A/N: I am sooo sorry I haven't updated! For some reason it wouldn't let me upload, and for some reason I had to enable my email to be shown on my user page in order for things to work! (There's a handy hint for anyone else having this problem) Anyway, this chapter includes something I do a lot in "Pamela Halliwell: Wiccan Outcast," put a song/part of a song in the chapter. It's not supposed to be sung by anyone, I don't want Charmed to turn into a musical (shudders), it's just supposed to be like a soundtrack, playing in the background. Anyway, this chapter I'm using part of the song "Broken" by Seether and Amy Lee.

anonymous!: Incompetent... good word usage... sorry that was so random... lol. Anyway, hope you like this chapter as much as the last one:)

Mediatorsk: So sorry you had some problems going on... but I'm glad I could cheer you up. Sorry it took me so long to update, hopefully you haven't needed another cheer-me-up and were waiting on my update... oh, who am I kidding, I'm not that important (lol).

CHAPTER TWELVE

"How about this one?" Leo asked Piper. He was grabbing dress shirts out of her closet and showing them to her. She glanced down at the skirt she was wearing to make sure they matched.

"Okay. That one's fine," Piper answered. She took a deep breath in nervous anticipation. What was next would probably seem like a submissive, irrelevant event to anyone else, but she hated it. Because of the severe inability to move her arms, Leo had to dress her. It was the one event every day that gave her the mentality that she was unnaturally pathetic. As he buttoned up her shirt, tears began to fall from her eyes.

"Piper?" Leo asked. "What is it, honey?"

"Everything," she answered. "Today I discovered that I can't show my face in public without one of my boys being ridiculed for having a cripple mom."

"What?" Leo asked.

"It was this thing with Chris' friends… He told me he wasn't upset, but…"

"Do you want me to talk to him?"

"Yeah. That would be great. Anyway, it just seems like I'm hurting everyone's reputation. It's almost the same as if one of us were to have a mental illness or something. People look at all of us differently, they stare, laugh, and even the mention of our last name will probably turn people away."

"Don't think like that, Piper. How do you know that any of those things are going to happen? We'll be fine," Leo assured. "You have lots of friends that are way beyond that childish mentality. More importantly, you have family beyond it, too."

"I know," Piper sniffled. "Thanks, Leo." He kissed her gently. "I just need to cry for a minute, to get everything out of my system."

"Okay," Leo replied. "I guess I'll go talk to Chris." Piper nodded.

But as Leo left the bedroom, he didn't go down the hall to see his son. Instead, he let out a great sigh. Piper just wasn't her old self anymore. She was loosing her confidence and beginning to blame herself for things that hadn't even happened yet. Leo was trying his hardest to restore her to the way she was before, but he knew that no matter what happened and no matter how much better he managed to make her feel, she would never be quite the same. Leo looked over at an old picture of them that was hanging on the wall. He missed his wife.

I wanted you to know

I love the way you laugh

I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away

I keep your photograph

And I know it serves me well

I wanna hold you high and steal your pain

'Cause I'm broken

When I'm lonesome

And I don't feel right

When you're gone away

You're gone away

You don't feel me

Anymore…

Leo shook his head to snap back into reality. He was about to turn down the hall towards his son's room when heard the front door open. Instinctively he headed downstairs to see who it was.

When Leo got into the foyer, Paige was standing there.

"Are you guys all ready to go?" she asked.

"Uh… almost," Leo replied. "Piper's just in an emotional mood right now."

"Oh," Paige replied. "Want me to see what I can do?"

"Sure."

Paige made her way upstairs and stood in her sister's bedroom doorway. Piper was sitting in front of her dresser, staring at herself in the mirror.

"Hey," Paige said. "Want me to do your hair for you?"

"Okay," Piper replied. "But it hasn't been combed in a while, there's probably millions of knots."

"Well, that's what sisters are for," Paige said as she picked up a hairbrush. "To pull each other's hair out."

Piper chuckled briefly at the dumb joke, but her glum expression soon returned. As Paige went to work on Piper's hair, she wanted her to be able to open up and get all of her feelings off of her chest, but she wasn't sure how to bring up the topic, or how willing Piper was to talk. Thankfully, Piper opened the door to conversation for her.

"I hate that wheelchair," she said.

"I know," Paige replied. "At least you only have to ride in it if you feel exhausted."

"That's the problem. I do feel exhausted. Right now. Every day I know I should slow down, but there's too much stuff to do around here. Leo has charges to attend to, I can't make him do all the work around here. And how clean exactly do you think the house will be if two teenage boys are dusting?"

Paige smiled sympathetically. She wasn't sure how to reply right away, but Piper continued talking, so she didn't have to. "I've never sat still for anything, so I certainly can't do it now. My mind doesn't work that way. And then the wheelchair… I feel so tired today… I should probably take it to the photo shop and get out of it for the picture… but riding it outside… I know I'm gonna embarrass all of you."

"No, Piper, it'll be fine. Ride in the wheelchair if you need to. We're not gonna care what anyone says. Hey, just think of all you've been through. You survived your sister's death, of all things, and went on to kill her murderer and become the strongest-willed person I've ever known. Now, I know with all the circumstances, being in good spirits is really hard right now. But put it in comparison. If you can figure out how to get through the loss of one of your closest friends without breaking down every day, then riding in a wheelchair for a few minute's is like a piece of cake."

Piper smiled. Being a whitelighter had really made Paige good at advice-giving since she first started… how many years had it been? Piper was starting to feel old. Suddenly, they heard the front door open.

"Oh no, is everyone waiting for me?" Piper asked.

"No, no, you're fine," Paige replied. "Close your eyes." She sprayed some hairspray all over the play. "How's this?" she asked, taking a bobby pin out of her mouth and placing it delicately in Piper's hair.

"It's perfect," Piper smiled. "Thank you."

"C'mon, I'll orb you downstairs… and then we'll get that chair."

……………………………………………

Downstairs, Allie started crying.

"Oh, somebody's tired…" Phoebe began, taking her from Josh and placing her in the baby carrier she'd placed on the tiny table by the stairs. She rocked it back and fourth in an attempt to help the baby drift off to sleep. Surprisingly, it worked.

"Wow," Paige said as she and Piper orbed in, "Finally a baby in this family that actually sleeps. Lucky you."

"Tell me about it," Phoebe smiled, glancing over at Pam.

"What?" Pam asked.

"Okay, so are we ready?" Mark asked, changing the subject.

"Um… almost…" Paige started. She turned to Piper.

"I… I…" Piper took a deep breath. "I need the wheelchair."

There was an extremely awkward moment of silence throughout the Manor.

"Okay. I'll get it," Leo said finally as he turned to the closet.

"You okay, Piper?" Phoebe asked.

"Yeah," Piper replied. "I'm just really tired, that's all. Once we get done with this picture, I'll probably sleep the whole way home."

Leo came forward with the wheelchair. To Piper, it was more like the electric chair. She gulped and sat down in it. Another awkward moment of silence reigned, until Piper pressed a button and moved forward a foot or so.

"Whoa! Sorry," she said, almost running Josh over. She finally got control over the movements and started to wheel herself to the front door.

"Piper…" Leo reminded. "It can't go down the steps."

"Right!" Piper realized, trying to laugh off her growing embarrassment. She turned it around and everyone headed to the back door. The world outside was extremely terrifying for all of them as soon as they realized that anyone could be watching, saying whatever they wanted about Piper Halliwell. There was no turning back now.

Piper moved the chair forward, and everyone followed suit. Her hopes were that the big jumble of Halliwells would conceal her in the middle, but since she was the oldest and always had been sort of the "leader," everyone just naturally branched off to the side and let her lead the seemingly endless trek to the sidewalk, where the cars were parked.

Piper breathed heavier and heavier every time she saw a car pass by, or if she looked at a nearby house and swore she saw someone peering out of the window. This was torture. It was a surreal reminder of her grade school days, where even if she couldn't see people staring at her, she could somehow feel it, and knew that they were all whispering, saying whatever they felt like about her. This couldn't be happening. She'd done so much to put that humiliation behind her, and now here it was again, back and fiercer than ever.

The rest of the family also felt the sense that Piper was being tortured, especially Phoebe, who focused on her sleepy daughter that she was carrying so not to loose it. It still amazed her what a strong person Piper was. She didn't deserve this cruel subjection. But as they marched to the cars, there was nothing they could do.

……………………………………

It took them about ten minutes to figure out Allie's carseat and find a place for Piper's wheelchair and get everyone situated in the two cars. But finally they made it to the studio for the portrait. A person who didn't know what was going on at that time in their lives and what was running through their brains that day would've thought it was just a picture of the average, American family. But for the Halliwells, it was a terrible reminder of the day attached to the picture. That was the day the word spread about Piper Halliwell and her "condition."