Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.

Chapter Eight

Attic Answers

Halliwell Manor, San Francisco: June 13th , 2026

They took the stairs instead of orbing, so they could see the rest of the house. As they passed by his childhood bedroom, Wyatt paused to peer inside. Again, you could see signs that their family had left in a hurry.

The drawers had been ripped open, with clothing taken quickly and the pieces left behind falling out of the drawers. A teddy that looked like Wuvey, only less well-cared for, lay abandoned on the floor. A set of battered bunkbeds that looked to have been made and painted by hand were pressed against the wall, the sheets left unmade. Given the top bunk had cars on the sheets while the bottom had white sheets with multi-coloured polka-dots on them, Wyatt assumed that he and Liz had been sharing a room.

That itself was another clue to their lives in this world. If he and Liz had been sharing a bedroom when old enough to sleep in full-sized beds, then at least one of his aunts, possibly both, had never gotten married and moved out. Which, in turn, would mean that his cousins didn't exist either.

Wyatt looked at Liz, who had a solemn expression as she turned away from where she'd been peeking into her own former bedroom. Glancing past her, Wyatt spotted two unmade single beds.

"I can't get any sense of the kids here at all," Liz admitted, picking up on his silent question. "I don't think they ever existed."

Wyatt swallowed and clenched his fists tightly as grief welled up inside him. It was obvious that the versions of their parents and Aunts were dead here, too. Liz would have suggested teaming up with them first if she could sense them. And he couldn't imagine his parents leaving them behind when the world was falling to pieces all around them. He couldn't bring himself to actually ask though, as if hearing her confirm that his beloved family was gone would make this turn from a bad nightmare to reality.

"We should keep going," Emily encouraged them. Wyatt's worry increased at her weak voice and the way she leaned against him for support. She was light as a feather, and he could count each of her ribs. He had never lamented not putting any effort into study first-aid like Liz and the cousins so much before.

He helped his sickly wife up the stairs, ignoring the pain in his own chest and the slight difficulty in breathing he felt.

They briefly checked out the master bedroom. Like the others, it was a mess from a rapid, unplanned departure. The closet doors were open, drawers upended, and clothes and other items were strewn in piles over the bedspread and piled in untidy heaps under the window.

Liz sighed tiredly as she looked around, chewing her lip. Then she went stony and reached out, orbing them the rest of the way without a word.

Wyatt looked around glumly when they materialized in the magical centre for the Halliwell clan.

Like the rest of the house, the attic was frozen in time. A cauldron was set up with stains from an old potion clinging to the insides. Mouldy ingredients and dirty potion-making tools lay scattered on the countertop and several inches of dust coated everything, turning the room grey and making Emily and Wyatt cough. The chest where they kept their weapons was open and empty, the bookshelves were missing ones in the other timeline, and, most importantly, the lectern was empty.

"What do we do now?" Wyatt wondered, glancing anxiously at his sister, who was frowning at the bookshelf. "The Book's not here."

"Yeah, I can see that," she sniped, running a hand through her cropped waves as she struggled to think. The bookshelf was bothering her. Their family must have taken the missing books, but which ones had they taken? And why did they choose those ones? It must've had some significance. When fleeing a place hastily in fear for your life and that of your family's, you didn't choose what to take based on sentimentality, you chose based on necessity. Liz knew that from years of living as a fugitive, surrounded by people who would willingly trade her life for theirs and their families. Which books were taken, and why? And why would they take the Warren Family Tree? Or was it simply hidden in the mess that had once been the most-frequented room in the house?

"Liz," Wyatt pressed. "What're we going to do about the Book of Shadows?"

"Do you think it's been destroyed?" Emily asked fearfully. Both Halliwells promptly denied that possibility.

"As long as Warren magic remains, even if it turned evil, so too will the Book of Shadows," Liz informed the other woman. "It's not just an old book of spells like most grimoires are, it's a physical representation of Warren magic. I still have my magic, even if Wyatt's powers are bound, so the Book can't have been destroyed."

"Then where is it?"

"The family must have taken it with them when they left, and hid it somewhere for whatever reason," Liz said slowly. In the first timeline, when she had fled with her youngest (and by then, only) cousin and grandfather, she had wanted to take the Book. But the Manor was already swarming with demons, and Victor had urged her to leave it behind.

"We need to go, Lizzie!" she remembered him insisting desperately, over the sound of demons cackling in malicious satisfaction as they broke through her hastily-made wards and Pam sobbed in fear in their grandfather's arms. "Leave the damn book! It's not worth our lives!"

She'd agreed, and they'd left just in time. The final ward had fallen just after they orbed away. It had been years before she'd seen the family's most treasured heirloom again.

"I have a spell," she finally turned her attention to her brother and sister-in-law. "I used it in my first life to steal the Book from the Source."

They nodded, and not for the first time Liz was amazed at how she and her parents and aunts had managed to hide the details from Wyatt and the others so successfully. He knew that she had been the last Halliwell and a war leader, that magic was exposed by the Titans and Paige died before Liz's birth, that Meta had escaped the remaining Charmed Ones' grief-fuelled wrath for more than two years before finally being vanquished. He even knew about the Witch Hunters and how Leo had left Piper to be an Elder even before Liz was born.

But Wyatt had no. idea that his counterpart was the Source of All Evil who haunted his baby sister's nightmares. Only Niko, Victor, Liz herself, the Charmed Ones and their husbands knew that. If Liz had it her way, that was how it would stay.

She shook the thoughts away and strode over to the lectern, taking a deep breath to fortify herself as she recalled the last time a version of her had used the spell.

"Niko!" she cried, pausing before the glowing portal and taking a step back towards him as he fought off the guard that had just appeared. Her sensing alerted her to a force about to descend on the Manor. A force much too large for Niko to fight off alone.

"Go!" he called back at her, flipping the demon over his shoulder and jabbing at its stomach with his athame.

Liz hesitated, her stomach twisting in indecision. If she didn't leave now, she would never get another chance to do so. If she did leave, gods only knew what would happen to her fiancé.

"GO!" he repeated, as another guard appeared, the shimmers in the air a warning that more were on the way. Hating herself, the Angels of Destiny, and her brother most of all, Liz went. She turned her back on the only person she had left and abandoned him to his fate in the name of saving the world by throwing herself through the portal. An energy ball hit her shoulder-blade as she fled.

Liz hoped this time would go better.

"I call upon the ancient power, to help us in this darkest hour," she chanted lowly, her fingers curled tightly on the edges of the lectern. "Let the Book return to this place, claim refuge in its rightful place."

There was a flash of light and her family's Book of Shadows, not as thick as the one in the second timeline, but thicker than it was back in 2003, landed with a thump on the lectern.

"I wonder where it was," Emily mused quietly, as her sister-in-law began quickly flicking through the cherished heirloom.

Liz managed to hide her spine stiffening at the sound of Emily's voice. She was very fond of her brother's wife, and very appreciative of how his marriage and impending fatherhood had made Wyatt settle down and start taking things seriously, instead of treating life and his responsibilities as a game he couldn't lose.

But the fact remained. Emily had been brought to the other world with them, whilst her sensing had revealed that Liz's husband was in Salem, his presence altered in ways she couldn't quite pin down. Why had Emily come, and not Niko? It wasn't fair. Niko would've been an actual help in this situation, whilst the coldest, most calculating part of Liz's mind had laid out a dozen different ways that the sick and pregnant woman was a hindrance.

She forced those cruel thoughts away as best she could. Emily had been as surprised as the rest of them to wake up in this god-awful timeline, and she would never have wished for it. And the Niko of this universe was alive at least. Though she feared from the change in his familiar aura that he might be evil. She just hoped it wasn't so. She'd never been able to bring herself to harm him, even when they'd first met and he was an assassin sent by Wyatt to either capture or kill her. Though, should they manage to reverse the timeline quickly, she wouldn't have to fight her lover.

But Liz soon realized that things wouldn't be that easy. She'd assumed that they were in a reality that split from after her time travelling to 2003, something that now dawned on her as foolish. None of the notes or information she had added to the Book whilst in the past were there. Meaning that, in this timeline, she had never been back in time.

"Shit," she hissed under her breath, glowering at the Book. She had spent hours writing in everything she knew about time and dimension travel, its dangers and spells to make it possible or to see into other worlds. She had then covered it with a spell, ensuring that it could only be accessed with great need. And yet, she couldn't find a single page of it in the Book. "Shit, shit, shitting hell!"

"What is it?" Wyatt demanded, worried by her reaction. He had been going around with a dusty knapsack, filling the bag with anything that looked like it might be usual, until his sister's stream of swear words distracted her. She looked up and grimaced at them grimly.

"The info I wrote on time travel and other timelines isn't here," she explained. "Nor is there any sign of my past self's notes. Meaning none of my supply stores are here either. This timeline must have diverged before I time travelled, erasing the need for it in the first place." She growled in frustration and ground her teeth. Then, when that wasn't enough to ease her temper, she slammed the side of her fist down on the hard wood of the lectern. "Damn it! How're we gonna figure out how to fix this mess now?"

"What about Magic Sch-?" Emily began to suggest, but was cut off by the Book's pages flipping rapidly, on their own, to the very last page.

Liz read the spell then raised her eyebrows, her anger fading into thoughtfulness. "Huh," she muttered, tapping her chin. "That's interesting. I guess that shows who protected us. Makes sense. Nobody else save the Charmed Ones would have that much power, and Mom and the Aunts would've warned us first if they knew this was coming."

"What?" Wyatt asked in bemusement.

"The Elders," Liz explained, nodding towards the page. "And it seems like they left us a message, too."

"What if it's a trap?" Emily fussed, one hand rubbing her stomach protectively. She had taken a seat on the chaise, and looked like she was conscious through pure force of will. The dangerously pale pallor of her cheeks worried both Liz and Wyatt, who again cursed his helplessness. He hadn't realized how much he relied on his powers until he'd lost them.

Liz shrugged. "I doubt it is," she stated matter-of factly. "The Book wouldn't let itself be used to harm us. And if it is a trap, then I can handle whatever threat attacks us."

"Are you sure?" Wyatt asked anxiously.

Liz was a good fighter, but she rarely had to fight alone. Then he suddenly remembered that she had memories of a life lived as a fugitive and a general, when she gave him an almost dead look. It was the same look that crept into her eyes whenever the topic of the other timeline came up and that kept the family from pressing her for more details then she volunteered.

Most of what they knew came from Niko, actually. Having spent less time under the spell, he was more distant from the pain of the first timeline, though Wyatt knew it haunted him as well. It was one of the main things that had lessened the family's resentment towards the man Liz had eloped with so unexpectedly. That and how obvious it was that Liz meant everything to him.

"I'm sure," Liz stated flatly. She paused, then signalled with her head for Wyatt to stand back, closer to his wife before glancing down to read the spell. "I call forth, through time and space, an echo of another place. Let the walls of time break, and the barrier to heaven open without a shake."

Sandra was the Elder who appeared, her form as translucent as an incorporeal ghost and her expression a mixture of grimness and relief. "Thank goodness that you found our spell," she began. "But there is not much time."

"What happened, Sandra?" Wyatt stepped forward. "How did this happen?"

"Someone, we know not who, intervened in history," the Elder explained gravely. "They altered it as thoroughly as you did, Elizabeth. We don't know how, or why. We only just had time to combine our powers to preserve the both of you-"

"The both of us?" Liz cut in sharply. "What about Emily? Why is my pregnant sister-in-law who has no active powers save premonitions here instead of my husband, a trained and powerful warrior who once held the most powerful Source in history at bay for three minutes, lasting longer than anyone else save me ever managed to?"

Emily and Wyatt winced. They had both noticed Niko's absence, of course, but were too focused on each other and the situation to care overly much. And Wyatt went to great lengths to avoid his brother-in-law (something Niko copied), meaning that he hadn't fully registered the implications of his absence.

Sandra gave the heir to Excalibur (who was gripping the hilt of her sheathed sword in tight frustration) an apologetic look.

"We did not plan to preserve Emily's memories," she informed them. "We planned only to preserve the memories of the Blessed Ones. I assume that the baby's magic, which is mixed with both of its' parents' until birth, is the reason that she was brought along. The spell linked to the child, and from the child to its' mother. I am very sorry."

Liz still looked angry, but she gave a curt nod of acceptance and changed the subject. "You said that you don't know who, how or why history was changed," she stated in a tight voice. "But what about when? Do you know that, at least?"

"We do," Sandra nodded solemnly. "History changed on May 1st, 2001. Prudence Halliwell was never murdered by Shax in this reality."