Title: "True Love's Power"
Author: Pirate Turner
Rating: R for nudity
Summary: Secrets are revealed when a face from one of their boyfriend's pasts puts the sisters under a spell that could claim them forever if their loves do not find them. How can Leo and Cole find their loved ones when they can not track them and have only twenty-four hours to save their lives?
Warnings: Het, Original Character, Alternate Universe, Unconventional Pairings
Word Count: 11,931
Challenge: Cathie's Ficcers Unite Charmed challenge for 7-8-10 to have one of the sisters put under a spell that lasts twenty four hours
Date Written: 9 July, 2010
Timeline: Takes place after the author's "A Blessing or a Curse?", "The Day After", "Howling From A Distance", "Unsaveable", and "Howling Hopes For The Future".
Disclaimer: Prue, Piper, Phoebe, and Patty Halliwell, Cole Turner, Leo Wyatt, Kit, Andy Trudeau, The Power of Three, The Charmed Ones, White Lighter, and Charmed are & TM Spelling Entertainment and any other respective owners, none of whom are the author, and are used without permission. Brendan Richards, Doctor Ola LaBelle, and Giselle are & TM Pirate Turner and may not be used without permission. Snow White and her Dwarves and Prince are & TM her rightful owners, none of whom are or are connected to the author, and is used without permission. Everything else is & TM the author. The author makes absolutely no profit off of this work of fan fiction, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Chapter One

"Legend speaks of a girl called Snow White.
Her goodness knew no ends,
But when she fled, her heart on the mends,
She failed to observe her stepmother's might.

She fell to one bite of an apple.
Life drained from her cheeks, once so dapple.
The Dwarves feared she had surely breathed her last
Until came a Prince, his love vast.

He was a true hero,
His love, strength, and valor a million pass zero.
Their love was as much legend as they.
Such love can still be found, fools say.

Yet, in truth, men are beasts, intent on making us lay
Until our hearts and souls they slay.
But never fear, sisters dear, for I've a way
To protect you all from such torment with slumber's sway.

Pain and sorrow lose their hold
When to sleep's hand we fold.
Know no fears, sorrow, or madness.
Let peaceful sleep fill your hearts forever with gladness!"

"Lousy poetry!" Phoebe retorted.

Piper wrinkled her nose in disgust. The other Witch was an extremely poor rhymer, but yet magic hung heavy in the air. They had bested both easier and far more horrible foes, but Piper had learned long ago to never disregard one, especially if they sounded like a raving lunatic as this one did.

She had come from the forest where the three sisters had been enjoying a private picnic in hopes of reconnecting both with each other and Mother Nature and had been chanting and weaving her body through the air in some primal dance ever since she'd appeared. They'd each called to her, but she had not deigned to openly answer them a single time. Now, at last, her eyes focused on them, and Piper felt something deep within her go instantly icy cold at the look of clarity, danger, determination, and insanity in the Witch's blue orbs. "Prue?" she called.

Phoebe made a rude sound, disregarding the woman. "Look, lady, we can't help it if you had a nasty breakup! We've all been through them!" The blonde Witch shot the youngest Halliwell a fierce glare, and she added more slowly as she shivered, "Some of us more than most."

"Get behind me!" Prue commanded, throwing out her arms in a feign attempt to shield her sisters from their enemy's power.

The blonde's lips curled as she pulled a small, cloth purse out of her bodice. She pulled gently upon its golden drawstrings, and it opened readily. Her long, slender fingers dipped into the red velvet bag and withdrew a substance that looked like golden, glittering dust. Her smile finally became full, but still it did little to warm her cold face. "So Mote It Be!" she completed her spell, blowing her magic dust at the Charmed Ones.

Phoebe shrieked and dodged behind Prue. "I don't know what that stuff is, but I don't want it on me!"

"Don't let it touch you!" Prue demanded.

"No problem," Piper assured, throwing up her hands. She frowned and tried again when nothing happened.

The sisters' eyes grew wide with worry as the dust kept coming. Prue used her eyes first and then her hands to try to deflect it with her telekinesis. She was still trying when the dust rained down upon them, spattering all over their bodies and hair before they could run.

Phoebe yawned instantly. "Phoebe!" Piper cried and pulled her sister to her.

"I'm . . . sorry, . . . Piper," Phoebe moaned between huge yawns raking her body, "but I . . . just . . . can't . . . help . . . it! I'm . . . so . . . sleepy!" She stumbled and started to fall.

Piper caught her as both she and Prue yawned. "Fight it!" Prue told them, her tone of voice made sharper by her concern for her little sisters.

"I am!" Piper answered, pulling Phoebe up. She lifted her baby sister's drooping head and gasped. "Prue!"

Phoebe snored. Piper yawned. Suddenly her whole body was weighted down, and a nap sounded like the absolute best thing in all the world. The Witch laughed as Prue hit her with her telekinesis. Her laughter twinkled throughout the forest and its swaying trees.

"Piper, wake her up!" Prue called. She yawned and hit the Witch again. Her feet began to slide in the dark leaves that swirled all about them.

Piper was already calling her baby sister's name and shaking her violently while continuing struggling to fight the strong urge to sleep herself. "I'm sorry, Phoebe," she murmured sleepily and slapped her sister's face. Still Phoebe slept on.

Piper's hand softened against her sister's skin. Her fingers splayed on her cheek. She looked so peaceful and happy, more so than she'd seen her look in years. Phoebe's smile as she slumbered now made Piper remember back to when they were children and would often sleep together to protect Phoebe from the Boogeyman. Her lips twisted at the irony of the situation.

Back then, Phoebe had been convinced that he was real while Piper and Prue had both thought him to be only a figment of her imagination. Since discovering they were Witches, however, they had also learned that the Boogeyman and far worse creatures existed. Nearly every day had been fraught with danger, and they had survived more hardships than any woman had a right to have to suffer. For the longest time, Piper had clung to her private life to keep it safe from being a Witch, but she had since learned that doing so was impossible. Every aspect of her life was touched by her Witchliness, and everything, every one she loved was in danger just because of what she and her sisters were.

As she gazed down into Phoebe's happy face, Piper began to think that maybe sleeping wasn't an all together bad idea . . . Gods knew their lives had been falling apart even worse for months now as she'd striven every day and night to be with the man she loved and keep the secret of their love from her sisters. She knew they'd hate her if they ever discovered who truly possessed her heart.

The blonde Witch was wrong. Men were not all beasts, at least not in the sense that she used the term. Cole was a beast, a Demon no less, but he was also the sweetest, most loving, and most wonderful man Piper had ever had the honor of knowing. She loved him more than she'd ever loved any one else, had for a very long time, and was blessed to have his love, but still she knew her sisters would never understand. They would be as furious with her as she would have been with Phoebe if she had learned that her little sister, "the boyfriend stealer", had taken her husband when she had truly thought she'd loved him.

Now Piper was the boyfriend stealer. She was the liar, the cheater, and the woman who was far too eager to hop into bed with some one else's man, and that man belonged to her baby sister, whom she would have never chosen to hurt for anything in the world but whom she also could not help betraying and thereby, eventually, hurting. Piper had tried to deny her feelings for Cole. She had fought them with everything she had, but in the end, love had won.

Love for her soul mate had won, but her love for her sisters had failed. Now she herself was a danger to them, not because of who or what she was but because of what she was doing to them, slowly and secretly ripping their family, and the Power of Three that had saved their lives on too many occasions for any one to be able to count them all, apart. Her own selfishness would prove to be their deaths yet!

Piper couldn't bare the thought of losing Cole's or her sisters' love, but yet she knew that she would have to choose one day and feared that day would come soon. Yes, sleep was definitely way better than ever having to face their fury or rip both Cole's and her own hearts asunder by having to force her loving soul mate away. Piper nodded once, and that was all it took. She snored. Phoebe snored. Together they fell into the Fall leaves and were quickly covered.

"Piper! Phoebe!" Prue cried out as her sisters went down. She knelt beside them and shook each one in turn. "Wake up! Oh, Gods! Wake up! Please wake up! Phoebe! Piper!" Yet, no matter how hard she shook them or how loudly she called their names, neither of her sisters responded to Prue's efforts in the slightest. She raised furiously blazing green eyes to glare at the approaching Witch. "What have you done to them?"

She failed to notice, in that moment of anger, that the Witch had pulled more of her magic dust out of her pouch. She smiled at Prue, and a shiver crawled over Prue's backbone. "Simply given them peace at last, dear sister Witch," the blonde crooned in answer, "just as I soon shall for you. This world is wrought with the dangers that men have put in it, and we all deserve better. I offer a world free of their cruelties and the hardships and heartbreak they cause. You know you want peace, Prudence. Simply accept my gift, and that peace shall be yours."

Prue's mind was whirling with every breakup she'd ever experienced. She again heard every lie she'd ever been told by a male, from a little boy in Kindergarten who'd told the teacher he hadn't put glue in her hair when he had to the boyfriend she'd lost in high school to Phoebe to Andy telling her that her being a Witch did not affect their relationship or how he felt about her all the way to the latest lie she'd heard when the man to most recently win over her well-guarded heart had told her everything was fine when she knew that something was definitely wrong.

Brendan had been avoiding her for weeks. Prue was beginning to suspect that something serious was wrong but had been unable to catch him. He even managed to avoid her at the hospital where he worked. She could sooner rid this Witch of all the dust in her accursed bag than she could get Brendan to open up to her, and yet she knew that he was in danger. She had the power to help him, to save him from whatever terror was tailing him, but until he let her in, she was powerless to do anything to help him.

And then there were the howls. It was the strangest thing, but every time she went by his apartment, Prue heard howls. They were long, high-pitched, chilling, and wrecked with pain and misery, and yet every one of them called to her heart. All of the howls came from the same voice that sounded oddly familiar though Prue had been thus far unable to name the reason why. They spoke to her in a way that nothing else had. She ached to find the howler and ease him of all of his pain and suffering . . . and she'd began to wonder if perhaps that howler was Brendan.

She knew she loved him, but he had yet to trust her. Perhaps he foolishly thought that he was keeping her safe by not telling her, but couldn't he see that she loved him and would be hurt if anything ever happened to him? Men were full of lies, deceit, and heartache, she realized, her fear of losing Brendan reminding her of how consumed with pain she'd felt when she'd lost Andy. She had never grieved for any one like she had grieved for Andy except for her mother and grandmother, and yet she already knew that she loved Brendan a thousand times more than she'd ever loved Andy.

The world was full of pain, she thought, her heart aching. Every one, at one point or another, hurt her. Her mother, grandmother, and Andy had deserted her; they'd taken the coward's way out and died without telling her what she'd most needed to know: in her mother's and grandmother's cases, that she was a Witch, and in Andy's case, that he loved her still despite her being a Witch. She'd known he had from the way he'd called on her when he'd most needed help and the sparks that had flown between them with their slightest touch and every word, but he had never said the words again after she'd told him the truth of who and what she was, a truth that she had never asked for but also could not stop.

Yet in dreams, she could be anything she chose. She could be any one. She didn't have to know pain, suffering, or heartache. She could weave a lie, weave a wonderful lie of a happy life where no such horrible feelings existed. She could be happy, and she could be with any one she chose. She could make Brendan love and trust her; she could stop whatever was bothering him. She could bring back her mother and grandmother and even Andy, if she so chose, and make them live again.

In dreams, anything was possible, and reality hurt so very, very much . . . The world spun around the eldest Halliwell as she crashed to the ground. She was asleep before her head even hit the earth. Immediately the leaves swirled around the three sisters, and they covered them in shades of yellow, orange, red, and brown, protecting them from the world and any who should seek them.

The woman who the Charmed Ones had mistaken for simply a fellow Witch smiled. She spread her hands through the air and chanted as the leaves continued to dance. A rising wind whipped through the forest, and thunder rumbled in the darkening sky.

"Here doth the Charmed Ones lay.
Let all who seek them by magic be kept at bay.
No pain nor suffering shall touch them
While happiness, doth in their souls, beam.
Peace and sleep forever reign here
Until true love comes near.
So Mote It Be!"

She smirked. There was no such thing as true love, only lies, deceit, heartache, and misery caused by men who garnered power and strength from playing with women's hearts. She admitted that her gender was the weaker of the two for women could never stand up to their men for long and always ended up bowing down to them to win their hearts, but she would set every wrong man had ever made right. One by one, she would grant every woman across the world the peace that came in sleep until there were none left to suffer at man's hands. Then, and only then, would she reawaken them to live in a new world order, a world driven by women wherein man had no place nor power. Laughing gaily, she walked back from whence she had come and vanished.

To Be Continued . . .