Chapter Text
Peter loved his family, okay? He did. But they were stifling. Which is why he was here, in a forgotten corner of Magic School, in front of a wall on which he’d drawn the triquetra ringed in runes, ready to throw himself on Magic’s mercy to take him somewhere else.
He had a practically-never-ending backpack filled with clothes, food, a tent, supplies, books, magical accoutrements, and his own Book of Shadows. He even had one of a pair of mirrors that he’d enchanted for communication no matter the distance or different realms. The other half, he’d left with his little sister PJ, to be revealed well after he was gone.
So, yes, he loved his family—in whatever way he could now, given he was half-demon who’d been conceived after his parents had been joined in unholy matrimony and his mother had been fed a tonic of demon blood for the first two months of his development. But as he said, his family was stifling.
And it’s not like he didn’t have experience with family that was stifling and where, while he knew they loved him, he felt like he didn’t belong. He had a lifetime of memories from a different life to give him that experience. So he knew that sometimes, even when you loved each other, it was better to get some distance, lest those feelings turn into resentment and then hatred.
A heavy click drew his attention to the clock on his right. It’d just turned to midnight. Perfect. He drew in a slow, deep breath, sinking into the calm and focus one needed to cast a spell, opening himself to Magic. And then he chanted, “In this night and in this hour, I call upon the ancient power, hear my words, hear the rhyme, heed the hope within my mind. Open the door through time and space, send me to where I’ll find what I wish, in another time, in another place.”
The chalk triquetra glowed blue and orange intermingling.
He stepped through.
This world was oddly normal for a universe magic sent him to as per his wish. Peter was a little put out, honestly.
Sure, there were murderous creatures, but they’d had those in his version of the Charmed universe. Granted, the family mostly dealt with demons, but Peter had seen some creatures.
So far, Peter had no idea why magic had sent him here.
And then the undead cases started to get a bit out of hand.
And then the government declared a pandemic and state of emergency.
And then they bombed the major cities.
What was left was a lawless place filled with the hungry dead and the hungry living, one more dangerous than the other.
Peter had his fill of fighting over resources in Atlanta and retreated to the woods. He found a very nice space near a creek. Around the bend was a waist-deep pool with a waterfall at the bottom of a ravine. Which was perfect because he had not missed the hellaciously hot weather of the South. It’d been a lifetime since he’d been forced to endure the humidity and consistent three-digit temperatures that lasted until November and he wasn’t enjoying it. So, being able to swim was nice. Even if it meant having to kill the occasional zombie in the buff.
At least he didn’t have to worry about running out of supplies.
Peter’s peace was broken by a scream ringing through the air. His head jerked up, well trained by younger family members constantly in danger, and he took off running before he even fully registered it.
There was a girl, a little younger than PJ, scrambling backwards in the creek away from a zombie. She screamed again and kicked feebly at the creature.
Peter put on a preternatural burst of speed and tackled the zombie off the girl.
They wrestled in the water, Peter wrenching the thing away whenever it alternated trying to bite the girl instead of him.
He flipped them and wrested the creatures arms into one hand, placing his knee firmly on its torso.
Too bad they wouldn’t drown, he thought with contempt. Instead, he reached towards his belt and pulled a bandana from his waist. Carefully, he pushed it into the zombie’s mouth quickly retracting his gloved fingers from biting jaws.
Then, he heaved them up and out of the creek. He waddled to the creek bank and unsheathed his hunting knife, plunging it into its temple. The thing immediately stopped moving, slumping like a marionette with its strings cut.
He sighed harshly and dropped the thing. “Hey, little girl,” he turned around. “Shit.”
She was gone.
He dropped his head for a moment. What a pain in the ass. But he couldn’t just let a little girl wander around the undead-infested woods. It hadn’t looked like she even had a weapon, much less knew how to use one.
Peter straightened up and closed his eyes, focusing on his other senses.
Birds were still chirping in the distance. The creek burbled. Far on his right, the slow, lumbering footfalls of an undead.
On his left, on the other side of the creek, going away, light, fast steps. The girl.
Peter pulled his knife out of the corpse and wiped it on its dirty clothes and set off at a steady jog, long legs eating up the distance.
“Little girl,” he called softly. “Sweetheart, you’re safe. Please don’t run away. There are more of them in the woods.”
She stopped abruptly, quivering with the desire to keep fleeing like a startled deer. She keened in distress, swaying. She shuddered and turned around.
He stopped out of arm’s reach and crouched down, folding his frankly intimidating stature in. “What’s your name, sweetheart? Where is your family?”
“S—Sophia. Sophia Peletier. Our group was at the highway—” there was a highway nearby?—“and a bunch of walkers came. Two chased me into the woods and Rick saved me. He told me to hide and then go back to the highway while he led them away. He told me to keep the sun on my shoulder but I got lost and then another walker chased me.” She started crying. “I don’t know where I am and I just want my mom.” She shook with sobs.
Too easily, her form was replaced in his mind by his little sister. “Oh, sweetheart,” he walked over to her and folded her into his arms. “I’m so sorry. But you’re safe now. And I’ll get you back to your mom.” He looked up at the sky. The sky was a burning orange. Sunset wasn’t far off. “In the morning we’ll go look for her. It’s too dangerous at night.”
“Where will we stay?”
“I have a tent. It’s not too far.” If you weren’t an exhausted little girl who was soaking wet. “Come on, I’ll carry you,” he turned around so she could settle onto his back piggyback style. “My name is Peter, by the way.”
She gave a little squeal when he stood up, her arms tightening chokingly around his neck. He ignored the visions of a mean middle-aged drunkard hitting the girl’s mom while Sophia huddled in the background. “It’s so high up here.”
He snorted. “Yeah. It’s quite the view.” It was something that he still thrilled about sometimes. In his first life, he’d been a woman of average height for an American. After his most recent growth spurt though, he'd shot up to six foot eight. At this point, he kind of hoped he didn’t grow anymore.
Night fell quickly and with it, the wind picked up. Sophia started shivering.
Making a snap decision, Peter spoke up, “hey Sophia, want to see some magic?”
“Magic?”
“Yeah,” he nodded. “I’m magic. But you have to keep it a secret, okay?”
“Momma says to tell her if anyone wants me to keep a secret,” she told him.
Ah. “Your momma is very smart. Okay, when we find your momma, you can tell her. But no one else because magic has to stay a secret.” He assumed. But maybe it was different in this universe where the dead were already up and walking.
“Okay.” She perked up. “I want to see magic.”
“Okay,” he put her down. “Watch this.” He brought heat to his hand that made his palm glow, not enough to burn or make flame but enough to gently steam her clothes dry as he passed his hand over her without touching her.
She gasped in delight . “It’s so warm!”
He smiled at her. “Yup.” With much less care, he blasted his own clothes with heat, flash drying himself in a puff of hot air. Sophia laughed at his fluffed up hair and he grinned at her. “Okay, back up. We’ve still got a ways to go.”
They eventually made it back to his camp. He rebuilt the fire and threw some rosemary and sage in to help with the mosquitos.
He boiled water and offered Sophia a choice of freeze dried meals and they ate.
His watch beeped. Ah, that time already?
“Hey, Sophia, wanna see some more magic?”
She perked up over her chicken fried rice. She nodded eagerly.
“Everyday around this time, I talk to my sister through this,” he dug the enchanted mirror out of his bag.
“A mirror?”
Peter’s lips quirked up. “I’m from a different world. This mirror is the only thing that can connect us.”
“A different world? You mean, like an alien?”
He chuckled. “No. I’m from Earth. Just not this one. In my universe, the dead never came back to life en masse. And while it’s 2010 here, it’s 2020 over there.”
“Whoa.”
“Right?” He turned to his mirror. “Mirror, mirror, in my hand, connect across space, connect across time.”
“It’s like a spell,” Sophia exhaled.
“It is a spell,” he told her before his attention was pulled back to the mirror. His sister’s face appeared, the pink and purple walls of her bedroom behind him.
“Peter!” she cheered. “You’re late! I thought the zombies ate you!”
Peter snorted. “That’d be interesting.” The thought of zombies ramped up on his fucked up cambion blood was as hilarious as it was alarming. Though, he was curious as to whether he was actually vulnerable to the disease or not. His healing factor was kind of insane. But would it be enough to combat the zombie plague?
What was his life, that that was a valid question?
“No, I’m fine, PJ. I’m not alone though.” He tilted the mirror. “This is Sophia. I saved her from a zombie earlier. Apparently, they call them ‘walkers.’”
PJ was wide-eyed. “Oh my God, are you okay? I mean, you must be if Petey said he saved you but are you alright?”
“Don’t call me Petey,” Peter reflexively chided PJ. Then, he tucked Sophia under his arm as she started crying again.
“It was so scary,” she sobbed. “I thought I was gonna die. Like my dad. And then my mom would be all alone and she’d be so hurt and she’d probably never know what happened to me.”
“I’m so sorry,” PJ had tears in her own eyes, that empathetic Cupid blood coming out in her. “That must have been so awful. But you’re with my brother now and Peter,” she tossed a pointed glare at him, to which he grinned—ah, teenaged sass; he was so glad he wasn’t there for it. Wyatt had been more than enough—and she continued, “is the best older family member you could ask for. He’s kept all of us—our siblings and cousins—safe over the years.”
“Are you often in danger?” Sophia sniffled, firmly tucked into his side.
“Oh, all the time. Mostly from demons trying to kidnap us and turn us evil,” she was so blasé Peter had to snort.
“Demons?” Sophia yelped.
Peter hugged her closer. “Hazard of being a family of good witches. Not something to worry about here, I don’t think,” he dismissed.
“Yeah, you just have to worry about all the zombies,” PJ drawled.
Peter rolled his eyes. “Okay, changing the subject. How is everyone doing?”
PJ enthusiastically ranted about the family and her classmates at School (Magic School, she didn’t say). Then she talked about the grand opening of Aunt Piper’s restaurant.
Talk of Princess Thistle’s coronation got the girls excitedly going on about what magical species really existed, at least in the Charmed universe. Sophia was stoked to learn their mother had actually turned into a mermaid at one point.
They talked until Sophia nodded off against Peter’s shoulder and started snoring. Then, PJ gave him a pointed look that informed him they would be talking about this later. He rolled his eyes, told her to pass on his love and congratulations, and ended the spell.
He carefully picked Sophia up and carried her into the tent where he conjured a sleeping bag and tucked her into it.
Then he walked the wards again, trailing rowan and holly ash to reinforce the boundaries.
For the first time in a while, he was lulled to sleep by the steady breathing of another person in his space. He found he’d missed it a bit.
Morning dawned bright and early. They shared breakfast and mugs of hot cocoa before Peter packed up a bag of supplies for the day.
Neither of them had any clue what direction the highway was in, further muddied by having come back to Peter’s camp. So, they spent the morning following the creek upstream.
“How many sisters do you have?” Sophia asked as Peter helped her jump down from a fallen log.
Peter stopped to bend over and cut a cluster of oyster mushrooms off the log. “I have three younger sisters, though they have a different dad than I do. And my cousins might as well be my siblings since we were raised together.”
Sophia sighed wistfully. “It must have been nice to grow up in such a large family. Will you tell me more about them?”
“Sure. Our mothers are Piper, Phoebe, and Paige. Of all of the kids, I’m the oldest, but only by two months. The next oldest is Wyatt, who is Aunt Piper’s son. Chris is Wyatt’s little brother and he’s almost two years younger than me. 2007 was a busy year because Melinda, Chris and Wyatt’s little sister, was born early that year, Tamora and Kat—the twins, Aunt Paige’s eldest—were born in the middle, and PJ—Prudence Johnna—was born at the end of that year.”
“Whoa.”
Peter laughed. “Yeah. Next came Henry Jr, who Aunt Paige adopted. His mother was pregnant with him when she died and Aunt Paige managed to save Henry. That was 2008.
“Then we have my younger sisters Parker and Peyton who were born in 2009 and 2011.”
“That’s a lot of P names,” Sophia observed.
“It is,” he acknowledged with a smile. “It’s something of a family tradition. Mom had an older sister named Prudence. Their mom was named Patty, their grandmother was named Penny, and her mother and her mother’s cousins were named Priscilla, Pearl, and Phoebe.”
“I wish my family had a tradition like that. I don’t know much about them at all,” Sophia confided.
Peter went to say—something—but the sound of rolling bells rang through the air and cut him off before he could figure out what to say.
Sophia gasped. “Do you think that’s my mom?”
“I don’t know. I think it’s just some church bells. Though they’re fools for still ringing them. That noise’ll draw walkers,” he noted.
“If my mom’s looking for me, do you think she’d follow them?”
She’d be a fool if she did, Peter thought. Everyone knew sound drew the zombies—the walkers—and you’d obviously want to stay away from such a thing. Not to mention, a lot of people were taking this zombie apocalypse as a reason to let out their worst characteristics—not that Peter had any room to talk considering he’d done the exact same.
Trust was a hard-won thing these days.
“We can check it out, if you want, but we should wait a while. See how many walkers gather because of it, and then decide if it’s worth trying to kill or sneak past them.”
Sophia thought for a while, nervously chewing on her lip, before she nodded. “Okay.”
So, they changed direction and walked towards the bells. The tolling cut off abruptly at one point. Given the way it cut off, it seemed like it was a recording instead of actual bells. Peter guessed someone finally wised up and destroyed the speakers from which it came.
Which meant people were there right now. Still, while it could be Sophia’s mom, it could also be anyone else. So he made no move to hurry their pace.
The church was empty by the time they got there. Three walkers were left dead inside, though, and the cable to the speaker was torn out, so someone was definitely there.
“Is your mom alone?” Peter finally thought to ask belatedly. “Who’s Rick? And what’s your mom’s name?”
“My mom’s name is Carol. We were part of a group. Rick is Carl’s dad. They thought he was dead, but he woke up from his coma and came to find them. Isn’t that crazy?”
“Totally,” he nodded. “Who else is in the group?”
“There’s me and my mom, Carl Grimes and his mom and dad, Lori and Rick. I thought his dad was Shane but it turns out Shane is just a family friend. I think he was Rick’s partner when they were deputies? Uhm, there’s Dale and Andrea, who lost her sister Amy. Dale isn’t Andrea’s dad, but he sort of acts like it and he has an RV. There’s Glenn and T-Dog; I don’t know his real name. Jim got bit and we left him by a tree because that’s what he wanted. Jacqui chose to stay at the CDC when it exploded. And, oh! There’s also Daryl. He has a motorcycle. And his brother Merle got left on a roof back in Atlanta.”
… There was a lot to unpack there.
They didn’t find the highway that day. They even got lost trying to find their way back to his camp so they holed up in an abandoned house when night began to fall.
“What do you think that sound was?” Sophia asked when they settled in to eat dinner.
“A gunshot,” he answered around his food.
“Do you think someone ran into a walker?”
Peter chewed thoughtfully. While it was possible, it was less likely. Shooting a gun when there was only one walker wasn’t worth it since it'd draw more. And if there were more than one walker, there would have been more than one shot.
Peter thought it was more likely that someone had succumbed to hopelessness. But it probably wasn’t appropriate to say to a young girl.
“Maybe someone was hunting,” he threw out on a whim.
She hummed doubtfully and turned back to her food.
That night, PJ handed the mirror off to Parker and Peyton and Peter and Sophia chatted with them.
When Sophia nodded off, Peter set her in the small nest he’d made in the pantry while he set up a sleeping bag in the doorway to guard the room.
It was Halloween. Peter could feel it in the thrumming of the Earth.
He woke Sophia up and got them walking.
They found the creek again. The surroundings looked much more familiar.
He still had no idea which direction the highway was in and following the creek hadn’t helped so they were back to the drawing board.
“Do you want to take a break for today?” he asked Sophia as they walked and ate cereal bars for breakfast. “Today is Halloween. It’s sacred for witches. Magic is stronger and the veil between worlds is thinner.”
“Sacred? Does that mean it’s like a holiday for you, too?”
Peter hummed. “Pretty much. Our family certainly celebrated it more than the solstices.”
“What’s that?”
“The solstices? You know how days get shorter and longer through the year?”
Sophia nodded.
“The winter solstice is the longest night of the year. It’s also my birthday. After that, the days slowly get longer until the summer solstice which is the longest day of the year. The spring and autumn equinoxes are days where there is equal day and night.”
“That’s cool,” Sophia stated matter of factly. “You said magic is stronger on Halloween?”
“Uh-huh. My mom actually used the magic of All Hallow’s Eve to fly on a broom once.”
“Like a real witch,” Sophia laughed loudly. She immediately gasped and covered her mouth, wide-eyed and scared.
“It’s okay. You shouldn’t be afraid to laugh. Life wouldn’t be worth living if we couldn’t laugh.”
“Dad never liked it when I was loud.”
Given all the things she’d said about her dad, he sounded like an abusive asshole who should be glad he’d died before Peter got his hands on him.
Instead of voicing those thoughts, Peter simply tucked her into his side and kept walking back to camp.
Through the day, Peter taught her some of the traditions his family had for Halloween. He told her stories of some of the shenanigans they’d gotten into over the year. He surprised her with candy that they ate by the fire that night.
The enchanted mirror got passed around to the whole family while they were trick-or-treating. It was fantastic, like being able to come along with them. For the first time, Peter felt a sharp stab of longing for his family.
Maybe he’d try astral projecting to them tonight. If there was any day he’d be able to traverse this distance without actually leaving this universe, it would be today.
He wouldn’t do it without protecting them, though, so he pulled out lavender, rosemary, and salt. He mixed them and walked the wards again. After he closed the circle, he cut two apples in half to expose the star-shaped seed pods and placed laurel leaves over them. He faced each of the cardinal directions and chanted “knowledge and reverence” three times while he lobbed the apples to the ward line.
The circle lit purple blue before dying back to a faint shimmer.
Relieved, Peter stepped into his tent and laid down on his futon.
He breathed in, held his breath, and breathed slowly back out. He relaxed and let go of everything, focusing on his family and how bad he wanted to be there.
He felt the faint lurch in his center that came with astral project and opened his eyes.
The Manor’s familiar foyer was in front of him. He could hear laughter and shrieking coming from the observatory. He grinned, following the noise.
The entire family was scattered around, chatting, laughing, and trading candy.
Melinda noticed him first. “Peter!” she exclaimed. “You’re here!”
Everyone else twisted to follow her gaze. Then next second, Peter was being swarmed. He laughed and tossed little Peyton into the air. Tamora and Kat hung off opposite biceps while chattering about how much they missed him. Everyone cycled through hugging him.
“I thought you were going to stay in that other place,” Aunt Piper said once they’d sat him down half-buried under the kids.
“Oh, I am,” he told her. “I’m just visiting. Astral projection.”
All the adults nodded their heads in understanding.
“Thank God you are,” Phoebe said from the arm of the wicker couch. She reached over and ran her fingers through his hair. “How are you? Are you eating well? PJ says you’ve adopted a little girl?”
“What’s this?” Aunt Paige came back in with a bowl of popcorn. “Is Phoebe a grandmother already?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I haven’t adopted her. I’m just—”
“Telling a girl all about magic and protecting her and including her in family calls,” PJ interrupted like the little teenaged shit she is.
“—looking after her while we try to find her mom.”
Phoebe had a knowing look on her face. “Sure, sweetie,” she smiled.
Peter huffed and slouched down further into the pile of children, who all snuggled closer. If he wasn’t careful, he’d be buried under the pile.
He closed his eyes and let the chatter wash over him.
Distance had been necessary, yes, but it was still nice to visit.