Chapter Seven: The Morning After

"Kiara! Kiara! Hurry Kiara! We need you! You have to hurry!" a small boy was crying, standing over the bodies of his parents, both with arrows protruding from their stomachs.

"That's it boy. Cry for your protector. Bring her here unawares," the shooter said quietly to himself as he sat crouched in a tree, an arrow ready to fire.

"Danyi! I'm coming Danyi! Hold on!" the voice of a young girl rang out from the woods.

"Finally," the man crouched in the tree said. "Guess I don't need the boy anymore," he added, releasing the arrow and then quickly drawing another.

The arrow flew directly at the boy's chest, but right before it struck the child it was snatched out of the air by a falcon diving from above.

"Fucking bird!" the man snarled, looking back down in time to see a child come running from the surrounding trees.

"Danyi, what happened?" she asked as she quickly kneeled beside him. Kiara stared intently at the arrows, knowing immediately who had fired them. Before Danyi could reply an arrow struck Kiara in the chest. She fell onto her back and grasped at her chest, trying to breathe.

"Kiara…get up," she heard the boy's voice say. He kept repeating it, but as he repeated it the voice changed from a small boy's to a man's.

"Come on Kiara, wake up. It's just another dream," Kiara woke up at the sound of Chris's voice and sat up quickly. She looked around to see Hayden, Wyatt, Piper, Leo, and of course Chris all looking at her anxiously.

"I'm okay," she said softly, looking down at her hands.

"Is that why you've been screaming? Who's Danyi?" Piper asked her.

'I don't know. I was dreaming. In the dream I was just a little girl, and there was a boy screaming for me to help him, his parents had been shot in the chest. But before I could help them I got shot too."

"Shot as in with a gun?"

"No, an arrow. I recognized the style of the arrows too, although I can't place it now."

"You should get some more sleep. You look like hell," Wyatt told her dryly.

Take this angel,

Let her rest,

No more nightmares,

This sleep will be her best.

Wyatt chanted quietly, slowly waving his hand in front of Kiara's face. Before she could protest she fell back into Chris's bed in a deep sleep.

"Maybe the arrow's in the Book of Shadows," Chris suggested, starting to get up.

"No. It is 4 in the morning. Sleep now, research demons later. No butts mister," Piper scolded, seeing the look of argument on Chris's face. "And we'll discuss the rewording of my spells that I used on you boys when you were children in the morning as well," Piper said to Wyatt.

Wyatt and Hayden quickly retreated to their beds, knowing it was best not to say anything. Piper didn't apprecieate getting up before 5:30.

Piper and Leo were about to walk out the door when Piper turned and added, "I just have to ask. Why is she even in your bed, Christopher?"

"Because she had a nightmare earlier too, and I thought it might help her sleep," Chris looked innocently at his mother.

"I'm sure her sleeping was the only thought on your mind," Piper responded before shutting the door.

"Nice cover, bro."

"I was being serious…mostly."

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Later that morning:

Piper woke up and looked at her alarm clock: 8:00a.m. 'Much more acceptable' she thought to herself as she got out of bed and made her way to the kitchen. She was about to start the coffee, when she noticed there was some already made. Already knowing who was responsible, she ascended the stairs to the attic slowly. There were only two people in the house that got up early on Saturdays. One of them was her, and the other one only did so when there were demons to vanquish.

Piper pushed open the door and was extremely surprised at what she saw. Where she had expected to see Chris sitting on the couch holding a cup of coffee with the BOS in his lap, she instead saw Hayden, sitting much in the same way his older brother often would.

"What are you doing up here, sweetie?" she asked gently as she made her way to the couch.

"I couldn't sleep after Kiara had her nightmare last night. There was just something nagging at me, like I was forgetting something, but I don't know what. I figured maybe I'd find something in here."

"Do you have any ideas?"

"Not really. It's like there's something really important that happened last night, and I just can't figure it out."

"Well, don't worry about it too much. If there's something that you're supposed to remember or realize or whatever, you will."

"Thanks Mom."

"Your welcome. I'm going to go start breakfast. Any preferences?"

"Cinnamon rolls."

Piper smiled and nodded as she made her way to the door. She got there at the same time as Chris did, cup of coffee in his hands.

"Morning Mom," he mumbled as he passed her into the attic.

"Morning peanut," she responded slyly, walking quickly away from him.

"Not fair!" he shouted to her. "I'm too lazy to chase you and you know it!"

"I know….aaaghhh!" Piper's response turned to a scream, causing Chris and Hayden to cloak themselves with their invisibility and run quickly to the landing where Piper stood face to face with three demons.

Piper, knowing her sons heard her scream yelled, "They don't blow up or freeze," for anyone who would listen.

One of the demons formed an energy ball and launched it at Piper, but she easily raised her hand and deflected the power. 'Where are they?' she thought to herself, staring warily at the demons.

Two of the demons suddenly burst into flames as the third one felt an athame pierce his heart from behind. They all quickly turned into scorch marks as Chris and Hayden uncloaked themselves.

"How did you get behind the demons without orbing?" Piper asked, as she easily steeped over the fresh scorch marks.

"Hayden levitated both of us over them," Chris answered.

"Very nice," Piper pulled the vacuum from the closet as Chris TK'd the carpet cleaner off the shelf and into his hand and Hayden conjured a bowl of water and a cloth.

"Personal gain," Piper said in a singsong voice to her boys.

"No, personal gain would be using magick to make the stains disappear, not getting the tools to manually clean them up.

"You let me know how that goes when it one day backfires on you," Piper replied.

"What happened? Where are the demons?" a half dressed Wyatt asked as he came running up the stairs.

"You're about two minutes too late, bro," Hayden laughed at Wyatt's appearance. He was wearing only his boxers, his hair was disheveled and he had pillow and sheet marks all over his face and chest.

"Oh," was all Wyatt said before orbing back to bed. The three remaining Halliwells shook their heads and laughed as they worked on removing the stains.

"Mom, you go make breakfast. We'll clean up,' Chris offered to his mom, pushing her towards the stairs.

"Alright, alright. I know, nothing gets in the way of your food," Piper raised her hands in surrender as she made her way down the rest of the stairs and to the kitchen.

Chris and Hayden scrubbed in silence for a few minutes before Hayden finally spoke, "I don't think she had a random nightmare."

"That was out of left filed," Chris looked at his brother strangely. After receiving a very evil look from Hayden he relented to the boys words. "I'm positive it wasn't a random dream."

"How do you know?" Hayden stopped scrubbing and looked at Chris.

"Because she kind of got attacked last night and told me that when he touched her, she had this weird flashback thingy. I think she's staring to get her memories back from before she lived with the Elders. I just wish there was a way to speed up the process. Otherwise they're going to keep coming in bits and pieces. It may take years for her to have enough to really understand what's happening."

"My thoughts exactly dear brother, which is why I've spent the last couple hours in the BOS. There aren't any really good spells that haven't previously backfired when used to restore memories, but I think that we can use them to make a better spell."

Chris smiled wickedly at his baby brother, "I knew you were going to follow in my devious footsteps. Have you started writing already?"

"Not really. I've started making notes about the other spells though and what I think might work and might not."

"Well, I think it's in Kiara's best interest if we grace her with her memories ASAP, wouldn't you agree?"

Hayden matched Chris's evil grin and replied, "I do agree. Of course, it's also in ours to do it before anyone else knows what we're up to."

"You fix this mess, I'll grab her and meet you in the attic. Based on your notes I'm sure I can come up with something fairly quickly."

Chris took off down the hallway to the boy's bedroom while Hayden focused on the carpet, conjuring nice clean carpet where the scorched carpet had previously been. He waved his hand and orbed the cleaning supplies back into the closet and headed to the attic.

Hayden arrived there right as Chris, Wyatt, and Kiara materialized.

"You woke the beast up?" Hayden asked, referring of course to Wyatt.

"They were both already awake when I got there. Ok, let's do this before breakfast is ready because then we'll have Mom to deal with," Chris grabbed Hayden's notes along with a pen and clean paper. He quickly scanned over the notes, scratched down a spell, reread Hayden's notes, and made a few alterations to his spell.

While Chris worked on the spell Kiara turned to Hayden and asked, "What exactly are we doing here?"

"They're going to restore your memories," Wyatt responded as he walked to Chris and read the spell over his shoulder.

"How'd you know that?" Hayden asked curiously.

"Because I was thinking of the same thing, and knew you would be too. Fix the wording on the second to last line Chris. It's a little off."

"I don't think it's that...wow, never mind. Yes it is," Chris quickly reworded a piece of the spell and held it up triumphantly. "Got it!" he exclaimed excitedly.

"Guys, I really don't think this is necessary," Kiara tried to calm their excitement.

"Don't worry so much," Hayden wrapped his arm around her shoulder, hugging her comfortably. "You'll be fine."

Hayden joined Wyatt and Chris as they read Chris's newly written spell:

Ancestors of the Halliwells rise,

Send to us powers from across the skies,

Take this one who can't remember

And bring forth her memories without surrender.

She wants to know what lies in her past,

Answers she wants so send them fast.