Disclaimer: Sadly, I don't own Charmed. I wish I did, but I don't.

A/n: Sorry that it took me so long to get this chapter up. I actually have a ton of the middle of the story written, so updates should be closer together from now on. This chapter is really a transition to the next part of the story. I promise there will be a lot more action soon.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed so far!

Katie

Setting: November/December 2006

Coming Home

"You can never go home again, but the truth is you can never leave home, so it's all right."

-Maya Angelou

Four: In-Flight Thoughts

"This seat is uncomfortable," said Henry. He wriggled in the tight airplane seat and leaned out into the aisle, glaring up to where first class was. "We should have sprung for first class tickets."

"We can't afford first class tickets," said Paige. She was reading a magazine as though she had no concern in the world. Henry suddenly envied her lithe, womanly form; these seats probably weren't nearly as uncomfortable for her. "Do you want to trade seats?"

"No," said Henry. "Surprisingly, I like being in the aisle."

Paige smiled, though she didn't take her eyes off of the magazine. "So get out a book or a magazine and distract yourself. You're so odd about flying."

"I'm not odd," said Henry, though he knew quite well that he was. "And I don't feel like reading."

"Then take a nap," said Paige, "because I do feel like reading."

"Okay, okay," said Henry. "I'll leave you be." He wanted to kiss her, but he felt so wedged in the seat that he didn't think he could move without making himself more uncomfortable. Instead he opted for patting her knee before shutting his eyes and trying to block out his surroundings.

Henry had been looking forward to this trip since Paige had first mentioned it last month. As much as he loved Paige's biological family—and he was extremely fond of them—he had wanted to meet the people who helped raise her for a long time. Paige had told him that after her parents had died she'd gone to live with her uncle John and aunt Julie. John was her mother's older brother and he had two children, both of whom had been out of the house by the time Paige had moved in. She also had another uncle, younger than her mother, who she had been very close to when she was younger because his two daughters were closer to her age. Henry wished that some of her cousins were coming to Virginia too.

The only problem with thinking so much about Paige's family was that it also forced Henry to think of his own. When he was four, he and his older sister had become property of the state because their mother had died of an overdose. No one had any idea who their father was and their mother had no other living family members, so they'd been shuffled from one foster home to another. As a result Henry had spent a lot of his childhood imagining some long-lost relative coming to save him and his sister or finally meeting people who wanted to adopt them. When he got older, this vision changed to marrying into a big family who would welcome him and his sister as their own. He still couldn't quite believe that this dream had come true, at least for him.

During his years in the foster care system, Henry had only been placed in the same home as his older sister twice. They hadn't been in the same home when she had died, and Henry still remembered the day the social worker showed up to tell him as one of the worst in his life. He'd been fifteen at the time; it was suicide he was told. That had been the day he'd finally decided he was going to do something to contribute to the system—to help others like him—instead of acting out in defiance of it.

He still hadn't told Paige this story. When she first asked him if he had siblings he had said he had none. This was technically true, of course, but he hadn't clarified the story by telling Paige about Anna. Speaking of Anna was incredibly painful for him, and Henry didn't see any reason to bring her up in regular conversation. Paige, he was sure, would disagree with this reasoning, but the thought did nothing to motivate him to confess. What did it matter anyway? Telling Paige wouldn't bring Anna back. Telling Paige wouldn't accomplish anything.

Which is why he stayed quiet.

Phoebe had brought her laptop so she could work on her articles while in Virginia—she still owed Elise three more to last until she got back home—but she found herself completely distracted on the flight. Somehow everyone had wound up in the same section except for her, so she was stuck nearly ten rows back from the rest of her family. Coop had felt bad, she could tell, but there was nothing he could do about it. "Don't worry," she had told him. "Now I'll be able to work without any distractions."

Well she'd been wrong about that. Even though none of her family was in the vicinity, Phoebe still found herself unable to concentrate. The letter she was supposed to respond to was from a woman about to wed who was worried that she was still in love with her first husband. Phoebe really wanted to destroy any evidence that the letter existed, but she couldn't. Not that she knew how to answer it anyway; she was still struggling with a similar question herself.

She didn't—absolutely did not—still love Cole. That would be absurd. After all, he'd been gone for nearly four years now and even before he'd died she had been utterly fed up with him. The point was, she couldn't help but notice that she didn't love Coop the way she had loved Cole. Which was stupid. So stupid. After all, Coop was handsome and sweet and loving and he had a decent sense of humor. He was heaven sent; how could she not be in love with him?

There just didn't seem to be any passion between them. When Phoebe had been with Cole, she'd needed him desperately, and he had needed her even more desperately. Their relationship was intoxicating and beautiful and she hadn't been able to get enough of it. When she had married Cole she had been dizzy in love.

The only thing she remembered feeling at her wedding to Coop was comfortable. That's what their relationship was: comfortable. They were relatively happy and calm with each other and she did love him, but it wasn't what she thought love in a marriage should be. Whenever she doubted her marriage though, she simply reminded herself that it was because she and Cole had had a relationship based so much on passion that their relationship had failed. Passionate love turned to passionate hatred much too quickly.

Of course the little nit in her mind that kept her from truly believing this was her sisters. When she looked at Paige and Henry and, especially, Piper and Leo she saw the kind of love that had that passion. The despite-everything-I-never-want-to-live-without-you kind of love. So if their marriages flourished on that kind of love, what was really the source of her and Cole's failure? This was the thought nagging at her now, and she was trying hard not to answer the question. She was terribly afraid that if she dug too deep she'd realize that her and Cole's relationship falling apart wasn't destiny, but failure on both of their parts. And that train of thought could only lead to dangerous places.

What was her problem anyway? Coop was wonderful. Coop was perfect. Who could ask for anything more? She turned back to the letter, putting her own marriage out of her mind and concentrating on Torn-Up Terri.

Piper was seated between Coop and Leo, and Coop had very graciously offered to hold Wyatt for awhile. The cupid seemed awfully comfortable and loving around the kids, and so Piper trusted him. He wasn't quite as much of a natural as Henry was, but she thought he'd make a good father some day. Sometime, Piper made a mental note, she'd have to tell Phoebe that. Every once in awhile Phoebe seemed to doubt her decision to marry Coop, and Piper thought that this might reassure her.

Of course, if Phoebe truly didn't want to be married to Coop she should probably get out of it before bringing kids into the middle of it. Piper could just be reading too much into her sister's behavior though. And she should probably just stay out if it. That's what Leo would tell her to do. That was the right thing to do. The problem was, staying out of it, not knowing, would only increase her worry.

Granted, in the grand scheme of things, Phoebe's marriage problems were low on her worrying radar at the moment. She was much more concerned with the feeling in the pit of her stomach that something bad was going to happen on this trip. Over and over again she'd been telling herself that the entire thing was for Paige. She'd talked herself into and out of going so many times that Piper scarcely believed she was actually on the plane, halfway to the east coast.

For the life of her, Piper couldn't pinpoint what she thought was going to happen. The kids doing magic in front of Paige's family? A demon showing up? Some sort of odd tension between the families? Somehow none of the scenarios, though all very possible, seemed to accurately describe the dread she felt. There was something else, something she wasn't even considering, that loomed on the horizon. She'd tried to explain this to Leo a couple of days ago, but he had chalked it up to nerves and wrote it off.

God, Piper hoped that this was one of those times Leo was right.

It turned out that it wasn't one of those times, though. And in a few hours, Piper would find out exactly how wrong Leo was.