Luke finished his coffee and took out a couple of singles to leave as a tip. Getting up from his booth, he escorted his date out to the street.

Lisa was great. They had been dating casually for the last month after she had lit into him. "How can you be so obtuse," she had demanded before taking his hand and writing her number on his palm. "I've only been flirting with you for the last two months every time we meet at the coffee machine." Releasing his hand she neatly put his pen back into his pile and stood from the seat she had taken on the corner of his desk. "Ask me out," she spelled it out before sauntering back to her place behind the reception desk.

It was two days before Christmas now and though they wouldn't be spending it together he had wanted to see her one last time before the holidays. Lisa would be flying back to Arizona to stay with her parents early the next morning and Luke would be hanging out with his parents. That had been his routine for the last eight years.

"Have a merry Christmas," he wished her before opening her car door for her. She kissed his cheek before closing the door and turning over the transmission. Watching her drive away, he stopped and sucked in a long breath.

There she was. Luke turned to watch her as she bounced out of her car to the 24 hour convenience store, her long brown hair flowing behind her as snow fell on her curls.

He thought he was okay. Luke woke up everyday and went on with his life thinking that he was okay. At first he had to say it every morning when he woke up and just about every hour after that, until eventually it was every other hour, and then every other morning. A couple of years ago he had finally stopped needing to remind himself but now he knew he had been wrong.

It wasn't okay. It hadn't ever been okay, and he didn't know when it would be.

Watching her exit as quickly as she had entered, Luke didn't even try to conceal himself. As he stepped forward to cross the street she put her car in reverse and drove off, none the wiser.

…and we are so fragile and our cracking bones make noise, and we are just breakable, breakable, breakable girls and boys.

Melinda held her niece in her arms and didn't know whether to laugh or cry. "She's so beautiful," she gushed about her niece. "Listen to me, I keep calling her 'she'. What's her name," she asked the child's parents.

"We haven't been able to agree on a name," Chris said. He was laying in bed next to his wife and their niece was lying in between them; she had fallen asleep from all of the excitement of finding out she had a little girl for her cousin. "I like Portia."

"Of course you do," his sister patronized. "What was it I heard about you getting arrested after orbing off into a high speed car chase," Mel asked him.

"Hey, I'm not responsible for other time line me. Totally different dude and I'm still being blamed for things he did," Chris always became angry at this which was particularly amusing for his family.

"Charlotte," Bianca said. "The baby's name is Charlotte Melinda Halliwell. That way she has a name that starts with a C like Chris but is still a family name."

Melinda stopped walking the baby to stare at her sister-in law. "You're naming your baby after me?"

"Well, you and the original Melinda," she pointed out, "but yeah. You are her godmother after all." The baby began wailing and Chris laughed, "Yeah, you tell her Charlie," and he got up to take his daughter over to his wife.

"What do you mean, 'we don't have cranberries'," Piper demanded. "How am I supposed to make my cranberry sauce? Mel," she called after giving her eldest son a death glare. Piper left the kitchen to go find her daughter, who was bounding down the staircase. "Honey, can you do me a favor and can you go pick up cranberries? You're brother, the brain surgeon mind you, forgot to pick them up and the stores will be closing early today because of the holiday."

"Sure, mom. I'll be back in twenty," she said and picked up her keys to her VW bug. Her dad had kept it in the garage for her and was kind enough to keep it running for whenever she came home, although that was a rare occasion. She made her way to the store and parked her car.

"I thought it was you," she heard and suddenly her entire body froze, her eyes closed shut and her breath forgetting to circulate through her body. Mel turned around and saw the man who was supposed to be her husband. She hadn't seen him in nearly a decade.

"I saw you the other day," Luke took two steps forward and was satisfied to see the fear in her eyes as she took a step back. It wasn't like he liked to scare women, but he was glad to see that his thoughts about her weren't wrong. Melinda was a coward.

"Well, have a merry Christmas," and he walked around her into the store. Melinda let out a heaving breath before racing for her car and heading to the next available shop.

Have you ever thought about what protects our hearts, just a cage of rib bones and other various parts; so it's fairly simple to cut right through the mess and to stop the muscle that makes us confess.

Melinda sat in her car inside the garage, unable to cry. She had stopped crying three years ago and the nightmares had finally been banished, at least they had been when she hadn't needed to worry about ever seeing him again.

The witch didn't know why she hadn't thought about the possibility of running into him. Maybe it was because she had long since stopped checking up on him over the years. But he was here, and she had seen him. And the pain she had caused him had been wielded at her like a knife today. It wasn't like it was that unexpected. Melinda had known how he would feel about her if she went through with leaving him and it had been better to live with that than with the alternative.

Melinda couldn't have protected him then, just like she couldn't protect herself now.