Perfect Ending

"Happy Anniversary, sweetie."

"Twenty-five years ago today I took a vow to love you forever. I only wish that forever could be longer." Leo took Piper's hand in his and kissed her fingers gently. He studied them a moment, noticing the intricate lines that wound down to her palms. They made her look so old, much older than her fifty-two-year-old face ever could. Even with the crows' feet at the corners of her eyes, the shallow wrinkles in her cheeks, and the deep worry lines in her forehead, Piper didn't look anywhere near her actual age.

"Forever is longer. It is for you." Piper took his other hand and pulled him closer to her. His face had remained the same, no signs of age scarring his image. He wasn't any older than the day they had met, nearly thirty years before. She ached each day with the pain of not knowing eternity with the man she loved, but she knew never to ask of him the only solution. He could very well say yes.

"It doesn't have to be, you know. Spending fifty years with you would be better than a hundred immortalities without you." Leo kissed her forehead, holding her in his arms as he had always done. Nothing could be more painful than knowing that he had forever without her by his side. He had petitioned for her to be made a whitelighter, but that meant that she'd have to die first. She would have said no anyway, so it didn't matter. Piper couldn't handle eternity without her children. She would have to watch them die, watch her grandchildren die, and so on until the end of time. He knew she would never agree to that, so what option was there other than to give up his own endless life?

"I can't let you do that, Leo. I can't let you give up the thing that matters the most to you. What about your other clients, all those witches who need you?" Piper buried her face in his broad chest. If it was possible, she gotten shorter in their years of marriage. It seemed like he was taller every time she saw him. Age had certainly taken it's toll on her, causing the pains of arthritis to whittle away at her nerves. It was hard for Leo to understand, since he himself was not aging, but despite this, he tried hard to make her comfortable at everything she was doing.

"You're the thing that matters most to me, Piper. You're my wife, and I love you. Please don't make me spend the rest of time without you. I don't know how I'd go on without you." Leo tightened his grip around her shoulders, taking in the smell of her hair. In twenty-five years, she had never switched shampoos even once, and the flowery scent was embedded in his mind like a second picture of her. It was how he remembered her, how he thought of her. Flowers, coffee, and fabric softener. Everyone had their own scent, but Piper's was the only one that he could ever think about smelling forever.

"It's not my choice to make, Leo. I would feel guilty for the rest of my life if I told you, 'yes, clip your wings', so you have to be the one to decide. Are you willing to give up healing innocents for me? I would never ask you to, you know that, right?" Piper looked deeply into her husband's eyes and saw the pain he held inside him. He never allowed himself to show it, but the desperation for an answer to his struggle tore him apart inside. She knew it would be merciful to just ask him to give it all up, to clip his wings and become mortal, but she didn't know if she could live with herself after he did it.

"I know, Piper. I just wish that there was some other way, than to give up immortality and my chance to help others, or my chance to be with you. You're the only one I could ever love, now or forever from now." He searched her eyes for some sign that she was giving in, that she would put him out of his misery and tell him to stay with her, but there was nothing. It was all masked by a film of tears that spilled over the corners of her deep brown eyes, that etched lines in her cheeks, that dripped heavily from the curves of her jaw. She wiped away her frustration with the back of her hand and tried to turn away, but he stopped her. "Don't turn away, please. Tell me what you're thinking."

Her chin trembled as she attempted to smile at him, trying with all her might not to break down now. Not to give in to his pleading eyes. "I was thinking… I was thinking what forever is going to be like without you."

Fin