Chapter Three
This time, they were in the Manor hallway. Piper and Leo were facing each with angry expressions. They didn't seem to be quite as far along as the first memory, but definitely further than the one with Baby Sophie. There were various balloons floating around, and a banner saying Happy Birthday Sophie! On it.
"Look," Paige pointed out, pointing at the stairs. Sophie was crouching by the bars on the landing, her face tearstreaked and dressed in party clothes.
"She must be about seven or eight, do you think?" Piper studied her with a concerned frown. The others nodded in agreement.
"How could you Leo?" Future Piper bit out, looking enraged. "I mean, you've pulled a lot of stunts over the years, but this is a whole new low, even for you."
"What does that mean?" Future Leo demanded defensively. Present Leo shifted, a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Future Piper glared back at him. "What it means," she hissed. "Is that you have been promising for months, for months, Leo, that you'd come to the party. And then, the party comes and what do you do? Don't arrive, and then send a note halfway through apologising and saying that you're too busy with more important things to come!"
"God, Leo," Paige muttered. "You should be ashamed of yourself for doing that to a little kid."
"I am," he replied glumly, looking at the floor with slumped shoulders.
"She's constantly trying to make you be happy with her," Future Piper continued, still furious. "She goes to Magic School, even though she hates it there, because you insist on it. She's in the top part of her class, after being moved forward a grade, but it's never good enough for you! God, Leo, sometimes I even think you forget that Sophie is your daughter!"
"Oh my god!" Phoebe gasped, eyes wide as the pieces finally slid into place. How could they not have realized? It was practically stated outright. "Your children," Piper had said in an earlier scene. Children, as in plural. Oh god, Leo had hit his own daughter. He neglected her in the future for the sake of his Elder duties. What kind of man was he?
Future Leo looked upset. "That's not fair Piper," he insisted. Piper's eyes flashed dangerously in reply. "I love Sophie, you know that."
"No, Leo, I don't know that," Future Piper replied flatly. "Actions speak louder than words, and nothing you've done since her birth, hell nothing you've done since I got pregnant has made me believe that you love her."
Future Leo looked hurt, as Leo felt the remains of his heart break in half. Then, as Future Leo was about to answer, he glanced up. Future Piper scowled in frustration.
"Let me guess," she scoffed. "They need you, and it takes precedence." Future Leo looked defeated.
"We'll finish this later," he told her before orbing away. Piper stared stonily at the space where he'd standing before glancing up and spotting Sophie, crying silently in the stairwell.
"Oh honey," she sighed. Sophie orbed to her, immediately burying her face in her mother's stomach. Piper wrapped her arms around her daughter and started swaying with her from side-to-side.
"I'm so sorry, baby," she whispered. "I love you, I'm sorry." Sophie continued to cry, shoulders shaking from the force of her tears as they were again taken from the scene by the tunnel.
Piper turned to Leo as soon as she was steady on her feet. "If you ever treat our children like that," she told him, voice cold as ice. "I'll send you to a Darklighter lair." He had no doubt that she was speaking the truth, and nodded silently in acknowledgement.
"It makes so much sense," Paige muttered. "I can't believe we didn't put everything together earlier."
"No kidding," Phoebe agreed. She glanced around tensely, anticipating yet another distressing memory being about to play out. Her brown eyes widened as she recognized the room, and its' occupant.
"We're in Sophie and Rose's hut again," Phoebe pointed out. "What's Rose doing, do you think?"
"it looks like she's summoning someone," Piper answered distractedly, thoughts consumed with her children. She was going to get the daughter that she always wanted.
She loved Wyatt more than anything of course, but Piper had always expected a girl. She had been slightly disappointed that it would be footballs and mud, instead of the tea parties and dolls that she anticipated. In the first memory, Sophie had looked a bit like a girly-girl, dressed in a denim skirt and purple top. Piper guessed that she probably would've been more interested in girl stuff if not for the dystopian future she came from.
Once Wyatt was saved, which they would do, she silently swore to herself. Her daughter was never going to have to suffer the pain she had seen, and her son was not going to become the Source. Not while Piper could stop it from happening.
"I call upon the Warren line, to boost the power of my rhyme," Rose chanted. "Hear my words, hear my cry. Spirit from the other side. Come to me, I summon thee, cross now the great divide."
In a swirl of lights, Piper appeared.
"Oh my god," Paige gasped yet again at the sight of her sister's ghost. "You're really gone." They all glanced desperately at the current Piper, frantic to see her breathing and whole.
"Hello, Prim," Ghost Piper smiled lovingly at her niece, stepping out of the circle of candles and solidifying. She scooped Rose into a hug.
"Hey, Aunt Piper," Rose sighed reverently. "I didn't think that it would work. And, Goddess. No one's called me Prim in years."
"Calling on our family line was an excellent idea, sweetheart," Piper told her warmly. "I wouldn't have managed to appear if you hadn't boosted the spell."
Rose smiled back as the door opened and Sophie entered, looking almost exactly like when she had appeared in their attic several months before. She froze in shock, staring at her mother's ghost.
"Mom?"
Ghost Piper opened her arms. "Peanut," she said lovingly. "It's really me, I swear."
"How?" Sophie asked unsteadily, eyes shining. "Seancés haven't worked in ages."
"I called on the Warren line to help," Rose admitted. "Happy birthday, Sophie."
"Thank you," she whispered, eyes still fixed on Piper. She didn't seem to notice as Rose slipped past and out the door. Once it closed, however, she hesitantly moved forward, until she was gripping her mother in a desperate embrace. It seemed as though she was trying to burn the feel of Piper's hug into her memory.
"I'm here," Ghost Piper assured her, stroking her daughter's hair. "I'm here, I promise."
"I've missed you so much," Sophie admitted brokenly as they pulled back slightly. Present Piper felt her eyes fill with tears again, anguished over her child's suffering.
"I've missed you too, Peanut," Ghost Piper sighed. "I'm so proud of you, you know."
Sophie bit her lip, glancing down. "I haven't been good enough," she admitted. "I can't kill him, and the world's paying for it. I'm so sorry. I failed everything that you ever taught me."
"No," Piper insisted adamantly. "You haven't. You've been amazing Baby. If anyone here failed, it's me. No, it's true," she continued as Sophie started to shake her head. "I didn't protect Wyatt properly, and I let his destiny be more important than his life, and he turned as a result. You shouldn't have all this on your shoulders Baby. You didn't do anything wrong."
She took in the expression on Sophie's face, sighing. "My death was not your fault," she insisted. "The Underworld knew that we were vulnerable when we were separated, and they took advantage of our need to protect our children. I don't regret saving you, and I never will. Just as Phoebe doesn't regret trying to save Pamela, and Paige died for Henry to escape. It was our duty as mothers and we did it happily. Understand, Baby?"
"They used our children to kill us, the bastards," Paige muttered, gripping Phoebe's hand tightly. "Paige died for Henry," echoing in her mind.
Sophie gave a half nod, and Piper relaxed.
"I'm going to time travel," Sophie blurted out. "Stop this before it ever starts. It's the only way."
Ghost Piper nodded in acceptance, tucking a strand of Sophie's hair behind her ear. "Like when I taught you to cook," she murmured in agreement. "Sometimes the food's too burnt to be saved. You have to dump it and start over again instead."
Sophie looked at the floor. "I'm going to change so much," she told Piper. "I'll basically be playing God, erasing people from existence, changing their whole lives to achieve my own goals."
"It's a hard thing to do, I know," Piper sighed heavily. "But it's better than living in this hell for their entire lives. This is no way to live, Baby. And remember what we've always said to you? Innocents first, even before family. It's our goddess given duty as Warren witches. You understand that better than anyone, even more than your aunts and I did."
"This was never supposed to be me," Sophie breathed, tears shimmering in her olive-coloured eyes. "I was never meant to be the one everyone relied on to save them. That was supposed to be Wyatt."
Piper looked pained, stroking Sophie's hair as she pulled her close again. "I'm so sorry Baby," she murmured. "I wouldn't wish this responsibility on anyone, especially not you. Not because I don't think you can do it," she added hastily. "But because I never wanted the pressure I felt as a Charmed One to be on your shoulders."
Sophie let out a shaky breath, pulling back and going to sit on the bunk, Ghost Piper sitting beside her, clasping her hand.
"So, what are you planning on telling our past-selves?" Piper asked gently. Sophie played with a bracelet on her wrist, from which several gemstones, all used for protection, magic enhancment, clarity of mind and other such things, hung.
"I was going to tell them everything," she admitted uncertainly. "I thought it would be best."
"She what?" Phoebe and Paige exclaimed.
"Why didn't she then?" Paige wondered. Her answer came a second later when Ghost Piper shook her head.
"No, honey," she insisted. "You can't."
"Why not?" Phoebe demanded grumpily. Her niece echoed her question, looking bemused.
"Because," Piper informed her daughter. "It's too dangerous. Time travel has rules. If you reveal your identity, it might change your conception, thus erasing you." She looked agonized at thought, and the past Charmed Ones all went white, heads snapping to look at Leo, who nodded grimly.
"We won't let it happen," Phoebe assured her older sister, grasping Piper's hand. The eldest sister gave a tense squeeze in reply, not removing her gaze from the scene in front of her.
"And if someone came from the future, claiming to be my unborn child, and that my son was going to be evil and take over the world, I would never have believed them," Ghost Piper went on solemnly, Sophie nodding in understanding. "In fact, I probably would have just killed them."
"Okay," Sophie agreed. "I get it. What should I do, then?"
Piper smiled back at her. "We'll need a new Whitelighter after Leo leaves," she pointed out. "In fact, if you arrive at the start of the Titan crisis, you could end it early. It was four months before Leo finally got up the courage to turn us into gods, and Wyatt saw so much destruction during that time, it probably had a scarring effect on his mind, he was so young."
"Oh wow, I can't believe that it got so bad in Sophie's timeline," Paige muttered.
"And losing so many of the Elders and Whitelighters damaged the balance," Piper went on. "If you went back to when Paige was turned to stone, and stopped her orbing power being taken, and then convinced Leo to change us into gods then, instead of after four months, it'll do a lot of good."
Sophie nodded thoughtfully. "I need a way to put you guys on your guard without coming outright and admitting what happened to Wyatt," she pointed out. "And a full time frame. I'm not really sure what happened?"
Piper nodded. "Whatever took him was invisible," she informed her daughter. "I was on bedrest for my pregnancy and they took him when I was alone in the house." Her eyes were full of guilt as she spoke. "The stress sent me into premature labour with you. You should have been born in November, not mid-October."
Sophie nodded in recognition, while Present Piper's hand flew to her stomach, as if to shield the baby who was yet to be conceived from harm.
"Set your birthday as your timelimit," Piper instructed Sophie. "That gives you seventeen months to find who goes after Wyatt, while at the same not risking anything by staying past your birth, or interfering with Cole coming back from Limbo and remarrying Phoebe. Bear in mind that your arrival might put them on guard, and change their timeline as well."
"Did she just say Cole?" Paige shrieked. "How many times do we have to vanquish him for him to stay dead?"
Phoebe was white, her mouth open as Ghost Piper went on.
"And as for putting us on our guard, do something ostentatious but not genuinely dangerous."
"Can I do something to Leo?" Sophie asked mischievously. Ghost Piper laughed, while Leo's heart sunk at the renewed evidence of how bad his relationship with his family went.
"Yes, fine," Piper agreed. "I won't hold it against you."
Suddenly, everything turned a bright, blinding white, before it melted away to reveal that the spell was over. They were back in the attic, Sophie in front of them with a worried expression, and Wyatt resting on her hip. She stepped forward, her concern obvious as she spoke.
"What happened? Where were you guys, and why'd you leave Wyatt alone?"
