This one got a little longer, but prior warning: the names might get confusing. I tried my best to keep them straight but it was all the same name. You'll understand what I mean when you read.
"Here, this should help calm you down," Prue said lightly, carrying a cup of hot chocolate into the living room with Phoebe and Piper at her heels. She stopped in her tracks when she noticed Pattie staring at a picture of her daughter in a sequined leotard and skirt from her dance recital a few years back. She looked at it with eyes lit up, but turned around to see the sisters and her smile faded.
Almost embarrassed, she set the picture back down on the table and scooted away from it. "Your daughter is really cute," she said with an uncomfortable tone in her voice, like she'd been caught stealing.
"Thank you, she'll be home from school in a little bit" Prue replied, sitting down Pattie and handing her the cup of steaming liquid. As Pattie brought it to her lips, her hands cringed, sending a few drops of liquid flying at both her and Prue, who gasped.
Pattie coughed, choking on what she'd managed to swallow, and then sent an apologetic look Prue's way. "I'm sorry, I guess I'm still a little shaky from the nightmare," she supposed, trying not to think of the horrible memories and just concentrate on the fact that her mother was here for the meantime.
She'd expected Prue to be upset and scold her, but she just grabbed a handful of napkins from the coffee table and offered them to Pattie. "That's okay, don't worry about it."
"So," Pattie began, trying to meander away from the topic of her arrival in 2000, "what's your daughter's name?"
"Patricia," Prue said, a fond glance at the same picture Pattie had just held in her hands. Pattie remembered how much pride Prue had always instilled in her as a child, that never changed.
"But don't let her hear you call her that," Piper interrupted with a grin.
"Oh, she doesn't like it?" Pattie played along. She'd never let anyone call her Patricia, it reminded her too much of her grandmother, who was after all her namesake. Prue, Piper, and Phoebe had all lost her at a young age, and she feared that they wanted her, in some way, to live up to the name of their mother. That was hard enough for Pattie; especially when she was too busy trying to fill her mother's shoes.
Piper laid back, "I feel bad for the poor soul that makes the mistake of calling her Patricia without realizing and has her unleash her wrath on them."
"Yeah," Phoebe put in, "We use it on her when she's in trouble but that's about it. The name came from our mother. We lost her at a young age, so it was appropriate tribute to her. She's a fireball, my niece"
Is that a compliment? Pattie pondered as she nodded with understanding. "I get it. I love the name, but I guess I, like her, just find Pattie a whole lot more fitting."
"She'd be happy to hear that someone was on her side," Prue laughed, pulling Pattie over to her. "Now, let's get on to the subject that you've been trying to avoid here. What had you so scared?"
"Nothing," Pattie muttered.
"Something," Phoebe replied, getting up and sitting on the coffee table opposite Pattie. "Elizabeth, we're not pressing for any information about how you got here right now because you helped us kill a demon, for which you are rewarded. But you need to work with us here and at least trust us." Pattie looked away at the mention of trust; she'd lost the ability to trust a long time ago. It always got her in trouble. I trusted my powers as a witch and look where that got me, she thought bitterly. Phoebe misread it. "Is that it? Was the demon what scared you?"
Sure, it was a complete lie, but Pattie went with it. She nodded, "he just came out of no where and then an athamae was coming at me. I was scared, so I threw it at him and he exploded."
Phoebe sympathized for her, even though Pattie was a pro at demon hunting and a lower level demon had stopped scaring her years ago, Phoebe didn't know that. She reached out to Pattie, "Elizabeth, do you know about your abilities as a witch?"
Pattie counted her blessings when the heavy door of the manor creaked open and then slammed shut as little Pattie skipped through the hallway, her curly pigtails bouncing up and down with each step. "Mommy!" she squealed happily, jumping into Prue's lap. Feeling like a third wheel, she moved over near Phoebe, pretending to be shaken still from the nightmare, which in many ways the memories still got to her. It worked; Phoebe put an arm around Pattie. It wasn't hard to accept Phoebe's comfort, she'd been raised with it, and whenever she'd lost her mind Phoebe had been there. On the other hand, just when she'd learned what it was like to be able to love her mother again, something else had interfered.
In this case, it'd been her past self.
"Mommy, it's the girl from this morning," little Pattie said, inching closer, "What is she doing here?"
"Pattie, be nice," Piper ordered.
"This is Elizabeth," Prue replied, motioning for Pattie to greet her. "Elizabeth, this is my daughter."
"Hi Pattie," the teen said, shaking the hand of the girl she once was. "I'm sorry I scared you." Little Pattie looked at her, not sure whether or not to take her seriously. "You know, I haven't gotten a real tour of the house yet," she suggested as a distraction. Pattie needed some time to think through a plan and she feared if she and her younger self were around their family too long Prue would notice the obvious similarities. Pattie was surprised no one had seen them already. "You want to show me your room and everything? I bet you've got some great toys."
Little Pattie looked at Prue, her mind instantly dropping the distrust and switching to pleasure. She loved having friends over to play with. "Can I mommy?"
"Go right ahead," Prue said, but her daughter had already grabbed a hold of their guest and was pulling her up the stairs.
Little Pattie had Pattie's arm in a death grip, excitedly leading her to her bedroom. She pushed open the door of a room that would see many changes in the coming years. Pattie nearly shielded her eyes, there was so much pink it created an eerie glow of fluorescent pink light. "Ta da!"
I was such a little show off, Pattie thought.
"So lemme guess, pink's your favorite color, huh?" she inquired sarcastically.
Little Pattie giggled, throwing her backpack off to the side and moving towards a pile of beanie babies that sat on the butterfly chair in the corner of her room. Pattie studied each of them, who, in her time, were currently scattered about the manor in the rooms of her cousins. She hadn't played with them in years but just couldn't bring herself to throw them out. Neither saw Prue behind them watching the spectacle, grinning from ear to ear as little Pattie cradled two small dogs, one in each hand and offered one to Pattie.
Overwhelmed by the memory of the beagle, she practically felt the tears returning as she turned the animal over again and again in her hands, reading the poem on its tag.
"Aw, hello Sniffer," Pattie laughed, petting the soft animal on its head. He felt old in her time but now, Pattie realized, he was probably one of the most coveted out there. "I bet he was a birthday present," she pretending to guess and saw her little self happily nod. It'd been such a thrill to get him, newly released only a few weeks earlier, for her birthday. He'd been sitting on her alarm clock that morning when she woke up for school.
The other beanie that rested comfortably in little Pattie's hands was Wrinkles. He'd been her first. "Oh, Wrinkles, right? He must have been a very special occasion right? Like your first day of school?"
Little Pattie gasped, "How did you know?"
"I'm one smart girl."
Prue rolled her eyes and left the doorway to go help Piper with dinner while the girls placed the two dogs back among the collection. The younger situated herself amid a heap of doll things, pulling out an outfit here and an accessory there, the older wandered over to the closet.
Quietly opening the door, she ran her hand over the neat line of clothes, most of which had been given away to homeless children or were in bags somewhere up in the attic in 2008.
Her eyes stopped when they fell over the hand-knit scarf, striped with the colors of the rainbow. During the course of Pattie's life it had become lost. Up until then, she'd worn it every day during the bitter winter in frigid temperatures. Pattie held it to her face, feeling the soft material rub against her skin. The thing that was special about this article of clothing is that Prue never knit. Prior to that Christmas, Pattie hadn't known that she had that ability, but when it was presented to her Prue had said it was the one thing she'd been able to do the last month and a half of her pregnancy, and Pattie had cherished it ever since. Holding it out to little Pattie, she queried, for the sake of conversation, "Mommy made this for you didn't she? It was a Christmas gift when you were four?"
"Okay, are you like a psychic?" little Pattie asked with a sly smirk.
The older one smiled and closed the closet door, moving over to the bed. Oh how easy it was to entrance a seven year old. "I guess you could say I'm like a guardian angel or something," she replied. Then, as she observed little Pattie take out one of her baby dolls, one of those that would eat and drink all by itself, they had been Pattie's favorites, she couldn't help be to become absorbed in the commercial-like moment. The little girl, pretending to be a mother, fed the child, burped it, and then with the most tenderness of care, set her in the plastic crib. She gave her a small kiss on the forehead before Pattie closed her eyes and let her head drop to the pillow out of disparity. The reminders were everywhere she looked.
"You know, I need to talk to you for a second, okay?"
She lifted Pattie onto the bed and settled her into her arms. It was strange, having a conversation with herself, but then again, Pattie had never considered herself normal anyway. What have I got to lose? Pattie decided, I've already lost what's most important to me.
"You and I are a lot alike," she began, caressing little Pattie close to her.
"Is that why you know these things about me?" she queried curiously.
"Yes," Pattie sighed, losing her trace of thought.
"I look like you," little Pattie noted, tracing the birthmark on Pattie's left wrist and then her own. Noticing it for the first time, Pattie pulled her sleeve over her wrist. The younger one sensed the tension, the kind that only came along when a demon was after them. "Is a demon going to attack us? Is something bad going to happen?"
Damn, she's smart, Pattie thought, but it was too late to back out now. Taking a deep breath, she began to clarify. "There are going to be a lot of demons, Pattie. But one day, something's going to happen that you aren't ready for and you're going to think that you'll never be happy again." Little Pattie frowned sadly, but Pattie put a hand on her chin, propping her face up. "Look at me okay? I need you to know that when that time comes, and I don't want you to worry about it now because that would be silly, that it's okay to move on and be happy. Nobody will be mad at you for doing that okay?"
"Okay," little Pattie agreed, reaching up and wiping away the tears welling up in her future self's eyes. "But what's going to happen? And how do you know?"
"All in good time," she replied, diverting from the reality, that in less than a year Shax would be here and Prue would not. "But what I can tell you is that I come from a very special time to make sure that you are okay and that you never blame yourself for this bad thing, because it's destiny, and you can't stop destiny."
"Mommy met the Angel of Death, he wouldn't let her stop destiny either," the little girl concluded.
Pattie gulped, she hadn't realized how low Prue's time was running if Piper had already married Leo and her mother had faced the Angel of Death. "He's right. But even in the worst times, good things happen. Be good to mommy too, spend lots of time with her and always tell her how much you love her."
Fortunately, the foreshadowing to the imminent future flew over little Pattie's head, she smiled, "I already do that, silly."
"Good," she commended. "No matter what though, don't tell mommy and your aunts about this bad thing, because grown ups always worry over nothing right?" Pattie nodded, giggling. "You will be okay. I'm living proof of that." Little Pattie wrapped her arms around Pattie. She didn't know why, but maybe some part of the little girl knew what was coming her way, and Pattie realized she may have just affected her future in a good way.
When the child went back to her toys without question, Pattie felt her heart breaking. She admired that her young self could accept what was just told to her, knowing that somewhere down the road her life would be interrupted and changed forever.
She'd gotten through to her past self, but she couldn't reach herself in the present?
Getting to her feet, Pattie shut the door to her bedroom, sliding down to the floor. She buried her face in her knees, crying long hard sobs. It felt like weeping was the only thing she ever did.
"I need to get out of here."
With all her remaining amount of strength and will power, she resorted to a very risky situation. Taking a momentary look around the area to make sure she was alone, Pattie turned and started off in the direction of the attic.
The Book of Shadows sat in its stationary spot on the bookstand in the middle of the attic, where it had faithfully been every time Pattie needed it. She vigilantly snuck in the door, shutting and locking it. Pattie touched her hand to her chest, feeling the pounding of her heart. This was too much. She needed a sounding board to calm her down and get her home no questions asked.
Then again, with the Halliwell family you probably couldn't get away with no questions seeing as we're all such nosy people, she thought, smiling at her own joke.
Collecting five blue and white candles from the same supply drawer they'd always used, she found the lighter and clutched it in her trembling hands. She placed them in a circle and then lit each, one by one, her hope burning in each spark of light. Maybe she didn't have witch powers, but she could still cast spells.
Rising and returning to the book, Pattie flipped through the pages until she found what she was looking for. She'd never cast this spell on her own before, but Pattie had watched as her aunts did it on more than one occasion.
Hear these words, hear my cry
Spirit from the other side
Come to me, I summon thee,
Cross now the great divide.
For a minute nothing happen, and Pattie's heart sank, but when suddenly there came a swirling ball of white light, following by another and then a few more, they wrapped around themselves until Patty was standing before her.
The curls of her golden hair billowed down her shoulders, she turned and faced Pattie. "But I, I don't understand," the echo of her soft voice came.
"Neither do I," Pattie admitted, closing the book. "Either way, I need you to get me home."
"Get you home? But how did you get here?" she inquired, resting her hands on her hips.
"You mean, you know who I am?"
Patty stepped out of the circle of lights and became corporeal, holding out her arms as her granddaughter ran into them. She enveloped Pattie into a hug. "Oh honey, of course I do. One look at you and it's very obvious."
There they go again, telling me I look like her, she thought moaning. "My mom and my aunts haven't noticed, I told them my name was Elizabeth and they believed me."
"Being a witch scatters their brains sometimes. I don't think they've taken the time to notice," she caressed Pattie's cheek with her hand, "but you seem to be pleased of that." Shamefully, Pattie nodded as her grandmother led her over to their antique red couch. They plopped down on it, and Patty put her hands on Pattie's shoulders, "I think you should tell me what you're doing here. This isn't your time anymore, sweetie."
"I know Grandma, believe me this wasn't my intention. Apparently I suck as a witch, I can't write a decent spell to save my life," she confessed, reclaiming the notepaper from her pockets and handing it to Patty. "I cast this to rid me of my pain but somehow I ended up here."
Patty examined the spell, her eyebrows rising. She eyed Pattie with suspicion, "what happened to make a lucky girl like you have all this pain, dear?"
"I can't tell you," she mumbled despondently.
"Pattie, you can tell me anything. Besides darling, I'm a ghost so there's no consequence for anything you say now. You need to tell me what's going on or risk changing your future to the point where someone ends up dead."
"Somebody already does!" she cried, standing and crossing the room, the tears returning.
Patty quickly followed her and tried to provide the comfort that Pattie just couldn't seem to manage. "Ssh," she soothed. "Try to keep your voice down if you don't want to be caught. You can tell me any time you like, any time you decide you're ready," Patty assured her, rocking Pattie back and forth in her arms. This was another person she wished she'd had the chance to know growing up, someone else she'd been stripped of.
Thank you magic, the sardonic voice played in her head.
Finally, as her hot wet tears spilled down her face, she blubbered, "She dies, your daughter."
Patty comprehended. "And your mother," she finished for her. The silence was an answer in its own right. When Pattie relaxed a bit, her eyes red and glazed over, Patty kneeled down in front of her, brushing her bangs from her eyes. "My advice? You need to tell her who you are so she can help get you home."
"What about you?"
"Sweetheart there's nothing that your Grams or I could do except guide you in the right direction. You need to confide in your mom about your real identity without giving too much information, otherwise you knows what future you have to go back to," Patty prompted, smoothing her granddaughter's hair. Pattie sighed; she knew it was the truth. Why did ghosts always have to be right?
"I don't know if I can."
"If you don't and the Elder's find out, they may intervene." Patty knew she may have been stretching the truth a bit on that one, but with the Elder's she could never be too safe. Pattie's eyes widened at the thought of that, and Patty gathered her for one last hug. "Just remember dear, I love you and I always will."
As she stepped back into the circle, becoming a pure spirit again, the last of the tears shed from Pattie's eye. "I love you too, Grandma," she replied softly, picking up one of the candles and cupping her hand around the flame.
Just as she did, Patty called, "Patricia." She looked up. "Don't count your mother out just yet."
Nodding, Pattie blew out the candle and Patty disappeared with a surge of light.
For the most part Pattie was thankful for an evening that went smoothly. They enjoyed a delicious dinner, one of the full-course ones that she remembered Piper cooking on the odd occasion. Of course, her chef of an aunt still threw together luscious food in her own time, but there was something about her passion of cooking that had been lost after her mother's death. It seemed a lot of things had been lost then.
Little Pattie chattered away the entire meal about the daily happenings of school, who got the best test grade in math, who was so-and-so's new best friend and what the new topic for her writing essay was. It kept Prue, Piper, and Phoebe distracted so the interrogation didn't fall towards her. She said a silent prayer for the fact that no one ever told her to shut up for the times she could rant about the littlest things. Now it worked in her favor.
Trying to place herself back in that moment in time, she became conscious of how easy being the naïve second grader was. All along she'd wished for the ability to grow up and be accepted as an adult in her aunts eyes, but somewhere down the line she'd overlooked the perks of being a child, the innocence, the allowance to be oblivious to everything.
About halfway through dinner she also realized that the table was lacking someone. Where was Leo? If anything, this was another benefit. In this time Leo was still a whitelighter; even if her family didn't recognize her, there was always that chance, like Patty said, that the Elders would inform Leo of what was going on and he would, too, know.
The longer he stayed away the better.
The time would have to come sooner or later to tell Prue, but Pattie wasn't ready yet. Still, she knew her grandmother was right; it had to come sooner or later.
After they'd finished Pattie helped Piper to clean up the dishes, carrying them back and forth from the table to the sink. It was the least she could do after interrupting their lives with her own drama, Pattie felt. "Really, honey, you don't have to help," Piper repeated for the third time, but Pattie insisted.
"Hey I say if the kid wants to have manners, let her," Phoebe argued.
"Can I have some water, please, Elizabeth?" Little Pattie asked sweetly as she cuddled with Prue, sitting on her lap. Pattie tried not to watch them, she didn't want to see the bond that she's once had herself, it might make her blurt out the truth with the worst timing.
Unfortunately the truth always has a way of coming out on its own.
Reaching for a mug and filling it from the sink, Pattie happily obliged to the request. As she reached across from her spot to hand the mug to Pattie, Prue sucked it a breath of air and she drew back.
Pattie realized, all too late, that the sleeve of her sweatshirt had slipped up her arm. Prue had caught a glimpse at the circular patch of darkened skin on her wrist. Curiosity loomed within her. She took the arm of the little girl sitting in her lap and flipped it over, staring at the same picture on her own wrist, a birthmark that Pattie had always had.
That was when it hit her. She thought back to the first moments of conversation between her and this girl, how she called herself Elizabeth. Elizabeth, which was Patricia's middle name. The pieces began to flow together and Prue started to assimilate the situation. She'd thought herself lucky that Pattie took to Elizabeth so quickly, how she'd seemingly understood her daughter's circumstances as a witch, and even agreed with her desire to be called Pattie, not Patricia.
"I love the name, but I guess I, like her, just find Pattie a whole lot more fitting," Elizabeth had said.
Of course she did, she grew up being called Pattie as a nickname and hating her full name. The rest of the facts fit themselves together nicely as well. Pattie had been born in the North Beach apartment Prue and Piper had shared when Prue's water had unexpectedly broken, but Elizabeth had also said she wouldn't give more to where she resided at that point in time. Prue had wondered why, now it was clear.
She pictured the moment where she caught Elizabeth staring longingly at a picture of her and Pattie from one of Pattie's dance recitals, how her face had seemed almost brightened. She'd clung so tightly to Prue following a nightmare, as if she were perfectly comfortable with her. It all made sense.
Even more, she'd confessed that her father was dead, which Andy was, and her mother needn't worry of where she was.
Surely her mother didn't worry, because finally Prue knew, this child was hers.
"Pattie," Prue's voice trailed off, "why don't you go upstairs and play?"
Pattie sighed, "You're just trying to get rid of me." Bingo, she was right, but Prue didn't have the patience to argue.
"Well, go call Emily and ask her if her mother wouldn't mind picking you up a little early before the costume party then?"
"You mean I can go?" Pattie squealed, instantly forgetting any anger. Prue nodded, and Pattie scampered up the stairs and to her bedroom, happily giggling the entire way.
Piper and Phoebe both sat forward as Prue rose slowly from her seat and approached Pattie. She gently placed her hands on Pattie's face, staring into the eyes of the little girl she'd created and raised. The same green eyes which stared back at her every night when she tucked Pattie in. "How could I not see it?" she asked herself aloud, taking in each facial feature, the solid chestnut-colored hair, and the way Pattie tucked her hair behind her ear again, trying to back away. Every bit of her was clone to Prue.
"What's…what's going on?" she stuttered nervously, thought she was already positive that she her worse nightmare was coming true before her eyes. Prue had figured it out.
Prue dropped her hands and studied Pattie for another minute before finally having the courage to say it. "You can drop the act now. I know it's you, Pattie."
But that was the wrong move. Pattie dropped the mug she was holding, letting it shatter to pieces as the drink stained the floor and she bolted. Her mother and aunts were calling after her but Pattie just bit her lip and pressed forward, pounding her feet into the soil beneath her and heading for the first place she could think of.
She didn't know where she would go exactly but she knew where she couldn't.
Home.
So I didn't confuse you too much, right? What do you think Pattie will do now? And what about Prue? Thanks to everyone who's been supporting me and my writing, it definitely influences how quickly the next chapter comes. I want your opinion, have me up to 25 reviews for the story before I post the next chapter!