Its Chris's birthday and Piper wakes amazed to have managed a full nights sleep for what feels like the first time in months. By her side, sits Leo, smiling, with a full tray of breakfast, he looks tired.
"Did you do this?"
"What breakfast? I can cook you know" He pretends to be affronted.
"No, after 17 years together I didn't know, but I was talking about my sleeping through"
"I thought you might need some help".
She smiles gratefully "I did."
He hesitates, and then says, "Piper, nothing is going to happen today, I promise, we won't let it".
She takes his hand and says gently. "We both know that's not something you can promise me. If this is my time, if the Angel of Death comes for me there is no escape, no point fighting."
He tries to speak but she stops him. "No Leo, don't lie to me, not today" She changes the subject. "What I really want is to celebrate Chris's birthday with a normal day, a family day, as far away from the Manor and as magic free as possible"
"Your normal life" He smiles at her sadly.
"Yes, finally, a normal life"
Curious. The Angel of Death was very rarely summoned anywhere outside the mortal plane. There it was common; parents pleading for their children, lovers begging for their soul mates, fanatics sacrificing for their leaders, all very routine, even mundane, but outside the mortal plane, now that might be interesting. The location was forming now and he appeared to be in a large, a very, very large white....... room? Difficult to tell when he could see no walls or ceiling. The billowing clouds were just frivolous. A ring of distant floating heads sharpened into focus - Ah, elders. One should have known, no sense of style or colour. Still that didn't explain why they had summoned Death. He waited; it was something he was good at. Ultimately it was only a matter of time before everything came to him and time was one of his tools, to move through and use as he saw fit.
One of the elders began talking and he was grateful for that, their annoying habit of communicating through collective thought got on his nerves. "You must be wondering why we summoned you" He said nothing, he rarely did, his silence generally proved effective.
"We have a boon to ask, regarding one of your.... 'Clients'. She is scheduled to be.... processed today. We would like an extension".
The elder pauses, trying to read Death's impassive face. There is no movement, no acknowledgement, surprise, anger, criticism, nothing, eventually the elder continues. "I appreciate that a request such as this, from us, is very irregular, however, it is not with out precedent. You have accommodated us in the past, we were hoping that you might do so again"
So it was a routine pleading after all, and it had looked promising, even interesting. But still, the elder was correct it was irregular, the last time they had asked.......was that 4,5 centuries ago? Time had so little meaning. Despite himself, Death was curious. What being could warrant such attention? He considered the day's 450,836 definite appointments, it wouldn't be one of the maybes the Elders would only have come to him as a last resort, when death was inevitable.. There was no one obvious, the elders were unlikely to be concerned with the smattering of so called celebrities, although that film star did have very dark connections, a prospective whitelighter maybe, there were a couple of witches, the slayer, there seemed to be an unusually large number of slayers recently, perhaps this was related.
"Why?"
"She's a witch, a Charmed one, we feel that she warrants special favours"
So it was that one. He had seen her before, he had taken her before, but a whitelighter had intervened, dared to break Death's rules. The Elders had been correctly outraged at this crime, had promised swift and drastic reprisals, given assurances that it would never reoccur – and it hadn't, so far.
"Again?"
The elders looked nervous now. Had they believed that he wouldn't have noticed? The idea amused him.
"Its partly because of that incident, because she didn't die when she should have. Her destiny changed and with it the world order, as a direct result we believe things may soon slide out of equilibrium" the elder waited in vain for a response before continuing, "there was a child. A supreme magical being....."
"The fate of this world is not my concern"
"No, but it is ours and it rests for good or evil with the children of this witch, we believe time will make a difference, correct the imbalance her survival created"
"And?" There is more, he knows there is more. The elders look uncomfortable.
"We owe her this"
Now, finally that was interesting, this person was interesting. Who was she? That a whitelighter would risk his all, that the fate of the world rested on her survival, that the very elders themselves felt indebted. He wouldn't promise anything, but he was.........interested.
The sound of laughter travels up the beach to where Wyatt sits looking out to sea. The others seem to have had a great day. Chris would be pleased, their father had not had to leave, not once, he had never even left Mom's side. It was hard to remember the last time they managed such a day. He tries to hold the happy thought but memories of the premonition and visions of the future keep intruding. He sees Chris playing in the sand with Simon. The irony that he might be saved by his brother is not lost on him. The mighty Wyatt, who was going to save everyone with his master plan. What a fool. He turns away from his family. How can he face them knowing what they know. How can they stand him, all this time knowing what he would become? In a way it explained so much, little comments made, asides he'd overheard, the look of panic he'd sometimes seen on his parents face when he said or done something mean. The promise his mother made him make.
He doesn't see Leo approach. "It's not easy being twice blessed"
Wyatt doesn't say anything and Leo sits beside him. "Why don't you join us? Your Mom is getting anxious about you, she's worried you might be ill, you haven't eaten any of her food"
Wyatt doesn't smile." She doesn't know? About me nearly killing her? Duelling demons? Becoming evil?"
"She knows about the original timeline, that's all" Leo turns Wyatt to face him and says very carefully "and Wyatt you are not evil"
Wyatt turns abruptly away "No? We both know it's only a matter of time"
"That's not true. I don't believe that, you can't believe that. I've watched you grow your whole life, knowing what might happen. I've watched, sometimes scarcely able to breath as you have developed, facing challenge after challenge. I, we, all of us are so proud of you Wyatt, of who you've become and now you know what could happen you can fight it, we can fight it.
His barriers down, Wyatt turns to Leo. "How? I don't know how to fight anymore, not now. I had it all figured out, I was going to protect you....."
Remembering another conversation Leo smiles. "Wyatt, we are your parents. It's our job to protect you. You're a 15 year old boy, you're not supposed to have figured it all out yet; life's not that easy. As to what we expect of you, your Mom and me, we just want you to be happy. Let us worry about the demons for now, you have a whole lifetime to fight them and believe me at your age you've got enough other stuff to figure out."
A feeling of hope creeps into Wyatt for the first time that day. He looks over to his family and seeing something strange, he squints, turning to Leo he asks" What's that behind Mom?"
But Leo is already tearing up the beach towards Piper shouting.
Piper hears Leo shout, and looks towards him, surprised to see that he has been frozen, she flicks her fingers, nothing happens, and when she turns to her sisters she realises that he is not the only one. "Phoebe? Paige?" Nothing "Oh Crap!"
She looks around again, this time concentrating and her eyes eventually make out the blurred shape "Ok stop that. You're giving me a migraine" The shape focuses into the Angel of Death. "Thank you"
She's not what Death expected, not young, or tall, or glamorous, there was certainly power there and courage, but nothing unique, nothing extraordinary. Yet the Elders were right, he previewed the assorted future lives of those surrounding them, all interlinked but all pinned together by her. Remove her and they broke up, each separately hurtling away into disaster and chaos for both themselves and the world. It made little difference to him, yet he studied her anyway.
This was it, there was no mistaking what he was, not when all her instincts screamed for her to fight, to run, to hide. But to what use, anything she did would be futile and might hurt them. It took all the strength she had to just sit there, but she did. Her mind racing, would it hurt? Would it be a demon? Would her sons see? Would Leo be able to find her in the after life? Would she see Prue?.
Her silence surprised him and he wasn't often surprised.
"Do you know who I am?"
Yes
"Why I am here?"
Yes
"Do you have any questions at all?"
"Will I have time to at least say goodbye?""
Intrigued Death regarded her for what felt like forever, then he apparently came to a conclusion.
"The time you have left is entirely up to you, but" he looks at something behind her " I would advise you to duck. Now" and as the world restarts he is gone.
Taking his advice, Piper throws herself to the ground, just in time to evade a fireball; she rolls quickly, trying to locate and destroy the demon that created it, expecting every second to feel agony and death. Instead she hears an explosion and sees her sisters stood over a demon's smoking remains with an arsenal of potions in their hands.
Seeing her dazed expression Paige pulls her up "What? Did you really think that we would be unprepared, let anything happen to you, today of all days?"
Piper looks around wildly, hardly able to believe what just happened. "He's gone."
Her sisters look at her then each other, confused
But she scarcely notices, weak with relief and joy she sits down and as her anxious family surround her she begins laughing, laughing as though she will never stop.
Epilogue
Its two weeks later and Piper gets back from the restaurant to find Leo sat in the kitchen looking sorry for himself. Concerned she kisses him on the head "Are you ok, I thought that you were spending today with Chris"
"He couldn't, he said something came up and he had to help Simon"
"Oh" She turns away but not before he sees her smile
"What?"
Busted, she is openly grinning now,
Leo is indignant. "Its not funny, we had plans"
"I am sure that what ever came up must be very important for Chris to have let you down, he is probably more upset than you are, you have to understand that as a whitelighter he has other responsibilities and I know that he will try to make it up to you"
"You're enjoying this"
She just laughs, "Well it's about time you got a taste of your own medicine"
"How about you? Can you spare any time for your adoring husband" He moves behind her, wrapping his arms around her, gently pulling her back against him as he rests his chin on her shoulder
"We'll I can think of one thing we could do this afternoon, together, just the two of us"
He looks enthusiastic "Yeah?" then less certain "We are talking about clearing the basement aren't we?" Then off her face "Great"
She changes the subject "Wyatt's still very quiet. Do you think he's ok? You don't think.hes still....."
"No. I don't. It's just been a rough couple of weeks; he is going to be fine. We all are."
"Do you promise?"
He squeezes her tightly "Yes. I promise"
"Good" and believing him, she smiles.
Ok, thats me finally done. I hope you like it, if you did please let me know. If you were disappointed with the ending you might want to read how it was originally going to end before I wimped out, I put that in my notes chapter.