Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed, and this story was inspired by 'The Forgotten Hero' and 'Remembering' by MiaLyn on AO3. (This is done with permission from her).

Hello all! I am back with another Charmed fic (probably a short one too). It's been nagging at me since I first started reading MiaLyn's stories. Hers are short but brilliant, so I advise everyone to go and check them out if you haven't read them yet.

And yes, to fans of RBRR, I will get back to that when my muse for it returns. She's gone on vacation, unfortunately.

Also, as usual, there is no 'Melinda Halliwell'. Chris was born a girl, so Piper had her daughter, and given the difficulties she had getting pregnant in the first place, and then the complications with Chris/Kate's birth, I'm sceptical that she could manage a third pregnancy. And Cole is Phoebe's husband. He was never possessed by the Source, the Seer was, and so wasn't vanquished/didn't become insane/etc. He was given witch powers by the Elders as a reward for his help in vanquishing the Source and to fill the hole in his soul, though. He's a pyrokinetic. The baby thing happened, and they put off having another child for a few years to recover.

Kate has more than just Telekinesis and Orbing, because a child of an Elder and a Charmed One wouldn't be that limited. I headcanon that Chris only showed those two powers because he was traumatized by Wyatt going crazy/obsessed with power and because of his inferiority complex. She's also Heir to Excalibur (which happened AFTER Piper found out she was pregnant again, so they knew who she was, otherwise everything happened the same, except in Power of 3 Blondes, where she manipulated them differently) because Wyatt has too many destinies, and Chris/Kate is amazing! (I genuinely hc that Chris is the real Heir in canon, btw, hence why it's like that in all of my fics).

Read, enjoy and review!

Published 15-3-2024

Chapter One

Remembering

It happened all of a sudden, without a warning. One minute, Kate was laughing in amusement at the cacophony that was the Halliwell clan singing 'happy birthday', the next she had crumpled to the ground, clutching her head and gasping for breath, though otherwise silent.

"Kate!" Everyone shouted, rushing over to grab her. Wyatt and Paige tried to heal her, but nothing happened. Whatever was wrong, it wasn't physical.

"I think it's a psychic attack!" Wyatt exclaimed in alarm. "We need to block off her mind!"

"That's not what this is, Wyatt," Piper said, her tone forcibly steady. "She's just- remembering." She and her husband exchanged long looks, as did Paige and Phoebe and Cole. "She'll be alright in a minute."

Wyatt stared at them in confusion. "Remembering what?" He asked in confusion.

"Everything," Kate replied, her voice hoarse and unsteady. And furious. She rose to her feet, batting away attempts to help her, glaring at Piper and Leo with eyes full of rage.

Wyatt eyed his sister uneasily. Was she possessed? There was something- something different about her now. She stood differently, held herself as if braced for a fight and as if her whole body was a lethal weapon. Her green eyes had never looked so enraged, her magic crackled in the air. She looked dangerous.

And she was looking at their parents like they were the enemy. But he could sense through their bond that it was really her, even if she had thrown up thicker walls than usual.

"Katie, sweetie, are you okay?" Piper asked worriedly, ignoring the anger on her daughter's face in favour of checking on her. "You're very pale. Sit down and have a glass of water. I know it's a shock and you must have questions."

"Just one, actually," Kate interrupted, making no move to sit. The moveable objects were shuddering softly in their places and a smell of ozone had filled the air. Their parents looking worried, the cousins were hustled out of the line of fire, though they stubbornly stayed in the room. Wyatt resisted Cole's attempts to pull him back, until his uncle whispered to him.

"Wyatt, you of all people will only make this worse. Please, for Kate's sake, don't get involved. She's been through enough today. Damn it, I knew we should've told her."

Confused, but sensing through their bond that he really was making it worse for Kate, he stepped to the side. He could feel her tracking him through the bond, and sent a silent question. What's wrong? He asked her mentally. Why're you treating us like the enemy?

She didn't answer, her eyes locked on their parents'.

"How long have you known?" Kate bit out.

Piper and Leo exchanged quick looks, and Kate's expression flickered. She looked betrayed, Wyatt realized. It wasn't just anger on her face. There was hurt there too, a deep, angry hurt. Whatever their parents had done, it was bad.

He sent her a feeling of support. Whatever was happening, he was on her side. Always.

"We didn't know," Piper began.

Kate gave a short, curt and bitter laugh. "That's the biggest amount of shit any Halliwell has ever said," she scoffed.

"Katharine Patricia, watch your tone and your mouth, young lady," Piper warned sternly. "We're your parents and we expect you to respect us."

"Oh, I'm sure you didn't know up until recently," Kate went on, ignoring Piper's admonishment. "But you've been looking at me strangely, lately. Like you're searching for something in my eyes. I thought you were just worried about me going through hookups like they're changes of clothes, but no. You were searching for any signs I remembered. How'd you figure out it was going to happen? Oh!" Something dawned on her, and this time lightning began to crackle in her hair and hands, a sign that she truly was enraged.

It was worrying. Kate was usually so composed, keeping her emotions tucked away and only really discussing them with Wyatt or their parents. This outburst was...unprecedented.

"Kate, calm down," Leo urged. "You're upset, okay, I understand-"

"You don't understand anything!" She shrieked, this finally tipping her over the edge. "You have no fucking idea what that world was like! Nothing could've prepared me for remembering it, but I would've known it was going to happen! And tell me the truth; Nico warned you this was going to happen, didn't he?"

Wyatt winced. Kate had been head-over-heels for Nicolas Parker Sanchéz of the Phoenix Clan, but the family had hated him, especially their parents. Piper and Leo had always disliked their daughter's boyfriends, but the feelings for Nico had been true loathing, and they hadn't hidden it, especially Piper. He'd eventually broken up with her, about a year ago, and Kate had been devastated. Ever since she'd been sleeping around, never with the same person more than twice, and Wyatt had been getting very worried about her, but Piper and Leo insisted it was for the best that he had left her.

Something flickered across their faces.

The lightning and trembling worsened. "Last year, he just suddenly collapsed," she muttered, more to herself than them. "He was unresponsive for a bit, and then suddenly hysterical. I couldn't calm him down. He was remembering! And then he probably warned you what was going to happen, told you tell me before it happened.

But Goddess forbid you listen to the demonic assassin, never mind he loves me more than you ever did! But you've always hated him, no matter what either of us did or said! For the love of the Goddess, people from my first life have been coming up to me and thanking me for over a year, and I asked you if you knew why! You told me it was just about me taking up the sword! You lied, right to my face! Well, I'll say this, and it's the complete truth. I bet Nico warned you that if you didn't tell me, I wouldn't forgive you when it happened, right?"

Again, confirmation revealed itself on the couple's strained looking faces.

Kate laughed bitterly. "Well, guess what?" She spat bitterly. "He was right!"

With that, she disappeared in a flurry of orbs, leaving her family shaken and shocked at the sight of the always composed and put together Katherine Halliwell in hysterics and enraged.

Wyatt had never realized how powerful his little sister was until that day, when her power had practically suffocated the room. He had no doubt that strength was what had kept their parents mostly silent, otherwise Piper would've been matching her yell for yell.

He'd never seen his baby sister so devastated or angry, either. He turned to his parents, hands shaking. "What," he began, voice trembling. "The fuck was that?"

You knew things were bad when Wyatt Halliwell, often compared to an overgrown puppy, started swearing.

Kate appeared outside the Resistance, a popular club run by Davos, a half-witch, half-incubus who'd once been one of the best and highest-placed spies the Resistance had, not to mention a loyal friend. Now, he was a bartender, running a popular nightclub for magical creatures and demons, and anyone else who came in. The only requirement was that they knew about magic (something ensured by wards Kate now realized she had come up with), and that Good and Evil were left at the door. No fighting in Davos's bar, or he would remove the offenders and ban whoever started it.

So many of her people had been coming here. They probably made up more than half of Davos's business. She'd met them here so often, seen the way they looked at her, like she was a miracle sent from the Goddess Herself. It had bewildered her, from the first moment Nico had brought her here and introduced her to the owner, who, instead of kicking out the Halliwell Princess, as she was known (much to both of her selves' disgust), had smiled and told her anything she ordered was free.

She'd wondered why he was so friendly to a Halliwell. She'd assumed it was because he and Nico were so close. Now she knew the truth. She wished somebody from the Resistance (as in the rebel army, not the club) had told her the truth, but she knew she wouldn't have believed it from anyone outside the family. This timeline's her had drunk the whole 'Family is Everything' creed in with Piper's milk, unlike the original her which considered family the most likely to stab you in the back, given her experience with her dear older brother.

She hadn't returned to the Resistance since breaking up with Nico, despite missing the friends she'd made on both sides of the Great Divide. They'd been Nico's friends first, she'd thought, and she didn't want to put them in the middle of their breakup.

Now she knew better. They'd been her's first, and none of them would've let the breakup ruin their friendships with either party. More likely they'd have locked them into a warded room until they made up. Thank the Goddess this cowardly part of the new her was currently being stamped into oblivion by her previous life.

General Kate Halliwell was back, and she wasn't about to let anyone, even her new timeline's self, ruin the happily ever after she'd earned with the man she loved. Especially not the fucking Halliwells. She had a lot of anger at them, built up over her past lifetime, that she'd kept a grip on as much as possible in 2004 to ensure she saved Wyatt but now...now there was nothing to hold her back from telling them what she felt about them and how they'd treated her.

She stormed into the club, ignoring the 'closed' sign and still furious, making right for the bar, where Davos was cleaning glasses.

"Davos, gimme the strongest whiskey you have," she ordered. "I need to something to calm me down or I'm going to commit matricide and patricide." It didn't matter that it was one-thirty, she needed a drink.

'Drink this. It'll take the pain away,' she heard Nico say in her new memories. Of course, he'd been talking about her getting a chunk of her side bitten off by a manticore, not emotional pain, but needs must. Thinking about Nico hurt, same as it had for months (in both sets of memories), and it was combined with shame and guilt too. What had she been thinking, letting her family treat him so coldly and rudely? Sure, she'd chided them, but she'd never put her foot down and demanded they stop treating him so cruelly. No wonder he'd left her as soon as he remembered the first timeline. He'd realized he deserved better than that. Despite that, she was prepared to beg to get him back.

Like she should've the moment he left her, instead of throwing herself into screwing anyone with a pulse. She'd thought she should choose her family over him, but now she knew better.

He eyed her with knowing eyes even as he fetched the drink. "You remember, then?" He confirmed. "We expected it would be soon. Sandra told us today was the day you died."

"And you couldn't have warned me?" She huffed, draining half the glass in one go.

"Would you have believed any of us?" He asked pointedly.

She inclined her head in acknowledgement of the point she had made to herself, projecting a wave of apology towards him. He nodded in understanding. Being half-incubus and an empath, he fed on emotions, not just those released in sex (though those were his preferred 'diet'). She knew he understood. Indeed, all of her people would've understood. They'd always understood her better than any Halliwells, being right there in the trenches with her, something none of her family could claim.

It wasn't her soldiers she was upset with. It was her parents, her aunts and uncle. She could guess why Piper and Leo hadn't told her, why they'd wanted to ignore everything that happened, but once they knew she was going to get her memories back, they should have told her. At the very least, she'd have expected better from Cole.

She drained the last of her drink. "How long have you all remembered? And how did you?"

"After you left, Wyatt managed to find Safehouse Alpha," Davos sighed, a haunted look in his black eyes.

Kate closed her eyes in pain. She could guess the rest. How many had been in Safehouse Alpha? Some three hundred and fifty, she thought. A fifth of them under ten.

"Well, I'm sure you can figure out what happened. We knew we were doomed, but we had faith that you would succeed. So Sandra helped anyone with magic to cast a spell that would preserve our memories of the original timeline. We didn't want you to be alone. We didn't want to forget the people we lost. Our memories came back on the equivalent day in this timeline." He glanced at her and said pointedly. "Nico's came back the day he died. We figure that because he went back, he remembered. Or else it was just the work of the Goddess."

Kate looked down, her heart twisting with pain. Goddess, she'd fucked up so badly with Nico in this life. "I screwed up," she said hoarsely. "I let the Halliwells' delusions about blood convince me not to stand up for him, let them treat him terribly. I should've-" she cut herself off, shaking her head. Davos wasn't the one she needed to tell this to. She looked up at her demonic friend, almost desperately. "Do you know where he is?"

He grinned, revealing his pointed teeth. "He's upstairs. He's my roommate now. I take it I'll need a new one?"

"You will if I have anything to say about it," Kate replied determinedly, getting to her feet.

Davos barked a laugh. "Oh, you always do, General," he grinned. "You always do."

Nico opened the door and instantly found himself with his arms full of a familiar body, familiar-tasting lips pressed frantically, almost desperately, against his own. Instinctively, he kissed her back, pulling her close. He'd missed her like air, this past year.

Then realization broke through and he pulled away, tensing as he released her and turned away. "You shouldn't be here, Kate," he said tightly, suppressing his bitterness. "Go back to your precious family and talk about what a relief it is to be away from the demon assassin."

"Screw them," she replied hoarsely. "You're the love of my life. You're the one who was always there for me when the chips were down. You love me for me, not just because I'm family. If it's between them and you, I choose you."

He scoffed and turned to look at her. Then he froze. The way she held herself, the look in her eyes. Her wording. "You remember," he whispered. He hadn't known when it would happen. He'd made a point of avoiding any mention of her, these past months.

"Yeah," she said, eyes shadowed with remembered horrors. "I remember everything. The War. Wyatt. The Resistance. Most importantly, I remember you. I still have the ring, you know? It's hidden in a warded cupboard with my personal Book of Shadows in the basement of the Manor. I want to put it back on. Will you agree? Will you marry me, screw everybody else? Live the life we dreamed of, back in the tunnels?"

He couldn't resist any longer. This was his Kate, the one he'd been missing since his memories returned. The Kate from this timeline hadn't gone through what the original Kate had, and while he loved her, once his memories had returned, he'd known she was only a shadow of the woman she could be. It was part of the reason he'd broken up with her. She was right there, but it had felt as if she were a ghost. But she wasn't gone anymore. She was back, and she was saying what he'd longed for her to say through their nineteen months together in this timeline. That she was choosing him over her precious blood family. That it would be them against the world if that's how it had to be.

He grabbed her roughly by the waist and dragged her nearer kissing her and pouring all the pain and frustration and longing of the past year into it. "Let's get married," he whispered after pulling away.

He hadn't seen her smile so brightly since he went down on one knee, stolen, chipped and rusty ring in hand, and asked her to marry him.