Author's Note: Hey, all. I decided to rewrite this story to make it fit in with my most recent story - The Rules of Time-Travel. This serves as Matthews-Mitchell focused oneshot. Don't we love them? Paige and Henry have two kids - HJ (Henry Jr.), Samantha (Sammie), and Andrea (Andie).
As for an age check on the kids - HJ is five years old. Andie and Sammie are both three years old. This takes place in 2012, which makes it about six or so years after the Ultimate Battle. Wyatt is nine, Chris is seven, Melinda is four. Payton is four, and Pam recently turned two.
I don't own Charmed, just the plot of this cute little oneshot. Please review, thanks to those who have!
February, 2012
Night was enclosed around the city of San Francisco. People were getting ready for bed, doing last minute things for the morning that would come after the hours of darkness, and other were putting their children to bed. At the moment, the youngest of the three most powerful witches in the world just happened to be doing that with her two daughters… and wasn't doing too well with it.
"Samantha Abigail! Andrea Patricia!" Paige Matthews exclaimed, looking at her two daughters as she entered their room. "I thought I told you that it was bedtime ten minutes ago!"
Samantha and Andrea, both three years old with blond hair and dark eyes that were identical to their mother's, looked over at her. Samantha (called Sammie by everybody) had a look of guilt on her face - she was the most mature out of the two, and five minutes older than Andrea. Andrea (called Andie), meanwhile, was glaring right back at her mother. Andie was the rebel of the family, no doubt about it.
"But Mommy, we don't want to go to bed yet!" she exclaimed, pouting and crossing her arms across her chest. She looked very determined for a three-year-old. "We're not tired yet!"
"Andrea Patricia Matthews," Paige warned in a low voice, looking down at her blond daughter. "Bed. Now."
Andie nodded, and then jumped into her bed, which was on one side of the room. Sammie raced over to hers, and jumped on it, crossing her legs as she sat on it. Paige sighed, and then put a hand in her dark brown hair. Being a mother was hard at times, and these crazy kids drove her ragged, but motherhood was worth it.
She looked at the two, shaking her head a moment at Andie. "Alright, girlies," she said, giving them a smile, showing that all was forgiven between them. "All your homework done?"
"Mommy," Andie said in an impatient voice. "We're three. We don't get homework in preschool."
"What about your Magic School homework?" asked Paige, looking at both of her daughters with a stern look on her face.
Both Sammie and Andie were enrolled in the Beginner's Magic Class at Magic School, and had been so since they were little kids. All of the Charmed Children who were old enough were involved in Magic School, and took classes on the weekend in order to learn how to use their powers. The only one not involved in Magic School was Pam, who recently turned two years old.
While both of her daughters adored magic, they had very different talents in it. While both of her daughters could orb, each of them had different powers after that - Sammie could sense, though it only came to family, and little Andie could glamour, though not very well at the moment. Meanwhile, Sammie also had the power of cryokinesis, and Andie could use pyrokinesis.
Needless to say, Paige had not been happy when her two-year-old daughter had set the Thanksgiving turkey on fire, when Andie had gotten her power.
The girls' names, however, had both come from people that had been important to the Halliwells. Sammie had been named for Paige's father, Sam Wilder, and her adoptive mother, Abigail Matthews. The family called her Sammie in order to distinguish between the two. Andie, meanwhile, had been named for Andrew Trudeau, a friend of the family who had died defending the family. Paige had felt inspired by Andy's story, and had named her daughter after him. Patricia was the name of Paige's biological mother.
"Mine's done!" exclaimed Sammie, holding her hand high up in the air with a smile on her face. However simple the homework of preschool Magic School students was, the girls still had to do it.
Paige grinned proudly at Sammie. "And did you have Wyatt or Chris look it over?" she asked, crossing her arms across her chest. "Or anyone else?"
In order to be completely done with their homework, the Matthews girls had to have someone check it. Their older brother had to do the same thing. Usually, they had Chris and Wyatt, since they were both extremely close to their only male cousins. Maybe because, like Sammie and Andie, Chris and Wyatt were best friends, even though Wyatt was two years old than Chris and tended to make fun of him. Chris still loved him, however, and Wyatt loved him back. They were brothers, after all.
"Yep, Wyatt said that I'm getting better at writing spells!" she exclaimed, grinning brightly and proudly. Sammie was clearly ecstatic about being praised by her 'cool' oldest cousin.
Paige grinned at the look of pure pride on her daughter's face, and then glanced back over to her younger daughter. She smiled over at her other daughter and said, "And did you finish your homework, Andie?"
"I finished it at school, and Uncle Coop checked it when he came over to pick Pam up," Andie replied, looking at her mother. Pam was often looked after in the daycare of Magic School. "You can ask Uncle Coop or Pam if you don't believe me."
Coop was Phoebe's husband for nearly five years, and Pam was their currently two-year-old daughter. She was extremely close to the twins, even though they were one year old than she was. And since Coop was a Cupid, he knew a lot more about how to grade magical homework than Henry, the twins' father, who was mortal and was still trying to learn about magic from his family. Mostly, he received headaches from it.
"I believe you sweetheart, don't worry," Paige said, giving the two of them a smile. Andie was a rebel, but she definitely had Whitelighter blood in her. The little girl was a horrible liar, and that was a trait that Paige adored in her daughter.
The Charmed One kissed her elder daughter on the head, and then walked over to her youngest daughter, kissing the younger twin on the head as well. She did the same to her older daughter. "Alright, girlies," she said, giving both of her daughters a warm smile. "Time for bed. Mommy loves you both."
"Night, Mommy!" exclaimed Andie, smiling at her mother. She began to burrow into the covers, trying to find warmth.
Sammie, however, looked at her mother, a bit of sadness in her eyes. Paige thought that she also detected a longing for something. "Mommy?" she asked slowly, "Before we got to bed, can you do something for us?"
Paige frowned, and leaned against the side of the door, looking at her daughter. "What is it sweetheart?" she asked, cocking her head to the side as she looked at her daughter. She leaned against the doorframe.
Sammie looked down at her covers before looking at her mother. "Can you tell us a bedtime story?" she asked, cocking her head to the side, just as her mother had just done. The resemblance between the two was uncanny in that moment.
Andie's eyes widened as she emerged from her cocoon, a grin on her face. "Yeah!" she agreed, nodding vigorously. "Can you tell us a story, Mommy? Please! You can choose!"
Sammie nodded eagerly. "But can it be able an adventure you had before Andie and HJ and me were born!" she asked, snuggling in bed and hugging with her teddy bear, a gift from her aunt Phoebe for Christmas a few months ago.
Paige frowned slightly. "Well, you know what?" she asked, looking at them both. She pretended to think about it for a few moments. "I think that I can do that. But we need to include your brother in on this, alright?"
Sammie and Andie both nodded eagerly, and then Paige smiled at the two of them. Her daughters just amazed her sometimes with the simplest things. "Wait here, I'll go get HJ."
She walked out, and then headed down the hall and entered the room that had a sign on the door. It said HJ'S ROOM. Named for her adoptive father and his own father, HJ had gotten the nickname from his father only hours after his birth. Paige's son was two years older than his sisters. Paige smiled as she looked in and saw her husband and son playing Go Fish on the floor. She crossed her arms across her chest, and then shook her head, still smiling.
"I thought you were supposed to be trying to get him to go to bed," said the Charmed One, smiling at her son as he looked at her. She turned to her husband. "Not playing Go Fish with him, Henry Mitchell."
HJ, five years old and extremely similar looking to his father, giggled. "Dad's in trouble!" he sang, smirking at his father. The smirk brought his father's features out even more than they already were.
Henry grinned, not at all phased by the appearance of his wife. "Sorry, Paige," he said, turning around. "It was your son's idea, though." He grinned down teasingly at his son.
"Dad!" exclaimed HJ, crossing his arms across his chest and pouting a bit as he looked at him. "You said that it was alright!"
"That I did, that I did!" exclaimed Henry, rustling his son's hair. "That I did." He looked at his wife and smiled. "So, what's up?"
Paige smiled, and then looked at her son and husband. "I'm gonna tell Andie and Sammie a story," she said, smiling at her son. "And if you want, you can come in and listen."
"Really!?" exclaimed HJ, his eyes wide and happy. "Cool!"
He abandoned the game as quickly as Paige had come in, and raced past his mother and down the hall, entering his sister's room. Paige and Henry could hear their children's voices a couple of moments later. Henry groaned, and then looked at the card sitting around the room.
"Yeah, and I get stuck putting all of his cards away, don't I?" he asked, shaking his head and looking at his wife.
Paige gave a light laugh. "I can put HJ to bed afterwards if you clean up," she said, winking at him. "And then we can go have a little fun of our own…"
Henry smirked, satisfied, and Paige winked again at him as she left. By the time she had gotten back to the girls' room, HJ, Andie, and Sammie were already set up to be able to listen. Andie sat on her own bed alone, lying on her stomach with her legs in the air. HJ sat next to Sammie, her head leaning against his shoulder. Paige smiled, and then sat on Andie's bed, pulling a hand through her daughter's blond hair.
"Alright, what story do you guys want?" she asked, looking around her three children. "It's up to you three. Majority rules."
"The one where you got turned into a vampire!" exclaimed HJ immediately. "That's my favorite!"
"No, that gives me nightmares!" exclaimed Sammie, her eyes wide as she snuggled closer to HJ. It was true. She was terrified of that story, for some reason. Which was why HJ and Andie had to go over to Wyatt and Chris's house to be able to watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel.
"And besides, HJ, we've heard it a million times," Andie pointed out logically, looking over at her sister. "I vote that Mommy tells us one that we've never heard before."
"I agree!" Sammie exclaimed, raising her hand into the air like she was at school.
HJ scowled and leaned back against the wall next to Sammie's bed, but didn't say anything. Paige frowned as she tried to think of a story that she could tell them all and they wouldn't get bored. Paige getting turned into a vampire was a good one, as HJ said, but it tended to give Sammie nightmares more than any other story that Paige had.
"Alright," she said, after a moment of silence. "Have I ever told you guys about when my past life came and bit me on the butt?"
Andie and Sammie giggled at the use of the word 'but', but HJ frowned, cocking his head, bringing Paige's features out on his face. "It did?" he asked, confused. "What happened, Mom?"
"Well, that's what I'm going to tell you, through my story," Paige replied, smiling over at her growing quickly son. "Alright, once upon a time, in a beautiful land, there was a beautiful maiden. Her name was Julia."
The twins were into the story by now - they both adored fairy tales, and could be contented with any Disney princess movie. HJ was clearly reserving judgment on it - he preferred stories with more action in them than the ones that his older sisters liked, as any boy would. He also looked a bit confused, however.
"What's a past life?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. "Auntie Piper mentioned it once, but…"
"Well, HJ, it's basically another life you had, before your current one. You know, Auntie Piper was Patience Johnson, Grams' mom before she was Aunt Piper." Paige could remember Piper and Phoebe telling her about their past lives, years ago.
"No way!" exclaimed HJ, his eyes wide. He was clearly startled in this new knowledge "What was your past life, Mom? Do we know any of ours?"
Paige grinned. "Well, I know from a visit from your future selves that Payton was an Oracle in one of her past lives. And your big cousin Wyatt was King Arthur in one of his."
"Is that why he can use Excalibur?" asked Andie, looking at her mother.
"And why it shocked me when I tried to touch it last week?" asked HJ, looking at his mother.
"Yes," Paige said, nodding over at her younger daughter. "And no," she finished, looking at her son. "That was a protective jinx we put on it to make sure no one - little cousins or demons - could touch it or break it or God knows what else."
"I think that she means mostly you, HJ," Andie put in, smirking at her brother. HJ scowled, and stuck in tongue out at his sister.
"Be quiet, Andrea," HJ snapped irritably, glaring at his older sister.
Sammie, sensing that a fight between her brother and sister was approaching, rolled her dark eyes. "Mommy, can you keep going?" she asked, cocking her head slightly to the side, clearly wanting to avoid a HJ-Andie spat.
"Good idea," muttered Paige, looking at her daughters and son. Sometimes, the two were like cats and dogs. "Anyway, once upon a time… anyway, there was a maiden, named Lady Julia. She was to be married to a handsome prince, named James."
"That's my middle name!" exclaimed HJ, his eyes wide, a grin on his cute little face. "Am I named after him, Mom?'
"No," Paige answered, chuckling as she looked at her son and shaking her head. "You were named after my adoptive dad, HJ, not the prince in the story."
"Can we just go on with the story, already?" demanded Sammie, looking like she was getting a little annoyed with the constant interruptions of her brother and sister. "I wanna find out what happens before we have to go to bed."
"Alright, alright!" Paige exclaimed, putting her hands in the air and smiling at her daughter. "Now, where was I? Oh, yes. Anyway, James and Julia were soul mates - that means that they were meant to be together, by the way. Destined lovers."
"Like Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Coop?" asked Andie, ignoring the angry looked she had just gotten from Sammie. "And Uncle Leo and Aunt Piper? And you and Daddy?"
"Yep!" Paige nodded, glad that her daughter got what she was trying to say. "Anyway, one day, Julia was taken by the Evil Enchantress, a witch who had the power to command the four elements-"
"Earth, wind, water, and fire," put in HJ, also ignoring the hard look that was rewarded to him by Sammie, who was starting to look more and more angry every time that Paige was interrupted.
"Yep. Anyway, the Evil Enchantress wanted to take over the Kingdom where Julia and James lived, and to do that, she would have to bear the Prince an heir - a son, to be precise. So, when James came to rescue Julia, the Enchantress cast a spell to make the Prince fall in love with her. But, when the Enchantress tried to become pregnant with the Prince's child - the Prince disappeared!"
"Where'd he go, Mommy?" asked Sammie, ignoring the glares that HJ and Andie were shooting towards her, since she was now fighting against she had said earlier.
"Well, you might not believe it, but he came in the year 2001 - right in the middle of the attic over at the Manor! I had only been a witch for a couple of months, and I had found a spell in the Book that I decided to cast."
"Personal gain, Mommy!" exclaimed Sammie and Andie as one, their eyes wide as they looked at their mother. HJ's eyebrow was raised, and for a moment, he liked entirely like his father. That boy was definitely his father's son.
"I know, I know!" Paige exclaimed, putting her hands in the air. "I found that out the hard way - place, I was a newbie, so don't go that hard on me for that. Anyway, the Prince thought that I was his lover, since the Evil Enchantress kinda looked exactly like me…"
"What did he do?" asked Andie, looking up at her mother with a childlike, innocent wonder in her dark eyes.
"Well, he tried to make be become his queen," explained Paige, trying to think of a way to explain this to her three and five year old children. "Even though I didn't want to. So, I avoided him, and your Auntie Piper and Auntie Phoebe tried to figure out a way to send him back."
"But?" asked Sammie, knowing that a 'but' was coming in only a couple of minutes. In every one of her mother's stories, there was always a but. No matter what. It was one of the things that Sammie could count on, no matter what.
"But the Evil Enchantress came to 2001 to try and bring back the Prince!" Paige exclaimed, giving a small smile as she saw her three children's eyes widen in both horror and wonder at the same time. At least they were enjoying the story. "And guess what she did when she found the Prince."
"What?" asked her three children in unison.
"She threw me through the air and made me fall onto a car!"
Sammie's eyes widened, and Andie started to suck on her thumb a little bit, a nervous habit she had picked up a year ago. HJ looked at his mother with horror and wonder in his eyes all at the same time. She didn't know what was going to happen, but he knew that there had to be a happily ever after to this story.
Right?
"What happened then?" asked HJ. Sammie, too engrossed in the story, didn't bother to give a nasty look to her big brother this time - she just wanted to find out what happened.
"Well, Uncle Leo actually had to heal me, because I got a couple of boo-boos," Paige explained, not too keen on explaining to her children that she had nearly died from what the Enchantress had managed to do to her. "But, by the time we got back to Aunt Phoebe, Aunt Piper, and the Prince, they were gone!"
"Did the Enchantress take them?" demanded Andie, looking up at her mother with her eyes still as wide as they were a couple of minutes ago.
"Yep!" Paige told her, nodding, her dark hair bouncing slightly off her shoulders. "The Enchantress had taken the Prince and your aunties, and had locked them both in chains on a wall, with Lady Julia!"
"Meanie!" shouted Andie, her eyes angry. Her dark eyes darted towards the doorway, as if afraid the Enchantress was going to show up to get her back for calling her a 'meanie'.
Paige grinned. "Yep, Andie," she comforted her, nodding and glancing over at the door. "She was an extremely big meanie! So, Uncle Leo and I had to go back in time to save everyone. So, then, once we got back, we split up. I went after the Enchantress and the Prince, and Uncle Leo went after Aunt Piper and Aunt Phoebe."
"What happened next?" asked Sammie, glancing at her mother before looking back at the door, clearly starting to share her sister's fear.
"Well, I had to face down the Enchantress. But, since I didn't have my powers, guess what. I had to use hers!"
"No way!" said all three of her magical children in unison, dark eyes wide with amazement.
"Yep!" Paige said, nodding. "At first, she was winning. But then, Auntie Piper and Auntie Phoebe came back, along with Uncle Leo. And then guess what happened."
"What?" whispered HJ, almost terrified to find out what happened.
"I beat her," Paige answered simply, smiling. "Good managed to triumph over evil, and I managed to beat my past life. We bound her powers, and then we went back to our own time." She smiled. "Kids, trust me on this one - good always triumphs over evil. Love always conquers all." She stood up, and then headed over towards HJ, taking his hand and leading him towards the door. "That day, I managed to stand up to one of the first evils I ever would come up against."
She started to walk HJ out, but then Sammie cocked her head. "What happened then, Mommy?" she asked, cocking her head slightly. "You didn't tell us what happened after you guys went home? What about Lady Julia? And Prince James?"
Paige smiled, and then turned around, looking at her daughters before looking back at her son. "You want to know what happened?" she asked, cocking her head to the side, looking at each of the three children again.
"Uh-huh!" HJ exclaimed, nodding as vigorously as a five year old of his size could.
Paige smiled simply before answering the question. "And everyone - Prince James and Lady Julia, me and your aunties, everyone - lived happily ever after," she told them simply.
The children all looked at each other for a moment, and then they all did one thing in unison.
They smiled.
"So, how was story time?"
A few minutes later, Paige walked into her and Henry's bedroom. Henry was laying in bed, and was smiling warmly and lovingly at his wife. They were truly soul mates, Paige knew, like Julia and James, Piper and Leo, and Phoebe and Coop. She grinned at him as she walked over, and then sat down on the bed. Henry looked at her, frowning slightly.
"Henry, those kids might drive us crazy," Paige told her husband, smiling warily at him. She shook her head. "But they're our kids. And they're incredible."
Henry grinned. "I knew that long ago, Paige." He shook his head. "They're going to be incredible someday. After all, they're taking over for you and the girls one day. Think they can do it?"
Paige chuckled. "Now, that I have no doubt of," she answered, shaking her head and smiling. "No doubt of at all."
Author's Note: Hope everyone enjoyed it.