Once and Future Witches by minorshan
is a Charmed (1998) fanfic. Starting shortly after the Ultimate Battle against the Jenkins sisters, a curse placed on Leo sends the Charmed Ones and the future Chris back to 1999 and then through their personal history in their search for the culprits. In the course of this endeavour, Piper, Phoebe and Paige must work with not only Piper and Phoebe’s past selves, but also with the long-lost Prue, giving the ‘original’ Charmed Ones a glimpse of their future as all four sisters also explore more about their pasts.
The fic can be read here and here.
Once and Future Witches contains examples of:
- Age-Gap Romance: Reflecting on the news of his future relationship with Piper, 1983 Leo muses that existing as an ageless angel had a way of making a person relate to others relative to the age they were at when they died, so he doesn’t feel as though he’ll be older than Piper when they actually get together.
-
Author's Saving Throw: When 1999-Prue, 2007-Piper and 2007-Phoebe visit Penny in 1993, they learn that Penny financed herself by trading potions to other practitioners, as well as selling items from the demons she vanquished, justifying how she made a living. - Big Damn Reunion: With the crisis concluded, Piper, Phoebe and Paige are visited by Prue in spirit form once they return to their present, who affirms that they’ve all proven that they can move on from her loss.
- Clark Kenting: When Dan Gordon drops by for a surprise visit in 1999 and sees 2007-Piper, she pretends to be her past self and claims that she just did her hair a different way to avoid revealing the truth.
- Closest Thing We Got: In order to oppose their enemies’ plans to create a new Triad, the Charmed Ones must create a contrasting ‘good Triad’ of a witch, a whitelighter, and an Elder, but since the demon they're targeting is after Leo and they obviously can't summon an Elder, Paige and Chris act as the whitelighter and Elder representatives as Chris is basically half-Elder given that Leo was one when Chris was conceived (the older Piper represents the witch).
- Everyone Went to School Together: It’s revealed that their Darklighter adversary was part of Leo’s company when he enlisted in World War Two back when both of them were human.
- Forgotten First Meeting:
- When the sisters meet the 1983 version of Leo, he reflects that so far he’s only briefly spoken with ten-year-old Piper while fixing the sink, leaving him naturally shocked to meet the thirty-five-year-old Piper who is married to his future self (and obviously doesn’t remember that particular meeting with Leo).
- When seeking a particular artefact in 1993, the 1999 Prue, the 2007 Piper and Phoebe, and the 1993 Penny all run into the 1993 teenage version of Paige, who actually shoplifted the very item they were looking for just before they arrived. The meeting is so brief Grams doesn’t even see the need to erase 1993-Paige’s memory of it.
- Future Badass: As the 1999 Charmed Ones interact with their 2007 selves, the younger versions are each impressed at how Piper in particular has grown as a witch, with others favourably comparing her to Penny Haliwell. Later on, Penny even declares that 2007 Piper is the most powerful witch present, even when Prue is supposedly the strongest as the eldest sister and Penny has decades more experience than Piper.
- Godzilla Threshold: Circumstances force the Charmed Ones to stop their current threat by creating a "good Triad", even though the ritual involved in doing so is a demonic one.
- Have We Met Yet?: In a sense; obviously all the time-travellers know each other up to a point, but they occasionally have trouble keeping track of how the version they’re currently interacting with knows them, such as 2007-Piper basically flirting with the 1983 version of Leo even when that Leo has literally only just met her ten-year-old self.
- I Hate Past Me: A downplayed example;
- 2007-Phoebe doesn’t outright hate 1999-Phoebe, but the older version is often shown to be embarrassed at her more flighty younger self.
- Likewise, 1999-Prue is embarrassed to see her bratty twelve-year-old self being so hostile towards her siblings, such as denying that she likes lasagne just to disagree with eight-year-old Phoebe.
- It's All About Me: Prue demonstrates a minor version of this; when 1983 Penny reveals that the girls’ childhood babysitter Lynne was the girls’ original Whitelighter before she was killed, Prue notes that she always assumed Lynne stopped coming because Penny decided that Prue was too old for a babysitter.
- Kid from the Future: Obviously the sisters all do this when they visit Penny in the past, which also features 27-year-old Chris meeting the sisters in 1999. In the initial trip back to 1999, Paige also does the sibling version of this to the younger versions of the Halliwells; 1999-Phoebe in particular comments that she’s happy to have a younger sister at last, even if said ‘little’ sister is currently two years older than 1999-Phoebe.
- My Future Self and Me: On top of 2007 Piper and Phoebe’s regular interactions with their 1999 selves during this crisis, when the sisters have to go back to 1983 they end up interacting with their childhood selves, such as 1999-Phoebe driving the children to school and all three Pipers preparing a potion together (although ten-year-old 1983-Piper is told they're just preparing a pyrotechnique effect rather than a potion).
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: When the 1999 sisters first see the 2007 sisters and Chris, Prue assumes that 2007 Piper and Phoebe are demons who have stolen her sisters’ apperances and Paige and Chris will “eventually” replace her and Leo. Prue is obviously wrong about who the new arrivals and their reasons for doing so, but technically Paige and Chris did replace Prue and Leo, albeit not in the context Prue imagines.
- Rule of Three: Penny, Leo and Chris discuss the importance of the number three in nature as an example of the power of that number, justifying the importance of the Triad and the Power of Three in magic.
- Saying Too Much: When the future Charmed Ones meet Leo in 1983 on his first ‘official’ day as the girls’ whitelighter, the 2007 Piper accidentally reveals their future marriage because she thinks Penny already told Leo about that when she actually misinterpreted her grandmother’s comment.
- Spirit Advisor: When the sisters are visiting 1983, Penny mentions at one point that she actually summons Patty for occasional advice on how to raise Prue, Piper and Phoebe.
- Surprise Incest: Briefly comes up when Phoebe’s 1999 self sees her 2007 self with Chris and wonders if she has her own ‘hunk of Whitelighter’ in the future, before 2007 Piper clarifies that Chris is her son and hence Phoebe’s nephew.
- That Came Out Wrong: When a captured demon yells “Screw you, witch!”, Piper counters “We’ll see who’s doing the screwing” and admits immediately afterwards that the taunt didn’t come out right.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Prue notes that this is a particular point of frustration in the current situation, deciding to just consider ‘now’ as the time they’re currently in even if that’s the past from her perspective.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: Throughout these events, at various points the sisters and their allies have to work with past and/or future versions of the people they know, such as 2007 Paige and 1983 Leo going back to 1942, or 1999-Prue and 2007-Piper and Phoebe going to 1993 to retrieve a key item from Penny. At the fic’s conclusion, part of the plan to vanquish their enemy involves blessing a totem with power they’ll only gain from the totem being blessed in the first place.
- What You Are in the Dark: Leo reflects that the scale of World War Two created Whitelighters and Darklighters on both sides as people showed who they truly were, such as their current Darklighter adversary being a member of his old unit who was about to be convicted of abusing prisoners before he was killed when his vehicle exploded while being taken away for sentencing.
- You Already Changed the Past: When the Charmed Ones visit Penny in 1983, they learn that their enemy’s agents were responsible for killing Lynne, who Prue remembers as their childhood babysitter but was actually their first Whitelighter. However, since the Halliwells were travelling in time when Lynne was killed, Grams confirms that this means history hasn't been changed yet and Leo was always going to be the sisters' full-time Whitelighter.
