Di
Obsessed with Justice
April 27/07
Disclaimer: The Charmed Characters are the property of Aaron Spelling and Constance Burge. I just borrow them for your enjoyment and my writing addiction.
Ok wow. I dont think its EVER taken me this long to write a fic.. but here it is 2008 and I'm still writting this. Though only back again. I am re-posting the first three parts as to 1) jog your memeory in what the heck I was doing and 2) I re did some of the parts. the time line was off to me so I re wrote some of the parts a bit... I'll try and post more frequently now thta the holidays are over and life seems to have settled a bit.. tough not completly heheh life augh hehe enjoy.. again
She cast her eyes over the information she had received. She hadn't told anyone what she had found, and she had no intentions of telling anyone: especially her mother.
"Jojo!"
She looked up to the voice across the schoolyard. She smiled to herself as her best friend walked towards her. Ok maybe she had told I one /I person.
"You got it didn't you?"
She looked up at her friend, "What?" But they had been best friends for as long as she could remember, ands knew her friend would see right through her.
"You know damn well what. What did it say?"
She looked at the paper in her hand and read it again. "As I suspected."
"Your father wasn't a dead beat after all?" her friend sat in beside her.
"No." she looked it over one last time. "The opposite actually." She replied quietly.
Her friend sat in beside her, looking over her shoulder at the paper in her hands, "I'd say. So now what?"
"I have no idea." She said softly, as she starred down at the papers in her hand. "All these years my Mum has lied to me. And now I find out that everything was a lie." She said to her friend. "I don't know what to do."
Her friend looked up at her, "and they say college isn't that hard emotionally." She draped her arms over her friend shoulder and drew her to a half hug. "I'll help you figure this out honey."
"You're really leaving?" Prue spoke quietly.
Andy Trudeau cast his eyes out across the grassy field that lay just beyond the trees that held the swing he and Prue would frequent in their years growing up and dating together, "Yeah." was all he said. What more was there? He had been accepted to the academy and was leaving for Portland the next day.
She felt the lone tear welling in her eye. They had been friends since they were both in school and he had always been there for her. When her mother died. When she was in the car accident with Phoebe. When Grams wouldn't let her go away to college. There he was. Her sweet sixteen. When she got her drivers license their first date to their prom. There he was. Now he was leaving. Leaving her alone with her sisters and what to her seemed an uncertain future in University.
He looked over to her and wiped away the tear as it slide down her face. "I'll call every day."
"I wish you didn't have to go." She found herself leaning against him. She swore to herself that she would be strong. She was going to cut ties with him but she couldn't. She loved him to much to let him go.
He placed his arm around her hold her to him. Taking in what ever he could of the woman that would forever hold his heart. He knew that. No matter what happened in the next couple of years she would always love her.
Several years later:
She sat as the names were called out. She looked out to the audience and saw her mother sitting there waiting. She never told her what she had discovered a year ago. Maybe today she would come clean. Tell her mum that she knew who her father was. That he wasn't the dead beat she had been told about. That he was a decorated police officer in San Francisco.
Her friend was the first to embrace her after the graduation, "Look at you. Graduating from the police academy."
She held on to her dear friend and was almost afraid to let go.
"You haven't told her have you?"
Jojo looked at her long time friend, "How can I Jenna? She's my mother. No matter what she did I still love her."
"You can start with asking her why she has been lying to you all this time. You had a right to know who your father was. Who he REALLY was."
"I know, but she's been sick and…."
"Don't you dare. You had a right to know the truth. Sick or not. You need to tell her what you now know. You need to tell her you found him and who he really is."
She knew her friend was right, "I'll talk to her. I promise."
Prue sat on the patio, with her hands around her coffee mug. Her mind was thinking back to days when she was younger. But then her mind shifted to a few days ago. She thought when her mother died that she would never feel that dark and alone again. But here she was, thinking of another loved one lost.
Piper walked into the kitchen and spotted her oldest sister sitting on the patio with her knees tucked under her, as she sat nursing a cup of coffee. She looked back on the last few days and even she couldn't grasp what had happened in their own home. It was all to surreal for her, for any of them.
She turned slightly when she heard Phoebe walked in the kitchen and grab her bowl from the cabinet. "Morning."
"Morning. She sitting outside again?"
"As she is every morning. I think she is still shocked to what happened."
Phoebe took in a breath and placed her bowl on the counter. She didn't want to talk about it. She had kept playing everything in her mind and was beating herself up that she hadn't figured it out in time to save him.
Piper turned to Phoebe who had suddenly become quiet. She walked over to her younger sister and wrapped her arms around her, "It wasn't your fault sweetie. You did all you could. You saved us."
"But Andy died." Phoebe felt her tears once again drifting down her cheeks, as she took in Pipers hug
Piper didn't say anything. It was a phase they all had to go through at the loss of their dear friend. She was there for Phoebe now as Phoebe had been for her a few days before. It had only been a couple weeks, but to them it still seemed like yesterday.
Phoebe stepped away from her sister and wiped away the tears she had shed, "I'm, sorry."
Piper looked at Phoebe a little confused, "For what honey. We all miss him."
Phoebe wiped at her cheeks again and sniffed back anymore she may have had, "I just wish I had been able to stop it from happening."
"Oh honey, you can't keep blaming yourself. Rodriguez would have killed someone that day, no matter what we did. You said yourself he had already killed me, and you twice. Andy was just doing what he did. Protecting us."
Prue leaned against the doorframe as he listened to Piper try to console Phoebe. Every word made sense to her, it was no ones fault. Andy was doing his job, just like they were: protecting the innocent.
She walked in the kitchen and embraced her youngest sister, as both of them cried for the loss of their friend.
Joanne Sheridan sat beside that hospital bed that held her mother
"You knew? All these years you've lied to me on who my father really was."
"I did it to protect you"
"PROTECT ME!? You LIED to me. You let me think all this time he was a nobody, someone to keep clear of. Yet I find out, last year, he is a wonderful person, a decorated cop a family I never knew about all this time."
"I wanted to protect you from that life."
"I have family I never knew I had; you can't protect me from that. You had no right."
She looked at her daughter; she didn't want to tell her what she knew but now seemed the time. She only wanted to protect her from the evils of the world, and what shed knew confirmed her belief.
"You want to know why I did it? Why I took you from your so called family? I did it to protect you. Yes protect you. I knew you would follow after you father. Even as a little girl you would follow him everywhere he went. And every police picnic you were right there with all his friends. I didn't want that for you. I didn't want you risking your life for people every day. And yes your father re-married and had a family of his own. But do you want to know what happened? The same thing I feared would happen to you." She watched her daughter a she spoke. "Yes he had another family and he had a son and that was so proud of his father he followed in his footsteps. And do you know what happened. He died. Yes he died. He died the same as you would have had I stayed with him."
She stood there and listened to her mother's speech. She had a little brother? She had a vague memory of following her father, and his friends. But now she also knew she had a family she would never know. A brother who was killed doing what she also did.
She looked at her mother, "I need to know what happened."
"Jo please, don't do it."
She looked again before starting for the front door, "I have to know."
Her mother watched her leave the hospital room, she couldn't let her leave, not like this. But all she felt was anger at her daughter. "Joanne Sheridan. If you go now don't come back!" it was her last hope and threat to get her daughter off the path she was heading down.
Jojo stopped in her footsteps wanting to turn around and face her mother. But she wanted answers she needed answers. She wanted to say she was sorry but she couldn't, it wasn't for her to apologise. She closed her eyes briefly and walked out the door letting it drift softly behind her. She walked from the hospital and got in her friends' car, "San Francisco. And don't look back."