Paige was shocked. She had followed Duncan because of her whitelighter nature to help, but she knew he was much more friendly with Piper; both having strong feelings about their relationships with Prue. The youngest sister didn't expect the immortal to confide in her but she had hoped that she could offer him some comfort.
The spell going awry was making things much more difficult for him than it had to be. Duncan thought he would just be seeing his past life, not remembering it. In the single moment in which he hugged Paige, he remembered his entire lifetime with Aislinn.
Gage followed his dog into the woods. He had been hunting when the dog went wild, running toward something that Gage was unaware of.
Following him to the brook, he slowed and took in a sharp breath of air. Kneeling in the brook was a young maiden with fire in her curling locks. He stopped and finally heard what must have distracted his hound. She was singing a song, low and sad. He didn't know how he had missed it earlier. It consumed all of his focus until he blocked out the world.
One foot in front of the other, the tall muscular man gravitated toward the ethereal figure. Stepping on a branch, she turned at sound of it snapping but instead of being alarmed by the intruder the girl smiled.
"Hello," she called from her perch. "Have you come to keep me company?"
Gage stepped closer to her, finally close enough to reach out to her. "Who are you," he whispered and knelt down beside her.
"My name is Aislinn," the girl leaned in and whispered in his ear, and touching her cheek to his she asked again, "have you come to keep me company?"
Lying back in the grass she looked deep in his eyes and held out her hand, interlocking it with his as Gage followed her into the grass.
Aislinn sat in the chair, her hand rubbing her round belly as she sung a sad lullaby. It had only been months since the death of her love, but what should have seem like minutes to the Sidhe felt like centuries. Sometimes she felt like she was going to drown in her tears.
The warmth had left and the cold had been let in, and Aislinn no longer had it in her to sit by the creek and sing like she once had. There was nothing to sing for. Not yet.
Her solitude was broken when she felt the presence of another fae. "What are you doing here," she asked, turning from the hearth.
"I've come to keep you company," Fiona answered. "The troop is concerned for you and I thought it best for all of us if it were me who came to stay with you."
Aislinn rose from her chair to stare into the face of her sister. "I do not need, nor do I want, the troops' concern."
Fiona smiled sadly. "Either way, you have it little sister. You and your child are a part of us and shall be taken care of. Be glad I was the one to volunteer. They wanted to send Tianna," referring to their eldest sister, who was heir to their realm and would one day be queen.
Grasping each other's hands, the sisters shared a knowing look. Tianna had driven Aislinn away from their kingdom with her cruel disregard for their sisterhood; choosing for her husband the fae Aislinn had been wooed by. Alberich had abandoned their romance for the chance to be King.
"What would our dear sister want with watching over me and my child?"
Fionna chuckled sardonically. "Why, to welcome her long lost brethren with open arms and strengthen our community."
"And you want differently?"
"I'm here because of all my sisters you are the only one who inspires concern and action. I wish we all were as close as you and I have been, but I'm afraid that even in our long lifetimes we will not see that day come."
Eyes swelling, the copper haired beauty looked deeply into the eyes of the golden haired Fiona and managed to find her voice through the sobs that were beginning to choke her. "I cannot leave this place, sister. I shan't return home; not now, not ever. For if my magic can do anything, it will one day reunite me with my love and if I return to the realm I will be lost to him. I must stay," she said.
"And I knew that Tianna would do her best to drag you back, but if indeed your love is strong enough to withstand time than so is mine sister. I will wait with you and may you one day find love's tender kiss puckered on thy heart again," Fiona placed her other hand over her sister's bosom. "But let us begin anew right now, and care for the love you have created," she said rubbing her sister's abdomen.
Aislinn began to cry and allowed her sister to embrace her. "Does mother know you aren't to return with me?"
"Mother need not know. Not for many years to come."
Prue wept as one hand instantly went to her heart and the other to her womb, now barren. She had not been given the opportunity in this lifetime to carry a child and that broke her heart almost as much as the memories of children she remembered loving but had never been allowed to hold or watch them grow.
"Fiona must be Piper," Prue said to herself, and remembered back when Phoebe's past life had come back to haunt her. Souls that traveled together were able to recognize one another and Piper's heart was evident in Fiona's pure hearted kindness.
How extraordinary the lives they had led had been, and magic seemed to always play a significant role –whether that was good or bad was still to be determined.
Prue walked over to a small wooden trunk and knelt down beside it, pulling out old sketches that went back as far as her high school days. The images had appeared in her mind like daydreams, so even later when she discovered her heritage it had never occurred to her that they might actually mean anything—yet here she was, searching for every answer she could hope to find in what had seemed to be figments of her imagination.
How had she been able to keep the memories after her soul had been recycled? And why were they just now becoming so much clearer than they had ever been? The only way to find out would be to confront her demons and go face to face with the soul mate that had caused her entire dilemma, but she feared she would destroy them both before she got her answers.
"Wow, no wonder Prue's holding a grudge," Phoebe said a couple of hours later. They had been through many more viewings of past lives and with each one it appeared that there was no happy ending in store for the two lovers.
Prue and Duncan had been witches for at least six of their past lives; or members of the sidhe, though sometimes Duncan had been mortal and for whatever reason heartache always followed. Prue was never short of amazing, having been not only fae in some of her lives but also having led several historically important lives as a vestal virgin, Morgana La Faye, and the wife of a highland king. In watching these lost moments play out, Phoebe began to feel guilt for the role she played in Prue's unhappiness.
One lifetime would have been a shame, but the fact that there had only been one life in which Prue had known happiness at the end of her life made her realize that had she been the kind of person she was now back when Prue was alive, Prue might have had the opportunity to do more for herself like studying photojournalism like she had dreamed about. Now that she was an empath and had experienced feelings of being spiritually distraught, Phoebe knew that Prue had carried those feelings with her to every new life and had been held back from any true new beginnings.
Over the lifetimes they had shared, third party interferences that had initially been responsible for their separation had dwindled away and the unhealed pieces of their souls became the enemy; keeping them from each other if only to keep their pride intact, as was the case with the last lifetime the group had witnessed.
"I can't believe that you were so close," Piper said softly, "to finally be together, and yet you let her walk away and become someone else's queen because you had too much pride than to work things out with her family and create a peace treaty that would have bettered both highland tribes."
"Scotts are a proud group," Connor said. "Two warring families would fight till both sides were extinct before sacrificing their pride. That must have been the life before Duncan found his way to my tribe; before the witch brought him to the MacLeod's."
"And it still doesn't tell us why Phoebe Bowen left him all of a sudden," Paige interjected.
"I think I can answer that," Penelope spoke. "After cursing P. Russell—Phoebe's past life—in order to ensure that she never be reunited with her warlock lover, Phoebe and her cousin—my mother—were the soul living members of the Halliwell line.
"Well, naturally they shared the responsibility of the Warren legacy; protecting innocents and guarding the Nexus. There was an earthquake in 1927 that wreaked havoc on the Manor, though it wasn't as bad as the 1905 earthquake that caused the Manor to be rebuilt entirely—"
"Get on with it Grams," Piper joked.
"Anyway," Grams glared at Piper, "my mother told me that for months after they had to deal with the ramifications of the Nexus being opened."
"Excuse me, but what exactly is a Nexus," Connor asked.
"A place of great spiritual power, created by being equally distant to each of the five natural and spiritual elements which usually places it in a pentagram," Billie told him. "Their house is built directly in the middle of the biggest spiritual nexus to exist in California."
"What exactly were these complications," Paige asked her Grams.
"The Woogie," Phoebe answered. "It was a shadow monster or demon that was trapped inside the nexus in order to keep it from spreading its evil. Whenever an earthquake opened up the ground above the nexus it would escape."
"That's right," Grams nodded. "And, well, once they had things under control you must have moved on, Duncan. Phoebe remained at the manor until my birth two years later before moving out. She never married, and then she passed away in 1970 at the age of 75. She helped train Patty and I while we were growing into our powers."
"It's so weird to think that I'm named after my sister," Phoebe replied and Piper stifled a laugh.
"Pride cometh before the fall," Sandra warned the group and steered the discussion back to a more serious direction. "As these two souls suffered tragedy after tragedy, the pieces of their souls withered and their bond has nearly broken. The way to undo this is to restore the virtues with which your souls were originally imbued."
"And what virtues be those," Mac asked.
"Chastity, charity, temperance, patience, diligence, humility, kindness, and prudence. It won't be easy, and it will most likely take a great amount of time," Sandra warned him, "but time is something that you two have been granted. Use it wisely," she begged.