Charmed: The Return
Disclaimer: See Chapter One.
Summary: After their parents' deaths, the Charmed Children moved on with their lives. Now they return home to where it all started and back to the world, they turned their backs on.
Author's Note: The year for this fiction is 2032. That means, the Halliwells died in 2027. Long paragraphs or sentences that are in italics are flashbacks, and any words that are in italics are just like that to show emphasis. There is minor language.
Chapter Nine: Time
" Never run away from a fight for sometimes the fight isn't with a demon, but with yourself"
-Piper Halliwell to Samuel Montana, May 2025
The rain smashed against all surfaces as it fell from the heavens. The thunder rumbled loudly and the lightening crashed brightly over the city that night. The winds were quiet, but the chills left in their absence ran through the pink Victorian nestled at the center of Prescott Street. The house with all it's lights on had a fearful appearance. Inside, it was the same.
Christopher Halliwell, Rachel and Rose Dean and Allison Montana were sitting in the attic as they awaited news from Magic School. The Book of Shadows lay on it's pedestal, where it was placed hours earlier. Though no witch of the Warren line could lay a gentle hand on the tome, it was still placed there from it's previous resting spot in the living room. Allison had bewitched a sack to carry the tome upstairs and with the telekinetic skills of the second oldest witch, it was finally replaced to where it belonged. Around the attic lay citrate crystals to capture any demons or warlocks from touching the Book, which now apparently sided with evil.
"What's taking him so long?" Rachel asked no one in particular.
"Who knows. It's not like anyone of us has been there in five years." Ali said as she looked out the attic window to the street below.
"I hope they didn't give him a hard time." Rachel said as she plopped herself down on the couch alongside Chris, who was staring at the wall.
As if he knew they were talking about him, Sam orbed in carrying a large book in his hands. His face was a mix of aggravation and happiness. An odd combination.
"Tell me, you found something." Rachel said before the orbs even disappeared.
"I have some good and bad news. Which would you prefer?" Sam asked.
"Good." all four said in unison.
"Well the good news is, I got offered a teaching job, and I found something about Jekyll in a book, and let me tell you, they've added another library to the school since we left." Sam had spent three hours mucking around the two libraries before finally finding the book he needed.
"Thank god, what did it say?" Chris asked as he stood up and approached Sam, who handed Chris the book. The book was a brown leather tome, the same size as a dictionary, with the title, "Demons Through the Ages" in red stitching.
"That's the bad news. It's entirely in Latin."
"Latin?" Chris asked perplexed as he opened the book and saw that Sam was right and that everything was in Latin.
"But we can't read Latin." Rachel said, her aggravation showing.
"We all took Spanish in school." Rose said, finally breaking her silence.
"I took French!" Rachel interjected, and Ali rolled her eyes.
"Well, what do we do? I mean I'm sure we can write a translating spell or something like that." Rose suggested as she looked over the text. She knew some Latin from her medical training but it wasn't helping, as did Chris, he knew some Latin from working in a morgue and several years of anthropology training, but nothing rang a bell.
"You guys always forget about him. Wyatt speaks Latin." and four sets of eyes stared at Sam in surprise.
"What?" Chris asked confused.
"Wyatt, he minored in the classics in college. He speaks and reads Latin, fluently. And you wonder why he never tells you anything, you guys always forgets he's here."
"Really? Because I'm pretty sure I don't see him now." Ali said bitterly. And Sam ignored her.
"When he gets home, he'll translate. Okay? Now what about dinner we need to eat?"
"Dinner? Sam, how the hell can you think about dinner, when the Book distrusts us, and our only source of information is in Latin?" Ali snapped.
"Because it keeps a sense of normalcy around here. We can't put our lives on hold for this, we said we would keep our lives and do the magic thing."
"He's right. We don't even know when Wyatt's coming home, so we should just chill before we jump into this right now, bad enough we've all had shitty days." Chris said.
"Why, what's going on?" Sam asked.
"Abridge, the inspector I work with. She did a background check all the way back to great-grandpa Allan's death in 1967, and has made some insight into our past." Chris explained.
"Oh god." was all Sam could muster.
"What job did you get?" Rose asked, trying to change the subject.
"They need someone to teach the kids about Magic and Time. It's basically explaining the use of time travel, time spells, and the affects of the past and future in the present and past lives and stuff like that."
"Why did you get it?" Ali asked. The cold hearted bitch has returned.
"I don't know. Because I can stop time?" Sam said in a sarcastic voice.
"It's not like any other witch can." Ali said in her icy tone. It was true though. The wiccan power of temporal stasis was only passed on through the Warren Line, or so Sam was told by his Aunt Piper. "It's not like telekinesis or premonition, it's a rare power given only to those who can handle it. Using the power to stop time isn't as easy as the others think. It's not just waving your hands and wham, everything's frozen. It's about concentration and harnessing your emotions." she told him when he was eleven and starting to understand his powers better.
"You know Ali, yesterday you were shockingly nice to me and now you're a mega bitch." Sam said to his sister, his face showing another shade of frustration.
"What can I say? Sometimes I'm bi-polar." and Sam couldn't help but think of his cousin, Wyatt.
"I'm not going to sit here and argue with you."
"Run away Sam, you seem to be mighty good at that! How many lines of coke and bottles of booze was it before you stopped running?"
"Ali, I'm advising you to shut up right now." Sam's eyes flared with anger. Chris, Rose and Rachel just watched, no one wanted to get involved.
"No, you're not the boss of me. You never have been and you never will be!"
"It's not about being the boss, Ali. It's about being respected. This is why we never got along as children. You would always bring up my flaws in some attempt to hide yours."
"I've got nothing to hide." she said in her matter of fact tone.
"Guys, this isn't going to help the cause." Rose said, before shutting up after Ali gave her a death glare.
"I'm through trying to be the one in this family to keep his cool, I'm done. If you want to sit there and mock my new-found job, then so be it. But never bring up my past, ever!" Sam was so angry, his face was red. When it comes down to it; he was ashamed of everything he went through.
"Ali, Sam, that's enough." Chris said, standing in between the two of them.
"Yeah guys, you can fight all you want another time, but right now we have to figure out a new game plan." Rachel pointed out, she was now holding the text from Magic School.
As if on cue, Wyatt walked into the attic. He was dressed in jeans and a tee shirt. He obviously changed before coming to join them. "I heard arguing all the way downstairs."
"That was those two." Rose pointed to Sam and Ali.
"We'll discuss this later." Wyatt said as he looked at them, and let his eyes meet Sam's and Sam nodded.
"So, someone want to fill me in about the three minute voicemail, Chris left me about an inspector and a background check?", and Chris immediately went into explaining and Wyatt's jaw just dropped like it was no longer connected to his skull.
"So the book is in Latin, and you were hoping I could translate right?" Wyatt said. And Rachel nodded and handed him the book. He opened it up and started to read it to himself, before finally sitting down on the couch.
"It's basically the same thing that was written in the Book of Shadows. It mentions though a group of upper level superiors. A group of demons who work closely with the Source and said to be protected by an eons worth of dark magic. Members include Medusa, Argus and Echoic. All three are siblings and together they work to destroy good witches through the workings of upper level demons, such as our friend Jekyll. The only way to defeat Jekyll is to destroy his power center. A power center is the cause of a demons magic. Only six known demons are said to have power centers, Jekyll included. To destroy a power center, a witch must create a potion and throw it at the demon. Then and only then will the potion immobilize him and leave him powerless. And then it just goes on to list the potion ingredients and instructions."
"So this book is more helpful than anyone of us wanted to admit." Rose said as she sat down next to Wyatt.
"Yeah, it's a fairly simple potion, we should have all the ingredients."
"So we summon him like before and throw the potion at him?" Rachel offered.
"Yes, but what if he gets summoned away by the Superiors before he we do it?" Chris asked.
"I freeze him." Sam said.
"He's upper level. He won't freeze." Wyatt said to his younger cousin.
"Yes he will." Sam said as he walked over to the bookcase in the corner of the attic and pulled out a small black journal. On the front in gold writing was the name: Piper.
"That's our Mom's personal diary. You can't read that!" Chris argued, but Sam ignored him.
"In this book is a potion. A potion, Aunt Piper and I made five years ago. We never tested it but it might work. Aunt Piper was convinced that she could expand her freezing power. For years, she worked on formulas and spells and other charms, but nothing ever worked. If I remember correctly we designed it so we could freeze upper level demons and even witches. It works by throwing it at the demon and then I have to use my power to freeze him, and the potion will react with the slowing of molecules resulting in the demon's time suspension."
"You and my Mom really were close." Chris said with an almost jealous tone.
"Yeah, Aunt Piper helped me with a lot. Especially with understanding my powers." Sam said as he flipped through the book. He continued to flip through the book, all the while thinking about the time his own mother got mad at him and he found comfort in his aunt.
"Aunt Piper, can we talk for a second?" Sam asked his Aunt, who was cooking tomato sauce at the stove. She placed her spoon down and turned to look at him. Her face was lined with age and her brown hair had a plethora of grays.
"Certainly, Sammy, what's up?" she asked. Sam couldn't help but smile ear to ear, only Piper would call him Sammy.
"My mom's mad at me again, and I kind of ran away." he looked at the floor, knowing that he was going to get yelled at.
"Why did you do that? Why is she mad at you?" Piper asked as she sat down at the kitchen table and Sam joined her.
"Because she caught me drinking again, and I started to get angry and I just stormed off. She doesn't understand me." tears were filling his eyes.
"Sammy, you're eighteen years old and fresh out of high school, there is no reason to be drinking. And of course she's going to be mad at you, you're her son, and she only gets mad because she cares." her voice was gentle and caring.
"But she's always mad at me. I feel like she likes Ali more than me."
"Sammy, that's not true and you know it. Ali and you are completely different. She's a gifted artist and your –," she started before being cut off.
"A fuck-up." he said, his still fixated on the floor.
"Samuel, you watch that mouth."
"Sorry." he said.
"And you're not a fuck-up. You made some bad choices, but it's not to late to change that. That's the thing about the past and present. With them you can change the future." she smiled gently and placed her hands in his. "Always remember that."
Sam stopped flipping in the book and remembered that day, six years ago. And he couldn't help but smile. "I found the potion. I'm going to go make it and then we can summon this bastard again."
"You want help?" Rose offered.
"No thanks. I need to do this. It requires the blood of the time-freezing witch."
"Alright. If you need any of us, just call out." Rose said as Sam went downstairs.
"Did anyone know he and Aunt Piper were really close?" Rachel asked as she sat back down and crossed her legs.
"No." Chris, Rose and Ali all said in unison.
Wyatt looked up from the book and said, "Yeah."
"You knew they were close? That didn't bother you that he close to our mother?" Chris asked.
"Nope." Wyatt said as he flipped another page in the Latin-texted book.
"Are you only going to answer me in mono-syllabic words?" Chris asked in annoyance.
"Yep." Wyatt said in a drawn out almost southern accent.
And Chris just rolled his eyes.
There's chapter nine for y'all. Hope y'all enjoyed and please review! More action to come next and we'll be one more step closer to understanding the secrets of Wyatt Halliwell! REVIEW!