She tied him up against a tree. His hands were tied together, his feet tied together, too. There was a rope running around his chest and around the tree a few times, tied at the other side of the tree. He wasn't gagged--she didn't mind his threats, since it was so easy to tell him to shut up, seeing as he couldn't do anything about her now--or hurt too badly, save for the fact that he was missing two fingers and the wrap was bleeding through.
()()
Piper came outside when she heard him screaming for her to let him go. "Ah, quit yer whinin'. Yer barley even hurt. Ya ain't got a fever, and it ain't infected. You'll be fine."
"Let me go, Piper!"
"Give me my money and I'll let you go."
John Taylor rode up with another man, named Joseph Barnes. Joseph was the man who supervised the building of one of the barns. He came to take it down.
"Piper… If you can't make this payment, I have to take my land back," John said sympathetically.
"What? No! I only missed one pay!"
"I'm sorry, Piper. I run a business here. I have to take my land back, and I've got people waiting for it."
"Wait! If I get my money back, someone else might have my land!"
"I'm sorry, Piper."
"And I need to take the barn down," Joseph stated firmly.
"What?"
"You were still paying me back for it, and you've only paid for half so far. If you can't make the payment, I gotta take it down."
"Oh my God," Piper groaned, running a hand through her hair. "You can't take my land and my barn. What will I do?"
"Not my problem," Joseph said.
John shook his head.
()()
A week later, Piper had three problems: she was short one barn, she was short a third of her land, and she still had Dan tied up in her backyard. She, Jack, Prue, Phoebe, and Jacob had spent a lot of time moving horses. They took horses from the destroyed barn and let the healthiest ones free in the pasture, while the youngest and oldest went to a different barn. From the different barn, they had to take the strongest horses that were needed the least out, and put the others in. With part of their land gone, the horses were forced to come closer together.
Here was the real problem: The stallions had the third of the land that John had taken away. They were fenced away from the mares and the geldings. They had to be kept separate.
All day for a full week, the Armstrongs and Piper built up another fence for the stallions. They cut trees down and used them for the fences. Taking advantage of the forest lining the field behind their house, they separated the area they fenced off for the stallions into twenty fair-sized corrals, one for each horse. The last time they were all together, they fought too much.
()()
"Timber!"
Piper, Prue, and Phoebe stepped out of the way as Jacob and Jack gave the large oak tree a final shove to help it fall. They had been sawing at the nearly three foot wide tree for a long time, and finally got it to fall.
They got to work sawing the branches off, chopping the easier ones with machetes and axes. They piled the useless branches together, throwing them into a pile they had made with other tree branches. It took a long time to get the tree cut, but they had it cut in half and split up into pieces they would use for the fences.
Joanne had four of their strongest horses pulling a cart large enough to haul the wood, and they worked to get it all up there. Then she guided the horses uphill into the fields, and across the field to the place the stallions would be.
It went like this for a week, from dawn till dusk, and even for two days working into the night, though it was more dangerous. They came back to the house tired, and left tired the next morning. What made it harder was the fact that they had horses to care for, so they were up before dawn to feed them. Then they rode their horses down to the forest, let them go--knowing that the horses would come when called--, and got to work.
()()
Piper walked up to Dan and sat in front of him. He avoided her gaze. She just stared at him.
"Hungry?" she asked him after a moment of silence. He didn't answer. "Yeah, me too… It's just too bad you can't be workin' out there with us."
He finally turned to look at her, but didn't speak a word.
"You know, I could go into town and buy food if you'd tell me where my money is," Piper said calmly.
He still said nothing.
"Where is it Dan?" she asked quietly.
He glared at her.
"Look, we've already done the work, so we're tired, we're hungry, and we'll let ya go if you tell me where it is. It's not like it'll help us get any work done, since we've already built the fences. In fact, if you give it up now, it will just be more work for us, since we'll have to move the fences to get the land back, and move and find horses to get them into a new barn."
Dan still said nothing. He looked away.
()()
He sat against the tree, sheltered from nothing, really, but there were no stares in the cloudy sky, and it looked like rain, so he had decided to build a fire under the tree for some sort of safety from the coming rain.
His horse stomped and snorted. She threw her head and stared at him.
"What?" he asked. The horse continued to stare at him. You wanna go back home?" he asked, though he knew he would never go back. It wasn't an option.
The white mare tossed her head from side to side, seemingly saying, "No."
"Good." He paused as he looked off into the dark. The fields were pitch black below them, but there was nothing to see down there, anyway. "So, what did you think of the last town?" he asked suddenly, turning to look at the mare, who was munching on some grass. She snorted, but didn't look up. That bad, huh?"
The mare looked up at him and threw her head. Even in the darkness of the night, he could see her beautiful long white mane whip as she tossed her head from side to side, up and down. He smiled slightly, knowing she was glad to have a creek nearby to wash in. She needed a bath more than other horses to keep her white coat and mane shining.
"What about the lady there, fightin' the man? She was somethin', all right."
A woman laughed softly. You always have gone for brunettes," she said as she walked up to the man and his horse.
He didn't look up. He couldn't. He couldn't look up, because he knew that she would still be there when he turned around, but when he blinked, she would be gone. She had been playing these games on him for a while now, and it was getting painful Not on his body, or his pride, but on his heart. It hurt him to know that she was there for moments at a time before going away, taking the reality of her presence along with her, and leaving the aching burn in his heart that weighed on him.
The problem was that he was doing it to himself. He was the one making her come and go each night. His own mind was playing tricks on him. No, it was his heart. His heart had been playing these tricks on him for a very long time.
"Why do you keep doing these?" he asked her hoarsely, afraid to look at her.
"Why can't you let me go?" she asked him. She walked up from behind him and sat on his right side. He stared at the fire. Her hand touched his shoulder, and he felt it, but he knew it wasn't real. He couldn't let himself believe it was. She ran the back of her hand down the side of his face.. His shivered from her touch. "You're cold, she said, a small hint of worry in her tone.
"No, you are. Your hands are freezing," he told her, trying to remind her subtly that she wasn't real.
With her free hand, she brushed her long hair back from her shoulders. He took that moment to glance at her, and was captivated. Damn, she could always do that to him. Ah, she was right though. He had always loved dark hair. He was constantly reassuring her that he loved her blonde hair, but she still made little jokes at him about it. True, he did love brunettes, but her hair was beautiful, as well. It seemed to never have a knot or tangle in it, always shining in the sun, and always easy to run his hand through.
"I'm not stupid," I know what you're saying." There was a hint of irritation inn her voice, but she was joking with him, and he knew it.
"It's not a joke. You have to leave. This can't keep happening. "You're--You're here, then you're gone."
"Not right now. Right now I'm here."
No, you're gone. You can't be there at all." You don't.--"
"Belong her?" Please." She laughed.
"Please go."
"Okay." There was so much enthusiasm in her voice. It sounded so real… "I'll go get some firewood. It's dying down, anyway.":
When he looked at the fire, he found she was right. He needed wood.
"I love you," she said to him. She kissed him softly. He wanted the moment to last, to last forever. But it didn't.
As he did every time, he found himself answering her. "I love you, too."
She was leaning in front of him by then, smiling into his eyes he couldn't return the smile. He could barely return the "I love you". It was merely a natural reaction. She brushed a hand through his hair and he longed to put his fingers through hers, but knew he couldn't. It would be the same as clinging to the past even more than he was doing already if he allowed himself to do anything but follow along with her game until she left.
She stood up with a smile and turned her back to him, walking away into the darkness of the woods. He waited for only a second, staring at the fire, before looking up to watch her figure fade away, not a factor of the darkness or his eyes playing tricks on him, but his mind finally letting her go for the night.
He had to stop this. If it kept up the way it did, he would be expecting to see the fire still burning bright in the morning with extra firewood nearby. She wasn't a dream, but she wasn't real. He was allowing himself to hold onto her. He couldn't do it anymore. It wasn't right.
He turned his gaze back into the fire. He watched it so carefully, staring at the flames as they licked the warm air, that he felt maybe it could burn his troubles away. But then it would burn her away.
He looked away, not ready to do that quite yet. He knew he was torturing himself, but he couldn't burn her memory. Not yet. Curse that fire. It damn near got him to let go.
()()()()()()()()()()
A/N: There's more Mystery-Guy-Who-Everyone-Knows for ya'll. But the woman's whereabouts will remain a mystery for a while. She'll make more appearances, though, as will the "Mystery" Man. I won't explain fully who she is until after Piper and Leo meet, but she has a past, too. By the way, the horse is very important, just so you know. He loves that horse, and will do just about anything to protect it. No, she doesn't talk, (what I mean by that is when she seemed to be saying, "No", she was throwing her head, and he just took it as a "No".) but she listens.
More Piper beating up Dan, more He (I won't actually say his name until he gets into Piper's town again, so he and his and him are You-Know-Who-Even-Though-You're-Not-Supposed-To-Know-Who.) Hope you liked it, and don't forget to review!
