Author's Note: Thanks a million to my fantastic readers and reviewers. I love hearing what you guys think.

Chapter Two

Three days later, Patty was fixing breakfast for her daughters when she saw a flash of bright light out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head in time to see Sam poking his head into the doorway, an unusually serious expression on his face.

He cocked his head backward, and Patty nodded, silently, holding up a finger to indicate that she would join him in a minute. She finished flipping the pancakes, presenting them to her girls with powdered sugar and syrup.

"I'll be back in a second," Patty said, as they started eating. "Try to keep Phoebe from making too much of a mess."

Prue made an unintelligible noise that might have been agreement. Only slightly mollified, Patty went out into the hallway to where Sam was waiting for her.

"What are you doing here?" she asked, quietly, keeping her voice down.

"Patty, they know," Sam said, without preamble, and she could almost feel the floor dropping out from under her feet.

"How?" she demanded, incredulously, but Sam just shook his head.

"I don't know," he admitted, and he sounded utterly exhausted. "I've been sequestered with the Council all morning-"

"Are you all right?" Patty demanded, cutting him off. "Did they punish you?"

"No," Sam said, quickly, reassuringly, "nothing like that. They – they want to talk to us. To both of us, together."

"I – I can't leave the girls," Patty protested, automatically, glancing back at the kitchen. "Mother's out at the store; it's my day off from work, we're supposed to spend the day together-"

"The Elders are sending someone down to watch the girls," Sam told her, quietly. "Patty, they want to talk to us, now."

"Well, how am I supposed to trust someone I've never even met?" Patty started to demand, but then she was cut off by a swirl of bright lights forming next to Sam.

The lights coalesced into a young man with sandy blond hair. He looked nervously between Sam and Patty for a second before holding his hand out for Patty to shake.

"Mrs. Halliwell," he introduced himself, "I'm Leo Wyatt. I've been assigned to your daughters as their Whitelighter."

"Really," Patty said, her voice carefully neutral. "And, I'm supposed to trust you with my children?"

"Leo's a good man, sweetheart," Sam told her, quietly. "He'll keep them safe, I promise."

Patty stared at Leo for a long moment, fixing the Whitelighter with a long, appraising look.

"I will keep your daughters perfectly safe, Mrs. Halliwell," Leo assured her, and Patty finally nodded, reluctantly.

"I guess I don't have much of a choice, do I?" she asked, quietly. "Come on, then. I'll introduce you to the girls."

She led Leo into the kitchen where the girls were eating breakfast. Just like she'd anticipated, Phoebe had managed to become completely covered in syrup and powdered sugar. She was a sticky mess, and Patty practically itched to try and clean her up.

But, she controlled the mothering impulse, knowing that she didn't have any time to waste. She and Sam had been ordered to appear in front of the Elders, and if they took too long, the Elders might simply decide to summon them directly, heedless of the consequences.

"Prue, Piper," she called, quietly, and both girls looked over at her, curiously. "This is Leo," she went on, gesturing to the Whitelighter as the stepped up beside her. "He's going to be watching you for a little while."

"Why?" Prue demanded, looking at Leo, suspiciously.

"I have to go out for a while and run some errands," Patty hedged, and beside Prue, Piper's face fell in disappointment.

"No fair!" she cried, her high-pitched voice startling a sudden cry out of Phoebe.

Patty jerked around at the sound of her youngest daughter bursting into tears, but before she could move, Leo had crossed the kitchen to Phoebe's side. He plucked the wailing one-year-old out of her highchair, swinging her up into the air and startling a burst of laughter out of the baby.

"Hey, do you girls want to see some magic?" Leo asked Prue and Piper as he juggled Phoebe on his hip.

"What kind of magic?" Prue asked, still half glaring at the stranger standing in their kitchen. She'd always been distrustful of new babysitters.

"How about this?" Leo asked, and then he reached out and, with a dramatic flourish, produced a quarter from behind Prue's ear. Patty had seen the tell-tale flash of orbs inside Leo's hand, but to the girls, the money had come out of thin air.

Piper cheered when she saw the coin, and even Prue cracked a reluctant smile when Leo presented the quarter to her with an exaggerated bow.

"Do you want to see more?" Leo asked, with a smile, and Prue and Piper nodded, eagerly. Patty backed slowly out of the room, confident that she was leaving her daughters in good hands.

Out in the living room, Sam was waiting for her. Tension was clear on his face as he paced the length of the living room, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. He looked up at her as she stopped in front of him, a million questions in his eyes. He didn't voice any of them, though; he just wrapped his arms around her as she stepped into his embrace, holding her tightly as she laid her head on his chest.

"I'm scared," she whispered, and he stroked a hand soothingly through her hair.

"Everything is going to be okay," Sam soothed, and Patty lifted her head to look at him, blinking back the tears she refused to let fall.

"What if it isn't?" she asked, softly.

"It will be," Sam told her, firmly, his tone reassuring. "We're not going to let anything happen to our baby."

His hand drifted down to her stomach as he spoke, resting protectively over the baby. Patty placed her hand over his, twining their fingers together.

"Okay," she finally said, nodding, and Sam orbed them out of the Manor.

When they rematerialized up in the heavens, they were completely alone in a huge, white space. Patty looked up at Sam in confusion, but before she could ask if they were in the wrong place, the air around them started to shimmer. A second later, thirteen white-robed Elders stepped out of the mists, forming a circle around them.

"Thirteen?" Patty murmured, quietly, as she looked at the stone-faced Elders surrounding them. "That's a powerful magical number, and it cannot possibly be good, right now."

"They've called the full Council against us," Sam asked, a distinctly worried tone in his low voice. Then, he swallowed, hard, when the air shimmered again, and more Elders stepped into the white space, behind their Council brethren.

"It looks like they've called the entire heavens against us," Patty muttered, darkly.

Sam opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, one of the Elders stepped forward. He was an older man with close-cropped, steel-gray hair and a cold expression on his face. His very presence commanded the attention of everyone around them.

"Odin," Sam whispered, leaning close to her. "He's the head of the Council."

"Patricia Halliwell," Odin intoned, suddenly, making them both jump. "Samuel Wilder. Are you aware of why we have brought you both here before this Council, today?"

He fixed each of them with a somber, unblinking gaze, and Patty had to force herself not to squirm under his intense stare.

"Our baby," she finally said, her voice hollow, and Sam reached out and took her hand, squeezing reassuringly.

"As you are both well aware," Odin said, sternly, "any union between a witch and a Whitelighter is strictly forbidden."

"We know," Sam said, his voice unwavering as he stared defiantly at the Elder.

"Normally, a transgression of this nature would be severely punished," Odin went on. "But, certain circumstances have arisen which have swayed our opinion. As it seems, the entire course of history may be affected."

"What are you talking about?" Patty asked, cautiously, exchanging a worried look with Sam.

The Elder gestured behind him, and one of the lower-ranking Elders on the fringes of the group made his way forward to join the rest of the Council. Patty recognized the man she'd known as Ramus, and she wondered, briefly, what her mother's old Whitelighter was doing there.

"As you may be aware," Ramus said, into the silence, "I have the power to see the future."

Patty nodded, uneasily, unconsciously squeezing Sam's hand tighter as she waited for the newly-appointed Elder to continue speaking.

"I have seen many potential futures, recently," Ramus went on, his voice grave. "In one, a future where the Charmed Ones had been destroyed and the world decimated by Evil; in another, a peaceful Utopia. The other visions run along the same lines, some good, and some bad. And in the center of those visions was a child." He stopped, fixing her and Sam with a pointed look. "This child."

"Other Seers have been reported having similar visions," Odin said, picking up where Ramus had left off. "This child is vital to the survival of good magic."

"What about my daughters?" Patty asked, picking up on one of the futures that Ramus had described. "What about their survival?"

"I see many, conflicting futures," Ramus said, slowly, staring off into the distance. "Only time will tell which future will prevail."

"Her daughters are the Charmed Ones," Sam argued, as Patty looked up at him in shock. "The most powerful witches to walk the face of the Earth. No demon could-"

"Their powers are bound," Ramus broke in, interrupting Sam.

"Only to protect them," Patty insisted. "To save their lives from a warlock."

"Your intent was good," a third Elder, this one a woman with short blonde hair, spoke up, gently. "But, it crippled the side of Good in the battle against Evil, and we cannot leave the world without a champion."

"And, you want to make our child that champion?" Sam asked, cautiously.

"Exactly," the woman confirmed, nodding. "She will be a powerful witch, using her powers to protect the Innocent."

"She?" Patty asked, quietly, as the Elder nodded again, smiling. "I'm going to have another daughter?"

"What if we don't want that kind of life for our daughter?" Sam argued, suddenly, a challenging tone in his voice as he wrapped his arms protectively around Patty and their baby.

"We do not require your permission," Odin told him, flatly. "We are giving you the chance to raise your daughter with her family. But, we can just as easily give her to someone else to raise. Someone more cooperative."

"Odin!" the female Elder scolded. "Don't say it like that!" Her tone softened as she turned to face Patty and Sam. "What we mean," she corrected, "is that if the stress of a fourth child is too much for you to handle, then we can find her a good home, where she will be well-loved-"

"You're not taking my baby!" Patty snarled, surprising even herself with her own vehemence as she glared at the assembled Elders.

"We have no desire to separate the child from her sisters," the woman continued, still in that placating tone.

"We'll raise our daughter, Sandra," Sam spoke up, the finality in his voice ending the discussion for everyone involved.

"And, she'll be taught about magic," Patty added, "if that's what it takes to keep her with us. Now, can we go home, please?"

She knew, from the way that Odin's eyes sparked with anger, that she was treading dangerously close to insubordination. And she knew that they could still take her baby from her if they wanted, and she and Sam would never see their daughter, again. But, she couldn't bring herself to be careful around the Elders. They just made her so angry.

"Very well," Odin said, suddenly, startling her. "We will be watching."

And with that ominous warning, he waved his hand. Bright lights obscured Patty's vision, and when she could see again, she and Sam were standing in the living room of the Manor.

"It looks like we won that round," Patty said, lightly, curling her arms protectively around her still-flat stomach.

"For now," came Sam's quiet answer. "We won, for now."