Disclaimer: If I owned it, Leo and Piper would have no problems. Considering that he was possessed recently to scare the charmed ones, I'd say I don't own them.
A/N: Yay! An update! It's taken me forever to mess with this conversation, and I hope you like how it came out. Review, please!
Leo entered the room, looking very timid. Piper, on the other hand, looked serene as she pushed herself more firmly up into a sitting position. She smoothed out the covers and then raised her eyes to meet Leo's nervous ones.
"And you were planning on telling me this when?"
"Actually, I wasn't." Leo's face was strained. He obviously didn't like what he was having to say.
"Pheobe said you'd never shown up as a whitelighter before because we never got hurt bad enough to need it?" At his nod, she exploded. "Oh, so all the times we were possessed before, all the times people tried to kill us, you couldn't help us then? You had to show up just at the time when I didn't need YOU…"
"You were dying. I couldn't let you die."
Piper looked up at Leo's drawn face, steeling herself against the hurt in his eyes. "Well, you killed me when you left without warning. And after… you know? You sure can do wonders for a woman's ego, huh? I have to make a choice about whether a man I've gone on three dates with stays in town or not, and then you pop back into my life." She threw up her hands in annoyance. "It's just one more thing! And that stupid dream… ARG!"
"I didn't want to leave."
"WHAT?" Piper stopped in the middle of a muttered rant to herself and tilted her head to one side.
"I didn't want to leave."
"Well, then, why did you?"
"I had to. I'm not allowed to date you. I'm a whitelighter. You're one of my charges. It's not supposed to happen. It's not allowed."
Piper's gaze went from furious to pained. "Then why did you ever start something?" Her voice got heavy with hurt. "It killed me, damn it! How could you have done that to me?"
"Cause you're you. I couldn't help it." By now, Leo had sat down on the bed next to her. Piper put her head down on her chest and started crying quietly.
"Damn you." Piper couldn't stop crying, but Leo could tell she wasn't angry any more. He gingerly draped an arm around her shoulders, and, when she didn't protest, pulled her gently to him.
"I'm sorry. Really, I am. I wouldn't have hurt you if I could've done anything else."
Piper pulled carefully away from Leo. She stared at him for a moment, considering. "Get out."
"What?"
"I want you out. Please. Just go. We'll call for you if we need you. You can hear us, right?"
"Yes, but…"
"Just go. Please. Don't do this again. I can't take it any more." She pushed Leo off her bed. He sighed.
"If that's what you want."
"It is."
"All right, then." He walked out the door. Piper sank back into the pillows, and started crying her heart out.
Meanwhile, Pheobe and Prue had cornered Leo before he could orb out.
"What did you do to her?" They could all hear Piper crying. Prue was glaring at Leo. If looks could kill, he'd have been six feet under before he could blink.
"I didn't do anything." It was then that Phoebe noticed that Leo seemed distracted.
"Are you even listening?"
"Look, I'm supposed to help if you're in trouble. If you'd called for me by name, or needed me bad enough, before, I'd have come. I can tell when you're in distress. Piper is most certainly in distress at the moment. It's a little distracting, alright?" He put his hands to his temples. "It's not easy for me, ok? I didn't want to hurt her. I can't help being attracted to her, and then I think I fell in love with her, and I couldn't stop myself. Now she hates me, and you hate me, and you're blaming me for her pain, when my heart is just as broken as hers, and she just told me to leave, so can I go now?" He glared at the two witches, who were both staring at him open-mouthed. His little rant had gotten rather loud at points, and they hadn't seen this side of Leo before.
"She told you to leave?"
"Yes," he snapped.
"One moment please." Phoebe disappeared into Piper's room.
Prue continued the disbelieving questioning. "Did you honestly just say you love her?"
"Yes." Leo ran a hand through his hair.
"Oh, my god." Prue and Leo looked up to see Piper standing in her doorway with her hand over her mouth. "Oh, my god."
A/N: Oh, a cliffy! Sort of. Anyhow, review!
