Prue walked through the manor doors with a bounce in her step and the contract under her arm. Placing her bag and keys on the foyer table, she saw Piper carrying out a tray and the table already set with plates, wine glasses and for Paige apple cider.
Walking over, she leaned to take a smell. "Stuff veal chops," Prue said. "How did you know they were my favorite," she grinned and started pouring wine into her own glass.
"Because it's Paige's favorite too and I asked her if she had any requests for tonight. Do you think it's okay for us to drink in front of Paige considering her history?"
Prue put her wine glass down and looked at Piper. "I have thought of that," she said. "I think we might want to ask her how she feels about it because avoiding drinking in front of her might be as much of a problem. I don't want her to feel like she's the reason why because it might make her more aware of her drinking problem."
"I just wish there was something we could do for her," Piper said, finally settling into the familiar role of middle sister and caregiver again. It had been rough accepting a sister after losing Phoebe, but Prue's total acceptance had helped her own.
"Hey," Paige said as she struggled to enter the manor with a big file box. She dropped it and threw her purse down on top of it before heaving her jacket onto the window seat. "Sorry, I'm late. I had to bring home some files to work on over the weekend because I'm falling behind in work."
"Piper just brought dinner out and I only got home a few minutes ago," Prue told her, "so you're not even late."
"Sit down," Piper started plating the food. "Leo's up 'there' for a meeting and I thought we'd make a girls' night of it; you know, continuing last night's escapades."
"Good, because you never finished that story about freezing Leo," Paige said and Prue choked on her wine as she laughed.
"Let's just say Piper worked her own kind of magic on him and leave it at that," Prue said, sitting at the head of the table.
"So, I know why I was late but why were you Prue?"
Prue stopped cutting her veal chop and smiled. "Good news for a change. I've been offered a permanent position at 415," Prue paused at her sisters' 'oh, my Gods!' and 'That's great!', "and apparently the new owner wants to work closely with me to help reinvent the magazine and hopefully go national with it."
"Prue, that's amazing. You've always dreamt of something like this. To think, a year and a half ago you were working at Bucklands in antiquities and authenticating items, and now you have your dream job," Piper raved.
"Wait, you weren't always a photographer," Paige asked.
"No. Grams really pushed history and art history on me. I used to work at a museum before working at Bucklands, which is an auction house."
"Yeah," Piper told her, "and both times her bosses were evil. The first was her ex-fiancé and the second was a warlock who tried to frame her for grand theft tiara."
"Wait, your ex-fiancé was a demon? Wow, you and Phoebe must have had more in common than you thought."
Paige would never have thought Prue would have dated a demon. She seemed too put together, too knowing; like a big sister.
"No, he was just a douche," Prue explained, "but of the two I would rather deal with the warlock any day. Piper's the one who dated a warlock. Hm," she mumbled after taking a sip of her wine, "the first warlock to ever attack us after finding out we were witches."
"Wow, so all of us have a thing for the bad guys. Maybe I can avoid that; you know, learn from your mistakes," she grinned.
"Yeah right," Piper scoffed. "Sooner or later it will happen to you and when it does, Prue will be there to say 'Told you so.'"
"Well, getting back to this promotion," Prue said, "it comes with office space, a secretary of my choosing, and a pay raise. My salary is going to hit six figures, so along with the club and now the restaurant, I think we're going to be financially secure."
"Yes! No more working overtime for me," Paige laughed. "Maybe now I can pursue my art and become the next Picasso."
"Um, now that we've talked shop," Piper said, "we've got some other things that need to be discussed."
Prue sat up straight and put her drink down. "It's occurred to me and Piper that we've spent a great amount of time trying to help you fit into our lives and destiny but recently we've wondered if we haven't put as much effort into fitting into your life."
Shaking her head, Paige just stared back and forth between her sisters; confused. "What do you mean?"
"Well, obviously we've been trying to get you up to snuff with your training in potions and studying the Book of Shadows," Piper said, "and summoning mom and taking you to the cabin was nice but again, it's more like trying to fill you in on everything that you've missed out on because you were given up."
"I think what Piper is trying to say, is that we want to be able to blend our lives together and not to try and make you forget the life you already had," Prue said. "We want to make sure that we don't keep you from honoring your past just because your future changed in a terrible moment," she reflected on Phoebe's death.
"And because it occurred to us that we haven't asked you about your life with your parents, we committed the ultimate sisterly act of snooping and found out about the car accident that killed your parents," Piper tried to break it gently.
Paige pursed her lips and put down her knife and fork. After a moment she said, "If you wanted to know, all you had to do was ask. It's not like I was hiding it."
"We know," Prue said and reached out to grab her hand, "but after learning you had sisters, and learning about your drinking problem we didn't know how to handle talking to you and we thought it might just be easier to see what we could find on our own. I'm sorry."
"Well, what do you want to know," Paige asked; her voiced held little emotion.
"Is it a problem for you if we drink around you," Piper went first.
"You own a bar, Piper. I've been going to it for over a year now, I don't think you guys casually having a glass of wine is going to upset me. I've been sober for almost five years now."
"We also know about your Aunt and Uncle taking you in until you finished high school. Have you told them about us," Prue asked.
"I have," Paige said. "I went to lunch with them last week and we talked about it then. What else do you want to know?"
"Can we meet them?" Prue was the next to speak. "I mean, other than dad, you're our only family. It would be nice to meet yours."
Paige shook her head. "I can't," she told them. "Look, it's not anything against you, but in the few weeks I've been a part of your family I have learned more about the consequences of being a witch from all of your stories and potion lessons. I can't put them in the middle of that."
"I can understand wanting to protect them from this, I just hope that it doesn't prevent you from keeping them in your life," Piper told her. "We've lost a lot of good friendships; don't let it do that you."
The sisters waited awkwardly for something; anything to break the silence.
Piper walked into Three Sisters and looked at all the work Leo had done. It was all cosmetic work; new flooring, updating the kitchen and restrooms as well as new paint on the walls. Walking over to the bar, she saw that Leo had drawn up plans for the outside patio area. It was everything she had dreamed of.
But not everyone was here. She had always thought that Phoebe would be here when her restaurant finally became reality. It had been more than two years since she quit her job managing Quake to open a restaurant, but a bar had been a less risky investment at the time. Turns out business wasn't the biggest risk in her life.
Being Charmed had done some pretty amazing things for her like introducing her to Leo, but it had also caused her undeniable heartache; losing her mother and father at a young age, then Grams and later Phoebe. Now she had the club and restaurant but as she thought about how happy she should be about finally opening it, and how the Source and other demons had given them a temporary reprieve, Piper's eyes began to tear.
There was no way she could have brought it up to her sisters. Not at dinner, after they had all tried to recover from the awkwardness of trying to build that bond that their lives depended on. Still, it had never left her mind for a minute and she didn't know how to break it to Leo. Leo, who was doing everything to make sure her dreams came true and whom would never have his dreams realized because her doctor had told her today that based on a preliminary examination it looked like she would never be able to get pregnant.
'Slim to no chance' was how he had put it. Still, he had made appointments to do more fertility tests on her and had asked about having her husband come in. Piper had made the follow up appointments for herself because she kept clinging to that image of Melinda, the beautiful daughter that she had taken for granted that she would have and now knew would never happened.
Thinking back on that future, she mentally calculated when she would have needed to get pregnant. They had traveled to 2009 where her daughter was approximately seven years old, add another ten months for pregnancy and the truth was her daughter should be conceived right about now.
Piper sobbed, her hand flying to protect the womb that would never be filled. Not only had she and her sisters changed the future so much that Phoebe was no longer here, but now she would never have children. There was no doubt in her mind that this was her punishment for letting her little sister die.
Prue entered the kitchen, ready for the day and dressed to the nines. Jason wanted to meet this morning with her and a few select others like Gil to discuss how 415 was going to be revamped.
She had tons of ideas and her portfolio was coming with her. Of course, Prue would wait to hear what exactly it was Jason wanted for the magazine before attacking this opportunity. Growing up, she had wanted to go into photojournalism and had even had two minors in political science and international relations and while the magazine gig hadn't been her dream job, Prue loved it more than she could have ever realized.
Surprised that Piper wasn't already up, she grabbed a bowl of cereal along with her coffee and sat to read the paper. Then again, she thought to herself, I am up earlier than usual so it's really no surprise that Piper's still in bed.
Paige came tumbling through the door still in thermal pajamas and her hair pulled back in a messy bun. "Coffee," she said reminding Prue of a zombie. At least someone else in this family was on her side when it came to coffee but then again it was annoying when Paige didn't put on another pot.
"Don't forget," Prue told her, "it's your turn to pick up the milk or Piper will go full on bitch on your ass."
Grumbling, she threw herself down into a chair and guzzled her coffee. "Uh, don't get me wrong. These past couple of days I've really felt a lot closer to her and all but how do you put up with the drill sergeant thing she's got going on? It's really frustrating and I'm just glad she seems to have put it on hold."
Laughing, Prue got up to put her stuff in the sink. "She wasn't always like that. It's more of a new development. I was always the hard ass. The one who made sure everything got done and got done the right way. It drove Phoebe nuts until we all got into the groove of this whole Charmed thing."
"Well, where is she? I didn't see her in her room when I was coming down," Paige said.
"She's not upstairs?" Prue marched upstairs and for the first time Paige got a look at Prue in action.
"Piper," she called and walked into her room. The door was open and so she didn't knock first.
Leo orbed in behind the two without any warning. "What's going on," he asked and Paige orbed out in fright, while Prue turned to look at her brother-in law.
"Can you sense Piper," she asked and Paige appeared again.
Closing his eyes, he kept quiet for a moment before saying, "She's at the restaurant. Why, what's going on?"
"Nothing, she just left this morning without telling anyone," Prue said. "Now that we know that she's safe I have to get going for my meeting," and she left.
"What's the matter, Leo," Paige asked noticing the worried look on his face.
"Piper's in pain," he said. "I've got to go to the restaurant—"
"Wait, I'll go with you. Let me just change," she said and jogged to her room to change into jeans and a tee shirt.
"Alright, I'm ready," Paige met Leo and they orbed out together.
"Prue," Jason smiled and moved to escort her into the conference room. The heads of the different departments were all there, and what she thought would be a strictly business meeting was much more intimate; definitely different from her days at Bucklands.
Suit jackets were discarded and wine was being served throughout the room. Picking up a bottle, Prue read the label and discovered it was a very prestigious vintage and realized that it was from a vineyard that Jason had recently acquired.
"Would you like some," he asked.
"Thank you, that would be very nice even though it is a little early. I think I approve of having a boss who owns and operates as many versatile businesses as you do."
"Ah, so you realized it's one of mine. Well, I have my eggs in a lot of different baskets."
"I'm aware," Prue smirked. "I won't just work for anyone, but I thought this was supposed to be a work meeting not a party."
"Oh, no; this is not a party. That happens later."