The Virtue of Prudence
A/N: I recently re-watched the entire series and have been reading the wiki to find out about what happened after the series ended. Finding out that Piper did have a daughter in the comic series inspired some headcanons on her, and this was born. I have no idea if Piper or any of them shared what happened in 'Morality Bites' or Season 6 with their kids but for the sake of this I'm going to say they fully disclosed their experiences over time. I just wanted to do some of Melinda's musings on herself and her relationship with her name sake which expanded to the 2009 Melinda and Chris.
Any and all mistakes are mine as well as any comma abuse.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Charmed belongs to The WB and Aaron Spelling Productions.
Prudence Melinda Halliwell was a mouthful to say.
When she was little she'd always had trouble wrapping her mouth around the constants. They'd trip and stumble out off her tongue leaving behind a bitter taste.
At a young age she started refusing to be addressed as Prudence. The temper tantrums that the younger her had thrown were legendary. Her brothers still teased her about them. Even her mother referred to them with a fond exasperation and shake of her head. Her temper was notorious within the family because of those few (yes, few) fits she had thrown.
She preferred to think of them as expressing righteous indignation.
Being the daughter of a Charmed One was hard enough without adding an inferiority complex.
It wasn't being named after Prue Halliwell that bothered her. Late Aunt Prue had nothing but her respect and admiration but it was simply one too many legacies to inherit. However, it certainly didn't help that person were quick to point out that she'd inherited a few of her aunt's more infamous qualities; stubbornness to the point of obtuseness, love of photography, a mind that craved order and she was the biggest bossy pants in the family. All of these lead to comparisons by those that had known her.
Most times she didn't mind, even liked the connection to the woman but others it upset her making her feel as though no one really saw her but rather the parts and pieces of Prue.
Truth be told her greatest desire was to merely carve her own place in the family and not be constantly reminded of and measured against another person who was gone before she was born. Not that her family really, truly, did that. They didn't. It just felt like it on occasion. These things cannot be helped.
By age seven she insisted on her family and friends and everyone she'd ever come across to call her Melinda. Her brother's sometimes taunted her by calling her Prudence or worse Prudence Melinda because it was a button pusher and easily slid under her skin. They usually ended very quickly as she usually threw at their heads (she's not proud of how her anger gets the best of her sometimes).
The only other person who understood the pressure that came with the name was her younger cousin, P.J. Phoebe's eldest had also been gifted the name Prudence as but couldn't escape it quite as easily as Melinda. P.J didn't have the plus of her mom meeting her in an alternate future where her name had already been determined and changing the name was due to unforeseen death.
Halliwell's had complicated lives (oh so very, very complicated).
Melinda sometimes thinks of that other Melinda, the one who was an only child and didn't carry the name Prudence, and wonders what she may have been like. That girl never had a Wyatt or Chris and no Aunt Paige but rather an Aunt Prue. The other her lived in a world where Aunt Phoebe was a murderer and where witches were hunted. She wonders what powers she possessed and if she kept her promise of never using them. Or maybe she gives into the temptation of her magic and tries to use them to protect innocents even though it could cost her life.
What were they're similarities and differences? Did they share a favorite color, food, first love or were they dissimilar in every way?
Did that Melinda, the one who isn't her but sort of is, ever dream of something more then what she had? Did that world scare her or was she tougher and thicker skinned from not having older brother's protecting her.
She knows that in another alternate timeline, the one her mother only heard about but never visited, she didn't exist. That Chris was alone in his fight to save Wyatt and took his final breaths thinking he failed before fading away into nothingness all his hopes on the shoulders of his father.
The idea of her dorky older brother ever being evil is still something she has trouble seeing. Wyatt was kind and sweet, powerful but never used it for harm against anything other than demons. She can't imagine her eldest brother evil any more then she can imagine Chris being secretive and scared and alone. Not when he's got the world's worst poker face and gentleness that she's dependent on.
Her heart aches for that Chris. She was close with both her brothers but she and Chris were practically inseparable growing up. When Wyatt started to get to that age where it wasn't cool to hang around your little brother and baby sister they usually stuck together playing games. They liked launching childish expeditions around their house and yard to find trouble (and it usually found them instead). To know that another boy with the same soulful green eyes in a different but similar place didn't have that broke her heart.
She doesn't know if that Chris knew about that other Melinda. She doesn't know if he thought about her like she thinks about him. An abstract of a person that he never had the chance to know but wondered about all the same. Maybe in his heart he also wanted to save the sister he could've had and could have if he succeeded.
She likes to think that maybe he did.
That maybe some part of her was still there whispering inside him giving him hope. Her dad always said that souls travel within families and friends so she believes hers guided him in some way. The idea gives her a small amount of peace of mind.
Melinda Halliwell knows she's special but not in the cookie-cutter way a teacher tells you. And she's not special because she was born a witch. Rather because she's the lucky one.
She's the lucky Halliwell to have both siblings, both parents, and all the rest; the gaggle of cousins, dorky and neurotic brothers, her aunts and uncles and especially her parents. There isn't a thing she'd trade them for.
Not a damn thing.
She's loved and cherished and protected to the point of annoyance. It's because of that love she finds that she has the freedom and support to forge her own identity.
That's what makes her lucky.
That's what makes her different from Prue and that other Melinda and that other Chris. They didn't get to live as they should've been able so she wants to live for them in a way and give them a fighting chance inside her. They may be little more the second hand memories but they still mean something to her; the aunt she never knew but she's named for, the brother who risked everything to give her a future, and the person she never would be.
She wants to honor their memory and sacrifices even if she's the only one doing so and doing that means she has to be honest and pure to herself. Fighting the good fight and doing the best she can with the life each of them helped grant her.
It's why she doesn't think Aunt Prue would mind too much that she doesn't want to be called Prudence.