A/N: Sorry guys, I took a bit of time off to write two one shot stories that were nagging at me. A Leap For Love, which is an alternate Paiglenn ending to House Call, and Conflicts Of The Heart, which is a Coop/Phoebe/Cole song fic to Faith Hill's Just Around The Eyes. Now that I've written stories for two out of four of my all time favorite couples, I'm thinking I may write two more one shots for Piper/Leo and Prue/Andy. (They may or may not end happily, as anyone who has read the above stories has seen.) And if I haven't mentioned this yet, I'm also working on a story called Starting Over, which will take place in the alternate Morality Bites future, in which Phoebe does burn at the stake and then Prue and Piper are exposed and hunted for the crime of witchcraft. (And of course, with the death of one Charmed One, we'll have to see if destiny will bring an entire family together again.) Oh! And before I forget again, the pet store I mentioned in my last chapter, Jan's Tropics, is actually a real pet shop. (If you ever go to Nevada, you should check it out. The back of the store really does smell like Fisherman's Warf.)

Change Happens

Chapter 38: The Road Bless Traveled

"Piper!" Phoebe stomped up the stairs in the house she'd grown up in, desperately searching for any of her three sisters. "Paige! Prue!" As she rounded the corner, she saw Paige poke her head out of her bedroom, glaring. "Hey," she said, lowering her voice.

"Did you have to yell?" The youngest growled.

"Something's come up."

"What?" Paige stepped into the hallway, glowering. "No way." Upon her sister's nod she said, "What? A demon? Please say it's an easy vanquish demon. I don't want Persia to have anymore drama today."

Phoebe bit her lip.

"It's not an easy vanquish demon." Paige frowned. "Great. What is it?"

"It's not actually a demon, per say. It's…a long story." The psychic rubbed her forehead. "Just trust me when I say it's bad…and from another world."

"Another world?" Paige started to follow her sister down the hall. "Like, another dimension?"

"No, as in an alternate universe other world. Pam's, to be exact. You remember? From the whole mutant world."

"I see."

"Where are Prue and Piper?"

"Piper's at the club, and Prue's downstairs."

"I was just downstairs, and I didn't see her."

Paige froze. "She was supposed to be in the kitchen."

Phoebe shook her head. "That's the first place I checked."

Paige began to glow a soft blue, and small glowing lights began to surround her feet and filter up her legs. "Go look again! I'll go get Piper." And before Phoebe could protest, the youngest Charmed One was gone.

Phoebe quickened her pace. "Prue!"

----

"Persia, talk to me!" Alternate Pamela stood outside of her friend's bathroom door. Her hands were placed squarely on her hips, and her face was creased with worry and irritation.

"I'll be out in a few minutes!"

"Not good enough," she murmured to herself. Alternate Pam held out her hand, hearing the hinges creek as the door swung open, revealing her friend sitting on the toilet lid with her legs drawn up to her chest.

"Pam!"

"Sorry, but I'm not a patient person." The older girl leaned against the door, examining her friend slowly. "What's this all about, Persia? And don't give me crap about telling me later, because then I'll be forced to do other things to get information out of you."

Persia poked her head up from her knees, smiling a little in spite of herself.

Alternate Pamela walked over to the edge of the large, bare claw bathtub and balanced herself on the rim. "Okay, kid, start talking."

Persia just stared for several minutes, before reaching into her back pocket and pulling something out. It sounded like the rustling of papers. And then she held them up in front of her friend. "This," she said as she handed them over, "is why I wanted you to come today."

The latter unfolded the papers, and began to skim them over. Her face gradually changed from irritation, to confusion, and then anger as she reached the end of the paper. Her eyes lifted up. "Persia," she said slowly, "why didn't you tell me about this before?"

"It's not exactly something I wanted to talk about. I mean, if some guy nearly raped you, would you want to talk about it?" She hugged her knees again.

Alternate Pam's hand tightened around the papers, but her friend didn't seem to notice. Then her expression changed abruptly. "Hey, no worries. We're going to get this apath mess fixed up, and then I'll stay as long as you need me to, okay?"

The electrokinetic let out a little sigh of relief. Everything had been weighing so heavily on her over the last week, and she was very glad to release some of that pressure. "Thanks, Pam."

"No problem," she said as she patted her friend's arm comfortingly. The telekinetic then stuffed the papers into her pocket, and then moved to the sink. "Hey," she said suddenly, "you don't happen to have anymore of those aspirins left, do you?"

----

"Whoa!" Piper's hands shot out, freezing a tipped ladder and one of her movers, as he pummeled backwards towards the floor. She was beginning to wonder if they were trying to get hurt on the job, and sue her for it. It was, after all, the third guy she'd saved from something horrible in the last thirty minutes. It was becoming tiresome, and she wasn't getting any work done whatsoever.

"Piper!"

The middle witch jumped. "Wh…Paige!" She spun around, eyeing her baby sister just several feet from her. "What are you doing here? I thought you were at the Manor?"

"We've got problems, and you have to come home immediately."

"But-"

"No time to waste!" Paige grabbed her sister by the forearm, just as she noticed the frozen man. "Piper," she said slowly, "what's going on?"

"Long story," the middle sister groaned. She flicked her wrist again, bringing the man out of her freeze and into a slow motion freefall. It'll hurt when he lands, she thought, but not nearly as much as it was going to. And just as her sister's orbs clouded her vision, she heard a slow motion grunt, and she smirked in satisfaction.

----

"Prue?" Phoebe dropped to her knees, checking her big sister for a pulse. She found one, and quickly began to pat her older sister's face. "Hey, come on honey, wake up."

Prue groaned. Her thick black lashes fluttered as she opened her bright blue eyes, staring up at Phoebe in confusion. "When did you get here?"

"That's not important," Phoebe replied quickly. She offered a hand, helping Prue to her feet. "I want to know how you got here."

Prue squinted, eyeing the corner by the fireplace. Yes, she thought groggily, how did I get here?

"Prue?"

"I don't know," she groaned. Her hand moved to the back of her head, touching it gingerly. Then she let out a little yelp, bringing her hand away she found a gooey glob of red blood.

"Oh!" Phoebe looked to the ceiling. "Leo!"

"Oh my gosh!" Piper tore into the room, running straight to her big sister. "Prue," she gasped, "what happened?"

"I don't know," she said again.

"Leo! Get your whitelighter ass down here this instant!" And upon her shout, she saw her husband's orbs appear. Piper waved her hands frantically.

Paige crossed her arms, as she skirted around her sisters. "Phoebe," she said slowly, "come here."

Phoebe eyed her sister with confusion. "What?"

"Look." Paige flicked her wrist in the direction of a fire poker, with the end covered in blood. Presumably Prue's blood. "Maybe you can get a premonition off of that?"

Phoebe cringed, before kneeling down and hesitantly touching the golden metal. At first, it seemed like an electrical shock, and then visions filled her mind's eye.

----Premonition----

Prue reached for the whistling tea pot, plucking it from the stove and ceasing the ear piercing noise instantly. She moved to the sink, where she grabbed a dry mug from the drainer and was about to pour some of her chamomile tea into it.

"Aunt Prue!"

"Pearl?"

"Help me!"

The cup dropped from Prue's hand, shattering in the sink. She turned around, literally running through the wall with her phasing power, and dashing into the room in which she'd heard her niece's voice. "Pearl?" Her eyes roamed the room, seeing nothing amiss. "Pearl?"

"Aunt Prue," a small voice croaked, "help me…"

Prue followed the sound, moving towards the fireplace. But as she neared it, she heard an explosion and whirled around to see stuffing from the couch cushion flying through the air.

That was when Pearl jumped out from the side of the fireplace, fire poker in hand, and swung it at her unsuspecting aunt. Blood spattered instantly, and she jumped out of the way as Prue fell to the ground. She dropped the fire poker, and stared at her aunt. Her irises her glowing a deep burgundy.

A cloud of orbs appeared behind her, forming into a curly haired brunette. "You've done well, Pearl." She took the Blessed One's hand, and apathically orbed out.

----Premonition----

"Pheebs?" Paige touched her sister's shoulder tentatively.

"It was Pearl."

"What?" Paige nearly yelled.

"She's under some kind of spell or control or something. Her eyes were glowing this burgundy color." She shivered a little. Normally when she experienced premonitions, she at least felt something, via her empathy. But when Pearl had struck Prue, she felt absolutely nothing. No anger, hatred, remorse. Nada. Something was seriously wrong here, and this Michelle Bigelow was definitely not someone to play around with.

----

"Aunt Sheila!" Pandora threw her arms around Sheila's neck.

"Hey baby," Sheila grinned, stroking the little girl's dark raven hair. "What've you been up to?"

Pandora snorted. "Daddy and Uncle Glenn taked me and Phae to the smewy waf."

"Oh," the older woman replied knowingly, "Fisherman's Warf?"

Pandora nodded, plugging her nose for effect. "Ew."

Sheila moved to the stroller, and peaked under the top. She smiled at the sleeping babe underneath. "Out like a light," she said, glancing to Andy.

"She fell asleep about half way to your house, which means if there aren't any loud noises, you'll probably get a few hours of peace."

"How's Prissy?"

"Fine. She's sleeping upstairs right now."

"Has her fever gone down?"

"A little. I gave her a sippy cup with Gatorade earlier, and then she snacked on some saltine crackers and fell asleep."

Pandora tugged at Sheila's pant leg. "Can I go sees hew?"

Sheila ruffled the child's hair. "No, sweetie. She's sick, and we don't want you catching a cold too, now do we?"

Pandora stuck out her bottom lip as she shook her head.

"Well," Glenn said slowly, "we should probably get going."

"But thank you so much for watching the little tykes!"

Sheila passed Andy a brief hug. "My pleasure." She winked at Pandora. "There are just some things you can do with girls, that you just can't do with boys." She loved her son with every fiber of her being, but sometimes she did wish that she and Darryl had also had a daughter. Babysitting Andy's girls often gave her the opportunity to live that fantasy, and she enjoyed every minute with them.

The telepath grinned mischievously. "Makeup!"

Sheila waved her hand, shooing Glenn and Andy out of the house. "I'll see you around seven?"

Glenn gave a reassuring nod as he got into the car. "Thanks again!"

----

"Ooh, oh, oh!" Phoebe ran into the attic, flailing her arms in front of her sisters. "I just got another premonition," she exclaimed frantically.

Prue cocked her head to the side. "What happened?"

"I was in Pearl's room, and I got a premonition off of her computer." She placed her hands on her hips. "Which is destroyed, by the way. Anyways, it's going to get really bad, really soon."

"What happened?" Prue stressed.

"I saw mental patients, all with glowing eyes, flooding the streets. They were manic! People were screaming, dying, and…it was insane!" She caught Paige's bemused stare. "No pun intended." Her eyes shifted to Prue and Piper. "It reminded me of my apocalypse vision."

Piper wrinkled her brow. "What?"

"Back when…" Her voice trailed off, as she remembered that she'd never actually told Piper what she'd seen when she stopped Piper from saying the spell that would bring Prue and War back from the vortex they'd accidentally been banished to. Instead she just said, "It was bad, Piper, really bad."

Prue bowed her head. She'd almost been lost permanently, because what Phoebe had seen had been so horrific. If the vision Phoebe had just seen was anything like that one, they were in for a whole world of trouble.

Piper let out a little choke. "Wait, did you say mental patients?"

The clairvoyant nodded.

"Oh crap!"

"What?"

"I saw something about that on the news this morning. They had turned on the doctors in the hospital, and I think some of them actually got killed."

"The patients?"

"No, the doctors."

"Then we have to get there and stop them."

"I think Piper and I should go," Paige volunteered. "That way I can get us there, and Piper can freeze and then we'll figure out a way to fix this."

"No." Phoebe shook her head. "I think Piper and Emma should go."

"Emma?"

"Remember," Phoebe glared, "from the alternate reality?" She scratched her head, only then realizing that she hadn't told her sisters, or at least Prue and Piper, about Emma and Alternate Pamela being in their world. "You know what? Nevermind." She cupped her hands over her mouth yelling, "Emma!"

A cloud of bubblegum pink lights descended from the ceiling, forming into the beautiful form of the redheaded mutant, Emma DeLauro. "Have you found anything else out?"

"You and Piper need to get to the mental hospital. Fast! I think your friend has gone and corrupted things there, because I just had a vision of utter chaos, and it was all stemming from the San Francisco Psychiatric Hospital."

Emma's head bobbed towards Piper. In her world, she and Piper were best friends, so the uneasy look on Piper's face was a bit of a shock for her. "Uh, sure. Oaky." She held out her hand. "You wouldn't rather go with your sister, would you?"

Piper quickly shook her head, smiling falsely at the empath. "No, no, I'm fine." The truth was, she wasn't really nervous about going with Emma, so much as going to the psychiatric hospital.

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely!" And after a beat, Piper accepted her hand and vanished in Emma's glowing pink lights.

Prue stared at the empty space, until the pink lights had faded away. She'd known Piper her entire life, and something in her little sister's voice told her that something wasn't right. It was subtle, extremely subtle, and unfortunately the eldest couldn't put her finger on what exactly it was. She also didn't have the time to sit down and try to work it out.

----

"What exactly are we doing here?" Persia glanced up at the street corner: Height and Ashbury. The particular street corner was a rather famous spot in San Francisco, especially among old hippies. It was filled to the hilt with gift shops and places to by relics from the sixties.

"Saving an innocent," the telekinetic said simply.

"Since when do you even get visions of innocents from other worlds?"

"Since I'm in them."

"What exactly triggered the vision?"

"One of the pictures on your nightstand."

Persia twisted her head from side to side, examining both sides of the street. So far, she hadn't seen anyone except for an older couple, who were going into one of the shops. "Which picture?"

The telekinetic squinted. "You and one of your cousins, I think."

"Which one?"

Alternate Pam tapped her shoe in annoyance. "Brown eyes, really dark hair…"

"Pearl."

"What?"

Persia placed her hand to her forehead. "Why would a picture of me and Pearl trigger a premonition of an innocent getting hurt?" She peered around the corner again. "What exactly did you see?"

The telekinetic wandered over to the street corner, and began to wave her arms as she spoke. "I saw one car coming from this way," she pointed towards Height Street, "and one car coming from this way," she waved at Ashbury. "And then suddenly the tire on the car coming from Height blew out and lost control, crashing right into the car coming from Ashbury."

Persia shook her head. "But that doesn't make any sense whatsoever!"

"I'm not asking you to explain it, just help me prevent it." And as soon as the request left her lips, she heard a screech of rubber against blacktop, and ran out into the middle of the road.

"Pam!"

Alternate Pamela's hand flew out in front of her, and a net of telekinetic energy burst from her fingertips, catching the car mid slid and diverting it to the sidewalk, just as the other car from her vision came around the corner, having no idea of the collision that had almost taken place. When the second car was out of sight, she made several complicated motions with her hands as she slowed down the spinning wheels of the car, and then yelled, "Come make sure they're okay!"

Groaning, Persia trotted across the road, coming to a stop at the side of the driver's window. She knocked, and was greeted by the worn face of an elderly gentlemen. "Sir, are you alright?"

The man placed a handkerchief to his mouth and coughed. As the window rolled down, he smiled a near toothless grin. He looked between sixty and seventy, maybe older.

"Are you okay?" She repeated, rather impatiently.

"I'm fine," the old man coughed. He got out of the car, and steadied himself on a wooden cane. "But I don't know what happened. One minute I was driving, and the next I was over here."

Alternate Pamela popped up from the other side of the car, with a false smile on her face. She'd been inspecting the vehicle, while Persia had been taking care of its driver. "I think you had a blowout," she lied.

"Oh." The old man frowned, and coughed into his stained handkerchief again. "But my daughter just bought me new tires."

Persia felt her heart twist. "Do you have someone we could call?" She whipped her cell phone out of the clip on case, on the back of her pants pocket.

The man rattled off a name and number, in between several more coughing attacks. And then he smiled warmly at the two girls. "Thank you."

Persia covered the mouth piece on her cell. "No problem, sir."

"Can you excuse us for a moment?"

"Pam!"

The telekinetic grabbed her friend by the arm, leading her away from the elderly gentleman.

"I'm trying to place a call here!"

She grabbed the cell, flipping it closed. "Look."

"What?"

"At the tire!"

Persia glanced down at the blown out tire, looking utterly confused. "What?"

"Ugh." The college student dropped to her knees and pointed directly at the hole. "That is not a blowout," she said confidently. "It looks more like damage that would be caused by an energy ball."

Suddenly Persia's eyes widened. "Or Aunt Piper's exploding power."

"Oh, shit, Persia look out!" The older witch threw our her hands, followed by a loud crash.

Persia's head snapped around, to see the old man unconscious on the corner of the street. "What the hell did you do to him?" She ran to his side, checking for a pulse. It was there, but faint. And a small cut was bleeding from his bald head.

"He was about to attack you with his cane," she defended with a scowl. "I just save you from getting bludgeoned."

"And that's the last time you're going to interfere with my plans today."

"Oh, you again," Alternate Pamela snarled. She placed her hands on her hips.

"Pam, get down!"

"Wh-" Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a well aimed bolt of neon yellow coming at her, and she jerked backwards, just as it tore through the place where she'd been standing. "Thanks for the warning!" She yelled sarcastically. And then an explosion knocked her to the pavement. When the smoke cleared, she saw Pearl poking out from behind Michelle.

Persia swirled her hands together, and then turned towards the duo. Her hand arched out, and she aimed another electric charge at Michelle.

Michelle stood as still as a statue, not even bothering to move. And then her lips twisted into a malicious grin, and the bolt slowed to a complete stop, hovering just inches from her face. She held up her hand, and then flew back at Persia, sending her sailing through one of the glass windows of an antique store, along the street.

Alternate Pamela struggled to sit up. Pain was shooting through her limbs from the explosion of Persia's electric bolt, which had knocked Pearl's exploding light ball out of the way. She'd been seconds away from being blown to oblivion by an eleven-year-old.

"What's her name?" Michelle inquired, looking to Pearl.

"Persia."

"And she's an electrokinetic?"

Pearl nodded.

Michelle smirked. "This is working out better than I'd expected." She glanced down at Alternate Pamela, and then balled a fist, causing the college student to grab her head in pain. "Persia!" And at her command, a bloodied Persia began to walk robotically towards her.

As Persia reached Michelle, she turned her head helplessly towards her friend. Her eyes were pleading, but she seemed to have lost control of herself. "Help me…"

Michelle flexed her fingers, releasing her apathic hold on the telekinetic. "You can tell Emma that if she wants to keep them alive, then she needs to give me something in return." And then she took ahold of each girl's hand, and left in a swarm of burgundy lights.

TO BE CONTINUED….