"No." she gulped in air trying to sound harder.

"No! Take me back there now. I have to go back!" she said as her voice grew louder and more fierce.

Her eyesight was the last to come back.

Brooke opened her eyes to see a stranger in front of her.

Whoever had just saved her was a stranger. Ocean blue green eyes met hers fiercely as she felt herself being pulled away from the water and onto the cement ground as he leaned over her.

Whoever he was he had thought he had save her life when in all actuality he had just destroyed her only chance.

The cold, hard cement met her back as she felt the world comeback at her hard.

She had just realized her best friend had been murdered by her own lover. Add that to the fact that she was in danger and hadn't gotten any of Glory's last words and you had disaster. Her only chance at seeing her friend was now destroyed. She didn't doubt that death had felt her presence there unnecessarily and that her friend would no longer be there where she had left her the next time round.

That was if there was a next time. Thanks to this unknown stranger she would be lucky if she got out of all of this alive.

"Who are you?" she cried out as she pushed him away. She could no longer drown in those intense ocean blue eyes of the stranger. Instead, the real world was coming back to her hard. She was freezing. Her body was completely chilled from being in the cold water and now she was out in the cold artic nights wind.

She chose to forget the fact that she was freezing and instead focused her anger out on this stranger who had saved her life unnecessarily. "Never mind that. Get off me!"

He had tried to touch her. A small dark strand of icy chilled hair had fallen into her face and the stranger in front of her had just reached out to her to move it behind her ear. She had instinctively pushed his hand away from her face and got to her feet. She took a few steps backwards to study him as he followed her to his own feet.

He was cute. Whoever he was he was very, very nice looking. He was as wet as she was. His clothes were drenched. He had no shirt on and his blue jeans were stapled to him.

What the hell was he doing without a shirt on on a night like this?

"Hey, are you okay?" he asked her softly.

"Yeah, I am fine. You, on the other hand, are in for some trouble, "she told him as she conjured a fireball inside the palm of her hand.

Her fireball was unlike any he had ever seen she could tell that easily as he pulled back.

Her magic wasn't like most witches or demons. Her magic was brought to her from the dead and so some things she could do were a little off. Her fireball instead of looking like red golden fire it was the color of gray and black ash as it rose in the palm of her hand.

It could kill as easily as real magic. Sometimes it seemed to destroy people who got in her way a lot easier and a lot quicker then the real magic that most magical beings were born with.

"Wow, crap. Wait, please." he said as he drew back a step with his hands in the air.

"For what? You just totally destroyed my connection to Limbo." Brooke told him as she titled her head to the side in anger.

Conrad stood firmly behind her. He was pissed, too. She could tell that by all the waves of rage filtering into her own body.

Now, she understood the first brief contact with her body and then her being alive again. Conrad must have fought this stranger hard but the stranger had gotten the upper hand over him in the fight.

How was that possible?

Conrad usually would use all of his strength as well as his dark lighter powers to kill off anyone that had ever got in his way. Of course, this stranger may not have gotten in his way. This stranger may have been his excuse for letting him bring her back so she wouldn't find out that he had killed her friend.

Still, this was a complete stranger. She knew her neighbors and he wasn't one of them. There was no way she was going to believe he was just sitting around in his car and saw her being drowned in her backyard. It made no sense.

"I thought you were dying."

"So what? You needed to resuscitate me?" she asked and then she laughed bitterly. "Like being alive is really some shade of wonderful?"

"Hey, I'm sorry.. I came all this way and then I say Mr. big and tough guy there trying to drown you so I thought 'hey, she might need help'. So sue me for trying to save your life." the stranger replied in annoyment as he watched her with haunted eyes.

"Goddess, who do you think you are? You just waltz in here and try to save me.. You're a complete stranger and you don't even know me. You don't understand any of this and you only came in in the middle of it all." she retorted as she paced around the pool yard. Then, she stopped in front of him. "Okay, say I believe your lame cover story. What's your name?"

"Wyatt." he replied.

She felt Conrad come at attention at the mention of the name. She had to admit it was a weird name to have now a days. Most parents didn't go into the old-fashioned names anymore. Instead, the names Apple and Feather seemed to have become traditional and new age.

Wyatt... She had known a Wyatt once. This couldn't be him though. She hadn't seen him in years. He had to have moved on from her.

"Well, okay, Wyatt. You ever go into a movie and it's right in the very middle of it?" she asked him as she watched his blue eyes burn darker.

"Yeah?" he replied, unsure of where she was going.

"And did you know what was going on?"

"No."

"Well, that's kind of like this. You came in during mid-half of the movie and started screaming at the top of your lungs bothering everyone else in the theatre who was trying to hear the important crucial part of the movie. You know why? Because you can't mind your own business. And that is why I should kill you." she told him.

"Hold on a second! What did you expect? After what went down yesterday with your best friend being murdered here. I come in and see a guy drowning you. What did you expect me to do?" Wyatt asked, completely enraged at her acting as if her being drowned happened every day.

Wyatt couldn't believe this was the girl he had once loved. She was nothing like her. She wasn't happy or shy. She was a bitch and she was confident and she was outspoken. She acted more like a general then a girl the same age as him.

She was completely different.

It was like the girl he had fallen in love with had been destroyed. The only thing that was still the same about her was her face. The way her mouth pursed together when she was annoyed and her eyes. Her topaz eyes would never change. They were still the beautiful topaz colored he had fallen in thousands of times before.

Even now as he looked into them he remembered the last time they had been together......

They were lying in her maple wood sleigh shaped bed. Her deep red comforters and covers and sheets layered over them haphazardly as the small slivers of dawning sunlight blew through the room and covered them in a gold light. A wind chime sounded softly in the distance as the breeze blew it. He watched her as she slowly opened her dream ridden topaz eyes to see him beside her.

She smiled at him and laid lazily on her stomach as she watched him.

She was beautiful.

"Wy, how long have I been asleep?"

"A few hours?" he told her softly as he brushed her hair away.

"God, I was trying to stay awake since this would be our last night together. Looks like I failed that mission, " she laughed watching him as easily as he watched her.

"It's okay." he told her simply as he moved over to her and turned onto his stomach. She smiled at him and traced the woods engraved design as he kissed her softly on the cheek.

"Don't go with him. Stay here," he told her.

"Like I have a choice in the matter," she replied leaning her head on his. "Wyatt, I've been meaning to ask this since forever. Would you change anything?"

"Change anything?" he asked.

"About us. Would you have not done it all the same since we're like.. Never going to be together?" she asked.

"Hey, we still have time."

"Wyatt, I hate to infiltrate your whole happy ending thoughts, but we have like.." she checked the clock to see there was only about an hour left alone between them before her father was going to wake her up to start to pack up the truck. "We have an hour to say goodbye. You don't drive and I don't drive. Your parents have never really liked me so they will probably never take you up to see me. So, how will we have that happy ending?"

He looked at her steadily. "Haven't I always been there for you?"

"In one way or another." she replied with a small smile.

"Then, give me a chance to figure it all out." he replied kissing her hard. "An hour you say."

She laughed and kissed him back as she flung her arms around him......

"What do you know about my friend?" Brooke asked him half in a whisper and half in rage. Her soft waveringly tear filled eyes blazed in front of him bringing him out of his daze.

"I know she was murdered." he told her quietly.

"Yeah, you, the police, and half the world that watches the news, and gets off on this stuff." she replied as she shook her head and turned from him.

"I know it was paranormal." he added. He didn't want to see her back to him now. Not after he had come here for her.

"Who the hell are you?" Conrad asked from behind her.

Wyatt had almost forgotten about the dark lighter. He hated him. He hated him for being with Brooke the way he wanted to be with her and he hated him for changing her into this person before him.

She was so hard.

She still cared and that was showing through when he had seen her eyes betray her at the mention of her friend. Otherwise, she was nothing like the girl he had known before.

He wanted her back. He didn't care if he had to kill this godforsaken dark lighter in order to do it.

"Wait, you said your name was Wyatt?" Conrad said after a moment.

Wyatt knew he was piecing it all together. Who else on earth had the name Wyatt? Who else on earth had the strength to bring Conrad away from the girl he loved in order to save her life? It had to be Wyatt Halliwell. The eldest son of a Charmed One.

"Yeah, Wyatt." he replied.

"Wait, wait, wait. Wyatt.. Halliwell?" Brooke asked in surprise as her eyes watched him uneasily as she pieced his identity out herself.

"Yeah, do you remember me?" he asked her as he pushed his full attention onto her as it dawned over her.

Brooke remembered him now. He didn't look all that different. Except for the hair. Last time they had been together when she had been crying and he had come to her like he always did whenever she needed someone....

She had been moving and he had promised to see her again. They had been together. He had been her first.

He had been her first love also.

He had come to her in dreams when she had moved away and helped her through it all. It was real. After all this time, she knew it was real. He had been there.

Then, he had just stopped out of no where.

He had disappeared from her life. Conrad had entered it then.

Brooke didn't have much time to do anything. She knew Conrad knew who Wyatt was. She also knew that he wouldn't pass up the chance to kill a twice blessed being of goodness.

It was about time she chose what side she wanted to be on.

She held her hand back to Conrad and he watched her carefully. He didn't understand what she meant. He didn't know anything about her past history with Wyatt.

He took her hand and kissed it as she saw the crossbow and arrow appear in his other hand. She knew Wyatt felt the threat. She knew he wouldn't leave her here with Conrad. She also knew he wouldn't see the bow and arrow until it was too late.

"What a small world." she whispered to Wyatt with a mysteriously sad smile.

She felt Conrad start to move around her to get his perfect shot to kill Wyatt for once and for all. He always liked it when evil triumphed over good.

He didn't get the chance though.

She pushed him back with the hand he was still holding. He was caught off guard for a second as he flew back a few steps, but still ended up staying on his feet. Then, she moved to Wyatt moving faster then any normal human or magical being could.

She pushed him down. He was on the ground with her on top of him just as the arrow that Conrad had sent missed him by a millimeter.

Wyatt stared up at her with those eyes. His eyes.. His ocean blue eyes... they had never stopped haunting her. She leaned into him and smiled seductively as she kept him close to the ground. He couldn't hear it, but she could hear Conrad loading his bow with another arrow.

"How about a familiar place to go along with that familiar face of yours." she whispered to him.

He only swallowed in shock underneath her as she smiled. She kissed him softly on the mouth as she orbed him out of there along with her and away from Conrad.

She could feel Conrad's anger and jealousy and betrayed feelings swallowing her whole as she did.

"I'll find you and I'll find him and he will die once and for all." he threatened her inside her mind as they appeared where they needed to be.

She stood up and smiled. Brushing herself off as she held a hand out to him to help him to his feet that he took slowly.

Wyatt stared at her in disbelief the whole time. She had found the most familiar place in the world for him. He was safe here even if she wasn't. He should have ever left his own home. Here was sanctuary for him. Her home was only death for him.

After all these years, he had come back. Why?

They were in his backyard and the Manor loomed over them in the impending silence. There was nothing they could say right now that would make a difference. She didn't even know where they could start..

"Wyatt, where have you... Oh. My. God!" they both heard a voice cry out.

Brooke smiled lazily knowing easily who that voice belonged to as she turned to meet its owner. In the process, she had saw Wyatt's surprised and worried look towards her and the voices owner as he looked to see the oldest most legendary Charmed One, Piper Halliwell, come out of the shadows.