Patrick laughed aloud. "No, but it would certainly be memorable," ducking when she swung at him again. "Parent abuse! Parent abuse!" he squawked around his laughter as he tried to slide out of her reach....

... then stopped abruptly when a blonde head cautiously poked around the doorway and halted at the commotion inside the dorm room.

"Excuse me... I was looking for my dorm room and..." she consulted the slip of paper in her hand, "... and someone named Charisma Tagherty."

"I'm Charisma," the young woman offered, pushing her father to one side to extend her hand to the owner of the blonde hair. "And you are...?" wondering if the eyes hidden behind the glasses were really as green as they appeared to be or if it was just the lighting in the room.

"Brianna... Brianna Walker - your new roommate." She took Charisma's hand and allowed the other woman to pull her into the room.

"It's really nice to meet you, Brianna Brianna Walker," Charisma offered with an impish smile. "This big oaf is my father, Patrick. I promise he doesn't bite."

"Hey!" glaring at Charisma before giving Brianna a dashing smile. "Only if you ask nice, lassie," Patrick corrected, laying on the brogue as thickly as he could manage.

"Only until Mama hears him offer," Charisma countered, rolling her eyes in Brianna's direction and causing Brianna to smother her chuckle behind her hand. Patrick huffed.

"Well, I can see I'm not needed here." He turned to Brianna and held out his hand, watching with some amusement as she hesitated momentarily before taking it in a firm grasp. "It's been very nice to meet you, Ms Walker. I hope Charisma doesn't make you as crazy as she has her mother and me for the past eighteen years. You're gonna have your hands full with this one."

"HA! Don't believe a word of it, Brianna Brianna. I was the one bright spot of sanity in a world laden with testosterone."

"And you," Patrick turned back to Charisma. "Behave... and call your mother."

"Yes, Daddy." Charisma leaned forward and gave Patrick a hug, only to find herself in a near-crushing embrace. Brianna moved further into the room to give the two at the door a modicum of privacy.

"I'll miss you, princess. Just remember that I believe in you."

Charisma kissed his cheek. "Bye, Daddy... love you."

"Love you too, princess."

Charisma sighed as she closed the door behind Patrick after he left. Then she turned and looked at her erstwhile roommate. "Sorry about that," she apologized, waving her hand towards the door. "I didn't expect him to hang around so long, but I couldn't tell him no when he asked to come with me."

Brianna nodded. "You seem pretty close," was her comment.

"He's my best friend," Charisma confirmed. "He's always believed in me. My mother too, but in a different way." She shrugged. "I guess I've always been a 'Daddy's Girl'."

"That's not a bad thing. Did you choose...?" motioning between the two single beds.

"Not really... I dropped my stuff," gesturing to the luggage on one side of the room, "but it really doesn't matter to me. I learned a long time ago to pick my battles, Brianna Brianna. Sleeping arrangements don't even make it into the top one hundred as far as I'm concerned." She glanced at the small bag Brianna still held. "Is that all you brought?"

Brianna chuckled nervously and shook her head. "Oh... no. I just thought I'd carry the small one up first... until I found the right room. I'll have to make a couple trips to get all my junk up here."

"You want some help?"

"I couldn't ask...."

"Maybe not, but you don't have to - I offered. Pick a bed," waiting patiently until Brianna dropped her bag on the bed opposite the one Charisma had already placed her bags by. "Great," tugging on Brianna's arm and leading her from the room and down the hallway bustling with activity as students began the process of moving in to begin the fall term. "Let's get your stuff moved in." The rumble of thunder caused a squealing outcry throughout the building and Brianna and Charisma hastened their steps in hopes of beating the downpour.

"So why didn't your parents come?" Charisma asked conversationally as she followed Brianna to her car which was naturally parked on the north forty of the dorm parking lot. The thunder rolled even closer and she cringed, hoping they'd make it back to their room before it let loose.

"They wanted to," she said as they reached her vehicle and she started lifting bags from the trunk. "Unfortunately, they *both* wanted to come."

Charisma's forehead creased into a frown. "And that's a bad thing? I mean... the only reason Mama didn't come was because my oldest brother's wife went into labor and she was their midwife. Otherwise you'd have been pounced on by both of my parents - my father the charmer and my mother the interrogator."

Brianna looked at Charisma as she slammed the trunk closed and hefted the two heaviest bags. Charisma returned the look and picked up the remaining two. "I can see that," she said frankly as they headed back inside. "I'd say, if I had to guess without meeting your mother, that you have your father's charm and your mother's strength of will. It probably gets you pretty much everything you want."

Charisma blinked, bright blue eyes staring at Brianna in amazement. "Are you psychic or something?"

Brianna laughed, her face tilted up to the heavens just as the bottom dropped out of the sky. "Not at all... just very observant."

"I'll buy that for now Brianna Brianna," Charisma agreed. "But it still doesn't explain why your folks aren't here," raising her voice to be heard over the rapid pelting of raindrops. They reached the building dripping wet, and stood in the common room shedding wet for several minutes before deciding to take things upstairs. Only when the door was firmly closed behind them did Brianna deign to answer.

"My parents are divorced... have been since I was about five. I don't know what happened between them, but let's just say the settlement was less than amicable. Everything about me became a competition between them, and I just couldn't bear the thought of that following me into my adult life. So I put my foot down and refused to allow either of them to come here."

"Wow! That's impressive. How'd you manage that?"

Brianna snorted, removing a towel from her belongings while Charisma did the same with hers. "It was easy - I told them I'd disown them."

Charisma's eyebrows went to her hairline. "You're not pre-law by any chance?"

Brianna laughed again and Charisma found herself smiling from the happy sound. "Better... I'm pre-law with a double major in theatre. I figure one will teach me the law and the other will give me the best tools for presenting a case. If I can act in the courtroom, I can own it."

"You sound like a woman with a plan."

"What about you?" wrapping the damp towel around her neck and turned her back to Charisma to slip out of her wet clothes. "What are you here for?"

"A degree in political science and a minor in the law."

Brianna's eyes widened. "Can you minor in law?"

"If you schedule right, you can."

"So you wanna be a politician?"

"I want to be President. For now, though, I'm just going to settle for being a poli-sci student with a lot of extracurriculars to make me a well-rounded individual. It looks good to the press and on paper."

"You've given this a lot of thought."

"Ever since I was five. Daddy told me to dream big... figured I might as well start at the top. C'mon," sliding into her dry clothes. "Let's get unpacked and see if we can find some space to dry these clothes in this room. Then we can go find something to eat... I hope."

With a laugh, they settled down to work and in short order were heading out to find food. It was the start of a beautiful friendship.

************

Did you see it? Did you catch what we missed? Don't feel bad - it took me half a dozen reviews of this and months of other moments before I caught it. It is the only reason Rafe didn't lose his job right away - no one was quick enough to catch it, and none of us could begin to imagine what was coming.

Let me show you what I mean... maybe you'll be able to spot it faster knowing you should be looking for something. Then again, Charisma is still in denial, despite what she knows in her heart of hearts to be true - it ain't just a river in Egypt, you know.

Who knows... maybe watching them *yet again* will help me to devise a solution to this ugly, convoluted mess.


Chapter II

I'm actually going to skip ahead three years - if you have to sit through each and every subtle nuance between Charisma and Brianna during this time, you'll be here for a lifetime and we really don't have time for that right now. So I'll give you the cliffs notes version - if you want to go through the nitty gritty details later, there'll be time for that then.

The first year of college was an eye opening experience for both young women and they gravitated towards one another to keep from falling into temptations that would sidetrack them from their respective goals. It helped them cement their friendship.

Not to say there weren't a few dalliances, but for the most part they were both too focused on their studies and the extracurricular activities they were involved in. Charisma became a cheerleader and Brianna never missed a game. And Brianna's involvement in the theatre insured Charisma attended every new performance the drama department put on.

Charisma met Brianna's parents, separately and then together and immediately issued a standing invitation for Brianna to join her on breaks and holidays. Patrick and Okasa welcomed Brianna as another daughter and Charisma's brothers treated her as though she was the coolest thing since sliced bread. Charisma could have gotten jealous, but she was too busy enjoying Brianna's reaction to a family life that was so different from her own. Brianna was soon immersed in what a real family was like - the good and the bad.