A/N: Thanks for the reviews, everyone! Here's the second drabble. Hinted Phoebe x Leo if you squint. Thanks plenty to Shizuku_Tsukishama749 for betareading this!

Chapter Two

The next day, Phoebe was brushing her hair in her room, doing her best to ignore and keep silent the tears that were streaming down her face, when she heard a knock on the door.

"Phoebe? Can I come in?" Leo asked.

"Yeah, sure," she said, wiping away the liquid diamonds a second before he can enters. "Did you want something?"

He sighed. "Everyone's waiting for you downstairs. We need to go."

She looked down. "I don't want to go."

"Phoebe..." Leo understood exactly how she felt. He had just lost his wife and was barely holding it together in front of her and Prue. He hadn't slept all night, and his own eyes were red from how much he had been crying.

"Going means accepting she's gone," Phoebe pressed, lower lip trembling as she begins to cry again. "I don't think I'm ready to accept that there's no way to bring her back."

He put his hands on her shoulders, squeezing them gently and looking her in the eyes. "I don't want to accept it either. But maybe we can try to deal with it together. All of us."

Despite his efforts, his words didn't make her feel any better. If anything, they only make her angrier. "Why didn't you save her?" she blurted out suddenly, voice rising a bit. Her emotions had taken hold of her tongue, but she wasn't about to stop them. "She was your wife, Leo! Why couldn't you save them both?"

The man's expression turned crestfallen. "I couldn't. I can't heal the…the dead, Phoebe. You know that." It felt like a stab to his heart to say such a thing, but it was the truth. Piper...Piper had been his world, his heart, his soul, his everything, and he'd failed her when she needed him the most.

"Why didn't they let you save her, then?" She upped the volume again, but at this point, she didn't care. "What the hell good are they if they can't even help save their precious 'Charmed Ones'?!" she demanded at last.

Her entire body trembled with the force of everything she was feeling – rage, loss, depression – all of it whirling around inside her like a whirlwind, and so it was no surprise to her when she finally shattered like glass. Leo pulled her into his arms, and though she tried to pull away at first, he just held her tighter, and she eventually relaxed, allowing herself to cry into the other's chest. A part of her wondered if she should be doing this with Cole instead, but she dismissed that thought quickly. Now was not the time.

"I can't do this..." Phoebe sniffled. "How am I supposed to go on without her?"

He stroked her hair soothingly even while his own bitter tears fell. "I'm so sorry... I failed you as your whitelighter."

She wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him tightly. "Not your fault. Never your fault. You didn't fail, Leo. She wouldn't want you to think that."

A comfortable, contemplative silence fell between them for a few moments, and then they both jumped at another knock at her door. Pulling away from Leo, Phoebe saw Prue and Cole standing there. "Hey," she greeted softly.

Cole looked between them, suspicious. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," the girl replied. "Let's go."

"I'm not going to the funeral," Prue announced. "I just wanted to come check up on you, sweetie."

"I'm fine…or at least, I will be. But…" her eyes locked with her eldest sister's, "…you know, Piper would want you to be there," she encouraged delicately.

The older woman said nothing for a long moment, and from her blank facial expression, it was almost impossible to guess what she was thinking. But then, finally, she gave a soft smile and shook her head. "You go on without me. I need to handle this my way." She tucked a stray strand of her baby sister's hair behind her ear. "Sorry. You understand."

"Oh, Prue." Phoebe stepped forward to embrace her tightly. "I do. It's okay. I didn't want to go at first either. Just…do what you have to do, okay?"

Her last living sister returned the gesture with just as much fervor, if not more. "Thanks, Phoebs. You, too."