A/N: thank you to halli-halliwell (twice!), Piper xox Leo, versatilecutie, syad yniar, patricia, Pretty in Pink, Catie and piper+leo4eva, Swimmer07 (thanks for leaving a review after every chapter, I liked seeing your reaction to each chapter) for your reviews. Hope you enjoy this…

Chapter six

'Hey, look' Phoebe motioned to Prue from her position next to the bay window at the front of the manor to look out of it and across the street to the dark charcoal coloured building opposite. "What does that sign say?" She asked Prue, squinting, as her elder sister joined her at the window and they watched two men clad in workman's clothes fixing a large sign in the front garden of the house.

"It says…Fletcher Private Children's Hospital" Prue replied.

Before Phoebe could comment, Piper entered the room

"What are you two looking at?" she enquired before joining her sisters at the window.

Since Piper had talked to her sisters about why she had left, the three were becoming closer. It was still a gradual process, and they were no where near as close as phoebe and Prue would have liked, but they were getting there.

Piper was a little more hesitant than her sisters about getting close to them again. Again? Had they ever been close? Well, she supposed they must have been, when they were young; really young. She must have been happy then. Truth was, she couldn't remember being happy before she met Leo. But even that went to crap.

Piper was dragged out of reverie by the voice of her sister,

"The house opposite is going to be a children's hospital." Prue informed her casually before the three took another look out of the window then, one by one, walked towards the chairs and sat down; Prue and Piper on opposite ends of the settee and Phoebe in the large arm chair.

There was a moment of awkward silence which was broken by Melinda bounding down the stairs and jumping onto the settee next to her mother.

"Mommy! Can I go to the park with Auntie Paige? Please mommy please!"

Piper looked over her daughter's head to the stairs, where she saw Paige coming down them. Paige nodded; letting Piper know that she didn't mind taking the little girl out, and Piper mouthed a 'thank you' back in return.

"Sure you can sweetie," Piper said to her daughter and added, "Maybe it'll get rid of some of this excess energy you seem to have gotten!" under her breadth as she was engulfed in a hug from her daughter.

Melinda jumped of the settee and ran towards Paige who had the girl's coat ready and waiting.

-x-

'San Francisco'

He knew what that place meant; how could he not? It was Piper had grown up; where she'd been running from when they had met. He knew that she hated it there, so it was the one place in the world where she would probably never go back to. He knew all this but the information occurred to him like long remembered facts from an old school text book.

But he had put all those thoughts out of his head and, probably against his better judgment, agreed to take the position. He needed to get away from his old place. He needed to move on.

So that was why he was here, three weeks later, with a brand new apartment and about to walk through the doors of a brand new job. But he felt nothing and it was inescapably so. He wasn't excited, nervous, worried, anticipating or dreading it. Tired even. He just felt numb as he walked towards the double wooden front doors of the Victorian San Franciscan house.

The house looked like every other one on its street, bar its colour, as each home was painted a different hue; sky blue, deep indigo, lemon yellow, muted green and pinky-red.

"Melinda, come back here!"

He turned with mild curiosity to see where the noise was coming from and saw a little girl running down the steps of the large red house across the street from the hospital. The child looked familiar to him, though he knew that he couldn't have seen her before. His eyes were focused on the girl as she came to a stop at the bottom of the steps and a woman he definitely recognised picked her up.

Paige hoisted Melinda onto her hip; she would be safer there than running down the pavement, which she would undoubtedly do. Besides, it was a relatively long walk for little legs, and one which would tire the girl out before they even reached the park.

When Melinda was settled, and had begun to chatter excitedly about what they would do once they reached the park, Paige lifted her head up and focused on the other side of the street, in preparation to cross. What she saw stopped her dead in her tracks and made her whole body feel cold as her mind raced with the possible repercussions of it all.

"Paige?" Leo questioned, a little louder than he had intended.

"Leo" Paige replied, purely for the lack of anything else to say.

-x-x-

A/N: hope you liked it. I thought it was a bit more interesting for Paige to see Leo first. And don't panic, Piper and Leo will meet again shortly! Please Review!