Disclaimer: I do not own anything you recognize.

Part Seven

Piper had everything ready for dinner by five thirty. She decided to go upstairs and check on her two sisters and serve dinner at six. When she entered the room, she saw Paige twisting and turning as if she was trying to escape from something. "Phoebe," she hissed, not wanting one sister to hurt the other, "Get up. Paige is having another nightmare."

Phoebe almost immediately sat up and looked over at her baby sister. When she saw the state Paige was in, she started to try and calm her down knowing that waking Paige up could be a bad thing. "Shh, shh, shh. Paige it's okay. You're fine. Relax, you are going to hurt yourself." She leaned over to rub Paige's back, but as soon as she touched it, she was thrown into a premonition.

In Paige's dream/Phoebe's premonition

A seven-year-old Paige was violently thrown across the room. "Stand up," her foster father ordered in his drunken rage. Paige obeyed, abet slowly as her bruised body struggled with to complete her mind's commands. She stared at the floor in front of her feet trying to avoid making eye contact with her very angry parental figure.

"All I asked you to do was vacuum and mop the floors. Is that such a difficult task? Yet when I get home, I find it not done."

Paige tried to explain herself, "I just wanted to check out this new TV show everyone at school was talking about. It's called Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers and it was supposed to be really cool and it …" Paige was quickly interrupted by her now furious guardian.

"You were watching TV instead of doing your chores. That's it. Take your shirt off and turn around with your hands on the wall." Once Paige was in position, he began striking her over and over again with his belt on her unprotected back. He was in such a blinding rage he didn't even notice when she had passed out from the pain, still leaning against the wall.

In her sleep, Paige was reliving every blow on her back. She whimpered and moaned, twitching with every hit, with tears falling down her face. The dream ended when she lost consciousness. She laid still but continued to sleep soundly, thankfully dreamless.

As soon as Phoebe was pulled into the premonition, Piper moved to her side, ready to be there when she had finished seeing whatever she was seeing. Phoebe broke away from Paige's dream with a gasp and almost immediately began crying. Piper quickly put her arms around Phoebe and started rocking and cooing to her, trying to get her to calm down so she could tell Piper what she had seen.

"Shh, baby. It's okay. Whatever it is we can stop it. It's alright." As Piper's words hit Phoebe she stiffened. "No," she said through her tears. "We can't stop it. It's never going to be okay." She began crying even more with Piper still rocking her, trying to soothe her. Eventually she cried herself to sleep.

Piper wondered what Phoebe had meant by her words 'We can't stop it.' She decided to stay in the room until either Phoebe or Paige woke up and she could question them.

Paige was the first person to wake up, and she was surprised to see Phoebe asleep next to her with tearstains still on her face, and Piper staring intently at her like a cat looking at a mouse.

"Piper, what happened? Why was Phoebe crying? And" she continued, kind of afraid, "Why are looking at me like that?"

"I'm not quite sure what happened. In short, you had a nightmare, Phoebe tried to comfort you, she ended up in a premonition, came out of it crying and then she cried herself to sleep. I'm trying to figure out what she could've seen that made her act that way. If it was a demon attack, she would've gone straight to the Book of Shadows which leads me to believe it was something else concerning you."

Paige was worried that her sisters might have discovered her secret. "Did she … did she say anything after the premonition?" she asked hoping to not give any clues to Piper.

"Just that we couldn't stop whatever was in the premonition and that it was never going to be okay." Piper wasn't surprised that Paige wanted to know the content of a premonition concerning her but the way she asked made her wonder. "Paige, do you know what was in the premonition? Do you understand what Phoebe meant?"

Once Paige had heard what Phoebe had said, she began freaking out inside. 'She knows' was the only thought in her brain. Hearing Piper ask her a question, she quickly focused. "No. I have no idea what she meant." Paige felt sorry for lying to Piper but this was one thing she couldn't let out in this new family of hers. "Ummm, Piper can I go downstairs, get something to eat? I'm feeling much better and I'm kind of hungry."

Piper was distracted when she said okay to Paige's request. Her mind was busy trying to put puzzle pieces together and she would have never agreed if she knew what Paige was about to do.

As Paige made her way downstairs, she quickly decided what to do. "Okay, Leo's gone so he can't sense me. However, I was orbed over here which means no car. I should orb home, get dressed and start driving someplace, anyplace." Paige mainly just wanted to get away and fast. She quickly went into the kitchen where she couldn't be seen and orbed to her apartment.

Piper was upstairs waiting for her other sister to wake up. Finally, she heard Phoebe start to stir. She was quickly by her side. "Hey kiddo. Feeling calm enough to tell me what's going seeing as you know something that I'm betting Paige already knows. I just don't know what that thing is yet."

Phoebe took a deep breath before responding. "Paige was abused as a child."