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Phoebe toyed with the blanket and kept her head down, hoping to avoid Prue. Piper was falling asleep as a result of more pain medication and Prue was sitting in a chair beside Pipers bed. Phoebe wondered when the interrogation would start, she was kicking herself for letting slip about Tom. Prue was tired and was getting frustrated waiting for the test results to come back, she just wanted everything to be ok, so she could take her sisters home and protect them. She glanced over at Piper and saw that her eyes were closed. She decided to talk to Phoebe and ask her about Tom.
She got up from her chair as silently as possible. Phoebe sighed to herself. "Pheebs" , Prue said, walking over to her youngest sister's bedside, "we have to talk"
"About what" Phoebe replied, playing innocent and trying to not make eye contact with Prue.
"I want to know about Tom" Prue said, gently as she sat down beside Phoebe
"There's nothing to tell" Phoebe said, her voice wobbling slightly
"Phoebe, please don't lie to me" Prue said, moving closer to her sister on the bed
"It's all in the past" Phoebe said, moving away from Prue slightly, "and there's nothing to tell"
"He hurt you didn't he? Whoever he was he hurt you" Prue shocked herself a little by being so forward with the question, she hadn't planned on saying that. "Phoebe, I..."
Phoebe decided that as Prue had asked her a pretty straightforward question, she would give a straight answer. She nodded her head weakly, "yes, yes he did" she said, trying to swallow the lump that was forming in her throat.
Phoebe turned away from Prue as tears stung her eyes, Prue had gone pale.
"Honey, why did you keep that from us?" Prue asked in a shaky voice
Phoebe kept her head turned away and shrugged he shoulders, Prue reached over and held Phoebes hand.
"I didn't want to cause you anymore trouble, I knew that me coming back from New York would be bad enough and I didn't want to make you madder than you already would be" Phoebe said, in a tiny voice without pausing for breath
Those few words stung Prue, she felt so incredibly guilty, that her sister was so scared of her being angry, that she had hid something so terrible. She was totally stunned by Phoebe's revelations. Prue pulled her sister into a hug and held her.
"You should have told us, I wouldn't have been angry, we could've helped you" Prue said in her kindest voice, stroking Phoebe's hair. Deep down she was trying to reassure herself as much as she was trying to reassure Phoebe.
"I couldn't, I couldn't tell you and then I found the spirit board and the whole power of 3 thing happened and I just pushed it to the back of my mind, tried to forget about it. I was so scared today Prue, I thought he was gonna kill me, I really thought..." Phoebe stopped herself, she didn't want to start crying again, it was physically exhausting.
Prue held her sister tightly and rocked her in the way that she had done when Phoebe was tiny, when she had had a nightmare. Prue knew that it comforted her.
After about 10 minutes, Phoebe began to speak again, "In the beginning, it was all so good"
Prue knew that they were now on the subject of Tom.
"He'd take me out to dinner and buy me flowers, presents, he was a real gentleman" Phoebe winced at the memory, "But then he got into a bit of trouble, I don't know exactly what is was, but he started drinking. I thought he was just going through a bad patch, I was going to help him you know, stand by him. I was so wrong"
Phoebe paused, wondering whether or not to carry on, the pain inside of her aching to be shared. She looked up into Prue's warm blue eyes, which reassured her slightly. Phoebe took a deep breath.
"He started to get violent, just when he was drunk, just pushing at first. I tried to stop him, I tried to get him help, I really tried Prue" Phoebe said, trying to prove herself in some way to Prue. "Then he was drunk all the time...he started slapping and scratching me, one day he totally lost it, he was beating me up so bad that I couldn't move, I was right where he wanted me. I was his personal punchbag" Phoebe stopped again, she felt so selfish for dumping this all on Prue, but at the same time, felt some kind of relief.
"The last couple of months were the worst. I came home one day and he said, I wasn't fulfilling my duties as a girlfriend" a single tear slid down her cheek, a couple more followed afterwards. Prue held her breath; she knew what was coming next.
"He forced himself on me, he was so different" Phoebe let out a couple of sobs, "he,he,he..." Phoebe couldn't get the words out
"Pheebs, honey, it's ok, you don't have to say it, I know" Prue said, in a soothing voice as she let Phoebe lay against her, "I know"
"He r-raped me and he did it over and over and over" Phoebe was getting more and more upset with every word she said, "and when I begged him, he wouldn't stop, he said it was his right, he just laughed at me and carried on" Phoebe's sobs were louder and more obvious now
"And every time I had the courage to leave him, he used to plead and cry and say he was sorry and every time I agreed to stay, he got more and more vicious. I'm a pathetic looser, who can't stand on her own two feet" Phoebe continued to cry
"You are not pathetic, are you listening to me? And you've been satnding on your own two feet for as long as I can remember. You are a good person, a good witch and you did nothing to deserve what happened to you ok. You are one of the sweetest people I know and most definitely are not a looser. You got away, you came back home" Prue hoped that something that she had said, had been a little comfort to Phoebe.
Phoebe nodded and Prue sensed that there was more to the story than Phoebe was letting on, but she wasn't about to push her for the rest, not now. She needed to keep Phoebe as far away from the edge as possible. She didn't know what else she could say, she didn't want to say the wrong thing, but didn't know what the right thing was.
In the next bed, Piper had heard the whole conversation between Phoebe and Prue, she had been drowsy, but she could still hear fine. She was reeling from what Phoebe had said. How could she have kept such a terrible thing to herself for so long? It must have been tearing her apart, she'd always looked happy, even when she first arrived. There was not even a shadow of a sign that she had been hurt, physically or mentally, and even before, when she had had her phone conversation with Phoebe, she had sounded as chirpy as ever. She realised that the whole situation had got a little more complicated.
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Ok, so there it was hope you enjoyed it, more soon, leanne x