Thanks for the wonderful reviews. Keep them coming. Oh, and Chris Drew Lover I will keep you in mind if I need any help at all in the near future. Sorry, OTHCharmedFreak about giving you that majorly bad headache. I guess that is going around a lot with this story's twists and turns (ha ha ha ha ha) as well as my other story. Shortie4283 sorry about the confusion. I guess you will just have to keep reading. Oh how I love plot twists.
"But I didn't know." Piper whispered to her husband in surprise. Then, her anger instantly erupted like a volcano as she pushed Leo's warm guiding hands away from her. "You didn't tell me." she said in frustration as her brown foggy eyes followed his cloudy blue ones.
"Honey, I'm sorry. You were so hell bent..."
"You didn't tell me, Leo! That's the important thing right here and right now. You never told me that she could have been perfectly been fine here. You didn't tell me she would have stayed good if I voted for her to stay here. You didn't tell me I was the one that could turn her evil!" Piper cried out as she watched her husband in a devastated betrayal. "I trusted you and you never told me. You just said 'Piper, honey, we have a decision to make'." she said to him as she mimicked how he would talk by deepening her voice to make it low like his was and condescending sounding like his could be at times. "You never said it would be my fault she became evil."
"Because it wouldn't be your fault, Piper!" Leo cried out trying to get her to calm down so he could try to explain to her that she wasn't at all evil for doing what she had done.
"Oh, yeah. Explain how I am not responsible?" she asked him with pursed lips and folded arms. Her chocolate brown eyes teared a little in anger and a few thousand other emotions she felt at the moment.
Back when this all had happened she had only wanted her son to have a chance at life. She had thought that Brooke would get hurt somehow or he would be destroyed if Brooke somehow was hurt because of him being innately magical. So, Piper had wanted to shield him from that pain.
She also had been against their relationship. Not that she had ever really hated Brooke personally, but she had hated the fact that her own son was so deeply infatuated with her at such a young age. He had been fifteen for Christ's sake. He had been looking at her and obsessing over her as if he were older as if they could be in a mature relationship.
They had been fifteen. She had worried that he would make a mistake. She had been worried that Brooke would get hurt because of his mistake or that Brooke would somehow get pregnant.
She had caught him and Brooke a few different times close to having sex. Which wasn't exactly something she had wanted her own son to be doing so young let alone in her house. So, she had been a little emotional at the time when she had voted.
She had only wanted their relationship to let go its downwards spiral. The way they were going she had had a feeling that Wyatt and Brooke would have ended up in bed together within a month of her catching them together the first time and then a few months later another she had worried that another Halliwell would appear to save the world.
Only at that point in time, Brooke would have been the unknowing human carrying another Halliwell baby that was the prodigy of magic.
So sure Piper had been a little unsettled by Brooke and Wyatt's relationship so she had voted to get her to move away. At the time, she had thought it was best that Brooke and Wyatt grow up a little at least until they could actually drive say, vote maybe, or hell even drink before they got into that kind of relationship all over again.
Leo had said that Brooke was destined to be evil. The Elders had been against her and Wyatt's relationship because of it and that was why they had prohibited them from being together. They had even said she was destined to fight against the Halliwell family one day in the near future.
So, Piper had tried to get rid of Brooke just to make it easier on Wyatt. Herself too since she wouldn't have to worry about him impregnating a destined to be evil girl that the Elders despised. At the time, it had made sense to her to have Brooke disappear from their lives until the day came that they would have to fight her.
So it didn't make any sense why this would make Brooke evil. She also didn't want to be the main reason the girl was evil either. This whole Brooke mess just didn't make any sense to her.
"Piper you didn't vote for this alone." Leo told her trying to take the blame off of her.
"Still, you told me when you brought this up in the first place that she was going to be evil." Piper responded as a cold shiver passed through her body.
"Excuse me." Brooke said from the sidelines. They both looked at her and she went on, "How is it that this whole thing with my life, my destiny and yet I had no choice in the matter?"
"When do we ever?" Paige replied grimly from the sidelines.
Brooke looked over to her and nodded somehow understanding something that Wyatt hadn't gotten as he stared at the girl he had never stopped loving after all of these years.
"Good point." Brooke whispered.
"The Elders didn't think you should know what was to become of you. They thought you should go with your father willingly since it was your destiny."
"Really?" she asked. "Did any of you ever think for one second that because the Elders hated me in the first place they could have easily found the best case scenario to make me evil in the first place. Hell, it would make it that much more easier on them to get rid of me if you think about it. Since I am so evil now and you are the good guys who vanquish evil on a daily basis they probably put two and two together and set us all up."
"Dad, is that true?" Wyatt asked in anger.
He hated the Elders right now. He had never thought of it that way. The Elders.. Those pricks.. It was the perfect plot to get rid of her and none of them would have even thought twice about it until it all happened. He had hated the Elders for taking her away from him in the first place for all of these years. Now, he hated them with a passion for trying to kill her off too.
"I don't know." Leo said after a moment hesitation.
"Dad!" Wyatt cried.
"Haven't the Elders done enough to us?" Phoebe asked in anger.
"God, it's like they get some kind of sick enjoyment out of making each one of us very much unhappy and very much alone." Paige said evenly in anger.
"I just don't get it. I didn't do anything to them. I was good. I never hurt a soul and this is how they repaid me. They took my mother, they took my home, they turned my dad into a crazed power hungry lunatic, and then they were planning on having Wyatt vanquish me." she said so angrily soft. Her voice shuddered in the threat of tears, but they didn't fall. Instead, she just swallowed hard and looked hard at Leo for an answer he didn't know or want to really give.
"Leo, answer her. Why would they want to do this? Why did they put us into this fight?" Piper asked.
"Yeah, dad. Why? Especially, when she has white lighter in her."
Leo looked at his son in disbelief and confusion as Wyatt said the last words. Brooke looked down in embarrassment and then held her arms closer to her body in the cold wind blowing around them. Piper just blinked in complete confusion as she looked from her husband and back to Brooke in complete guilt.
Brooke looked over at a silhouetted Wyatt who was staring so stonily at his own father in anger as she realized why he really had comeback to her after all these years. It hadn't been because of the newspaper article about her friend. It hadn't been because he was so very worried about her and had wanted to offer his magical assistance.
It was because he had never fallen out of love with her.
She gaped at him a second and then looked away before he could catch her eye and looked over at the three on the sidelines of the beautiful flower covered yard as the smell of jasmine infiltrated her senses.
Paige had her dark hair back to its original color after what seemed to have been ages since she had been a blond the last time Brooke had checked, and she had a lot more courage as well a confidence in her that radiated around her like it would a true Elder. Of course, running a magic school on your own accord could do that to a person. Then, there was Phoebe who hadn't changed. Her dark brown hair was longer then she had ever seen it as it blew in the wind and her wise yet sad eyes stared back at her.
The last person there was Chris. God, he had grown up. He was no longer the lanky dorky kid she had made random c.d.'s for because she had felt bad about him always being grounded or else stuck at home for some insipid reason. From the looks of him now he had to have broken a few hearts on the way here.
A warm fondness came back into her as she almost smiled over at him. Chris had been like her own little brother. It was nice to see him again even if it were under these circumstances.
She looked back at Wyatt as she spoke knowing she had to tell him the truth. Well, a little bit of the truth about herself anyways. "Wyatt..." she started slowly.
"Brooke?" he asked her.
"I am.. Well I'm not a white lighter." she told him as she bit her lip and smiled shyly.
Weirdly she felt like she had years ago as she stood in this very spot in the Charmed Ones backyard with him.
She could just feel her whole shyness and timid actions coming back to her like a bad habbit as she stood there staring at him. She watched his bright blue eyes spark in confusion as his forehead wrinkled slightly. Even now, she could barely keep the urge down to stop herself for falling for him all over again like she had when she had been young and naive.
"What? What do you mean? You orbed us here." he protested as he waved his hand around to the yard they had come to for sanctuary.
"Yeah, I did." she told him knowing that he would be completely mystified by this.
"So, how is that not a white lighters power?"
"Oh, it was a white lighters power." She responded and nodded. "It was your power, Wyatt."
"What? But I didn't do that." he cried.
"She did." Leo answered for her.
"Huh?" Wyatt huffed.
"Confused party of one." Piper said.
"Speak for yourself why don't cha, Piper. I 'd like to say everyone standing out here in the yard is completely confused or out in the blue besides Leo and Brooke that is." Phoebe said as she waved at both of them in annoyment.
"So, how about one of you stop speaking in pig latin and tell us what the hell you are now." Piper rebuked.
"Well, Piper. Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, this is the part where you find out I am evil." Brooke smiled as she interrupted a readily willing to talk Leo. "Right, Leo?"
"Actually, yeah." Leo replied.