young woman. “Seemed like an appropriate object to change into, considering we’re in a hospital. Besides, I got you to smile there, didn’t I?” Harris studied Piper’s facial expression and could see a trace of incredulity in her eyes. It was understandable, considering what the Inspector had just revealed to her.

Piper decided there was no sense trying to deny what she was so she asked a question instead. “How did you know?” Then she added, “And what’s going to happen to my sisters and me?” She was still wary and definitely worried.

“It’s okay Miss Halliwell. I’m not going to tell anyone who you really are. I have my own secret to keep. Besides, everyone at the precinct would think I was out of my mind anyway. When I saw the charred corpse in the alley and the arrow embedded in your sister's chest, I knew she’d been attacked by a darklighter. You confirmed my suspicions when you blew up his arm earlier. I was looking for you and I saw you through the window. You’re lucky no one else did. Since there are three of you, I put two and two together. Every witch knows about the Charmed Ones.”
“So do most demons and warlocks.” Piper riposted.

“Miss Halliwell, I can’t shimmer like a demon and I can’t blink like a warlock. I really mean you no harm. I’ve been a police officer for six years now. Morris can confirm that. I’ve dedicated my life to helping innocents, like you do.”

Piper relaxed a little. The Inspector did save Paige’s life and he made sure she got to the hospital. If he had wanted to hurt any of them he would have done so by now, given their current vulnerable state. She raised her lower lip over the upper one, blowing a few stray hairs from her face and sighed. “I’m sorry. It’s just that after everything that’s happened…” Her voice trailed off and she looked down at her shoes.

“It’s understandable after what you’ve been through, Miss Halliwell.” Harris stood with his hands in his pockets.

“Please, call us by our first names.” Being addressed by her last name made Piper feel old and she knew her sisters felt the same.

“Um, Piper, we’re finished here for now. You look exhausted. Why don’t you go home for a while?”

Piper did need to get back to her sons, but she was reluctant to leave Paige. She turned to look at her sister. “I don’t know.”

“I’ve arranged to have an officer posted outside of Paige’s room and I’ll stay here until he arrives. You hurt that darklighter pretty badly. I doubt he’ll be returning any time soon. Go, she’ll be fine.” Harris urged.

“Thanks. If Paige wakes up, tell her I’ll be back as soon as I can, and please don’t tell her what happened to Phoebe. I don’t want her to worry.”

“Of course. See you later.”

“Bye,” Piper responded, as she left the room. She quickly checked in on Phoebe on her way out, who was sleeping as soundly as her younger sister. Then she made her way out of the hospital and to her jeep. Piper switched on the radio as she drove out of the parking lot and listened quietly to the news. After that, one song after the other filled the air. She wasn’t really paying attention at first, concentrating instead on the traffic and staying awake, but then the words of a classic love song filtered through her brain and suddenly hit her like a slap in the face.

…It would be so fine to see your face at my door
Doesn’t help to know you’re just time away
Long ago I reached for you and there you stood
Holding you again could only do me good
Oh how I wish I could.
But you’re so far away


…If only I could work this life out my way
I’d rather spend it being close to you.
But you’re so-

With a violent jerk of her thumb and index finger she switched the radio off and then clutched at the steering wheel with both hands, nails digging into it, as anger and sorrow boiled within her. She didn’t need to be reminded of her loss and she drove the rest of the way to 1329 Prescott Street in silence.
Chapter 12

Victor Bennett knelt in front of his middle daughter, who had crashed on the couch after her youngest son’s feeding. He had covered her with a blanket, which he now pulled up to her chin. He looked at her with concern. Her face was pale and even in slumber it was etched with pain and there was nothing he could do to relieve it except to be there for her when she needed him. She was heartbroken and he knew what that felt like.

Upon her arrival at the manor, Victor had listened quietly as Piper had recounted the morning’s events at the hospital. He was glad to hear that Phoebe was okay, but he fidgeted with discomfort when his daughter had begun to talk about the darklighter attack on Paige. Although he was relieved to hear that Paige had suffered no further harm, any discussion of anything magical made him feel inferior and although he managed to bury it within himself most of the time, it enraged him. It was the supernatural that had taken his wife and his oldest daughter away from him forever. Victor hadn’t meant to abandon his children when they were little, but he couldn’t see the point in remaining in a situation he had no control over. He knew he had been fighting a losing battle. Patti and Penny had told him repeatedly that his daughters had such a great destiny to fulfil. To him it was more like a great burden with a short life span.

On the other hand, it was magic that had brought them all together again. He had saved Prue from the Nothing inside the child-demon catching ice - cream truck and through his mortality, he had protected his other daughters as well. In the end though, he could do nothing to prevent the death of his eldest daughter. Knowing his daughters were doing good things, he had always stepped back when it came to supernatural matters, out of respect for them. Still, knowing what magic had taken from all of them, he resented it. He was glad Paige had come into the lives of his two remaining daughters to strengthen their bond and he feared they would be lost without her. He hoped that she would pull through. He couldn’t help but think she was so much like Prue in many ways. She was full of determination, fierce independence and that strong sense of responsibility that had been such a big part of Prue. And then there was that stubborn streak that all the Halliwell women seemed to carry in their genes. That thought made Victor smirk. With Paige around, Piper at least had a chance of getting over her loss and moving on with her life. Being the realist that he was, he was doubtful Leo would come back this time.

Victor stood up and looked over at his grandsons, Chris was asleep in his carrier and Wyatt was playing quietly on the rug. Maybe he wasn’t magical, but he did have the power to take the boys out for a while to give Piper some space. He took a note that he had written earlier out of his pocket and placed it on the table beside Piper. He didn’t want her to be alarmed if she woke up while he was out and couldn’t find the boys. Then he scooped up both of his grandsons and got them ready to go to out. He looked at Wyatt. “Want go to the park with your old Granddad and let your Mommy sleep, huh? Wyatt giggled lightly in reply.

***

Paige’s world was blurred and she blinked several times in an effort to achieve clarity. She smacked her parched lips together and licked them with her tongue to moisten them. She exhaled heavily and swallowed at the same time. She blinked again a few times and her vision cleared enough for her to see that she was lying in a hospital bed and she realised she was alone in the room. She decided this was not such a bad thing, as she needed time to think. Her memory was fuzzy and she licked her lips again as she struggled to remember what had happened. She moaned softly and a solitary tear trickled down her face, not from the physical pain that she was beginning to feel in her chest, but from the memories that came flooding back. She remembered being attacked in the alley by a darklighter she had recognised, and experiencing the loss of an innocent. She also recalled seeing her adoptive father again in that space between life and death.

It was in this state that Phoebe found her sister as she entered the room. She had insisted on seeing Paige and her doctor knew that he had no chance of stopping her, so he had agreed on two conditions. Firstly, Phoebe had to spend another night in the hospital under observation. He seemed to feel confident that she was okay now and he had put her collapse down to stress, but he had still wanted to keep an eye on her until the remainder of her test results had come in. Secondly, she had to let Dr. Phillips speak to her first to explain the situation with Paige. She had told Phoebe as gently as she could that someone had attacked Paige in her room and that she had had a close brush with death, but they were able to bring her back. Then she told Phoebe that Paige had woken up and was breathing on her own.

Paige moaned again as Phoebe approached her bedside cautiously. She reached out to take her younger sister’s hand in her own, but retracted and rested it on the metal railing instead. “Shh, it’s okay.” Phoebe spoke gently.

Paige turned her head in the direction of the familiar voice and opened her eyes to study the face before her. “Phoebe.” Her voice was muffled under the oxygen mask. She blinked several times, but as it took too much energy to keep her eyes open, she shut them again. She tried to send a message from her brain to her hand and it moved awkwardly towards the mask in an attempt to lift it off.

Phoebe instinctively reached out to stop Paige from touching it and held her breath when her fingers came into contact with her sister’s hand, expecting to be thrown into another vision. She sighed inwardly with relief when nothing happened. “Don’t. You need that honey, it’s helping you breathe.”

Paige whimpered and her eyes were now wet with tears. Phoebe ran her hands through her sister’s hair in an attempt to calm her. “What’s got you so upset?”

“Darklighter…nightmare…”

“We’re not going to let him hurt you again, sweetie, I promise.”

“You…don’t understand,” Paige cried softly, shaking her head from side to side. She tensed, feeling the pain in her chest increasing as the morphine lost its potency. “Hurts…”

“Shh. I’ll call the nurse she’ll give you more painkillers.” Phoebe pressed the call button at the side of the bed and turned her head toward the door. It looked like she was watching out for the nurse, but she was really hiding the strain that showed in her face as she intercepted Paige’s profound feelings of fear, despair and pain. They were stifling and Phoebe trembled as they flooded through her in a torrent, intertwining with her own emotions. She shut her eyes tightly and clenched her fist in front of her.

Paige shook her head again. “No…Leo can heal…need to get out of here. Can’t stay.”

Phoebe’s eyes shot open at the sound of her distraught sister’s voice. She took a deep breath before turning to face Paige again, her fist still clenched behind her back. She ran her free hand soothingly over her sister’s forehead. “Just try to stay calm. You’re safe here. No one is going to hurt you, Sweetie. Leo can’t heal you because we don’t know where he is, but thank goodness Sam came and he was able to counteract the poison in your system, but he wasn’t allowed to heal you completely.”

“Sam?” Paige questioned.

Just then the nurse walked into the room. “Well, hello Miss Matthews, it’s good to see you awake. What can I do for you?”

“Paige needs something for the pain.” Phoebe answered.

“Of course, I’ll be right back.” The nurse left the room and came back moments later with a syringe, which she injected into Paige’s IV drip. “There. That should help. Just let me know if you need anything else.” With that, the nurse left the room.

Paige fidgeted slightly in an effort to situate herself more comfortably and grimaced with pain.

“Shh… just close your eyes and try to get some sleep honey.” Phoebe soothed.

“Sam?” Paige persisted.

Phoebe smiled at her little sister. “That’s right. He saved your life. Again.”

As if on cue, Sam appeared, not in the usual swirl of white light, but in a more conventional manner. He walked through the door instead.

Phoebe looked over at him with a raised brow. “You use doors now?”

“Well, if I had orbed I wouldn’t exactly be able to explain how I got in here without being seen by the guard posted outside the door.”

Phoebe nodded in understanding. “You have a point there.”

Paige was aware of her biological father’s presence in the room and wanted to speak, but she struggled to get the words out of her mouth as she fought to keep her eyes open. A soft moan escaped her lips instead. She could see the blur of his hand as it moved towards her and felt the soft warmth of his fingers as he touched her cheek. She lost her battle to stay awake and by the time he ran his fingers through her hair, she was asleep.

Since his daughter now seemed to be resting comfortably, Sam turned his attention to Phoebe. “How is she?” He asked.

“She’s not out of the woods yet, but she’s alive, thanks to you.” Phoebe replied.

Now that he was no longer completely focussed on Paige, he noticed what Phoebe was wearing. “What happened to you?”


Phoebe sighed. “I was afraid Paige was going to ask me that but I guess she was still too out of it to notice. I had a very REAL vision and I couldn’t come out of it.” She explained that she had seen, or more accurately, felt, how Paige had been injured. “I’m okay now, though, but the doctor won’t let me go home until tomorrow.”

Sam remained silent for moment, rubbing his chin thoughtfully as he processed the information the middle Charmed One had just shared with him. Paige had recognised her attacker and had been too terrified to defend herself. How did she know the darklighter and what had he done to her to scare her so deeply? These thoughts disturbed him greatly. He studied Phoebe’s features briefly, registering her discomfort as she shifted her weight from one foot to the other while staring at the floor. “What is it you’re not telling me?” He questioned calmly, yet with a sense of dread.

Phoebe looked up at Sam with uncertainty. She wasn’t sure that she had the right to say anything. “You don’t want to know.” She spoke slowly and so softly her voice was barely audible.

“Look, I realise I haven’t been around much, but I’m here now and I am Paige’s father. I want to help. I need to know. However bad it may be. Please.” Sam pleaded.

Phoebe hesitated, but decided she didn’t really have a choice and she took a deep breath before beginning to speak, knowing that her words would be upsetting. She told him how her powers had been returned to her the day before in the form of a vision from Paige’s past in which she had seen her younger sister being abused by a teenage boy not much older than herself. Phoebe was beginning to feel sick as she remembered how she had felt her sister’s emotions, but she continued to speak, explaining that she was certain that Paige recognised the darklighter in the alley as the attacker from her past.

Sam remained silent and placed a hand over his mouth. Phoebe could see the pain in his eyes and the guilt etched in his face and as much as she wanted to help him, she had channelled so many emotions that day that she had reached the stage where vomiting was inevitable. She clutched her stomach and blurted out the words “Sorry, I have to go,” before flinging the door open and running from the room.

Sam watched as she fled and could see a nurse approaching her who, after a brief pause, appeared to call out to someone else. He turned away as Phoebe emptied the contents of her stomach into a kidney shaped metal tray being held in front of her by a second nurse as the first nurse held her hair out of the way. He didn’t see as one of the nurses wiped Phoebe’s face with a damp cloth and gave her a glass of water to rinse her mouth with while the other one eased her into a wheelchair and took her back to her room. His attention was focussed on his frail offspring. “Oh Paige, I’m so sorry I couldn’t protect you.” He stepped back from her bedside abruptly, suddenly feeling too ashamed of himself to be in the same room with his daughter, too consumed with anger at himself and at them. All the old feelings of being nothing but a complete failure came flooding back. He couldn’t protect the woman he had loved and he couldn’t protect his child. He left the room in the same way he had entered it, leaving Paige alone in her oblivious slumber.

* * *

A one armed darklighter roared in agony and fury as he clutched at the stump of his arm, blood trickling down his side and leaving a trail behind him. He was breathing heavily, beads of sweat dripping off of his forehead as he stumbled through the dark caverns of the Underworld. He leaned his good shoulder against the wall momentarily as a wave of nausea overcame him. When it had passed, he continued on his way. His injury wouldn’t kill him but it had severely disabled him and he had a powerful alchemist to find, who it was rumoured (the Seer had told him), could fix anything.

The thing that had died a long time ago, was his humanity. His hatred, once reserved for Paige, now extended to the witch who blew off his arm. Despite the excruciating pain he was feeling, a smile crossed his lips. The oldest Charmed One was vulnerable; he knew from the Seer that her Whitelighter was gone. Once he was healed and had his strength back, he knew just how he would break Paige. He would destroy her sister, and as an added bonus, the Power of Three.



Phoebe stood with her arms crossed at the foot of the staircase inside the Manor gazing upward, her brows creased with worry. Phoebe had been allowed to go home the day after she had told Sam about her vision. Paige on the other hand, had spent eight days in the hospital and had only been home for three. In that time she had said very little, ate very little and only left her room to use the bathroom. Phoebe had made numerous attempts to engage her younger sister in conversation, but either she received monosyllabic responses or Paige would indicate that she didn’t want to talk at all. Phoebe knew it was going to take time for Paige to fully recover, and she didn’t want to put any pressure on her, but shutting herself away as she was would only prolong the healing process. Phoebe had tried several times to call Sam in the hope that he might be able to help his daughter but her cries had apparently fallen on deaf ears. Well, she couldn’t worry about him right now. Her sisters came first.

Piper didn’t seem to be coping any better than Paige and was just as uncommunicative. Phoebe turned her attention towards the living room and had a side view of her big sister slumped on the couch, channel surfing with the remote, eyes glazed. Wyatt stood in front of the coffee table and looked from the TV screen to his mother. She couldn’t see Chris but she could hear him gurgling. It bordered on the surreal for Phoebe to see her big sister in this state. With her busy schedule, she seldom watched television and it was Prue who used to drive Piper to the brink of madness with her incessant channel flicking, forcing the younger of the two into hiding the remote. Phoebe snickered at the memory. It was one of the rare occasions where she had to step in as the mediator, gently persuading Piper to return the remote after getting Prue to agree to choose one program to watch and stick to it. Piper was by no means neglecting her children or her sisters for that matter. She still cooked and she had even gone out of the house yesterday to buy groceries, but that was the extent of her activity. She hadn’t even bothered going to the club since Paige had been hurt, leaving her manager to run things instead. Victor had been over almost every day to take the boys out and to help in any other way that he could.

It seemed to Phoebe that her sisters weren’t living, they were simply existing and she didn’t know how to help them. Part of her wished that she hadn’t decided to go on sabbatical. Work would have provided a welcome distraction from the issues she was facing here at home and the emotions she was intercepting from her sisters. However, the other part of her knew she couldn’t just run away from Piper and Paige when they needed her the most, even if they didn’t realise it.

Maybe she could coax Piper into talking to Paige. Phoebe observed her sister a little longer before letting her arms fall to her sides and made her way into the living room. She flopped down on the couch beside Piper. “Hey.”

“Mmm,” Piper replied, not taking her eyes off of the television she wasn’t really watching.

Phoebe’s nose twitched slightly. “How very articulate of you,” she quipped. However, her attempt at humour mixed with a dollop of sarcasm went right over Piper’s head. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Piper?”

“…Just roast in the oven for three hours and you’ll have fantastic- FLICK-…thighs! Try my new diet now! It’s guaranteed to be the one that-FLICK-…makes you explode, so why do you bother to-FLICK-…watch Desperate Housewives Wednesdays at nine-FLICK-…in the steamy rainforests of Brazil…”

“PIPER!” Phoebe rolled her eyes and yanked the remote out of her big sister’s hand, switching off the television in the process.

The loss of the remote brought Piper out of her stupor. “Phoebe! What are you doing? You give that back right now!” She reached over her sister’s lap to grab it from her but Phoebe jumped up and sat down on the top of the sofa, her feet coming to rest on the seat cushions, and held it just beyond Piper’s grasp.

“Wow, that’s the most you’ve said in the last three days!” Phoebe quipped again.

“Oh can it Phoebe! You have my attention now. What do you want?” The oldest Halliwell was not amused by her sister’s antics.

Phoebe slid back down onto the seat cushion and set the remote on the coffee table. Both sisters watched Wyatt momentarily as he sat down on the blanket beside his little brother to play.

Piper turned her attention back to her little sister. “Well?” She persisted.

Phoebe took a deep breath. “Look, I didn’t mean to annoy you. I just want to talk to you, or rather, I was wondering if you would talk to Paige. She’s really quiet and she’s not eating much.”

The oldest Halliwell sighed. “I don’t know if I’d be of any help to Paige right now. I’m not exactly feeling peachy myself-”

“-which is why you need to try and help Paige.” Phoebe cut in. “You can’t just sit here and waste away in front of the TV, sweetie. You know, I think helping Paige will help you to get over your own pain. Besides, I tried to talk to her myself but I can’t get her to open up. I need you to tell her about my vision and find out what happened to her. Prue always went to you when she was upset. Maybe Paige will find it easier to talk to you. I know I can be a bit pushy sometimes. I’m so worried about you both. Please do this for me Piper.”

Piper remained silent at first, but then she took a deep breath and smiled at her sister. “Okay. I’ll cook something first and bring it up to her. Then I’ll try and talk to her. Can you give Wyatt his lunch and put the boys down for their nap? I’ve fed Chris already.”

“Of course, and thank you. You’re the bestest big sister.” Phoebe reached over to hug her big sister and saw Wyatt orb away out of the corner of her eye. Before she could shout his name he reappeared on the couch beside his mother. She watched as he crawled onto Piper’s lap, breaking their hug. Her nephew’s perceptiveness never ceased to amaze Phoebe. He reached up with his little hand and brushed a solitary teardrop away from the corner of his mother’s eye and she wrapped her arms around him tightly in return, kissing the top of his head as she did so. She laughed softly as another tear formed in her eye and escaped down her cheek.

* * *

Piper walked up the stairs carrying a tray of sandwiches and hot soup for both Paige and herself. She used her elbow to tap on the door, and failing to get a response, she softly called out her sister’s name. Still not getting a reply, Piper sighed and set the tray down carefully on the floor so she could open the door. She could see Paige lying on her uninjured side and staring blankly out the window.

“Paige? I’ve brought you some lunch. I thought I’d keep you company and eat with you if that’s okay.”

“Whatever.” Paige mumbled, not moving.

Piper stood awkwardly at her sister’s bedside. “Come on honey, turn over and sit up so I can put this tray on your lap. It’s getting heavy.”

Paige sighed and reluctantly complied, her body moving stiffly through the sheets. When she was sitting upright and leaning back against her pillows, Piper placed the tray in front of her. She took one of the bowls of soup and sat down on the sofa beside the window. She began to eat, keeping an eye on Paige, who sat motionless and stared into her bowl.

Piper swallowed a mouthful of soup and studied her sister for a moment before taking another mouthful of the hot liquid. Then she stopped altogether and let her spoon rest in the bowl. “It’s home made vegetable. You like that don’t you?” Piper helped herself to a cheese sandwich from the tray and took a bite out of it.

Paige nodded in response and picked up her spoon. Instead of filling it with the nourishing liquid and bringing it to her lips, she stirred over and over until a tiny whirlpool had begun to take shape inside the bowl, causing some of its contents to drip over the side.

Piper took another bite of her sandwich and chewed thoughtfully, her eyes glued to her sister. “Paige, I’m not very hungry myself, but I’m eating because I my body needs the nourishment. It’s even more important for you to eat so that you can heal properly, sweetie. At least try to eat the soup. Please?” She watched as Paige stared at her bowl. Then, very slowly, she filled her spoon with the hot liquid and brought it to her mouth. She swallowed carefully and repeated the process. Piper sighed with relief. “How’s the soup?”

“Fine.” Paige murmured.

The oldest Charmed One took a few more bites of her sandwich and a spoonful of soup before making another attempt at conversation. “How are you feeling?”

“Like crap.” Paige responded.

“Well, that makes two of us.” Piper riposted. “Are your meds helping you with the pain?”

“Not really.”

Piper gazed out of the window and rolled her eyes. The way things were going she might as well be having a conversation with the wall. She continued to eat in silence, finishing off the rest of her sandwich. She then took another spoonful of soup, which accidentally went down the wrong way when Paige suddenly spoke without being prompted and she coughed slightly.
“I’m so sorry about Leo.”

Paige’s statement had caught Piper completely off guard. “Uh, thanks.” She felt the ache in her heart intensify and she wanted desperately to steer the conversation in another direction, but if she wanted her sister to open up, she would have to do the same herself. “I miss him so much. When Prue died, I went into denial, I mourned, I was angry, but eventually I understood and I like to think I’ve moved on. But Leo is out there somewhere with no memory of his wife and sons and I may never see him again. How do I deal? How can I move on from that?” Piper left her soup unfinished and set her bowl on the window ledge. She wasn’t setting a good example for her little sister, but she had lost her appetite and she was furiously fighting back her tears.

Paige smiled sympathetically at her older sister. “The best way to deal right now is to not give up hope that you’ll see your soulmate again.” Paige paused, taking in Piper’s anguish. “I wish I could take your pain away.”

Piper smiled in return and swallowed her tears. She rose from the sofa and sat down on the bed beside her sister. “No you don’t. You have enough pain of your own to deal with sweetie.” Paige responded with silence. Piper took Paige’s hand in her own and they sat quietly for a few moments, each willing their strength on the other.

It was Piper who broke the silence. “Remember the vision Phoebe had the day you were hurt, the one that made her pass out? Well, it was about you, or more specifically, something that happened to you in the past.”

Paige nodded. “I knew it. What did she see?”

Piper took a deep breath and exhaled before answering. She spoke slowly and gently. “Phoebe saw you being attacked when you were a teenager. She also had a vision of what happened to you in the alley and she couldn’t come out of it. That’s what put her in the hospital. Can you tell me what happened, honey?” She watched Paige fighting back tears of her. “I don’t want to push you. I’ll understand if you don’t want to talk about it right now.”

Paige let out a shaky sigh. “I’ll tell you, but I want Phoebe here too. I don’t want to go through this twice.”

Piper stood up. “Okay. I’ll go get her. Are you going to eat any more?” Paige shook her head. “I’ll take all this with me then.” She wasn’t about to force Paige to eat when she couldn’t manage herself. She took the tray from her sister’s lap and grabbed her bowl from the window ledge, placing it on the tray. There was still soup in both bowls and most of the sandwiches had been left untouched.
Phoebe sat on the edge of her younger sister’s bed and Piper reclaimed her spot on the sofa. She gazed briefly out of the window at an overcast dark sky. It had been threatening to rain all day and her ears had picked up the distant rumble of thunder. They both waited patiently for Paige to speak, neither one of them wanting to push her, knowing how difficult this was for her.

Paige sat with her hands clasped together, repeatedly tightening her grip so that her knuckles turned white and releasing it again. Her toes twitched under the covers and as the bandage covering her wound pinched at her skin she fidgeted uncomfortably. Opening up to her sisters not long after she had moved in with them about the flaming car crash that had killed her parents and how she had felt responsible for their deaths had been hard enough. She had actually relived the experience in order to understand that she had survived because she was able orb herself from the wreck. There was no way she would ever want to relive the terrible ordeal she was about to reveal to her sisters now. She had wanted this memory to stay buried in her past forever, but it had evidently come back to haunt her. When she finally began to talk, she spoke so softly Piper and Phoebe had to strain their ears to hear her.

“When I first met the two of you I told you I had been raised as an only child. That wasn’t entirely true. I just pretended he never existed. When I was fourteen I had a foster brother for five months. His name was Greg and he was two years older than me. He had behaviour problems and he had been shifted from one foster family to the other. He was always getting into trouble. My parents, being the kind - hearted people they were took him in, thinking they could turn him around. He caused them more problems than I ever did. They never knew what he did to me, but I never blamed them for what happened. He made me believe that I deserved what he dished out to me. At first he just bullied me, pushed me around, made me give him my allowance. Sometimes he’d hit me, usually in places where the bruises couldn’t be seen so no one would ask questions. He threatened to burn the house down to ground if I told anyone. He said my parents would die and I’d be taken away. Then he began to corner me in the house when Mom and Dad weren’t home. He’d touch me in places where I didn’t want to be touched. Then he exposed himself and made me do things I didn’t want to do.”

Paige blinked back tears and sobbed softly as she remembered how he had forced himself into her mouth, making her suck until his seed spurted down her throat and made her feel sick. She gagged now in the present as she remembered the vile, bitter taste of it. She clutched her throat and coughed, then took in a few shaky breaths before coughing again. Phoebe slid herself closer to her sister and ran her right hand up and down Paige’s back in an effort to calm her. “Easy, sweetie, easy. Do you want to stop for now?”

Paige hesitated for a moment and then firmly shook her head back and forth. “No, I want to get this over with. Just give me a minute.” When she was calmer, she continued. “One day I came home from school and I was relieved to find the house completely empty, or so I thought, until I opened the closet in my room to put my jacket away and there he was, standing in the darkness. He jumped out at me from behind and covered my mouth with his hand so I couldn’t shout. When he turned me around to face him, he had this sick grin on face.” She paused to wrap her arms around herself, suddenly feeling cold.

“This is what I saw in my vision of you,” Phoebe commented.

Paige blinked back more tears. Her teeth chattered slightly, causing her to stutter a little as she spoke. “I-I tried to fight him off, but I c-couldn’t. He was too strong. I remember telling my p-parents I accidentally got hit in the face with a basketball in gym class at school.” She swallowed and bit her lip. Her wounds, one from the arrow that had punctured her lung and the other from the chest drain, were beginning to throb but she didn’t mind. She focussed on her physical pain to keep herself from feeling her emotional pain. “Before I knew w-what was happening he had me on the floor and he was tearing my clothes off. Then he...it h-hurt so much. When he was done he just left me there. I n-never told my parents what happened. He really did try to burn the house down anyway but my Dad managed to put it out in time. Greg was sent away after that and I never saw him again until…w-when I recognised him in the alley I p-panicked and froze. I l-lost an innocent because of him. I’m not surprised he’s a darklighter now. H-He was always pure evil.” Paige sobbed loudly and wiped at her tear soaked eyes. “Oh look at me, I’m a pathetic s-snivelling witch!”

Piper jumped up from her seat, grabbed the blanket from the end of the bed and wrapped it around her youngest sister’s shoulders. “Shh, honey, you’re not pathetic, you’re upset and understandably so. And I know it hurts to lose an innocent but we can’t save them all. You’re very brave, honey.”

Paige tried to force a smile but paled suddenly instead. “I think I’m going to puke!” Piper moved out of the way as she threw off her covers, the blanket around her shoulders falling to the floor as she ran to the bathroom, Phoebe trailing behind her. She held Paige’s hair back as she fell to her knees and retched into the toilet. She continued to vomit long after there was nothing left to throw up and her wounds throbbed in protest.

When Paige finally finished, she slumped against the toilet, a wave of relief rushing through her. Her stomach had calmed, like the sea after a violent storm. She took a deep breath and exhaled noisily. She had opened herself up and let it all out, literally. Phoebe helped her to stand and led her to the bathroom sink. She grabbed a cup from the shelf above it, filled it with cold water and handed it to her younger sister who took it gratefully in her slightly trembling hand and gargled. “I can’t believe I got this upset. I mean, I had therapy when I was still an undergraduate student at university. He was the main reason I had a drinking problem. That and thinking it was my fault that my parents died. I thought I was over it now.” Paige turned on the tap and rinsed her face and neck with warm water.

“Well, he turned up again and shot you with a darklighter arrow. He opened up an old wound and created a new one, literally, while he was at it. It’s understandable that you got upset, sweetie.” Phoebe handed Paige a towel and she plastered her face with it, pointing blindly towards the cabinet. Phoebe frowned in confusion until she realised Paige was after her toothbrush. She covered it with toothpaste and passed it to her younger sister. When she was finished brushing her teeth, Phoebe guided Paige back to her bedroom and helped her get into bed, draping the covers over her.

Piper had made tea in the interim and handed both of her sisters mugs filled with steaming hot red liquid. “It’s Rooibos, or Redbush tea. It comes from the mountains of South Africa. It’s low in tannin and has no caffeine. It’ll help settle your stomach Paige, and it will relax us all.” She suddenly switched gears as a thought occurred to her. “Have you changed your dressings yet today, by the way?” Paige shook her head in response. “Right. Let me change them for you now. I don’t want you to get an infection.” Piper left the room to get the supplies she needed to clean her sister’s wound and dress it.

Once Piper had completed her task, Paige suddenly found herself sandwiched between both of her sisters as they stretched themselves out on her bed. All three sisters sat in silence, sipping their tea, until Phoebe grabbed the remote from the nightstand and switched on the TV. “Let’s see what daytime TV has to offer shall we?” She flicked through a few channels and stopped suddenly. “Look Piper, it’s Ryder!”

“Aw, shut up!” Piper leaned over her youngest sister and slapped her middle sister on the thigh. Then her eyes suddenly went wide with shock. “Oh my god, I can’t believe he’s having an affair with that sleazy nurse bitch!”

“Ow!” Phoebe glared at her big sister, slapping her in return and then placed the remote back where she had found it. “A little kitsch therapy is just what we need, girls!”

Feeling a little awkward, Paige looked from Piper to Phoebe. Having been an only child when she was growing up, (except for those five months of hell) she didn’t know how to be a baby sister, nor was she quite as tactile as her older siblings were. Yet, at the same time she felt protected and safe. Phoebe smiled at her reassuringly and Paige knew that her sister had tapped into her emotions, but for once she didn’t mind. She wanted her sisters to know she felt secure and she smiled gratefully at them both. Part of her wished she could stay sheltered like this forever, but the other half of her knew that was impossible. For now though, she decided she would just enjoy the moment.


It had been a long emotional day for the Charmed Ones, and for the youngest of the three in particular, but now it was finally winding down. Phoebe padded along the hallway in her bare feet, and paused in front of Paige’s door. She opened it just a crack and peered inside to see her sister sleeping peacefully. The combination of the day’s events and the sedative effects of her pain medication had completely drained her. Phoebe shut the door quietly and continued on her way to her own room. She stopped abruptly when she heard the soft, mournful threnody emanating from her older sister’s room. It was now just after 9:00pm and Phoebe hadn’t seen Piper since she had put the boys down two hours ago. She strained to listen and picked up the dispirited words that floated through the air.

Where are you this moment?
only in my dreams.
You’re missing, but you’re always
a heartbeat from me…

Phoebe gasped and doubled over, leaning against the wall for support as she intercepted intense feelings of sorrow, loneliness, anger and guilt all competing with each other. She felt Piper’s aching, broken heart as if it were her own. She had felt it before and it was as intense now as it was then. I have GOT to find something to block out my sisters’ emotions soon. I don’t know how much more I can take, Phoebe thought to herself. She took a moment to compose herself and after taking a deep breath, she knocked softly on the door. “Can I come in?” She let herself in when she heard her sister’s mumbled, “Uh huh.” She looked around her. The room was bathed in subdued candlelight. Piper was dressed in her pyjamas and she lay on her side on top of the bed sheets, her head propped up slightly by the pillows. The window was slightly ajar and Phoebe felt a gentle breeze caress her cheek.

I’m lost now without you,
I don’t know where you are.
I keep watching, I keep hoping,
But time keeps us apart.

“Sweetie, I’m not so sure you should be listening to music like that right now.”

Phoebe made her way towards the bed but paused when Piper spoke. “I forgot how big it was.”

“What’s big?” The younger Halliwell was perplexed.

“This bed. And it’s so empty.” The older Halliwell drew figure eights on the satin sheets with the tip of her index finger. “When I felt a chill at night, Leo would lie down next to me and wrap his arms around me. His body heat warmed the whole bed. He was a human furnace. He made me feel warm and protected.” She smiled lightly at the memory. “Now it’s just cold.” Her smile faded and her teeth chattered slightly, as if to accentuate the point.

“That would because the window’s open, Sweetie.” Phoebe quipped. Her attempt to lighten the mood had failed miserably as Piper’s expression remained glum. She detoured to the window and closed it. Then she turned around and flopped herself onto the bed. She lay on her side also, facing her big sister. She could see even in the dim light that Piper’s pillow was damp and her eyes were full of tears waiting to be shed. “Well, I can’t make up for Leo, but I am here for you.”

Piper sighed. “I had trouble getting Wyatt to sleep tonight. He was restless and irritable. He misses his father a lot. Chris is too young to know what’s happening, but Wyatt knows his dad’s gone.”

If I could be close beside you
If I could be where you are
If I could reach out and touch you
and bring you back home…

The solemn lyrics brought memories of Phoebe’s own lost love to the surface of her consciousness and she felt a small ache in her heart in the spot that would always be reserved for him. She didn’t know quite what to say but she knew exactly what her despondent sister was going through and how grateful she had been that Piper and Paige had been there to help her through her grief. Placing her hand on top of Piper’s, she stopped the finger that had begun to draw more urgently on the sheets. She watched as Piper lost control of her tears and they rushed down her cheeks in an arch and dripped onto the pillow, enlarging the damp spot. Phoebe brushed away the tears that followed with her thumb.

“When I was focussed on Paige this afternoon I was okay. When I’m distracted from my thoughts I can cope, but when I’m alone my grief comes flooding back and I can’t stop it. I didn’t think I had any tears left to shed but still I cry. And when I look at Wyatt he’s so much like his daddy.” Piper spoke softly.

Is there a way I can find you
Is there a sign I should know
Is there a road I can follow
To bring you back home to me.

To Phoebe’s relief the music stopped and the room was silent. As she reached over to wipe away more tears, her gaze fell on the tome lying on the nightstand. She had failed to notice it until now and frowned. “Piper, honey, what were you doing with the Book of Shadows?”

Piper replied slowly, as if she were ashamed of her actions. “Um, I thought maybe I could find a spell or something, anything to bring Leo back.” More tears escaped.

“Oh sweetie. As much as I wish there were something in there to fix this, we both know there isn’t. We can’t undo what the Elders did. I know you’re hurting but you’ll just have to let this play out and hold on to the hope that he’ll find you again. You’re strong Piper. You held on when Prue died and you’ll make it through this too. It’s okay to cry. I’d be really worried if you didn’t.” Phoebe paused momentarily, taking in the state of her big sister. “Piper you’re shivering. Why don’t you get under the covers.” Phoebe gave the sheets a little tug to get her sister moving and she ponderously complied, getting up from the bed to turn the sheets down, then crawling back in again.

Piper lay on her other side so that she was facing away from her sister, who was now sitting up with her back leaning against the headboard. Phoebe watched introspectively as Piper stared blankly at the window. “Can I ask you a question?”

“Mm hmm,” Piper mumbled in response.

“When you visited me in hospital, I felt all the emotions I expected to feel from you but there was one that overpowered the others. Why do you feel so much guilt Piper?”

The oldest Halliwell repositioned herself so that she was lying flat on her back, hands resting on her stomach. “If Leo had never loved me, he’d still be a Whitelighter.” She accentuated her response with a frown.

Piper’s reply and the ease with which she was able to obtain it stunned Phoebe. She wasn’t expecting Piper to open up so easily. “Oh Piper, you don’t really mean that.”

“Yes I do. After Prue crashed my wedding and I ran to P3, I told Mom and Dad that, Leo and I are clearly not destined to be. She released a sigh. You know the old cliché – loving someone sometimes means having to let them go, but I was selfish. I held on to him for all I was worth and I let him break all the rules with me. If we had never got married, I would never have conceived his sons. Don’t get me wrong, I love Wyatt and Chris with all my heart and I couldn’t imagine life without them, but Leo would never have had to see adult Chris die. He would never have lost control like he did. Everything that happened is all my fault.”

Phoebe shook her head. “Oh, I don’t believe that. And I don’t think that you really believe that either.”

“Funny, that’s exactly what Mom said. And I really DO believe it.”

“No you-” Phoebe attempted to counter, but stopped when she realised that Piper really did feel at fault. She continued anyway, knowing she had to say something to try and rid Piper of her guilt. “Do you know what Leo said when you stormed out of the Manor that day?” Now it was Piper’s turn to shake her head. “He said, all I need is what’s inside me to know that Piper and I are meant to be together. Even though Leo may not realise it just at the moment, his love for you is still within him and it WILL lead him back to you. It always has in the past. I told everyone how your love for each other has touched us all, and it still does.” Phoebe paused, pursing her lips together. What Cole and I had doesn’t even come close to what you and Leo have.” Phoebe deliberately stressed the present tense. “It is as much your destiny to be together with Leo as it is to be a Charmed One. Now, a witch and a demon, that was a relationship that was definitely NOT meant to be and I was a stupid fool to think it ever was.”

Piper smirked. “Nah. You’re actually very smart.”

Phoebe was pleased to see her big sister grinning and cracked a smile in return. “Piper,” Phoebe paused for a moment, waiting for full eye contact from her sister. “Leo can think for himself, you know. He fell in love with you all on his own. You didn’t force him into anything. He was as aware of the risks as you, if not more, so don’t go laying all the blame on yourself, okay?”

Piper remained silent, pondering her sister’s words.

“OKAY?” Phoebe repeated with emphasis.

“Okay,” Piper replied slowly, stifling a yawn. “Where do you suppose Leo is now?” She added thoughtfully.

Phoebe shrugged her shoulders. “I honestly don’t know. Even with my power of premon-”

“That’s it!” Piper interrupted, her eyes widening with dawning realisation as she bolted into an upright position and bombarded Phoebe with a wave of hope that seemed to drown out all other emotions. She cupped her hands around Phoebe’s cheeks and kissed her sister on her forehead. “YOU are a genius! Stay here, I’ll be right back!” Piper leapt off of the bed and darted out of the room, leaving her stunned sister behind.


“Huh?” Phoebe was having a blonde moment. She had empathic abilities but she couldn’t read her big sister’s thoughts, and she didn’t have a clue what was up with her. Just as she was wondering if Piper was beginning to crack, she rushed back into the bedroom holding an object in her hand. Phoebe didn’t recognise it at first in the dim candlelight, but as her big sister approached her and climbed back onto the bed, she saw what it was.

Piper knelt beside her sister, waving an empty A5 sized picture frame wildly in front of Phoebe’s face forcing her to tilt her head a little to the right in order to avoid being smacked upside the head with it. “Are you out of your mind lady?” Phoebe questioned in disbelief.

“Oh, sorry Phoebe,” the older Halliwell apologised quickly, lowering her arm back down to her side, finally registering Phoebe’s complete lack of comprehension. She began to explain, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Leo had this in his hand the last time I saw him, before they called him.” She pointed her index finger at the ceiling as she referred to them. “I asked him to get the picture frame for the photo of the boys we had taken by the photographer at the studio a couple of weeks ago. He left it in the kitchen.” She held the frame out to her sister who looked at it sceptically. “You can get a premonition if you touch it. You can see where he is and if he’s okay.” Piper said eagerly.

Phoebe glanced doubtfully at the frame, then back at her sister, shaking her head. Her own scepticism and Piper’s massive dose of hope conflicted within her, making her feel slightly nauseous. “Piper-”

“PLEASE!” Piper pleaded with her sister. “You have to try.” Her eyes glistened with fresh tears.

Phoebe sighed. As unreceptive as she was to the idea, she couldn’t ignore Piper’s desperation. She took the frame reluctantly and held onto it tightly with both hands as she squeezed her eyes shut. She opened them briefly when nothing happened, taking in Piper’s expectant expression. She closed her eyes once more and concentrated even harder. Still nothing happened and she gave up, opening her eyes again. “Oh honey, I’m sorry. You know it doesn’t always work.”

Phoebe watched as Piper, still on her knees, wilted like a flower right in front of her. Hope had been replaced with bitter disappointment. She slouched and let her head hang down to her chest, a lone tear escaping down her cheek and splashing onto the duvet. Phoebe reached over and hugged her big sister, who stiffened in her arms. She broke the embrace to make eye contact with Piper. “Look, you KNOW I can’t force premonitions. I tried, I really did.”

Piper took in a shaky breath and exhaled noisily. “I know. I know, I just…I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m sorry Phoebe. Now look who’s the pathetic snivelling witch.” Piper sniffled softly.

“Hey! We Halliwell witches are not pathetic, nor do we snivel in this family,” Phoebe reprimanded gently. “You have nothing to be sorry for, you’re just upset and understandably so. Come on, sweetie, lie down.” Phoebe placed the picture frame on the nightstand and helped Piper to get under the covers. “I’m going to make us some of that tea that we drank with Paige this afternoon. You need to calm down and get some rest, okay?” Piper nodded her head gently in reply, watching as Phoebe climbed off of the bed and made her way out of the room, leaving the door slightly ajar behind her.

Once in the kitchen, Phoebe rummaged through the cupboards looking for the tea. When she found the tin she was looking for she set it on the counter and took two mugs from the shelf, placing them beside the tea with a thud. The cutlery drawer moaned as she opened it to retrieve a teaspoon and clanked as she bumped it shut with her hip, using the utensil in her hand to shovel tea into the filter at the same time. She grabbed the kettle and sighed as she filled it with water from the sink. She shook her head and blinked, the silence seemingly amplifying the sound of the running water so that it roared like Niagara Falls in Phoebe’s ears. She set the kettle on the stove and rubbed at her aching temples as she waited impatiently for it to boil. She put the filter into the teapot and took the kettle off of the burner before it could whistle at full volume. She poured hot water over it until the pot was full, spilling a little over the side. It was then that she noticed her hands were shaking. She set the kettle back down onto the stovetop and balled her fists together in an attempt to control her trembling.

When the tea had steeped long enough she removed the filter, tossing it into the sink where it connected noisily with the spoon. Having mislaid the lid, Phoebe growled softly in annoyance as she searched for it, eventually spotting it next to the cookie jar. She uttered an expletive when it slipped out of her fingers as she picked it up, but thanks to her quick wiccan reflexes, she was able to catch it with her other hand before it could clatter onto the countertop. She jammed the lid onto the pot and filled both mugs with the steaming liquid.

Holding a mug in each hand, Phoebe walked carefully up the stairs and down the hall. She nudged the bedroom door open gently with her foot and looked up to see that Piper had already fallen asleep. She sighed with relief as she walked toward the bed. She placed one of the mugs on the nightstand and bent down to place a kiss on her big sister’s forehead. “I love you,” she whispered. Phoebe padded quietly over the floorboards and blew out all of the candles, plunging the room into darkness. Even in the shadows she could still see the gentle rise and fall of Piper’s chest as she slept. She tiptoed silently to the door and closed it softly behind her.

She checked on Paige one more time and listened momentarily to the sound of her nocturnal breathing, before finally making her way to her own room. Channelling Piper’s emotions had drained Phoebe and she was exhausted. She set her mug down and flopped onto her bed. It had been hard enough to take on the role of the middle sister after Prue died and Paige had come into the picture. Having to let go of the carefree, fun-loving, baby sister Phoebe had once been to become so responsible and grown up had actually been a frightening experience. Tackling demons paled in comparison. But now, with Piper not quite able to lead the family in her vulnerable state and Paige recovering from her injury, Phoebe found herself wearing the ‘head witch’ shoes. Both of her sisters needed her care and guidance. Was she up to the task, she wondered?

Phoebe was suddenly overwhelmed with disappointment as she realised that with things as they were in the Manor at the moment, her quest to find love and make her vision of bearing a child a reality would have to be put on the back burner, if not entirely sacrificed. Phoebe loved her sisters. Piper had always been there for her, as had Paige in the short time she had been with the family. She remembered how they supported her when she had to vanquish Cole and how they had helped her through her grief. She had to make her sisters her priority now. But what if the ‘eternal child’ within her took over for just for one fleeting moment, causing her to do something foolish? She had acted thoughtlessly before and lost her powers for it. She switched off the light and lay flat on her back, staring up at the ceiling. “Prue?” Phoebe whispered into the darkness. “Is this what it feels like to be you?” Only the silence answered.


Phoebe was still half-asleep as she stumbled into the kitchen, her hair standing on end. Her robe was open to reveal her pink tank top and pyjama bottoms underneath, the belt dangling at her sides. As she made her way towards her youngest sister who, to her surprise was up and sitting at the kitchen table holding baby Chris, the slipper on her right foot suddenly slid off and thudded into the table leg.

Piper was standing at the stove making omelettes and had her back to Phoebe, not noticing that she had entered the kitchen. She was startled by the sudden noise and she shrieked, dropping the spatula that she had been holding in her hand. It landed on the floor with a clatter as she threw her hand to her heart. “Oh.” She sighed. “It’s only you. For second there I thought you were a demon.” She paused, taking in her sister’s appearance. “Actually, you look kind of demonic this morning.”

The middle sister slid her foot back into her slipper and plonked herself down on a chair beside Paige. “Thanks for the compliment.” She muttered sarcastically and turned her attention to her little sister “Morning. It’s good to see you up Paige. How are you feeling?”

“Same as usual, stiff, sore, but feeling a little better now that I’ve told you and Piper everything.” Paige offered her older sister a smile.

“That’s good to hear, Sweetie. Feel up to going for a little walk to the park today? It’ll do you good to get little fresh air and exercise.” Phoebe asked.
“I suppose. But the question is, are YOU up to it? You look a little tired.” Paige said, taking in her sister’s appearance.

“Oh, I’ll be fine after I’ve had my caffeine fix,” Phoebe replied, pouring coffee into the cup beside her. She put the pot down and reached over the table to run a hand through Wyatt’s curly hair and took Chris from Paige. She sat down again, cradling her youngest nephew in her arms. “You are so cute, yes you are, yes you are!” She unknowingly made silly faces to accompany her babbling.

Paige rolled her eyes and snorted. Phoebe always overdid it with the cooing, but Chris seemed to be amused by it as he gave his Auntie a toothless grin and she smiled back at him.

Wyatt sat quietly, observing them both. He didn’t seem to like the fact that his little brother was getting all the attention. His lips slowly formed into a pout and he furrowed his eyebrows, squinting at Chris. Phoebe suddenly found herself holding onto scintillating blue swirls of light as her nephew disappeared.

“Wyatt!” Phoebe and Piper exclaimed simultaneously, the older of the two dropping her spatula yet again.

“You orb your brother back here this instant!” Piper continued, watching as her son crossed his little arms together contumaciously. “I mean it!” She warned. Son glared at Mother defiantly, refusing to do as he was told.

“NOW!” Piper bellowed, her voice booming through the Manor.
Paige jumped, accidentally knocking her juice glass over, which rolled off of the table smashing to pieces as it hit the floor. She winced, clutching at her side with both hands as pain shot through her chest and she inhaled sharply. Wyatt, frightened by his mother’s outburst, opened his mouth and howled, bursting into tears. Chris reappeared in Phoebe’s arms and let out an ear- piercing scream of his own, startling her. She flinched and accidentally tipped her coffee cup over with her elbow, spilling its contents onto the table. She instinctively skidded backward in her chair in order to protect Chris from the hot liquid.

In her own rush to get to Wyatt, Piper’s hip connected with the handle of the frying pan which she had just been holding, causing it to spin slightly and it toppled over onto the floor. The pan landed upside down beside its partner the spatula on the floor, and the omelette, now scrambled egg, spattered everywhere, bits of mushroom and peppers sliding under the island towards the opposite end of the kitchen. “Ahh!” Piper growled. “So much for breakfast!”

She left the mess on the floor, her need to get to Wyatt more urgent. She lifted Wyatt out of his highchair, eyeing Paige, who had covered both ears with her hands to block out the screams of her nephews that continued to shatter the silence.

“I’m sorry I screamed at you Wyatt, but you know you scare Mommy half to death when you orb your little brother like that,” Piper reprimanded, while holding her oldest son in her arms.

“Did you have to shout so loudly before? I understand you got a fright but there was no need to get hysterical,” Phoebe complained, still trying to get Chris to settle down. Her irritation was apparent in her voice.

“Look, I said I’m sorry, and I’m not hysterical. I’m a MOTHER Phoebe!” Piper’s voice was beginning to rise again.

“Piper, will you STOP shouting and calm down!” Phoebe demanded.

“And what are you doing, exactly? WHISPERING?” Piper countered sarcastically.

“What is this, pick on Phoebe day?” Phoebe snapped, throwing her arms up.

“Look who’s talking, YOU’RE the one who accused ME of being hysterical!” Piper snapped back.

“Oh! You had a go at ME the moment I walked through the door this morning!” Phoebe retorted angrily.

“Well, you were asking for it!” Piper riposted acridly.

“LOOK I TOLD YOU I CAN’T FORCE A PREMONITION! You know that!” Phoebe exploded. Channelling Piper’s anger had amplified her own ire. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it Piper? You’re mad at me because I don’t know where Leo is!”

“You didn’t even try! You think I’ve lost it!” Piper shouted.

The heated exchange between the two sisters continued, each snapping at the other while the boys’ screaming persisted.

“I can’t take this.” Paige didn’t have a clue why her sisters were were being so contentious with each other, but she’d had enough. She got up, the sudden movement causing her to wince again. Her chair screeched as she pushed it away from the table, and she walked stiffly towards the door, leaving her sisters alone. The sound of her coughing trailed behind her.

Piper and Phoebe’s bickering stopped abruptly as they took in the youngest sister’s subitaneous departure. The boys’ crying slowly subsided with the onslaught of the sudden silence. The two older siblings listened as their younger sister inhaled heavily and exhaled with a cough from somewhere beyond the kitchen door.

“I’ll go check on her.” Phoebe’s tone of voice was thick with tension and indicated that although Paige had unknowingly induced a cease- fire between the two older siblings, the argument was far from over. She placed Chris gently in his carrier and handed it to Piper, who glared back at her sister and watched as she left the room.

“Da…da!” Wyatt hiccuped and sobbed softly in his mother’s arms, his tears leaving streaks down his cheeks.

Piper’s features mellowed considerably, her anger melting as she looked into her son’s watering eyes. Chris had stopped crying altogether and simply stared up at his mother as she spoke to his brother. “I know Wyatt, honey, you miss your father and you took out your frustration on your little brother, didn’t you? I don’t know where your daddy is or how to find him, but I do know I’ll never leave you, either of you,” she said, looking down at Chris. “I promise.” She kissed the top of Wyatt’s forehead. Shifting his weight to one arm, she sat down and not wanting her youngest son to feel left out, she placed the carrier on the table momentarily so that she could give him a kiss on his forehead as well, gently caressing his cheek with her little finger.

***

“Paige?” Phoebe looked around her and glanced down the hallway, finding her sister halfway up the staircase sitting on a step, struggling to catch her breath. The acting family matriarch rushed up the stairs and crouched before her sister, placing a hand on her shoulder. Her breathing seemed almost asthmatic, Phoebe thought to herself, remembering a friend she had known at college who had the condition. She watched as Paige wheezed with every inhalation and exhalation and acted quickly, squeezing past her sister to sit on the edge of the step above her and straddle a leg on either side of her. Paige was a little taller