Strong, a charmed fanfic

Strong

A/N: ANOTHER CHARMED ONESHOT. I'VE KIND OF BECOME OBSESSED WITH THE WHOLE UNIVERSE. THIS IDEA CAME TO ME AFTER WATCHING THE EPISODE 'PRE-WITCHED' AND SEEING HOW DISTANT THE HALLIWELL SISTERS WERE BEFORE THEY WERE THE CHARMED ONES. I REALLY FELT SORRY FOR PIPER, BEING LEFT ALONE TO DEAL WITH HER GRIEF AND I WANTED TO SHOW HOW SHE MAY HAVE DEALT WITH IT. I KNOW THIS REACTION MAY SEEM KIND OF OUT OF CHARACTER FOR PIPER, BUT PLEASE KEEP IN MIND THIS IS BEFORE SHE GOT POWERS AND BEFORE SHE BECAME THE BIG SISTER, SO I FEEL LIKE THIS IS HOW MORTAL PIPER WOULD HAVE REACTED WHEN GRAMS DIED.

PLEASE LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed or anything within the Charmed universe.

Piper put the knife down, swiping violently at the tears pouring down her cheeks, telling herself that the tears came from chopping onion rather than recent events. Her wet hands shook as she wiped them on her dirtied apron and picked up the slick handle of knife again. She continued chopping, telling herself to focus on keeping her hands busy, just like Grams had always done in these situations.

The thought of Grams made the tears worse. Grams was gone and she wasn't coming back. The thought was almost enough to cripple Piper right then and there. Dad was gone, Mom was gone, Grams was gone, Phoebe was gone and in no time at all Prue would be gone too. And then Piper would be alone, all alone in the great big Halliwell Manor that was begging to be filled with voices and laughter; begging to be filled with a family.

A sob escaped Piper's mouth as she scrapped the onions from the chopping board into the pot, the sound echoing through the deadly silent house. She would never be the one to fill the Manor with a family. Prue could, if she didn't decide to move out after marrying Roger. Or perhaps Phoebe, if she ever decided that her destiny was in San Francisco rather than New York. Either one of them could do the job. But not Piper. Not shy, geeky, self conscious, unlovable Piper with her mind numbing job at the bank and her secret passion for cooking, which was really the only thing about her that made her even remotely close to being interesting. If she stayed in the Manor, she was sure it would remain empty until the day she died, devoid of anything other than her own misery and sorrow and maybe a cat if she got really lonely.

Piper pushed that incredibly depressing thought out of her mind as another sob fell from her mouth, forcing herself to focus only on her actions. Chop, boil, stir. It was the only way she could get through it, the only way she could keep going without allowing her emotions to completely overcome her.

Until suddenly, the meal, Grams' meal, was complete. With shaky hands, Piper pulled out a plate, one plate, and began scooping her dinner onto it. When she was done dishing up her own serving, she looked back at the pot and realised that, without meaning to, completely out of habit, she had cooked four serves rather than one.

The tears that had continued falling while she was cooking began falling faster. Piper's body shook violently as sob after sob choked out of her. With shaky hands, she scooped the remaining serves onto three plates; leftovers for the three sisters tomorrow. Except it wouldn't be the three of them... Because Phoebe was gone. And Prue was leaving.

Still shaking, Piper wrapped the leftovers with cling wrap, leaving them on the bench to cool so she could refrigerate them for lunch tomorrow for both herself and Prue. Slowly, carrying her own plate, she walked into the dining room, sitting in her usual seat, in between Prue and Phoebe's usual seats, opposite what had until now been Grams' seat. With nothing left to distract her from the tears that continued to fall and her own thoughts, her emotions pressed back to the forefront of her mind. Her own grief seemed to cripple her, pressing against her and suffocating her until all that was left was a weeping mess of a woman. Sobbing silently, she struggled to scoop forkfuls of her meal into her mouth. Her hands wouldn't stop trembling no matter how hard she had tried and the food just felt heavy in her mouth. She struggled to chew and swallow it properly, instead choking it down between the heavy sobs that clawed their way out of her, leaving her gasping for breath.

How could it be that a week ago, they'd all sat together, eating, sharing admittedly distant conversation and now she was alone? Now she just felt haunted by the memory, the ghosts of her family, which quickly took away her already diminished appetite.
No longer hungry and recognising the futility of even trying to finish her barely eaten plate, Piper stood up, taking it in her hands and walking slowly to the kitchen hoping to prolong the cleaning up process to avoid being alone in the big empty house with nothing to keep her mind busy, left with nothing but her own traitorous thoughts to ponder.

Suddenly, as she placed her barely eaten meal beside the leftovers, Piper was overcome with an unusual kind of anger. Why? Why had everyone she loved been taken away from her? Why had she been left all alone?

Why?

Once she finished asking herself why, she began asking other questions. How could this have happened? How could Grams be gone? What was she supposed to do on her own, with no one left for her to care for and no one left to care for her? How did people get through this?

'Why did this have to happen to me?'

As the angry accusations spun around in her head, Piper lifted up her barely eaten plate and hurled it at the wall with all her might. A bitter kind satisfaction ran through her at the sound of the plate shattering and the food falling to the floor. Without thinking too much about what she was doing, she threw each and every plate of leftovers at the wall, followed by the pot she'd cooked in and each and every utensil she'd used in cooking the meal.

With nothing left to grab, Piper sank to the ground, leaning against the fridge, her head in her hands, sobbing. The anger at her loneliness faded, leaving her with nothing but sadness and regret.

After a moment of wallowing, Piper wiped her eyes (pointlessly as it didn't stop the near constant stream of hot, salty tears) and crawled over to the mess she'd left on the floor. Slowly, she began to clean it up, first the food and then the glass. She felt as though she was a robot, on autopilot, following a procedure rather than dealing with an emotional crisis. Scoop food into bin. Sweep glass into trash can. Scrub floor and wall of all food stains. Wash dishes. Dry dishes. Put dishes away. Wipe counter down.

Once she was finished, the kitchen was as good as new. She realised dimly that she had cut herself on the glass of the broken plates, but her emotional agony had held any sliver of pain from the cut at bay. After wiping blood from her hand and placing a bandaid on the cut, all evidence of what had occurred was gone. Even with the loss of four plates, no one would ever know of Piper's breakdown.

Prue would never know. Not that she would have even cared. The time it had taken Prue from the moment their Grams' body had been taken away to the moment she left for Roger's had proven that much to Piper. Still, Prue would never know how broken their Grams' death had left her younger sister.

And that's the way it would stay, Piper resolved. Piper would be strong again. She would stop crying over spilt milk and she would pull herself together and move on with her life, just like Grams would have wanted. She would be strong again. For the few remaining members of her family just in case either one of her sisters decided that they did need and care about her. And more importantly, for once in her life Piper would be selfish, and she would be strong for herself.