A/N: All right guys. Bear with me here. I hope it goes without saying that I feel very badly about how long these updates take...as a reader I understand how frustrating it is. But I'm trying to ease back into it. I'm struggling to remember exactly the path this story was taking so I'm just going day by day for now. I'll try hard to get you updates soon. Anyway, thank you for the wonderful support. I hope some of you are still out there and interested! Now on with the story...I've kept you waiting long enough! ;)

Piper's mind rang with a million thoughts. The numbness she longed for eluded her and if only to stop the endless questions from swarming through her mind, she was forced into action. She couldn't sit here any longer – so close to her sister's side but still separated. Wasn't the whole reason Paige was there to begin with because of Piper's past neglect? Piper shook her head to shake the thought away. Those were exactly the thoughts she wanted to run from…because they held too much truth.

Piper stood on stiff legs, wavering for a second as if she'd forgotten how to use her body. Then she slowly walked back into the hospital.

As she walked through the cold, sterile white building, she felt doubt nagging at the back of her brain again. Was this the right thing to do? Sit by Paige's side rather than do something productive to try and bring their sister back to them? Piper squeezed her eyes shut slightly, stopping her movement for only a moment as she again forced the thoughts back to the deeper crevices of her mind.

No – all she had to do was make it to the room. Be with her sisters. That was always the key, wasn't it? Them being together. It hadn't taken long for the first Charmed ones to learn that lesson, and the same held true this time around. Phoebe would have an answer. Some answer. Something more than Piper had. Wouldn't she? Would she? As Piper walked rigidly towards the ICU, she thought of the irony of what she had just thought and had the situation not been what it was, she may have smiled. Phoebe having the answers. Prue would've had a field day with that one. There it was again. Prue. Prue, who was always so sure and strong. She was the leader. Phoebe was the baby, and Piper was in the middle. Always in the middle. Where she liked it. Where she was good at it. Where she felt like she could at least do something right.

'Prue never would have let this happen,' screamed the voice in her head.

This thought she couldn't force away. Piper was a bad older sister. A bad leader of the Charmed Ones. She had failed.

No sooner had this thought crossed her mind then she found herself at the door to Paige's room. It was open and the sight in front of her broke her heart all over again. Phoebe looked absolutely devastated, leaning gently against Paige's bedside, one hand holding Paige's while the other ran softly through her hair. Her eyes were red and puffy and she looked as defeated as she'd ever seen her little sister.

As if feeling Piper's presence, Phoebe looked up and right into Piper's eyes.

Piper was the big sister, whether she liked it or not, and she couldn't handle the thought of failing both of her younger siblings so much in one day. She could be strong for Phoebe. She had to be.

Standing straighter now, Piper walked up to Phoebe, who hadn't taken her eyes off of her. She bent down silently so she was kneeling before Phoebe's chair, and reached out her arms to hug her sister.

Immediately, Phoebe's whole body collapsed into Piper, sobs wracking her small frame as the emotions of the day came tumbling in. Piper could only rub her sister's back. There were no comforting words to be mumbled right now.

As Phoebe's sobs turned to more gentle cries, she spoke. "Piper, thank god you came back."

Piper bit the inside of her cheeks for a moment to keep from cringing. She'd already let Phoebe down so much today.

She squeezed her harder. "I'm sorry. I just…"

The one second Piper took to collect her thoughts, Phoebe used to stop her, shaking her head forcefully against Piper's shoulder. "It's okay, I understand Piper. I'm just happy you're here now. I was worried."

Phoebe sucked in a shaky breath, and pulled back to look Piper in the eyes. "Piper, what are we going to do?" she whispered.

Piper sighed softly and raised herself from the ground. She walked around the bed to where her chair sat vacant. She let herself fall into the seat as she stared blankly at her baby sister. She looked no better but she looked no worse. She longed to reach out and touch her, but she couldn't bring herself to. She didn't want to hurt her more than she already had.

Remembering Phoebe had asked a question, rhetorical or not, Piper forced herself to speak. "Let's think about all our options here."

Phoebe nodded emphatically, grateful for both her sister's renewed strength and something to do to distract her, if even for a moment.

"We could reverse time?" Phoebe said shakily, her eyes falling back to look at the battered Paige.

"Too much could go wrong. Time travels so tricky and with what we've been feeling today…I doubt we could even hit the right decade right now."

Phoebe nodded. "The awakening spell?" But she knew the answer. They couldn't risk that type of personal gain. "Our own spell?" she offered, but again, Piper remained silent.

"Write a spell to take us Up There and give them a piece of our minds?"

She was hoping this would at least soften the pained look on Piper's face, but instead, she watched as the lines on Piper's forehead furrowed further. "Why haven't they come Phoebe? They have to know what's going on." She looked up at Phoebe for a moment as she realized the answer to her own question. "They're not going to heal her no matter what we say. We've played this game with them before. And I'm sick of them. I hate them. I want nothing more to do with them. Ever. If they aren't going to help us keep our sister, that's it." And with that, Piper let her eyes fall back to Paige.

Phoebe sat back in her chair, racking her brain for anything that could help them. They sat in silence for a good 10 minutes before Piper's shaky voice broke through her reverie.

"Phoebe? Phoebe do you…"

Piper swallowed hard as the lump in her throat made it hard to speak. Phoebe sat wide eyed, staring at her sister. She hadn't heard Piper use that tone of voice since she had been middle sister. She urged Piper to go on with her gaze, and feeling it, Piper tore her eyes from Paige's form and looked right into Phoebe's.

"Do you think she could ever forgive me for being such a bad big sister?"

The sheer vulnerability in Piper's voice made Phoebe eyes welled up all over again as her heart ached even more for her now oldest sister. "Oh Piper," she breathed, standing and moving her own chair around the bed to be next to Piper. She wrapped an arm around her sister's shoulder and forced her head to rest on her shoulder.

"Paige would never think that."

"But it's true," Piper said with certainty, as she pulled herself up from Phoebe's hold. In response, Phoebe angled her body more towards Piper and took her hands in hers.

"Honey, we all make mistakes. Clearly both of us messed up here. But Paige loves you. She doesn't think you're a bad sister."

Phoebe's voice was so calming and sure, Piper wanted to believe what she was saying. But she just couldn't. She had been a big sister to Phoebe all her life. She knew how to do it. But there was no question in her mind now that she had messed up with Paige, perhaps irrevocably. She had been thrown into big sisterhood without a minutes notice. Took on a role she hadn't been prepared for at all. It was like becoming a witch, except in that role she had had two sisters in the exact same position as her. This time, she was flying solo. She was the leader of the Charmed ones. It happened too damn fast! Even in becoming a parent there had been some sort of a transition. Some time to get prepared and learn to understand your new role.

Then out of nowhere, an idea shot like lightening through her mind. She looked up at Phoebe, her eyes wide and clear, and Phoebe was slightly taken aback by her sister's sudden change. Until she spoke.

"Wyatt."