A new Power of three Part 9:
Brianna

2037, Friday

"So you went away to college?" Prue asked looking at Brianna "where to?"

"I went to Stanford. Lived on campus, only came home for the weekends"

"And when she was down" Meghan said smiling a little

"Sounds like you lived my dream" Prue told her smiling a little

"That's what you told me. I had a great time there."

"She bloomed there, mom, really"

"Well here in San Francisco I was always just Meghan's little sister and it was hard to get along because of that. Everyone expected me to be like Mags and I just wasn't" she said looking down

"Yeah but maybe some things wouldn't have happened if someone knew you were my little sister then"

"Meghan stop" Lily said softly

"You guys never should have found out about this! Seriously. How often do you still want to go into that one mistake?"

"One mistake? It wasn't just one mistake… they all treated you like shit, just that the last one went completely nuts"

"Meghan..." Lily again tried it softly. Meghan, just like Prue always was very protective of her sisters and just thinking about it made her anger rise again. Anna just looked down. She just wanted to forget about it finally. Why did Meghan have to bring it up just now?

"If dad wouldn't have brought the guy into prison, then I would have"

"Wait. What is this all about?"

"It's over. It's not important" Lily said silently and cuddled more into Anna to support her.

"Let's just say Anna – in the past, cause I'd never say anything against Mike, never had a real good taste in men"

"Meghan stop it now!" Lily scolded, seeing how their sister suffered

"No it's okay." Anna said softly as a tear ran down her cheek, which she quickly pushed aside "Meghan's right. You and Meghan had good guys, unlike me." she said and glanced at Prue for a second "My first boyfriend was only a show off. He had some kind of bet going with one of his friend's about who would get more chicks to go out with him by the end of the year. So it wasn't really going long. Then Tom followed in college, who was actually gay" she said, smiling just a little, still not able to understand how she couldn't have seen that one coming

"Afterwards I fell in love with Taylor. He actually wasn't that bad, even Meghan had to admit that"

"Yeah, but he had a thing going on with rally cars and guns. Loved the danger." Meghan said

"He took me once or twice to some kind of car racings. I was his co pilot. He always used to say I was his lucky charm, but..."

"Anna was always scared to hell. She even was getting herself in some kind of sicknesses before the races, just so she didn't have to come along." Lily explained

"So I had a talk with him, to leave his fingers of Anna" Meghan added

"Yeah. That's why he broke up with me. He couldn't understand me being scared. And he didn't understand why I didn't talk to him about it, but to my sisters. The next race he had a horrible accident. I visited him once in hospital and he suddenly understood. We're friends since then though" Anna said and smiled a little

"Well, I'm glad you're fine then. Did me or dad know about this?"

"No. not about the races. I couldn't talk to dad about them. They were illegal..."

"And dad always was a little overreacting when it came to Anna" Meghan smiled

"I loved Ty and I just didn't want to get him into trouble." Anna said and ignored Meghan's comment

"I'm just glad you didn't think that way about the next two." Lily said softly and held a little closer to Anna, like she didn't want to loose her. Just the thought seemed to scare all three. Anna swallowed heavily and looked down

"Scott used drugs. Not at the beginning. But he got in deeper and deeper and somewhen I just couldn't deal with it anymore."

"Did you…?"

"No. I… I dunno. Dad talked to us about that kind of stuff… believe me, how Meghan is even able to smoke is a miracle to me!" all three smiled a little

"Oooh. That good?" Prue asked, chuckling a little as well

"Scary" Lily nodded

"Very detailed"

"And with pictures" Meghan nodded as well

"Well, your dad has seen a lot, I guess. So that was the guy who dad got into prison?" all smiles faded fast again and one sister looked to another

"No. That was Sean" Anna finally spoke out and then unconscionably rubbed one of her rips at the memory

"Fucking bastard. If dad would have beaten that guy up, I would have been in the first row" Meghan swore

"Sean was… well… he… he was rather rough with his lovers" Anna said. She didn't know how to tell her mother about this. Meghan was about to start to say more to it, when Lily just simply shook her head. Prue had seen this and looked back to her middle child

"You don't have to talk about it, if you don't want to, sweetie" she said softly

"Yes I do. Aunt phoebe said I needed to talk about it." Anna said and took several big breathes to brace herself for what was to come "He beat me up several times. He always wanted to be the one in charge and like Lily said, I bloomed at college. I wasn't that shy, pulled back child anymore and so when I told him off or didn't want to do what he wanted to, I got slapped or more." she said lowly only looking for a split of a second at Prue. Prue looked shocked at Anna. She couldn't believe this. How could she just prevent anything like that happening to her daughter without changing the future too much?

"I just stayed at the university when I looked too bad to come home. But… when I wanted to break up with him, he got really onto me. I called you after I woke from being unconscious that night. You raced to me and even though I didn't want to, you took me to hospital. My rip was broken and my arm. My face bruised all over. Out of fear I said I didn't know who did it. That I was just robbed on campus." Anna said now crying

"You insisted on taking Anna home. She didn't want to tell dad, but you said you wouldn't leave her like this alone at Standford."

"You caught me one night during a nightmare and found out the truth. I begged you to not tell dad, but you said he needed to know and Sean needed to get his consequences out of this. You said I had to do something or else he'd do it to others as well. I was so ashamed of myself when I told dad and afterwards also the police. Dad insisted on arresting Sean himself."

"He should have broken his arm during it, too" Meghan grumbled

"I begged you to not say anything to Lily and Mags and you didn't. You and dad fought a lot back then. Dad wanted me to come back to San Francisco and study here. He didn't want me to go back on campus. He said he kinda didn't trust me anymore to come to you guys if something happened. And you just said, that beside this night, college did me good. That I changed a lot. And that it was anyway only one more year. That it would have more effect on me, if I changed universities at this last step of the way. With Lily still living here she once got right into one of your fights." Anna said sniffling as she pushed her tears aside

"Dad was in such a rage. He didn't notice me in the door" Lily told their mom and Prue just nodded understanding

"And I found out after she had her degree cause I tried to hook Anna up. Lily then told me." Prue was completely shocked and looked down as the house fell silent. When she looked back at her daughters, she noticed the huge pain radiating from not only Anna. She watched how Anna constantly stroke over her rip, like she was feeling the physical pain of the past as well. She got up and pulled her 'beetle' into a tight hug, not saying anything though.

"I guess you have the taste in men from me. I dated quiet a few idiots as well." she said softly, but then went silent again. Just holding Anna. After a while she sighed deeply, bit her lip and pulled away again, then cleared her throat. She needed to change the topic. She needed to pull them back out of that dark place they were in right now. Even if her own thoughts were a complete mess. She was so worried about her little girl.

"So what did you study?" she finally asked

"Art history" Anna answered. Her face was still tear strained but a small smile now played on her lips as well

"You..." Prue was speechless

"Worked first at the museum you worked for. But when you died I took over your agency"

"My… excuse me? What?" Prue asked

"You ran a commercial agency. Started with only photos, but then expanded" Lily again informed Prue about the basics, as she seemed the only one to understand she was without any background knowledge in this

"I… OK!" Prue said laughing a little, right then a little unable to cope with all the information

"Aunt Paige even works for you"

"OK"

"Don't worry, mom… you still have a few years" Lily laughed

"And this is working out good? I mean… with you three… raising you. Demons. My sisters. Your dad and him begin a cop?" she asked, not able to understand how this ever was gonna work. How she should deal with all of this at once. She looked from one of her daughters to the next, just as the telephone rang

"That's Kevin. Excuse me for a second." Lily said and jogged into the kitchen, where she had left her cell

"Of course. Lily was 8 when you started. We were old enough to care for ourselves or for another. Aunt piper cooked a lot for us, but she really didn't mind. I mean… you know her. The weekend here always used to start on Thursday night. You always stayed home Friday. It was your day off. Our family day. Saturday we mostly did chores around the house, did something with the aunts or Darryl's family. And Sunday usually belonged to dad." Brianna explained Prue

"Two years later we had a bit of a rough time and that was when aunt Paige came into the game as well. We never felt like… you abandend us or something. We always knew when we really needed you, you'd be there." Meghan added

"And you being the boss made it a lot more easy. You could just stay at home and leave the work to someone else"

"Wow. I never would have thought… I mean, I wanted to work as a photographer again, but with Lily on the way now I thought that this was it..."

"Yeah but that's one of the major things you taught us. You just have to fight for your dreams and they will come true somehow" Meghan told her "we can do anything we want. Be anyone we want. But we will have to fight for and work probably long and hard to get to our aim"

Prue went silent but went into some sort of slight nodding as she processed all of it. She couldn't believe she in the end had everything she ever dreamed off. She had Andy. She did get Meghan back. She had a family. An own house with Andy's white picket fence. She was a well known photographer. Had an agency. Grandkids. From what she got so far she really couldn't have asked more of her life. She must have died happy. She had reached everything.

"Mom?" Prue shook her head a little and looked back at Meghan and Anna

"I'm sorry. But… this is a little much to process at times. I mean it's one thing to see you… your men… your kids… but we're talking about 30 years of my life… and I get to know all about it in like… two hours." Prue told them and smiled again

"But all that doesn't matter… neither do your bad experiences. You turned out just fine. And with such a loving fiancée! How did that happen anyway?" Prue asked laughing

"We spend a lot of time together after you died. He wanted to cheer me. Just friends"

"I don't think friends call each other muffin" Anna slapped Meghan's arm a little

"I let you tell your story, now I tell mom my story" Meghan put her hands up in defeat and then grabbed another piece of pizza

"He got me home one evening and Lily had hung up a mistletoe toe… well the rest is history I guess"

"They hid it though"

"We didn't hide. We just… didn't tell anybody."

"For almost half a year! And by then you were already almost engaged and had bought an apartment!"

"Well… it was difficult with telling everybody…" she looked at her mom "You always said you hid at first as well, because it felt weird at first"

"Well... it really is a little more complicated when you go from being friends to being lovers. One first has to adjust to this new idea yourself."

"See! Besides… the time after mom died was chaos here anyway. With Lily first locked in her room, then having the baby, me and the agency. You know that fine well yourself. And Mike was going to buy that flat anyway, so we just decided to get it together. Aaaand... if I told you first Lily would have been angry with me. If I told Lily, you would have been. I wanted to tell you both together and we only made it to meet up finally, just the three of us, only a little before easter, so what was I go...?"

"Kevin will try to be here tomorrow, latest by noon" Lily interrupted Anna as she came back into the room. She looked from Meghan to Brianna again and again "What?"