Third Time Charmed

A Fight to Remember (Part 5)

Piper furrowed her brows in concentration, pouring all her energy into the delicate task at hand. It needed to be perfect. "You've got to press your thumb tight, like this, see?" she told Paige as she demonstrated the correct way to curl a blue ribbon using a pair of scissors.

"Oh, right," nodded Paige, not quite understanding the problem with her curls. She happened to think the frayed edges gave the ribbon some extra panache. "Like this?"

Piper watched Paige give it another try. Her eyes bulged when the ribbon was severed in two, and her sister gave her an apologetic grimace. "You know what? Why don't I do this, while you take care of the, err...."

"I'm sorry, Piper. I'm supposed to be giving you a hand, but I think I'm just creating more work for you."

"No, I'm happy for the help," Piper lied. "While I finish this, why don't you take the cookies out of the oven for me?"

"Right!" Paige agreed, determined to be useful, rolling up the overly long sleeves of her lime-green crop top. While Piper curled the ribbons in no time at all, Paige searched high and low for an oven mitt.

"Any Premonitions this week?"

"Mm, yeah. An innocuous one—remind me to pick up batteries for my smoke alarm—and one I told Leo about. I had one of those proximity flashes while I was in the mall, of a guy being attacked by a demon, but afterward, I couldn't find his face in the crowd. If something happens to him now...."

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Piper sympathized, the speed of her scissor-work not slowing, "but you can't take that on, Paige. Even if you found the guy, it's no guarantee you'd be able to help. We're witches, not gods."

"Yeah, that's what Leo said," Paige replied with a hollow laugh, more affected by the idea of an Innocent slipping through her fingers than she would like. "You've certainly gone to a lot of trouble hosting this baby shower. Gift baskets, decorations, food, and even offering the club as a venue... This Wendy girl must be a good friend of yours."

Piper cringed inside. She was overdoing it; she knew that. Heck, she'd even donned a skirt and a half-up ponytail for the girly occasion. "Well, no, not really. Not anymore. I haven't seen her...since the funeral...and I don't even remember the last time before that," Piper sighed, feeling guilty, perhaps with good reason, "but that is precisely why I'm doing all of this. I swear, in the last couple of years, I've vanquished more friendships than I have demons!"

Paige made a mental note not to allow the same to happen to her. Then again, friends were hardly beating down her door these days. She had a lot of acquaintances, and she got on great with the people at work, but she had left most of her school chums behind after her parents passed, though Glen aside, most of them had been fellow delinquents, and her few good college friends lived out of state. Forming bonds just didn't come easily for her. She had become too guarded to let people get close. "Has Prue had the same trouble?"

"Ah, well, Prue was never big on friends to begin with—"

"Color me surprised," Paige interjected in a distinctly snarky tone, earning a reproachful smirk from Piper before she continued.

"She was Miss Popular in high school, of course—head cheerleader, student council president, and she probably would have been crowned prom queen, too, had she and her boyfriend, Andy, not skipped it," Piper explained with a note of resentment. "People wanted to be close to her, but she always kept them at arm's length."

Feeling a little hypocritical for her earlier comment, Paige wondered whether this difficulty connecting with people might be something she shared with her eldest sister? Or maybe Prue just had a stick up her— "Found it! And what about Phoebe?"