Disclaimer: Even after all the stories I've written, I still don't own Charmed. I know. I'm shocked too.

Setting: April 2032

We Ebb and We Flow

A story by: Ryeloza

Leo hears the raised voices of his wife and her sister before his hand even reaches for the doorknob. For a moment, he pauses outside and physically prepares himself—two calming breaths with his eyes shut, shoulders back, nerves steady—before entering the kitchen. Neither Piper nor Phoebe acknowledges his entrance; they're too busy arguing. Strangely, Phoebe stands next to the fridge holding a package of bacon in her hand as though she's wielding a weapon. Only a few feet away, Piper has her arms crossed over her chest looking like she's ready to blow something up—maybe even her sister at this point. Clearly the fight has been going on for awhile now.

He's had enough years of liaising between Piper and her sisters to know when their fights are Charmed Ones-related and when they're sister-related. This one is definitely the latter and after thirty-one years of marriage, Leo knows much better than to even try to play this neutrally. The best course of action is to remain staid, take Piper's side for now and, most importantly, separate Piper from Phoebe before she kills her sister.

Noisily, he drops the car keys in order to attract their attention, but this doesn't even warrant a glance and he realizes they're angrier than he thought. Without bothering to pick up the keys, Leo clears his throat loudly and speaks over them: "Hey, what's going on?"

Unsurprisingly, they ignore him.

"Give me that bacon, Phoebe! Right now!"

Phoebe shakes her head and glances at the garbage can. Immediately, Piper backs up to block the trash and Phoebe takes the opportunity to lunge at the sink. Piper screams—an outsider might have thought someone had broken something irreplaceable—and bolts at Phoebe, but it's too late. Phoebe is already dumping the bacon down the garbage disposal even as Piper tries to grab the food from behind. Leo bites back a laugh; he does value his life after all. The sight of Piper and Phoebe nearly wrestling over a package of bacon, though, is almost too much to take. Instead, Leo takes the offensive and crosses the room to pull Piper off of Phoebe's back.

"You owe me thirty-five dollars and sixty-five cents!" Piper yells while trying to claw her way from Leo's grip.

Phoebe's mouth drops open incredulously. "You pay thirty-five dollars for bacon?"

"That was high quality bacon you just dumped down my disposal! Gah! I can't believe you!"

"Piper," says Leo, "you need to calm down."

"Calm down? Calm down? Did you see what she just did?"

"You're not allowed to eat bacon! Doctor's orders!" shouts Phoebe, and suddenly Leo knows exactly what prompted the bacon-disposing argument.

"I'm a chef! I will cook whatever I want, Phoebe! Just because I cook bacon doesn't mean I'm going to eat it!"

"Don't lie to me! You wouldn't be able to resist bacon because you're a chef! I'm just getting rid of the temptation!"

Piper makes a noise of something between a swear word and a growl, but Phoebe's face simply becomes more devious. "You know what's next?" she says.

"Don't go near that fridge again, Phoebe!"

"The quiche!"

This threat gives Piper the strength to free herself from Leo's grasp and—quite ridiculously for a woman in her fifties—she begins to chase Phoebe around the kitchen. To Phoebe's credit, she does manage to grab the quiche from the fridge before the pursuit commences and on the second lap around, she darts out the back door into the yard. For a moment, Leo thinks Piper will actually chase her sister down the street, but instead she simply screams, "You better eat that entire thing Phoebe! I swear to God!" and slams the back door.

"Piper?"

"On and on and on about my eating habits now!" Piper rants. Leo's fairly sure she's talking to herself; he honestly doesn't know if she's truly registered that he's even there. "But what does she think she's doing to my blood pressure, huh? How does she think I'm going to react? I come downstairs in the morning to find her raiding my fridge! I could throttle her for this!"

"Piper."

"I only made that quiche last night! And the bacon! My wonderful, smoked Canadian bacon thrown down the garbage disposal! That's sacrilege!"

"Piper."

"I wonder what else she got to before I came downstairs. If my lemon meringue pie is gone I really am going to kill her!"

"Okay, that's it." Leo crosses the room and tugs Piper away from the refrigerator, shutting the door. "We're getting out of here."

"What? Leo?"

"Come on." He scoops the keys up from the floor, one hand firmly gripping Piper's forearm and leading her to the door.

"Where are we going?"

"Out."

"But…"

Leo shakes his head. "If you stay in that kitchen for one minute more you're going to self-destruct. We're getting out of the house." He opens the passenger car door and gestures for Piper to step in. With one last look of incredulity, Piper complies. Two minutes later, they're on the road; Leo is determined to get his wife as far away from the spoiled Canadian bacon as possible.

"What are you even doing here?" asks Piper after a moment. She's angry, mostly about the bacon, of course, but also because he ruined her tantrum. "You're supposed to be at the doctor's with Meli, remember?"

"I was there," he says calmly. "Then Colin showed up and said he wanted to talk to Meli. She agreed to let him take her out for breakfast after the appointment."

"Well I guess that's for the best, considering there's no longer quiche at the manor."

Leo refrains from commenting on this. Their daughter would eat her own foot before eating a quiche and they both know it. Meli's picky eating habits have been the bane of Piper's existence for twenty-four years now and, if at all possible, they avoid the subject.

"Are they getting back together?" Piper asks.

"I don't know."

"But he knew about the appointment. He came to the appointment."

"He's been to all of Mel's appointments," Leo points out. He has a lot of problems with Colin and his constant on-again-off-again relationship with Meli. Especially now that's she pregnant. In his opinion, the nonsense of their relationship has to end as soon as possible. They need to either settle down together or break up once and for all. He knows from experience that with a child involved, that sort of indecisiveness and yo-yoing will only cause problems. Of course, this is easier said than done for Meli and Colin.

"You need to work on hiding that bitterness a little better. They can hear the disdain in your tone all the way in Canada."

"You know how I feel."

"Everyone knows how you feel, Leo. Meli has to make her own decisions."

"I know."

"We turned out okay after nearly a decade of being together and not being together. Again. And again. And again."

"It's different," he grumbles.

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever you say."

"So you're okay with this then? I'm just being irrational?"

"I never said that." Piper tugs on her ear—a sure sign that she's agitated in one way or another—and sighs. "Look, when I thought about Mel having kids I'll admit that in my mind she was settled down. Married, even."

"Yeah," Leo interrupts. "I still can't believe he didn't propose when she told him about the baby."

Piper raises an eyebrow. "Careful, honey. Your age is showing."

"Ha."

"Look at my parents, Leo. They stayed together for so long mostly because of the three of us and that wasn't necessarily the best thing for us. So even though this may not be the ideal situation, that doesn't mean that things won't turn out well in the end. And Colin's a good guy. We can at least be thankful for that."

Leo chuckles—almost out-and-out laughs. "What?" she asks. "What's so funny?"

"Well we have a bit of a role reversal going on here, don't you think?"

Piper rolls her eyes and slaps his arm. "Hey, I've been known to be calm and rational. This isn't entirely out of left field."

"Wyatt's wedding."

"That doesn't count! Weddings are stressful!"

"What about when Chris had appendicitis?"

"Again, that doesn't count. He could have died. No mother can be serene when her child has surgery."

"How about when Meli cut school? Or when Chris and Wyatt took that little foray into the past without telling you? Or when Chris crashed your car?"

"Leo—"

"Oh! How about when Meli and Nora dyed their hair? Or when Wyatt stayed out all night without calling?"

"Okay, okay! I get your point! But I'm a mother. It's my job to worry about our kids."

"But this time you're not worried?"

"The doctor says that Meli is fine. She doesn't seem to think that Mel will have any of the problems I had. And so far the pregnancy has been smooth sailing."

"And Meli's personal life doesn't faze you either."

"She will work things out. She's a smart girl."

Leo laughs outright this time. "See. Role reversal."

"Well we can't both freak out, can we now? So you fret about this, and I'll take care of everything else in our lives." Piper glances out of her window and then turns back to face him. "Where are we going anyway?"

Leo shrugs. "I didn't really have a plan when I pulled you out of the house."

"Just to keep the crazy lady away from the kitchen, right?"

"You said it, not me."

"Yeah, well, you thought it. Phoebe is crazy one, by the way. Not me. She was in the kitchen when I came down this morning; no warning. Just standing there tossing my food in the trash like she had every right in the world. When I asked her what she was doing she just waved that list the doctor gave me in my face. I don't even know where she got a copy!"

Leo reaches across the car and grasps Piper's hand in his. Midst her rant, her hands had begun to flail with as much energy as they always did. As per usual, Leo felt the urge to still them. He and Piper might be on opposite sides where Meli is concerned, but he's always known that he's the calming force to her frantic energy. To this day, he still loves that role.

"Were you going to eat that quiche?"

"No! Well, I don't know. Leo, I love cooking. Just because I had a heart attack, it doesn't mean I'm going to give up something I love to do. And don't even suggest firing up a heart-healthy menu the way Phoebe did. That's not who I am."

Part of Leo wants to drive the car hundreds of miles away, lock Piper up in some tiny hotel room, and simply stay holed up with her for the rest of their lives. Especially if keeping Piper away from the kitchen will prevent temptation. But it's not feasible, for one. Also, she'd kill him.

Despite these forces working against him, he can't help but think of the way Piper looked in the hospital three weeks ago. Never had she seemed more vulnerable to him; never had death lingered in the room so cloyingly (perhaps because he knew that he couldn't circumvent the end this time). All he had wanted to do—all he still wants to do—was gather her in his arms and hold her until the end of time.

She doesn't know how horrible those few days were for the rest of them. He hopes, irrationally, that she never will know, even though the reality is that they're all getting older.

"I just don't want to lose you, Piper," he says softly.

She squeezes his hand. "I know." The words tighten around his heart; still, they're not as bad the lies of you won't or nothing is going to happen to me would have been. They both know her family history and the reality that her grandmother died six months after her first heart attack. The fact that Piper is twelve years younger than her grandmother was at the time is of little comfort.

Unexpectedly, Piper turns on some music, perhaps to break the tension of knowledge that hangs over them. When the opening strains of Etta James' "At Last" float through the air, however, Leo nearly has to choke back tears.

"Remember this song?" his wife asks, as though he could possibly forget. He nods his response, though Piper stares out of the window. Quietly, almost under her breath, she half-hums, half-sings along.

Leo swallows the lump in his throat. "I remember every minute of that dance, Piper. I think I remember every minute of that night." This is their song; the one they danced to on their wedding night. Even now, the sentiment seems perfect. "I was so happy I thought I would burst. The way you looked at me, your smile, the way your hair fell over my fingers…"

Piper runs her fingers through her brutally short hair and glances at him. "Do you miss it long?"

Truthfully, Leo does somewhat. As much of a pain as her hair was at times, he'd loved running his hands through it, loved feeling it draped across his chest. Although she'd shortened the length some, years ago, this new style is very recent; an impulsive decision only a week after she got out of the hospital. Somehow, it almost makes her seem younger.

"Sometimes," he answers. "But you look beautiful this way too. Freer, I think."

Piper laughs and leans her head against the window. "Free of the weight, at least."

The song ends and Billy Joel replaces Etta. The tone lightens and Leo is relieved. Piper, he can tell, is too. Lately too many things have been serious. They could use more laughter; more fun. Leo smiles; suddenly, he knows where he'll take Piper today.

"Do you remember when we first met?" she asks playfully. She's grinning at him and her smile is infectious.

"Of course."

"Do you remember when you first wanted to kiss me?"

"Yes. You and your sisters were all in the kitchen when I came in. Phoebe and Prue were fighting about something, God only remembers what, and you looked over at me. And I remember I wanted to laugh because of the look in your eyes and on your face; like you were apologizing for your sisters and laughing at them at the same time. It was the first time we had a conversation without even speaking. And right then, that's the first time I wanted to kiss you."

"I never knew that," says Piper. Her eyes sparkle mischievously. "I would have let you kiss me if you'd tried."

"I was too busy panicking about what wanting to kiss you meant."

"It's amazing our relationship ever went anywhere." Piper sits up straight and scoots across her seat, closer to him. "You can kiss me now, if you want."

"I'm a little busy at the moment."

Piper shrugs. "I guess I'll have to kiss you then." Before Leo can respond, she leans across to kiss him on the cheek. Her lips are dry and warm and that one kiss alone makes him want to pull the car over and return the favor. Then Piper pulls away and smirks, settling back into her seat.

"You're going to get me into trouble," he twitters anxiously. The kiss stirred more in him than he wants to admit to her.

"You're already in trouble, mister. Besides, you can't get rid of me now. You're signed on for life."

And everything after, he thinks, but he keeps the words to himself. They'd bring too much levity back into the situation.

Piper has closed her eyes and is humming along to the music again. Today she looks like her old self. There's color in her cheeks and her eyes have more life in them. She seems to have more energy, even after the argument with her sister. For the first time since her heart attack, and probably even before then, Leo feels like the cloud over them has lifted. It's pure bliss compared to the horror of just three weeks ago.

He still feels guilty that he wasn't with her when it happened. The frantic call came from Paige around midday; she, Piper and Phoebe had been out shopping when it happened. All of them, he and her sisters, said afterward that they should have seen that Piper wasn't doing well. The club, which she had turned over to other management years ago, was on the verge of closing. She'd been listless and worried with very little energy for weeks before then. As obvious as her heart attack seemed afterwards, at the time hearing the words over the phone had been a total shock.

The kids were a wreck. For all the loss their parents have suffered, there has been very little in their lives. The mere idea of losing their mother hit catastrophically. He knows that there was some altercation between Chris and Wyatt during that week Piper was in the hospital. He also knows that Meli was left to clean up whatever mess her brothers made. The details are lost to him though, and for Piper, there is no knowledge of any problems.

Leo parks the car with these thoughts circling in his mind. As much as he wants to forget the human mortality of his wife, the knowledge now weighs in his head and his heart constantly. The best he can do is brush the thoughts aside temporarily and enjoy the present.

Piper opens her eyes when he shuts off the car and her music abruptly cuts off. "The beach?" she says in surprise. She climbs out of the car eagerly. "What made you think of the beach?"

"You said you always liked the beach. And I know that the Pacific in early April is not the same as being in the Bahamas in July, but I've always wanted to take you and this is the best I can do today."

Piper smiles, and toes off her sneakers. "Someday we'll take that honeymoon, though, right?"

"Definitely," says Leo. They've always had a reason not to go and the present is just as abundant with excuses. Meli is due this month and he knows Piper wants to be around to help with the baby. With P3 closing their money is a little tighter. And of course there's always the day-in, day-out routine of their lives. Despite all of this, though, Leo is determined to finally get her on that plane sometime this summer. He thinks he'll call the travel agent tomorrow.

Piper has rolled up her jeans and already walked down to the sand. She smiles back at him and waves an encouraging hand. "Come on! The cold water won't hurt you too badly!"

For a moment, Leo stands captivated by the woman he's loved for more than three decades now. Somehow she's never seemed as beautiful as she is now, almost skipping through the sand, the wind ruffling her hair. He needs her now as much as he ever has, but his grip seems more tenuous than ever. The most he can do is hope and pray that she won't leave his side any time soon.

This afternoon, though, she is all his. Smiling, he jogs down to join her, clasping their hands together as they walk alongside the ocean.

-Fin-

A/n: I started this story in July and got stuck about halfway through. Finally my muse returned and I was able to complete it.

Just a few notes, then:

-In the finale of the show Piper mentions opening a restaurant. In my world that's the next step for her after this story.

-Piper and Leo's first dance to the song "At Last" is chapter ten in my story "Through the Years," if anyone is interested.

-There is a brief drabble with Meli and Chris that takes place during Piper's stay in the hospital in my story, "Scenes in a Kitchen."

-Meli's pregnancy is also featured in my WiP, "In the Silence."

-The title comes from a line in the Vanessa Carlton song "Nolita Fairytale." It's a great song, if anyone is interested.

Thanks so much for reading! I'd love to know what you thought!

-Katie