This story is based on a prompt given to me by my beautiful cousin. We're trying to get back into writing after a long break. This was written with the prompt 'flashback' and was finished under an hour. Let me know what you think!

A Flashback

Standing at the island of her ancestral kitchen, Piper was ruminating and counting her blessings. She didn't know what brought on this reflection, but she was hapy to bask in it as she prepared the salad to accompany the chicken she was making. Her children were on their way over, all together for the first time in months. After Penny left for college and Wyatt moved into his own apartment with his fiancee, Piper was hard struck to get her busy family in the same room at the same time, but luck had finally found her, and they were all coming over.

"Gramma, Gramma! Where are you!"

"I'm in the kitchen, Hopey!" Piper called to her only grandchild. At five years old, she was all gangly limbs and rosey cheeks, the embodiment of a happy, healthy child.

With with sounded like a herd of angry elephants following her, Hope came crashing to a halt at Piper's feet before twirling like a ballerina to proudly display her new striped dress to her beaming Grandmother, who paused in her ministrations to admire the child.

"Gamma, look with Daddy bought me today!" She grinned smugly, her sweet voice warming Piper's heart. Piper felt herself swell with pride and love for this little person, the person who changed their life so much. If it wasn't for her, for Chris finally having the motivation to make change, this wonderful life would never have been theirs.

When a strange whitelighter came crashing into their life almost 25 years ago, they never expected that their life could have turned out so badly. It took him dying for them to finally believe him, to make the changes necessary to ensure that their Charmed life stayed that way.

*Flashback*

Piper was running as fast as her legs could move, pushing past the obnoxious officers loitering in her home uninvited. After what felt like a millenia, she finally reached her bedroom door.

Her heart stuttered in her chest when she realised she was too late.

Leo was crouched over his son as Chris lay bleeding and broken on her bed, clutching his hand as if it was a lifeline, his chest heaving with heartwrenching sobs, begging him for what she didn't know. Chris eyes blearily found hers, his face relaxing into a soul-stirring smile that broke her heart as tears slid down his face. His mouth breathed around one word, filled with so much meaning and love. Words she would never really understand the full weight of for another twenty years.

"Hope..."

His glassy eyes slid shut, along with her hope of sending him back to a better future, the future he saved.

*End flashback*

Ever since their powers were revealed to them so many years ago, they faced trial after trial, so many battles that they became confused in her mind whenever she tried to recall them. Nearing 60 years old, Piper had a lot of memories stored in her magical mind, but the memory of her son dying still hurt her to the core. She may have only recently found out that the neurotic man boy was her child when he dieed, but she could feel the child growing in her womb and knowing that the future of the baby she was carrying just ended right in front of her, flashing right out of his wrecked body right in front of her hurt even more.

If it wasn't for him, if it wasn't for Chris giving up everything and coming into his past-their present- and changing everything, they would never have been able to save the world time and time again before finally ending up where they are now with the Charmed children taking over the reigns and helping the innocent every day and enjoying every minute of their blessed life. It took a long time to acknowledge that the pain of losing her time travelling son was worth it for the reality he helped shape with his resolve.

When she held baby Chris in her arms for the first time, she knew that their future was secure as the Charmed Ones, that their legacy was safe in the hands of such a selfless being, whose laugh was now echoing through her house as he ran after his daughter, swinging her into his arms before kissing his mother on her cheek with a boyish grin lifting the corners of his mouth.

"She just couldn't wait to show it to you, Mom!" he snuck a cookie from tray cooling on the counter before being assualted by bro hugs and kisses from his siblings as they orbed into the kitchen and harrassed the middle child in unison.

Sitting round the dinner table with her three grown children and her innocent granddaughter hanging onto every story being told by her silver haired husband, with laughter filling her house up to swelling point she knew that they did it; they had saved the world. All they had needed was a bit of Hope.