Matt hadn't known many Elders before they were nearly wiped out. Those that had survived were older, and angrier, they were more jaded and more scarred. It was easy to be a paragon of virtue and goodness when you were safe above the clouds, but watching your colleagues and friends die changed a person. It made them harsher, stronger.
These Elders were softer than Matt had seen anyone with magic dare to be in years. Leo might not see the lies, but Matt couldn't ignore them.
"Who had the vision?" He demanded.
Sandra pursed her lips. "Who are you?"
"Matthew Pryce. My mother was a manticore. It's nice to meet you."
Sandra didn't look impressed with his manners, but he wasn't impressed with her either
"Who had the vision?" He repeated. "Which whitelighter told you about it?"
"It was another Elder," Sandra corrected. "Andrew," she added before Matt could ask.
"Who's Andrew?" Leo asked.
Sandra pursed her lips again. "It's not important, Leo. Please, stay here. I'll bring you to him, Matthew."
Leo didn't look happy at being left behind, but he looked even less happy at being presented with proof that the Elders were lying to him. Matt didn't blame him. First Gideon and now Sandra. He might be used to cryptic words and hidden truths from the Elders, but outright lies were something else.
Matt certainly didn't have the patience for it.
He followed Sandra through the ethereal realm. The Underworld was all stone, and this place was all cloud. He preferred the green and blue of Earth. "Why can't Leo know who this Elder is?" Matt asked.
"They knew each other," Sandra said. "It's better to wait."
"Until he's finished grieving?" Matt guessed. That was the reason that he couldn't summon his dad, or Chris and Mel summon their mom, or the cupids summon either of their parents.
"Not just him," Sandra said, and then nothing more. "That's him," she pointed, and she left before Matt could ask any more.
Matt approached the robed Elder carefully. "Andrew?" He called.
The Elder turned. Matt was always surprised when an Elder looked young. They were the age that they had been when they died, of course, just like all whitelighters. But they were called the Elders. And no matter how immortal you were, everyone got a little bit older in the future, more lined and more grey.
If seeing the Charmed Ones as they were in their youth was strange, then seeing these immortal beings as younger was unnatural.
This Elder had dark hair without even a hint of grey. His eyes were old with that same maturity that all whitelighters had, but they were younger than Leo's. His face was younger than Leo's too. Matt doubted that he was even thirty.
"Hello," said Andrew. "You're Matthew, right?"
"Matt," Matt corrected, surprised. "You know who I am?"
"There might be a few more time travellers than we would like, but it's not that hard to keep track of them. Not when they have such an important mission. Don't worry about your father, by the way. People are looking over him. You have an important destiny, and he is the one who raised you to be that man."
"What mission?" Matt asked. "You mean saving the future?"
"Saving the Charmed Ones," Andrew corrected. "Saving the future Charmed Ones."
Matt crossed his arms. "The Elders have never seemed that interested in that before."
"Because we knew that you were taking care of it."
Matt glared. He took his apparently fated duty of protecting the Halliwells seriously, but the future was a dangerous place. If the Halliwells safety had been left entirely up to him then there would be significantly fewer of them in the land of the living.
"You saved Chris, didn't you?" Andrew said.
"Barely," Matt mumbled. "Sandra says that you know who had the vision about Chris. If you were so concerned, why didn't you do anything yourself? He was in danger long before we came back to the past."
"Chris is one of the future Charmed Ones?" Andrew said, raising an eyebrow, but it was clear from his face that he already knew that.
"Don't play dumb. You left Chris to die," Matt accused.
Andrew sighed. "My source is… That information needs to be handled carefully. Chris is strong, and I knew that his family wouldn't leave him to die. They just needed a little push."
"So, the vision? Is it real?"
"It's real. My source has interesting ways of reaching me. She - well, she's very concerned with the Charmed Ones, and their future. Time is… different for the dead."
"So, can you help me or not?" Matt demanded, tired of the Elder's cryptic words, and more than a little unsettled at the idea of dead things being interested in keeping his friends alive. It was reassuring to know that there was some supernatural force interested in keeping them safe, but the thought that it was a dead and unknown force was worrying.
"The witch is named Patience," Andrew said. "Her whitelighter is waiting for you. She owes a debt to the Halliwell family. I suppose, in the end, we all do."
~Poisoned~
Neither of her parents had been very religious, but Kat had always found a certain peace in hiding in the courtyard of the local church, the Church of St Jude. The priest, Father Rowe, knew that she and Tam liked to hide there - or, he had, up until he hid them from Wyatt's demons and was killed for the trouble.
People liked to describe Kat as 'fiery' because they thought that they were being funny. But having a temper like hers wasn't easy. She fought with her sister regularly, and her brother, and her parents. She stormed out of the house often, and by the time that her father died she had a list the length of her arm of places where she hid. Her brother knew a few of them, her cousins ever fewer - but Tam had known them all. Tam hadn't stormed out like she did. Her sister was more sensitive and softer. Tam would retreat to her room and spend the night scribbling in her diary. She was the better witch, Kat was the better whitelighter. Tam's diary was filled with pages and pages of spells. Spells that they never used but that were therapeutic to write anyway, like ones to put toads in her classmate's locker, or to make a mean teacher's day go completely wrong.
The church hadn't changed since Kat had last seen it standing - or it wouldn't change until it collapsed. Father Rowe was younger than Kat had ever seen him, and she couldn't help herself from staring at the unlined and unweathered face. He had only smiled at her politely and offered to speak with her. She had stammered out a refusal and asked for permission to sit in the garden. Father Rowe had allowed her and he had left her alone since then.
There was a time that Kat had liked being alone. Before her father had died, before her sister had died, before when the Manor had been filled with people and voices and questions and arguments. When home had been something tangible and easy to define.
Now being alone wasn't a choice, it was an undeniable part of her life. Her sister was gone, her brother didn't love her anymore, and her mother would probably side with Henry too. Her cousins had to hate her. She had attacked PJ, and nearly gotten Piper killed, and Mel and Chris by extension. There was no way that she would be safe if she went home, with the most important members of the Resistance against her she would never be welcome with them. And she couldn't join with Wyatt either, not after she tried to kill him. And she couldn't kill him in the future - she wasn't strong enough. Maybe with Tam, it would have been possible. They were no Power of Three, but twin magic was still strong.
Without her sister, Kat was weaker than she had ever been. Separating from her sister had taken something from her, but losing her entirely had destroyed it.
She hadn't wanted to believe that Tam had left her, had left the side of Good, but she always knew that it was true. Tam hadn't wanted to separate either.
"It's working with demons, Tam. It's crazy."
"It's not crazy! It's working."
"It's dangerous. You could get hurt."
"No, I couldn't. Wyatt knows -"
"Wyatt? You're working with Wyatt? Don't you know that he's -"
"Successful? Yeah, Kat, I do. Think about it, how many times have you been attacked by demons since we started doing this?"
"Plenty of times. And by Wyatt's demons."
"He's still saving people. He killed the Archer demon's leader! And Veama."
"And he chose their new leader. He freed Lokl. And hired Ryake - as a torturer."
"They follow him now. Can't you ever just trust me?"
"No. Tam, what you're doing - this is Evil."
"... You think I'm Evil."
"What? No, I don't."
"Yes, you do. You think Wyatt is Evil."
"Yeah, but you're not, Tam. Tam? What are you doing? Where are you going?"
"Goodbye, Kat. Maybe you'll see the truth one day. Good luck."
That had been the last time she saw her sister on the side of Good. She had called her Evil.
"Excuse me, but are you sure that you wouldn't like to talk?" Father Rowe asked.
Kat sniffed. "I'm not really religious. Sorry."
"That's not a problem. Plenty of people find peace here, regardless of their faith. God works in many different forms, there is no wrong way to believe."
"Thanks."
"What's wrong?"
"It's a family issue. I… I lost my twin sister recently. And things have been strained with the rest of my family because of that. My brother says that I'm not his sister anymore." The fact that Henry was adopted had never been an issue for Kat. Her parents had always made it clear that they were all still siblings. It didn't matter whether or not they shared any DNA, it didn't even matter that they were all raised together. Family was the people who loved you no matter what, who stuck with you through everything, who supported you and listened to you. She hadn't listened to Tam, and she hadn't stuck with Henry.
Her dad had grown up in foster care, and her mom had been given up at birth. They both believed very much that people chose their family - her family had chosen to cast her away.
"Grief can be very trying for people," Father Rowe said, sympathetically. "We are farthest from our best when we're hurting. But it's important to remember that just because someone has passed, it doesn't mean that they are gone. It doesn't mean that they love us any less, or that we can't still love them. It doesn't mean that we can't still talk to them."
Kat laughed wetly. "I don't think that praying to my sister will do much good."
Father Rowe hummed, not agreeing or disagreeing. "If we can communicate beyond this world, then we can certainly communicate within it. There is no problem too big to ever be entirely unsolvable. Even when the problem is family."
Kat's eyes burned and her throat closed up. "I just miss her," she sobbed. "She made mistakes, but she was still my sister. And he just killed her like she was nothing. She was good in the end. And there's nothing that I can do. I can't bring her back, and I can't stop him. I don't know how."
Father Rowe hesitated before rubbing a hand up and down her back. "I imagine that this situation is not one that law enforcement can do much for," he guessed, when Kat nodded he continued speaking. "There's always something that we can do. Even if sometimes that something is nothing. It's all part of a wider greater plan, whether that's God's plan, or destiny, or fate, or whatever else you believe. We just have to keep going on and trying to do the right thing."
"I don't know how to do the right thing. I don't know what the right thing even is," Kat said, scrubbing away her tears. She tried to pull back some of that fiery rage and temper that had gotten her through the worst parts of her life, but she couldn't. All she had was this sadness and grief.
"When we find ourselves lost, the best thing to do is to ask for help," said Father Rowe. He offered her a hand. "I know someone you can ask, someone who won't judge."
Kat sniffed and looked at the hand for a long minute. She still wasn't religious, but she had no one else to turn to. She took his hand and let him pull her back into the church building.
"I'll see if I can't find some candles," said the priest. He smiled at her warmly. "I'm afraid you'll have to do a lot of the work yourself though. I can't do it like I used to."
