death, quoth the disbeliever

Summary: From "Oh, My Goddess" to "Someone to Witch Over Me", from Christopher Halliwell's POV. All episodes "novelised", with extra episodes we never saw!

A/N: I'm planning to sort of novelise every episode Chris is in, along with the ones he isn't – so we find out what exactly he was doing, ones we never saw (there are a thousand different ways to forget a day) and where he ends up after Bad, Bad, Bad etc. World. Hehe. :D This may take a long time asI want to concentrate on getting "Neurotic" out first ;)

Disclaimer: Charmed does not belong to me. Chris does not belong to me. Drew Fuller's soul belongs to Sarah Carter (ohhh why is she so lovely that we can't hate her for it?) Whoever said life wasn't fair was damn right!

-----

Everything happens for a reason. That was a lesson I was taught long ago, by a person wiser than me.

Idle days washed away in golden summer sunshine, hours wasted in languid lethargy on the beach, fingers curled into the sand. Spring days caught up in the garden, you can feel the grass beneath your toes, irritating and cooling your feet. Autumn days spent buried under a cairn of burnt leaves, the world dying around you as you stay still and taste the edge of coldness on your tongue. Winter spent encased in snow, huddled in a mess of damp blankets and you push up closer to the fire to dry off. Life, in all its intrinsical ways, rushing around you, pushing you to the edge while holding you still.

Those are the memories I hold dear, the piece of mankind I can keep, huddled to my chest and protected. Safe, until someone rips them out of me, scatters them to the wind. This is the life I have led, and these are the memories I shall preserve to the End of Time.

And so let it be.

You think I'm crazy, it's obvious by the edge in your voice, the wariness in your eyes. You think I'm too blind to see the disrespect you hold for me. You're wrong. These are my words, the only words I'm allowed, and you will listen.

See, I'm from the future. I came back in time to stop my older brother being turned evil. Only, to accomplish this task, I couldn't let anyone know who I was. Not even my parents. Especially not my parents.

I came back from the future with no references, with nothing to prove that I was good apart from the earnest campaign and fervour in my heart and mind. I hoped it would be enough.

Obviously I was wrong.

Let's take you back to the day I came back.

-----

I could still feel her, just there, behind my shoulder. Her breath, even and warm, steadying me. But she wasn't there. The one person who kept me sane, and she couldn't even come with me.

I looked back from where I'd landed heavily on the ground. Even though all I could see were trees and grass and a bin, I could almost imagine her. The trouble she was in, because of me. Because of my family. Because I was too weak to kill my own brother.

Bianca. My lips formed her name silently, like a prayer. I'll come back to you safely, I promised.

"Go! Go!" Her frantic yell still rang in my ears as I picked myself up from the ground, and I closed my eyes briefly to try and push it out of my mind. I closed my hand tightly around the engagement ring in my pocket. Its circular weight was reassuring.

With a heaviness in my heart, I turned and walked out of the park I'd landed in, with only the thought of my mission in my head, but with Bianca's words and touch and scent in my heart.

-----

The first thing I needed was an apartment, clothes, and the right potions. We'd researched this week like mad, to try and pick the best point in the past (currently, for me, the present. Time travel always did give me a headache at the best of times) to intervene.

It had been unanimous. The Titans had turned Paige to stone and destroyed a lot of the world before finally being subdued by a whole load of demons banding together, pissed that the Titans had taken over some of their territory.

Thankfully, evil has a predilection for civil wars more than normal humans do, so a great disaster was averted. However, Wyatt's safety would be greater ensured with all of the Power of Three for as long as possible, and having his Aunt Paige as a statue for the first ten years of his life was not going to help.

The apartment was easy, as was money. The Resistance had done a lot of research into this time, and along with some documents scavanged out of the half-burnt down Public Records building had managed to find a wealthy lawyer named Thomas Perry in Chicago who had died and left a lot of money for his son to claim.

Jerry, my second-in-command in the resistance, had managed to find out his son - ironically also named Christopher - had been killed by demons. We scooped out his paperwork, social security number, et cetera, I brightened it up with a spell, and I had it sewn into my sweater for the trip "home."

Throughout the whole legal smush (I've never had much patience for those in the law profession, mainly because of the years of my life where law enforcement wasn't owned by my older brother, they were all pretty much incompetent anyway) I squatted in an empty apartment in San Francisco, collecting potion ingredients, sorting out with the Valkyries a place to "store" Leo for a while and basically stalking my aunts and mom.

I was in P3 when Aunt Paige went Nymph. I went by the house and saw them blind and deaf and mute as the See No Evil Hear No Evil Speak No Evil monkey got 'em. I wanted to go to Wyatt's wiccaning, just because it would have been cool, but there were WAY too many Halliwells around for me to get even near the house without being detected. I even sneaked into the club to hear Paige sing for her boyfriend of the week.

I know I should have probably started demon hunting the second I got there, but these few moments reminded me what I was fighting for. Their happiness, as well as the world's. I had to keep them alive, and keep Wyatt good.

Legal considerations done, I rented a small apartment in Chicago, so it wouldn't seem too weird for my persona of that time. I spent one more frivolous afternoon, my last free afternoon until - what I didn't know at the time - my retreat from the physical world. Besides, it wasn't entirely frivolous. I bought one fashion item that my entire plan of being integrated into the family - without them knowing I already was family - hinged upon.

I mixed potions, dressed in green and red - although Piper wouldn't know it, in about twelve years she would tell mini!me that they were her favorite colors on me - and donned my sunglasses. I watched the clock, and let my Whitelighter senses guide me, until I felt the exact thing I was waiting for. Meta's attack on Aunt Paige and Aunt Phoebe.

It was time.

-----

OH, MY GODDESS (PART 1)

As soon as I orbed into the attic, I let my clutch of vials safely fall to the familiar wooden floor. I looked urgently at my Aunt Phoebe. She looked so young! I forced my thoughts elsewhere and yelled an order at her. "Don't look into her eyes!"

Aunt Phoebe was just stunned. I twisted my head to Meta's angry gaze, and flung vial after vial precisely at her. They exploded around her in angry bursts of power, until she disappeared.

I swallowed my sigh of relief. I had other things to deal with.

I took the sunglasses off, sliding them into my pocket as I reached out and helped Aunt Phoebe to her feet. Her warm brown eyes were large with thanks and worry all at the same time. Was I an enemy? Who on earth was I?

Secure in the knowledge that her powers at this point on the timeline were not honed enough to sense who I was, I asked her how she was, as politely as I could muster in the circumstances. To be honest, I was almost entirely sidetracked by inhaling the familiar scents of the attic. I loved this place, so much.

"Oh, my god!" Phoebe exclaimed, loudly, her eyes looking past me. "Paige!"

Worry flooded me at that moment, and it felt like I'd just swallowed a very large and very hot potato. I turned warily to see... Aunt Paige as a statue.

I felt my toes curl. Grrrrreat. Just great. I had hoped for Aunt Paige to be safe, but that was obviously not what fate had intended. Thankfully, Bianca had advised me to have a contingency plan, and I hoped I'd done enough preparation to calm my family down. And hopefully use the same strategy to free her that had taken my family years to figure out.

"Don't worry. She's all right," I assured her. "Well, I mean, she's not completely all right, obviously, but she's not dead." Great. One minute in and I was already babbling.

"Are you sure she's not?" Aunt Phoebe asked me, biting her lip in worry. I wanted to give her a great big hug and tell her everything was going to be okay now, because I was here to tell them what went wrong and figure out how to stop the entire future from going Hell On Earth, but I had to refrain from doing that particular thing.

"Frankly," I said, feeling a little uncomfortable, "you see this a lot. Museums, universities, town centers -- most of those statues aren't really statues. They're people like your sister here who've been, uh, turned into stone." I was relieved I'd managed to say your sister without blushing like a complete freak.

Aunt Phoebe nodded as if she understood, then her eyes narrowed. "Who are you?

I'd wondered when the shock would fade and she'd ask. "Chris. Chris Perry. I'm ..." I knew the words, and I knew how ridiculous they'd sound. As if anything can sound ridiculous to someone who fights demons every week. "...from the future," I finished, lamely.

I was saved from Aunt Phoebe's immediate reaction when my mom rushed into the attic and stood, gob-smacked, at Aunt Paige's rather unusual appearance. I was rather gob-smacked myself, actually. I hadn't quite expected to feel so much. Sure, I'd seen her from afar the last couple of weeks, but I hadn't been this close to her in a very long time.

Suddenly, I was aware of how much I missed her. My throat closed up, and I fought past that angrily. I needed to focus. I would have plenty of time to miss her if this didn't work.

"Oh! My god!" Mom exclaimed, just like Aunt Phoebe had. I really did have to control myself. Every fibre in me was screaming to go up to her, tell her who I was. See if she was proud of me. See if she could love me, even though I hadn't been conceived yet. It was irrational, but still damn hard to shake off. "Tell me that's just a really good likeness of Paige," Mom said, looking in morbid fascination and horror at the Aunt Paige statue.

"No. It's Paige." Aunt Phoebe's voice was quiet with worry.

"A titan turned her to stone," I explained quietly, pushing my tumultous emotions to the back as I assumed the brisk, stoic personality needed for this mission to work.

"Uh," Mom said eloquently, turning a questioning gaze at me. "Who -- who are you?"

Okay, I was a little put out here. This was probably the exact moment I started to get frustrated. I know it's totally unreasonable, but if you go to the past, you'd hope your own mother might somehow just be able to sense who you are.

"That's Chris," Aunt Phoebe said, still vaguely confused. I guess it's not every day someone comes from the future, even in our family's line of work. "He's from the future."

I rushed to say something to reassure her. "Yeah, but just, like, twenty years or so."

Mom laughed nervously, edging closer to Aunt Phoebe. "Friend or foe?" She asked, in what she probably thought was sotte voce, but I could hear clearly.

Aunt Phoebe smiled brightly, but it wasn't really all that genuine. I could see her wisdom teeth, after all. She walked over to mom. "Not so sure yet," Aunt Phoebe said.

All right, so I was still a little irrationally peeved that they hadn't instantly sensed I was good, and, oh yeah, Wyatt's little brother. "What do you mean?" I demanded, furious. "I saved Paige, didn't I?"

Whew. Narrow miss. Almost said Aunt Paige, but thankfully my brain kicked in in time.

Aunt Phoebe pointed- well, pointedly - at the statue. "Oh, you call that saving, do you?"

I'd almost forgotten how snarky she could be. "Hey," I said, bristling with righteous anger. "I'm the one who put my life on the line here. I didn't have to drop everything I was doing just to orb in and save her butt from --"

Mom butted in before I could finish my rant. "You--you orbed? You're a Whitelighter?"

I ignored her, like I usually did when she interrupted my spiel. I suppose when I was younger I thought it was cool or something, instead of annoying, like it really was. "Look," I said, still kind of frustrated but calming down as I started my first lie to get them to trust me. "Where I come from, history shows Paige didn't get turned to stone on this day."

I paused, melodramatically. Mom and Aunt Phoebe looked at me expectantly.

"She died." I let the words hang heavily in the silence, putting all the emotion of her actual death - for me, eight years ago - into my words. "And with her death, the Power of Three died, too, allowing Titans to rule and create a world you don't wanna see. Trust me." Yeah, those words were true and way heartfelt. Wyatt screwed up the world in an almighty way, and I did not want them to have to see it. "I'm here to alter history, to help you save the future."

"Who sent you?" Aunt Phoebe asked, suspicion awash on her elfin features, nearly tangible.

"I can't answer that," I said, with honest regret.

"Why not?" Aunt Phoebe challenged. I fought now to stop myself from stepping back at the sheer force of her suspicion.

"Because anything I tell you could risk changing the future in ways we don't want," I said as quickly as I could. Hesitating would spawn disbelief.

"Who's we?" Mom asked instantly. I inwardly winced. Crap. Explaining the Resistance might be easy enough, but I didn't want to have to. Eventually they would want to know exactly who we were resisting.

"All I got to say is that if I hadn't gotten here when I did, Paige

would've been the third Whitelighter victim," I said instead of saying the few of us who are left after stopping your firstborn wreaking havoc on the planet!

"Wait," Aunt Phoebe said, warily. "Third? I thought only one was missing."

I shook my head. The second victim was also another I was monitoring. It hurt that I couldn't step in and save them, of course, but this was for the greater good. "Not anymore," I said, my words and tone heavy.

"Huh," Mom said. "Leo?! Leo?!"

I forced myself to be still, even though I could feel the muscles in my hands twitching eagerly. Everything inside me wanted to punch the Whitelighter who was currently Orbing into the room. It was damn hard not to hit that sonuvvabitch, I'll tell you.

Leo - not even difficult for me not to call him dad - moved over to mom with a simpering look on his face. "Honey, I'm sorry I missed counseling, but --"

My insides rolled seeing him so wimpish and coming up with another of his damn excuses.

"Forget that. We've got bigger problems," Mom said, her voice strident.

Leo looked up, and recoiled slightly at the statue of Aunt Paige. "What happened?"

"Forget that, too." Mom said. I'd forgotten how commanding she can be. It's amazing how much you can forget about someone in eight years. "How many Whitelighters are missing?"

Leo turned back to mom with a look of utter dumbfoundment on his smarmy face. "What?" He asked, genuinely confused as to how come she knew the exact question to ask.

Mom had her no-nonsense face on as she demanded again: "How many?"

"Uh, two," Leo said, a little bewildered. "That's what The Elders just called me for."

"Believe me now?" I said, decidedly ignoring Leo.

Everyone turned to look at me. I tried to be strong under the force of their combined glares.

"Who's he?" Leo asked.

I was expecting that one. Even in the future, I suspect, he'd probably ask that same question, that's how little attention he'd ever paid to me.

Fortunately, I was saved from the immediate interrogation by a crashing sound downstairs.

Ever the one for pertinent questions, Aunt Phoebe voiced what we were all thinking. "What was that?"

Just as I knew they would, they abandoned their immediate concern - me - and hurried downstairs towards the source of the crash. I stalked quickly over to the Book of Shadows, knowing I'd at least have a couple of minutes.

I flipped to the page on Valkyries.

"Magic forces black and white, reaching out through space and light, be she far or be she near, bring me the Valkyrie Mist here," I intoned, fingering the page.

A vortex swirled in front of me, and the Valkyrie I'd spoken to last week walked through, pulled me towards her and kissed me.

I let her, knowing how Valkyries express much of their emotion through their sexuality, but in my mind it was a sacrilege to Bianca. I pulled back.

"Are the arrangements ready?"

Mist nodded. "Yes. The cage is prepared. Strong enough so even an Elder can be trapped. But only a new one. Freyja is most anxious to know how you will trap a newly appointed Elder."

I waved my hand impatiently. "That part of the plan has been taken care of," I said. "Do I need to remind Freyja of what I did for her?"

Mist lowered her head contritely, and shook it in the negative. I'd not only pulled out a demon hiding in their ranks, but had found the one thing that would heal Mist's sister from her magically induced cancer. All due to some nice future knowledge that wouldn't affect the future too much.

"You'll have him by tomorrow," I said. "Now go, quickly. The witches will be back soon."

Mist nodded again. "Until next time, Christopher," she said, touching her pendant, creating the vortex again. She sashayed away into the green whirlpool of energy, and I turned my attention back to the book.

It was smaller than I remembered, but then, every Halliwell generation added to it. The Charmed Ones had a lot more demons to face before Wyatt, Mel and I became the next generation to add information.

I winced, though, when I passed the pages on Belthazor and Cole. A tiny little line on goblins. Wyatt and I almost died when we were little when a hoarde of goblins attacked us, it was only because Wyatt was twice-blessed that we managed to hold them off until Aunt Phoebe and Mel and mom came back from shopping. Apparently they'd faced goblins before I was born sometime, or when I was a baby, and hadn't put in the vanquishing spell.

I lifted my head when I heard a familiar stomp coming from the direction of the stairs, and I flicked through the pages quickly, leaving it tantalizingly open on the page that would help them free Aunt Paige quickly: magical being's magic in combination.

Hopefully it would give them enough of a hint.

"What are you doing?" Mom demanded, furiously stepping towards me.

I made a fuss of touching the book. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm trying to find a way to free Stone-Cold Paige over here." Hopefully, the line 'keep trying, the frequency when you combine different creatures' powers changes at each attempt, and one may be of the correct frequency to work' would inspire them to keep going where in the past they'd originally stopped trying to free her.

"Step away," Mom said, her voice harsh. It hurt. I used that pain to fuel the small flare of disbelief.

"Please," I snorted, "like I haven't looked in this before? By the way," I said, almost snidely, "you should update your goblins entry. It'll come in handy some day."

I looked at her, almost defiantly, but she was glaring back in that way that in the future would mean I was grounded for a week or two. I decide retreat was a really good option, so I slowly walked away from the Book.

"Goblins?" Mom said, confused.

I sat down, figuring the goblins must attack later. "Yeah. Trust me," I said, for the millionth time probably, and definitely not the last time I was going to say it. "It's gonna get ugly. Look, obviously you don't trust me, but I touched the book, right? And the book thinks I'm good. Shouldn't you?"

"Well, maybe you found a way around that." Mom said, uncompromisingly. I really had forgotten how suspicious and stubborn she could be. This was going to be a lot harder than I'd hoped.

"Piper, come on," I said, uneasily, her name hard to say. "I'm just trying to help."

"Well, then, if that's true, why don't you tell me how to vanquish the Titans?" Mom asked, quite reasonably, really.

"Except you can't vanquish them," I said heavily.

"You mean, not without The Power of Three?" Mom asked, a note of sarcasm in her voice. I noticed how she was even stood in her defensive position, ready to use her powers on me if necessary. I know it wouldn't work on me, and it was really good that she was prepared for evil in every situation, but it still sucked.

"Maybe not even with that," I said. "The only way the Elders could stop them three thousand years ago was by infusing some mortals with a hell of a lot power. Way more than you guys have," I finished, quite smugly. Sometimes my family got a little laidback with the firepower they had at their disposal. Any reminder that would get them working intellectually as well as with brute strength was a good reminder.

"So they can do that again," Mom said, firm, not understanding why I was needed there. And I was. She needed me there more than she could ever comprehend.

"Not after what happened last time," I explained. "When the mortals trapped the Titans, the power went to their heads. They declared themselves gods and forced the world to worship them." Hah, Aunt Paige's history lessons were useful after all. It was a good thing she wasn't there in my future, I'd never live it down. The only good thing, though. "The Elders swore they would never allow that to happen again."

I stood up to stand in front of her. Believe me, the urge to hug her was still there.

"Hang on a second," Mom said, looking a little dazed as recognition crept into her eyes. "I'm having a ninth grade flashback. You're talking about the Greek Gods Zeus, Athena, Aphrodite? They were mortals?"

"Mythology left that part out," I said. "Not the only inaccuracy, by the way." Hmm, that part was a little bit smug, but I had knowledge they didn't. For once I knew more than my parents, and I was going to revel in it a little, okay??

Trust me, if you had my mom as your mom while growing up, a) you'd be just as neurotic as me, b) you'd probably be cleaner and c) you'd be just as smug as I was at that moment.

Unfortunately I didn't have all that much time to wallow in the good feeling, as Aunt Phoebe came back into the attic, with a leprechaun and the head dwarf. I felt a small sigh of relief instead. This part of history stayed the same, at least.

"Phoebe," Mom demanded, "what are you doing? You're supposed to be -"

"I know. I know," Aunt Phoebe interrupted, with familiar abandon. "But I thought they could help us free Paige. After all, a leprechaun's luck has helped us before."

I winced and laughed at the same time as she patted the head dwarf's head. Man, even I'm not that dumb and I'm not even anywhere near Aunt Phoebe's age.

"He's the leprechaun," the head dwarf said grumpily, which was funny because I was pretty sure Grumpy was still downstairs. "I'm one of the seven dwarves. Try to keep it straight, will ya?"

"Sorry," Aunt Phoebe said apologetically.

The leprechaun, Finnegan, looked up the statue of Aunt Paige. "It's gonna take a lot more than just me luck to free this one," Finnegan said regretfully in his lilting Irish tones. "We're gonna need some pixie dust, too."

The head dwarf sighed in distaste. "I'll get a faerie. Left my ax downstairs anyway."

The head dwarf ambled off out of the attic, and Aunt Phoebe walked over to join mom and me at the book.

"Ok," Aunt Phoebe said briskly, "so where are we?"

"Screwed, possibly," Mom said, eyeing me warily. I tried hard not to bristle. "One thing I'm still not clear about. If the Titans are roaming around, why are they killing Whitelighters?"

She was still looking at me like she distrusted me. Like she hated me. I tried to ignore it even as it curled uneasily in the pit of my stomach. "Because they need their orbing power," I said heavily, one of the hardest parts of my task. As much as I hate the Elders for how they screwed up my family, they were innocents and didn't deserve the slaughter that was going to take place.

But the future was more important than a few dead Elders. I forced my stomach to settle.

Mom was confused at first. "Their orbing power? What on earth would they wanna do with-" Then that expression crossed her face, the one where she realises just who tied up the sitting room with string. "Oh, my god. Leo!"

Mom strode out of the attic purposefully, yelling for Leo. Aunt Phoebe looked at her, then looked at me, her wide brown eyes round with confusion.

"What - what did I miss?" Aunt Phoebe demanded. "What'd she just figure out?"

I looked at her flatly. "Nothing good."

-----

I watched warily as Thistle, the Faerie Queen, sprinkled dust on Aunt Paige. Aunt Paige shimmered in a golden glow. Finnegan was holding out his golden nuggets, adding leprechaun good luck to the mix.

"Now, laddie!" Finnegan commanded the head dwarf.

The head dwarf swung his pick, hitting my Aunt Paige and trying to break through the statue. I held my breath, but nothing happened. She was still a statue.

"Don't know what else to try," the head dwarf grunted. Keep going! I thought fervently. Just keep going!

"Running out of gold, too, I'm afraid," Finnegan said regretfully.

"Ok. Well, there's gotta be something we can do. Just keep trying," Aunt Phoebe commanded. I hoped she would see the Book of Shadows entry soon. I distracted myself with looking at things on the bookcase, things I remembered so well.

"What are you doing over here?"

I looked up to see Aunt Phoebe looking at me quizically. I picked up one of the items, waving it at her.

"Nothing," I said. "You guys keep this stuff forever, you know that?"

Aunt Phoebe narrowed her eyes disbelievingly. "You knew the titans were after the elders, didn't you?"

I put the item back down, and regretfully leaned against the shelf, my eyes dark with sorrow.

"Why didn't you tell us?" Aunt Phoebe demanded. I could hear that edge in her voice, that she didn't understand. But I couldn't tell her. It could screw up the future in more unimaginable ways. It was pretty much as hell-like as I could comprehend at the moment.

"I told you, there's some things I can't tell you," I said roughly. "Some things you need to figure out on your own."

"Even at the risk of making things worse?" Aunt Phoebe asked.

Thankfully Aunt Phoebe's interrogation was stopped by Mom striding into the attic, but unthankfully she looked well pissed.

"All right, what's going on?" Mom demanded. I tried not to wince at her tone. That tone meant a month's worth of grounding. "Leo's not responding to any of my calls, and it's been over five hours."

"I really don't know," I said, really not knowing exactly. I knew vaguely.

"Well, I really think you do," Mom said, glowering at me.

"Look," I said, letting my irrational feeling of anger that she would not instinctively trust me fuel my words, "you're the one who wanted him to go up there in the first place. Not me." And yeah she was still looking like I would be so grounded for the rest of my life when she found out who I was. "All right, fine," I said, knowing she knew I was lying. "Maybe I do know. And if I'm right, he's gonna need some serious alone time."

"You know what?" Mom demanded. I resisted the urge to say no. "Cut it out with the cryptic crap. You need to go up there and bring him back now. No more games."

"Ok, fine," I said reluctantly, but only because I knew arguing with her was futile. "I'll go. But if I were you two, I'd focus on freeing

Paige, because you're gonna need her. Soon."

I orbed out. The familiar feeling of displacement took me, and then I focussed my powers to reach Up There as quick as I could. As soon as I solidified again, I saw the carnage and was glad I hadn't eaten anything. It would have all come back up again anyway.

Leo was sat next to one of his old friends, Cecil. I'd seen Cecil's picture once - Leo had routed out pictures of all of them before they'd died as a memorial. Cecil, like all the other Elders strewn across the clouds, was dead.

"Leo," I said gingerly. Even though the guy was obviously wallowing in his grief, I still felt bad for him.

Leo looked up at me, anger in his eyes. I backed up, but not far enough as he grabbed me by the shoulders. Relax, I told myself, he doesn't know who you are otherwise he wouldn't do this.

"Why didn't you tell me? Why did you let this happen?!" He demanded, shaking me.

"Easy! Easy!" I said, as another voice inside me said, wouldn't he?

"Why?!" Leo yelled.

"Because this had to happen!" I said, raising my voice, looking at him as directly as I could manage, considering. "It had to happen so you could do what has to be done."

"What are you talking about?" Leo demanded. His eyes were filled with tears. My iron will crumbled a little. He was still my dad, even though he was an inconsiderate bastard to me. He looked away. His expression was pained. "They're all dead," he whimpered. "Gone."

"No," I said firmly. "Not all of them." Confusion crept into his eyes. "Some of The Elders escaped back to earth, but it won't be long before the Titans hunt them down, too. But you can still stop them. You can still defeat the Titans."

"How?" Leo said, in complete disbelief, even as an awakening hope crept into his eyes, followed by just as complete despair.

"I think you know how," I said.

Leo obviously did. "It's too dangerous. The Elders forbid it."

"True," I said simply. "But then again, The Elders aren't around to stop you now, are they? That's right, Leo." Awareness had crept fully into his eyes, and horror. Horror at my callousness. But it wasn't callousness. This was about preventing the death of the world. A few Elders was nothing compared to what would happen if we didn't change the future. "This is what it's all about," I continued. "This is why they had to die so you could do something they'd never do. Save the future for your family." I paused dramatically. "For your son." For me.

Yes, Wyatt always was his weak spot.

"This is crazy," Leo said, despite his awakening realisation that I was right, it was the only way.

"Maybe," I agreed, "but it's our only chance. Like it or not, you've been put in this situation for a reason, Leo. We both have."

"Says you," Leo accused.

I couldn't hold his gaze. I looked down, studying my trainers. Damn him, I thought furiously, fighting tears. Why does he always make me feel this way?

"How do I know you're not trying to manipulate this situation for your own future?" Leo demanded. "Just the way you've manipulated everything else?"

"You don't," I said, still not able to look him fully in the eye. He was right, but not in the way he was thinking. "But what choice do you really have? There's certainly no future unless you do something."

Leo sighed. "I don't know. Even if I were to believe you, even if I were willing..." I knew I had him there. When he says things like that, he does believe him. Now, I figured, it was just a confidence issue. "I couldn't. I'm no Elder."

But, I thought sadly, knowing this was the riskiest part of the plan, you have to become one. If he knew I was risking my own life, my own existence to do this, maybe... I shook that thought away. He couldn't know who I was. He couldn't.

"Well," I said smugly, relieved that I had won this small battle, "you'd better start acting like one."

Leo looked into the distance, concern written all over his face. Concern for Piper, for Wyatt, for the rest of the world even, but not for me.

It was an expression I knew very well indeed.

------

It was boring, waiting Up There for Leo to stop wrestling with his stupid conscience and get the hell out here with the Urn. I was tempted to peek down and listen in on what Mom and Aunt Phoebe and very hopefully Aunt Paige were saying about me, but I knew it would only probably depress me further. They wouldn't trust me yet, which was frustrating but understandable. I mean, Wyatt could have come back, couldn't he. And that would not have been a good thing.

Of course, maybe I could have picked a better place to wait than sat amongst all these bodies. Even Elders start to smell when they've been dead a while.

"Leoooo!"

Leo's name had rung fairly frequently up here, with Mom getting even more frustrated as more time crept on, but I'd learned from a very early age to tune her out if I wanted to, hitting mute on the Whitelighter remote control, if you will.

The sound of the door opening, however, was the sound that I wanted to here. Leo walked through, his face heavily drawn, and I stepped up. I saw the urn in his arms, and my heart thrilled. Already things were looking up.

"Piper," Leo whispered at the sound of her voice. He sounded heartbroken. What was I doing? But, no, they needed to be split apart for this to work. I only hoped I wasn't the price for that.

"No," I said firmly, with more courage than he will probably ever know.

"But she needs me." Ah, Leo was back in the realm of whining, which I knew so well.

"Not as much as the rest of us do," I said ferverently. Images of my family filled my mind, dead, dying, desolate, destroyed... "You need to stay here, even afterwards, to coordinate," I said.

"All right," Leo said heavily. "Then you should go. Otherwise, the girls won't understand."

I nodded. "Good luck," I said, and orbed out. Instead of disappearing, I sort of lingered around to make sure he did it. I hovered above and saw him sit down, and tentatively uncover the urn.

"Ekre oh-ghee," he intoned reluctantly. "Ak-man minento."

As soon as I saw the whisps of light rise out of the urn, the power solidifying into a stream of light, I quickly orbed back down into the manor.

"Leo!" I heard my mom before I saw her. "Leo, for god's sakes, if you can hear me--"

I orbed into the room, seeing her standing there furiously, arms akimbo as she yelled for her husband. Her face darkened with disappointment upon seeing me.

"You?" Mom demanded incredulously. "Where's Leo?"

"He's safe. For now," I said, brushing her aside. With relief I noticed my Aunt Paige standing there, not a statue. "Paige, hi," I said to her.

Aunt Paige looked confused. "Hi."

"Forget that," Mom commanded. "What do you mean for now?"

"What's going on?" Aunt Paige asked. I guessed they'd only recently managed to free her.

"What is this about us supposedly battling the titans?" Aunt Phoebe demanded. I was relieved they'd figured that out already.

"You're about to find out," I said, cryptically.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Aunt Paige said, still bewildered, in time for the stream of power I'd seen begin Up There shower from above, swirling around Mom and my aunts and infusing them. They were covered in a haze of brilliant white light, and I squinted until the light dissipated.

I tried not to smirk when the light completely cleared. They were all dressed in classical Greek clothing. Mom had a flowing white dress on, Aunt Paige's hair was up and she was holding a trident, and Aunt Phoebe had on the biggest blonde wig you've ever seen. Boy, was she going to be madder at me if she ever found out who I am.

Mom saw Aunt Phoebe first, and blinked, startled. Then she looked down at herself and gasped. "Oh!" she exclaimed, before glaring at me. As if I picked which goddess they were going to turn into. Really.

Aunt Phoebe whirled around in a circle on the spot, looking at herself. "Wha-" she started, before spoitting Aunt Paige's trident. "Aah!"

Aunt Paige wasn't moving. I couldn't help it. I grinned. This was so cool! "That's what that means," I said smugly.

"What happened?" Aunt Paige demanded again. "What are we?"

I spread my arms and said it as if it were the most natural answer in the world. "You're gods."

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End of OH, MY GODDESS (PART 1)