Charmed: Heritage – 116 – My Curse on You ~ Part 2

[StoryGirl83]

May 5, 2017 12:10:17 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Oho, that explains a lot, I think, when Andy is involved here, and yes, I remember this episode. Cool, that Andrew is a reminder of the past - for Prue and Andy.

I'm so glad that one wasn't as confusing. One of my goals is to use as many of the innocents from Charmed as I can in this series. I want to be able to show that the Charmed Ones did have an influence in their lives beyond that one day. I especially want to use the kids, so Kevin, Tyler, Max (phone call), Kate (phone call), Aviva (phone call), and now Andrew. I've probably used other kids (and I have used some adults such as Ava), but for now that list will do. I love showing how everything connects back to itself.


Speaking of Ava, back to the hospital.

---

Chapter Twenty-One – Demonic Blood Ties

Brianna had taken to pacing the waiting room. Several people had already given her dirty looks, but she had noticed that she wasn’t the only one pacing, so she ignored them.

“Brianna, I think you’re scaring people,” her father’s voice said from behind her.

She looked up to see her dad, Sean McInnis, coming toward her with Max’s half-human little brother, Daemon Thompson. “Daemon, it’s been a while.”

“Your dad said Max’s in surgery,” Daemon commented, looking worried. “I was hoping you could tell me how he was doing.”

She sighed. “I haven’t heard anything.” She looked at her dad. “I don’t remember telling you that Max was in surgery.”

“You didn’t,” Sean admitted. “Toby stopped by and suggested I find Daemon.”

Brianna looked at them for several seconds as a smile formed on her lips. “That boy doesn’t know when to quit interfering.”

“You should have called me,” Daemon informed. “Max is my only family.”

“I guess that means you are on his mother’s side,” Dr. Ava Nicolae said from a few feet away. She looked at the two additional sets of eyes on her. “I assume these two are with you.”

Brianna nodded. “This is my dad, Professor Sean McInnis. He teaches literature at City College.” She hugged her arm around Daemon. “And this is Max’s youngest brother, on his father’s side. I don’t know of any on his mother’s side. This guy does not acknowledge any of them with the exception of Max, though.”

“And River?”

Brianna looked at her surprised. “Can we talk somewhere else?”

Ava nodded. She led them into the main part of the hospital and into an empty exam room. “Dr. Ava Nicolae,” she extended her hand to Brianna. “I don’t believe we were actually introduced earlier.”

“Brianna McInnis,” Brianna informed her. “What was that about River?”

“The boy shimmered into the operating room while we were working on Max,” Ava informed her. “I almost had a very talented doctor quit on my right there. Considering every person in that room was a gypsy, witch, or some nonmagical who is well informed about the magical world, no one was comfortable with the fact that our patient was a demon in the first place. When we have a second demon shimmering into the operating room, it’s bound to cause tensions to rise even more. Add to that the almost completely alien layout of his vital organs and that young man is extremely lucky to be alive. Does he even have a heart?”

Brianna blinked at the question. “A heart?”

Ava nodded. “We couldn’t find it. We didn’t spend too much time looking since we had a lot of internal bleeding to fix. Fortunately we didn’t need to have a complete understanding of his anatomy to sew up his innards.”

“Will Max be all right?” Daemon asked, turning concerned eyes on her.

Ava nodded. “I believe so. He wouldn’t have been if River hadn’t of shown up.”

“What happened?” Brianna requested. “You said River was a distraction. You said someone almost quit because of him.”

Ava nodded. “And that’s true, but River provided two very important things to us. He donated blood, which considering what we were dealing with, it was a blessing that he was a match. You didn’t mention that some of those sixty-four siblings were part human.”

Brianna did a double take at those words. “River’s part human?! That can’t be right. Daemon’s the only one that’s part human.”

Ava shrugged. “I’ll admit, my experience with demon blood is a bit limited, but those two didn’t even share a blood color. And Max doesn’t have a known blood type. River’s O negative with just enough demonic blood in his system to make his brother accept the transfusion. He had lost a lot of blood, so we couldn’t leave him without giving him a couple of pints of blood. He seems to be responding well. He’s in recovery, under guard so I don’t have someone trying to take blood samples or anything else that might lead to someone realizing he’s not exactly human.”

“Can we see him?” Daemon requested.

Ava nodded. “Yes, but the brother you don’t acknowledge is there, too. Will that be a problem?”

Daemon shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never met him.”

“Actually, it kind of will be,” Brianna admitted. “Their father doesn’t know how to find Daemon. We don’t actually know if River would let him know where to find him.

“You’ve never met your father?” Ava looked at the boy surprised.

Daemon shook his head. “No. Max says he’s bad.”

Ava stared at him for several seconds. She shook her head bewildered. “Well, we will just have to find a way to make this work. I assume he’s met you, Brianna.”

Brianna nodded. “He tends to leave when he sees me, says I’m a bad influence on his brother.”

“I see,” Ava considered this. “Well, he can’t leave this hospital for at least a day due to the blood we took from him, so I’d suggest not scaring him away. Okay?”

Brianna sighed. “I’ll do my best.”

“Those boys are leaving this hospital only when they are safe to leave,” Ava informed her. “See to it that you don’t.”

Brianna sighed and looked at her dad. “I’ll go in and see him first. Keep an eye on Daemon, okay.”

“No one is hurting this boy on my watch, Brianna,” Sean informed her. The entire coven had taken to protecting the half demon boy they’d adopted. The Snake Lord might be a dangerous demon, but had he known were to look for his youngest son, even he wouldn’t have been foolish enough to go about against over a dozen well trained witches. And well trained they were, if for no other reason than the fact that they did harbor Daemon within their midst.

[Chrisaholic]

I'm glad they could save Max, even though with demons shimmering in during the OP. At least, the doctors are all witches and have been forewarned. Yeah, anywhere complicated familial relationships.

[StoryGirl83]

May 6, 2017 10:14:12 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

I'm glad they could save Max, even though with demons shimmering in during the OP. At least, the doctors are all witches and have been forewarned. Yeah, anywhere complicated familial relationships.

Yeah, River isn't exactly the most subtle person on the planet, but Ava had already gotten together people who knew about magic so that they wouldn't freak out at the demonic patient.

In this next chapter we have a little Kevin in elder mode, or at least trying to seem elderly. It doesn't exactly work.

---

Chapter Twenty-Two – Consequences

“I see I’ve caught your attention,” Daniel commented wryly.

Cassia inhaled slowly, still having no clue how to answer. She smiled as she saw the air ripple behind Daniel, leaving behind a man in a doctor’s uniform.

The man approached them and addressed Daniel. “Do you mind if I steal her away for a minute?”

Daniel turned a steely gaze at him. “Actually, I do.”

Cassia pressed her lips tightly together, trying to keep from laughing. Daniel didn’t know who he was up against.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” the man replied, not looking the least sorry. “I will return her to you as soon as I am done talking with her.”

“I said, ‘no’,” Daniel repeated.

Cassia put her hand on Daniel’s shoulder. “Sorry, I need to talk to him.” She ignored the frown on Daniel’s face and walked away with the man.

Once they were far enough away that Daniel couldn’t hear them she turned an annoyed look at the man. “Two months and you ignore me the entire time. Now, you show up?”

“I haven’t ignored you,” the man answered, sounding annoyingly patient, maybe even patronizing. “I heard you every time and when you weren’t insisting that I get you out of her, I dealt with whatever needed dealing with.”

Cassia scowled. “And now that I’ve got a way out?”

“Now that you’ve got a way out,” he repeated, “I wanted to make sure you understood the potential consequences if you took it.”

You mean it’s not set in stone, she retorted, mentally.

He gave her a look to say he knew what she was thinking, and didn’t say anything.

She sighed. “You mean that I could lose my wings or have my soul recycled?”

“Yes,” was his only reply.

“That Daniel’s memory will probably be wiped, that I will probably never see the rest of my family,” she continued.

He nodded.

“I’ve thought about this,” she assured him, “and you presence has only made me sure of what I should do.” She paused and looked at him. “Or have they changed their mind and decided to help me?”

He shook his head. “The decision stands.”

“I figured as much,” she commented, unsurprised. “So what is your advice?”

“You want advice?” he looked surprised. “You didn’t want it twenty-one years ago.”

“You gave it anyway,” she reminded him. “Odd though it was.”

“Give me a break,” he laughed. “I was sixteen. All this power, all this knowledge; it’s heady for a sixteen-year-old.”

She chuckled. “Not exactly confidence inspiring,” she admitted,” but then I was only seventeen when I became a whitelighter, so I’m not really one to talk. About that advice?”

“Convince him to walk away,” he instructed her. “Convince him that his search must stop.”

“He knows that it’s me,” Cassia informed him. “And I think he knows that I’m a whitelighter. How can he know that?”

“I heard him,” he admitted. “That’s why I chose to intervene. I don’t know how he knows about whitelighters, but you’re right. He does know, but not about you. He thinks that you are you, but he’s not sure. I would suggest you take advantage of that.”

“And what would you do?” she asked, defiantly.

“Let’s not go there,” he suggested.

“Oh, no,” she pushed. “We’re going there. I want to know if you’d follow your own advice.”

“You know the answer to that,” he answered cryptically.

She chuckled. “That’s what I thought. Daniel could always see through me, so there’s not much chance I could convince him that I’m not his sister. If you won’t even help me by talking to him . . .”

“I’m a stranger to him,” he reminded her.

“And that’s what you want me to convince him that I am.” She shrugged. “I can’t lie to him. He knows it and he’s using that against me.”

He was silent as he considered her. “I see the problem.” He sighed. “I don’t know how much good talking would do, but if you want, I can do that much.” He glanced over her head at where her brother stood waiting impatiently. Daniel looked like he was about to come over there. “Is that what you want?”

Cassia cast a quick glance back at her brother.

I’ll see you at Thanksgiving. Come home early, okay?

Cassia’s eyes widened and she quickly looked away.

Can’t you stay in Sacramento? It’s bad enough that we had to move, but I’m losing you to the East Coast on top of that. Who will I talk to?

Cassia gasped. “What on earth?!”

Her companion looked at her worried. “Cassia, what’s wrong?”

“Memories,” she whispered, “but I don’t understand where they are coming from.”

It’s been so quite these last few days. Are you sure you can’t come home?

“He didn’t want me to go,” she commented.

Her companion didn’t reply. He just allowed her to talk.

“He wanted me to go to school in California.” She chuckled. “And then he went to school in London for a year, right out of high school.” She shook her head with a smile. “Gotta love his logic.”

“You were gone,” he reminder her. “Perhaps he didn’t want a reminder of that conversation.”

She nodded. “Perhaps.” She sighed. “He’s been looking for me for fifteen years. He’s gathered enough information in that search to learn what a whitelighter is and that they answer to elders. A simple talking to won’t discourage him. And it wouldn’t be fair to him either.”

“You understand what you are doing?”

She nodded. “I’m throwing away anything I might do in the future to help my brother deal with the fact that his sister is dead and he has to accept that.”

“Is that what you’re doing?” he asked skeptically.

She gave him a shrug. “I guess we’re going to find out.”

“I expect you to go Up There as soon as you get out and say good bye,” he informed her.

“I have something I need to deliver first.”

He gave her a look.

“I promise, it won’t take long,” she assured him. “It’s just those papers I’ve been trying to get together.”

A smile tugged at his lips when she said that. “Okay, then. That I’ll let you do.”

“I guess I’ll see you Up There,” she commented, before she walked away toward her brother. It was time to stop hiding, even if it meant she’d never do anything else, again.

---

Back to the manor in the next chapter. They aren't done with people being infected, because someone wasn't happy to let the last demon behind this remain.

[Chrisaholic]

There are consequences everywhere and still, many memories are flowing around here. Let Cassia have some peace about her family and all will be good, I guess. Or at least, I hope so.

[StoryGirl83]

May 6, 2017 12:06:13 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

There are consequences everywhere and still, many memories are flowing around here. Let Cassia have some peace about her family and all will be good, I guess. Or at least, I hope so.

She would certainly like that, but the only guarantee of time she has is right now. More on that after this next chapter.

---

Chapter Twenty-Three – Relaxation and Another Infected

Leo hung up the phone and turned to look at the expectant faces of his wife and her sisters. “That was Ava.”

“We know,” Piper retorted.

“Is the boy going to be all right?” Paige asked.

“She thinks so,” Leo informed her. “Apparently she met two of his brothers when they showed up worried about him. She’s a little disconcerted by the experience. One of the boys was perfectly polite, just worried. The other one was rather rude and demanded she allow him to help.”

“With the surgery?” Prue asked, giving him a look of disbelief. “I find it hard to believe they wouldn’t have gone to him first if he could do that.”

Leo shook his head. “He wanted to donate blood.”

“Unbelievable,” Prue commented. “What do you know about this demon, Piper?”

“Not a lot,” Piper admitted, “but I do know that the girl with him didn’t freeze when Chris got me to freeze The Manor patrons yesterday, and neither did another boy with them. The other two with them did. Both, according to Wyatt, were part darklighter.”


Prue looked at her startled. “How does a darklighter even get away with claiming to be good?”

“Allegedly by being born one,” Piper informed her. “I haven’t exactly had time to research the subject. I heard all of this last night. Wyatt called before he went to bed last night.”

“Speaking of Wyatt, how did he sound when he called earlier?” Paige asked.

“Like he was hiding something from me,” Piper decided, looking a little annoyed at the reminder. “Sometimes I think those boys think they are the parent instead of the other way around.”

Prue laughed at that. “It must be your parenting skills, because Melinda acts the same way, and she does it without magic.”

Paige joined her in laughing. “I think it’s a kid thing. Hank’s been acting pretty weird and every time I try to talk to him, he just clams up. One time we sat there for almost an hour in complete silence. Haven’t either of your girls done that?”

Prue had the grace to look chagrin. “Pat’s got something she’s been writing for weeks that she won’t let anyone see. And of course there are all those phone calls to your kids you now tell me are about magic.”

“Everything seems to have ended well,” Piper commented. “Wyatt’s safe and Chris has his powers back. Even those two . . . whatever they are . . . are doing all right.”

“Glad to hear it,” Toby’s voice announced from the doorway. When all eyes had turned to stare at him, he offered them an innocent grin. “Sorry to startle you. I couldn’t get anywhere near either of them without freaking out a whole bunch of people. I decided that since you were the ones who recommended the doctor to Brianna, you would be able to contact her and let me know how Max is doing. Apparently, I don’t need you to do that.”

“And that’s the only reason you are here?”

He shook his head. “Not really.” He made a face and looked rather embarrassed as he admitted, “I kind of need a dose of that antidote you made.”

The other four took an automatic step back.

“I found out that the third demon, the one that Max and Brianna didn’t take care of, was a minor mid level demon,” Toby informed them. “I thought I could deal with him on my own . . . and I could. Problem is, apparently if you have demon blood it’s not necessary to touch someone who’s infected to get infected yourself. So all three of the demons behind the attack on your older son’s work are gone and they won’t be hurting anyone else.”

“You didn’t think to ask them why they chose to use something that could infect them more easily than anyone else did you?” Piper asked, bitterly.

“Actually, I did,’ he returned, annoyed. “He wouldn’t answer, but I did gather from what he said and what he didn’t say, that it wasn’t his idea.”

Piper groaned. “Whose?”

He shook his head. “That I don’t know. Do you have any more of that antidote, Ma’am? I’d be very much obliged if you would help me out.”

She nodded. “Yes, I’ve got some upstairs. Did he say anything useful?”

Toby shook his head, again. “Mostly words that weren’t even words, or at least not in any language I can understand. Admittedly I’m only fluent in about four, but two of those are demonic, so there was a chance.”

Piper chuckled as she led the way up the attic. “One of those other languages wouldn’t be Latin would it?”

He looked at her surprised. “No. English and Spanish, actually. CT’s dad taught us. And I guess I’m not technically fluent in Spanish, but I can hold my own in a conversation, so fairly fluent.”

“Your grasp of the English language leaves something to be desired, too,” Piper told him as she opened the door to the attic. She turned around and waved her arms at him, freezing him on the stairs. That done she headed into the attic and grabbed a potion bottle containing a portion of the potion she had made earlier. He might be good like he claimed, but she didn’t know him and he wasn’t going into her attic. After she had closed the door behind her, she waved her hands and he unfroze.

Toby frowned and looked at her. “You could have just told me to wait for you in the room with your sisters and your husband.”

“This was easier,” she informed him. “How far away do I have to stand?”

“You don’t have any demon blood, so you will be fine unless you touch me,” he announced. He held out his hand.

Piper handed him the potion. “I couldn’t get it to smell any better. Sorry.”

Toby shrugged as he uncorked the potion bottle. He ignored the smell and only slightly grimaced as the taste of it hit his tongue moments later. And when the green bubbles began their way down his body, he just smiled as he corked the empty bottle. He handed it back to Piper as the green smoke exited his body. “Thank you. We’ll keep an ear out for news on who might have put them up to this. If we hear anything,” he shrugged. “I guess I can’t promise we’ll tell you, but if we don’t we will have a very good reason.”

It never occurred to him that one of his friends might already know who was behind these attacks. After all these were the people closest to him; they wouldn’t hide something like that from him.

---

Toby and Aka are such a good pair. Both of them are very trusting of those closest to them.

He's so matter of fact about this cure. He doesn't care what it tastes like. It does what he needs it to do, so he's good.

The next chapter is pretty much all Cassia and her little brother. It's called, "Truth, Love, and Other Illegal Things." The story is winding down, but we still have a few more loose ends to tie.

[Chrisaholic]

So, Toby was also infected but didn't tell anyone. So much like the Halliwell brothers. At least, Piper has an idea what her boys might do at the moment.

[StoryGirl83]

May 7, 2017 6:29:37 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

So, Toby was also infected but didn't tell anyone. So much like the Halliwell brothers. At least, Piper has an idea what her boys might do at the moment.

No, what Toby didn't tell anyone was that he went to fight the third demon. That's when he got infected. As soon as he finished dealing with the third demon, he came straight to the manor since he knew they had the cure.

---

Chapter Twenty-Four – Truth, Love, and Other Illegal Things

With one last look at her friend and boss, Cassia returned to her brother. “Do Ash and Belle know about this?” she asked without preamble.

Daniel looked at her surprised. “So you admit it?”

She nodded. “Do you have even the slightest idea what I am risking here?”

He sighed. “I’m sorry, Cass. I just couldn’t let it go. I had to know.”

“You realize that this will likely be the only conversation we will have and most likely you won’t even remember it tomorrow,” she pressed.

He nodded.

“Then, why?” she asked looking at him. “I don’t get that. Why do it at all, Danny? Why not leave it as is, with the knowledge that most likely I was out there somewhere, helping people?”

“Because I couldn’t,” he informed her. “Cass, do you have any idea how hard it is to . . ?”

Cassia gave him a look. “Really? You have to ask that?”

He made a face. “It wasn’t adding up,” he announced. “No self respecting whitelighter would get caught on film.”

“Oh, so not true,” she laughed. “But what do you know about whitelighters, anyway?”

“As much as I could learn,” he hedged.

“Do you even know any witches?”

“Other than the obvious?” he pressed.

“And who is the obvious?” she asked, curious.

“A couple of sisters who are former classmates of ours and their younger sisters,” he said only slightly cryptically.

She chuckled. “Oh, those obvious. Yeah, other than those, though I didn’t know you knew about them.”

“Apparently they are some sort of big deal in the world of magic, so when I researched whitelighters, I learned about them,” Daniel informed her. “And apparently my classmate married their whitelighter, so apparently personal relationships are allowed.”

“Not even close,” she informed him. “Their relationship was one hundred percent forbidden. And he’s not in contact with anyone from his past even now.”

“I doubt any of them are alive,” Daniel retorted.

“Actually, he’s got a living nephew who has living descendants,” she passed on. “And his ex-wife’s kids by her second husband are alive and would recognize him from pictures, though of course they never met him. And I’m pretty sure all of their descendants would recognize him, too.”

Daniel stared at her and then he just shrugged. He didn’t much care to hear about his former classmate’s former whitelighter husband. It was his currently whitelighter sister that he was interested in. “Who is that guy, the one who wanted to talk to you? And what did he say that changed your mind about answering my questions?”

“That’s my boss, Kevin,” she grinned. “He just wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting myself into. I have to get out of here, Danny.”

“He seems . . . nice,” Daniel glanced past her to where Kevin had turned his attention to a young lady who was clawing the ground with her bare hands.

Cassia smiled and turned to look at Kevin. “He is nice. You’d like him, Danny.”

“I doubt it,” he decided. “After all, he’s one of the elders that brought you back and refused to let us see you, again. If they hadn’t done that, we could have at least found someone to summon you, eventually.”

Cassia giggled. “Considering he was still in diapers at the time, I’d say Kevin had a pretty air tight alibi for that.”

Daniel frowned. “What do you mean he was still in diapers? Doesn’t elder imply a certain age?”

“Generally,” she agreed, “but there are some cases like Kevin’s where that’s not the case.”

Daniel exhaled slowly. “What happens when I get you out of here?”

“Can you do that?”

“Immediately,” he replied confidently.

“Impressive,” she commented. “How?”

He pulled an envelope out of his pocket and handed it to her.

Cassia took the envelope and looked at it. It was addressed to her parent’s home in Sacramento. She glanced at the post mark, September 3, 2009. She looked up at him. “What’s this?”

“Look inside,” he urged her.

She shrugged and slid a folded piece of paper out of it. She unfolded it and realized that it was a birth certificate. She read her name, Cassia Marie Reynolds, listed. She shrugged, again, and looked up at him, again. “I don’t get it.”

“Look at the dates.”

She looked down at the place where date of birth was listed and her eyes widened. “2009! Since when was I born in 2009?!”

He put a finger to his lips. “Shh. Do you think anyone looking at you would believe that you were born in 1970.”

“No,” she admitted. “But this is illegal.”

“So Tony informed me repeatedly,” Daniel agreed, “but he still helped me with it. Most of the information is identical to what is on your real birth certificate. Out of necessity I had to claim you were born at home, but since you actually were born in Sacramento, I didn’t have to change the city.”

“And the fact that your ‘younger’ sister was born when your mom was in her sixties was irrelevant how?” she pressed.

“Dealt with but ‘you’ don’t know anything about it, so don’t worry about it,” he shrugged.

“And the fact that I share a name with your older sister and I’m identical to ‘her’, how does that fit in?”

“Also dealt with,” he assured her. “I’ll explain later.”

“There is no later,” she informed him. “We leave here and I have to go before a meeting Up There where they will decide my fate for disobeying one of their bigger rules. I won’t have another chance to talk to you, Danny.”

“We made a story between us that you were a clone of our dead sister,” he admitted sheepishly.

Cassia stared at him for several seconds, mouth gaping. “And they say I’m the one who’s insane.”

“If it works, I don’t care,” he admitted.

“It’s illegal,” she reminded him. “It was illegal then and it’s illegal now,” she pressed. “Not to mention how do you explain a twenty year gap between my death and when you would have somehow used by DNA to create this mythical clone.”

“Trust me, okay?” he requested.

She shook her head with a slight smile on it. “Not for a minute, little brother.” Before he could respond she reached up and hugged him tight. “I love you. You may not remember this conversation, but you will remember that. Thanks for coming for me, Danny.”

He hugged her back. “I guess there’s no time like the present, huh. I love you, Cass. Let’s . . . I’d say get you home, but I guess that’s not really an option, so let’s at least get you out of here. Ready?”

She nodded. “I’m ready.” She glanced behind her and saw no sign of Kevin anywhere. He trusted her. As much as it would pain her to leave Daniel so quickly, she would do as she must and that was something she must. She only hoped that when this was all over she would still be allowed to see them when they weren’t looking from time to time.

---

In the next chapter, we'll finish up Cassia's part of this story and Chris will get back to what he was supposed to be doing with his evening, but before he does, Cassia has something to give him. And with everything settled, as a far as she knows, Emily is back at work and not too happy about the situation she's been placed in.

[Chrisaholic]

Oho, quite clever. And I bet he's talking about Piper and Leo. Otherwise, I see no other reference here. Kevin as her boss, very nice. Also good that Daniel has already made a cover story for her, to live on. But that's not possible, right?

[StoryGirl83]

May 11, 2017 9:57:17 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Oho, quite clever. And I bet he's talking about Piper and Leo. Otherwise, I see no other reference here. Kevin as her boss, very nice. Also good that Daniel has already made a cover story for her, to live on. But that's not possible, right?

Yep. He does mean Piper and Leo. Daniel has been doing a lot of research and he's been digging deep. Finding out that one of his old classmates (he went to school with Piper, although they moved before he graduated, so he didn't graduate with her) is a Charmed One wasn't the first thing he learned, but it certainly caught his attention once he did learn it.

And now Cassia is my favorite method of smacking whomever is responsible in the back of the head Gibbs Smack style for what they didn't do for Leo.

---

Chapter Twenty-Five – Time to Go

Emily scrambled into the kitchen. She would have run past Callie Ranard, the day chef, but Callie’s voice called her to a halt. Emily turned around and nibbled on her bottom lip. “Sorry, Callie. It took me almost an hour to get out of the parking lot at the museum. Who knew I’d be trying to leave . . .” Emily stopped seeing Callie’s palm facing her.

“I’m sure it’s a fascinating story,” Callie commented, “but right now, I don’t care. Chris promised he’d still be showing up, but he’s not here yet either and I have to go.” She pulled off her apron. “You’re in charge until he gets here.”

Emily’s eyes widened. “What?!”

“You heard me,” Callie brushed aside Emily’s disbelief. “I suggest you put Ty in charge of the kitchen for the time being. He can cook everything on the menu and he’s been flirting with the new girl.”

“Addison?!” Emily stared at Callie shocked, “but . . .”

“Not Addison,” Callie denied. “The poor little rich girl doesn’t start until Monday. And if she was working tonight, I’d suggest putting her in the kitchen. Have you tried her cooking? Oh, wow!”

“So what new girl?” Emily asked, feeling a bit over whelmed. Chris had better make it there fast.

“Her name is Lindsey,” Callie announced as she reached into Piper’s office and grabbed her purse off a hook. “I’ll let Ty introduce you. She’s sixteen.”

“Why are you putting me in charge?” Emily asked, getting to the biggest question on her mind.

“You just so happen to be the only person on the staff who is here and staying for the night who is over the age of eighteen. Chelsea will be here in an hour, but I’m not waiting that long.” Callie pulled her keys out of her pocket and headed toward the back door. She was gone before Emily could real form any sort of protest.

Emily stared at the door for several second and then the door from the main room swung open and she found herself very eager for Chris to get there.

---

At that moment, Chris was standing outside the Psychiatric hospital with JD. Chris had wanted to leave, but JD had convinced him to stay. It didn’t matter much. He was beginning to not care what JD thought. He needed to leave. It wasn’t so much that he disliked JD or even that he was bored. He just needed to get away from the supernatural for a while now that everyone was safely cured. And he didn’t see why they needed him here. JD hadn’t said much other than to convince him to stay and Cassia didn’t need his help any more.

That was when the phone in his pocket began to ring. It was funny how little he remembered that phone, but today he’d needed it. He pulled it out of his pocket, giving JD an apologetic look.

JD shrugged. Conversation was not necessary. He took the time to close his eyes and checked on his charges.

Chris put his phone to his ear. “Hello?”

“Wow, you answered a lot quicker this time,” Emily commented. “When are you coming here?”

Chris glanced at JD. “Um.”

“Chris, you can’t leave me alone here,” Emily pleaded. “Callie left me here, in charge. I am not prepared for this.”

Chris frowned. “She left you in charge?”

“She did,” Emily confirmed. “Please say you’ll be here soon.”

Chris glanced over at JD, again. “I’m not sure. I’ll try.”

“Everyone is cured, right?” she asked, concerned. “You left the museum hours ago.”

“I know,” he agreed. “But we found others who needed the cure. And then I ran into another person in need of help,” which I couldn’t give her.

“Well, hurry,” she pleaded. “I’m terrified they are going to realize I can’t do this.”

Chris looked down at his wrist watch. “Ten minutes,” he announced, catching JD’s attention. “I will be there in ten minutes.”

JD frowned, “But . . .”

“You know where I’ll be,” Chris reminded him, holding the phone away from his mouth. He put the phone next to his car just quick enough to get the tail end of Emily’s “thank you.” He sighed. “I’ll see you soon, Emily.”

As soon as they hung up he felt JD looking at him.

“Ten minutes?”

Chris shrugged. “It’s clear that you don’t actually need me here. She does.”

JD sighed, but he did nod.

“Since we are just waiting, why don’t you tell me about yourself,” Chris suggested. “How long have you been a whitelighter?”

“Over twenty-one years,” JD said after several seconds. “You can ask Sam about me.”

Chris raised an eyebrow in surprised. “Sam Wilder?”

JD nodded. “He was my whitelighter back in the fifties.”

“Fifties?” Chris blinked. “You don’t look that old.”

JD chuckled. “Like I said, asked Sam. I was born less than a decade after your dad, but I died at twenty-two over a year after you were born.” He glanced behind him as the doors to the psychiatric hospital opened. “Looks like you are going to be returning to work soon.”

Cassia was headed toward them with Daniel. In her hand was a paper bag. When she stepped in front of Chris she smiled. “Sorry to keep you waiting. I’m kind of stunned that Danny’s plan actually worked.”

“Would you quit calling me that,” Daniel wrinkled his nose. “You’re making me feel like a ten-year-old.”

She reached over and chucked his chin. “You’re my little brother. I have to have some way to remind you of that.”

He smiled. “Do you have to leave?”

“In a minute, I’m afraid,” she replied with a sad smile. She turned to look at Chris. “I have something for your dad,” she informed him as she pulled a manila envelope out of the paper bag. “Could you see to it that he gets this?”

Chris frowned as he took the envelope from her. “What is it?”

She allowed herself a mischievous grin. “Take a look.”

Chris opened the envelope and looked inside. He reached in and pulled out a small rectangular piece of plastic. As he looked at it, his eyes widened. “Is this real?”

“Real enough,” she assured him. “It’s all real. I went to the elders when I found out what he was planning and I got permission to pursue this. I think I kind of guilted them into it, but this is something they should have done years ago, so I have no problem with it.”

Chris dropped the item back in the envelope. He pulled out a piece of paper and scanned it. He held it up to her. “I suppose the elders made this?”

She shook her head with a laugh. “No, actually that would be the United States government.”

Chris looked at her surprised. “The United States government? How’d you manage that?”

She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. It’s more legal than the stuff my brother pulled. “At least I went through the proper legal channels.” She have her brother a look of amusement. “He browbeat people using our brother-in-law’s name.” Seeing Chris’ continued hesitation, she urged him, “Go ahead. Bring it to your dad. He needs it.”

Chris peered into the envelope for a second before asking, “You’re sure these are real?”

She nodded. “I’m sure. Don’t worry about it.”

He smiled, still a bit unsure.

“Didn’t you have to get going?” JD asked, defusing the silence.

Chris nodded. Envelope in hand he orbed out.

JD turned around to look at Cassia. “Since I’m sure your time is limited, I’m out of here, too.” With that he orbed out leaving the two siblings alone.

“He’s right,” Cassia commented as she turned to Daniel, “I can’t stay long.”

“I know,” he admitted, a lump in his throat. “If you ever need a place to stay, even if you can’t tell us, you’re welcome at my home. You’re my sister. Even your elders can’t change that.”

Cassia wrapped her arms around him and then got up on her tip toes to give him a kiss. “At least I get the chance to say good-bye this time.”

Daniel hugged her back. “I love you, Cass. So do Ash and Belle.” When he let her go, he pulled out his wallet and looked until he found a picture. He removed the picture and handed it to her. “Keep this. I can get another.”

She took the picture from him and looked at it. The faces of her three siblings, their spouses, and their various children looked back at her. She grinned at Daniel as she tucked it into her pocket. “Thank you. I love you, Danny.” She gave him another hug before she orbed out.

Daniel followed the trail she left with his eyes and gulped. He sighed as he headed toward his car, wishing things had been different.

“The families of most whitelighters never even imagine whitelighters exist let alone know their lost loved one is one,” a teenager boy leaning against Daniel’s car informed him.

Daniel frowned at him. “Who are you?”

“Sorry for being brash with you earlier,” the boy commented. “I needed to make sure she knew what she was getting herself into before she answered you.”

Daniel frowned. “You’re the elder? You look like a twelve-year-old.”

He shrugged. “My name is Kevin Shepherd. And I’m older than I look.”

“Right,” Daniel scowled. “Whitelighters don’t age because they’re dead, so elders don’t either.” He looked up at Kevin and asked. “What moron would put a twelve-year-old in a position of authority?”

Kevin was silent for several seconds. Finally, in a soft voice he replied, “If you must know, I was thirteen when I got this job, but it’s not about my age, which is closer to what you saw earlier than to this. I’m here to give you a choice to make.”

Daniel looked at him curiously. “You mean you aren’t here to erase my memory?”

Kevin shook his head. “Not at present, that is unless of course you want me to.” When Daniel shook his head, Kevin continued with, “Cassia is going to go before the elders, myself included, and we will decide what will happen as a result of this day.” Kevin suspected had she not been under him, then he would not have been included. “To my knowledge nothing like this has ever happened before. Most of the time whitelighters come from families with no magical backgrounds,” Kevin informed him with a curious look. “How’d you find out about all this anyone?”

“Does it matter?” Daniel returned.

“I guess not,” Kevin admitted. “I was just curious.”

“You said something about choices,” Daniel pressed.

Kevin nodded. “Choices. Right. You already know you have the choice of forgetting everything about this.”

“The choices I’ll actually like, please,” Daniel gave him an annoyed look. “Otherwise I am heading home, because this conversation is not worth it.”

Kevin sighed. “I need your word that you will not tell your family that you found her.”

Daniel’s frown deepened. “They know what I’ve been doing. They’ll ask.”

“Put them off,” Kevin suggested.

“Why should I?” Daniel growled.

“Because,” Kevin informed him, indicating up with his chin, “They’ll look on it better if they feel They can trust you. And as I said, most whitelighter’s families never know anything about whitelighters or even magic. It’s highly unlikely that They will let you see her, again, but it might help her, if they know her brother can be trusted. Besides, if they decided to wipe your memory,” he continued, ignoring Daniel’s annoyed look, “it’s better if they don’t have to do it to your whole family or even more people.”

“Why can’t you just let us be?” Daniel snarled. “She can do her job, look out for her charges, and still have a chance to spend time with her family. We won’t tell anyone about this, about magic. I think the fact that we haven’t yet, should tell you that.”

“And if we did, how would you even begin to explain your dead sister showing up?”

Daniel grinned at that and pulled out the same piece of paper he had shown Cassia. “With this.”

Kevin read it and chuckled. “Imaginative, but I don’t think that answers all the questions.”

“Oh, I think I’ve got all those questions covered,” Daniel assured him. “Give me a chance to prove it.”

“This isn’t going to go the way you want it to,” Kevin informed him, feeling sorry for the guy. “Enjoy the knowledge of knowing she’s all right, while you have it.”

“And how long is that?” Daniel wanted to know. He was pretty fed up with the whole thing.

Kevin shrugged. “Time moves differently Up There. It could be weeks or even months.”

“At least mention my idea,” Daniel requested. “I explained it to Cass. She can explain it to you.”

“Nothing will come of it,” Kevin repeated, “but I’ll bring it up.”

Daniel sighed. “I don’t want to forget. Even if I won’t be seeing her, again, I don’t want to forget.”

Kevin nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind. If it helps, I understand.”

“You can’t possibly,” Daniel scowled at him. “When have you ever been in my situation?”

“I haven’t,” Kevin replied. “I’ve been in hers.” Before Daniel could form a reply Kevin disappeared in blue-white lights. He knew Daniel would do what he asked, at least for a while.

Daniel closed his eyes for several seconds. He was not looking forward to Belle’s call asking how his day had been, but if it helped Cass, he’d keep that conversation completely mundane.

---

Chris strode into The Manor. He walked past Becky Davis, a girl who worked as a greeter with the barest of grins.

“Chris, you’re late getting here,” Becky commented.

Chris stopped and looked at her. “Sorry, it’s been a long day. I promised Emily I’d relieve her as soon as I arrived.”

“She didn’t seem all that upset about being in charge,” Becky commented.

Chris gave her a look.

Becky shrugged. “Okay, so I haven’t been in the main room since I started work. Still, how much trouble could she be having? We all like her.”

Chris smiled and made a tiny sound of appreciation. “I’m sure she would be glad to hear that. Has it been busy tonight?”

“A bit,” Becky admitted. “And Ty’s been a pretty distracted all night,” she added with a laugh. “The new girl’s caught his eye.”

“New girl?” Chris questioned. “Mom didn’t mention a new girl.”

Becky shrugged. “Her name’s Lindsey. She’s a waitress.”

Chris raised an eyebrow. “Okay, well, I’d better go meet her. Anything else I should know?”

Becky considered this and shook her head. “Not really. The room's full in there, but I think most everyone has their food, so it’s mostly getting drinks and stuff.”

Chris nodded. “Thanks.” With another quick smile at her he headed into the main part of the restaurant. He headed straight for the kitchen. Inside he found Ty Addington stirring something in a skillet.

Emily was balancing plates on a tray. She looked up at the sound of the door opening. She grinned at the sight of him. “Finally. I was beginning to wonder if you were going to show.”

“I told you I’d be here soon,” he reminded her.

“Is everything all right?”

His smile broadened. “Yes, everything’s all right.”

“Your brother?”

“Probably home by now,” he decided.

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “I don’t check in with him all the time. Once I knew everything was going to be all right over there, I had other things to finish. You hear from your brother?”

She grinned. “Both of them actually. And apparently, they had a long talk with each other. Nate convinced Matt that I don’t need quit my job here.”

“Well, that’s good,” he concluded. “We don’t want to lose you here.” He turned to look at Ty. “Would you like some help with that?”

Emily smiled and headed back into the kitchen with her tray.

Ty shook his head. “Na, I’m fine. You want me back out on the floor after this?”

Chris nodded. “You’re not really supposed to be in the kitchen, so let’s not press our luck. Maybe in a few years when you are older and it’s, legal to have you back here.”

“If it’s not legal to have me work back here, then why is it required that I can cook in order to work here?” Ty wanted to know.

Chris shrugged. “We’ve been over this before. It’s legal to have you do some things in the kitchen, just not all. Once you turn eighteen, you can do most everything, but until then, you are still required to know how to help out in the kitchen when needed. I appreciate you doing this and I’m sorry that you don’t like the rules, but I didn’t make them.”

Ty sighed. He looked at Chris for a moment and made a face. “No, you just break them when it suits you.”

Chris glanced around the kitchen and gave Ty an amused look. “And you don’t?”

Ty looked at him for several seconds before he started to chuckle. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. So back to waiting tables, huh?”

Chris nodded with a smile. “Yep, back to waiting tables. You stick around here, and we’ll get you in this kitchen more often, but you’ve still got to wait until you turn eighteen.”

Ty nodded, letting Chris take over the stove and he changed out of his apron and cleaned up so he could head into the main room to wait tables. “Give me time. I’ll have your place in this kitchen in a few years.”

Chris chuckled. “We’ll see. In the mean time, thanks for helping out.” Once Ty had left the room, Chris turned to the food on the stove. It was so nice to be able to relax and work. Chris chuckled as he appreciated the irony of that thought. Most people didn’t think of work as place to relax.

---

So what do you think is in the envelope that Cassia gave Chris for Leo?

For the next chapter, Seth and Peter are headed home and their world's about to get shaken up.

[Chrisaholic]

My, oh my. All complicated but it could be solved at the end. New things still happen any time.

[StoryGirl83]

May 11, 2017 10:52:17 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

My, oh my. All complicated but it could be solved at the end. New things still happen any time.

They most certainly do. And a new thing is what Seth and Peter are dealing with next.

---

Chapter Twenty-Six – Dinner With Dad’s Girlfriend

Seth looked across the table at his dad’s girlfriend, Danielle Josephs. Her short red hair was groomed to perfection. Her small smooth hands were professionally manicured. But what really stood out wasn’t even her obviously pregnant belly due to eight months of growing a baby. It was the small frown on her rouged lips.

“Derek tells me that you two spent the day together,” Danielle commented. Looking at Peter she asked, “Did you enjoy yourself?”

Seth looked at her surprised. Maybe having a second child was going to have a positive effect on her.

Peter glanced at his brother on his right, before looking at his mother. “I showed Seth how to do an internet search.”

Seth rolled his eyes. “I know how to do a search.”

Peter shrugged. “Right. That’s why I was the one on the computer.”

“I was trying to include you,” Seth returned.

Danielle frowned. “What did you research?”

The two brothers looked at each other. It hadn’t occurred to either that she would actually pursue this line of questioning.

“Unusual stones,” Seth mumbled, wanting to be as vague as possible.

“Ancient mythology,” Peter announced at the same time.

Danielle frowned and glanced over at Derek.

Derek leaned back, a smile on his face. He wasn’t entirely sure what his sons had spent their day doing, but he was sure that they could figure this one out on their own.

“Unusual stones in ancient mythology,” Seth amended.

“I see,” Danielle commented hesitantly. “Did you find anything interesting?” She looked a little like she had forced the question out.

The brothers were silent for several seconds before Peter asked in a quiet voice, “Do you really want to know?” He gave her a hopefully look, because despite not thinking he should tell his mother what they did over the day, he wanted her to be interested.

She sighed. She didn’t really answer. She just turned to Derek and announced, “My mother called last week.”

Seth winced as he watched the downcast look on his little brother’s face.

Derek didn’t respond and waited for her to continue.

“My cousin told her about a wonderful career opportunity and my mother believes I should take it.”

Derek sat very still. He knew what was coming. He didn’t like the way she was broaching it, but he knew what was coming.

“She believes being a mother has been putting a serious strain on my career and that I shouldn’t let that hold me back any more,” Danielle announced.

Seth watched his little brother. The woman was a moron.

“She says I am putting too much into the relationship . . .”

“That’s enough!” Seth demanded, not willing to listen to her hurt his brother any more, even unknowingly as it seem to be. He saw his little brother glaring across the table at her and saw Derek’s white knuckles clutching his fork. Seth sent a glare at his dad. Derek should have been the one to end this conversation. Seth was beginning to wonder if his dad had taken too much abuse from her that he had lost the ability to stand up to her, even when it was his son that was being verbally abused. “You have no relationship with your son. You don’t make any effort. You can’t seriously consider twice monthly dinners where you almost never say anything to him as a relationship. Peter barely knows you.”

Her nostrils flared. “I am leaving for New York at the end of June after this baby is born,” she informed him. “It’s an excellent opportunity and I’m going to take it. I am also inviting the three of you to join me, in order that I might gain a relationship with my son.” She glared back at Seth. “Derek has agreed to consider this. I hope that you will decide to come. Your father tells me you are between jobs right now and I know you are out of school, so that shouldn’t be a problem.”

“No,” Peter announced.

Danielle looked at him surprised. “No?”

“I don’t want to move,” he announced. “I have friends here. I like it here.”

“You’ll like New York,” she informed him. “It’s a beautiful city.”

He shook his head. “No, I won’t.”

“You can’t know that,” she argued.

He ignored her. “And Seth may be out of school, but I’m not. I don’t want to start a new school.”

“You can call your friends from school,” Danielle reminded him. “They’ve made some pretty cool advances in telephone technology since I was a girl.”

He shook his head harder.

“I think you should,” Seth announced in a quiet voice.

Peter turned to look at him. The look on his face was hurt, as if Seth had just betrayed him.

Seth heaved in a deep breath.

“No,” Peter breathed at him, tears threatening his eyes. “How could you even suggest it?”

“If there’s even a chance . . .”

“You can’t really think there is,” Peter protested.

“I don’t know,” Seth admitted. He looked across the table at Danielle. “You have given us a lot to think about. This isn’t a light decision to be making. We won’t be making any decisions tonight.” He looked at his dad and his brother. “Will we?” Ironically, while he thought this might be good for his brother, he suspected it might be disastrous for his dad. The three of them were going to have to do a lot of talking, but before that went anywhere, he needed to talk with his dad. He needed to know if he was being an idiot for even considering that she might genuinely want to change ways.

---

Seth and Peter's part of this story is done. Now, back to the manor with three sisters and Leo.

[Chrisaholic]

Oh my, this is not good. Will the complete family move then? Yet it seems that for Danielle now her job is more important than her family. The impression is there.

[StoryGirl83]

May 15, 2017 9:16:10 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Oh my, this is not good. Will the complete family move then? Yet it seems that for Danielle now her job is more important than her family. The impression is there.

And here Danielle thinks she has been so generous with her time to give her son twice monthly dinners. She would be so stunned to know that you think she thinks her job is more important to her than her family. This situation will play out during the rest of the season.

For now let's go back to a family that's a bit more stable.

---

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Plan to Relax

Piper squeezed Prue in a hug. When she let go, she turned to Paige and gave her a hug, too. “Don’t be strangers. Tell Andy and Henry that we are having a family dinner sometime in the next week.”

“That’s pretty optimistic,” Paige teased.

Piper looked at her surprised. “Optimistic?”

“To think we can all coordinate our schedules enough to gather for one night next week,” she explained with a mischievous laugh.

“Not at all,” Piper shook her head. “Are you telling me that you are busy every night next week?”

Paige made a face. “No, we’re free.”

Piper looked at her surprised. “As in every night?”

Paige wrinkled her nose and nodded. “I’d prefer to avoid school nights seeing as I do have three high school students who have home work and finals quickly approaching, but yes, we’re free every night.”

Piper looked at Prue.

Prue shrugged. “I have a day job. Andy doesn’t have one yet, and the girls aren’t old enough yet, so other than the school factor, we’re free, too.”

“Don’t forget my offer,” Piper commented.

Prue smiled. “I won’t. I’ll discuss it with Andy tonight. We aren’t doing anything until schools out. It’s hard enough to start them in the middle of the school year without changing, again, after only two months.”

“I’ll talk to Ladybug, see if the three of them can join us,” Piper commented, bringing a sad look to the faces of all three sisters as the thought of their missing sister. “I’ll even invite my daughter if anyone can find her.” She paused and looked at her sisters. “Do either of you know where she is?”

Paige shook her head. “She’s called a couple times, but she’s never mentioned where she was. And I can’t sense her, so that won’t help any either.”

Prue sighed. “She’s been very secretive whenever she’s called. Pat thinks she’s hitchhiking across the country, but none of us has any idea where she was.”

Piper frowned. “Sounds about accurate. She hasn’t told me anything specific.”

“She was in Chicago two days ago,” Leo announced as he entered the room. When three sets of eyes turned to him, he told them, “She told me that she was helping Helena Morris prepare for a baby shower Helena is putting together for her sister-in-law.”

“She knows Darryl?” Piper asked surprised. “No, wait. Darryl knows her?”

Leo chuckled and shook his head. “Actually, I don’t think they’ve met. I’m not even sure she knew Darryl’s connection to us until I mentioned it. She met Helena when Mike and Helena where visiting New York two months ago.”

“She was in New York?” Piper asked surprised.

“For almost a week,” Leo confirmed. “She went there after she left St. Augustine.”

“She tells you where she is?” Piper commented, sounding a little hurt.

“Sometimes,” he shrugged. “It just comes up in conversation.”

“Do you have a number to reach her then?” Piper wanted to know.

“She was staying with Mike and Helena,” Leo informed her. “The number is on the fridge. She’ll call if she gets a new number. She wouldn’t accept a cell, so I made her agree to keep me informed of how to reach her. I told you that.”

Piper frowned. “You did?”

He nodded. “And every time she has given me a new number I have changed the one on the fridge.”

Piper looked a bit embarrassed. “I must have missed that.” She looked at her sisters. “I guess I’ll be able to contact Melinda myself.” She gave both of her sisters another hug and let them leave. Once she closed the door behind them, she headed back into the living room. “How was your day before it was hijacked by demons?”

Leo sat down on the couch and sighed. “It started out well. The little girl I was helping seems to be taking her mother’s death well.”

“But?” Piper pressed. “I hear a ‘but’.” When Leo didn’t answer after several seconds she considered the plans his letter had mentioned. “The college?”

Leo nodded. “They wanted some things I should have thought about.”

“Like what?” Piper asked. College admission wasn’t exactly a fond memory.

“Such as school records,” he replied with a sigh. “And even though I went to school, those records will do me no good.” He looked at her sadly. “It doesn’t look like I will get into medical school after all.”

“Did you tell her you didn’t have the records?” Piper asked, sitting down next to him.

He shook his head. “I told her, I’d get back to her, but I won’t. I have nothing to show her.”

“Maybe there’s another way,” Piper suggested, doubtfully.

He sighed. “Maybe.” It sure didn’t look that way.

---

There's a big surprise in the next chapter (although only Leo finds out at that point).

[Chrisaholic]

I bet now comes the envelope in Chris was given. Leo will have a chance to study, and interesting that Melinda keeps in touch with him and not Piper. lol The next surprise will be coming.

[StoryGirl83]

May 15, 2017 10:09:30 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

I bet now comes the envelope in Chris was given. Leo will have a chance to study, and interesting that Melinda keeps in touch with him and not Piper. lol The next surprise will be coming.

Piper has been a bit preoccupied. If she hadn't been, she would have been in contact with Melinda, too. As Leo says, he's been keeping that information available to Piper at all times. And Leo is the one who asked, the one who insisted Melinda would keep him apprised of where she was and would give him a way to be able to contact her. He's not the dad who raised her, not exactly, but there is so much of him that is. It's kind of bittersweet for her, but she's been more comfortable with him because of the relationship she had with the MB version of him. Not that she didn't have one with her mom. It's just that she did live with Leo and with Piper, Piper was frequently away.

---

Chapter Twenty-Eight – Identity

Wyatt was sitting down watching TV. After the day he’d had, he wanted nothing more than to just relax. He started to blink, but stopped. He scooted over on the couch so that he reached up onto the book case and grabbed the remote. He was about to change the channel, when the door opened.

A moment later, Chris entered the front room. “How did things go after I left?”

Wyatt chuckled. “It was just a really strange day. Andrew already knew about magic, which was really odd. And now Nathan’s got a lot to deal with, since he now knows about magic, but I think he can handle it.”

“What about the woman who you were attacking when I found you?” Chris wanted to know.

“Olivia?”

Chris shrugged.

“I don’t think she accepted my explanation,” Wyatt admitted, “but I don’t think she’ll press any harder, mostly because of her own actions. She remembers what she did while she was cursed.”

“And Emily’s brother?” Chris chuckled and shook his head. “Never mind. Emily assured me that he’s fine.”

“He seems to be unwilling to question what actually happened today,” Wyatt commented, deciding to answer anyway. “I like the guy. He seems to have a good head on his shoulders, even if it is a naïve one that doesn’t want to know what’s out there.”

“Anyone else we should worry about?” Chris asked as he reached up onto the book case and pulled out the envelope that Cassia had given him.

Wyatt shook his head. “The police have all sorts of theories, but nothing dangerous I don’t think. And other than being bothered by phone calls trying to find out what was going on inside, Kelly enjoyed the quiet. Since she was the only one inside who actually managed to not know anything that was going on, she’s the least likely to be any trouble. That’s pretty much everyone. How’d it go after you left the museum?”

“Well enough,” Chris assured him. “Mr. Hollis trusts me and Mr. Lawson was willing to try just about anything, so the fact that I was there was pretty much enough for him. Jarod was a slight bit harder, but it was after I helped him that things got weird.”

“Weird?”

Chris nodded. He handed Wyatt the envelope as he sat down.

Wyatt looked down at the envelope and over at the television. He sighed and grabbed up the remote. TV was going to have to wait. He clicked the off button and took the envelope from his brother. “What is it?”

“It’s for Dad,” Chris informed him. “I only looked at a couple of things in there, but I honestly never thought I’d be so thrilled to have a whitelighter tell me what to do.”

“Whitelighter?” Wyatt looked at him surprised. “How’d you manage to run into a whitelighter at a mental hospital . . . or did he come looking for you there?”

“She,” Chris corrected, “and no, she was there already. That demon that switched us around a couple of months ago switched her and some others around about twenty years ago. She wanted my help.”

“And did you help her?”

Chris shook his head. “I tried, but I didn’t really end up being much use to her. Before she left, she gave me this.”

Wyatt pulled out a piece of paper from the envelope and began reading aloud, “This is to certify that Leo James Wyatt . . . is Dad’s middle name ‘James’?”

Chris shrugged. “No idea.”

Wyatt shrugged in return and started over, “This is to certify that Leo James Wyatt, having honorably completed . . .” Wyatt stopped and frowned. “Nineteen-ninety-two?”

“That’s what I read,” Chris agreed.

“She gave dad a forged high school graduation certificate?” Wyatt stared at his brother.

Chris chuckled. “According to her, she didn’t forge anything.”

Wyatt gave his brother a look.

Chris’s grin broadened. “She had the United States government do it for her.”

“And the rest of it is like this?”

“Presumably,” Chris agreed. “I only looked at the birth certificate and the driver’s license . . . did you know Dad doesn’t have one?”

Wyatt shook his head. “Doesn’t he?”

“I don’t think so. At least I remember Mom mentioning having to renew hers, but never Dad and I’ve never seen Dad’s license. Want to join me to bring it to him?”

Wyatt looked down at the diploma in his hand. He chuckled. “Yeah, I want to see Dad react to this. Why’d she do this? Did she say? Or was this the elder’s idea?”

“According to her, it was her idea, but she got permission from the elders at the very beginning.”

Wyatt put the envelope on the coffee table with the diploma on top of it. He looked up at his brother and made a sound for him to continue.

Chris gave him a look. “Are you coming or not?”

Wyatt put the remote on the coffee table and stood up. “Coming, definitely coming. I want to see this.”

Once Chris had stood up he picked up both the diploma and the envelope so that he could put the diploma back in the envelope. “Ready?”

Wyatt nodded.

Chris disappeared in blue and white orb lights. He was quickly followed by his brother. When the reappeared it was in the manor’s living room where their parents were sitting on the couch.

Piper was leaning against Leo. She moved her head enough to look at her sons straight up and down and raised an eyebrow at them.

Not quite sure how else to answer the implied question Chris turned his attention to his dad. “Dad, have you ever met a whitelighter named Cassia?”

Piper frowned at the question.

Next to her Leo sat up a little straighter and considered this. There was silence as Leo tried to come up with and an answer and Piper tried to figure out why that name was familiar.

“She’s not another Natalie is she?” Piper asked, breaking the silence.

“Natalie?” Leo looked at his wife surprised. “I told you that Natalie was just a co-worker.”

“Whose sentences you finished,” Piper reminded him.

“We worked together and Natalie has been gone a very long time,” Leo looked at her confused. “Why would you bring her up now?”

“Because this Cassia is a female whitelighter who the boys think you have reason to know,” Piper announced.

“Actually we don’t . . . do we?” Wyatt looked at his little brother.

Chris shrugged. “I didn’t get the idea that she knew Dad all that well. I’m not even sure she ever met him. I just got the idea that she thought he was done an injustice and she wanted to correct that.” He shrugged. “Considering her own situation, she very well could be in the same situation soon.”

Leo frowned. “She’s in danger of getting her wings clipped?”

“Or having her soul recycled,” Chris confirmed. “This has nothing to do with that, though.”

“Maybe you should . . .”

“Oh!” Leo exclaimed, interrupting Wyatt.

Everyone looked at him surprised.

“Is something the matter, Dad?” Wyatt asked.

Leo shook his head. “No, I just remembered who Cassia is.”

“Then, you do know her?” Piper asked, sounding disappointed.

Leo shook his head. “Not really. I only met her the once, shortly after she died. She’s fairly young. I don’t think it’s even been forty years since she became a whitelighter.”

“Probably not,” Chris agreed. He held out the envelope. “She wanted me to give this to you. She said you’d need it soon.”

Leo took the envelope from him. “I can’t imagine what she’d want to give me. We did only meet that one time and it was a very long time ago.”

“I don’t think it had so much do with you as it did with something you planned to do,” Chris admitted, “but I think you should take it.”

Leo opened it up and pulled out the diploma. He frowned and looked it over. Without saying a word, he handed it to Piper and pulled out another paper. This one was a birth certificate almost identical to the one Piper had altered years before, except this one was whiteout free. Leo handed this to Piper and reached in his hand, again. This time he pulled out a second envelope. His name was written on the front.

While his wife looked over the documents he had handed her Leo pulled out a letter from within the envelope. Silently he read it.

Leo,

I kind of doubt that you remember me. Usually an interrogator has less memory of the interrogation than the person they interrogate. And considering you were a rather kind interrogator there is no blood or gore to make it very memorable to you. My name is Cassia Marie Reynolds. I graduated high school with your wife’s older sister, Prue and Prue’s husband, Andy, among other people. I was, by far, one of the youngest people in the class. As we moved directly after graduation most people I attended school with don’t really know what happened to me.

You met me almost directly after my death in an almost comical car accident. I wouldn’t go using that term for most people, but personally I feel the whole accident was rather bizarre. And the road where it happened was rather strange, too, but I think that’s just because of how the mountain was shaped.

As I am sure that you don’t want to hear how it is that I died driving a car at under fifteen miles per hour, I will attempt to get to the point. Your wife does not know this, and until I am given leave to tell her, cannot know this, but I worked at The Manor for almost twenty years. During that time I became integrated into the lives of many of my co-workers as well as my employer, your wife that is. I have seen how well you handle running P3 and how much you care for your students, both the magical ones at magic school and the nonmagical ones in various other settings. I have seen the results of your lessons with your nephew, Hank, and know how much that means to him.

I also have seen that despite all that, this is not your calling. You, like all whitelighters, past, present, future, were called to help people and you are doing that, but this isn’t the way you were called to help them. It has come to my attention that you wish to go back to medical school. We both know that won’t be easy. As far as I know, you haven't studied medicine since 1942, eighty-five years ago. It’s changed a bit since then. While I’m not in contact with her, my oldest sister, Ash, is the chief physician at a hospital in Sacramento, so I have a little bit of knowledge about that.

Then, there’s the age issue. Forgetting your actual age of one-hundred-and-three and your physical age of somewhere around forty, the age you portend to be is almost fifty-three. No one really gets into medical school at fifty-three. It’s not as if you can assure them that you will even live through all those years of college and internship. To be fair though, no one can actually assure them that, and your real age aside, you’re actually not that old, especially your physical age.

Considering you plan to attend the local college for at least the premed, I know at least three people there, nonmagical so don’t worry about my influencing them with knowledge of who you are, who would love to have you there. One of them, I admit, will be rather influenced by whom he believes you are. He would never have been born if it had not been for “your grandfather”. His own grandfather would have died the same day you did had you not been there. I believe you met several years ago at the reunion.

With those influences in place, all you need is proper identification. I know that Piper made some alterations to your birth certificate and you have used it to get various documents made, such as a passport. I decided to get you a whole new set of documents, some are more or less duplicates of stuff you already had . . . but now your birth certificate is registered with the government and can actually be verified if someone bothers to check. I wasn’t sure if you had a driver’s license, but I couldn’t find one, so I got one made for you . . . I hope you don’t mind. I took the test for you.

Leo reread the last sentence and chuckled. He didn’t know why she was so determined to do this, but it amused him that she had gone to the trouble of taking a driving test for him. He reached into the envelope and pulled out the driver’s license. Like the birth certificate, it listed his birth date as May 6, 1974. At that point it had been fifty years since his birth and thirty-two since his death. Since it was also the date he had been using since he married Piper, he figured it worked well enough.

He looked back at the letter and continued reading.

I know the circumstances, as much as most anyone who bothers to pay attention Up There, behind how you ended up clipping your wings. I cannot imagine being given the choice between my family and my charges. It’s been almost thirty-nine years since I’ve played any part in the lives of my family . . . well, other than that one time, but I actually didn’t realize he was my nephew, so I think I can be forgiven that. I think it must have been very hard, but at the same time I guess you kind of eased into that situation and things had changed in ways I don’t think anyone could have predicted.

I want you to have the chance to become the doctor you were meant to be and I think when it became clear that you were not going to be a whitelighter again, certainly not soon, perhaps never again, they should have done something to ease things for you and so I told them.

Among the items here are various phone numbers to “verify” the information held within them. These are all valid numbers of people who either know you or at the very least, know of you. Many of them are former charges of yours, mostly magical, but there are a few of them who are nonmagical, future whitelighters who know about magic or people who have come in contact with you through your wife’s work as a Charmed One. If you ever feel your world is rather small, feel free to pull out these numbers and give someone a call. All of them know enough about you that you don’t have to pretend anything.

There is another matter of which I wish to apprise you. It is more on the track of who am and little to do with you. This is another thing I need to you refrain from mentioning to your family for the time being. As things stand right now, I rather doubt I will be able to do much about it right now. If things do not change soon, though, I may have to give in. Until about two months ago I was in the body of a young woman whose face you actually would recognize. It was as her that I worked for your wife at The Manor and it was as her that I did my best to watch my charges despite a lack of my whitelighter powers.

That was enough while magic was gone, but as the time grew closer when it would be returning, I knew my powers would be needed. Things happened that I had to deal with and by the time they were dealt with your family had encountered the demon responsible and not only fix the problems he had given you, but put the five of us back in our own bodies. Thank you for that. That has brought with it another set of problems, but I will find a way to deal with them in time.

In the mean time I have another whitelighter helping me with my charges. As he does not want to be named, I’ll leave his name out of this. Unfortunately in the turmoil of everything getting put back and the problem that has caused me getting used to having my powers again and dealing with . . . issues, not everything has gone as it should. One of my charges was in mortal danger after a demon attack and nearly died. I was in a situation where I could not leave without exposing magic and by the time I managed to get a message to someone, all he could do was stand by and watch for the most part. He said he was able to get close enough to my charge once and was only able to heal my charge for about a second before he had to stop because of the potential for magical exposure.

I have a feeling you wouldn’t have cared much at that moment in time about magical exposure, because the charge in question was your son, Wyatt. And that is what you must not tell your wife or family. I have heard enough to be weary of how I tell them that I am their whitelighter. No, I am not your wife’s whitelighter, but she does have one. Assuming I get out of here and everything works out all right, I will tell them myself as soon as possible. I was assigned to be Wyatt whitelighter when he was born. Since he was your son, some Up There felt you could not be objective. However, I was also told for the most part not to interfere, unless absolutely necessary, until or unless he, and any other of his generation, began to fight evil and protect the innocent. There were occasions when that did happen, but for the most part I am convinced that those who assigned me this task were blinded idiots . . . perhaps you shouldn’t mention that part to anyone. I rather like being a whitelighter and helping my charges. I’m just a little mad at them right now, because they refuse to help me in this situation. Even my boss, for I cannot call him my mentor . . . he’s got less experience than I do with these things . . . has been ignoring me in this and usually I can count on him to help me out.

At best you have a whole lot to think about and a great deal more tools to use in order to get into medical school when the time comes. At worst, I have bored you out of your mind and you are going to hunt me down for an apology. If that is the case, sorry . . . well, not really, but I can make a good show of it.

Best of luck,

Cassia

Leo folded the letter back up and put it into the envelope. He looked up and saw that three sets of eyes were on him.

“Are you going to share?” Piper wanted to know.

Leo shook his head. “Not for now. Later I will tell you about the letter, but not yet.” He looked at his sons. “Thank you for this. She’s right, I will need it. It was good of her to do this and quite a surprise.”

Piper opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it. She would talk to him later. She stood up and walked over to Wyatt. She surprised him by pulling him into a hug. “I’m glad you’re all right.”

Wyatt hugged her back. “Thanks, Mom. Chris said you made the potion I needed.”

“I made it,” she agreed, “but Chris and that odd witch girl got the ingredients we needed. I don’t know when I might have found what I needed, let alone actually located the ingredients if it hadn’t been for her. Do you two need something to eat?”

The two brothers looked at each other and shook their heads. “Thanks, but we’re good,” Wyatt assured her. “I think right now, bed sounds good. I was going to watch some TV, but it’s been a really long day.”

“Be careful, boys,” Piper cautioned them.

“Don’t worry, Mom,” Chris suggested.

Wyatt chuckled. “As if that ever works. Love you, Mom, Dad,” he told his parents before he orbed out.

Chris hugged both of his parents before he said he own good-byes and orbed back to the apartment. It had been a very long day and he thought he might want to go to bed, too.

---

Just two more chapters in this story. And the next one is actually a different story (unlike the last two).

Since it's not Paige, who do you think is the whitelighter to the Charmed Ones? And why do you think they still have one after all this time? And why don't they know?

[Chrisaholic]

That's good to hear now that Leo will have an identity in the real world. That all will be good for him in the end, even though it came from a totally different source here.

[StoryGirl83]

May 19, 2017 14:14:17 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

That's good to hear now that Leo will have an identity in the real world. That all will be good for him in the end, even though it came from a totally different source here.

He needed that so very much, so I wanted to give it to him and it seemed like the kind of thing Cassia, having spent so much time with him over the last decade (or technically with his wife, since she worked at the restaurant) would think of.

---

Chapter Twenty-Nine – Big Brothers Bite

Emily shut the front door behind her and hung her purse on the coat rack that hung by the door. Dad had said her brothers had decided to stay after dinned and if he didn’t know better he’d think they planned to ambush her. Even though she was pretty sure they actually did plan to ambush her, she hadn’t said so on the drive home. It was bad enough that her brothers knew about strange things going on around Chris and his brother. She didn’t need her parents questioning it, too.

She tipped toed past the family room where she saw the tops of her brothers’ heads as they watched TV. Dad had said Mom had gone to bed early . . . which meant her brothers had probably won whatever argument had gotten them invited over for dinner in the first place. Mom didn’t like to lose.

“Freeze,” Nate’s voice called out just when Emily thought she was home free. “Get in here, Emily Anne. We need to talk.”

Never a good sign, she decided. “Can it wait? I just got home from work. I smell like food.”

“Smelling like food’s not actually that bad of a thing,” Matt commented. “Remember when I used to come home smelling like cigars?”

Emily grinned. “Mom and Dad were convinced that you were smoking and you wouldn’t tell them what was really going on, because you were trying to surprise them.”

“Who’d have thought trying to earn enough money to send them to Fiji for their anniversary would get me grounded,” he retorted.

“Well, you could have told them what you were doing,” she pointed out. “They wouldn’t have known why.”

“Yeah, but that was before they realized Matt wasn’t just playing around with magic,” Nate reminded her. “They still thought the magic tricks he did were cute, but a total waste of time.”

“To be fair, he hadn’t actually made any money before that point,” she shot back. “Putting on shows for the neighborhood kids isn’t going to cover the costs of supplies no matter how good you are.”

“I remember how furious they were when Matt quit his job as a bag boy at the supermarket,” Nate chuckled. His face fell as he realized what she was doing. “This isn’t about Matt though. Get in here, Em.”

She sighed. Behind her, she heard the door close, indicating their dad had entered the house. She entered the room and stopped about a foot inside.

“Close the doors behind you,” Nate directed her.

Emily sighed. She pushed shut the doors and headed over to the middle of the room. She plopped down onto an empty arm chair and looked over at her two older brothers. “Okay, want to tell me what’s going on?”

“I think that’s our line,” Nate commented. “Matt may not have an elegant way of putting it and he’s way off base about Wyatt Halliwell’s sanity, but despite his assurances, I’m not sure that you are safe around him. Today was one of the most frightening, if not the most frightening experiences of my life. I know it could have been worse and I know that Wyatt Halliwell knew what was going on out there.”

“Haven’t you beaten this topic to death?” Emily protested as she looked at her brothers.

“You’re our little sister,” Nate reminded her. “There’s no such thing.”

“Nate’s more or less convinced me of Wyatt Halliwell’s sanity,” Matt admitted, “but he’s still got me worried.”

“What makes you think what happened today has anything to do with Wyatt?”

“I got the idea that this was nothing new to him,” Nate informed her.

“So he has a cool head under pressure,” Emily retorted. “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“It also implies that he’s attracted to this sort of thing,” he returned.

“Well, it’s not like I’m dating the guy,” she shrugged. “I just work with his brother.” She glared at Matt.

“I have retracted my objection to your job,” he announced. “Right now I want to know what your relationship is with the Halliwell brothers.”

Emily’s glare deepened at she said in short clipped words, “I. Work. With. Chris. How is that a hard concept to grasp?”

“Because your first instinct was to trust them,” Nate reminded her. “You’ve only known them for two months and Wyatt claims he barely knows you.”

“He does,” she agreed. “Chris I do know. He’s a nice guy and, yes, I trust him.”

“With your life?” Matt asked, pointedly.

“If necessary,” she agreed without hesitation.

“Well, I don’t want it to be necessary,” Matt protested.

“I don’t either,” she informed him, “but today I had to trust Wyatt with Nate’s life and Wyatt came through.”

“Do you know what actually happened today?” Nate wanted to know.

She shook her head. “No, I can’t say that I do. I know enough to know that you had the best possible people handling it. I won’t deny that I was worried, but I knew if anyone could come through, they could. If you don’t trust them, trust me.”

There was silence from both of her brothers.

She sighed. Turning to Nate she asked, “Nate, would you say that you are an expert at what you do?”

He shook his head. “No, not really.”

That hadn’t exactly been the answer she had been looking for. “Well, then would you say that you are very good at what you do?”

“I’d admit that,” he agreed.

“So I should trust you with my finances?” she pressed.

He chuckled. “Last I checked, you did trust me with your finances.” Those finances didn’t amount to much since she was two months into her first paying job.

“Exactly,” she grinned. Turning to her other brother she asked, “And, Matt, would you say that you’re an expert in your field.”

“There’s always room to grow,” he admitted, “but I’d say I’m high up there.”

“And you’d say that I should trust you . . . with my life . . . when I assist you at shows?”

“You’re my sister,” he reminded her, sounding a little offended. “I wouldn’t let you come to harm.

“But I should trust your ability?” she pressed.

“Of course,” he told her. He sounded even more affronted as he added, “I know what I’m doing.”

“And so does Wyatt,” she informed them both. They didn’t need to know what it was Wyatt knew how to do to understand that he was good at it. “You’d agree with that. Right, Nate?”

“Yes,” Nate nodded. “I don’t know if I want to know what was going on out there, though.”

“You probably don’t,” Emily admitted.

“But yes, he did know what he was doing,” Nate continued, “or he sure gave a good show of it.”

“He knew,” she assured both of them. Giving them both a pleading look she asked, “Trust me?”

Matt sighed and didn’t say a word. He didn’t like the direction this conversation had taken.

“Yes,” Nate agreed reluctantly. He didn’t like it much, but he was convinced that it was better to have her around an expert than a rooky and Wyatt clearly seemed like the former.

Having Nate’s word, Emily directed all her attention and her older brother. “Matt?”

Matt nodded silently.

“Good,” she smiled at them. She knew they still weren’t quite ready to admit their little sister had grown up, but they were on their way and she definitely liked the idea of being allowed to forge her own path in a direction very different than that either of her brothers had taken.

---

One more chapter after this one and then on to the current story.

[Chrisaholic]

Emily can be very persuasive if need be. She trusts the Halliwell brothers and so should her brothers trust her judgement. Wyatt and Chris have experience in that field while protecting the Innocents. Yeah, well, one problem down for Emily! lol

[StoryGirl83]

May 20, 2017 7:37:13 GMT -5 Chrisaholic said:

Emily can be very persuasive if need be. She trusts the Halliwell brothers and so should her brothers trust her judgement. Wyatt and Chris have experience in that field while protecting the Innocents. Yeah, well, one problem down for Emily! lol

Yep. She needed that.

---

Chapter Thirty – Time For Rest

“Our landlord was here,” Chris commented as he entered the bathroom to brush his teeth.

“Huh?” Wyatt looked at him confused, toothpaste foam dripping out of his mouth.

“Apparently, our pipes are leaking down into the apartment below us,” Chris explained. “He was acting a little strange though. Ever noticed that?”

“Other than the fact that I’ve never heard him call you ‘Chris’, not really,” Wyatt admitted. “Give him a break. He’s got to be one hundred. I can’t believe he’s still involved in these apartments.”

“I don’t think he’s quite that old,” Chris commented, “but I thought it was worth mentioning about the pipes. He’ll be in here with a plumber, probably sometime tomorrow. Be careful not to leave anything out about magic. We don’t want to expose magic.”

“I’m not the technophobe,” Wyatt retorted, though the tooth paste dripping down his cheeks took any bite he might have intended out of his words.

“I’m not a technophobe,” Chris protested as he looked over at his brother. Seeing the toothpaste, he bit his inner lip to stop himself from laughing. When he had controlled the impulse he continued. “I just prefer to have a hard copy in front of me over . . .”

“Having it all stored in one place where it’s unlikely to get lost,” Wyatt finished, giving his brother an amused look.

Chris gave him an annoyed look back. Trying to change the subject he asked, “What do you think was in the letter Dad read?”

Wyatt shrugged, not really all that interested. “If we needed to know, Dad would have told us.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Chris replied reluctantly. He really did want to know what was in there.

Silence followed as both brothers brushed their teeth.

Breaking the silence, Chris asked, “Think the demons can leave us alone for a few days?”

“What am I? Aunt Phoebe?” Wyatt gave his little brother a look. He pushed closed the medicine cabinet where he kept his toothbrush and toothpaste. “I can’t tell the future.”

“Well, if there aren’t any demons tomorrow, what are you doing?” Chris wanted to know.

“Sleeping until noon,” Wyatt retorted. “I’m exhausted. Now go away.”

“Anyone ever tell you that you’re rude?” Chris asked before he poured some water in his mouth to rinse out the tooth paste.

“You most likely,” Wyatt returned. He stripped off his shirt as he left the bath room and headed for his room. Without looking he tossed it in the general direction of the laundry hamper, missing by several feet.

Chris rolled his eyes as he left his toothbrush out and headed after his brother. He didn’t answer for several seconds. When he did talk, his voice was serious. “Any residual effects from the curse?”

“Other than the knowledge that instead of protecting Olivia I almost killed her,” Wyatt informed him, a haunted look in his eyes. He sank down onto his bed and bowed down his head with a sad sigh. “I’m supposed to protect her, protect all of them.”

“You do,” Chris argued. “You did. You didn’t infect any of them. When each of them was in danger of death, you saved them. And you got Nathan at least to hold on with his own power. I’m not saying you had an easy day. I’m not even denying the fact that in the end you snapped, but you know what, if you hadn’t been there, they’d all be dead, probably Emily’s brother and that other co-worker of yours, too.”

Wyatt didn’t answer at first, but he did look up. With an odd look on his face he said, “It occurs to me that you are a very contradictory person, little brother. Can’t you even make up your mind about whether you think I’m a failure or some big hero?”

Chris chuckled as he plopped down on the bed next to Wyatt. “That one’s easy. You’re neither.”

“Come again?” Wyatt looked at him confused.

“You’re my big brother,” Chris announced. “That means you are held on the highest pedestal that I can find and I naturally expect you to never do as good at anything as I do, because I am the younger brother.”

“Is that supposed to make sense?” Wyatt asked, a smile tugging at his lip.

Chris shook his head. “Not really. It’s supposed to make you smile.”

Wyatt snorted.

Chris gave him a big grin. “I see its working.”

“You are so weird,” Wyatt commented as he pulled Chris into a headlock and messed up Chris hair.

Chris wiggled out and attempted to catch Wyatt in a headlock.

Unfortunately for him, Wyatt was ready and jumped out of the way. “Uh uh.”

“You started it,” Chris reminded him.

“You really up for a wrestling match?” Wyatt asked.

Chris scowled. “Good night, Wyatt. Tomorrow, you’re mine.”

“Not until after noon,” his brother reminded him.

Chris stuck out his tongue and left the room.

Wyatt smiled as he closed the door after his brother. He quickly finished getting ready for bed and slipped beneath the covers, very glad that the day was done. As he drifted off to sleep he tried not to think of curses, demons, or anything magical. He just wanted a deep uninterrupted sleep.

He thought he was tired now, but he didn’t really know what tired was. If he only knew what was coming, he wouldn’t have been so quick to say that. What was about to happen was going to make this day seem like a vacation.

THE END

If you'd like to see what happens next just click here and enjoy. If you want to see an additional scene that occurs during The Demon of Confusion that connects to this story, keep reading.

[StoryGirl83]

This series of scenes actually takes place during "The Demon of Confusion". Considering prior to this story you have not met any of the people in it other than Kevin (and JD, but that was in Charmed), it wouldn't make sense to post it there. As I did with Piper, Leo, Wyatt, and Chris, here is a chart to help you tell who is who.

Soul.................................................Body.......................Power
Cassia Reynolds..................................Jen (15 – 36)...........Alex (none)
Jennifer “Jen” Kingsley (Owens).............Alex (7 – 28)............JD (whitelighter – disabled)
Alexis “Alex, Jelly” Porter (Owens)..........JD (22 – 22).............Ron (none)
Jonathan David “JD” Williams.................Ron (35 - 56)...........Cassia (whitelighter)
Ronald “Ron” Ryans.............................Cassia (17 – 17)........Jen (none)

So basically JD, who is in Ron's body, is the only one with powers. And since one of those is glamouring, he did that a lot. This situation with Jen, Alex, and Josh is complicated . . . But for record's sake, Alex has met Jen, Ron, and Cassia, but she mostly deals with JD. And Jen's met Ron, JD, and (obviously) Alex, but she mostly deals with Cassia. Ron avoids all of them. Alex has never met Josh. Keep in mind you are dealing with people who after twenty years have long had cause to wonder if they would ever return to their own bodies.

Oh, and technically the nickname "Jelly" is exclusively Jen's, but since she used it only while looking like Alex, it is listed this way.

The following scenes are what happens when Alex, Jen, Cassia, JD, and Ron figure out that they are in their own bodies once more. In addition there are two elders (Kevin and another who will eventually be revealed, but this is the elder that rescued Hank, and yes, he's up to something) and Josh, Jen's husband.

Oh, and when it comes to Kevin, he tends to switch between his no effort age (the age he was when he became an elder, thirteen or so), his comfort age (late teens, early twenties), and his authoritative age (also known as his actual age, which is late thirties). In this batch of scenes he uses his comfort age, because that's what he usually uses around the whitelighters under him . . . unless they are in trouble.

Anyway, enjoy.

---

Alex wasn’t sure what it was that actually woke her. She had been shooting pool with Denny and Jess. Mikayla had been draping herself all over Jess, something that never failed to make Alex want to roll her eyes. However, when it came to pool, Alex took every advantage she could. For almost seventeen years she had been perfecting her game of pool. As far as Jess and Mikayla were concerned, Alex was some newbie that Denny found playing pool against a pool sharp, and playing badly.

The truth of the matter was that Denny had found her two years early beating the pants off her mentor, JD. Denny had been highly impressed and decided to take her under his wing. Denny though she was some college age kid. He wasn’t far off, she supposed. Seven or eight years wasn’t all that bad. Of course given a few more years and she’d have to leave . . . again. It was getting rather tiresome. Being stuck in JD’s eternally twenty-two-year-old body sucked for more reasons than just his gender.

When she had first found herself in the body of a young man more than three times her age, Alex had been seven. Things had gone downhill from there. She had tried to find some way to get into her family’s life, but nothing had seemed to work. Then, JD pointed out that it probably was a good thing, since she wasn’t going to be aging as long as she was in his body. At nine she had just glared at him. What did he know?

Unfortunately a lot as Alex learned over the two decades she had known him. She tried to concentrate on how she had ended up in bed. She remembered being in Denny’s pool room and then a then she’d felt dizzy. That had to be it. She’d felt dizzy and then she was lying prostrate in a bed. There was no memory of falling, but she supposed she must have fainted or something.

She opened her eyes and found herself staring into the dark brown eyes of a complete stranger. Her own eyes widened as she scrambled away. “Get away from me,” she squealed and then her eyes formed saucers as she realized her voice had completely changed.

The man the eyes belonged to looked at her worried. “What’s wrong sweetheart?”

“Sweetheart?!?” She stared at him stunned as she pulled covers around herself on the side of the bed. The pieces began to click together in rapid succession and she gulped for breath. “Oh my word! You’re Josh. You think . . .” she heaved in several deep breaths. “I’m me, again.” She looked down at herself covered by sheets and blankets and took in several deep breaths. “Oh my word! Oh my word!” Her heart was pounding as she looked up at him. “Get out! Get out! Get out!”

Josh looked at her confused. “Jen?”

“I’m. Not. Jen!” she informed him in no uncertain terms.

Josh frowned as realization dawned on his face. With disbelief written all over his face, he whispered, “Are you Alex?”

The only response she gave him was a quick jerking nod of her head.

“Where’s my wife?” Josh asked, looking around in concern. “Where’s Jen?”

“I don’t know,” Alex informed him as she backed away. “Call Cassia’s number, if I’m back in my body, maybe Jen is, too.”

Josh nodded and pulled open a dresser. “Clothes are in there,” he told her as he grabbed his cell phone off his dresser and headed out of the room, leaving Alex alone to dress and come to grips with what had happened.

Josh was only two steps out of the room when his cell rang.

---

Jen looked around uncertain. Only a moment before, she had been half awake in bed with Josh. Now she wasn’t sure where she was. She was standing, but she hadn’t been expecting to be standing so she’d almost tumbled over. Glancing around, she realized that the room actually was familiar.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked around. “This makes no sense,” she mumbled as she looked down at the clothes she now wore. They were oddly out of her normal taste and the fact that she wore anything was peculiar. She hadn’t been when she’d been in bed. The only thing that was familiar, besides the vague sense that she should know this room was the gentle bump of her belly where her baby lay.

With a sigh she looked around for a phone. She was halfway down the hall when she passed a mirror. It took a second or two for what she saw to sink in and cause her to freeze. She took two steps backward and looked into the mirror. Instead of the face she had grown accustomed to seeing, she saw her face, her real face. As she tried licked her suddenly dry lips, she glanced down at her belly. Sure enough, her baby was still there. Somehow she had been transferred back to her own body and miraculously her baby had come with her. Oddly enough the clothes seemed to still fit. Who was she to question magic?

Her mind followed that to an obvious conclusion, one she didn’t like. If she was here, that meant Alex was where she had been . . . in bed . . . with Josh.

Jen ran down the hall and checked in the bedroom. There were no visible phones. She started pulling open drawers on the vanity and then she thought to check her pocket.

Finding the phone there, where it had been all along, she punched in the familiar number of Josh’s cell.

“Jen?” Josh’s voice asked a moment later as he answered.

“I’m me, again.”

His sigh of relief was obvious even over the phone. “Are you okay, honey?”

“Yeah,” she assured him. She didn’t say anything more as blue white orbs filled the room and turned into a young man she didn’t recognize in his late teens, early twenties. “I’ll get back to you. Love you, sweetheart.”

Her eyes widened as the young whitelighter jerked back as if shot. She saw pain in his eyes that was veiled so fast she almost convinced herself it was never there.

“Cassia, I tried calling, but you didn’t answer,” he informed Jen.

Jen gulped and didn’t say a word. Who was this guy? He clearly knew what had happened to them, but she guessed that wasn’t all that surprising. Cassia wouldn’t have had need to keep it from the people she knew.

“Just because you don’t have your powers,” he continued, not yet noticing that this wasn’t Cassia. “doesn’t mean you are allowed to skip staff meetings.”

Jen barely kept a full belly laugh from escaping her. Staff meetings? Was he serious?

“It’s not as if you need to be able to orb to get to them,” he added. “I have them at my apartment for good reason . . . grant you it’s mostly so that Kari can provide the snacks almost no one has to eat, but does anyway to be polite.”

Jen blinked. Who was Kari?

“That’s not the point though,” he rushed to assure her. Jen was beginning to wonder if there was one.

“I’m not Cassia,” Jen interrupted before he could say anything else. It would likely be interesting to see what he was talking about, but she decided it would be better to tell him now.

He looked at her. He stood very still, breathing slowly. Several seconds passed before he said, “Oh. My apology, Mrs. Owens. I’m glad to see you are back to normal. I’d best be finding Cassia.”

Without so much as an introduction, he disappeared again in blue and white orbs. Jen took a second to absorb what had just happened, but only a second and then she decided she had more important things to deal with right now . . . like letting her husband know that she was still on the line.

---

Cassia frowned as she looked away. One second she had been in the apartment where she had lived for the last seventeen years and the next she was in the middle of a large courtyard. It was almost as if she had orbed without orbing.

She stood still trying to take in her surroundings, but she couldn’t concentrate. Pain radiated from her wrists. She looked down and her eyes widened. Blood streamed from straight cuts across them. She hadn’t cut her wrists. And then she saw them slowly healing. A whitelighter couldn’t heal themselves, not when it was something deadly to them like a darklighter’s arrow. Someone who was part whitelighter couldn’t heal themselves at all . . . everything was potentially deadly to them.

Humans, normal humans like she had been for over twenty years, couldn’t heal anyone, not others and certainly not themselves. As the cuts on her wrists completely closed up and all that was left was the blood that had bled out of them, Cassia realized that everything had changed. She wasn’t a normal human any more. She was a whitelighter, again. A smile spread on her lips as she took in the news. It felt good to be a whitelighter, again.

---

Kevin watched Cassia hidden from her and everyone else by a cloak of invisibility. He would have taken a step forward, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. He looked over to see another elder standing next to him.

“You shouldn’t,” the other elder recommended.

“She’s my responsibility,” Kevin reminded him. “I need to talk to her.”

“No, you need to avoid talking to her,” the other elder argued. “She needs to be here for a while?”

“What?! Are you nuts?” Kevin turned to stare at him. “Why would I leave her here?”

“You’ll see,” the other elder assured him. “In time you will see. She’s got her powers back. This will give her the chance to get used to that before she gets back into her routine. Trust me.”

“Trust you?!” Kevin stared at him, annoyed. “One of my whitelighters is stuck in a mental institution and you’re telling me to not even speak to her.”

“She needs to find a way to get out without out help,” the other elder informed him. “This isn’t something I am deciding off the top of my head. Kevin, the council of elders has spoken on this. She defied them and clipping her wings . . . isn’t exactly a punishment for her.”

“So they are punishing her for not making a living woman into a whitelighter,” Kevin formulated in disbelief. “You want me to just leave her here.”

The other elder nodded. “It is the will of the council, but it’s more than that. She needs to be here. I can’t explain it, but she needs to be here.”

Kevin shook his head. “I can’t just do that. What if her charges need her and she can’t get away from here. We can’t leave them vulnerable.”

“She can always get a message to you,” the other elder reminded him. “And you can pass that message on to another whitelighter who can help them out. Most of her charges should be okay for a few months and . . .”

“A few months?!” Kevin shook his head. “No. Not a chance.”

“A few months is nothing compared to the two decades she spent in Jennifer Kingsley’s body,” the other elder reminded him. “She’ll be fine and at least until she’s out of there . . . so will her charges.”

Kevin looked across the yard at where Cassia was and then back at the other elder.

“Go find JD,” the other elder suggested. “I’ll explain things to Cassia.”

“JD?” Kevin asked surprised. “Why JD?”

“Because you need to find out where this asylums missing mental patient is,” the other elder informed him, “and JD is your best bet at figuring out where to look. We need to figure out how to deal with him. I’m not concerned about the girls. They seem to have acclimated themselves to everything that has happened as best they can and I think they understand enough about magic and why it needs to be kept secret that they won’t expose it. Now, go find JD.”

---

JD heaved in a deep breath as he took in the scene in front of him. Moments before, he’d been in the park feeding pigeons and now, he found himself in a small pool room. He recognized one of the room’s occupants as Alex’s friend, Denny, but there was no reason he should have found himself here. He watched them as they each took their time setting up their shots. Denny made three shots before he missed.

“Your turn, JD,” a young woman around twenty informed him.

My turn? he thought as he looked frowning at the pool table. He hadn’t played very much pool, not in this century anyway.

“JD?” the young woman waved a hand in front of his face. “Are you here?”

He frowned and looked around him. Something was very wrong here. Other than other whitelighters, what few elders he communicated with, and the two girls, Alex and Jen, little as he saw Jen, no one had called him JD in over two decades. Most of his charges didn’t even know he existed let alone know he was their whitelighter.

“JD?” Denny walked over to him. “Is everything all right?”

JD gulped and shook his head. “Sorry, I need some air. Do you mind?”

The young woman shook her head. “No, that’s okay. You do look kind of pale.”

That’s because I’m dead, he thought to himself, even if it was entirely inaccurate. His being dead didn’t affect his skin tone in the least. “Thanks,” was all he said as he headed out of the room and up the stairs. Once he’d reached the top of the landing he tried to orb out. Try seemed to be the key word, because nothing happened.

“You okay, kid,” Kevin’s voice asked from behind him.

JD turned around and looked at him. In number of years actually spent living, or whatever one could call the whitelighter facsimile of living, they were close in age. Kevin still lost out to him by a few years. And if you counted the number of years since birth, JD beat him by over half a century. In fact the only way Kevin won was if you counted only the years Kevin had been an elder against the number of years JD had been a whitelighter. Even then, Kevin only barely won.

“How’s it feel to have your own skin back?” Kevin asked with a grin.

“It would feel better if I also had my powers back,” JD informed him.

Kevin shrugged. “Done. Anything else?”

“Nothing I can’t handle,” JD assured him.

“Good,” Kevin informed him. “I need to locate Ronald Ryans.”

JD glanced down the stairs. “How are you at pool?”

“What?”

“I can get Ron where he needs to go,” JD informed him, “but I haven’t the slightest clue how to deal with the three people down there. One of them is a friend of Alex’s or at least Alex in my body. I suspect Alex would like to get back that friendship. The other two, I don’t know. You can help by dealing with them. Find Alex and get her some introductions. Please.”

Kevin nodded. “Be careful.” With a smile on his face Kevin altered his appearance so that he went from looking like a nineteen-year-old version of himself to looking like JD. “Be careful,” he repeated before he headed down the stairs.

JD grinned and orbed back to the park.

---

Ron looked around himself suspiciously. He had been wishing himself out of that asylum for so long he wasn’t ready to believe this was real. They didn’t understand his need to die. How could they? When he tried to explain that he was trapped in the body of a teenage girl who never aged, they just thought he was even more crazy. What sane man wanted to be stuck in the body of an eternal teenage girl? None of it had made sense. He’d tried making her look like a man, but nothing he did worked. He reached back an angry hand to deal with the try and pull out the offending long hair. He wasn’t allowed around scissors and they hadn’t let him cut that hair since he’d arrived. It was nearly to his shoulders . . . or her shoulders as it were.

Except when he reached back there was nothing there. He reached a little higher and his wrist scratched against a five o’clock shadow. Startled he moved his hand down a little lower and rubbed his hand against the stubble. He just sat there in wonderment for several minutes as he felt his face and his hair.

If this was real and permanent, then maybe he didn’t have to die quite yet. It wasn’t as if he really wanted to die. He just couldn’t stand being that stupid girl any more.

“She’s not stupid, you know,” an unwelcome voice informed him from behind.

Ron turned around to glare at JD. He rose off the bench he’d found himself sitting on and stepped over it.

JD watched him. He opened his mouth to speak and that’s when Ron leapt at him.

Ron started pummeling him. “You did this to me!” He yelled.

JD, aware that they were gaining an audience knew he couldn’t us magic, which meant no orbing. He pushed up on Ron and tried to roll out from under him. It didn’t work so well.

JD grunted as a fist met with his throat. It was good thing he didn’t actually have to breathe. He managed to avoid the next blow and with a stronger shove he managed to move Ron enough to roll out of the way. “What’s the big idea?”

“You can’t just fix this and pretend nothing happened,” Ron yelled at him as he threw another punch.

JD ducked it. “I’m not trying to. But at least it’s a start. I understand . . .”

“You understand nothing,” Ron informed him as he leapt at JD, again.

JD side stepped him and grabbed Ron by the arm. He pulled Ron’s arm behind his back and wished he had put in some practice with self defense sometime in the last two decades. There hadn’t been any good reason to though. He was a whitelighter. He’d chosen to accept the job along with everything that went with it when he had died. And whitelighters were pacifists.

JD didn’t feel very much like a pacifist right now. The idea of just letting Ron beat him up was not appealing. Just because Ron couldn’t kill him, didn’t mean he couldn’t hurt him and JD wasn’t interested in pain.

Ron struggled to get out of JD’s grip, but the more he struggled the more freaked out he got. He began seeing creatures with human features, but with horns and tails closing in on them. “Let me go!” he screamed as one creature sneered at him.

JD watched with growing concern as Ron lashed out at a little girl who was looking at him with curiosity.

“Get it away from me!” Ron screamed as he backed away from the crowd into JD.

“Get what away from you?” JD asked in a low voice.

Ron swung around, this time escaping JD’s grip and his eyes widened. “You’re one of them!” He glanced around him and started running into the first opening he could find in the crowd.

JD sighed and ran after him. Clearly Ron was not ready to be let loose on society. The problem was, he couldn’t just let him loose on a mental hospital either. If this freak out was in any way magical, he couldn’t risk it. And the elders would be furious if he brought Ron to them. And so he ran. He’d figure out what to do with Ron once he caught him. And as long as people could see him, he couldn’t use magic to do it. JD was glad that he didn’t have to glamour to look like himself anymore, but he certainly would have preferred the day gone better, because today was awful.

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