Disclaimer: Even though I am obsessed with Charmed, I do not own it. I just wish I did.
A/n: Since this is a future fic, I thought I'd just make a note of the characters mentioned. All of my post-Forever Charmed fic is in the same universe (and scarily enough I have most of it planned out), but if you're new to my stories, here's the run down: Prudence Melinda (Meli) is Piper and Leo's daughter; Nora is Phoebe and Coop's oldest and Lena is their youngest; Paige and Henry have two children they adopted (Wil and Ellie, but they aren't mentioned by name in the story). I hope that helps with any confusion. Enjoy the story!
Katie
Setting: September 2031
In the Silence
A story by: Ryeloza
Nora is the first person she tells and she has no idea why because Nora abandoned her and left her with nothing but a guilty conscience and a pain in her heart. Plus, really, this is all-Nora's-fault-except-for-the-part-where-it-isn't.
They're in Nora and Graham's apartment when she tells Nora. She's sitting at Nora's brand new dining room-kitchen-whatever table; it's the only piece of furniture in the room because, as Nora says, she and Graham sacrificed furniture for a really nice apartment. It's amazing really, how little one really needs furniture.
She lays her head on the edge of the table and the oak is smooth against her temple. Without thinking about it, she has pushed the chair as far away from the table as she can and is sitting on the very edge of it, flexing her toes against the hardwood floor for support. Nora makes no comment on her position.
"Do you want some tea?" asks Nora.
"I'm pregnant," says Meli.
Nora nods. "Okay."
She tells her parents next because she knows already that this isn't going to turn into some shotgun wedding or moving in together to try to make it work or whatever other clichés—or are they realities?—are associated with unwed pregnancy. The idea of rushing into something like that with Colin is laughable and ironic, because haven't they already rushed into the biggest thing they could? Accidentally, of course.
So she's going to stay at home and raise the baby and continue going to school and this is what she tells her parents. They offer to help her any way they can and she nods, feeling as though a weight has been lifted from her chest. Yeah, she's twenty-four, and yeah, her parents are pretty cool, but there's still some kind of unspoken fear associated with this kind of news.
Her brothers don't react quite as well. Sometimes it's like they have a big brother over-protectiveness competition going and it sounds like this:
Chris: Bastard. By the time I'm done with him—
Wyatt: I'll beat the crap out of him, I swear. He won't even be recognizable anymore.
Chris: Hospitalized! They'll be feeding him through a tube!
Wyatt: He'll be lucky if his next home isn't a graveyard!
Chris: I'll kill him! I swear I'll kill him! He can't do this to you, Mel!
Meli lets their words wash over her and doesn't even try to protest. She's learned long ago that one, it's useless, and two, Chris and Wyatt wouldn't actually do anything like that unless she asked them to. Which she wouldn't. Not after that time with Mark Jacobs in the tenth grade. Lord, Nora had thought that was funny.
Once they've exhausted their arsenal of verbal assault Wyatt says, "Do you need anything, Mel?"
She shakes her head.
Nora drags her to one of the band's performance's later that week and when Meli sees where they are she's pissed. She feels like she should be able to tell Colin on her own time in her own way and she doesn't appreciate being pushed into it by her cousin. When she tells Nora this Nora simply shrugs and says, "I promised Graham we'd come."
Yeah. Sure.
The whole thing reminds Meli of why it's-all-Nora's-fault-except-for-the-part-where-it-isn't. When Nora finally decided to move back to San Francisco a couple of years ago everyone had welcomed her with open arms except for Meli and Lena. But then, they'd been the ones that Nora had left without a word and never called or wrote or telegrammed or whatever. Running away from home for Nora apparently meant running away from her best friend-cousin and her little sister too and it hurt a lot. That kind of hurt just didn't disappear, especially for Meli, who had her mother's blood running through her veins.
Nora tried though. She tried so hard to make up for it. Eventually Meli broke down because she still loved Nora a lot and what else was she going to do? It was then that Nora started dragging Meli along to all of Graham's band's performances and introduced her to the bassist, Colin. So yeah, it was all Nora's fault that Meli fell into an on-again, off-again romance with someone in a band. And it is all-Nora's-fault-except-for-the-part-where-it-isn't that she's pregnant now.
Here they are in a club just like a hundred other anonymous ones over the past two years and Meli is staring at Colin with heart-stopping anticipation, just like the first time she saw him. This time, though, instead of waiting for the set to stop and for Nora to introduce her, Meli has to wait for the set to stop so she can tell Colin that she's pregnant. And fuck, she doesn't want to do this here in a night club with glow-in-the-dark paint splattered on the walls.
"Didn't think you'd be here tonight, Mel," says Colin because at some point while she was having a panic attack, the set ended and Colin had approached the table. "Hey Nora," he adds.
"Hi and bye," says Nora. "I have to go find my husband." And Nora is gone, leaving Meli in a haze of confusion.
"What's up?" asks Colin, taking Nora's vacated seat.
"We need to talk," says Meli.
Colin raises an eyebrow that seems to say, "I thought that's what we were doing," but shrugs because he's fantastically amazing and says, "Okay. When?" and damn it all to hell, she just wants to kiss him even though they broke up for the umpteenth time last month.
"I'm pregnant," she says even though there's neon paint and synthesized music and the smell of cheap beer hangs in the hair. "Shit."
Colin swallows hard and then picks up the beer Nora abandoned and takes a swig of it. "Shit," he echoes. He looks behind him towards the stage and then says, "Hold on a second. I'll be right back."
Meli doesn't watch him walk away. She focuses all of her attention on the bartender across the room, even though the woman is doing nothing interesting. A minute later, Colin's hand is on her shoulder and he says, "Let's get out of here."
"Don't you have another set?" she asks, even though she's already stood up and reached for her jacket.
"It's cool," says Colin.
They walk out of the club together and Colin pulls her into an alley next to some garbage dumpsters and this place seems only slightly better than discussing pregnancy in a night club. She presses her back against the brick wall of the building and ignores the fact that alleys remind her of demons and vanquishes and murder and concentrates on Colin's soft green eyes as he leans towards her. "How pregnant are you?" he asks.
Meli shrugs. "I'm going to the doctor on Monday," she says. "But if I had to guess, I'd say five weeks? Wasn't that the last time we…?" She gestures between them with her hand.
"Something like that," agrees Colin. "Do you know what you want to do?"
Of course she does because she's Prudence Melinda Halliwell, master of the to-do list, maker of plans, queen of organization. She laid out all of her options as soon as her head had cleared enough to allow some thought other than, "Pregnant. I'm pregnant. Colin." Abortion was out, scarcely a question asked because she was who she was. And she'd thought about Aunt Paige and her cousins and bound powers and the power of love in an adopted family, but somehow she couldn't imagine handing her baby over to someone else. So that left keeping it.
"I'm keeping it," she says. "My parents said they'd help out. I'm going to cut down on the number of classes I'm taking, I guess."
Colin leans back against the wall of the building next to Meli. "Wow," he says.
"Yep," says Meli.
Without a word, Colin reaches out and takes her hand. Meli squeezes his and he squeezes back.
Neither one let's go.
A/n: This story idea popped into my head and so I rolled with it. I might continue it someday; I'm really not sure. I haven't convinced myself that it's a one-shot yet, even though it could be.
Anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the story. Feedback will be welcomed into my home with loving arms. Thanks so much for reading!
Katie