Mysterious Midnight - You wrote the first review I got for the last chapter, around an hour after I posted it! You made me very happy! I'm glad you liked it, I hope you like this chapter too.

JanaRose - Yey, I got another review from you, that's three in total, I feel so special! Your review was really nice, I feel very much loved, and I didn't expect people to be so nice!

--Chapter Four--

A little while later all six were in the living room. Piper was sitting in the armchair with Wyatt, giving him a bottle, and Paige, Phoebe and Leo were sitting on the couch. Phoebe was snuggled into Paige's shoulder, obviously the whole empath thing was taking its toll on her, and she was looking shattered. Nicki was curled into the other armchair, hugging her knees to her chest. Nobody seemed to want to start a conversation.

After several uncomfortable moments, Paige decided to break the silence. 'Umm, I don't mean to be rude,' she started slowly, as if unsure what to say to the strange girl in her living room. 'But I don't think that I actually know your name.' The others looked slightly taken aback, as if realising for the first time that they didn't know this either.

'Nicki Halliwell,' Nicki said resignedly. 'Well, Phoenix really, but everyone calls me Nicki.' She was talking down at the floor, and didn't notice the look of complete astonishment on everyone's faces.

'What did you say?' Piper asked before she could help herself.

Nicki raised her head and looked at her. 'Phoenix. You know, like the bird?' She suddenly realised that everyone was staring at her. 'What?'

Phoebe was the only one who had gathered herself enough to speak. 'Well, Nicki, it's just that my name is Phoebe Halliwell.'

'I know that,' Nicki answered her. 'You told me that already, remember? When you answered the door?' Suddenly, it was as if a light had switched itself on inside her head. 'Hang on,' she said, 'how did I get upstairs? Did I get attacked again? I remember being at the door...'

'In a minute honey,' Phoebe said calmly, 'you're missing the point. My sisters' names are Piper and Paige,' she indicated to them in turn.

Nicki looked stunned. 'Piper and Paige Halliwell?' she asked slowly, looking between them incredulously.

Paige muttered to herself. 'Well, sort of,' she said, although only Phoebe could hear her and nudged her in the side.

Nicki was still looking completely astounded. 'Are either of you my mother? Do you know who she is?' Please, oh please, let me find her here. I've waited for so long.

Phoebe could feel her hope, and was so afraid of dashing it. 'Sweetie, please. It's okay, we'll get to that in a minute, I promise. Can we just ask you a few questions first?' She met Piper's questioning eyes and silently pleaded with her to let her ask a few questions. Piper nodded.

Nicki looked unwilling and was about to object when she saw Phoebe taking her photo out from behind the couch. 'My photo! Oh, thank god you have it!' She got out of her chair and went to take the photo from Phoebe, who reluctantly handed it over. Nicki ran her fingers all over it, as if checking that it was still all there, and then just stood there staring at it. Everyone in the room was stunned by the look of contentment that had just appeared on the girl's face, as she traced the picture with her fingertips. 'Is this you?' she asked, looking up into the faces of the sisters, and seeing several similarities.

Phoebe smiled at her. 'Honestly, in a minute, I promise. I just want to ask you some things so we can help you, okay?' Nicki slowly nodded and put the photo on her lap, looking into Phoebe's eyes as if the answers she so desperately wanted would be in there somewhere. 'Okay, good. Nice, easy one to start with, where were you born?'

'In England somewhere, London, I think, I'm not really sure.' Nicki said, screwing up her nose to think. 'Maybe it was Bristol.'

Phoebe looked shocked, but tried to hide it. She saw the same look on Piper's face out of the corner of her eye, and hoped that she was hiding it better than that. Grams' friend lived near Bristol. 'Alright, okay, good. Umm, where did you grow up?'

Nicki looked shocked at the question, but answered it anyway. 'Everywhere, I guess. Or nowhere, depending on how you look at it. I've been in foster care for as long as I can remember. I mean, I stayed in a children's home for a while when I was little, but I've been moving around.'

Paige looked shocked. 'Didn't you have a social worker?' she asked.

Nicki turned to her, wondering why she'd asked. 'Yeah, well they always changed. My last one was called Mr Phelps.'

'And he didn't find you a home?' Paige asked, in disbelief. She now knew why she'd gone into social work; it was to help children like this.

'No, he did. I've been living in the same place for the last four years, since I was eleven. It's in Devon, near Exeter.'

'Oh okay,' Paige said, now slightly happier. At that moment Wyatt started to cry. Phoebe opened her mouth to say something, but was quickly silenced by a glare from Piper. She handed Wyatt to Leo.

'Could you take him upstairs please?' she said.

'Sure...' Leo started, and was about to continue but Piper interrupted him.

'I'll fill you in later,' she said slowly.

'Okay,' Leo answered, and he stood up, holding Wyatt close, and walked to the stairs. 'If you need me...'

'I'll call,' Piper said. Leo climbed the stairs and disappeared from sight. Piper turned back to everyone, in time to hear Phoebe's next question.

'This is going to sound strange,' she said, 'but it's really important that we know this, okay? Where... umm... how did you get your name?'

Nicki looked at her as if she was completely mad. 'It's on the back of the photo. See?' she showed Phoebe and Paige what she meant and read it out. 'I'm sorry I never got to know you, P Halliwell. This was all I had when they found me, and they thought that P Halliwell was my name because they couldn't trace anyone else. Anyway, Phoenix is 'rising from the ashes', because they found me in the doorway of the hospital and thought I couldn't get much lower.'

Paige was looking shocked, Nicki's story was hitting close to home and she wasn't sure how she was feeling about it. Piper looked bemused. 'I don't mean to be rude at all, but if you thought that the P Halliwell on the back of the photo was you, how did you know to come here?'

Nicki took the photo over to the armchair and showed it to Piper, turning it over. 'Look, see the number plate of the car? It says San Francisco on it. I always thought that there could be someone here, because the British social services don't check overseas.' Piper was still staring at the picture. Making out the words 'San Francisco' on the license plate was practically impossible. She must have spent hours staring at this photo to be able to figure out that. I never even looked at Grams' car that hard.

Phoebe was still looking shocked. 'You mean you came all the way to San Francisco just because of that?'

Nicki walked back to the chair and went back to hugging her knees. 'I didn't have anywhere else to go,' she said quietly. 'I wanted to get out of England, and this is the only other place I know.'

Phoebe wanted to ask her some other questions, but could feel her hostility and reluctance and decided to leave it. She went over to Nicki and sat on the arm of her chair, and started rubbing small circles on her back. 'Hey, it's okay. I have just one more question and then we can explain everything, I promise.' Nicki nodded, and leant over, resting her head on Phoebe's lap. 'Okay, you said upstairs that you get attacked a lot.'

Nicki nodded again and visibly pulled herself together. 'Pretty much every time I left the house I was attacked. Sometimes they had knives; sometimes they threw fire or electricity. That's why I learnt to fight, I needed to. I learnt after a few years that I was getting too old to believe in monsters, so I stopped talking about it and went to the library. I've been reading about warlocks and demons and witches since I was six or seven. I assume you are witches, by the way,' she added nonchalantly. Completely ignoring the look of utter amazement on the sisters' faces, she continued. 'Please,' she said, looking up into Phoebe's eyes, 'can you tell me about my mother now?'

Piper was staring at her. 'Okay, fine, but we are gong to talk about this witch thing later, okay?'

Nicki nodded, and the three sisters looked at each other, as if trying to find the right way to tell Nicki that her mother was dead. Piper and Paige seemed to kind of step back a little, the girl had seemed to bond with Phoebe best, so they felt that she should handle this. Phoebe, noticing this, was trying to find the right words in her head to let her down gently.

'Nicki, honey, we think that you're mother might have been our other sister, Prue,' she started, but was cut off by none other that Nicki herself.

'What do you mean, 'might have been'?'

'Well you see, it's just that Prue... isn't around any more. She died, two years ago.' Nicki looked crushed. Phoebe could feel her disappointment and hopelessness, and didn't notice as tears started running down her own face. This poor girl is heartbroken. What on earth am I supposed to do?

Paige then stepped in, as if trying to resolve the situation. 'Don't worry, in our family, people don't tend to stay dead,' she said, reassuringly.

Phoebe turned to look at her. 'Actually, we never could summon Prue,' she said resignedly. 'Or mom, for that matter.'

Paige looked quizzical, she'd never come across that before. 'Why not?'

Piper answered her, but was still looking at Nicki. 'Because we would never accept that she was dead, we were too close to her to be able to accept it.'

Paige was looking thoughtful, as if an idea had suddenly hit her. 'Okay, so you guys can't summon Prue. But maybe Nicki and I can?'

--End of Chapter Four--

Reviews would be appreciated, and constructive criticism would also be very welcome.