CHILD OF THE WHITELIGHTER
Disclaimer: I do not-even though I really, really want to-own Charmed. I own Caiti, her friends, her mom, and this plotline. Steal them from me, face prosecution. It's that simple.
A/N: I finally figured out how to fix the spacing problem! Go me! And in the process of fixing the spacing problem, I fixed my problem with the formatting! Go me again! So from now on, anything in bold is a flashback (and will be marked so as before), and anything in italics (still with the asterisk break as before) is a dream scene. Also, I went into this story a few moments ago, reading it over to make sure everything clicked, and I realized I messed up with the grandparents thing. The heritage is still as it was mentioned in the review reply to cricketlover, but they are her paternal grandparents (her stepdad's parents, as mentioned before), not maternal, and the last name was Anglicized to Dorian. Everything else still holds. Points to the story below the review replies Now, keep reading! Do it! laughs
ChRsTiNe17- Glad you like the story, and thank you for reviewing. Keep reading and enjoying. There are 19 more chapters of Charmed goodness for you! Don't forget to review!
lil-whitelighter111488- Will do! On one condition: you keep reading and reviewing! Do we have a deal?
CHAPTER TWENTY
Caiti cried for what seemed like hours, but she later learned that it had only been about half an hour. When she finally finished crying, Piper handed her a tissue box and said, "You feeling any better?"
Caiti shook her head. "It was awful Piper, completely horrible."
"Do you want to tell me what happened?"
Caiti thought about this for a moment, remembering how when she was little, her mother had always said that talking about bad dreams helped. She nodded her head.
"OK then, what happened?" Piper asked. "You can take as much time as you need." By this time, Leo had orbed in and was standing in the doorway, unseen by Caiti.
"Well, in the dream, I woke up in my room. I must have cried myself to sleep, because when I looked out the window, it was dark out. I sat up in bed and caught a look at myself in the mirror, and I was wearing a black dress, which I hadn't been wearing before. I commented on how weird that was, and then I went downstairs. Everyone was in the sunroom, but I couldn't see Dad. You were all wearing black and standing around something that looked like a coffin. I asked who had died, and you said 'See for yourself'. You sounded really upset. Anyways, I went to the coffin and opened the lid, and…" Caiti paused, suddenly unable to speak as the memory of the dream came rushing back…
Caiti nervously walked closer and closer to the cluster, and saw that they were, indeed, standing around a coffin, the lid of which was closed. She stopped in front of the coffin and-bracing herself-opened the lid. She looked inside and screamed. It was her father.
"Who did you see inside the coffin Caiti?" Piper asked gently, not wanting to press her too hard for the information.
"I saw Dad. I screamed, and said that he couldn't be dead, no one had shot him with any darklighter arrows. Then Phoebe said that I did kill him, and you said that of course I would deny it. Then Cole said I had become evil, and then Chris said 'And you know what that means…' He sounded really sad, like something bad was going to happen." Caiti stopped again, not wanting to continue. She happened then to look at the door, and saw her father standing in the doorway watching her, completely fine. Piper nodded to Leo, and he came into the room and sat down next to Caiti on her bed.
"What happened next Caiti?" he asked quietly.
"I don't want to continue." Caiti said. "It's too horrible to talk about. But I could show you."
"How are you going to do that?" Piper asked, puzzled. She looked at Leo, who shrugged his shoulders in response.
Caiti turned away from the mirror, facing the empty wall on the left side of her bed. She stared at it for a bit, as if concentrating on something. After a few moments, her eyes flashed green and a light poured from them onto the wall, forming a picture, the remnants of Caiti's nightmare. Caiti returned to normal, and then said, "Watch." Leo and Piper turned their attention to the left wall and watched the rest of Caiti's nightmare unfold.
"We have to vanquish you Caiti," said Paige. "It's the only way."
"NO!!!!" Caiti screamed, but it was too late. Piper, Phoebe, and Paige were reciting a spell, the words of which were unintelligible to Caiti, and then they each pulled a potion out from behind their backs. Piper threw hers first, then Phoebe, then Paige.
At first it felt like a slight burning sensation to Caiti, then a little more painful, then a little more. Suddenly Caiti saw the flames surround her body, felt herself about to burst, and knew that this was the end. She stole a glance at the coffin, and noticed that it was empty. She looked at the group watching her burn, and noticed her father standing among them, his eyes filling with tears. Caiti screamed "No!" loudly one last time, and then it was all over…
Piper gasped and Leo whispered "Oh my god" as they watched their respective dream-selves stand in the crowd and watch as the other vanquished Caiti. The dream that had been playing out in front of them vanished as soon as it had finished, leaving the two adults speechless.
During this time, Caiti had been sitting between them, watching her nightmare and trying not to cry, but by the time the dream had ended, a few tears were falling, and Caiti was on the verge of breaking down completely.
Leo put his arms around his daughter and said; "We'd never let that happen to you, never. Even if something like that did happen, we'd never accuse you of being evil. Sometimes things happen that you can't control."
"Like Cole becoming evil again," Piper said, remembering a time not that long ago when Cole had been crowned the new Source.
"Anyways, the point is, if you ever did become evil, we'd try to help you, and-if possible-we'd do everything we could to cure it," finished Leo. Suddenly, he tilted his head, the way he had a week before, and said, "I've gotta go…Elders are calling." He let go of Caiti and walked toward the door. When he reached the door, he turned to his daughter and said, "There's one more thing, Caiti. It's about Chris."
Caiti groaned and said, "What now? Did we not already have this argument?"
Leo smiled at his daughter's ability to jump to the wrong conclusion and said, "I was just going to tell you to have fun on your date tonight."
Caiti broke into a grin and said, "Thanks. I will." She laughed at her stupidity as she watched her father orb out of the room to wherever he went when the Elders called him. She then turned to Piper and said, "So, what now?"
"Well, I guess we get you ready for your date tonight!" Piper said.
"You really want to help?" Caiti asked, shocked.
"Yeah," Piper said. "I may be a mother, but I still remember how exciting it was to get ready for my dates. And since your mother can't be here to help you get ready, I thought that I would be a fitting substitute."
"You thought right," Caiti said, grinning. "So, what should I wear?"
Sorry this was such a short chapter, but I've been trying to collect my thoughts and such, so this one ended up pretty short. But have no fear, after I post this one, I'm gonna write the next two chapters, and post the next one. There's gonna be a time jump after the next two chapters, and it will include some very important events. This was kind of just a filler chapter.