Work Text:
Listen:
(or click here if your browser doesn't support HTML 5)
Length: 00:41:10 minutes
Downloads: mp3
She didn’t hear him until he was standing over her.
“Find something interesting?”
Paige jerked, her hand flying to cover her pounding heart as she looked up at Chris, the little twerp, standing there in the doorway smirking at her. She followed his gaze as he looked at the piles of photo albums and stacks of photos on the floor.
She contemplated trying to hurriedly move them all into one pile, but she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Well, not really anyway.
Instead, she shrugged at him. “I just found these.”
“In Phoebe’s room?” His stupid smirk grew wider.
She glared. “Okay, I didn’t just find them.”
He moved closer, trying to peer over her hands to see what she was holding. She turned it around so he could get a better look.
An old photo, taken years ago. Grams with her three granddaughters. Piper, Phoebe … and Prue.
Chris looked at the picture, his smirk fading, and then at the other albums and photos lying around. He turned back to Paige. He looked almost sympathetic now, like he knew what she was thinking. He didn’t say anything, though, just waited for her to speak.
“Have you ever …. talked to her?” she asked him. “We talk to Grams all the time through magic, but I’ve never …”
“No,” Chris said, before she could finish.
“Oh.”
He sat down on the floor of Phoebe’s room, right next to her. Their legs were almost touching.
“You want to talk about it?” he asked.
She didn’t. Not really. Not with him. It felt weird. But yet, who better to talk about it with? She couldn’t really talk about it with her sisters, could she?
“Sometimes I just wish I could meet her. Find out what she was like, you know?”
“Find out if she would like you?” Chris said.
Instantly, she felt defensive. “Why wouldn’t she like me?” But he was still looking at her with that same sympathetic expression, and Paige sighed, turning her gaze back to the photo.
“I guess,” she said. “Sometimes I just … they look so happy in the photos.”
“And you wonder if they would get rid of you to have her back?”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”
“But that is what you wonder?”
“No,” Paige said, then she shrugged. “Yes. Maybe. I don’t know.”
It felt like all her emotions and thoughts were jumbled up in her head. She was being stupid. Of course it was natural for Phoebe to want her baby nephew to know his eldest aunt. Her saying that to Wyatt didn’t mean she didn’t want him to know his youngest aunt. Paige knew that — somewhere, deep down inside, she knew that — but overhearing Phoebe talk to Wyatt this morning about Prue …
“Ughhh.” Paige put the photo she was holding down on top of a stack of pictures and started gathering them up. “I’m being stupid. Don’t tell them, okay?”
Chris opened his mouth to answer, but he never had a chance to speak. A loud crash sounded from down the hall.
Their eyes widened as they stared at each other, and then as if they were one, they were both on their feet, racing down the hall.
Wyatt!
They crashed through the door of his room together, hands already up to cast whatever magic they needed to. The demon was standing in the middle of the room, as if it were waiting for them.
It wouldn’t be until later that Paige would realize the demon was nowhere near Wyatt and that the outfit it was wearing looked slightly outdated.
“Glad to see you two,” the demon said, ducking as Paige sent a lamp flying at its head. “Safe travels!”
A brilliant light seemed to fill Wyatt’s room, filling every inch of space. Instinctively, Paige covered her eyes. She felt her whole body twist and her head start to pound, like the light was filling her very being. She felt her lungs being compressed, and she wondered if this was how she was going to die.
And then she was falling forward. But not on to carpet. On to asphalt.
She blinked, trying to get her bearings, trying not to feel like she was going to vomit.
A loud screech sounded behind her, something akin to honking filled her head, and then something grabbed her, yanking hard and sending her flying.
She scrambled to her feet, suddenly realizing she was on the sidewalk in front of the house, and it was Chris who was standing in front of her, breathing hard. A car was still honking furiously as it sped down the street.
She didn’t have time to figure out the details of what the hell just happened. She turned and ran back up the stairs to the house, Chris beside her.
She twisted the front door knob, preparing to barrel inside, but instead her body crashed into the wood as the door refused to budge.
“What?” she said. She tried the knob again. She looked at Chris. “Since when does anyone lock the door?”
But Chris wasn’t looking at the door. He was looking around at the street.
“Chris!”
“Paige, look.”
He sounded so serious. She turned to see what he was looking at, expecting a demon across the street, but there was nothing.
“We have to get to Wyatt!” she said, frustration and fear beginning to bubble up. If that demon took her nephew …
“Does it look different to you?” Chris said.
“The door?”
“The street.”
She turned back to him, ready to snap, to tell him to focus, but it was as if the words struck something deep inside her. Now that he’d said it out loud …
She looked around, at the street and the houses that she saw every day, but there was something about it she couldn’t place.
The door to the house next door flew open, and an older woman she had never seen before appeared on the patio. The woman paused, eyeing Chris and Paige.
“Are you looking for the Halliwells?” she called out. She sounded friendly, but her eyes narrowed like she thought Paige and Chris were dangerous criminals.
“We are Halli …” Paige started, but Chris interrupted her with a, “Yes! We’re cousins.”
The woman relaxed a little. “I don’t think they’re home right now,” she said. “You should come back later.”
“Okay!” Chris called. “Thank you!”
The woman cast them another suspicious look before heading down her front path toward a car parked on the street.
“What are you doing?” Paige said to Chris once the woman was out of ear shot. “What is going on? How did we get out here?”
“I think you mean when did we get here,” Chris said, and he pointed to something behind her.
Paige turned. One of the front windows was cracked — when had that happened? — but as she looked closer, she saw what Chris was looking at. Three backpacks lined up on the floor with a pile of textbooks next to each.
Backpacks.
Textbooks.
A stranger next door.
Slowly, Paige turned, searching the street again. And then she saw what Chris had already noticed. A house in a different color. Flowers that were never there before. Cars she didn’t recognize. A car in their own driveway she didn’t recognize.
Cars that would be at least fifteen years old now but looked still new.
“Oh, no,” she whispered.
Her mind flashed back to a few months before, touching a pair of red boots and ending up being a hippy with Grams. But she hadn’t touched any strange articles of clothing this time.
But they had encountered a demon.
Safe travels, it had said.
“What year is this?” she said now, not sure if she was talking or herself or to Chris. It at least looked a lot more modern than 1967.
Chris was the one who answered. “I don’t know. But we can’t stay here. If they get home and see us …”
Paige glanced behind her at the house that was hers but not hers, or Chris’, yet.
“Yeah,” she said. “Let’s go.”
--
She had fifty dollars in her pocket. Chris had twenty. They had no idea who the demon was that had sent them spiraling back in time — to April 1988, according to a newspaper they had picked up off a bench — and no idea how to get back to their own time. They needed help. They also needed a plan.
The one thing they did seem to have going for them was they both could still do magic. On Paige’s last adventure through time, all she’d had was her human charm.
“Is it weird that we can still do magic?” she asked Chris as they walked quickly down the streets. They needed someplace where they could sit and regroup.
“No,” he said. “You’re alive in this timeline, but your younger self doesn’t have powers yet.”
“Doesn’t she?” Paige said, thinking of the way she orbed out of the car crash that killed her parents.
“Not really,” Chris said. “You didn’t really get yours till Prue died.”
Paige thought about that. She supposed it made sense. Either way, she was thankful she still had them. They would probably come in handy at some point.
They found a small coffee shop that was an Italian restaurant in their time and sat at a table in the back corner. They ordered coffees and muffins. She needed some substance if they were going to be able to think through this.
“We’re going to have to ask Grams for help,” she said finally, licking the crumbs off her fingers. There was no way around it. They needed to find the demon who sent them here and somehow get it to return them to the future. And the best way to do that was with the help of a powerful witch and possibly the Book of Shadows. They might be able to find some other witches — there were a few they knew from their time who would be around now and might be willing to help some witches in trouble — but the chances that anyone else would be powerful enough to help them get back home seemed unlikely.
Chris nodded. “And we’re going to have to do it tomorrow once we know she’s alone.”
They had discussed it. That seemed safest. Plus, none of Paige’s sisters knew they were witches yet in this time. They very well couldn’t show up talking about magic in front of them.
Paige took a sip of her coffee and worried her lip with her teeth. “What if she asks to see our powers? Or what if we’re fighting and we use our powers in front of her?”
Chris looked at her curiously. “What if she does?”
“How many witches out there are half whitelighters that you know of?”
“Just don’t use your whitelighter powers,” Chris said, like this was a reasonable request.
“All my powers are part whitelighter!” Paige said. She shook her head. “Grams knows about me. If we appear at her door saying we are from the future, a girl who is so clearly part witch, part whitelighter, she is going to know, and that could … I don’t know … ruin everything probably. Prevent you from being born. Whatever.”
“Yeah, okay. We don’t want that.” Chris appeared to be thinking. Paige felt stuck. She was not usually the one who had to come up with a way out of things like this. It’s what she had two older sisters for.
“Why don’t we just tell her we’re whitelighters?” Chris said.
Paige frowned. “I don’t know. Maybe. But what if she asks a whitelighter to help us? Aren’t they going to know we aren’t whitelighters?”
“Not if we’re from the future,” Chris said. “How would they know who whitelighters will be in fifteen years?”
“It seems risky.”
“Do you have a better plan?” he asked.
Paige groaned. No. She did not. And he knew that.
“Fine,” she said. “We’re whitelighters who got zapped back in time by some demon and now we need help getting home and we heard she’s the best witch or something.”
Chris nodded. “That’s good,” he said. “And now we just need to go find some witches who will tell us she’s the best witch in town. And who will maybe give us a place to stay tonight.”
Paige downed the rest of her coffee. “Hopefully we seem desperate enough to help.”
“Oh,” Chris said, draining the last of his own coffee. “We do.”
--
“Ohhhh, I wish I could help you!” A witch by the name of Denise McKenna looked at Chris and Paige, her face a mixture of sympathy and disappointment. “I just don’t have those kinds of powers!”
Paige let sadness show on her own face. If she had been worried about getting some of the other witches in town to believe her and Chris, she need not have bothered. As soon as Denise saw the two of them orb on to the front stoop of her small shop that sold herbs and other potions ingredients, she’d had no doubt they were magical beings in need of her help just because they had said so.
Paige couldn’t help but be a little envious at somehow who could be so trusting. But for now, this was what they needed.
She looked at Chris, pretending to be miserable. “Maybe we’re never getting home,” she said. She thought about faking a tear but decided that would be overboard.
Chris wrapped an arm around her, the same expression on his face that he had worn around Paige, Piper and Phoebe back in their time when they had first met him — one of perpetual gloom and doom.
“Then we’ll stay here,” he said. “How bad can it be?”
“Oh, no, no, no!” Denise broke in, waving her hands in the air. “I don’t have those powers to help you, but I think I know someone who does!”
Both Paige and Chris looked at her, pretending to be startled.
“You do?” Paige said.
“You do?” Chris echoed.
“Yes!” Denise said. “She’s the most powerful witch I’ve ever met! I’m sure she can help you! I’m just sure of it! Now why don’t you both come in? I have a guest room you can stay in. It’s so late! And then tomorrow I’ll get you to where you need to go. I’m sure Penelope can get you home! She’s just amazing!”
“Oh, I sure hope she can,” Paige said to Denise, as she and Chris followed her inside. “It’s what we’re counting on.”
--
The next morning, Paige and Chris’ new best friend, witch Denise, drove them over to the manor and dropped them off in front of it.
“I just know Penelope can help you!” she said again. “But if she can’t, you are more than welcome to stay with me again!”
Paige and Chris thanked her again for all her help, and then they stood together on the walkway to the house, watching as she drove off.
Now that they were actually back at the manor, Paige was nervous. Maybe this wasn’t the best idea. She knew all about the Grand Design and how whatever they did in the past could severely alter the future, and that suddenly felt like way too much pressure.
The last time she had time traveled, she had almost accidentally ruined everything. What if this time she ruined it for real? All it would take would be Grams finding out who she and Chris were — or worse, the sisters finding out who they were. If a young Phoebe or Piper came face to face with the sister they didn’t know they had …
Paige couldn’t bear to even finish the thought.
Maybe there was another way to do this. Maybe there was another witch that could help. Maybe they could just figure this whole thing out on their own. This was beginning to feel like such a bad idea.
She took a step back off the porch, turning toward Chris to say this exact thing to him, but it was too late.
The door to the manor was opening, and Paige’s heart sunk in despair as Grams appeared in the crack.
“May I help you?”
“Ummmm.” For a long moment, it was like she had forgotten how to speak, all the worries and fears still whirling around in her mind.
“We’re hoping you can help us actually,” Chris spoke up. At least someone was on top of things. “We were told to come to you.”
“You were now?”
Paige shoved all the negative thoughts from her mind. This had to work. It might be their only shot.
“Yes,” Paige said. “Denise … she owns that shop with the herbs and …”
“I know who Denise is,” Grams cut in. “How do you know her?”
She sounded suspicious. Of course she did. It was a test. Paige knew it well. You couldn’t just believe every person that came to the door saying they knew someone. Demons knew witches too.
She took a breath, trying to think of what to say about how they knew Denise, but before she could speak, or maybe orb, Chris had done it for them, orbing away and back in a few seconds.
Grams’ expression turned incredulous, and she grabbed at them both as she pushed the door open slightly more with her foot. Strong hands pulled them inside.
“What were you thinking?” she hissed at Chris, slamming the door behind them. “I have neighbors!”
“You asked how we knew her,” Chris said, entirely nonplussed. “I thought it was easier to show you.”
Grams stared at him, her eyes narrow, and for a brief moment, Paige had a memory of her own grandmother staring her down with the same look when she was just a kid.
She pushed the thought away quickly. It was not a grandmother exclusive look. There was no way Grams knew about Chris. Or knew who either of them were.
“Fine,” Grams was saying, ushering Chris and Paige into the living room and directing them toward the couch. “Sit. Talk. We have to be quick. My girls will be home soon.”
“They’re not in school?” Paige said without thinking, and she saw Grams’ eyebrows go up.
“Denise told us you have school-age girls,” Chris said quickly. It wasn’t exactly a lie. She had mentioned that she thought Grams had a couple granddaughters but that she never brought them around.
“Well, it’s not really any of your business, but they have an early release day, and I prefer not to talk magic or entertain …” She paused a moment. “Whitelighters I have never seen before around them.”
So she was still suspicious. Paige didn’t blame her.
“We can explain,” she said quickly.
“I would hope so,” she said. “I am pretty familiar with whitelighters, and I am not at all sure why two of them would be together and would choose to come to me when they could just go to another whitelighter. Or why another witch would send them to me.”
Paige had to concentrate hard to keep herself from glancing at Chris to see what he was thinking. Grams was too smart, too aware. She would see that and suspect there was more to this than they were telling her.
“This is going to be hard to believe,” Chris said.
“This is already hard to believe,” Grams answered.
“We’re from the future,” Paige said. She saw Grams’ eyebrows lift almost off her head. She hurried on. “We were with our charges when a demon attacked. We were caught in the crossfire. And we ended up here.”
Grams’ eyebrows were still sky high. “And your charges?”
“We don’t know,” Chris said, his voice heavy, and Paige knew he was thinking about Wyatt. What if the demon had also sent Wyatt back in time somewhere? Paige’s stomach tightened at the thought, but she knew she couldn’t let herself go there.
“But we need to get back,” Paige said. “And a whitelighter can’t do magic to send us back. Only a witch can.”
“Yes, that is true.” Grams said. She pursed her lips as she studied both Paige and Chris. “And how far into the future are you from?”
“Two thousand three,” Paige answered.
She watched Grams eyes as she looked her over, considering this.
“Are you whitelighters in this time?”
“Not yet,” Paige answered truthfully. “I won’t become one for another decade.”
More actually, but she didn’t say that. She was counting on Grams not to ask for details. Sure, she could show Grams who she was in this timeline, but if Grams saw a ten-year-old …
But Grams was shaking her head, still eyeing them a bit warily.
“Fine,” she finally said. “Say I believe you. What do you think I can do to help you? My powers don’t include time travel, and I don’t know anyone’s who do.”
“No,” Chris said. “But you’re a witch. A powerful witch, we’ve heard. Maybe there is some magic you know that can help us find the demon who sent us here? If you could maybe help us catch it and get it to send us back ...”
“You want to find the demon who sent you here?”
“Yes,” Chris said.
“And you know it is alive in this timeline?”
“Not exactly,” Paige said. “But the magic it did to send us here was very advanced. It had to have perfected it over the years.”
She thought about the outfit the demon had been wearing. “And it looked like he came from a different time,” she added.
“So you’re taking a guess?” Grams said. “And you’re taking another guess that even if it is alive in his time that it has the ability to send you back to where you came from.”
“Yes,” Chris said. “It’s the only chance we have. Unless you know of another way?”
“I do not.”
“Will you help us?” Paige asked. “We really need to get back.”
That was an understatement, she thought, but she didn’t want to beg. Instead, she closed her mouth and waited as Grams studied them both.
“Fine,” Grams finally said. “I’ll help you. Let’s see what we can do. The sooner you’re out of my house, the better.”
--
Grams wouldn’t show them the Book of Shadows. Or tell them about it. Paige didn’t blame her. She could probably sense something about their story was off. But she did tell them that if they could track the demon that she thought she might have a way to capture him.
Grams handed Chris a sketchpad and told him to draw the demon to the best of his ability. Then she went to the kitchen to make them some tea.
When she returned, she traded the tea for the pad and studied the demon for a while.
“Okay,” she said. “We might be able to find it by scrying. If it’s alive in this time.”
“That would be great,” Paige said.
Grams excused herself to go get what she needed. They heard her footsteps echoing on the stairs and they knew she was going up to the attic.
Paige and Chris sat in silence on the couch, looking at each other. They knew better than to speak, just in case Grams was somehow listening in. Paige wished she knew what Chris was thinking. Did he think this was going well?
She turned her attention to the rest of the room while they waited. There was so much evidence of the three sisters who lived in this house. A red sweater draped over the back of a couch. A handheld video game. A collection of pencils, all perfectly sharpened.
Paige felt her chest ache as she stared around her. She wanted to get up, to take a closer look, to go peer at the photos she could see on the bookcase far across the room, but she forced herself to stay seated.
A warm handed touched her arm, and she almost jumped out of her skin.
“We’ll get home soon,” Chris whispered. “We’ll get back.”
“Yeah,” Paige replied.
She did want to get back, desperately, but part of her also wished she could race up the stairs, run into Prue’s old bedroom, take a look around — and maybe finally see for herself who her oldest sister was.
She concentrated on staying still, on thinking about Wyatt and the demon, and on why they were here.
The sound of footsteps broke through her thoughts. Grams was back.
“Come on,” she said. “Let’s do this.” She frowned at them. “You know I never got your names.”
For a moment, Paige froze, wondering if she should lie. After her 1967 time travel adventure, Grams in the present had told them she had ensured her younger self didn’t remember what happened. There was no way she would know what her youngest granddaughter would be named.
It was just a name. Plenty of people had names that started with P.
“Paige,” she said before she could change her mind.
“Chris.”
“Okay, Paige and Chris,” Grams said. “Let’s get started.”
--
The scrying wasn’t going well. Over and over and over, Grams kept trying, but so far there was nothing. But what did they expect? All they had to use was the magical essence the demon had left on their skin. Hardly something as useful as clothes or blood.
Paige wanted to kick herself for not at least trying to attack the demon before it attacked them.
But she also had another worry. Maybe the magical essence was just fine, but they had been wrong about the demon existing in this time. Or maybe the demon just wasn’t in San Francisco yet.
They were all huddled around the map and the crystal, in the same position Paige felt like they had been in for hours, trying again with a new swab of magical essence (scraped from Paige’s hands this time) when the click of something unlocking startled them all.
Paige and Chris glanced at Grams, whose face almost immediately lost half its color. Quickly, Grams motioned with her hand at the table, sending the crystal and the map into a corner of the room.
“Not a word,” Grams hissed at Paige and Chris.
Paige looked at Chris. He looked as nervous as she felt, but before she had time to decide if she was more worried about the possibility of seeing her sisters or excited, the sound of voices all talking at the same time filled the house.
“And then do you know what he did?”
“I told you no you can’t borrow my shirt!”
“But you guys aren’t even listening!”
The voices grew louder, each girl trying to get her point across as they moved inside the house and down the hall. Paige felt frozen. She knew they would have no idea who she or Chris were, but the idea of coming face to face with her sisters in this time …
The girls rounded the corner, Phoebe first, followed by Piper, followed by — Paige gasped. She couldn’t help it. — Prue.
The big sister she had longed to meet, the one who she had been secretly looking at photos of just a few hours ago, fifteen years in the future. Here, now, before her.
Prue was seventeen in this time. Paige had already calculated that in her head. But she was already more beautiful than anyone Paige had ever seen. Long dark hair, deep penetrating eyes. She was dressed conservatively, in jeans and a long sweater, a bag over her shoulders and a pile of books in her arms.
“Hi!” Phoebe said, her twelve-year-old high-pitched voice breaking into Paige’s thoughts, but Paige couldn’t stop looking at Prue. She felt Chris elbow her in the side.
She blinked, forcing herself to look elsewhere. Phoebe was staring at her, curiosity across her face. Piper looked unsure, glancing at the strangers in her living room and then at Grams.
“Are we having guests for dinner?” Phoebe asked excitedly. She grinned at Paige and Chris, reminding Paige so much of her grown-up self with her infectious personality. “I’m Phoebe! Who are you?”
“No one you need to know,” Grams said.
“That’s rude!” Phoebe said.
“They were just leaving,” Grams told her.
“We were?” Chris said.
This time Paige elbowed him. As much as she wanted to stay — her eyes kept drifting to Prue who seemed to be studying both her and Chris — she knew they couldn’t be in the same room as her sisters for too long. She wouldn’t be able to keep herself from saying something she shouldn’t.
“Yes,” Grams said. She turned to her young granddaughters. “Go get started on your homework. We’ll have dinner soon.”
Phoebe stuck her bottom lip out in a bit of a pout. “Fine,” she said. “But we always have so much food at dinner if your friends want to stay.”
“Maybe another day,” Grams said. She pointed in the direction of the kitchen. “Now go.”
Piper turned and headed out without a word. Phoebe stuck her lip out a little more, before waving at them.
“Bye!” she shouted.
Prue paused a moment longer, her eyes meeting Paige’s. A beat of time passed as they looked at each other, big sister and little sister, but only one of them aware.
Paige felt words building up inside her, thoughts and questions and all the things she’d always wanted to know, ready to explode out of her.
“I gotta go,” she blurted, glancing at Grams. If she stayed a moment longer, she was going to say something or do something she shouldn’t.
She hurried to the door, not looking back to see if Prue was still watching her. She twisted the knob, flung open the door and stepped outside, trying to suck in the fresh air, to calm her nerves.
She was almost in control of herself when she heard footsteps beside her. She looked over at Chris, her face burning. She knew what that had looked like. She waited for him to tell her how she’d messed everything up.
Instead he held out his hand, showing her money.
“She said to get a hotel and then meet her back here in the morning. We’ll find the demon then.”
--
During the night while Chris and Paige had been at the hotel, Grams had found the demon. And in the morning, just before they knocked on the manor door, she had summoned it to the manor as well, trapping it in a magical cage in the living room.
Paige was both relieved and not. She and Chris needed to get home, but at the same time, seeing her sisters the night before — seeing Prue the night before — had gotten to her. An ache for something she knew she could never have had seemed to settle permanently in her chest.
But she couldn’t deal with that now. Now there were other problems at hand, like this demon who had somehow gotten out of its magical binds and was frantically trying to escape.
Chris had the demon in a headlock, but that was not going to last long. Paige could already see the demon’s hands moving, tiny sparks starting to appear. If it sent them into another time, she didn’t know if there would be any way out.
Her eyes lifted to the heavy-looking lamp across the room.
“Lamp!” she called. She watched it disappear from its table and reappear in her hand. She threw it as hard as she could, praying it met its target.
It did.
The demon jerked, its head lifting, and then it was falling backward, taking Chris with him, right back into the circle of crystals that were arranged on the carpet. Chris scrambled away from the demon as fast as he could. Paige focused on the one crystal that had been knocked out of place when the demon had escaped.
“Crystal!” she shouted.
It appeared in her hand. She set it down the precise instant Chris freed himself completely from the circle. The magic bonds returned, trapping the demon in a dome of light.
Paige stood back, pleased and relieved.
It was only then she realized Grams was staring at her, and Chris too.
It was only then that she had realized what she had done.
Slowly, she lifted her head to meet Grams’ eyes. The silence seemed to last forever as they gazed at each other.
“You’re a witch,” Grams finally said. Paige knew she wasn’t asking.
“I am,” she said anyway.
Maybe that was all Grams wanted to know. Maybe she wouldn’t ask anything else.
But Grams was stepping toward her, hand outstretched, like she wanted to touch Paige, like she wanted to feel her.
Grams stopped before her, her hand still up in the air.
“Paige,” she whispered, and Paige saw the realization form in her eyes. “Oh my god, it’s you.”
She wanted to deny it, but she found she couldn’t. Just like she couldn’t deny it when Grams back in 1967 asked her too.
“I’m sorry,” she said instead. “We didn’t have anywhere else to go.”
Grams moved a step closer. They were just inches apart now. She looked Paige up and down.
“You have powers.”
“I do.”
Grams turned her head to Chris, who was still sitting on the floor just outside the demon’s crystal cage, watching Paige and Grams.
“I want to ask who you are,” Grams said. “But I know I can’t. Knowing anything about the future …”
“Can mess with the Grand Design,” Chris said.
Grams turned back to Paige. “Two thousand three,” she said quietly. “I can wait that long to know you. But I’m not sure I can wait that long to hug you.”
Paige felt tears form in her eyes. If only Grams knew … but she knew she couldn’t tell her, and she couldn’t let Grams think about it too long.
But for right now, for this one moment …
Paige stepped forward, into Grams’ arms, feeling herself wrapped against her grandmother, surrounded by love and the safety of magic.
For one moment, they stayed there, in each other’s embrace.
And then Paige pulled back.
“We need to get home,” she said. “And you need to forget this ever happened.”
Grams’ hand went up again, and this time she touched a tear Paige didn’t realize had been rolling down her cheek. Grams’ thumb wiped it away.
“Don’t worry, dear. You will. And I will too.”
Paige wanted to hug her again, but she didn’t. Part of her was afraid if she did, she would never want to let go.
--
In the end, it was Grams’ threats that did the trick.
“Fine,” she said, when the demon refused to cooperate, just as they knew he would. “Then I’ll kill you. If you’re dead now, you won’t be alive in the future to send these two back in time. And then it will be like it never happened.”
“No!” the demon said quickly. “No, don’t do that. I’ll send them back.”
“I’m not sure I believe you,” Grams said. “I think it’s safer to kill you.”
“Please,” the demon said. “Do whatever you need to do. Inject me with truth serum or whatever. I’m telling the truth. I’ll send them back.”
“You’ll owe me one,” Grams said. “If I keep you alive.”
“Whatever you want.”
“In the future, when you’re hired to send these two back in time — because we all know you didn’t come up with this on your own — you send them here, to this date, so I can help them get back. Do you understand?”
“Uhhhh …”
“Truth serum,” Grams warned.
“Fine,” the demon said. “I’ll do what you ask. Just let me live.”
“How are you going to make sure he does what you ask?” Chris whispered to Grams just before everyone got into position.
Grams smiled at him. “You’re here, right?” Her smile grew wider, more mischievous. “Besides,” she said. “I have my ways.”
Paige had no doubt. She stepped up to her grandmother, her very alive grandmother.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
Grams looked like she wanted to hug her, the same way Paige was craving it, but she just patted Paige on the hand instead.
“See you in fifteen years,” she said, and then she released the crystals, letting the demon out of its cage.
“I’m warning you,” Grams said to the demon.
“I know. I know.”
Chris and Paige moved together until they were side-by-side, shoulders touching. The demon waved its hands. A brilliant light filled the room. Paige took one last glance at Grams before she had to close her eyes, once again feeling like light was filling her very being. She felt her lungs being compressed, and then she was falling forward.
She crashed down on to a familiar shade of carpet. She opened her eyes, sprang to her feet, trying to take in everything at once.
Wyatt’s room. Chris beside her.
But where was the demon? Where was Wyatt?
Chris was on the same wavelength as her. They crashed through the door of Wyatt’s room into the hall.
“Wyatt!” They shouted together.
In unison, they turned to the left, took a few steps — and almost crashed into Piper.
“Piper!”
“Mom!”
“You’re back!”
Piper was smiling. Paige’s heart sank. She didn’t know what happened to Wyatt.
“Wyatt!” Paige cried out, needing to tell her, but then a small cry sounded.
Phoebe appeared, Wyatt in her arms.
Paige felt all the fear and the adrenaline and the energy drain from her body.
“You have him,” she said, almost sinking down right there on to the floor.
“We got to his room the second you two vanished,” Piper said. “We’ve been waiting for you to return.”
“Waiting?” Paige said. How long had they been gone? Not long enough to make a plan?
She realized Phoebe was holding a piece of paper in her hand.
“What’s that?” Chris asked.
“A note from Grams that showed up in my room,” Phoebe said. “Mixed in with some photos that mysteriously got spread all over my floor.”
Oh. Crap.
Paige had forgotten about the photos.
“I’m sorry,” she started.
“It’s fine,” Phoebe said. “Anyway, this note said we should just wait. That you would both be back and Wyatt would be fine.”
“I still think we need to go after this demon,” Piper said. “He came here for a reason.”
“Don’t worry,” Phoebe said. She handed the paper to Piper. “All his info is right here. But I think there is something else we need to do first.” She looked back at Paige. “About those photos.”
“I shouldn’t have gone into your room without permission, I know,” Paige said quickly. “I just … it was wrong … I should have asked … They’re not mine.”
“She’s your sister too,” Piper said, stopping Paige in her speech.
“But I …”
“But nothing,” Phoebe said. “Come with us. We need to do something.”
Phoebe led Paige, Chris and Piper down the hall to the stairs to the attic. Confused, Paige glanced at Chris, but he shrugged. She expected both Piper and Phoebe to be upset with her, but especially Phoebe. She had gone into her room after all.
Phoebe pushed open the door to the attic, and they all walked in.
A ring of candles made a circle on the floor.
Paige’s hand when to her mouth, a gasp leaving her throat. She turned to her sisters. They smiled at her.
“It’s about time you two met,” Phoebe said.
Paige opened her mouth to speak, but the words felt stuck.
“We’re sure,” Piper said, as if she knew what Paige had wanted to ask.
Phoebe handed Wyatt to Chris, and the three sisters stood together, taking each other’s hands. Paige felt her heart begin to pound in her chest.
“Hear these words.
Hear my cry.
Spirit from the other side.
Come to me,
I summon thee.
Cross now the great divide.”
Paige’s heart pounded harder. She watched as golden sparkles of light appeared in the circle the candles made, twirling together until they formed the shape of a person.
And then they disappeared.
A woman appeared. A beautiful, amazing woman.
Prue Halliwell.
Prue looked at Phoebe and Piper, a grin spreading across her face. And then she turned to Paige.
“Paige,” she said. “We finally meet.”
Paige glanced at Phoebe and Piper, then back at Prue. “You know who I am?”
Prue laughed, the sound almost magical.
“You’re my sister,” she said. “Of course I know who you are. I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.”
Paige couldn’t help it. A grin was growing across her face.
“I have been waiting a long time to meet you too,” she said, and then she stepped into her oldest sister’s arms. Behind her Phoebe and Piper stood together, with Chris beside them, holding Wyatt.
Four sisters and two brothers.
Paige hugged Prue tighter.
There was still a demon to find, Wyatt to protect, a future to save.
But for now? Well, for now, things were just as they should be. And they were good.