Chapter Three

"Tell me again, what they said to you."

Cate yawned and tried again to sit up in the bed, but Gideon gave her shoulder a light shove, causing her to drop back into the pillows. "They said they got some signs that you were coming back. They asked me if I knew anything about it. They said they knew we were close, when you were alive."

"And what did you say to them, Catherine?"

"I told them, not in this lifetime," she told him with a small smile.

An amused expression appeared on his face. It was a lovely play on words, and he was proud of her. Suddenly, he frowned. "I'm being summoned."

"You can't leave yet," Cate declared, visibly upset despite her obvious fatigue.

"I must. This is more than I'd bargained for, Catherine." He'd forgotten how much he'd missed the simple pleasure of stating her name. "I was expecting to be retrieved by the Elders, physically. The pure fact that they trust me to deliver myself says a lot."

"You don't have any powers, anymore."

"Apparently, I still have the power to transport myself. And communicate with the Elders." Then, after a moment's pause, "Can you stand?"

Catie blinked a few times, wishing she wasn't so exhausted. "Probably. But you told me to stay here."

He appreciated her loyalty and obedience, and told her so with a gentle squeeze of his hand over hers. "The Elders have something else in mind."


"Transcendal WHAT?" Paige asked, still confused, as they all sat around the dining room table.

"Love." Leo replied for the fourth time, now. "It's not that difficult to understand, really. Simple. It's a bond between two individuals –"

"That transcends lifetimes, yes, we know," Piper said, trying to calm down Baby Chris, who was waiting (not very patiently) to be fed.

"What I don't get is why we can't just stop it," Phoebe put in. "I mean, we're the Charmed Ones, for crying out loud."

"Yeah, doesn't that count for something?"

"Of course it does," Leo answered. "But in this case, there's almost two hundred years of devotion between them. It's not at all common, and if they are in any way magical, it just makes the bond even more powerful."

"So nothing can break their bond," Piper said, exchanging a brief heartfelt glance with Leo.

Leo shook his head slowly. "Not even death."

Paige broke the moment with an exasperated, "WOW. So what the heck are we supposed to do?"
Phoebe rested her chin in her hand, then quickly sat up. "Wait just a second, here. Love. That's good, right? I mean, it's love."

"There is only goodness in Trancendal Love, yes."

"So it can't really do anything bad, can it?"

Leo sighed. "Ideally, no. But it contains a lot of power, and even the Charmed Ones are capable of magic that is less than good."

"So you're saying that Gideon could use this to his advantage?"

Piper clutched her baby to her chest and quickly stood up to retrieve her older son. "He is NOT coming for Wyatt."

"It's okay, sweetie," Phoebe said soothingly, trying to comfort her sister and get her to sit back down. "Nothing's going to happen to Wyatt, we promise."

"How do you know all about this, Leo?" Paige questioned. "I mean, about Catherine Ansen and her connection to Gideon."

"Gideon was once my mentor, as you know," Leo explained, "and we talked a few times about how we became whitelighters."

"Gideon was once a whitelighter?"

"Yes, but that was more than one hundred years ago. When I met him, he was already an Elder. He told me some things about the life he had before he became a whitelighter. Needless to say, Catherine was in it. She was his wife."

"Yeah, but her name wasn't Catherine back then, was it?"

"No, actually, it was," Leo said. "In this life, she is apparently reincarnated as one of her descendants. Not a direct one, but her maiden name must have survived until now, and it's the same as it was two hundred years ago." Then, as an afterthought, "Oftentimes reincarnation stays within family lines. You three have firsthand experience, you know that."

"How long were they married?"

"Two years," Leo told them. "She died suddenly. That's all I really know. Except that she's obviously aware of her past life now, or this entire thing wouldn't have even happened."

"Whoa. Okay," Paige said, trying to get her bearings, "they were married in a past life. But what I can't understand is how many coincidences it must have taken to bring them both together. I mean, what are the odds that she's a witch and he's an Elder?"

"There was always magical blood running through Catherine's family," Leo told them. "She wasn't a witch when she met Gideon, however."

"Okay, okay." Phoebe said, not wanting to hear any more. "I don't care about the how and the why. All I care about is what we can do now to stop them."

Leo looked over at a very rigid Piper. "I'm going to have to talk with the other Elders."