TITLE – Together (working title)
RATING – T (for possible cursing and violence later on in the story)
DISCLAIMER – Obviously, I don't own Charmed. I don't own anything but the original characters.
AUTHOR'S NOTE 1 – The story takes place after season 8, way after season 8. All three of the Charmed Ones had three children. Piper's are Wyatt, Chris and Melinda. Phoebe's are Prudence, Parker and Persephone. Paige's are Henry Jr., Isabel and Julianna.
CHAPTER ONE:
"I don't want to go, mommy," seven-year-old Persephone Halliwell complained.
"Yeah, mom. Can we please not go?" Sephy's older sister Parker added.
"Girls, we have to go." Phoebe Halliwell said sternly as she frantically searched through her drawers for something decent to wear. "Auntie Piper needs all of the love and support she can get."
"You guys should be more upset," the eldest sister, thirteen-year-old Prudence, said to her two younger sisters. She turned to her mom and asked, "Do they even know what happened?"
"I told them, but I don't think they really understand how sad it is," Phoebe explained.
"That's like, impossible. What's not to get?" Prudence questioned. Phoebe didn't answer.
It was actually good that the children didn't fully understand what happened. Phoebe didn't need two children crying through the whole car ride to the manor. The truth was that having children really did change everything. When Piper had her first two children, Wyatt and Chris, the three Charmed Ones were all still living in the same house. But then, after a while, they all had children and drifted apart. After all, you couldn't have three rather large families living in the same old manor, now could you?
The fact that Piper, Phoebe and Paige had drifted so far apart was actually rather perplexing. They had been so close before, and now they only saw each other on holidays and occasionally just for surprise visits. Phoebe made an effort to go see Piper more often than she did Paige. Not because she two older sisters had a dramatic falling out with the youngest one, no. But mostly just because Paige didn't seem interested in continuing the Charmed legacy and visiting her sisters. She always did want her independence.
She, Henry and their children moved to a town about an hour away from the manor, where Piper, Leo and their children live. Phoebe, however, moved with Coop and their three wonderful daughters to a town about fifteen minutes away from the manor. That showed that they all still loved each other, they just didn't want to be as joined at the hip as they used to be. They were still good people. They didn't completely abandon one another. After all, how could they abandon Piper after that happened to her?
"Honey, we have to go," Phoebe's husband Coop shouted from downstairs.
"I know!" Phoebe shouted, finally throwing on something and pointing towards the door. "Out! Out! Come on, let's go!"
She sighed. This was going to be a long day.
"Shouldn't we be going now?" Henry asked his lovely wife, Paige.
"Yeah, probably."
"Paige, what's wrong? You've been acting weird."
"No kidding. I just, I –"
"Don't know what to say to them? They're your sisters!"
"That's not what I was going to say, Henry."
"Then what were you going to say?"
"It's nothing. I just don't know if I can handle this. I've kind of tried to escape the whole Charmed legacy thing, and now we're going back there and it's definitely going to be brought back up, and then we'll talk about teaching our children magic, and I just don't want them to go through what we went through," Paige rambled.
"But I thought you used to love being a witch!" Henry exclaimed. This whole thing was getting confusing.
"Used to being the operative words. Then we had the kids, and then I looked back on everything and realized that these kids are not ready for all of the stuff we went through."
"Wait a minute. They're probably not even going to talk about the whole witch thing. We're probably just going to sit there, comfort Piper and Leo and make small talk. It's not going to be that hard," Henry explained.
"True. I also just don't know what to say to her. What happened was so horrible, I just, I can't even imagine," Paige said, hanging her head.
"I know, let's just talk about it when we get there. There's no need to get upset. We have to spend an hour in the car with three young kids, the last thing they need is their mother falling apart."
"Okay," Paige said, giving Henry a quick kiss before calling up to the children. "Kids! Let's go!"
They came hurrying down the stairs with all of their toys and ran out to the car. Paige and Henry followed.
-----------------------------
"Piper? Are you in there?" Leo said, knocking on the bathroom door. There was more than a hint of sadness in his usually soothing voice, but that was to be expected.
No answer.
"Piper?"
Again. No answer.
"Honey, please come out of there," he continued.
No answer.
He waited for a few moments, and then felt the door being unlocked. Piper wasn't coming out, but at least now she let Leo in. He opened the door gently, walking in and seeing Piper standing in front of the mirror. She was just standing there with a blank stare in her eyes.
"Piper?"
"What?"
At least she was talking.
"Come on, we have to get downstairs. They're going to be here soon," Leo said, resting his hand on her shoulder.
"Does it really matter?" she said, running her fingers through her hair.
"Just come downstairs," Leo said, attempting to give Piper a hug.
Piper just turned to him, looking like she was about to slap him away. "Don't you even care?"
"How can you even say that?" Leo asked, starting to get outraged. He knew he shouldn't be mad at Piper at a time like this, but it was obvious that both of them had no idea how to act. There were just so many emotions bottled up inside both of them. They didn't know what to do.
"I'm…sorry, Leo. You didn't deserve that," Piper said, apologizing. Piper wasn't one to cry easily, but Leo could see the sadness in her eyes. He didn't know what else to do but hug her. So he did. And she didn't refuse at all.
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
"Come on, let's go," Leo said, putting his arms around Piper and guiding her towards the bathroom door and down the stairs. They both tried to get themselves together so that they act as decent hosts. They also needed to put on a happy face for the sake of the children. They knew what happened, of course, but they didn't need to know the details. And neither Piper nor Leo felt like talking about it.