Chris furrowed his brow. "Uh, it's obvious? We don't tell them anything."
Paige rolled her eyes. "What? You don't trust your own mother to be able to handle info about the future?"
He raised his eyebrows. "What? This one? Of course I do. The one down there..?" He pointed to the floor, "no way. I’ve heard the stories."
Paige scoffed, but Piper did not. "I think he's right," said Piper slowly. "I mean, there's a lot we haven't learned yet in this time. About how tricky personal gain is… that magic really does happen for a reason. Not to mention how unchangeable fate is."
"Yeah…" agreed Phoebe. "I don't think I – the other me – would ever forgive us for not saving Prue." She sighed.
"Ok, so no mentioning Prue. Her future, I mean. But what about us?" asked Paige, gesturing at herself and Chris. "I know Chris loves to play the mystery man, but it didn't exactly make us the most cooperative bunch the first time he came back – and I'm guessing this time won't be any different.
__________________________________________________
Knowing he was outvoted Chris just sighed. "Fine. So we tell them some things, but can we still keep the details vague at least?"
Back downstairs the girls waited rather impatiently. Having finished a quick lunch of small sandwiches, the sisters now sat in the living room. "I think I like being the visitor out of time better," mused Phoebe.
"So, why do you think we're – they're – here?" mused Piper, who was still trying to process seeing herself nearly a decade older.
"I don't know," replied Prue. "Did you see the 'let's get down to business' vibe coming from Piper? Something serious must have gone down."
"Yeah," agreed Phoebe. "We look like we've really got the ropes of this battling evil stuff down."
Two sparkling swirls of light interrupted the sister's speculation. Piper and Paige appeared sitting on the couch; Chris and Phoebe formed standing next to it. The 20-something Phoebe raised an eyebrow at this coupling and eyed Chris. "Ooh, does this mean I get my own hunk of a whitelighter?" she flirted.
The older Phoebe cringed at this, hiding her eyes as both her sisters let out an elongated, "Eeww!"
"What?" asked the younger Phoebe, clearly confused by their reaction.
"God, you really were a little horn-dog, weren't you?" teased Paige.
Phoebe playfully punched Paige's shoulder in response, a faint smile playing across her face as she shook her head in bemusement. "I was only 24, y'know. Not to mention still on the brutal college dating scene."
"You mean I – we – are married?" asked Phoebe hopefully.
"Were married. Emphasis on the past tense," Phoebe replied matter of factly. At this, the younger Phoebe looked crestfallen. "But don't worry, honey," she consoled herself, "I think we've found 'The One'." Chris shot her an annoyed look. "What? I didn't say who! Yeeesh."
"Still-" He began, but Piper cut him off.
"Eh! Zip it, mister! Anyway... Phoebe," Piper turned to the younger version of her sister. "I'd like you to meet my son, Chris. Your nephew."
Phoebe's leering eyes immediately turned into saucers of shock, and then her face flushed with extreme embarrassment. "Oh! Oh! Ok, yeah! Ew, ew, ew!" she grimaced. "Sorry!"
"No problem," he replied with a smirk.
"Ho – ho, whoa, wait! What?" the younger Piper finally cried. "But, but, I…" Her older self placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her, and smiled with a maternal pride.
"Nice to meet you again," he remarked with a smile.
As Piper slowly warmed into the hug, Prue watched with an unrestrained grin of pride for her sister. She deserved a happy family and it looked like she'd get it after all. "But wait, I don't get it," she said suddenly, "I thought Piper was going to have a daughter – Melinda – we never saw a boy in our future. Not to mention, I thought you said you were from eight years in the future. He looks a little older than eight." Piper smiled. Nothing had ever gotten Prue in any situation. Somehow, she'd forgotten that.
"I'm actually from 27 years in the future," replied Chris.
"27 years from ours or… ?" asked the younger Piper, still in a bit of a daze from the bombshell.
"Yours," he replied to the sisters of 1999.
"This is making my head hurt…" grumbled the younger Phoebe.
"Something messed up both our futures," continued Chris, "and it stems from this time and place."
"But what about the beautiful little girl I saw in the future?" asked Piper, concerned.
"Well…"Piper replied to herself, pausing as she searched for the right words. "You, or we… we changed the future. Not on purpose or anything. That just wasn't our destiny. That's why the elders sent us to that future - to prevent it. And sometimes changing the bad brings other unexpected consequences. As it turns out, we're fated to bring the first Halliwell boys into the world," she finished trying to lighten the mood.
"Boys? As in plural? Boy, Grams must have loved that!" exclaimed Prue.
Piper smiled. "She got over it." She turned back to her past self and asked warmly, "You wanna see?" The younger nodded dumbly and Piper pulled a couple of pictures from her wallet. She pointed at the first, of a little blonde boy sitting on a swing, smiling broadly. "This is Wyatt."
"How old?" she asked herself.
"Almost four." She then pointed to a picture of a younger, dark-haired boy giving the camera a cake-filled smile. "And this is little Chris." Phoebe 'awwed' as she was passed the photos. Piper, meanwhile, felt her heart warm as she realized that yes, despite not truly knowing them, she had room in her heart for these two little boys – even as she lost the daughter she'd never really had.
Piper could see the look in her younger self's eyes, but it was the empathic Phoebe who spoke first. "Oh, honey," she put her hand on Piper's upper arm, "she just wasn't meant to be."
"Apparently. It's just... weird. To have this memory of this person – my daughter- who technically never existed."
"Just try to know that we changed the future for the better," said Phoebe in the most reassuring tone she could muster.
"So no witch hunt then?" asked Phoebe.
"Nope. It's a good future – worth preserving," answered the older Phoebe.
"We're… aunts. Pretty cool," said Prue as if she hadn't heard the last minute or so of conversation. She broke into a grin and pinched Chris' cheek in a playful manner. "Oooh! I could just eat you up!" she teased.
"Hey!" Chris exclaimed, pulling our of the pinch. "Jeez, can't a man get a little dignity around here?" But his smirk betrayed the falsity of his protest.
Suddenly, the older Phoebe felt a wave of emotions, both of longing and the sting of being left out, come off of Paige. "Oh, honey! We're sorry! It's just – you know…"
Paige wore a sad smile. "I know, I know. It's just… this all makes it real. How much I missed? And seeing all this family togetherness, it's tough."
"But you're just as much a part of the family as the rest of us," said Piper.
"I know. Really, I do," she smiled as Phoebe patted Paige's shoulder. "I got over all that ages ago."
She felt Paige's usual inner brightness return. "That's my girl."
"She is?" asked Prue, breaking the moment. "Family, I mean. She's… what? Family? I assumed she was our new whitelighter. Leo would have had to clip his wings, right? Except, Chris can orb, too, so..."
"Ooh, yeah. Well, she's, uh… our sister?" began Phoebe.
Paige stepped back towards the sisters from her time, tilted her head against her Piper's, and smirked. "What? Don't see the resemblance?" she asked trying to lighten the mood.
The younger Piper was the first to speak. "How? Uh," she furrowed her brow, "- what?"
The elder Piper answered, once again choosing her words carefully. "Well… you know Sam, Mom's whitelighter? Turns out they did more than cuddle. And our beautiful baby sister here is the result."
The younger Piper clutched her head. "Whoa. Okay. Headache." The other two sisters just stared dumbly for a moment until Phoebe's face slowly formed into a smile.
"Hey! I finally get a baby sister! A little weird that she's older than me, but hey," she shrugged. She stepped over to her new sister and gave her a quick embrace. "Hi!" Piper followed her younger sister's lead, doing the same, as did Prue.
But once again Prue paused, becoming serious again. "Wait a minute, what did you mean, 'finally’ meet me?"
Paige winced. "Oops."
‘That 'never missing a thing' thing had it's annoying side,‘ thought Piper. She sighed.
"Am I not in the future? Did something happen?" asked Prue. "Because that? Not sounding like a future worth saving."
"Yeah," agreed Phoebe, "maybe we're meant to avoid your future, too. Are you sure the Elders didn't send you back here or something?"
The younger Piper was finally catching up to everyone else, "…you do have your powers and we couldn't do that when we went back in time."
The elder Piper acted fast, putting her palms up in a 'stop' motion. "No, no. no," she said quickly, trying to calm the room. "It is! It is. It's not perfect – but nothing ever is. Its' just… how it’s supposed to be. We've worked very hard to get our destiny on track – so don't get any funny ideas about getting us to change anything!" Piper’s stomach twisted in a knot at having to talk her sister out of being saved, when her own heart wanted so badly to try. Her mind warred back, reminding her that saving Prue could very well mean trading her son’s existence in return – which she knew Prue would never allow.
Prue looked unconvinced and a little angry. "You mean I'm gone and you're just okay with that?" Prue had realized that there was something they were holding back, and was not handling it well. On some level, she felt betrayed. "I'd do anything to save my sisters and I thought you'd do the same!"
"Hey! Not fair!" exclaimed Phoebe as she felt the pain that accusation caused to flare up in Piper. Her face had fallen, but did not betray much to anyone else. Piper placed a hand on her sister's shoulder, stopping Phoebe's tirade.
"No! No... She has every right to be upset. What happened wasn't fair. But let me explain." She closed her eyes a moment, pulling herself together.
Seeing how hurt her now older sister had been by her words caused Prue to soften. Piper opened her eyes, which were now set in a controlled, almost matter of fact expression. "You did do everything you could to save us. We were exposed as witches, and I died because of it. The details are complicated, but suffice it to say you made a deal to bring us back. But… the consequence of saving our lives was that you had to…" she sighed. She didn't like hiding the truth from her sister, but it had to be done. "… you weren't a Charmed One anymore... couldn't be in our lives anymore. We were devastated," she said, her eyes now a little moist. "It nearly killed me, Prue… but you can't change some things. Some things are meant to be. Finding Paige helped us accept that. She saved this family," finished Piper, squeezing Paige's hand. They exchanged a soft sisterly smile. "If we were to change that now, God only knows if my sons would even be born. The innocents we've saved; what would happen to them?"
"I know it's a lot to take in, but -" Phoebe was interrupted by Chris, who suddenly seemed interested in reassuring his aunts.
"You'll meet me. Little me, that is, in the future, Aunt Prue. You'll still have place in this family in the future," he offered in a gentle tone. The three sisters from the future looked at Chris in shock. "What?" he shot back, "I don't want to see my Aunt in pain. And I thought that might be of some comfort."
"No… I suppose that's good," said Piper. "I just didn't think you had it in you – to volunteer future info even we don't have." She smiled at him.
Prue, meanwhile, was being clung to on either side by her sisters, as if she would be taken away at any second. She had digested this information almost fully. "How long? Until…?" 'God, she looks so small. So vulnerable,' thought Piper. 'had she ever been this young?' Or was it that she'd always seen Prue from the eyes of a younger sister? Prue, her protective almost Second-Mom of an older sister. She sighed heavily and answered softly. "About a year and a half." Prue sank into the couch, with her sisters still clinging to her.
"No! There has to be a way!" cried Phoebe.
The younger Piper merely glared at her future self for a moment, but then the wheels in her mind began to spin, while Phoebe continued rambling, and soon she erupted desperately, "There's always a way. We're witches for God's sake! You can't just - c'mon! A spell… to find a lost witch? Or – something!" she cried. "How can you choose the lives of complete strangers over your own sister's?!"
The older Piper and Phoebe's faces were veiled in sadness. Phoebe looked at the angry, desperate, young Piper and swallowed. "About 9 months from now you'll learn a lesson the hard way. All three of you will - that putting family first, saving your sister in exchange for the lives of innocent people, isn't love. It's selfishness."
Her Piper nodded. "We made a promise - Prue too - that we shouldn't save our sisters and leave 5 strangers to die. It's not fair to those people, and it's not fair to the sister whose life would be purchased with their blood. Could you live with that on your head?" She and Phoebe both thought back to the pact they'd made with Prue after nearly bringing on the Apocalypse to save her.
But the younger Phoebe's eyes were still brimming with tears, and the younger Piper's temper flared back up with angry denial. "No! No, how are we supposed to live with ourselves?! You can't just come in here from the future and tell me we're going to lose our sister and not expect us to do something about it!" Her eyes and the tip of her nose were reddened as her blood pressure rose.
Prue reached an arm out, as if to hold Piper back. "No." Prue said, finally and slowly. "That's not how it works. If my sisters say there was no way to save me, then that's that. These ladies," she said, pointing at the sisters from the future, "have been at this a lot longer than we have – 8 years longer – and they're our sisters. I trust that if it could have been done they would have done it. And I couldn't live with myself if the price of saving me is the blood of innocents. Maybe this is just my destiny." She shrugged. "Besides!" she said, trying to lighten the mood, "Maybe this life outside the Charmed Ones is what I needed. And if what Chris says is true? I'll be back. I'll just have to be patient…" She tried to put on a brave face, not fully convincing her sisters or even herself. "Anyway, I've never really been comfortable with this whole witch thing."
"The super-witch? Really?" Paige blurted suddenly. She turned to her sisters, "You guys never told me that! Here I spent all those years modeling my witchy development on Prue and she doesn't even like magic? Heck, the only non-magical thing in my life is Henry."
"Oh, c'mon, you know me and Phoebe were always trying to find a way to keep magic out of our lives, even back then. Why would Prue have been any different?" answered Piper. Paige's answer was interrupted by the younger Piper.
"Are you happy?" she asked Paige, "Not leading a normal life, I mean?"
Paige nodded in affirmation. "Yeah. It hasn’t always been the case, but helping people has always driven me. Probably the whitelighter in me. It's just that now I help guide young witches and future whitelighters, and save innocents." Paige smiled proudly.
Prue raised her eyebrows. "Sounds like you're the real super-witch."
"Speaking of super-witches…" the younger Piper began, "I don't want to cut this short, but just how long do my freezes last in the future?" she asked, pointing at the orange which still hung in the air.
"Huh?" The older Piper looked over her shoulder into the kitchen. "Oh. Yeah. Good question. I've never really tested since usually I just-" she casually flicked a hand at the fruit, blasting it into millions of tiny particles.
"Whoa!" her younger version yelped as the scent of fresh citrus wafted into the room.