Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed. C'est la vie.

A/n: My mind is wondering in random directions lately. I hope you enjoy this.

Lilac is a Sad Color

A story by Ryeloza

No one lived in the house on the corner of the street. Prue wasn't sure why. The lilac Victorian stood just as grand as the rest of the houses on Prescott Street, but no one had set up a home there since the Gherins moved out. That summer, Prue spent the twilight hours of most days on the front stoop of that house. The sad house, Phoebe called it. Usually, Prue laughed at the fanciful imaginings that Phoebe garbled, but sometimes as the night settled in and she looked up at the house through a haze of cigarette smoke she could see what her younger sister meant. The chipped paint, the sagging shutters; the whole house seemed to sigh in loneliness. I need a friend.

Grams didn't know that Prue smoked. The habit was new and her hand still shook whenever she brought the cigarette to her mouth. Somehow, though, each puff inserted independence in a way Prue had been able to do before. So she sat, rebellious, on the front stoop of the sad house every night that summer planning an escape. New York. Paris. Moscow. Boise. Anywhere but San Francisco. Anywhere but Prescott Street.

Some nights Andy would come and sit with her. She would sit alone, wrapped up in her thoughts, and then she would hear the thump, thump sound of Andy's basketball as he came around the corner. Most nights he and some of the other guys from school played basketball at a court a few blocks down. She knew for a fact that Andy didn't dribble the ball the whole way home, and she was always struck wholeheartedly by his comforting gesture of warning. Thump, thump. Andy-speak for: It's okay to hide if you don't want to talk tonight.

They always seemed to say the same things. Like everything else in her life, Andy was a constant. Like everything else in her life, she loved him and hated him for this.

One night in August, he didn't have his ball. There was no cheerful warning and as Andy rounded the corner she knew immediately that he hadn't even been at the court. No sweat, nicer clothes and even from several feet away she could smell cologne on him. "Hot date tonight?"

He stood at the bottom of the stairs looking up at her. "Still smoking?" he asked, though the evidence of her transgression was even more obvious than his. "You're going to incapacitate your lungs when you have to cheer on the football team."

Shrugging, she inhaled another breath of smoke and blew it up, far, far away into the darkening sky. "Maybe I don't want to be a cheerleader anymore."

Andy shoved his hands into his pockets. "Impossible. Everyone wants to be a cheerleader. Hell, I want to be a cheerleader."

"Maybe I won't even go back to school this year." Prue brushed off Andy's humor like a fly; she didn't have the heart for laughter that night.

"Going to join the circus?"

"Sure. Anything to get the hell out of here."

"Acrobat or clown?"

"Andy." His name came out as a sigh and she smashed her cigarette against the pavement. An invitation. Andy came up and sat next to her; their knees bumped together.

"Okay. I'll bite. What's wrong?"

She wasn't ready yet, so she began in the opposite corner. The fastest way to get somewhere was in a straight line. "Do you think my mom ever came out here and sat on these steps and thought about just getting away from here?"

"Anything's possible."

"She was only twenty when I was born, Andy. Sometimes I sit out here and think about her coming here too. Sitting on these same steps and wondering if she threw her whole life away."

Andy leaned back on the hard concrete and looked up at the stars. "Your mom loved you, Prue. I remember the way she was with you."

Prue loved him for not disagreeing with her. He knew a part of her that no one else ever could or would and that was why he was her best friend. He was the only one who, on rare occasions, was allowed to see her vulnerability.

She took a deep breath and tried unsuccessfully to form a smile. "I had a fight with Grams tonight."

"About?"

"College. She wants me to stay here. And by here I mean right on this street. She doesn't even want me to live away from home."

"Why not?"

"God only knows! Probably to keep playing mother to Piper and Phoebe. I'm so fucking sick of it, Andy. If I don't get away from here…If I don't get my own life soon…"

Andy glanced at her. "You have a life, Prue. You have friends. You're wild about your sisters, even if you don't want to admit it right now. And you're going to be a photographer, just like you've always wanted to be. It doesn't matter if it happens here or two thousand miles away."

Prue pressed her forehead into her palms, grinding her elbows into her thighs. "I just want to be my age for once. When I turn seventeen in October I want to have a big party and do something stupid and just spend one night not worrying about everything! I didn't sign on to be a mother! God, I just want to be a teenager for one second!"

"Prue…"

"Andy, I just…sometimes I just hate her!"

She felt Andy's hand rub against the base of her neck, clearly trying to sooth her anger. Mostly, though, his hand tangled in her long hair, tugging uncomfortably. She leaned forward, away from his touch.

"I shouldn't have said that. I don't mean that."

"I know, Prue. She's your grandmother. Of course you don't hate her."

Prue nodded, glad that Andy hadn't heard the subtlety in her statement. At that moment, she hadn't been mad at her grandmother. The anger in her words had been directed at her mother, a momentary escape of the smoldering fury that had been growing inside of her for months—years?—now. It was one thing Andy didn't know. One thing he could never know. Anything he would say to her would only sooth the guilt she felt every day and she couldn't loose that guilt. Without it, she feared she would lose the love that remained for her mother.

"Look, Prue, I think you should come camping with us this weekend. Joey's coming and he's bringing his girlfriend and a couple other people. You should come too. It'll get your mind off things. Get you away from here for a few days."

Lifting her head, Prue smiled for the first time that night. Andy couldn't make everything better; no one could. But as usual, he had the perfect temporary solution. "Yeah. Okay. I mean, I'll have to ask Grams."

Andy tousled her hair and Prue slapped his leg in retaliation. The fog of melancholy that had haunted her most of the summer lifted and she breathed strongly and clearly for a moment. And for an hour in August of 1987, there was life at the house on the corner of Prescott Street again.