Title: Melinda's Song
Author: Dimples
Rating: PG-13, for violence, death, depressive tendencies, and a sexual innuendo
Summary: A demon attack changes the Halliwell's lives forever.
Archive: email me first @ chippie625@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Don't sue me.
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I remember dark. It was night, late, or maybe early morning; I'm not sure which. The bed where I was sleeping was so warm against the cool air. It wasn't usually that cold on autumn nights in San Francisco, and so I snuggled closer to Leo under the heavy weight of the quilt that we had recovered from the attic. He sighed deeply and wrapped his bare arms around my shoulders and pulled my back up against his chest. I could feel our hearts beating together, in sync with one another as they had since the day we had first seen one another. I loved him so much, more than my own life, and I wanted more than anything to feel him inside me, but we both knew that it wasn't time yet. It hadn't even been six weeks since… since Melinda's birth, and the Elder's has refused to allow Leo to heal me. So we accepted the decision, and that night we laid in bed together, keeping each other warm with just the tender touch of skin to skin, wrapped up tightly, intertwined in a tangle of arms and legs that I felt would never unravel. I had prayed that we could freeze that moment and place it in a glass jar by the bed and keep it forever, so we could turn back to it and feel as we had at that second in time. I wanted to stop time and make all of the demon attacks that had become so frequent, almost twice a day, disappear so 'we' could just be 'us' again. Our perfect minute became a perfect hour, until at last it was interrupted. I heard Melinda cry, her powerful little lungs wailing for me to come and lull her back to sleep like I would fourteen thousand times every other night. But that night, enveloped in Leo's loving arms, I didn't want to get up and lose the moment. I sighed and waited, pausing as I enjoyed my last seconds of warmth before I rolled out of Leo's arms and stood, my bare feet tingling against the chilled wood floor. I yawned softly as I looked back and watched Leo spread out across the bed to keep both of our spots warm.
"Hurry back…" he whispered into my flattened pillow, soaking up the smell of my shampoo on the fabric.
I smiled and turned back to the cry, the beautiful, genuine cry of ultimate dependency that reminded me everyday that I was her mother, and she was my world. I imagined picking her up and singing a lullaby to her, the same song that my mother had sung to me, rocking her in my arms and feeling her chest rise and fall against my shoulder. I thought about Leo dancing with her in the middle of the night, when nothing else would soothe her tears but the piano concertos from the old 45 vinyls that we had pulled from the basement, along with the record player that Grams had loved so much. I drifted to the door, anticipating the instant gratification that I felt whenever I saw her face, and I placed my hand on the knob. I was turning it slowly, the copper cold in my palm, when the crying stopped abruptly, accompanied by a resounding 'crack'.
I don't remember what I though as I pushed the door open and saw him standing there, his clawed fingers wrapped around her tiny throat. I don't remember what I said as I obliterated him into a million microscopic pieces that disintegrated before they fell to the floor. All I remember is the pain that ripped my mind, body, and soul apart from the inside when I saw her laying there. I was afraid to step closer, afraid to see the truth, afraid to admit to myself what was happening. I listened as the door slammed against the wall behind me, and Leo came in, panting and crying out, "What the hell was that?!" while I struggled to keep myself standing. He heard him shifting his gaze back and forth between the bassinet and the smoldering carpet, his head swimming.
I let my trembling hand down slowly in to basket where I had laid my daughter to sleep not two hours before, and pulled back the pink, satin-trimmed blanket. Her small fingers still clasped the edge of the fabric loosely, and as I pulled it down, her arm moved, but the rest of her body remained motionless. My knees gave way beneath me as I saw her tiny form, still warm with life, sprawled on the rumpled sheets. All the blood drained from my face, and my heart stopped beating for a moment as I realized that all the fears that I had ever had were coming true.
I lay on the floor, my head between my knees, and wept. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. My lungs had collapsed on themselves, and my eyes had deceived me, so I clamped them shut in an effort to make it all go away. It wasn't happening, I told myself. It's not real. But in my heart I knew that it was, and my stomach lurched. I vomited on the rug, projecting all my anger onto the floor, and I curled up in a ball next to the crib. The lights flickered on above my head, but I paid no notice as my sisters rushed into the cramped room. Leo fell to his knees on the ground where he stood as he, too, realized what was going on, and the faint gasps that he made were an indication that he wasn't breathing well either. Phoebe and Paige tried to make sense of things with what little they could see, and I wasn't surprised when they began sniffling in confusion. Leo's hand rested on my back, and tried to pull me toward him, but I shrugged it off violently, pulling away from him and myself at the same time. I didn't want to know what had happened, I didn't want to know how or why. I just wanted to hold her. To hold her and hear her breath in my ear, smell her hair and feel her weight in my arms. I remember reaching up and lifting her from the cradle, feeling for a sign of life in her as I pressed my ear to her chest. I'll never forget the way her tiny head rolled to one side on her tiny broken neck as I held her in my lap. I rocked back and forth on my knees, holding her head to my shoulder, calming her missing cries, soothing her absent tears. I imagined her sobbing into my shirt, gripped my ear like she always did, and the thought was so vivid that I could see, feel, hear everything, and I continued to rock her even after Phoebe and Paige, sobbing along with me, tried to pull her limp body from my grasp. Nothing they could have said would have convinced me to let her go. I just wasn't ready to admit the truth.
My daughter was dead.
TBC?