Patricia L. Bryans: I'm so glad you're back! We missed you! Now you can update your story as well! I like flash backs too. The next three or two chapters are in the past, so you'll enjoy it I hope!

Aussie-Soccerfreak4: I'm sorry to say that the ending is quite sad. I've written it already...I like the dramatic, you know that! But you'll enjoy it! Thanks for reading and reviewing!

-25-

The present-day Heather Miller watched the unfolding reunion between godmother and children through tear-filled eyes, on her knees and still clutching Kate's hand to her chest. She hazily remembered her mother's face, as she had been young when she died, but now she saw Laurel standing before her as clear as day, smiling brightly while she watched her young daughters and her greatest friend embracing each other, and Heather could feel her heart burn. Heather knew that there was something she knew about Patty as soon as she had seen the older woman when she talked about their Prophesy in the Halliwell manison, but Heather hadn't expected this at all. Her mother and Patty had been best friends. Each was the godmother to the other's children. They loved each other so much. But if they had been such good friends, what could Patty have felt when Laurel died? And what in the world had happened to make Heather Miller and Piper Halliwell connected?

As if an answer to her thoughts, the bright lights circled them again, ready to take them to another time and another memory. "No," Heather heard herself say out loud, and she felt her head shaking as she struggled to focus on the fading image of her mother. "No, stay here, please!" But the light had already obscured Heather's view.

"We must move on, Heather," Patty's voice floated gracefully out of the buzzing in Heather's brain, soothing. "There is still more to see. We must not linger on one memory for too long."

Briefly blinded by the brightness, Heather closed her eyes. When she opened them again, the light had faded around them again, and a whole new scene met their eyes. Now, it was Sam and Kate's turn to gasp. They were in the same tree-strewn glade where they had tried to save the young Philip Lightman and where Sam had nearly sacrificed her life for her sister's. Everything looked exactly the same here; the same boulder and sprawling oak tree, but there were a few more trees surrounding the open, grassy area, and it was clear that the events that would inevitably take place next were in the past.

As the nine watched, the white lights of a whitelighter orb flew down from the heavens and Laurel Miller stepped forward after appearing from them. She was younger than they had just seen her moments before, even younger than the present day Lucy was, around 20 or 21 with shoulder-length hair, but her maturity was easy to see. Laurel looked around as soon as her feet had touched the ground, as if expecting to see someone or something standing in front of her. As her eyes slid over the nine witches from the present, Heather shuddered as she felt a strange electricity shoot thorugh her veins. Even though her mother could not see them, there was still a connection between mother and daughter lingering. Laurel was years younger than she was, but she seemed much more confident than Heather was, more alert and aware of her surroundings.

While Laurel looked around, a demon appeared behind her, a huge, grey demon clothed in white rags. His eyes were dark, and his hair was matted and twined with leaves. He whirled into the glade like a cyclone, wind roaring, sending leaves and twigs scattering in all directions, and alerting Laurel, who spun around at once. Her jaw dropped as her eyes fell on him. The look in her eyes clearly showed that this was one demon whom she had never encountered before. Immediately, her hands went to her stomach, which the present day Kate noticed, for the first time, was slightly swollen.

"What the hell? What are you?" Laurel whispered, barking out the last question, trying to hide her fear.

The demon in front of her smiled menecingly, wickedness wrapped around his face. "The End," he croaked, and before anyone could blink, he threw a bright blue energy sphere at the young witch.

"NO!" Heather screamed. She tried to run to her mother's rescue, but Prue and Sam grabbed her by the arms and held her back, forgetting that she wasn't able to be seen anyway. The girls watched helplessly as the energy ball hit Laurel squarely in the abdomen, blasting her off her feet and sending her flying into the same tree that the demon Justain had been thrown into by Kate.

As she slid to the ground, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth, her eyes closed and the demon laughed cruelly, another set of orbs appeared in the air and Patty Halliwell became visible, accompanied by a man, looking around anxiously like she had known something was wrong. As soon as the young Halliwell spotted Laurel's body at the foot of the tree she screamed, paying no attention to the demon who now turned on her. Struggling, Patty broke free of the man's grasp and sprinted to her friend's side, but as she did so, the demon hurled another ball of death towards Patty. The man accompanying the young witch jumped at the demon's back at the last moment, throwing off the demon's aim tremendously. The energy, instead of hitting Patty between the shoulder blades, as was intended, took her on the shoulder causing her to trip and fall on top of Laurel, bleeding and panting heavily.

"Patty!" Shouted the man, still clinging to the demon's shoulders, wrestling with it to keep its attention away from his charge. "Patty! The spell!"

Frantically, Patty tried to clear her head, then gasped out a spell that she had apparently memorized.

"Evil wind that blows

That which forms below

No longer may you dwell

Death takes you with this spell!"

The demon, who had begun to advance on the two witches despite the man's weight, howled in agony as his skin began to burn and blister gruesomly, and in a cyclone like a major windstorm it vanished, leaving the man on his back to drop to the ground, exhausted from his efforts of restraint.

Patty didn't bother to thank her partner. Instead, she returned her attention to her friend, sliding off of her body and rolling Laurel gently onto her back, leaving a smear of Laurel's blood on her own injured shoulder. Upon turning Laurel over, Patty viewed for the first time the horrendous wound that caked her stomach, bleeding and smoking, gleaming with blood. As Patty knelt over Laurel, choaking with sobs, a few drops of her own blood fell from her shoulder and dripped onto Laurel's bloody and ghastly wound, casuing it to hiss very slightly and spark silver, but Patty did not notice. Pulling her friend onto her own lap, Patty pushed Laurel's auburn hair out of her face, stroking the still, cold cheeks and yelling, "Sam! Please, she's dying!"

The man lying on the ground rolled over and scrambled over to them on his hands and knees. He was older than Patty by several years, handsome, with shining black hair and a tiny mustache decorating his otherwise cleanshaven face. His youthful muscles rippled under the tight blue shirt that was now smeared with earth, and his dark but kind eyes that smiled most of the time now sparkled with worry. Sam was Patty's whitelighter, and he had orbed her to the glade when Patty had found out that Laurel would try to save an innocent, only to find a trap meant to kill the Miller witch. To warn her in time, Patty had immediately called for Sam, hurriedly explaining the situation before they orbed to the glade with the spell to vanquish Shax, the huge demon who had left Laurel in this state.

Reaching them, Sam held his hands over Laurel's wound, unaware that blood from Patty's burn was still mingling with Laurel's. A golden glow of healing power soaked into the Millers' veins, casuing her to glow, repairing cuts and bruises and torn muscles. A few sparks of silver light fizzed through the gold, but after a few seconds, the burned skin healed, knitted together, and the blood running into the dirt vanished. With a sharp gasp of surprise, Laurel jerked awake. As she gasped for air and looked around fratically, Patty hauled her into a sitting position, then hugged her hard and tight. "Laurel! I thought you…I thought you died!" She said, her voice catching in her throat as it choked with emotion.

As Laurel hugged her friend in return, remembering what had happened, she felt something sticky under her hand. Pulling it away, she saw blood on her fingers. "Patty! You're bleeding!" She gasped, finding the wound and baring Patty's shoulder towards Sam. The whitelighter quickly healed his charge, his eyebrows knitting together.

"Are you alright, Laurel?" He asked her in a deep, musical voice that was filled with worry. It made the hair on the back of Patty's neck prickle. "You could have died if Patty hadn't realized it was a trap and we had come."

The younger witch shook her head before, as if remembering all at once at the mention of deaeth, clutched at her abdomen. Patty saw her action and asked quickly, "What is it?"

Laurel's eyes whipped up to the whitelighter. "My baby! Will it be-" Laurel began frantically, but Sam cut her off gently.

"It will be fine. I healed everything, including the child. It will be perfectly okay. There was something different about it than a normal child, but it's nothing to worry about. It's probably just the inherited powers from you," He added, seeing Laurel's shocked and pale face. "That's a lot to inherit, too, so it's pretty strong. Don't worry."

As Laurel nodded resignedly, Patty got to her feet at last and stretched out a hand to pull her friend up. "Come on. Let's go home. Prue will be fussing by now. I've been gone a while and she always notices things like that. Laurel, please don't go after another innocent without knowing the demon who is attacking. It's too dangerous of a risk, especially now that you're carrying a child; your first child. Please don't do that anymore, or at least call me and I'll help you."

Laurel rolled her eyes slightly, but she was pleased that her friend cared so much about her well-being. "I won't. I have to go back to Greg. He'll be worried too." She turned to Sam. "Thank you for saving our lives, Sam. And thanks for coming to help, Patty."

The whitelighter inclined his head politely and he and his charge watched Laurel orb from the glade. After a few moments of silence, Patty spoke. "Are you sure you healed her child completely? Normally, a child wouldn't survive that. And it's her first-born," Patty asked Sam again, approaching him and putting a hand to his shoulder.

"I didn't want to say anything with Laurel in that state of shock and pain, Patty, but there's something about the child…now don't freak out. Did you see those silver sparks in my powers? Well, I think it was, erm, your powers. Some of your blood must have mingled with Laurels and it must have already combined and gone into the child. Something wasn't normal about it. But I was worried," he said hastily as Patty's eyes widened. "Maybe the worry clouded my mind." After a few seconds, Sam shook his head to dislodge his brooding as Patty's arms wrapped carefully around his waist, and without speaking, orbed the two of them home.

The present day Millers and Halliwells watched the orbs vanish with open mouthes. Silence reigned for several long seconds before Heather finally turned to the present Patty and asked abruptly, "Your blood combined with my mom's when you were both hurt and hers combinded with yours? Is that how me and Piper are connected? Through that blood? We're...literally related?"

Patty did not answer Heahter as she gazed away at another part of the glade. "There is more to see," was all she said, and conjured up the lights again. At that response, the Millers looked to one another, nervousness etched on their faces. Something told them that the past would get worse to watch, much more sad to witness, but they had to see for themselves. They had to know the truth, and they had to learn about their mother and the development of the stongest connection in magic ever. Their lives depended on it, and the lives of the Halliwells and the rest of the world, even. Finally, slowly, they clasped hands with the Halliwell witches again, and were transported to another time period.