Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed. This is inspired by Migraines Through Time by kiara87, and the Dark Future backstory is inspired by avocadomoon's Salt Mirror, both of which I highly recommend, especially Salt Mirror (or any of avocadomoon's stuff. Their stories are amazing!)

Also, like in all my Charmed stories, Excalibur belongs to (fem!) Chris, not Wyatt (who I headcanon is actually the reincarnation of MERLIN, not King Arthur. Kate/y is half-Elder in both timelines, and has more powers than just orbing and telekinesis, which can be seen on my profile. I just can't bring myself to believe that the child of a Charmed One and an Elder could be so powerless. Or that Chris could've survived the Dark Future as someone heavily hunted by Wyatt if he was.

There is no Melinda, Piper and Leo have two kids, and that's it.

Cole is Phoebe's true love, end of story. In this, Benjamin Turner was a witch, not mortal, and vanquished Elizabeth when he realized that she was a demon. Then he raised Cole to be good, so Belthazor, while he existed, never killed all those innocents and witches, nor was he sent after the Charmed Ones by the Triad. He met Phoebe in the same way (as DA on a case she and Prue were witnesses to), he just wasn't evil. He revealed he was a demon to protect her from an assassin sent by the Source, and suggested they use a truth spell to prove he wasn't lying about being good. Prue was still suspicious of him, but not in the same way, and the Cole/Phoebe relationship wasn't as turbulent as in canon. Phoebe never vanquished his demon half, but their baby (who she was already pregnant with when they vanquished the Half-Faced Source) was possessed by the spirit of the Source and they had to vanquish him, same as canon. The trauma of that had them waiting a few years until they felt ready to have another baby. The Elders, as a reward for Cole helping vanquish two Sources, stripped him of his demonic powers and made him a witch with pyrokinesis and fading (a way of teleporting) instead.

Katy is Changed Future fem!Chris, while Kate is Dark Future fem!Chris. She is portrayed by India Eisley. Nikolaus 'Niko' Scott of the Phoenix clan, male!Bianca is portrayed by a 28-year-old Diego Luna.

Finally, there will be flashbacks to the Dark, Changed Futures and Season 6, starting in Chapter 2.

3-6-2023

Read, enjoy and review!

Chapter One

Turning Back the Clock

Katy laid her head on her textbook, eyes aching from the strain of reading. She was studying to business, with the intent of taking over as owner of P3 and Charmed for her mother. She was already manager at the club. She was clever, the cleverest in the family her parents and brother liked to brag, and had skipped two grades, meaning she'd graduated with her brother, who was a newly-certified EMT. But she had to admit, if only to herself, that the workload for her Masters to keep up despite her frequent 'family emergencies' was really kicking her ass, combined with everything else she had to do.

Katharine Patricia Halliwell was no ordinary college student. She wasn't even an ordinary witch. She was the child of Piper Halliwell, eldest (surviving) Charmed One, and her husband, the former Whitelighter-turned-Elder Leo Wyatt. Katy's older brother, Wyatt Halliwell, was the Twice-Blessed, the most powerful witch ever born, his power only second to that of the Power of Three wielded by the Charmed Ones. When they were separate, Wyatt could overcome the trio, including their mother, the most powerful Charmed One, but even he wasn't strong enough to beat their combined strength. Katy was almost as powerful as Wyatt, and had powers unique to the Elders, allowing her to wield lightning and turn invisible, as well as cloak anyone she wished from even the Elders' eyes. They were powers that no other witch had ever had, and her strength, though not her range of powers, rivalled that of her brother's.

On top of that, she was Heir to Excalibur, the Queen of Magic and Guardian of Avalon. It was her duty to guard and protect it, and the strain of it weighed heavily on her shoulders, and always had. She'd grown up knowing her duty, but it was one she shied away from. She loved magic, found demon hunting a great stress relief, but she had never felt worthy of the Destiny she had been chosen for.

Today, she'd been forced to skip working on her assignment that was due in two weeks in favour of yet another 'family emergency'. Fay had been attacked and they'd had to track down the demon and its clan and kick its ass. It had all turned out fine like usual, but it meant that Katy was up late, working on her assignment instead of sleeping. She needed to get it done as soon as possible, to avoid needing to request an extension because of demonic activity.

She was exhausted, and the headache she'd been suffering from for the last few days wasn't helping. She just needed to close her eyes for a moment, then she'd get back to work. She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep to the sound of jingling in the back of her mind.

Katy woke to someone shaking her shoulder with telekinesis. Her instincts kicked in and she jerked up, pushing through the magic, and raised her hands in automatic preparation to defend herself. Without even bothering to turn and see who (or what) she was dealing with, she used her Psychokinesis to send a lamp flying at whoever was behind her. It stopped in midair as she turned to see her brother in the doorway.

"Good morning, Kit-kat," he smirked at her cheerily as he used his own telekinesis to put the lamp back beside her bed. Wyatt was the only one who called her that. It used to annoy her, but now she was merely resigned to it. "How's your neck?"

"Ruined," Katy replied dryly. This was the fourth time this month that she'd fallen asleep like that. "Remind me to book a PT appointment ASAP."

"Will do, Kit-kat," he grinned, a glint of concern in his brown eyes. He was so protective of her it wasn't funny. It was infuriating. But then he'd always been that way, as had her parents and aunts and Uncle Cole. It was like she was constantly on the verge of death, not a (according to her cousin) badass bitch who kicked demonic ass and could take care of herself. Thankfully, her Uncle Henry and Grandpa treated her normally.

Despite how annoying the over-protective treatment she received was, Katy sometimes pitied her brother. Their parents doted on her, were protective of her and talked to her in a way that they didn't with Wyatt. They were much sterner with him. She often supposed it was because he was the eldest and she was their baby, who'd been born with complications and suffered from those complications as a child. She'd long since outgrown her ill health but there had been some close calls with pneumonia and other illnesses her once-frail immune system had failed to protect her from when she was a child. The stress had made her parents very protective, at least she assumed that was the reason. Every papercut was the end of the world in her family's eyes. It drove her crazy.

Wyatt left her to get ready for the day and she rose to her feet, cracking her neck and grimacing as she grabbed her towels and headed for the bathroom she shared with her brother. She was in the shower when she heard it first. A loud jingle in her head. Katy instantly scowled. She had inherited her mother's dislike for the Elders. She didn't know what it was, but something about them put her on edge. It took her a moment to remember they'd jingled her last night as well.

She certainly wasn't about to interrupt her day to deal with them. "Fuck off," she gritted out as she rinsed the shampoo from her hair. "Can't you see that I'm busy right now?" Actually, she hoped not. If she found out They were watching her in the shower, she was telling Piper and orbing her protective Elder-hating mother Up There to deal with Them. That would set Them straight. The jingling fell silent, thank the Goddess, but that didn't last long. She'd just finished dressing for the day in blue denim jeans and a light blue blouse with dark blue flowers, paired with blue runners. It was her favourite outfit. She wasn't the girliest of girls, but she still liked to look pretty. Who said you had to sacrifice beauty to save the world? She put on a light layer of make up, then grabbed her messenger bag with her needed books and iPad for notetaking, then headed downstairs where she could smell the scent of pancakes and bacon wafting out of the kitchen. All the while ignoring the jingling which had restarted

"Morning, sweetie," her mother said with a smile and a kiss on the forehead. Katy smiled back.

"Morning, Mom," she replied. "Morning Dad."

"Good morning, Princess," her father smiled at her from where he was doing the dishes.

"You'd best eat quickly or you'll be late," her mother warned, serving up some pancakes and two slices of bacon for her.

"Yeah, I know, I know," Katy nodded, beginning to dig in. "I was up late last night working on research for an assignment. I ended up oversleeping."

"You need to have better time management, honey," Piper commented affectionately. "You've always been like this. Focusing on the problem until you forget to sleep or eat. It isn't healthy, darling."

Katy shrugged, because it wasn't as if Piper wasn't right (like always), but it was what Katy needed to do to keep everything on track, and that was her responsibility. To look after her family. As protective as the adults were of her, looking after her younger cousins and her brother and cleaning up their messes had always been her responsibility. She'd helped teach them magic, and self-defence, and the girls how to do their hair in complicated styles their mothers revelled at. They came to her first when they had a problem they wanted to keep from their parents and she had never let them down.

She never would.

The jingle sounded again and she clenched her fork in frustration. She ignored it, finishing her food quickly and kissing her parents' cheeks before hastily orbing away to her campus. It was too late to drive.

"Look," she muttered under her breath, cursing the constant jingle and giving in. She'd had a headache for days and the jingling was making it hard to think straight. Not what she needed right now. "I have class right now, but I swear if you stop jingling me, I'll come when college is over. Deal?" The jingle ended, and she took that as agreement. It wasn't one she wanted to make, but she didn't have many options. They weren't going to leave her alone if she didn't agree to come.

Besides, she had a feeling that there was a reason for this. An important one. One that would change everything, dramatic as that statement seemed.

She just hoped she was wrong.

Katy orbed into the attic, her face stony after the tale the Elders had told her. She wandered over to where Excalibur rested in its stone, touching her sword gently. She'd always known protecting the world was her duty, but this wasn't something she'd ever expected.

It explained a lot though. Why her family could be so protective of her, yet at the same time, talking to her about things many people would consider too mature for whatever age she'd been at the time. Why they had known that Excalibur belonged to her before she was conceived. She'd always just assumed that Aunt Phoebe'd had a vision or something. Everything made so much sense now, but it was so terrifying.

She wasn't ready for this.

She reached up and rubbed at her temples. She didn't have time for getting lost in her thoughts about this whole thing, she reminded herself sternly. She had to get moving, explain everything to her family, make arrangements to put her degree on hold...prepare herself for what she was about to do.

"Family meeting," she croaked out in a hoarse voice. "Everyone. Attic. Now."

Light lit the attic as the family orbed in, those without teleportation aiding those that didn't. Katy didn't look, entranced by her sword. That happened sometimes. She got so sucked in by the music she heard around the blade and the silver runes on the steel that she forgot where she was.

"Honey?" Her mother's voice broke through her foggy thoughts as she rested a hand on Katy's shoulder. "Honey, what's wrong? Was it a demon?"

It took her a moment to pull her gaze away from Excalibur and meet Piper's worried gaze.

"Not a demon, the Elders," she said mechanically. Automatically she went over to the Book and leaned on the lectern, tracing the triquetra on the cover.

"What do They want?" Piper demanded aggressively, while Leo stiffened in worry.

Once, Leo Wyatt had been the Elders' fiercest proponent.

Then Kate Halliwell took a dagger to the chest at the hand of the Elder he trusted most in the world, and he had never forgiven them for it.

"Are you alright?" He pressed his daughter, who seemed in a daze. She stared down at the Book, flipping through it to look for the spell she'd need.

"I'm fine, I just need to find the spell," she said softly, not looking up for fear she might cry.

"What spell? C'mon Katy, you're freaking us out. What happened with the Elders?"

"Time travel spell," Katy replied distantly. "I need to go back to 2003. January, to be specific. I'm going to make sure time stays on track."

Leo gasped, memories invading his mind of his fiery, heartbroken and angry daughter, bleeding to death on his and Piper's bed, struggling for breath as she pleaded with him to leave her and save her brother instead.

She had seemed almost relieved to die, and it was a thought that haunted him and made his heart ache in grief and guilt.

"No!" Piper cried, tears welling. "No way in hell am I letting you go on some suicide mission! Don't even consider it, young lady!"

Katy sighed and finally looked up from the Book. "Mom, I have no choice," she said in the same determined tone as Piper. "I am the only one who can do this. We need to keep the timeline intact. Everything the Elders told me assured me of that."

"But you're different now," Piper argued. "You'd do things differently to how she did it."

"They gave me a spell," Katy explained. "It'll turn me into her. That way everything will work out the same, and before you say anything, there's a component that will let me leave 2004 and return to this timeline for healing when its time."

"What?" Wyatt asked in confusion. "Timeline? Turn you into who? What is going on?"

Leo turned and opened his mouth, then shut it with a click.

"Katy, honey, I can't let you do this," Piper pleaded. Leo couldn't find the words. Not for either of his children. He couldn't believe that this was happening.

"Mom, you taught me to fight for the world," Katy reminded her distraught mother. "You taught me to put the good of the many above myself. You can't ask me to stay and let the world revert to that timeline, where it seems like everyone was dead and I was a few fights away from joining them."

"Will someone please tell me what's going on?!" Wyatt shouted in frustration, several items falling off their sheleves from the force of hsi telekinesis.

"It's such a long story, Wyatt," Paige said uneasily. "And not a happy one. The only good thing to come out of that time was your sister."

"Tell him," Katy cut in, her voice sharp as glass. The commanding tone reminded them of Kate. "Tell all of them, or I will. And I only have a week to sort things out with my degree and learn off the spell I need to pull this off. I don't have time for storytelling."

The Charmed Ones and their husbands exchanged reluctant looks, then grudgingly Paige began to explain the heartbreaking events of 2003/4 to the next generation of Halliwells and Mitchells.

Suffice to say, Wyatt didn't take the news that he'd once been so evil his baby sister had turned back time and given up her life to save (and stop, he couldn't help but think) him.

When he strained his memory, he thought he remembered her. Wavy brunette hair surrounding a heart-shaped face with fuzzy features, whispering in a fragile voice that she'd save him if it killed her. And if she couldn't save him, she would stop him.

But maybe that was just his imagination.

Katy stared at the triquetra on the wall, her heart in her throat and her hands sweaty.

She had to do this. She knew that she had to do this. If Katy didn't go back in time to 2003 and stop Gideon then the future wouldn't change which meant that Gideon would turn Wyatt evil and give Kate a reason to go back, meaning the future would change but also meant that there was now no reason for Katy to go back meaning the future wouldn't change and Kate would go back and so on until the universe collapsed in on itself from the strain. So she knew she had to do this, to go back and keep the timeline same by turning herself into Kate Perry, bitchy, neurotic and rather dark whitelighter.

It was terrifying to sacrifice herself like this, however. Even after her memories of her life as Katy returned, which would be "sometime after Kate was healed", she would still hold Kate's memories of the Dark Future in her mind, memories that made her cold and calculating and incredibly bitter towards her family. She'd have all the scars Kate did, and Piper, with a haunted expression, had said there was a lot.

Katy would never be the same after this, and they all knew it.

And that was if the spell succeeded in bringing her back to 2027 in time for Wyatt and Paige to heal her.

"Alright," she croaked out, forcing the words past the lump in her throat. "It's time."

Piper let out a small sob and scrubbed at her eyes. The fear that this would be the last time she saw her baby was ripping her apart, but she was desperate to stay strong for her daughter. Katy was trying to be strong, but a mother knew when her daughter was struggling.

Even when she hadn't known who Kate was, she'd known when her 'whitelighter' was struggling to keep it together.

She watched through teary eyes as Katy hugged her father and brother, whispering to softly both of them. She'd already said her goodbyes to the rest of the extended family downstairs. This part was just for the Wyatt section of the Halliwell clan.

Finally, it was Piper's turn to bid her baby goodbye, and she hugged her desperately. "I love you, Peanut," she murmured into her daughter's shoulder. "So, so much. Please, no matter what happens, don't ever forget that."

"I love you too, Mom," Katy muttered back. "To the moon and back." Piper let out a choked sound at the old phrase they'd used when the kids were children.

"Have a little faith, huh?" Katy said with a wobbly smile as she pulled back from the embrace and glanced around at her family. "I'm tough. I can do this."

"I know you can," Leo said sadly. "Please, try to remember how sorry I-we are for everything we put you through back then."

Katy squared her shoulders, giving her father a nod before glancing down at the spell in the Book. She licked her lips to wet them then began to chant.

"Hear my words, hear my cry,

Heed the hope within my mind,

Send me back to where I'll find,

What I wish in place and time!"

The portal lit up and Katy walked towards it, feeling as if she were being tugged forward by the spell. She glanced over her shoulder as she left, holding the memory of her family, huddled together and watching her with wavering expressions.

This was why she was doing this. They were why she was doing this.

Katy walked out into the attic and glanced around. It was just like she remembered, minus the boxes of old toys and clothes from her and her brother and cousins' childhoods, with a playpen in the corner waiting for Wyatt. Or Prudence Melinda, as they currently believed. If she'd landed right, it was two weeks before her brother's birth. Six months until the Titans. Just as her other self had planned, there was plenty of time to get ready for everything.

All she had with her was an old journal written by the Phoebe of the Dark Future, tucked against the small of her back, the same way it had been for her original self. She was dressed in the same clothes too, a worn navy shirt with three-quarter length sleeves and ragged grey jeans that bit too short. It had been her other self who made the arrangements for this with the Elders, telling them when she'd need to go back to, where and even ensuring They had her journal and clothes for it. The spell would do the rest.

She couldn't hear anything. As she had focused on while casting the spell, the Manor was empty. She closed her eyes for a moment to prepare herself before reopening them, beginning to chant the spell that would erase Katy and her happy life, replacing her with Kate and a life of grief and suffering.

"Hear the words, heed the rhyme,

I reach out beyond the bonds of time,

This spell must ward off any inquiry,

To the 'Other Kate', Blessed Be,

I take unto myself your life and destiny,

Until when wounded mortally,

This time I must flee

Back to the life I lived so happily!"

Were anyone watching, they would see Kate change.

Her hair shot up from its waist length, shortening until it was chopped off raggedly just above her shoulders before tugging itself into a braided bun, out of the way and hard to pull in a fight. She lost at least what must have been over 60 pounds, going from a healthy 168 pounds to at most 100, her cheekbones turning sharp as the athames that were suddenly tucked into her dirty and tight combat boots. Hidden from view by her clothes were a multitude of scars of varying ages, including a fairly fresh one she'd gained only a few weeks ago on a scouting mission.

But the biggest change was her eyes. Gone was the kindness and light within them. Instead they were hard and cold, suspicious and unyielding.

They were the eyes of a soldier.

Once she had checked she wasn't about to be attacked, a habit formed from a lifetime of war and life as a fugitive, Kate glanced back over her shoulder where she'd come out, but of course the portal was already closed. She felt a twinge of worry for her fiancé but stamped it down. Niko was fine. He was tough, she had faith in him. If anyone could escape Wyatt's wrath, it was Niko.

She heard the front door open and her Mom call out for Aunt Paige and Mama. No. She heard Phoebe call out for Paige and Piper. That's all they were to her. The Charmed Ones. Her charges, if she played things right.

Not her family. Her family had been dead for a long time.

She orbed away. She had some Valkyries to negotiate with.

Kate orbed in, her green eyes shielded by dark sunglasses she'd 'borrowed' from a random store (and, Goddess, this time was a nightmare. She'd never seen this world, it was gone in the eighteen months between her youngest aunt's death and her birth. Destroyed by the Titans. It terrified her in a way her own world, cold, cutthroat and full of demons walking the cracked streets, never had. Mom hadn't prepared her for this. She'd prepared her to survive their cruel world, not to live in this picturesque one (and yes, Kate knew this world wasn't perfect, but it was a helluvalot better than her own). Good thing living wasn't part of the plan, then. No matter what she'd said when Niko had put a ring on her left hand. That was for another Kate, another Niko. Not them, and they both knew it). Paige was already encased in stone, but Kate could sense that she was still alive. Mom was on her ass, crying out for her sister.

No, not Mom. This wasn't the woman who'd lost all her sisters, her son, her nephew and her husband. It wasn't the aunt who had taken her in after her mother's death and raised her as if she'd birthed her, who she had called 'Mom' because calling her 'Aunt' would be insulting (and much more suspicious). Not the woman who'd taught her everything from how to use to a tampon to how to make a vanquishing potion. This was just Phoebe Halliwell-Turner, her charge-to-be.

And she was seconds from losing her younger sister and being frozen in stone herself. Kate flung herself down beside her (currently unofficial) charge and grabbed the potions on the table, throwing them at the Titan. "Don't look into her eyes!" She shouted at Phoebe as she chased off Meta.

Time to pull off the con of her life.