Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed. This fic is inspired by avocadomoon's Salt Mirror on AO3, which I highly recommend. Avocadomoon is a genius.

As per usual for me, this is genderbent Chris/Bianca (a.k.a: Kate/Nico) because the world needs more fem!Chris and more Chris/Bianca stories!

Read, enjoy and review!

Posted 6-6-2023

Chapter One

Turning Back Time

Nico led the way into the attic, holding his athame up in a white-knuckled grip, his jaw tight as he scanned the attic in search of any demons. Kate followed him, her hands up and sparking with electricity. They lowered their weapons of choice when they cleared the room.

"We're in the clear," Nico whispered, relaxing a fraction. They'd checked the whole house on their way up. There were demons outside, guarding the perimeter, but it would be too late for them to intervene by the time they realized something was wrong. He turned to his fiancée, watching her look around the house where, in another life, she had grown up. If they succeeded in this, she would grow up here. He swallowed, his heart hurting, both for her, for the emotional pain this mission would put her through, and for himself.

He doubted he would ever see her again after this. Not in this lifetime at any rate.

"I'll, draw the triquetra," he said, using all his training to keep his voice from shaking with the grief of the coming loss.

She nodded as she adjusted her rucksack, not speaking. It had been a struggle to get the bag in, but they had managed it by Kate using her telepathy on the demon who'd searched them to make him think there was nothing unusual about it. Inside it were the journals Phoebe had left to her adoptive daughter, as well as some clothes and medical supplies, along with food and potions ingredients.

Nico dragged his eyes from the bag to Kate's, seeing the grief and bitterness in the tired green orbs he'd fallen in love with four years ago. This was hurting her just as much as him. Nico turned to the wall and took out a broken piece of white chalk, drawing out the symbol of the Warren line as steadily as he could. They were silent, but he could feel his lover's eyes on his back as he drew.

"That's it," he said at last, stepping away and turning back to her as he dropped the chalk on the ground. "It's time."

She shook her head in a silent denial, stepping closer to him and grabbing his hands. "I don't want to go," she confessed, meeting his eyes. "I don't want to leave you."

He released one of her hands and used his now free one to brush a loose lock of hair out of her face before cupping her jaw. "Kate, you know you're the only one who can do this. You're the only one who can save us."

"There's a depressing thought," Kate said glumly. "Relying on me to save everyone."

"Baby, you have to save everybody," Nico reminded her, raising her ring finger to his lips for a quick kiss. "If you wanna marry me." Then he leaned in to kiss her lips.

They were breathless when they reluctantly pulled away.

"You sure know how to motivate a girl, you know?" She told him with a small smile.

He let out a soft laugh, before sighing as their expressions turned grim and they pulled away.

"Are you sure you can summon the Book?" Niko asked Kate as they went over to the lectern, Kate waving her hand through the holographic Book. "Away from Him?"

She gave a curt nod. "Yes. But we won't have much time. His demons will be all over us the moment I call for it."

Nico raised his athame and braced himself to fight. "I'll cover you. Just say the spell and go. Don't look back."

Her jaw tightened, but Kate knew that this was their one chance. If they lost this shot, they lost the War. That was it.

"Ready?" She asked.

He nodded, and she began to chant the spell she had memorized.

"I call upon the ancient power,

To help us in this darkest hour,

Let the Book return to this place,

Claim refuge in its rightful space."

For one heart stopping moment, nothing happened. Then a large tome with a green leather binding fell onto the lectern with a heavy 'thud'.

Nico sucked in a breath as Kate let out a laugh of amazement.

"It worked!" She cried in relief.

"The spell!" Nico urged as he began looking around rapidly, waiting for the oncoming attack. "Find the spell!"

Demons began shimmering in even as Kate desperately tried to find the spell she needed.

'Please' she begged a Goddess she didn't believe in, even as she used her sensing and psychokinesis to hit a demon that had gotten past her fiancé into the wall, the impact turning him to ash. 'Please. Let me find it.'

Nico was fighting five demons at once by the time she found the damn thing, and Kate didn't hesitate, even as she dodged an energy ball.

"Hear the words, hear the rhyme,

Heed the hope within my mind,

Send me back to where I'll find,

What I wish in place and time!"

A glowing whitish-blue portal opened within the confines of the chalk triquetra. She sent the demons in front of her flying to the side and began rushing towards it.

Then she felt a presence that filled her with dread and heard a voice that haunted her nightmares.

"Stop!"

Against her will, she stopped running and turned. Her heart froze as she saw Nico, struggling in the grip of no less a personage than the Source of All Evil himself. His cruel eyes glinted black, the sign of the Source's spirit within him, at her as he held Excalibur, once the symbol of Goodness, now that of Evil, against her fiancé's throat.

"Don't take another step towards that portal, unless you want your lover's blood on your hands," Wyatt warned her. Kate couldn't breathe, and she wondered if he was using telekinesis to choke her.

"Please, don't," she begged brokenly. Nico was the only person she would do this for. "Wyatt, please...Not Nico, not him."

"Step away from the portal," he ordered her.

Kate tried to think of a way out of this situation, even as she stepped forward.

"Kate, no!" Nico cried, struggling in vain against the Source's tight grip. "Leave me and go!" He fell silent when Wyatt pressed the edge of Excalibur tighter against his throat, blood beginning to drip.

That was when Kate acted. She sent Wyatt flying backward with one motion, while the other hand first sent Excalibur flying out of his grip before yanking Nico forward to her side. The surviving demons, who'd been quietly waiting for their Lord's command, now began to swarm them. Kate sent them flying with a final gesture, then grabbed Nico's wrist and began to drag him with her towards the portal.

"Run!" She yelled at him.

He ran, and they both flung themselves through the waiting gateway, which sealed itself behind them.

The last sound they heard from 2025 was Wyatt's roar of rage.

Nico was four when the world ended. He remembered it in flashes. A loud explosion, his mother grabbing him from his room and shimmering him and his father away to a Phoenix safehouse. Loud storms, screams, bombs falling on the city as the sky turned a red the colour of blood. He was too young to understand at the time, but a foolish demon had unleashed the Titans on the world.

Paige Matthews was killed, and with her went the Power of Three. The surviving but grieving Charmed Ones went after the Titans, but they were outgunned. It was all out war, as magic was revealed in the worst way possible. Mortals dropped bombs on the US, where the Titans had based themselves. The Elders and whitelighters were hunted down, until only a tiny handful remained, the Cleaners died violently and the earth was torn apart by the power of the Titans.

Eventually, after three long months of this hell, Leo Wyatt grew a spine and turned Piper and Phoebe Halliwell into Goddesses. In their grief over the loss of their baby sister, they destroyed the Titans.

But it was too late to do anything about the revelation of magic to the mortals.

The Witch Hunts started next, tearing America apart along with riots and famine from the damage from the Titans and the Halliwells' battle. Many governments were in shambles. Demons took the opportunity to come topside and attack witches and mortals alike in the streets, only worsening the perception of magicals. Nico grew used to feeling hungry, to being cold and scared, even after they left the safehouse and returned to a new apartment, tiny with a leak in the roof that his dad never got around to fixing.

He and his mother continued to hide their powers, but Nico was a child, a cold child who didn't understand why it was so important to keep his powers hidden when the mortals knew about them now. Even knowing the story of Salem, he was too young to understand. He conjured an energyball to keep himself warm one night.

He was seen.

His father was a mortal. He had no powers, he'd done nothing wrong but fall in love with and marry the 'wrong' person. But when the Witch Hunters came for their family, he grabbed his gun and ordered Lynn, Lynn who could shimmer and fight in a way Luis Sánchez could not, irrespective of his twelve years in the Marines, to escape with their terrified and confused son. Luis gave Nico his dog tags and told him he would always love and be proud of him, kissed his wife a final time, then went to give his family time to escape.

It was the last time Nicolas Parker Sánchez ever saw his father, and his mother was never the same after that.

They seemed to be propelled forward through a swirling tunnel of white and blue, hearing a myriad of indistinguishable voices and noises from all around them. Then finally, they saw light at the end of the tunnel, literally, and before they could prepare themselves, they were tumbling out into the Halliwell Manor attic. It was a very different attic to the one they had just fled however.

Kate's left knee, damaged years ago when she was kneecapped by a bitter Witch Hunter (not that they weren't all bitter) twisted and collapsed beneath her as they fell from the portal, the young witch swearing violently as she fell to the floor with a jolt of pain. Nico, unhindered by bad knees (or any other part of his legs, for that matter), stayed upright and scanned the room with an energyball raised and ready to throw, seeing as he had lost his athame.

"We're clear," Kate spoke up, too well-trained to show her pain even as she forced herself to her feet, ignoring the agony burning through her leg. "I focused on a time when the house was empty. I can't sense anyone here. Besides, the commotion would've brought them running by now."

"You're sure we're in the right year?" Nico responded warily as he allowed the energyball to dissipate. He had faith in Kate, but time travel was tricky. Three years of preparation had taught him that.

"Positive," Kate replied without a thought. "I can...sense it," she went on more slowly. "Can't you?"

Nico shook his head, but then he was just a regular, albeit demon-flavoured, witch. He wasn't half-Charmed One, half-Elder like his lover. "What day is it?" he wondered as he wrapped an arm around his fiancée's waist, helping her to stand on her injured leg. It hadn't been necessary for him to know the exact date his fiancée was going back to, the month was enough. Now, however, they would have to re-evaluate their plan.

"It should be the evening of January 10th, 2003," Kate informed him. "The Titans attack on May 11th. That gives us five months to prepare. Make allies, adjust to this time..."

Nico nodded. "We'll need to adjust things," he pointed out. "Me coming back, that wasn't part of the plan."

"If you're saying I should have left you," Kate began in an angry tone. He gestured for her to calm down.

"No, of course not. I'd have done the same thing in your position. But we need to figure out how we're going to play this now."

"I know," Kate said tiredly as she adjusted the pack on her back. "But not now. For now, it's been a long day and we have a long two years to get ready for. First thing we need to do is set up a headquarters for ourselves and get supplies. Then we'll figure out the plan."

"Sounds like a plan," Nico said with a ghost of a smile. He adjusted his grip on Kate's waist and shimmered them away.