Epilogue

The lights flashed through the dancing and lounging young people. The music was blasting as some obnoxiously loud screamers strummed guitars on stage. As the light shone on Paige's face she mouthed, "I'm too old for this," to her laughing husband. Henry was serving up cold bottles of root beer and water to the hordes of high school juniors and seniors that were trying to make great impressions on their dates. Leo was bustling around behind the bar, wiping down the counter top from the foaming and sticking soda that had been spilled since the night began. He looked up to smile at his wife, who stood with colorful ear plugs near the band making sure that the sound system worked correctly during their performance without having to listen to them. Phoebe and Coop were busy snapping their fingers at couples trying to sneak into the dark nooks and crevices of the club.

A banner hung over the staircase, announcing congratulations to Wyatt Matthew Halliwell on turning 18. The cousins were all wandering around different parts of the clubs, trying to remain out of the grasps of their respective parents. Primrose and Penelope were sitting with Victor at a table in the corner, drinking Shirley temples and playing candy land with their grandfather. Pandora was rocking out front and center to the band that was compromised of two sophomores and a junior drummer. She was back to her old self, wearing a glittering top announcing her love for rocking, rolling peace. Melinda and Patricia sat at one of the high tables, making conversation with some of Chris' baseball playing teammates. Young Henry kept walking by not to discreetly making sure that the boys weren't making any moves towards his sister or cousin. Sam was also keeping himself very close to the young girls and the high school boys. Patience was out on the dance floor being slowly paraded around the other couples in the arms of Dervin Rogers.

Dervin caught sight of a sneaky looking Chris ducking into a door behind the bar, out of sight of any of the adult chaperones in the room. While no one could have been able to tell at the moment, Wyatt was not currently at his own party. Chris had ducked into the little storage room the place where he knew was once his home long before he had been born. Chris quickly slipped his hand into one of the crates and grabbed out to dark bottles. He orbed out of the room without another thought to his surroundings or the party.

High above the city and underneath the dark night blanket of stars and a full moon, on the high beams of the Golden Gate Bridge sat Wyatt Halliwell on the eve of his 18th birthday. Chris appeared behind his brother and kicked out his legs to sit down.

"I brought you a present." Chris handed his older brother the beer he had stolen from their mother's bar. Wyatt looked at the bottle and frowned.

"Before you say anything, it's your 18th birthday. In Europe that's the legal drinking age. I mean we could go there first if you want?" Chris smiled. Wyatt rolled his eyes.

"If that's your logic, am I drinking that one too?" Wyatt demanded taking the bottle from his younger brother and opening it.

"No. I don't mind breaking rules that logic was all for you bro." Chris held out his bottle to clink it with Wyatt's. The boys cheered to each other silently letting all their hopes and dreams for each other be represented through the little action. Taking his first sip of the dark liquor, Wyatt coughed at first.

"I shouldn't…" Wyatt started. But Chris shook his head taking a swig of his own bottle.

"What you doing up here during your own party?" Chris asked. Wyatt didn't answer right away though instead he drank and stared out into the darkness.

"Magic rested for a whole day to prepare for my arrival." Wyatt finally sighed. Awesome, Chris thought, we're going to talk about how powerful he is. But the younger brother kept his mouth shut as he listened to the older boy's worries.

"And as if that wasn't enough pressure, the lady in the water sought mom out to make sure that she took care of the sword. The Sword, Excalibur, maker of kings was for me. And then you, my little brother died saving me from myself." Wyatt's noble face was shadowed with a terrible worry that Chris recognized.

"Wy," Chris started. "Stop worrying about all of it right now. What will make you feel better about this?"

"I don't know Chris. Maybe sometime just to be normal? Not to be twice blessed, not to be the oldest of the charmed children, and not to be the master of the sword. Just for a little while? Before destiny catches up?" Wyatt looked at Chris now, frowning at his younger brother for drinking his beer too quickly. Chris put down his empty bottle and smiled at Wyatt.

"Than be normal for a little while Wyatt. I don't think we can start doing much without Melinda anyway. Or at least Patience or Henry, we need three. The curse of being charmed, remember? Take these years, go to college, be just Wyatt for a few years. I will try to keep the demons and problems under control for at least the year." Chris smiled. Wyatt shook his head.

"I don't want you fighting demons alone." He growled.

"I have Pat and Henry. They have to learn sometime." Chris shrugged. "And if anything real big happens, I will call you big brother."

"I don't know…" Wyatt sighed.

A spirit materialized in front of the two young men and suddenly the boys were looking at ghost of Prudence Halliwell.

"Oh boys?" She sighed. They both snapped their attention to her immediately.

"Aunt Prue?" They said in unison.

"Your mom and dad are looking for you." She shook her head but couldn't keep the smile off her face. "Time to go back down."

"Why did you come and tell us?" Chris squinted his eyes at her.

"I wanted to give Wyatt the birthday present of not having his entire party ruined because Piper starts a search party." Prue smiled at her nephews.

"My birthday present was getting us ungrounded with my charm." Chris laughed standing up and grabbing his brother's empty bottle. Wyatt laughed as he clasped his hand around Chris' ankle and orbed the two of them back to P3.

Dervin was passionately kissing Patience on the dance floor. The couple was perfectly nestled on the crowded dance floor away from anyone that might pull them apart. Or at least they thought so, but something forcefully tugged at Patience's high ponytail. When she ignored the tugging, someone seemed to put a weight around her torso and something pulled her away from Dervin.

"Were you not enjoying it?" Dervin laughed at her. Patience grinned and nodded that she was but looked around her to see how she had been detached. No one that was close to her appeared to have a hand in the pulling away and then suddenly she felt a breeze and heard a faint whisper.

"Good girls don't make out on dark dance floors in front of their parents." The voice whispered very so quietly. Patience giggled and sighed taking Dervin's hand and leading him off the dance floor.

"Yeah, can't see you or talk to you but you still get to interfere." Patience muttered to the air around her knowing that Cole was somewhere near laughing at her. Leo was walking towards Patience's and Dervin, his eyes set in that frantic parental look that Patience had seen thousands of times.

"Have you seen Wyatt or Chris?" Leo asked the young couple. Patience shook her head giving her Uncle an apologetic look. Dervin on the other hand was looking troubled for only a second before opening his mouth.

"I saw Chris duck through that door a bit ago." Dervin pointed at the door across the club. Leo nodded and stormed off in that direction. Patience glanced up at Dervin with a questioning gaze.

"I should try to make a good impression on your family. I already won over your older cousins, mostly anyway. Maybe we shouldn't tell them I ratted them out to your uncle?" Dervin gave Patience a forced innocent smile. She laughed.

"Everyone is afraid of them. You would think they were ruling tyrants with armies." She laughed pulling Dervin towards the bar to get a drink.

Leo closed the door of the small storage closet just as his two grown sons re-orbed into the room. Leo threw his arms around both boys shoulders and in an instant smelled the beer on their breath and caught sight of the bottles that Chris was desperately trying to hide.

"Boys," Leo started clicking his tongue annoyed.

"Hey there dad." Chris smiled at his father.

"We just needed some air dad, we didn't mean anything by it." Wyatt defended.

"Boys," Leo repeated taking the bottles from Chris' hand and holding them up now. Wyatt was looking anywhere but at his father and Chris clapped his hands.

"It's Wyatt's birthday!" He argued. Leo laughed in spite of himself. The father nodded putting down the bottles into the trashcan by the door, he opened the door for his sons to walk out in front of him.

Piper was walking into the middle of the room, pushing a large cart that had an elaborate cake on it. The entire room was singing happy birthday.

"Boys, you know that starting tomorrow you are both grounded right?" Leo asked the boys before they got too far from him. "We won't tell your mother why." Leo nodded at the worried looks on the boys' faces.

"So much for your birthday present to me." Wyatt punched Chris in the shoulder.

"Well, I never promised it would last long." Chris laughed as he too started to sing to his older brother.

I wanted to say a special thanks to CharmedSuperGirl and Patricia02052 for their constant support from the beginning. And to Collen DeWitt for also providing constant feedback and helping me shape my story. While I'm taking a probably not so long a break, I recommend reading Destined, a virtual charmed series that's pretty much amazing (even if it's non-canon) find it here: .

Also if anyone wanted to beta read this, I know there are a few mistakes in here. But you know I was posting as fast as I was writing. Which often meant I only read through sections of it before it went up, so I'm not sure how beta reading works on FF. net, but if anyone is interested let me know!