A/n: Just a short project I'm cranking out to clear some of my writer's block. I've been working on a follow up piece to "Guide You Home," but I've been stalled on it for awhile now. Hopefully I'll have something more from one of my WIP up soon.

This will be four parts, most likely posted within four days.

Hold My Hand

A story by Ryeloza

Part One: Prue

One

Sixth grade. That year was when everyone began to pair off. For a week or two a girl and a boy would be seen walking around holding each other's hands in the hallways at school. Rumors would fly and then a moment later said boy would be holding some other girl's hand instead.

Prue's first boyfriend was Harry Gergins. He was kind of dorky and not very popular, but most of the other boys were afraid of her. People whispered that she was too high and mighty for anyone to even think about asking her out. She'd responded by agreeing to hold Harry's hand for a week.

On a Thursday afternoon in October, four days after she had said yes to Harry, Luke Yuegers asked her if she would be his girlfriend. Without even a fleeting thought of Harry, Prue had agreed. Luke was slightly more popular and certainly better looking than her first beau. That afternoon Harry came up to her locker and began talking to her. When Luke came up and took her hand in front of Harry, Harry's face had crumpled. Without a word, Prue walked away holding Luke's hand.

The gossipmongers all said that Prue Halliwell was just a heartbreaker.

Two

In many ways, hers and Andy's relationship was a cornucopia of clichés. She was a cheerleader and he was a jock. She was his girl next door—well, behind the door technically. They'd been childhood friends that had slowly grown to something more. And, perhaps most typical of all, they lost their virginity at the prom.

When they met again, years later, they laughed heartily at what very archetypal characters they'd been that night. The three-star hotel room, a group of rowdy football players and their dates as the background noise, a bottle of very cheap wine in the ice bucket. They'd drunk it fast, but Prue only remembered being slightly buzzed. Most of the disorienting, head-pounding excitement came when she'd unzipped her dress and her blush had rushed from her cheeks all the way down her chest. She hadn't worn underwear and she remembered quite clearly how Andy's eyes glazed over at the sight of her.

The sex wasn't very good, but Prue kept the memory of Andy's hand holding hers afterwards burned in her brain for the rest of her life. No man had done that since. Not even Andy in their subsequent trysts, both that summer and when they were reunited years later.

Three

Prue wasn't one for unrequited love affairs. She'd learned early on that the best way to get what you wanted was to simply ask for it. In her experience, boys were generally eager to acquiesce. In the five years since she'd had her first boyfriend, no one had turned her down.

Then came college.

She'd been fresh off of her breakup with Andy and she despised the freshman seminar everyone was forced to take. Instead of listening to the professor, Prue spent most of the time staring at the back of Jim Tyler's neck and daydreaming about running her fingers through his too-long hair. It wasn't long before she made up her mind that she might better spend her time sitting next to Jim in class, threading her fingers through his or running a hand up his thigh to see if he'd be able to stifle his reaction during the lecture. Certainly the hour would pass more quickly.

After class one day she leaned forward and tapped Jim on the shoulder, purposefully letting her shiny hair fall forward and tapping a pen against her bottom lip. Jim turned around and raised an eyebrow and, quite bluntly, she said, "I really like the back of your head. I just wanted to see if the front measured up."

In her imagination, Jim had promptly asked, "And does it?" or had given her a sly smile that indicated that she should give her stalk answer of, "Take me to dinner and I'll let you know." In reality, Jim rolled his eyes, stood up and walked away. Several people around her, who had seen the exchange, snickered and she'd blushed scarlet in anger.

Still, by the end of the semester she had a different boy who sat next to her and distracted her during class. One whose name she couldn't even remember just a few years later. It continued to bother her, though, that Jim never looked at the pair of them with a twinge of what could have been gleaming in his eyes.

Four

When Prue looked back at her relationship with Roger, she couldn't remember much detail. Things about other boyfriends—the scent of aftershave or the curve of a spine or the deep throated chuckle in the early morning—stuck with her for years after. Roger became a blur almost overnight. How astonishing that he was the only boyfriend she ever came close to marrying.

After she'd ended things the only moment that kept replaying in her mind was one of their last. Over and over again she opened the door to his office with the words, "Roger, are you ready to go?" poised on her tongue. Over and over again she saw Roger, pushing Phoebe against the desk and leaning into her personal space, his lips practically on Phoebe's neck. The image was burned in her brain, the only lasting memory of such an important chapter in her life.

Because in the end, the one thing she really remembered about Roger was that he almost cost her her youngest sister.

Five

She became a widow without ever marrying.

Even with Andy's ex-wife there looking gaunt and faint, Prue was the one with that air of impenetrable grief. Darryl, despite attending Andy's wedding and knowing his ex-wife, stood by Prue's side as though to catch her if she fell. Andy's parents spoke to Prue in tones of shared pain. How strange that she should be the widow when she and Andy never would have married even if they'd had forever.

Still, deep down she knew that her shroud of sorrow, so like a spouse's, had nothing to do with the legalities and technicalities of marriage. Andy had been her best friend and she'd given him partial ownership of her soul years ago. And that was what she mourned; the part of her—the best part of her—that Andy held in his heart. Without him she was nothing that she should be. Without him she was incomplete.