Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Cauldron: Divine Inspiration

The Manor: November 10th, 2003

Piper stared blankly down at the Book of Shadows. It was open to the page on the Elders, but she wasn't taking any of the words in. Her vision was blurry from the tears she was struggling to restrain as she ran over everything Wyatt had admitted to them earlier that day.

"Anna and I are from different timelines. She came back and died completing her mission, and then Annie, that is, the Anna in my timeline, suddenly got the same injuries that killed this version of her. We put her under a stasis spell and I went back to stop her from dying."

"In Anna's timeline, I was kidnapped as a baby and turned evil from the trauma. Pretty much everyone in the family is dead in her timeline, and she's in charge of a worldwide rebellion."

"She hates me, and I don't even blame her for it."

"Mom, fix it, please. I don't know what to do."

That last one almost made Piper feel worst of everything her son had said to her. Almost. But what he'd told her about what had happened to Anna was definitely the worst revelation of the whole day. What she had been through. God, Anna was only, what? Twenty, twenty-one?

Piper suddenly remembered that, right before Niko had attacked and her life had spun out of control, Wyatt had been asking them to do something for Anna's birthday, because it was coming up soon. When had he said it was? About a week or two, right? Piper would have a baby daughter twelve months from now.

Either way, the facts didn't change. Anna was a kid, younger than Phoebe or Paige had been when they got their powers, and she was responsible for leading a war against her own brother. And she blamed herself for Piper's death.

It was wrong for her to do so, of course. Piper was Anna's mother. It was her right and her duty to sacrifice her life to save either of her children. She had known since the moment she learned of her pregnancy with Wyatt that she would do so for him without batting an eyelash. Now she knew who Anna was to her, the same feelings extended to her as well. The only regret Piper could ever feel about dying for one of her children was that she wouldn't be able to see them grow up into the amazing people (and witches) that they would be.

But Survivor's Guilt was a tricky thing, one all of the Charmed Ones had wrestled with at various times. She knew it wouldn't be that easy to convince Anna it was right that if one of them had to die that day, it was better off being Piper. From the sounds of it, Anna was nearly drowning under guilt and fear and trauma.

This wasn't like with Baby Wyatt banging his wrist against the table, when a kiss from her and some cooing to distract him had fixed everything. Her children were in front of her, grown and hurting, and Mommy kisses couldn't fix that.

What was she going to do?

"Piper," Leo's voice was hoarse, and her head snapped up from the Book. Concern filled her at the sight of him. He looked awful.

His eyes were red-rimmed, and held an exhausted, world-weary look in them. The corners of his mouth were downturned, and his usually Army-straight shoulders were slumped as if he had finally been defeated by life's never-ending curveballs. Piper wondered, if she looked in a mirror, would she look as bad, or worse than he did.

"Are you alright?" she asked lamely.

She chided herself a second after the words left her mouth for asking such a stupid question. Of course, Leo wasn't alright. How could he be, knowing that his mentor for decades was planning to kill his son, and his unborn/adult daughter hated him? Hell, even Piper had been very unhappy with his borderline cruelty and continuous stalking of Wyatt and Anna in the past few months and she was in love with him. But now, looking at him and recalling Paige and Phoebe telling her how Leo had thrown Anna into the living room wall, she itched to blow him into a million pieces.

And she was less than impressed to learn that it had taken his daughter time travelling back twenty years and stating outright to his face that she hated him to get her children's father to start putting his family above his work.

Leo gave a half-hearted shrug, his lips turned downward at the corners. "I don't understand how any of this could have happened," he admitted hoarsely. "Where did it all go wrong, Piper?"

'It all started going wrong when you decided your Whitelighter duties were more important than your family,' she thought resentfully. 'When you chose to obey Their summons instead of trying to fix our marriage. When you decided to leave Wyatt and I, and tried to blame it all on fate.'

She didn't say any of the thoughts that floated through her mind, though. She simply shrugged, glancing back down at the Book. "I think it's been wrong a lot longer than any of us have wanted to admit," she said, without looking at him. 'Since Prue died at least. God, why did she have to leave me? Prue, I need you.'

Piper could no longer say that she wished she had died instead of Prue, because if she had died that day, her children would never have existed, and that was an alternate universe that she couldn't bear to think about. But she still longed for her sister's steadfast support and unyielding strength and advice. Prue had always been there when she needed her.

Leo swallowed, giving a nod and looking down at his shoes. "I never meant for this to happen, Piper," he insisted, with a pleading tone. "I don't understand how Gideon could do this! Maybe he's under a spell or something. I mean, he fought for our marriage. Why would he be against our children?"

"Not just our children, remember?" she snapped, her temper flaring at Leo having the audacity to actually try and defend the man who wanted to kill her sweet baby boy. "He's planning on killing any child me and my sisters have! God, how can you defend him, when both our son and Cole have told us what they overheard him planning?"

He gave her a pleading expression. "He's my closest friend, Piper," he begged. "He taught me everything I know about the Wiccan world and being a Whitelighter. I-"

"No!" Piper's badly restrained temper finally snapped. She lifted a hand to silence him. "Stop," she continued. "Just, stop Leo. I can't listen to this. God! Leo, you have been stalking, harassing and just generally making our children's lives miserable for months! And, are you worrying over that? Are you at all concerned about our missing daughter and her mental health after spending years, literally years, Leo, being the most wanted fugitive in a warzone? No! No, you're worried about the fucking bastard who wants to kill our children!"

"Piper-"

"Don't Piper me!" she cried, flicking her hands to make him explode into orbs. "Get out," she ordered dully when he reformed. Her arms hung limply at her sides and there was a raw look in her brown eyes that shattered Leo's heart. "Just get out."

He cast her one last look filled with pain and misery before orbing back to the Heavens.

"And, for god's sake," she added as he disappeared. "Don't tell anyone about Wyatt and Anna and what we found out today. Just don't."

"Piper," Phoebe said sympathetically from the doorway where she and Paige had been huddled in the landing. They had arrived just in time to overhear their sister's rant, and now they entered with their arms wide to offer comfort. Piper hated to be vulnerable, she always had, even as a young girl. But right then, with Wyatt's plea of "Mom, fix this please", and Anna's haunted gaze and Leo's justifications floating around her mind, she sank willingly into their embrace, her chest heaving from the tears streaking down her face.


The Manor: July 31st, 2022

"I'm not a child, Mom!" Anna yelled at her mother.

Piper's jaw was tense, and her spine was rigid. The Warren matriarch had made up her mind and she was determined not to let it be changed. Leo stood beside her, his arms crossed and a frown on his face. Paige's lips were pursed, and Phoebe looked grim. Wyatt was also across the table from her, a rare scowl on his face.

On Anna's side were her grandfather (Anna was Victor's undisputed favourite grandchild, and she always had been.) and both of her uncles. Her aunts were occasionally sending sharp glares at their respective husbands, while Henry and Cole barely batted their eyelids at it. She couldn't express how utterly grateful she was to them for refusing to bend to their wives' wishes, instead choosing to support her in her dreams.

She forced herself to take a deep breath and clenched her fists. Her nails dug into her palms as she met her mother's eyes as calmly as she could. If she let her temper rule her, she would lose the argument. And Anna was determined not to lose this fight. Of course, Piper was the one she needed to convince. If Piper gave her permission, the others would all back down as well.

"Mom," she said, in as reasonable a voice as she could muster. "I'm eighteen years old, not eight. I'm the second strongest witch in the family, and I know how to fight, with or without magic. All I want to do is go to college, like a normal eighteen-year-old."

She emphasized the word 'normal', knowing how much Piper and her sisters had always wanted their children to grow up like regular mortals, instead of Halliwell witches. Indeed, Piper's brown eyes flickered at the word, but she was otherwise unmoved by the plea. Anna continued.

"It's such a good school Mom. Seriously, a scholarship to an Ivy League school. I can't get better than that Mom. Princeton-"

"Is in New Jersey, and therefore unacceptable," Piper cut in. "You would be too far away from the family, and the Manor. No. I won't agree to this Anna. You got Golden Gate, you're going to Golden Gate. That's it."

Leo, Wyatt, and the aunts stayed quiet beside her, an intimidating array of silent support.

"Piper, you're being unreasonable, honey," Victor cut in. "This is a once in a life time opportunity for Anna. What the scholarship doesn't cover, her college fund does, and she can easily orb home if needs be. Think about how good this will be for her, honey. The chances in life it'll bring her! She-"

"Is going to run the club and the restaurant after me," Piper cut in. "And be a Whitelighter at the same time. She doesn't need a fancy Ivy League degree for that."

"What if that's not the only thing that I want to do with my life?" Anna asked softly. Her family, save for Victor and Cole, who gave her supportive looks, all stared at her in surprise. Even Henry, who'd been firmly on her side since the start of the latest Halliwell family drama, didn't know that Anna wasn't intending to study business at university and then go straight into working for her mother, juggling Whitelighter duties on the side.

She met her mother's eyes determinedly, lifting her chin. "I want a life, Mom," she declared. "I want a life where I'm able to be me. Not a ghost, who's name I don't even know."

All of her elders, including the three on her side, suddenly looked stricken.

"Yeah, I put it together," she snapped. "Someone you guys loved, died. I remind you of them, physically or attitude wise, or maybe both. But you can't keep forcing me to be someone I'm not, Mom. I want to travel, I want to be able to make my own decisions, not accept the ones you make for me! I don't want to be a Whitelighter, I hate doing that stuff, and I always have. And, you know what?"

She lifted her chin. Her family was all obviously stunned. None of them, not even Phoebe with her empathy, had ever realized how much she was keeping inside herself.

"I don't need your permission," she declared. "I'm eighteen. I'm an adult, with a full savings account, and a brain. I can go wherever and do whatever I like."

"Don't you dare," Piper cried, voice going shrill. "Anna, don't you dare!"

Anna ignored her, orbing away. She held back her tears until she arrived at Niko's apartment.

"Anna?" he jumped to his feet in surprise. His surprise quickly turned to worry, and he reached out for her. "Angel, are you okay?"