Post by StoryGirl83 on Aug 28, 2008 18:07:18 GMT -5
Chapter Three – The Exception
Prue hugged Vicki to her side and pulled Pat into a hug as well. When Andy came up behind her and hugged her, Prue drew strength from him. Though all of her was focused on her family she turned her eyes to Kevin. “I won’t accept that.”
“You need not accept it I suppose,” Kevin proffered, “but unless you change it, and I know of no way to do that, it will happen. They will be gone.”
No one else seemed to notice his choice of words, but they caused Chris to frown as he began to watch the young elder more closely. Something wasn’t quite right.
“Listen, young man,” Prue began.
“Uh, Prue,” Piper interrupted her, hesitantly.
Prue turned to look at Piper. “What?”
“He’s not a young man,” Piper informed her, remembering him looking exactly the same before her sons were born.
“He sure looks it,” Prue commented looking at the young elder who looked no older than her older daughter.
“Would you prefer that I glamour to look closer to my age?” Kevin offered.
“Glamour?” Prue repeated startled. “You’re a whitelighter.” Shaking her head, dismissing the thought as amusing and ridiculous she added, “They’re sure recruiting young.”
“No, Prue,” Piper replied, amusement in her voice. “Actually, he’s not a whitelighter.”
“Not a whitelighter,” Prue easily believed it, “but is able to glamour. Not a demon or you wouldn’t trust him. And he didn’t enter through the door.” She eyed him curiously. “So what are you then?”
“An elder actually,” Kevin informed her, knowing that if she couldn’t believe he was a whitelighter, she was unable to believe that. “Never a normal whitelighter, seeing as I’ve never died, but I’d have to argue that I’m more whitelighter than her boys, for all that I’ve still a witch as well.”
Prue stood silent a moment, trying to figure out what he just said. “You’re one of Them? But a witch as well? And not dead?”
Kevin nodded. Even now his fingers itched to draw, but it was clearly not the time. “Trust me when I say I have the most bizarre concoction of abilities of any one Up There. Still, unless you would like me to make myself look older of have me prove I am a witch, I don’t see the point in talking about me. You need to know what’s going on.”
“There’s more?” Prue had figured he had delivered all the bad news he could. A feeling of dread seemed to envelope her.
When Kevin didn’t answer it was Chris who spoke. “Explain something to me if you would.”
Kevin turned his attention to Chris. “What’s that?”
“When you were talking to Melinda, there,” Chris inclined his head in the direction of the dark haired young woman, “you told her she was fading, that in twenty-four hours she would be gone.”
Kevin nodded. He knew what Chris was asking.
Prue’s eyes widened as she too understood the implied question. Kevin hadn’t told her that she would be gone. He had told her that they would be gone. She darted her eyes behind her at Andy and hugged her daughters close.
“Yes, I did,” Kevin admitted. “I think,” he hesitated as he looked straight at Prue, “you will not like what else I have to say.”
“Just say it,” Prue told him, wanting whatever bad thing he had to say done with.
It was nothing like she expected. “You exist here still.”
“Meaning what exactly?” Prue asked, her confusion written all over her face. “After all Andy exists here, too.”
Kevin shook his head. “No. About seventeen years ago, this reality lost him to a darklighter.”
“That doesn’t mean he no longer exists,” Prue protested, “just that he is dead.”
“To a whitelighter that is more than just death,” Kevin informed her. “They do not just cease to be a whitelighter. Unlike most death, they can never again be summoned, not,” he added wryly, “that summoning a whitelighter in that manor is possible, but there is absolutely no way to find them. They pass on into their next life and retain nothing of the last with the exception of karma.”
Prue looked at Andy before replying. Turning her eyes back to Kevin she asked, “You are telling me that my husband is in the body of some teenager?”
Kevin chuckled at that. “Not necessarily. It may be that he is in the body of a toddler or that the person that will be his next life has not yet been born. That part of things goes on as it normally does, it is merely that his ghost no longer exists. Because of this, it is of no help to him. Though, unlike the girls, he did exist. He no longer does, so his fate will be as theirs.”
“But not mine,” Prue said softly. “What exactly will happen to me?”
“It has already begun,” Kevin admitted. “By the end of the same period of time, you will have merged with the ghost of your counterpart in this reality. Whether you remain alive or not is up to you. Should you choose death, this reality’s Prue will be the dominant personality, and should you choose life, you will.”
“And what about her choices?” Prue demanded, thinking of this alternate version of her as a different person despite almost thirty years of shared memories. “This other me from this reality? Does she have a choice?”
Kevin shrugged. “I believe she took no longer to make that choice than was necessary to form the words. Until you are fully merged you will gain none of her memories or should you choose death, she will gain none of yours, but by the end of twenty-four hours you will be one person once more. I grant you, half of your life will be rather confusing, but I am told the transition will be much smoother than Chris’.”
Prue frowned and looked at Chris, the question of what would happen should she not choose lost in the newest question. “What does he mean, exactly?”
Chris shrugged. “I have the memories of two life times, only the last month and a half having just one. I merged with my alternate self at that time, so until then I had only one set. It was a,” Chris frowned as he searched for the right word, “poor transition. A demon tried to mess with my head. Quite painful, in more ways than one.”
Even more curious, Prue asked, “You have experienced something like this then?”
Chris shook his head. “Nothing like this. He tried to change the past and did so completely. How I came to have his memories is a mystery to me.” He looked at Kevin, questioningly. “Unless you wish to shed some light on that?”
Kevin shook his head. “Whatever happened to you was not at the elders’ instigation, so I am afraid I know nothing on it.”
“Pity,” Chris replied, not surprised. It would have been far too easy. “I will keep looking, but now, as you say, it not the time.” Not an exact quote by any means, but it conveyed the point.
Prue looked at Andy and then at Piper. Finally, she looked down at her daughters. “I won’t lose you.” Looking at Kevin she informed him that, “I don’t want to be here without them.”
“On that you have no choice,” Kevin argued. “No matter what you do will remain in some form or another.”
“Then, I will find a way to keep them,” Prue informed him a second time. Looking at Melinda, she told her, “All four of you.”
There was a slight smile in Kevin’s eyes as he said, “Then, I have helped you all I can.”
“What help?” Prue asked exasperated. All he had done was impart bad news.
“The other elders didn’t want to tell you,” Kevin relayed reluctantly, “or at least those that did were outnumbered. I refused to accept no for an answer.” It was such an interesting experience being the only witch elder in one of those meetings. It was probably why they refused him entrance to most of them. They knew where his loyalties lay.
“Must have been a short meeting,” Prue retorted, “seeing as we just got here.”
“Catastrophe meetings generally are,” Kevin agreed, recalling the other two he had been to and how little he believed that those were catastrophes.
“Catastrophe?” Prue asked. Yes, it was to her and her family, but hardly to the world.
Kevin was once more grim. “An alternate reality created because of something they did proves in the same second that it did exist and ends, I’d say that qualifies.”
Melinda’s eyes squeezed tight at his words, as if closing them would eliminate the words.
“It’s really gone?” Prue asked the question she dreaded.
Kevin nodded, choosing to remain silent.
“No going back, no chance of it even to save them?” Prue asked, just to be sure.
“I’m sorry,” Kevin told her sincerely. “I wish I could say it still existed, but once it came in contact with this reality for the second time, it ended. There is no way to save it now.”
“And my family?” Prue needed to know.
“That I don’t know,” Kevin admitted. “I know of no way, but you have twenty-four hours to prove me wrong. I hope you do.” That said, Kevin orbed out.