Posted 16-05-2022

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.

This is a revamp of my old story 'Ashes of a Rising Phoenix', with a fem!Chris. I re-read it recently and decided I wanted to touch it up a bit. Updates should come fairly quick.

Btw, I've changed Chris' female name from Annette Patricia Halliwell to Katharine Prudence Halliwell. Seeing as I firmly believe that Chris had to have more powers than in the show (I mean come on, the child of a Charmed One and an Elder having only orbing and TK? The writers seriously expect me to believe that? No freakin' way), I have a list of Kate's powers on the Warren Family tree on my profile. Check it out if you want to see the list.

Final note, Dark Future!Kate is known as 'Kate' while her from the Changed Future will be Katie.

Read, enjoy and review!

Chapter One

Water: Regeneration

January 23rd, 2003

Abandoned Warehouse, San Francisco

"How did you find me?" The harsh demand cut through Wyatt's unconscious mind and dragged him out of its' depths. He let out a groan as he woke, blinking the fog from his mind.

"Wha'?" He mumbled in confusion. The glow of the crystal cage was too bright for his sore head and he closed his eyes again, oddly drained and craving sleep.

"How. Did. You. Find. Me?" The question was repeated in an acidic voice that was both familiar and unfamiliar. It was hoarse and strained, and full of angry fear. "Was it Niko? He was the only person who knew the exact date I was going for. What did you do to him? How long did you torture him for?"

"I didn't touch your boyfriend," Wyatt replied tiredly as the events that led to Kate trapping him in a crystal cage. Travelling back in time to find an alternate version of his baby sister, a Katharine Halliwell from a terrible, evil-dominated timeline. Tracking her down using their link. And then-a bus? He cracked his eyes open to look at his sister, who was scoffing at his response, her arms crossed over her chest, making her look just like their mother. "Did you push me in front of a bus?"

Kate sneered at him, a mixture of loathing and fear darkening her bright green eyes to an almost hazel colour. "You say that as if it's the worst thing one of us has ever done to try to kill each other," she huffed, squeezing her bicep. He could feel her upset and anxiety pouring through the link and it made him wince. "Now, I'll only ask nicely one last time. What. Did. You. Do. To. Niko?!" Her voice rose with each word, a hint of hysteria in her raw tone.

"Katie, Katie, look at me," Wyatt pleaded, scrambling up to his knees. "I swear, I never touched Niko! It worked, okay? Your plan worked! I'm good." The bars of the cage bent inward and flashed brightly as Kate touched a quartz crystal in warning.

"Stop lying to me!"

"I'm not," Wyatt insisted. An idea struck him and he leaned forward eagerly. "Use our bond," he urged. "We can't lie through-"

"You severed that six years ago," the twenty-two-year-old scoffed, her bitter tone not fully hiding the hurt in her green eyes.

Wyatt was horrified at that revelation. He refrained from the instinctive denial that sprung to his lips. His family hadn't known much about his evil self. Kate had only revealed small fragments of information. His evil self had "taken over," "killed", and "picked on the world", according to what she had let slip. But to go so far as to break that precious bond connecting himself and his sister? The one he had nurtured since before Katie was born, that connected him to the person he loved most in the world? He couldn't understand how any version of him, even an evil tyrant version, could do something so terrible.

"Katie, I know what I'm saying is hard to believe, but it's true," he told her earnestly, putting as much sincerity as he could into his voice. "The bond's not broken, I can still feel you. Reach out. Please."

"I'm not going to give you the chance to fuck with my head by giving into your lies!" Kate snapped, her arms falling to her sides and hands clenching into fists. He could feel the panic and fear she was feeling and it physically hurt him to know she was afraid of him.

"Katie, please believe me," Wyatt leaned forward as best he could. "I would never, could never, hurt you."

Something within her seemed to snap at that. "You could never hurt me?" She asked coldly, yanking up the hem of her top to reveal a series of raised, vicious scars covering her torso. "These say otherwise." Then she turned on her heel and stormed out of the warehouse she was holding him in, ignoring his calls for her to come back.

Kate fled the warehouse on foot because she was too upset to gather the concentration to orb. Panic and fear were overtaking her exhausted mind, and sparks were flying from her fingertips even as the nearby rubbish bins her seemed to shudder from the force of her emotions. She slipped into an empty alley and struggled to calm herself, or at least to regain control of her more temperamental powers.

A choked laugh of bitterness escaped her as she realized that Wyatt had been the cause of her losing control of her powers last time as well. The laugh changed to a sob and she buried her head in her knees. A few objects whirled furiously through the air around her.

Niko was dead, at least, she hoped he was. Kate knew all too well that death was by far the better alternative to captivity by Wyatt's forces.

Time travel was strange though, who knew how long it took for him to break and give her up. And it had to have been him, no one else knew the exact date and location that she was aiming for. The others in the council knew was that she was going back in time to erase the timeline and everyone else just knew she was going on a long-term mission. She'd kept the details quiet to protect the safety of her mission.

Tears welled up in her eyes and she struggled to push them back as the image of Niko fighting off the guards the last time she'd seen him played out on her eyelids. Why, oh why hadn't she brought him with her? Why hadn't she waited to help him fight off his attackers and escape before going through the portal? Never mind the risk of it closing or her being captured too. She should have done something more than simply walk into the time portal and leave her fiancé to die.

Shoving her grief to the back of her mind with practiced ease she sighed heavily and pulled her hands through her brunette hair. Part of her wanted desperately to be selfish for once and just flee into hiding. Wyatt could escape the cage and the hasty wards that she'd thrown up but it would take days. Days that Kate could use to disappear from the earth.

But Kate was a Halliwell, raised to protect innocents even at the cost of her own life. She didn't have the right or the selfishness within to abandon the world to the non-existent mercies of a tyrant from the future. And she had to find out what Wyatt had done to make Niko betray her. He wouldn't have done it willingly, she genuinely believed that. He was the only person she trusted enough to believe that. But Wyatt had ways to make everyone break, especially with Barbas on his side as his Chief Torturer.

She had to know if he was dead or not.

To do so she would have to go back and confront her brother, but, she inhaled, not yet. She ran her hands through her hair again, hid her ragged appearance beneath a glamour and disappeared in a swirl of blue orbs.

If he wasn't so worried that Katie would come back and have a heart attack at finding him missing, Wyatt would've tried to attack the crystals and go after her. Instead, he sat and contemplated his current state.

Being hit by a bus should leave more than just a few bumps and bruises, unless he'd been healed. And there was a strange taste of petrol in his mouth too.

Carefully he rubbed his fingers over his chest and lifted them to sniff at. Dismay rose in him when he took in the scents. He could smell some angelica and arnica. Maybe it was some sort of healing potion. They weren't used often due to Whitelighters but they existed. Still, at least Wyatt was here now. He could just heal any injuries to Kate rather than them relying on healing potions that were only half as helpful.

That thought turned his mind from her magic-use to the stuff she'd been snapping at him earlier.

"As if pushing you in front of a bus is the worst thing either of us has ever done to try and kill each other." "You severed our bond six years ago."

Both of those sentences were horrifying to him. Kate was his sister, his only sibling and best friend. Thoughts of harming her, let alone trying to kill her was anathema to him. And breaking their bond? It just seemed too incredible to believe any version of him would hurt her like that. And if she was telling the truth, why could he still feel it? Was he just feeling the Katie from his timeline?

Abruptly, Kate appeared in a swirl of blue orbs. She flung a brown paper bag at him. "Eat," she instructed him curtly.

"What is it?" Wyatt asked, picking up the bag. She shot him an irritated look that he suspected was going to be a frequent occurrence in the near future.

"Food," she snapped sarcastically. "Terribly sorry if it's not up to your standards, Your Majesty."

Wyatt sighed as he opened the bag to see some McDonald's fries and chicken nuggets. He grimaced slightly. Growing up on Piper Halliwell's cooking made you develop an aversion to fast food. His stomach grumbled and he reached to grab a few fries, deciding against being picky.

"Did you have something?"

Kate shot him a familiar look and Wyatt frowned. Typically it took more than asking if she'd eaten to have Kate looking at him like she doubted his sanity.

She shook her head and started to pace. "Why did you come back personally?" She demanded. "I'd never expected that. Sending a bunch of assassins, yes. But coming back yourself? What insurance do you have? I swear, Wyatt, if you got Pamela-"

"I don't have insurance," Wyatt shuddered at the thought of any of the family being used for that. Especially Pamela, jeeze, she was only twelve!

Kate snorted in disbelief and Wyatt sighed, changing tactics. "How long 'til the Titans then?" He asked. Kate paused to give him an expressionless stare that couldn't quite keep the curiosity from her green gaze. "That's when the aunts said you came swooping in like some fairy-tale heroine or something."

Kate snorted. "I'm a lot of things but we both know I'm no heroine Wyatt," she answered, voice ragged. "How did you know that I was planning to approach them during the Titan attack?"

"Because they told me that's when you did," Wyatt said. Frustration at Kate's adamant refusal to listen to him started to rise and he stubbornly pressed it back down again. "When are we anyway?"

She eyed him warily for a minute before replying. "January 23rd. You'll be born in ten days."

Wyatt couldn't help the grin that split his face. "That's so weird, you know?" He said rhetorically. "I mean, I haven't even been born yet and still, I'm right here."

Kate chuckled before getting angry, upset at the rapport that had sprung up between them after years of being enemies. "Stop that!"

"Stop what?"

"You can't just act like you haven't aren't Lord Wyatt!"

Wyatt looked solemnly at her for a moment before saying steadily, "I am not Lord Wyatt."

"Stop it! Just stop with the damn head games! I hate them! What do you want?" She'd gone back to hysteria and it was genuinely worrying Wyatt how off-balance this version of his sister and her emotions were.

He sighed unhappily. He couldn't help it. He knew logically it wasn't him who had hurt her but he still felt guilty. It was literally hurting him to see Kate so exhausted and broken. He hadn't had time to really take in the details of her appearance earlier but now he did.

Kate's hair was thin and tangled, cut in a harsh chin-length bob that was would send any of the women of their family into fits if they saw it. Her lips were torn from being chewed on and her knuckles had healing scratches on them, her nails badly chipped with dirt beneath them. Her eyes were sunken with deep black shadows underneath them and her ragged clothes did nothing to hide the fact that she wasn't just slim, but dangerously thin. All of her fingers were crooked, as if they had been broken and they'd healed incorrectly. And that wasn't even counting the brutal scars she had shown him, now hidden beneath her shirt.

Through their bond, (which was far more delicate than ever before but certainly not broken) he could still sense her emotions, no matter what claims she had made about it being broken. He closed his eyes and reached along their link into his sister's mind. It was full of shadows and rapidly shifting emotions, the only constants being a bone deep exhaustion and the heavy weight of grief and fear.

"Stay out of my head!"

The Twice-Blessed's eyes snapped open as Kate surged over to the cage, her crooked fingers curling around one of the crystals.

One inch. That was all she had move it. Heck, even a centimetre would work. Wyatt wouldn't be able to mess with her mind if he was incapacitated by pain. But her useless fingers wouldn't budge.

"You're nothing like him," Niko had once insisted to her, after she asked him if he ever worried that she would become like her brother. At times like this, Kate hated how right he was.

She could slaughter and torture enemies. Had and would kill both allies and innocents for the sake of the 'Greater Good'. But she couldn't bring herself to hurt Wyatt when he was powerless.

"Well?" She challenged bitterly, resignedly letting go of the crystal. "Where's the comment on how weak and pathetic I am? Go on, you know want to."

"Katie," Wyatt's voice and expression was gentle as he called her a name no one had used for her since Victor died when she was fourteen, shortly after Wyatt's take over. Sometimes Kate suspected it was the heartbreak rather than the cancer that killed him. "You're not weak. You're the strongest person I know."

Kate forced down the tears that threatened. "Why are you doing this to me?" She pleaded. "What's the point of playing this stupid head game? Haven't you tortured me enough?"

He looked genuinely anguished, something Kate had never seen on his face before. "How can I convince you?" He murmured with eyes that looked too hazel and caring to belong to the man with cold blue eyes who'd laughed as she'd screamed in terror and her hair turned white from Barbas' gleeful mental torture.

He brightened slightly as an idea came to him. "Do we look alike?" At least he seemed to realize how absurd the question was because he quickly continued. "I know we're technically the same person but there must be differences."

Kate sighed and rubbed her temples, squashing the hope that flickered briefly in her as she properly took in the details of his appearance.

"You cut your hair," she finally pointed out and Wyatt flashed a bright grin.

"I can't stand long hair, always gets in the way. And you know Mom's opinion of guys with long hair, they're hooligans."

Kate flinched slightly, wishing that he wouldn't be so cavalier about mentioning their dead mother before she forced herself to continue with her study.

"Your clothes are strange," she sighed. "I've haven't seen you in anything other than black since before the Event."

"Black makes you look like a demon," Wyatt answered brightly. That stubborn trace of hope started to rise again and Kate cursed her fatigue as she tried to think.

"Let me see your collarbone," she commanded. Wyatt looked confused as he pulled his blue shirt down to reveal bare skin. Kate glared at it to hide her uncertainty. The scar was gone.

The closest she'd ever come to actually killing her elder brother was when she had stabbed him with a poisoned dagger. Kate had been seventeen at the time, Wyatt had been nineteen. He'd survived but been left with a permanent scar to remember the encounter. In return for the injury she'd given him, Wyatt had destroyed a town in France with over seven thousand people inside.

"How'd you get rid of the scar?" She demanded and Wyatt shrugged.

"The only scar I've ever had is from when I got my appendix removed when I was six."

Kate stared at him for a long minute. She had no memory of Wyatt ever needing his appendix removed. Then her bad judgement must've taken advantage of her tiredness because she found herself reaching out to grab and remove the nearest crystal, dissolving the cage. Deep within her hardened heart, it seemed she was still that little girl who desperately wanted her brother to love her back.

It took all her strength not to flee as Wyatt stood up and stretched.

"So what did I mess up?" She asked coldly, making Wyatt frown.

"What do you mean? You didn't mess anything up," he refuted.

She arched an eyebrow. "If you're good, then I succeeded at my main goal," she conceded, emphasizing the 'if'. "But something has to have gone wrong because otherwise you wouldn't be here. So? What brings the great Wyatt Halliwell riding to the rescue? What'd I do?"

"Katie, you didn't mess anything up," he insisted. "You died."

Kate frowned at him. "That still doesn't explain why you're here," she stated flatly, indifferent to his announcement. Life hadn't exactly been good to her. She couldn't really bring herself to be upset at a premature death, it would happen eventually anyway. Besides, it wasn't as if she hadn't anticipated the likelihood, given she was going up against an enemy that got past the Charmed Ones and kidnapped their most protected member from beneath their noses. That took power, and skill.

Possibly more than Kate had.

"Doesn't it?" Wyatt challenged, looking pained as Kate shook her head. "Your body, combined for lack of another word, with my Katie two days ago, the equivalent day to when you died in our timeline. Along with all of your scars and the injuries that killed you. We had to put you under a stasis spell to keep you from dying."