katleept: (Piper)
katleept ([personal profile] katleept) wrote2017-02-24 03:20 pm

Piper's Secret Valentine

Title: Piper's Secret Valentine
Author: Kat Lee
Dedicated To: With all my love to eternal Valentine, my Drewsky!!!
Fandom: Charmed
Character/Pairing: Prue/Piper
Rating: PG/K+
Warning(s): Cannon Character Death, Incest
Word Count: 1,918
Date Written: 21 February 2017
Summary:
Disclaimer: All characters within belong to Spelling Entertainment, not the author, and are used without permission.




It's sometime after midnight when I wake. I have that feeling that something just isn't right. Usually it's because we're being watched by some unseen being or a Demon's about to shimmer into the room with us. I catch my breath. My heartbeat's pounding. I keep my eyes closed and try to reach out with my other senses to tell what's happening in my bedroom, too scared to open my eyes and tell the Demon I know it's here until I'm ready to fight.

For just a moment, I wonder if I really do want to fight. It would be so much easier to just lay here and let them kill me, but if I'm gone, who's left to protect Phebs -- and Paige too? The girl's grown on me after all these years. She is family, even if we didn't grow up with her. She is family, and we have to protect our family. You, Mom, and Grams all instilled that value in me.

Still, it would be so much easier to just not fight. They wouldn't know, couldn't guess, that I woke up now, just before I'm about to be attacked. They'd have no idea that I let myself be killed so I could go on to be with you. I was dreaming of you, Prue. I dream of you every night. They're finally good dreams, and I hate having to wake up from them. I hate having to leave you, but you're the one who left me first.

The aroma of the perfume you always wore reaches my nose. My stomach does a funny, flopping sensation. I can't possibly be smelling your perfume. You're not here. You can't even visit us as a ghost, because They won't allow it. But the scent's still there. Your scent's still there, still lingering on my nose, still tempting me to open my eyes and give myself away, still whispering to me that you could be here with me. And you could be, if we hadn't become the Charmed Ones and you hadn't been killed.

If only I could go back, I'd stop Phoebe from reading that spell. I'd stop you from dying, and Mom, and Grams . . . I'd stop . . . Tears choke my throat. I almost gasp aloud. Almost, but we've had years of practice hiding. I stop myself from making a sound just in time.

I lay in my own bed, shivering, yearning for the impossible and knowing it's not going to happen, knowing you're not going to come home to me this time, I'm going to have to go to you and there's only one way I could do that. But you wanted me to stay. You died saving us, and now you want me to be the big sister. You want me to protect everybody. I'm so tired of doing that, Prue. I just want to be with you again. I just want to hold you in my arms again in reality, not just in my dreams.

"Piper?"

Maybe I'm finally going crazy. Leo says years of fighting things that nobody else even knows exists can do that to you. You'd be proud of him. He's done what he can to protect and shelter me all these years. I know he checks in on you, but I know, too, that he can't bring you with him. They'd really freak out then, and there's no telling what they'd do to us, or to you.

"Piper?"

I swear that sounds like your voice! Maybe it's a shapeshifter who's crept into my room. They can use your image to get to us. They've done it before.

"Piper, open your eyes, baby."

I don't want to open my eyes, Prue. I don't want to see this world again without you in it. I don't want to be here. I don't want to keep having to live in a world without you. I just want to be with you.

"Sweetheart, open your eyes. We don't have much time."

We never had much time. We never had enough time. You were taken from us all far too soon. We should have been allowed to grow old and die together, but they stole you from me. They might as well have killed you as the Demon did.

"Piper, open your eyes." I jump as a hand reaches out and grabs my wrist. The fingers wrapping around my skin feel so much like yours, but it's not you. It can't be you. I tell myself that, reminding myself again and again as I prepare to face this Demon, but when I open my eyes . . .

When I open my eyes, what I see is your beautiful face smiling at me from underneath my sheets. You have the same coy, mischievous grin that you used to wear every time you snuck into my room after Grams had gone to bed. The things we would do alone in the dark, even when Phoebe, as an adult, came back to live with us . . . I've never felt the things you made me feel underneath this very sheets with anybody else, Prue, and I don't even try to any more. I just want you.

But this isn't you. This can't be you! You're dead! You're gone! I start to raise my hand, but the Demon's other hand reaches out and closes around that wrist, too. She holds my arms tightly even as she smiles with your mouth and your eyes and your . . .

"It's me," she whispers, trying to convince me that she is you, but I know she's not. She can't be. You're dead. You're gone, taken from me!

I sob aloud, but the bitch holds me still. "It really is me, sweetheart." She pauses, and I can tell she's searching for a way to make me believe that she is you. It's not going to happen. She's not going to trick me. The bitch shouldn't be wearing your face. Nobody has the right to look like you but you, and you're gone --

"Rutabaga," she whispers, smiling, your eyes -- her eyes sparkling.

"What did you say?" I demand, but there's something tingling inside of me. My body's falling for her trick. I want to believe so badly that you can come back to me that my senses are all beginning to tell me that this person in my bed is you. She smells like you. She looks like you. She even touches like you, and there's a warmth uncurling in my heart that only you have ever been able to give me.

"Rutabaga," comes the whispered answer, and I stare in silence for what starts to become a long moment.

"Don't just keep staring." Your full, glossy lips smirk at me. "We don't have much time, butterfly."

My heart rushes into my ears. I gasp again, and although the sound I make is still caused by my surprise, it's no longer a bad surprise. It's . . . an impossible surprise. "You can't be here!"

"Don't you remember me telling you I'll always be your secret valentine?"

"Yes! Yes, but . . . "

You release my wrists and caress my face instead. I would know your touch anywhere, and though a Demon can mimic your body, they can't copy the warmth of your touch. They don't know love, and for years now, I've always felt such intense love radiating from your smallest touch. "Prue!" I gasp aloud, tears speeding down my flushed cheeks. "Prue!"

You slide closer to me in bed, wrapping your arms around me and holding me close. It feels like Heaven to be held by you again! But this doesn't make any sense! I'm not dreaming. I'm not dead. And yet, still, here you are, holding me, kissing me, calling me a name I haven't heard in years . . . not since we were little girls and you used to call me your butterfly in secret, saying that I would take form from my cocoon and becoming the prettiest butterfly any one had ever seen, comparing my light, uncertain touches to those of a butterfly's wings as she's beginning to learn how to fly.

But you can't be here! They said -- You're still smiling so warmly, so radiantly, so beautifully at me. I know suddenly you know what I'm thinking, but you were always good at reading my mind even though telepathy isn't a power any of us four sisters have. "I'm not worried about them tonight, darling, but we need to make this count. I'm sure we don't have much time before they find us."

I know you're right. It's a wonder they haven't already found us, but Leo did say Valentine's Day can be a big, important day sometimes even up there since it's a celebration of love. Not that they would know anything about love. If they did, they never would have stolen you from me!

"I didn't come all this way not to get a kiss, did I?" you tease with that bright, bright smile. God, how I love that smile, and how I've missed it! How I've missed you!

But you're right. Time is very much of the essence here. My mind is racing as fast, if not faster, than my heart. I manage to smile finally as I fight to push all my fears away. I don't need to spend time wondering or worrying about how you've come to be here with me again at long last. We just need to make this time worth it. I need to make sure you know how much I love you.

"I already do," you whisper, fondly caressing my face with a touch that's not really sisterly at all, "and I love you, valentine."

"What did you bring me?" I manage to whisper, still fighting to quell my own fears and doubts and rise my courage.

"What do you want?" you say, but I hear instead, What do you mean?

"It's Valentine's Day," I remind you, though you don't need the reminder.

"And I'll always be your secret valentine."

I nod. I remember those days sneaking around for time to spend in your arms and with your lips on mine as though they aren't as far, far away as they are. "And you'll always bring me kisses and hugs."

"Precisely." Your smile just keeps growing. "And I've got both for you. Both that I've been holding for far too long."

"Then give them to me already, sister," I whisper, and you make both our dreams come true as you oblige, pulling me closer, snuggling me in the loving shelter of your hot arms, and covering me with kisses that I've been aching for for far too long.

I don't know how long this is going to last. I dare not ask or waste any more time talking. Leo says you've been looking in on us, watching over us, that you know about Paige and all that's been happening, and I believe him. Besides, as much as I want to hear the sound of your voice, I want to kiss your sweet, hot lips even more. So I do again and again and again once more, and whatever time we have left together in this world, I spend it holding to you and loving you with every inch of my body, my valentine. I wonder if I've come to be as beautiful as you always thought I would be? You certainly have to me!

The End