Chapter 13: Let's Do the Time Warp (again?)

A/n: This has taken me so long! It's a fairly long chapter, and I think it's pretty good. This chapter is dedicated to Chel, who gave me the idea for the time warping. Time warp! doodoodoodoodoodoodoodoodoo. Also dedicated to Carmen, who was oh so patient and a great reviwer. Enjoy all!

I sat with my back to my grandfather's grave. At that moment, I wanted nothing more than to go home. However, I knew that was not possible. They could not accept me like this. I was a monster. They would never forgive me for killing a man. I had no where to go. Stuck in my demonic form, all I could do was cry.

In the manor, things weren't going any better. On the bright side, Aidan and Prue had stopped fighting. The problem was that they still weren't any closer to finding Patience. It was as if Patience was blocking them somehow. Prue was pacing, it was what she did best. Every once in a while, she'd glance at the door, as if hoping that Patience would somehow walk in.

Melinda was in the kitchen, mixing a potion. She wasn't sure what it did, if anything. It was just a way to deal with stress that she had picked up from her mother. She liked to keep her hands busy. Melinda wasn't even paying attention to what went in the pot. Aidan was sitting beside her, staring at the herbs he used. Aidan was quite, much quieter than normal. Come to think of it, he had been quiet since Patience left.

Well all of this was going on in the mausoleum and the manor, the demon known as Murdock shimmered into an underground cave. His master was waiting for him. Murdock was excited to tell his master what he had done. He lived to please his master. "Congratulations Murdock", Belthazor said. Making his master pleased made Murdock pleased.

"However", Belthazor growled. Murdock cringed. He didn't like the sound of that however. His master sounded angry with him. "It wasn't enough!" screamed Belthazor. Belthazor began chanting in an arcane language. For now, Murdock was safe. Patience however, was not.

I got up from the cold ground of the mausoleum. I couldn't stand being here anymore. It brought back memories of my early childhood, which felt worlds away. The only place I could think of going was the manor. Whatever their reactions to me looking like this, I had to face them. I shimmered out to the only place I had ever felt safe.

I could barely look at their shocked faces when I appeared in the drawing room of the manor. I first looked at Prue. She was staring at me open mouthed. "Patience?" she asked, her voice trembling. Slowly, I nodded. I couldn't take the look on her face. Instead, I decided to look at Melinda.

Her reaction was better than that of my elder sister that was sure. I was glad that I didn't see any fear in her eyes. She looked a little nervous, but that was to be expected. She managed to smile at me and say, "Great to have you back." I could only nod. I didn't seem to be able to speak to them. I didn't want to tell them what I had done.

Finally, I looked at Aidan. His reaction was the one I was most afraid of. I loved him as much as I ever did. I didn't want him to see me looking like…well…a monster. However, when I looked at him, he looked exactly as he always did. I had nearly forgotten how handsome he is. What I loved most was his smile. Despite it all, he was still smiling. I smiled back at him uncertainly, exposing my fangs.

What he said next made my heart melt. "I still love you, and you're still beautiful", Aidan said. I looked into his beautiful blue-gray eyes. I could tell just how sincere he was. It wasn't just because of my powers as an empath. I felt his love for me enter my heart, and melt away the small edge of anger that had been there.

My limbs were shrinking, my teeth become smooth, my claws turned back to fingers. In no more than a minute, I had turned back into my human self. Once again, Aidan had saved me. I forgot that there were other people in the room. Or maybe, I didn't care. The only thing I saw was him.

It was as if everything was moving in slow motion. I had lost control of my own body, but only in a good way. The only thing I concentrated on was getting to him. I reached him, and he took my hands in his. Just that simple gesture was the most romantic thing ever. I forgot about our time spent apart, I forgot about our desperate situation. Aidan was all that filled my mind.

I took his face in my hands, and pulled him closer. Our lips met, and it was the most magical thing I had ever experienced. It was even more magical then the first time. This kiss lasted much longer than it had done before. When we finally broke apart the fact that there were other people in the room came rushing back. My cheeks burned. I knew Aidan was embarrassed too, because of the small fire that started beside me. I quickly stamped it out.

Prue was gaping at me, gaping even more then when I was a demon. She opened her mouth, and then quickly closed it again. "Okay, I've almost dealt with the fact that you're growing up and might have feelings for boys, but that was just TOO much!" Prue yelled. If possible, I turned ever redder.

Reluctantly, I looked at Melinda for her reaction. She didn't say anything, and she was keeping a determined tight lipped smile. I knew she was far from happy. With Melinda I could always tell how she felt. I could use my empathic powers on her without even thinking about it. She felt very jealous. Not that I blamed her. Since we had gotten to the past I had been neglecting her a bit.

"Melinda, I…" I began. Suddenly, everything in the room looked as if it was melting. I felt very dizzy. The room turned into a mixture of colours that bled into one another. This was really creepy. I looked at Melinda, who was beside me. She wore the same expression of confusion and disorientation, that I'm sure I had.

Then everything was black.

The first thing I saw was a bright light. 'Great', I thought, 'now I'm dead.' It took me a moment to realize that in fact, I wasn't dead. I was lying in what felt like mud, and it felt like someone had just punched me in the face. This is definitely not what it felt like to be dead. Slowly, I got up, and brushed off my jeans. I looked around, and I gasped. Somehow, I had landed in the middle of a tropical forest.

Next to me, Melinda had gotten up, and she too was looking around in awe. Apparently, Aidan and Prue were not brought here with us, because they were no where to be seen. It was very hot wherever we were. "What did you do?" I asked Melinda accusatorily.

"I didn't do this", Melinda said defensively, "This is more like something you would do." She had a point there. Melinda stood on tip toe, and looked around. Already, she was taking charge. There was a loud thump, and the earth beneath us shook. My eyes scanned the trees, looking for the source of the noise. Melinda looked in the opposite direction as me.

Melinda screamed loudly. I turned to look at what she was looking at. I could barely believe my eyes. Standing above the trees was a gigantic tyrannosaurus rex. It let out an ear splitting roar that made my hair stand on end. This could not be happening. Where…or more precisely…when…the hell were we?

Melinda and I shared a look. We were so close, that sometimes we could communicate without words (or thoughts). All I knew was that when I looked at Melinda, her message was perfectly clear. After all, her message was the same as mine. We both knew that we needed to run.

In tandem, Melinda and I sprinted off into the forest. We paid no attention to where we were going. Our feet pounded against the dirt automatically. Melinda ran much faster than me, so she was slightly ahead of me. "You should try and orb and I'll try and shimmer", I yelled above the rushing wind.

I tried, and I'm sure Melinda did too. Nothing happened. For whatever reason, our powers didn't work in this prehistoric time. The only thing we could do was to run. I ran as fast as I could, but my legs were getting tired. I wasn't watching where I was going, so I tripped over a root embedded in the ground.

"Melinda!" I cried, as I fell to the ground. She looked over her shoulder to where the t-rex was. I wasn't really surprised that it was following us. Melinda put out her hand to help me up. As her hands touched mine, the jungle around us appeared to be melting The same thing that had happened in the manor was happening here. As the colours of this place began to swirl, everything went black once again.

When I opened my eyes again, Melinda and I were in an empty field. I could see trees just off to our right. I heard the distant sound of horses, and people. Right beside me, Melinda was rubbing her eyes, and looking around. I could hear fierce angry yelling in the distance. It sounded like hundreds of people, chanting in unison. I felt a bit nervous. I could tell that Melinda did too. The last thing I wanted to do was come across an angry mob.

I strained my ears to hear what they were saying. It was a couple of moments before I could make anything out. They were shouting something that rhymed with twitch, but it wasn't the b word. They had to be coming for them. The question was, how could they have known?

"Are they saying what I think they're saying?" Melinda asked. She could hear it too. That wasn't surprising. At the edge of the trees I had noticed earlier, we could both make out a crowd of shouting people, coming straight for us.

"Kill the witches, kill the witches!"

They were closer now, and I could see torches and rifles in their hands. They looked dangerously murderous. Melinda and I were exactly the type of people they wanted to kill. The people were close enough now that we were able to see their close. Judging by the style, it had to be the late 1600s. In this time period, the life expectancy of your average witch was about a minute.

I didn't pause to think. There was no time for such unnecessary things such as thinking. I could sense Melinda's fear from a mile away. I didn't even need to be an empath to tell how she felt. She was chalk white, and she was shaking. I felt exactly as Melinda looked. I should have thought first, but I didn't. "Run", I said to Melinda.

My cousin didn't need to be told twice. She sprinted away from the angry mob, and I followed. We could hear their thunderous footfalls behind us. It was just our bad luck that they were following. I thought they were getting closer, but I didn't dare look back. This random time traveling was sure giving me a workout. We could hear them yelling as we reached the opposite side of the field, where there were also trees.

"They wear strange clothes! They run from us! They must be witches! Burn all witches!" Someone from the mob yelled.

I nearly hit myself, but I couldn't stop running. There wasn't a way to seem anymore guilty than to run. I pulled Melinda behind a tree, and motioned her to be quiet. We tried to be as quiet as we possibly could. I held in my breath to mask my heavy breathing. We thought they might pass us by.

Melinda held her nose. "I have to sneeze", she whispered urgently. I held my breath, as if this could stop Melinda from sneezing and revealing them. Melinda gave me an apologetic look. Then she sneezed, loud and clear. At the same time, she orbed on the spot. Her orbs lit up the entire clearing, so people miles away could see us.

"We've found the witches! We must kill them!" the angry mob yelled as one.

'We're definitely dead now'. I thought.

When they had grabbed us, and tied us to two wooden posts surrounded by dry wood, my thoughts of imminent doom were only intensified. One spark from those torches, and we were nothing but ashes. That of course, was the angry mob's intention. They were making it perfectly clear with their chants of "Burn the witch!"

I tried struggling against the ropes, but it was no use. More magic would surely make the situation worse, but what other choice did I have? I tried to shimmer, but it didn't work. I felt a brief tingling, but I moved nowhere. A quick glance around the clearing we were in showed that there were amulets tied around that would block any magic.

A man with black hair and a puffy black beard to match approached us. He was holding a flaming torch perilously close to the wood. The man seemed to be the leader of this crazy group. "This is all your fault", I said to Melinda. My cousin was tied similarly behind us. Despite the gravity of the situation, Melinda stuck her tongue out at me.

A moment before the fire touched the wood; the same strange blurring of the room began. Always at the perfect moment, they began to travel to a different time. If I forgot about all of the seriousness, all this time warping might be fun.

Time warp!

The blackness came again, but this time I wasn't afraid. Melinda was with me, but I pretty much knew it already. This was becoming a bad habit. I would survey my surroundings in some strange time line, and something horrible to happen. It was much too predictable for me to worry.

We had landed this time into the middle of a bustling city. As normal people in any time, not one seemed to notice a thing. The first thing I noticed was the atmosphere of this place. Usually, I couldn't sense any emotions from people without some form of concentration. Without any thought, I could tense very tense feelings from the people around me. It was like they were on edge all the time.

Melinda was beside me, brushing herself off. She always paid attention to the cleanliness of her clothes. She noticed something that I had not yet seen. All around us, there were identical posters. They were plastered on every shop wall and on every building. They all said the same thing. The people didn't give them a second glance, as if they were a normal occurrence.

Melinda and I moved closer so we could read the poster. It told us for certain what time period we were in. It was telling all eligible young men to enroll in the army. The date read May 1st, 1941. They had landed right in the middle of world war two. No wonder people were so tense! Melinda was tense too. I knew why. Her father had become a whitelighter in 1942. In this time, he was still alive.

We saw a large group of young men huddled next to a shop a small way up the road. Slowly, we walked to where they were. An older man was standing high upon a plat form. He was shouting strange things, about how they would serve their country, and if they were to die, they would die with honor. I recognized one of the young blond men, although Melinda did not.

Their, amidst the crowd, was my uncle Leo, when he was still human. It took Melinda a moment to notice him. "Dad", she whispered, awestruck. I knew what she was going to do a moment before she did it. I grabbed her arm to stop her.

"Melinda, think this through", I said seriously, "You know that you can't."

She turned at me, her pale blue eyes wide. Then, out of nowhere, she began to cry. "I have to…" she began shakily, "…you don't understand!" I shook my head slowly. I did understand. I understood much more than she knew.

"Listen", I said softly, " you have to think this through…It would be great if he had never died, really, it would. But if you changed his fate, he would have never met Aunt Piper. You would have never been born."

Melinda managed a weak sort of chuckle. She quickly used her sleeve to wipe the tears off her face. I could tell that she was a little embarrassed. She rarely blushes, but a pink tinge, like the one I saw now, appeared on her cheeks. "I know that", she muttered. "I was being silly. It's just…he's my dad…I wanted to save him…I wanted him to love me more."

She began to cry again. Her loud dry sobs broke the tense silence this time presented. I wrapped her in a warm hug and held her tight. I knew she needed a hug. I needed a hug too. We stood there in the middle of the street hugging. The weight of everything that had happened over the last two weeks hit me all at once.

We were still trapped in the past. We were separated from everyone we knew and loved. After two horribly long weeks, we had really made no progress. I realized the gravity of our situation in that moment. Things were pretty much as bad as they could possibly be. At least they were together. They were cousins and the best of friends. They would see each other through everything.

Melinda and I were abruptly wrenched apart. The world was doing that strange melting thing again. It was making me feel a bit nauseous. I hoped we'd be going home. I didn't understand all this bouncing through time…or as I had come to think of it, time warping. I hoped we wouldn't go to another random time. This was just pointless. As the now familiar darkness enveloped me, I wanted nothing except to go home.

When everything made sense again, we were back in the manor's sitting room. When I finally opened my eyes, Prue, Aidan and Grams were standing around us staring. I let out an audible sigh of relief. Even if it wasn't exactly home, it was good to be back in the time from which we had started.

"Thank goodness you're back, we were very worried", Grams said quickly. Melinda and I looked at each other. Never in our lives had we heard Grams admit that she was worried.

"How long have we been gone?" Melinda asked curiously.

"Nearly two hours", Aidan replied. He was extremely pale. I could tell he had been more worried than he was letting on. A part of me was glad he was so worried about me. My sister Prue was quiet, something I hadn't expected from her. I observed her closely. I knew that there was something weird about her.

Prue held up her right hand, which was now almost completely transparent. "So you noticed", she said with a sigh. Prue was fading, right before my eyes. She seemed to notice my stunned look. "It's nothing to be worried about. The spell I used to get her was only for 24 hours, and my time is up in about a minute", she explained.

It took me about a second to digest this. "Oh", I said, "Say hi to mom."

Prue was almost completely invisible by then. She waved at us. Then she was gone. She left uncomfortable silence behind her. I would miss her, but at least now we could do some serious work. I would get us home soon, no matter what.

The atmosphere in the room was so thick, that you could cut it with a knife. All of us were overwhelmed by what had happened in the last 24 hours. I was especially uncomfortable being back at the manor. I had still told no one what I had done. If everything worked out, I would never have to tell anyone.

"Well, at least nothing can get worse!" Melinda said brightly trying to lighten the mood.

She was very wrong. At that moment, the ground began to shake…