Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.

Read, review and enjoy!

Chapter Twenty-Three

Angelite: Spiritual Communication

November 9th, 2003

The Manor, San Francisco

Kate was frozen in place, staring at Piper in wide-eyed shock. Wyatt's mouth was opening and closing in disbelief. Niko let out a resigned sigh and bent his head backwards so he could stare at the ceiling and mentally curse the Angels of Destiny for this. Kate was going to flip her lid when she got over the shock.

Leo had surged to his feet and was choking out half-sentences. Paige was muttering "Oh boy, oh boy," repeatedly under her breath. Cole was glancing between the siblings and their parents, cataloguing the similarities in appearance they shared, his blue eyes wide with shock.

Phoebe was staring intently at the two siblings, seeing things she had never noticed before in her features. Now she was looking at them properly, Kate looked so like Piper, with Prue's personality and Paige's sarcasm. It felt like a slap in the face. She could even see her cheekbones in Kate's thin face. The younger of the two witchlighters was a Halliwell all over. The only thing she had gotten from Leo was her Whitelighter powers and green eyes. On the other hand, Wyatt was the opposite. A replica of Leo with Piper's jaw and ears, just like his baby self was. How had she not seen it?

"So?" Piper raised an eyebrow at her daughter, unintentionally evoking memories of when they were children and Piper caught them practising magic or preforming some other mischief without permission.

"When were you planning on telling me? Before or after Kate ceased to exist? Because, in case you two haven't realized, Leo and I aren't together anymore so how exactly were you planning to ensure Kate's existence?"

"What led you to the conclusion that we're your children?" Kate demanded, though she wasn't nearly as calm and collected as she usually was. Her badly hidden panic was practically a screamed confession on its' own.

Piper had taken her by surprise, and Kate hadn't planned for this eventuality, despite Wyatt having mentioned that the sisters and Leo had found out who she was in his timeline. Forewarned is forearmed, and Kate had assumed the spell would keep her and her brother's identities hidden for a while longer at the very least.

She was bristling, and as a result she had resorted to her favourite tactic when feeling threatened. Offense. Niko hid a wince, recognizing the signs of an 'Impending Halliwell Meltdown'. Also known as: 'Run For Your Freakin' Lives Before You're Killed in the Crossfire.'

"You must be joking, Kate," Piper replied sharply. "At first I could dismiss the similarities because I thought you guys were full Whitelighters, but you can't possibly believe that I'm too stupid to realize the truth when it's staring me right in the face!"

Her voice became increasingly passionate as she went on, losing the calm 'always in control' tone she had adopted over years of demon fighting and being the eldest and leader of the family. The same one Kate had taken up after the Event. Even the people of the past knew of Kate's temper.

"Wyatt looks just like Leo, but he has a personality so like Phoebe's I'm not surprised you resorted to using a spell to keep the truth from us! And you, God Kate, I don't see a bit of your father in you except your eyes and orbing.

You look just like me, but you have so much of Prue's personality I almost have to wonder if you're her reborn! Not to mention Phoebe's cheekbones and smile, and Paige's sarcastic streak! God, how I didn't see it before, I will never understand!"

Kate opened her mouth to speak, her mind scrambling for something she could say to try and refute Piper's claims, but Wyatt spoke first. Her mouth slammed closed and she gave him a vicious glare as she felt the spell she had put on him shatter. Wyatt was so powerful, the only reason it had worked at all was because he didn't fight it. Now, however, the jig was up as far as he was concerned, and so he pulled it apart as easily as if it were made of crepe paper. It was an insult to her abilities as a spell-caster, her power as a Warren witch and it reinforced her insecurities.

"You're right, Mom," he breathed. "I'm Wyatt. Kate's my baby sister by a year and nine months."

"Damn it," Kate swore, preventing any replies from their mother. "And damn you!" she jabbed a finger at her brother. "Now everything's ruined! Goddessdamnit Wyatt, why do you always insist on screwing up everything in my life? Arghh!"

It was rare for Kate's temper to boil over. She kept herself rigidly in check most of the time. But whenever she hit her limit, she could easily rival her brother in the destruction she left behind.

Taking that into account, Niko darted a look around the attic, judged it incapable of containing an angry and upset Katharine Halliwell, jumped to his feet, grabbed his fiancée by the upper arm, and shimmered them both down to the Underworld so Kate could work out her frustration.

Piper's brown eyes flashed furiously at the two's flight and she threw her hands in the air. Everyone instinctively ducked to avoid being blasted into a million pieces, making Piper huff and roll her eyes at what she perceived as melodramatic reactions.

"Alright, fine," Piper growled. She turned to her son, who gained a 'deer in the headlights' look when he suddenly became the focus of his mother's attention.

"Wyatt Matthew Halliwell," she snapped, crossing her arms over her chest and giving her nervous-looking son a threatening look. (Her 'I'm the mother' threatening look used for when her children were being disobedient, not the coldly vicious look used for threatening anything or anyone evil that her children inherited and that sent centuries old demons running for cover.)

"Start talking right now, young man!" Piper demanded. "No more of this 'future consequences' stuff. I want to know what happened to my daughter to give her PTSD and insomnia and god knows what else. And I want to know what this threat you guys have mentioned actually did, because you quite obviously have your powers."

"I can't just go around telling you everything," Wyatt protested half-heartedly and weakly. "I could end up erasing someone from existence, or have things happen differently or worse than before."

"I don't care about anyone else!" Piper declared. "I care about you, and I care about Kate. You two are my priority, and I want to know what happened to my children!"

Wyatt swallowed, but he had never been good at keeping secrets, especially not from his mother. He flicked his eyes around the room at the past versions of his family. Paige and Phoebe were still studying him intently, and Leo had sunk onto Aunt Pearl's couch and buried his head in his hands despairingly.

No doubt the Elder was going over his actions in the past few months with a new eye and severely regretting them now. Good, he should be. After his actions over the past few months, Wyatt wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to trust him fully again, and that broke his heart.

Cole gave him a tiny nod of encouragement when he met his gaze, and then Wyatt returned to his mother. She was younger than in his time, and while there was pain in her eyes, it was not as bad as the pain in the mother he had grown up with. The source of that pain, Wyatt had realized during the past few months, was knowing of Kate's suffering in another life, and the heartbreak of both losing a child, and the fear not knowing what would happen to Katie because of her Other Self's fate.

And even now, at twenty-five-years-old, Wyatt still hadn't quite lost his childish belief that Mommy could make anything better, like she had when he was a child.

Wyatt made his decision. And he opened his mouth to let everything he had been bottling up over the past few months come pouring out like water from a jug.

April 19th, 2025 (changed future)

Niko Parker's Apartment, San Francisco

It had been two years since Niko had met Katharine Halliwell, and a year and a half since their tentative 'alliance' had become a romantic relationship. Despite that, however, they continued to keep it a secret. Niko's family had told him of the time the Halliwell sisters had randomly attacked them for no apparent reason, and Katie's family not only seemed determined to treat her like a helpless child with no powers but had also lectured her many times on how very not trustworthy the Phoenix Assassin Clan was.

Neither group would take well to their relationship being revealed, and so they were waiting as long as they could to announce it.

"What do you want to watch?" Niko asked his girlfriend as they relaxed on the couch in his apartment. The TV was turned on, showing the menu and they scanned it.

"How about the Prince of Egypt?" he suggested. "You love Disney."

Kate stiffened. "No," she shook her head firmly, her lose brunette locks whipping her cheeks. "Not that movie. I hate it."

"Why?" Niko asked curiously.

Katie loved Disney movies. She knew pretty much all of them off by heart. It was a source of never-ending amusement for him, watching her mouth the words to the various scripts and sing along with the songs. She claimed that she preferred children's movies because you were never stressed by them. She had enough stress in her everyday life, what with being a fulltime college student, helping her mother run P3 and Charmed, fighting demons, their secret relationship and helping her cousins and brother with whatever problems they had that day. What was different about the Prince of Egypt?

"Is it because it's based off of a Bible story?" Niko asked doubtfully. That didn't sound right. Katie had been raised firmly Wiccan, but she respected other peoples' beliefs. Her disliking a movie because it wasn't aligned with her faith didn't suit her character.

"No," Katie repeated. She sighed and shook her head, running a hand through her dark locks. Her hair reached a little past her shoulders, but Niko rarely saw it down. She claimed that the only way to have short hair and fight demons was if it was a crop-cut, which she hated. Long hair could be pulled back, and so the Halliwell girls kept their hair long and tied back, instructed on minor but important things like that by their experienced parents.

"I don't know why," Katie admitted. "But I always feel like, goddess, I don't know how to describe it. Like it hits too close to home, I guess."

Niko raised an eyebrow at that, giving her a bemused look. "It hits too close to home?" he echoed her. "How? It's a story about two siblings being enemies with each other. You're not exactly at war with your brother. He's overprotective, but you never fight with him. Not like that at least."

"I know," she huffed. "It doesn't make sense. But every time I watch that movie, it touches something in me. Like I have this deep, instinctual fear that one day I'll have to fight against Wyatt."

Niko was about to ask for more details, but he saw the distressed look in Katie's beautiful green eyes. They looked haunted for a moment, as if an aged war veteran had temporarily possessed her, before returning to normal. She was still blatantly upset though.

"Fine," he shrugged. "Not the Prince of Egypt then. How about Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone? You can complain for the next two hours about how crap and inaccurate their interpretation and portrayal of magic is. You love doing that."

She shoved at his shoulder, laughing. There was still a strained note in her voice, but at least that upsetting look of terror and foreshadowing was slipping away.

They settled in to watch Harry Potter and, as Niko had predicted she would, Katie spent the entire film criticizing the magical inaccuracies and scoffing. By the time it ended and they went their separate ways (Niko to bed and Katie home to the Manor. At twenty-years-old, her family was still ridiculously overprotective of her. Wyatt had insisted on going to the same college as her, and Piper had guilted her into continuing to live at the Manor. Niko wondered if they even realized that they were driving a wedge between themselves and their daughter.) he had almost completely forgotten the titbit she had revealed about her secret fears.

He would recall it two years later, holding his unconscious and bloody fiancée in his arms. And he would start to hate Wyatt Halliwell a little bit.

November 10th, 2003

The Underworld

With a loud 'BOOM', the Scavenger Demon went flying backwards into the demon club's wall. Kate advanced on him, rolling the electricity in her hands into a ball as she did so. She had already vanquished over half, and Niko had taken care of several others.

Now, however, Niko stood back, leaning against the opposite wall and keeping an eye out for any other incoming enemies. When Kate got tunnel vision, she thought of nothing save for the destruction of her target goal. In this case, her target was untouchable, as she would never even consider raising a hand to her mother, who was the current source of her frustration. So, instead she was attempting to kill all the demons she could, in order to relieve her ever-present anger.

Another explosion drew his attention, and he saw that the force of Kate's 'lightning ball', a combination of her telekinesis and electrokinesis, had destroyed the majority of the wall along with the Scavenger. And they were now exposed to most of the Demonic Market.

Niko glanced at Kate, seeing a disturbingly bloodthirsty grin grow on her face as she raised her hands in preparation to attack, and sighed heavily. He conjured two athames and fell into an attacking pose. This was going to be a long night.