Three Sisters and a Brother

Chapter One

"Poo! Poo!" Patty really did her best not to grin as she heard her baby's voice, followed by the sound of his oldest sister letting out a long suffering sigh that honestly sounded a little bit hillarious coming from an eight year old. Not that Patty was ever going to say that out loud as openly she was nothing but supportive to her eldest daughter's suffering.

"No Chris, Pr-ue. Pr-ue. Prue." Her eldest daughter said to the baby who was sitting in the middle of his play pen, a stuffed bunny was being held firmly by it's soft fabric ears in his fist and his other hand was trying to grab at his older sister's shirt and his eyes were filled with the sort of boundless joy that only really a baby could have, not diminshed by the cruelty of the world.

If only she could keep him that way, her baby boy. But Patty knew that she couldn't, one day he would learn about how terrible and unfair the world was and she could only hope that she could prepare him for that as best as she could. To prepare all of them, as best as she could.

"Poo!" Chris said again with a gummy grin and Prue let out another sigh and Patty really was trying her best not to laugh at her daughter's efforts and so far failure to get her brother to say her name properly. Patty cleared her throat and walked closer to her eldest and youngest and she put her head on top of Prue's head.

"Don't get frustrated Prudence, he's just a baby remember and he's trying his best to say your name, in fact to him he is saying it's just that he's missing a couple of the letters but he'll get them eventually if you keep helping him but you need to make sure that you don't lose your temper, you're a big girl now after all." Patty said softly, kneeling so that she could look her eldest child in the eyes.

Prue and Chris shared the same eye colour, a bright green that they had gotten from their Father and Patty loved to look at it. She reached across and pushed an errant lock of hair behind Prue's ear before she pressed her finger to the tip of Prue's nose and her own smile grew when Prue let out a little giggle, a nice reminder that her big girl was still her little girl as well, and then pulled her close for a hug.

"Ma! Ma!" The baby cried from his playpen and Patty let out a little chuckle as she let go of her daughter, but left a hand on her shoulder for a second to stop her from leaving before she reached into the playpen to pick Chris up, cuddling him close to her and enjoy the limtless affection of a happy baby for a moment before she looked up at Prue.

"You know, you're not just his older sister you know Prue, Piper and Phoebe are his older sisters as well but you are more than that. You are his big sister, he's going to need you to keep him safe and to teach him and to love him. And Piper and Phoebe are going to need you to do all of that as well, that is your job and I know you can do it so well. Can you promise me that you can do that Prue?"

"I will Mom, I promise." Prue said as she took a closer look at the baby in her arms, her brows furrowed in the way that Patty knew meant that her daughter was thinking about something intensely. "Could...Could I try to hold him, I won't drop him! Promise!"

Patty let out a chuckle with the earnestness that her daughter had said that and then she nodded. "Of course you can sweetheart, hold on a sec." She adjusted Chris for a moment and then gently handed him over to her daughter, watching closely to make sure that nothing bad would happen. "Okay, there we go. Just make sure that you support his head, that's very imporant. Yeah, just like that."

Her daughter seemed like a natural at least to Patty's eyes as she held her brother close to her chest, looking down at him with a brand new sense of wonder in her eyes. "Hi Chrissy." She whispered, and then in a moment that Patty was certain could melt anyone's heart if they saw it she leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her baby brother's forehead.

Chris cooed, and he clearly felt safe in his big sister's arms as after a few moments his eyelids slide shut and his chest began to rise and fall as he drifted off to sleep and Prue began to hum to him and Patty watched them being as quiet as she could be, afraid that if she made any noise then the magic of the moment would end.

And it was magic, a sort of magic that the Book of Shadows could never hope to match, and she wished that it could last forever. Of course, at that moment there was the sound of little feet running from the floor above which was joined by some excited squealing and Chris's sleep which had only been a little one was disturbed and he soon joined his wails to the wall of noise.

Prue stared down at her brother now how Patty imagined that she would stare down at a ticking bomb and with a sigh she gently took her youngest out of her eldest's hands and began to sooth him as her younger two daughters ran down the stairs with their Father hurrying behind them, doing his best to keep them under some sort of control.

But with two young children it was like herding cats even at the best of times and Victor did look like he had stared into the void when he finally followed Piper and Phoebe into the sun room and Patty did her best not to laugh at him and she buried her face into her baby's hair in order to hide her smile that had resulted from his suffering.

"Mama!" Phoebe shouted with unrestained joy and almost tackled into her, Patty smiled down at her youngest girl. Well, her second youngest girl. She fought to keep the smile on her face and bent her head into her daughter's hair, to everyone else it would seem like she had just done it to give her a kiss but only she knew that it was to hide her tears.

"Careful Phoebe, you could have hurt your brother." Patty said gently and Phoebe let out a gasp, her eyes widening as she had clearly not noticed Chris before now and now that she had she began to kiss her brother's face with a series of loud, wet kisses

"I'm sorry Chrissy!" Phoebe said with enough of a flair that Patty had to wonder if that when Phoebe was older she would be an actress, she should probably hope not as her children's llifes would be complicated enough as it was without having to worry about one of her babies being attacked by a demon on stage in front of an audience.

Piper was much quieter in showing her affection, only walking to stand by her Mother and leaning up to press a kiss to her cheek before she reached out and took her little brother's hand in hers. Patty gestured for Prue to come closer and when she did, Patty made sure that Chris was safe in her lap before she threw her arms around all of her daughters and allowed herself to just revel in the fact of having all her children so close to her.

A pair of lips were pressed to her forehead and moments later they were pressed to her own lips and Patty allowed herself a moment to melt into the kiss, even if Prue and Piper were voicing their displeasure at the gesture and Phoebe giggled and Chris began to fuss once it was clear that he did not have his Mother's attention anymore.

Patty pulled away first, and smiled up at her husband. Still as handsome as the day she met him, only looking a bit more tired than back then but she couldn't hold that against him, she was a lot more tired then back then as well. "You ready to go?" Victor asked gently and Patty nodded, putting her arms around Chris again before she got back to her feet.

"Girls, go and get your coats. Prue, make sure that Phoebe puts hers on right, okay?" The girl all nodded and Piper and Phoebe ran towards the enterance hallway and Prue followed after them, but before turning the corner she turned back to look at them. Well, she turned back to look at Victor as if to reassure herself that her Father was still there.

It broke Patty's heart, Prue had lived through a lot of her Father's absence as her sisters had been too young at the time to really remember the time where Victor had left them and it had clearly left a mark on her eldest daughter and it was clear that she was waiting for her Father to leave them again and it was like she was walking on glass with him, refusing to allow herself to get to close.

It was a horrible way for a little girl to live and Patty was going to make sure that Prue knew that she had nothing to worry about, she and Victor had tried again and again to work through the flaws in their relationship and it had taken a lot of time, there had been a great deal of screaming and crying and long nights with neither of them saying a word.

But the end result from all of the work was that her husband was back at her side, and they had a son as well. Their baby boy.

Victor had noticed it as well, it was always so interesting to notice that Prue and Victor actually did have a lot of common, once you got past all of the surface details. "She ever going to forgive me, do you think?" Victor asked softly, putting his hand behind the back of Chris's head and staring into their son's eyes.

"She doesn't hate you Victor, I promise you that she doesn't. She just..." Patty sighed heavily, it wasn't like the truth was all that much better. "She just doesn't trust you, she won't trust that you won't leave her again and she's just trying to keep herself safe, she loves you so much that if you left again it would hurt her so much and she just doesn't want to be hurt that way again." Patty glanced down at the floor, at Chris, at anything which meant that in that moment she did not have to look at Victor. "Neither of us do."

A hand came up to rest beneath her chin, tilting her head up so that she was looking into his eyes. "I won't leave you again, any of you. I promise." He spoke and Patty knew that he meant it, but meaning a promise and being able to actually keep it were two very different things indeed. She knew that better than most, she had promised her baby girl that she would never let her go, never let her out of her arms and look how that had ended.

Okay, that was more than enough meloncholy cause she could hear the girls coming back and when they turned the corner a quick look over could tell that they were ready to go as was Chris and so the entire family began to make their way out of the house, Patty holding Chris in her arms while Victor took hold of Piper and Phoebe's while Prue stuck close to her Mother.

It was such a beautiful day that Patty had the idea for all of them to spend a family day together at the pier and it was perfect, absolutely perfect. The sun shinning down on all of them, cotton candy and corn dogs and a day full of smiles and the best moment from the day was absolutely when Prue asked Victor if she could ride on his shoulders.

By the tmie they made it back to the manor, Chris was dead to the world in her arms and Phoebe was dead to the world in Victor's and Piper was rubbing at her eyes trying her best to stay awake and even Prue was clearly fighting her hardest to stay awake and she was putting up a good one at that, but it was clear that it was one she was losing.

Slowly, and it was slowly because they were tired as well, they got all of the kids upstairs, gave them a quick bath, changed them into their night clothes and got all of them into bed. Once that was done, Patty went back downstairs but Victor stayed up a bit longer as Prue had asked him for a bed time story and there was no way in hell he was saying no to her.

Regardless, soon enough they were both back downstairs and cuddling on the sofa. She didn't know how long they sat there together, she was so tired that she seemed to keep difting in and out of sleep but she made no move to try and get upstairs and Victor made no attempt to try and let go of her and it was more than likely they were going to fall asleep and spend the entire night on the sofa.

Of course, at that moment her husband's belly let out a massive growl and Patty cracked open one eye to see that his face had taken on a light pink tint to it. "Huh, sorry. All I've had to day is corn dogs."

"It's fine, I'm hungry as well to be honest. Let go of me and I'll go and make us something." Victor did not seem all that enthuased with the idea of letting her go but he relented and Patty got up, let out a groan as her muscles made their displeasure at being used very clear, and began to make her way into the kitchen.

Now, she knew for a fact that there was a dish of cold tuna pasta in the fridge that they could split. She wasn't going to warm it up, she was so tired that she would probably wind up burning the manor down and her Mother would never let her live that down. She was just about to open the fridge door when the air was filled with the familar sound of orbing as thousands of tiny lights formed into Sam.

"Sam, what are you doing here?" Patty said with a frown, ever since everything that had happened and Victor coming back into her life Sam had been pushed out. It was for the best, at least her Mother had said it was and it was one of the rare times that Patty had agreed with her when she had said that, it was hard to look at Sam without thinking of their daughter.

So, unless she needed healing or advice when it came to the demon of the week Sam had been kept at a distance and she had been glad that he respected that. She still loved him, of course she did but she had made her choice and this was the way that it had to be, it was what was best for the children. For all of them.

"Sorry, I wouldn't have come if I didn't have important bussiness." Sam's voice was kept low, clearly not wanting Victor to hear him. "There's trouble, something is drowning kids up at Lake Skylark."

"The Summer Camp?" Patty said with a jolt, Prue was going to start going there in a few weeks. "What is it, a Warlock?" It wasn't impossible, a tatic that some warlocks used was to kill innocents in order to draw in a good witch who would try to stop them and if it was a warlock then it did seem to be working as they wanted it to.

"We don't know, we can't get a read on the situation but it's something magical. Innocents are in danger Patty, you're needed." Sam's voice was soft but there was that glint in his eyes, that hint of steel underneath all of the warmth and kindness and wisdom that had made her fall in love with him in the first place.

"I'll handle it."

"Patty? You okay in there?" Victor's voice called from the living room.

"You should go, we can go over the details tommorow when Victor's out." Sam nodded and orbed out and before the orbs were gone, Patty turned back to the fridge and pulled out the glass dish and got two spoons from a drawer before she walked out of the kitchen and back over to the sofa where her husband was waiting, painting a bright smile on her face.

"You are literally one of the most impatient people that I have ever met." Patty said with a grin as she placed the dish down on the table, handed Victor a spoon and sat down next to him with her own ready to dig in.

Victor smiled at her and didn't look away. "Everything all right?"

Patty smiled back. "Of course."

And that was enough, that for this little moment, everything was fine.

End of Chapter One

A moment of grace, if you'll allow it.

Please consider leaving a review, follow and favourite if you enjoyed this chapter.

With much love,

DiscordantSymphony