"Breakfast!" Piper leaned against the railing as she called up the stairs. After hearing no movement, she called the word again. It was then when she saw Nikki start to come down the stairs, her hair hanging to the waist of her thin nightgown.
"Momma!" she took each step carefully, her chubby baby feet clinging to each stair. "Can we play outside today?"
Piper picked the girl up when she was close enough. "Hmm... It is a nice day today." She walked to the kitchen, keeping Nikki close. "Doesn't even feel like Fall yet."
"I know why!" Nikki declared as she was set down at the table. "The leaves no fall yet!"
Jason looked over from his plate of eggs he had been eating. "Is that so?"
Nikki nodded. "The leaves aren't on the ground."
"They will be soon enough." Piper set a plate in front of Nikki. "Eat, baby. You need your breakfast."
Jason looked up at his wife, his blue eyes the same as when she had met him for the first time. "Are Maddie and Katie coming?"
Piper shrugged. "I called them twice."
"Maddie is doing makeup." Nikki ate with her hands, ignoring the fork laid out for her. "And Katie...Katie read book, I think. I tried getting them for you but they yelled."
"Why am I not surprised..." Piper huffed as she ruffled Nikki's hair. "I'll be back. Stay where your dad can see you."
"Pipes, I've got to go to work." Jason has already stood up, his bag hanging from his shoulder. "I'm going to be late."
"Five minutes, Jason. I can't take her while she's eating." Piper moved from the room quickly, ascending the nearest staircase. "Girls! You're going to be late for school!"
Katie opened her door with a sudden force of frustration. "I'll be down in a minute, mom. I still have homework to do. I couldn't last night because you made me watch Nikki."
"Who else could have watched her?" Piper sighed. "You still need to get to school on time, Katie. Do it in the car."
Katie rolled her eyes as she disappeared back into her room. "I can skip breakfast for one day, mom."
"Katie, downstairs." Piper moved to Maddie's door and knocked. "Maddie, you too! Breakfast!"
Maddie opened the door with a tube of mascara in hand. "I'll be down in a minute. I woke up late."
Piper looked the girl over. "Change that shirt and then come down."
"Why?" Maddie crossed her arms. "It looks fine."
"I can see more of your chest than is legal, Maddie. Change." Piper ran a hand through her hair. "Come on, imagine if your dad saw that."
Maddie grumbled to herself as she disappeared back into her room, leaving Piper alone in the hallway of the mansion. That mansion, that home...it was soaked in history, soaked in blood.
Yet in her heart, she still believed she could raise her family there.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That night, Piper had her first round of nightmares in years. And for the first time in years, she thought about Nico di Angelo.
As she slept, she saw his death. She saw the moment his breath left his body.
She saw Will's death, saw his body swing from that noose. She woke up and threw up over the side of the bed, her hands shook and her body threatened to give out. Though she had seen TV, had seen movies, nothing had prepared her for a suicide so real.
It was heartbreaking. It was time-freezing, was raw reality. It was the product of pain and misery so tremendous that it couldn't go anywhere else but through the killing instrument.
She grabbed the rosary off her nightstand, prayed until she was stable enough to get up and clean the mess she had made.
Her bare feet sunk into the carpet as she made her way to one of the closets in the hallway; it itched at her toes, rubbed dirt into her skin. She hadn't vacuumed in a month.
She could feel the way her nightgown fell about her, how it itched at the back of her knees in a teasing gesture. But unlike the movies, there was nothing beautiful about the white cloth. It showed too much thigh for her liking, too much baby fat from having Nikki. In the back, there was a hole right where you would never want one to be.
Piper took the towel from the closet, kept her voice low in the dim light of the hall. "Nico? Will?"
No answer. She moved on to the bathroom to wet the towel, the bright light causing her to blink a few times before turning the sink on. When she did, the dark shadow that appeared beside her almost took her breath away.
When Nico and Will had been there, she had gotten used to things appearing. She had gotten used to ghosts and everything they could do. But now, after years, the shadow sent fear trickling down her spine. She froze up, her hands dropping the towel into the sink.
"Will?"
It didn't move.
"Nico?"
It disappeared.
