Safely back in 2004 once again, Piper and Phoebe were in the kitchen making coffee to take to a pale looking Paige who was sat frozen on the sofa, looking as if someone had literally just pulled the rug from under her.

" I don't think she's blinked in the past two minutes" whispered Phoebe as the kettle boiled.

" I think she's in shock" Piper replied.

"but why?" Phoebe asked.

"I don't know" said Piper in a measured tone. " lets take her a drink and find out."

The two oldest sisters walked into the sunroom. They handed Paige her drink.

"Well?" Phoebe said questioningly. " according to that tree you should have an 11 year old daughter by now!" She tried to make light of it.

Paige slowly raised her eyes upwards. Piper and Phoebe were staring at her as if they expecting a response, but there wasn't one. There were no cries of "but that's impossible!" or " are you joking!" just one long deafening silence. Paige's mind was racing, what should she say? should she deny it? She asked herself, and the realised that the silence had spoken for her, and that it was too late to try and act surprised. "So this is it" she thought, " on one of the crappiest days in the universe, I have to come home and recount the second worst day of my life, all because Phoebe, wanted to know who she's bloody going to marry." She felt her fingers clench, and looked up to find her sisters sat on either side of her, expressions of concern on their faces.

"It's ok Paige" Piper said softly, stroking her younger sisters back, "you don't have to tell us"

"No, its alright" Paige croaked, in an oddly high pitch voice which didn't seem to belong to her. " I want to tell you"

Paige took a deep breath and began " As I've said before, I tended to walk on the wild side during my teenage years, drinking , drugs, sex…the year I turned 15, my rebellion was in full flow, and I got invited to this party at a friends house, I got chating to this guy there, an we ended up , well you know, and then he left and I never saw him again. Anyway..i didn't find out that I was pregnant until I was 5 months gone, I was high as a kite most of the time, so I never really knew what day of the week it was, let alone the actual date. I didn't know what to do, I couldn't tell my parents, they would have been so mad, so I kept it to myself. They found out though, you see, when I discovered I was pregnant, I decided to give up all the crazy stuff, and my mom realised that something big must have happened to have made me stop sneaking out of my bedroom window at night."

"What did she say" Piper asked.

" She was really good about it, actually. Well as good as you can be when you find out your daughter is 7 months pregnant. She helped me break the news to dad, took me to the hospital so I could get checked out and all that,…… I had a scan, it was a little girl………. They told me that they would stand by me, whatever I wanted to do."

Paige paused as she took a sip of her coffee, mentally preparing herself for what was coming next, her voice began to quiver as she spoke. " I went into labour a week early,…….. mom drove me the hospital. I've never experienced so much pain in my whole life" she glanced up at Piper, who silently nodded.

" But then, after 10 hours it was all over, and and, and" the tears began rolling down Paige's face now, as she fought a losing battle to keep her voice steady. " I waited for them to give me the baby to hold,….. they wouldn't, they said they were just taking her away to do some tests, but they never brought her back, …… my baby died, died and it was all my fault!"

Paige collapsed into Pipers arms, her entire body shook as she sobbed, burying her head into Pipers shoulder. Piper wrapped her arms around her youngest sister, rubbed her back and rocked her gentle back and forth. Phoebe looked on, horrified by what she had just heard. She'd not expected this. Neither of them had.

Paige's sobs eventually gave way, but she kept repeating over and over " it's my fault"

" No. it wasn't your fault sweetie" Piper soothed " How could it be?"

" It was" Paige insisted. " I took drugs, I didn't go for any scans for the first 7 months, it was my fault, totally my fault." The suddenly something inside her just snapped. She needed to get out of there, gathering all of her strength, she rose from the sofa.

" If you guys don't mind, I'd like to be on my own right now," and before they had chance to respond she orbed out and up to her room, leaving Phoebe and Piper alone in the living room, listening to the sobs coming from upstairs.

2 weeks later.

Piper stood in the kitchen making pancakes for breakfast. The sun was streaming through the window, and the radio was playing, as the oldest sister reflected on the events of the past two weeks. Paige, since her emotional breakdown had become withdrawn, she wasn't eating, she could be heard crying late into the night, she was barely sleeping, and what was most disturbing of all, she was refusing to talk about the whole thing. Every time that either she or Phoebe tired to broach the subject, they were brushed away. Phoebe was blaming herself for the whole incident, insisting that if it hadn't been for her, then Paige would never have had to relive the nightmare scenario. As for Piper herself, she split her time between worrying about Paige, and worrying about Chris, who had returned from his 'trip' with burn marks down his back and was remaining tight lipped over how he got them.

Phoebe entered the kitchen in search of some food "morning" She called.

"morning" Piper replied. " Did you sleep well?"

"yeah, like a baby" The word froze in her throat, as she realised that Paige had just appeared.

"don't stop on my account" the youngest sister said as she took an apple and orbed out.

"me and my big mouth" Phoebe moaned.

"we just need to give her time" Piper said. " she must obviously come to terms with it

in the future, well, enough for the baby to get a mention on the family tree"

"true " Phoebe agreed.

" I think we should all try and have a nice family meal tonight what do you say?"

"I say it sounds great" said Chris as he orbed in and headed to the coffee pot. "where's Paige this morning?"

"gone to work"

"already? She sure has been acting strangely lately, ever since I came back form my trip she's barely said 2 words to me, and I thought I was her favourite nephew!"

"yeah, she's just got some issues to work through, she'll been fine soon though" Piper assured him.

Over at Social Services, Paige was sat at her desk. Her 'to do' pile on her desk was over flowing, yet the young witch preferred to gaze out the window. 'I can't let it happen again' she thought. After she had left hospital, all those years ago, she suddenly found that every time she saw a baby in the street, she imagined it was her baby, she convinced herself that it was her baby's face staring back up at her, that it had all been a terrible dream and that her baby was alive after all, that an evil nurse had kidnapped her or something. That was when she had started drinking more and more heavily, to try and numb the pain, and bloke out those thoughts. Each year, around her baby's birthday, she imagined what she might have looked like. One year, 1996, she saw a little dark haired girl, that looked so much like Paige herself at that age, that she'd convinced herself that this was somehow her missing daughter, and had trailed her round the city centre for half an hour, until she had realised the absurdity of the situation. 'No' Paige reiterated, I need to be strong this time'.

'Paige, Paige' the sound of her boss calling her name interrupted her reverie.

'Yes' she turned round to see Mr Cowen striding toward her

'Paige, there's a case I'd like your help with..i think you're the only one who can understand…"

back in the manor, Piper was busy baking a pie ready for that evenings meal, whilst Phoebe was sat typing away at her laptop.

"I was thinking" the advice columnist began. " Perhaps we ought to get Paige some professional help I mean, I think.."

However Piper never did find out what exactly Phoebe's thoughts were, as they were interrupted by an extremely pissed off Chris.

"Would some one care to explain" he seethed " why the time travel spell is no longer in my bottom draw?"

" I ..I..I have no idea" said Phoebe in what she hoped was her best 'innocent' voice.

"Really?" said Chris sarcastically. " Let me see, I find that my time travel spell is missing, one of your earrings mysteriously finds its way onto my bedroom floor, and I have been back 5 whole days and not once have you begged me to tell you the name of your future husband. I'm sensing a theme here"

"how do you know its mine?" said Phoebe weekly, gesturing to the earring.

" Don't try and change the subject! I know its yours 'cos mum can't wear costume jewellery and aunt Paige only ever wears the silver hoops that her parents gave her the Christmas before the died!"

"okay okay" Piper attempted to diffuse the situation. " We're busted. We may as well tell him"

"tell me what? That you're planning on going to the future?"

"No" said Phoebe slowly. "That we already did…."

Across town, Mr Cowen was filling Paige in on the details. " there was a car accident, and the child, well a little girl actually, she was thrown free, we believe, there weren't any eyewitness's. anyhow, the man who was driving, her father I believe, was killed out right. We don't know her name, she's refusing to talk to anyone, when they finish autopsy on her father, we'll be able to run a trace using dental records. She's got some cuts and bruises, and the hospital are going to keep her in for a few days in case she has delayed concussion. But, we thought perhaps you could speak to her, seeing as how you know, you were in a similar situation?…."

They reached the outer doors of the hospital. Paige sighed, she really, really hated these places, but remembering how she felt all those years ago, she couldn't turn her back on this kid now, whoever she was.

The walked into A&E, and eventually found the room where the child was waiting.

She was aged about 9 Paige guessed, skinny, with red hair, that she seemed to be hiding behind. Paige's heart went out to her.

"Yes" Paige said, turning towards her boss. " Of course I'll help her".

Meanwhile over in Prescott street, Chris was working himself into a rage.

" you went to the future! I don't believe you. Do you know how dangerous that could have been? What the consequences could have been?"

"Chris calm down" Piper said. " we were there for like 5 minutes, no one saw us"

" you expect me to believe that do you? "

"Yes!" Phoebe cut in. " 5 minutes, we looked at the family tree on the wall and then we left"

"you looked at the family tree and then you left" repeated Chris in a high pitched voice mimicking his aunt " you looked at the.." holy crap. The implications of this suddenly dawned on him. "Shit! she knows" he thought beginning to panic, "she knows she's going to die, oh god, I should have told her, better that it came from me than from reading it on a wall…. Hey, but hang on, she looks remarkably calm for someone who's learnt that their gonna die in 15 years time."

"…..and obviously Paige is now upset."

Chris zoned back in to realise that Phoebe had carried on talking. "What?" he asked confused. " Paige is upset?" he swung round to look at his mother. " you're not upset?"

"Me?" Piper was puzzled. "Why would I be upset, I found out that I'm going to have three handsome boys…but poor Paige.."

"Yes! She didn't notice" thought Chris mentally doing a little victory dance." its all ok for the moment…" "wait a sec" he asked. "I still don't understand why Paige was upset?"

" because of all the painful memories it brought back about her daughter" Phoebe explained.

"Memories?" Chris really was confused now. " How can she have memories? It's the future, none of it has happened yet, besides I know Lil and Rosie could be a handful at times but…"

" No stupid" Phoebe interrupted. " Her eldest daughter"

" Poppy?" Chris babbled, still relieved that Piper unaware of her untimely demise " What about Poppy? She was never a problem, even went to Yale for.." oh crap.

He saw the look of shock on his mother and his aunt's faces and realised his mistake almost as soon as the words had left his mouth.

"You mean to say that Poppy is alive in the future" Piper asked incredulously.

Shit! Shit! Shit !Shit! Chris decided it was too late to play the innocent now. "yes" he replied.