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Chapter Twenty-Two

Garnet: Self-Worth

November 9th, 2003

The Manor, San Francisco

Piper spent about an hour sobbing quietly into her pillow before Baby Wyatt's wails roused her and she went to soothe him and feed him his lunch.

When he was finished, she put together a plate of sandwiches and headed into the sitting room with an overly bright smile on her face.

"Hi guys," she chirruped as the two young lovers jumped away from each other hastily. She carefully pretended not to notice Kate's red-rimmed eyes. "Lunch?"

"Uh, great, thanks," Kate murmured. Piper had always been concerned about her lack of weight, but now, looking at her as Piper's very much alive daughter, instead of a Whitelighter only able to die from a Darklighter arrow, it was horrifying how thin and malnourished she was. Piper could probably count the girl's ribs! Niko didn't look to be the pinnacle of health either, with his gaunt features and the same world-weary and haunted eyes as his fiancée.

"Great," Piper repeated, keeping her beam fixed to her face as she handed the plate over to Niko, who eyed her like she was a poisonous snake.

"No hard feelings, right?" he asked as he accepted the platter. He elaborated when she raised her eyebrow. "You know, about the whole, holding a knife to your throat thing. It wasn't personal, just business."

Piper felt her smile turn cold. Of course, she realized now that he hadn't actually been planning to kill her. He couldn't, considering Kate had yet to be conceived. Still, she didn't appreciate having weapons held to her jugular.

"Of course," she agreed, a sharp edge in her voice. To Niko's credit, he had enough familiarity with the Halliwells to wince and fall silent, in order to avoid a fit of Halliwell proportions, something that put entire cities at risk in his time.

Satisfied he had got the message, Piper turned to Kate and crossed her arms over her chest. "So," she said. "I think we need to have a meeting about certain things that have come to light in the past few days, don't you?"

Kate wilted slightly, evidently having hoped to escape without being interrogated by the Charmed Ones, even though it was unlikely.

"I suppose so," she muttered in reluctant agreement. "When?"

"After the others are finished with work, and we'll all need dinner, so after that," Piper said decisively. "Eat up, you're both too thin." With that, she spun on her heel and headed for the staircase, as she could hear Wyatt in his crib and beginning to cry for attention again.

"Well that's another thing to look forward to," Kate grumbled, crossing her own arms and letting her mind begin to run through different lies and ways to deflect from any information she didn't want her mother and aunts to learn.

"Have you thought," Niko began carefully, knowing she would be less than pleased by his suggestion. "About just telling them so that you can deal with Gideon? Things are, different, from what we expected them to be, after all."

The look she gave him was so cold, it could have frozen the sun.

November 9th, 2003

Turner's Attorneys, San Francisco

Wyatt sat in his uncle's office at Turner's Attorneys, feeling very sorry for himself. He had known things would be difficult when he went back in time, but this was worse than he could have ever expected. Wyatt was a happy, social person by nature, and all the secrets, lack of parental and sibling support, as well as his ever-increasing knowledge of just how awful his other self had been, were wearing him down.

Cole glanced at the young man, momentarily distracted from his papers by Wyatt's heaving sigh. "What's wrong, Kid?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow. Wyatt gave him a miserable look.

"I really want all of this to be over," he sighed. "I want," he faltered, feeling guilty. The whole reason Kate was the way she was, was because of what he (or rather, his other, evil self) had done. Both to Kate herself, and to the world around her. Saying that he wanted his sister, sarcastic with a dark, biting sense of humour, but sweet and always steadfastly on his side, seemed like a shameful way to repay her for dying to save him.

Cole pushed away from his desk and scooted over to Wyatt's side. "I know this must be tough for you," he said sympathetically. "Having to be strong for your sister, fight with the sisters about demon hunting, worrying about the demon that gets to Wyatt, but it's all going to work out eventually. The night is always darkest before the dawn. We're going to save Wyatt, and you and your sister can go home and live your lives in peace."

Wyatt looked away, chewing on his lip. It was hard to keep the truth from his family, but the spell ensured it. He just wished that they could help him the way he wanted to be helped.

He wanted his mom.

April 13th, 2023 (unchanged future)

Wyatt's Prison (former Magic School)

Kate hung limply from the chains keeping her arms suspended above her head. After at least three weeks of holding them up, it was now purely the strength of the chains that kept her upright. Pain was flowing freely through her body and she was littered in injuries.

The wards on the building, a legacy of its' days as a school of magic for young magic users, prevented any of the prisoners from dying as long as their bodies remained on the grounds, so Barbas and his men could torture her as much as they wanted, unhindered by the fragilities of the human body. And if necessary, all the injuries could be healed by one of the Whitelighters kept as captives for that exact purpose. Because of her 'importance', Barbas himself was in charge of 'interrogating' her, and when he wasn't around, Zankou was. It still disgusted Kate that after everything her family went through to vanquish those pieces of shit, Wyatt had not only resurrected them but made them some of his top lieutenants.

For once, however, she was alone. Blood was leaking sluggishly from the latest of her wounds, and they stung from the salt Zankou had poured into them. But she hadn't broken yet. Three weeks of torture, and she still hadn't said a word of what they wanted to know.

Locations, names, ward schemes and their weaknesses. All of it was kept hidden in her mind, hidden from any telepathic invasions by various rituals she had undergone along with every other member of the Resistance.

What the Empire had yet to realize, was that even if Kate wanted to, she couldn't speak a word of treason to her cause. Any time thoughts of giving in crossed her mind, the Ritual of Secrecy kicked in and made the knowledge disappear from her mind.

Kate suspected that if not for that vital failsafe, she would have traded everything she knew for execution by the third day. A Warren witch and High General of the Resistance she may be, but she was also a nineteen-year-old girl, not even old enough to drink, and nothing, not even the Resistance's training, had prepared her for the agonizing torture the demons had been visiting on her since she sacrificed herself to let the others escape being captured by the Witch Hunter patrol with her. It was even worse than the Witch Hunters' torture. So, so much worse.

She knew the chances of her surviving this were zero. The only thing that she had going in her favour was that Wyatt seemed to want her to switch sides for some reason. He had been coming in to 'visit' her at irregular times, often watching her be tortured either physically or mentally before offering to let her have her freedom back, if she swore her allegiance to him and gave up all her information on the Resistance.

So far, she had managed to hold true to her convictions and refuse his offers, and she expected that if she continued to do so, Wyatt would lose his patience and decide to just kill her. Like he had killed Grandpa, Junior, the twins and Prim. Their family. But she would rather die than be turned, the way he had turned Fay to evil after demons brought him her broken body during the Fall.

She let out a weak sigh, that quickly changed to a cough, blood flying from her lips. The Resistance had a spy working as a guard in the prison. Aaron Herrick, a warlock who the Charmed Ones had helped when his powers first activated. Despite his heritage, he was very much Good. And since his witch wife, Alysha, and his mortal adoptive family had all died in Wyatt's attack, he loathed the Empire with a passion.

But, he was stationed in the lower levels, his warlock heritage working against him in terms of rising up the Empire's ranks. Kate thought it was bitterly funny. After all, warlocks were witches who turned evil and stole others' powers. Like Wyatt had done, and still did. Yet they were still considered secondary citizens in the world of evil, despite one of their own ruling.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a creak as the door was pushed open. Despite herself, Kate flinched, tensing up in expectation of Zankou or Barbas entering the room. It had only been two or three hours since her last 'session', if her internal clock was right, but the demons came irregularly. Kate had to admit, it was a good technique. It kept her from being able to predict when and what was going to happen next, therefore preventing her from preparing herself mentally for it and adding the stress of fearful expectation as she waited for them to arrive to torment her.

But it wasn't either of her tormentors who strode into the room. No, it was Phaedra, a look of cold arrogance on her face and a hand resting on her black leather-clad hip. She sneered disdainfully at Kate's dirt and gore-streaked appearance, and Kate somehow managed to summon up enough strength to spit a glob of dark crimson blood at her cousin's feet.

Phaedra scoffed and waved at the uniformed demon who had entered a few steps behind her. "Get her down," the young lieutenant ordered curtly.

"Why?" He demanded bravely.

She sneered at him with a look in her eyes that would've stopped a lion in its' tracks. "How dare you question me?" she hissed furiously at him. "Do you know who I am? Obey my orders this instant, or I'll have you removed from your duties and replaced by someone competent, permanently. " That was basically Phaedra's way of threatening to kill him. Seeing as she was the only relative who had sided with Wyatt and was subsequently doted on by him, she would easily get away with it too.

The Executioner demon tensed and gave a deep bow, before going and releasing Kate's chains from the wall. Her legs, not having supported her body for weeks, and having been badly beaten multiple times, promptly gave out, and she fell face forward onto the cold stone floor. A second later, Phaedra grabbed her roughly by the upper-arm and yanked her up.

Kate didn't resist, but she didn't try and walk either as her cousin pulled her roughly through the long halls of Wyatt's prison.

She was in a daze, but quickly snapped out of it when she was dragged into an empty room. One with a triquetra drawn on the wall in white chalk. Phaedra set her down, far more gently than she had been treating Kate up until then, and quickly closed, locked and warded the room.

"What's going on, Fay?" Kate croaked out through torn lips, unintentionally calling the other girl by the nickname she had stopped using over two years ago. Fay faltered in the midst of rummaging around in a bag before continuing.

"I'm getting you out of here," she replied curtly. She pulled out a bottle containing a potion Kate recognized as a highly prized and valuable healing potion. She knew that particular potion was very strong, accelerating healing by several weeks, but it had heavy drawbacks. You got a few hours of a health and energy boost (depending on the state you were in) before abruptly collapsing into a coma. Many had died in those comas. Kate had drunk it twice before already, though the ingredients were very rare and difficult to get.

"Why?" she asked, her voice weak and hoarse from screaming.

Phaedra faltered again, and Kate was surprised to see that her eyes shimmering with tears, and her hands were shaking violently.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," she whispered. "I just wanted our family to be safe. I wanted us to be able to live our lives without being constantly tormented by duties we inherited by an accident of birth. I wanted our children not to have to worry if we would be coming home from our weekly vanquishes or not, like we did about our parents. I never wanted any of this."

She waved around, silently saying that everything that was happening was not what she wanted. "You, him letting those monsters do," she waved at Kate's battered form. "All of this. It's the last straw. I couldn't leave you there."

"Fay," Kate groaned. Her love for Fay, buried but still there, flared up again. "Will you come with me?" She asked, rather than saying it was alright. Nothing was alright, and nothing ever would be. Not after everything that had happened.

Fay shook her head. Her dark hair was bobbed, Kate absently noted. It made her look like the pictures of her mother in '03.

"No," Fay answered. "I can't. You know that."

If she could have, Kate would've bitten her lip. Instead she simply inclined her head in acknowledgement. The Resistance would be eager for a chance to kill the favourite of Lord Wyatt. Phaedra wouldn't last a day, even with Kate's protection.

"I have to try to make it right," Fay continued. "But I'm sending you home first."

As if the universe was conspiring to prevent them from settling any unfinished business, the wards flared red in warning, signalling that someone was trying to break through.

"Hurry!" Fay hissed. She tossed Kate the potion before she rushed over to the triquetra and began to open a portal.

Kate shakily wrapped her fingers around the vial and drank it in one gulp. She groaned in pain as her body's healing functions were forced into overdrive. Her injuries were serious enough that she was still badly wounded when it finished, but she forced herself to stand and make her way to the now-glowing portal.

"You'll die," she murmured, pain and grief lacing her words.

Fay raised her chin defiantly. For the first time in years, Kate saw her cousin in the young woman in front of her.

"Then I'll die like a Halliwell witch, bringing as many of those demonic scum as I can down with me," she replied stoically.

Kate leaned forward and gave her a soft embrace. "I love you, Ladybug," she whispered in Fay's ear, using Aunt Phoebe's nickname for her oldest daughter.

"I love you too Peanut," Fay whispered back, before pulling away, her expression hardening again. "Now go," she ordered. "Quickly. I'll hold them off." As she spoke, the wards collapsed and a large group of demons came pouring into the room. Fay shoved Kate through the portal, and the elder girl turned her head to see what was happening as the blue and white light engulfed her.

The last thing she saw was her younger cousin facing down three dozen demons with a fearless, determined gaze, and balls of fire in each of her upraised hands.

November 9th, 2003

The Manor, San Francisco

"So, what do you want to know then?" Kate asked reluctantly when everyone had arrived for the meeting.

"How about when you two were planning on admitting that you're my children," Piper replied in a low, even tone of voice.