To Piper Chris Melinda Halliwell and Vampire Reader, thank you for your kind comments. Story wraps up here and I know I've been awfully slow so thanks to everyone who came along for the ride.

Spoilers: No particular episodes. Inspired by "P3 H2O" (2x08) and set before the show's first season so this fic is based off tidbits from the show over the years.
Disclaimer: Charmed is owned by Spelling Television and everyone else who made the show as amazing as it has been. I'm just a fan having lots of fun.

AN: These letters are set after Paige's birth (August 2, 1977)

August 1977

Dear Sam,

I think of her all the time. Where she is, how she's doing, whether she's loved. So many times I've almost run back to the church, wanting to talk to the good Sister. I know I mustn't, but Sam, it is so hard not to care. And I wonder—is it the same for you?

Are you haunted by her face as I am? I will never forget what it felt like to hold her and just look at her. Do you know that I wished for her to be less healthy, less strong, so that perhaps we could keep her awhile and teach her strength?

Sometimes I think our giving her up was all a dream. I've been waking from sleep much too soon and much too often lately and every time I imagine I hear her crying and wailing for us. But then I reach for the baby monitor and there is none, and I know that I have let myself confuse dream and reality again.

I fear it'll never get easier. The girls are good at distracting me but seeing the three of them together, so happy and beautiful, makes me sad. This is how it should be for her. She is a stranger to us already and it hardly seems fair not to have her and to have more time.

Love,
Patty

o

Dear Sam,

I know I should try to talk less of her and more of other things, but as I look at my girls, at the life we've built, and I write, she fills my heart and my thoughts. What else is there to say between us? What storm have we not already weathered? I miss her, Sam, and you. I miss the days when I looked into your face and my thoughts were happy and hopeful. How has it come to this, all sorrow between us?

Mom is sympathetic but impatient. The way she looks at me, the way her tone sometimes changes, I think she must be remembering her own past sadness. Dad, perhaps, and being pregnant with me. But those moments are fleeting and she is always soon talking about demons and Innocents again and trying to get me to the attic, to the Book of Shadows. And I know I should feel lucky because I am not alone and I have not lost you and I've not been forced to toughen up as quickly as I can, but instead, I am angry that destiny demands so much greatness from us and takes from us the things we are fighting for. I'm not yet ready to leave my girls. I need a few more moments with them, a few more moments to bask in their sweetness. And still there does not seem time enough to mend this emptiness in my heart.

They are so fierce already, my girls. Soon they will not need me to fend off the shadows in the closet, the demons under the bed. It will be hard, letting them go when the time comes. I have lost too much already and I know that destiny and heritage will not be easy for them either. I hope, only, that destiny will never be this cruel to them and that they will know enough good to help them bear the bad.

Love,
Patty

o

Dear Sam,

We needn't have worried so much about Cedric and what he was capable of. He was no high-level demon after all, just a low-level shapeshifter with grand ambitions, and the vanquish was no trouble. Mom didn't seem too surprised—I suspect she may have known and wanted me to figure it out for myself. Well! She has me chasing Grimlocks next which seems almost too simple compared to figuring Cedric out. It's been nice stepping out of the house with nothing to hide and no spells to keep track of. I forgot how satisfying it is to just walk down the street or watch a demon go up in flames. These past months have been too much trial by magic. What a relief it has been, finally being able to find the balance between the magical and the normal in my life again.

I sat outside the church again today and watched people flow in and out, trying to read their faces. I wonder if any of them will go home to a newborn tonight, to her, and look into her face and think they are blessed and God has smiled on them. It must not sound that way to you, but it's been good for me, sitting on the steps with my thoughts. The urge to run in and find Sister Agnes is less now. One day I will want to see for myself that she is happy and loved but today is too soon and it wouldn't be fair to her new family. For now, it's enough knowing Sister Agnes is a good soul and would have done her best by our little girl. I wish a lot of things could have turned out differently, but I'm glad that she will have a normal childhood and I'm glad that she'll have the truth one day if she wishes it.

Love,
Patty