Just Another Day

By: RavenHeart101

Summary: Witches are being hunted down, the Heavens aren't allowing anyone in or out, and demons are running rampant. The magical world needs a king, and they're looking at the Twice-Blessed. Only Wyatt Halliwell doesn't want to be King, Chris is hiding something that keeps causing them to grow apart, and Melinda's the variable that wasn't there before. Because, no matter what the future, some things are scarily determined to happen.

Disclaimer: I own nothing! But the plot. And DJ.

"They're hunting witches." It was as though a collective weight was dropped onto the entirety of Magic School, or at least on the shoulders of the people in the library. Melinda was the one who said it, her eyes grave and voice shaking with something that wasn't exactly fear. Chris tripped and then seemed to give up on getting up off the ground, resting against one of the book shelves. Prue, Patty, and Penny traded a look that spoke volumes. Henry, Hailey, and Heather held onto each other in case some sort of escape was needed. But all of them, every single one of them, looked to him for guidance.

Wyatt was the Twice-Blessed, after all. He was the "King" of magic. King Arthur reincarnated. He had to be the one to have the answer.

Only he didn't.

Sometimes – a lot of the time – his family forgot that he was just a 24 year old kid trying his hardest not to screw everything up. Again. "What do we do?" Hailey stuttered out through her fear.

No matter how young Wyatt was, he was older than Hailey (older than all of them) and it was his responsibility to make sure they would survive this. "We still have no sign of mom and the aunts?" Wyatt posed the question to Chris. Chris was always good in crisis situations – he had more of a quality for a level head (sometimes Wyatt had to remind himself that he was the older brother, and that while he was only a 24 year old kid, Chris was only a 22 year old kid and had no idea what he was doing either).

"None." Chris said softly, tugging at a loose string on his jeans. His eyes were haunted before he shook his head and pushed himself to his feet. "Bianca has feelers out. Underworld contacts are more likely to go to her than me. I'll ask around from the faery community."

Wyatt nodded and Chris orbed away. He blinked, his nod wasn't permission for Chris to just leave. Wyatt sighed and rubbed at his forehead. But Chris would do what Chris wanted to do, no matter what Wyatt wanted him to do. If history had taught him anything it was that. "You six are going to stay here." He commanded the younger cousins.

Instantly, Prue's shoulders shot up and her eyes narrowed in a defensive glare. At nineteen years old, Prue was his oldest cousin and she was also the most stubborn. She seemed to inherit the entirety of Aunt Phoebe's stubbornness, which while sort of adorable, was all kinds of annoying when Wyatt was trying to sort things out. "No way." She shook her head through gritted teeth.

"Your parents are missing. I'm the oldest one here – the most mature and the most experienced." Wyatt hated pulling rank like this. Prue opened her mouth to argue. "I'm the Twice-Blessed. You will do as I say or I'll take your powers so you have no choice but to stay here."

Prue deflated with a glaring pout, her arms crossed over her chest and her brown eyes – so much like her mother's – watering just a tiny bit. This was hard on them, Wyatt knew. Prue had to take over as "mother" to both her sisters now that Phoebe was stuck Up There.

No one knew what had caused the Elders to close Up There, but people weren't allowed in or out of the Heavens and they hadn't been allowed in or out for three weeks. Then the witch hunts started happening and executions and they were all scrambling for some sort of purchase on the ground that kept moving beneath their feet. Wyatt wasn't an idiot, he knew the looks Chris kept sending him were something he should pay more attention to. He knew Melinda was struggling to hold herself together when she could hear the worry that went through everyone's minds. He knew Melinda knew what Chris' problem was, too. His brother stuck by his side most days, didn't argue, didn't push, didn't ask Wyatt to fix anything. It was like Chris was afraid that if he did something terrible would happen.

Their link had been shut down for a while, too. For almost as long as the Charmed Ones were gone, Chris had been shutting him out. Leo told him not to worry about it, and that Chris had things of his own that he needed to figure out. But Wyatt knew that look on Chris's face was fear – he didn't need an empathetic link with his little brother to know that.

"Mel, you're with me." He held out his hand and Melinda took it in her own instantly. She never tried to read his thoughts, something about breaching privacy, but Melinda was ridiculously good at reading people anyway. She trusted him with her life, to a level that his parents didn't. She never treated him like one bad move could send him over some invisible edge (like Chris did). She was his baby sister, and where Wyatt protected her, she extended the same courtesy.

"Where are we going?" She asked curiously, shaking her chocolate hair out of her eyes.

Wyatt looked down at her and held onto her hand tighter. "The manor."

The manor. Wyatt hadn't called the manor "home" since he had moved in with DJ. Their tiny apartment was more "home" to Wyatt than he thought he could feel. He liked walking into their living room to DJ's school papers laid out on the table. He liked waking up in the morning to fresh coffee and bowls of cereal and, sometimes, not getting out of bed at all because they both had the day off and didn't want to face the day. He liked how small it was, how entirely un-grandeur it all was, how good it felt.

But Wyatt wasn't bringing Melinda to his home, he was bringing her to her home. The manor had the Book of Shadows and most everything else they could need. He tried to keep that stuff out of the apartment with DJ (he didn't want to put him in more danger than he already was in just by dating him). "Do you think we'll find anything?" Melinda asked just before they dissolved into blue and white balls of light and traveled away.

Orbing felt a lot like swimming – or at least for Wyatt it did. He knew for Chris it felt different, and he knew that shimmering felt more like burning up every atom of his body until he became ash. But orbing felt like swimming to him. Like he was dropped into the clearest blue water and had to find his way back to land before he ran out of air.

Melinda said she liked orbing with him more than orbing with Chris. Chris's orbs were still nice, not painful or anything like that, but they were heavier. "Probably not." Wyatt admitted with a long suffering sigh once they were fully formed again. Melinda wandered over to the Book, opening it with careful fingers and trailing her eyes down the page.

Wyatt, himself, dropped down into one of the arm chairs – ratty with age but still endlessly comfortable – and pushed his fingers through his hair. It was getting longer and he was in terrible need of a haircut (and he needed to shave, he was starting to get a beard). "We could try to summon my namesake." Melinda said with a bit of a smirk at the corner of her mouth. She was joking, but then again she wasn't joking. It was possible that the first Melinda Halliwell might know a little bit about hiding the fact that you were a family of witches from witch hunters.

Witch hunters. Who would have thought?

Contrary to belief, it was not the Halliwell family that let it slip that magic was real. It had been some kid that had been adopted and started showing powers early on. At first the parents had thought she was possessed, but bringing her to a church had been a bad idea. She hadn't attacked anyone – her powers were mostly defensive not offensive – but she had lost control when she tired and caused a minor fire to start in the baptismal pool. It had gone out the moment she fully woke up. Some parishioner had caught it on camera, put it online, it went viral, and then more and more kept popping up. The government had to step in, they said. People with these sorts of powers were a genetic advantage.

They weren't necessarily executed. They were found by the government, tested on, tortured, forced to use their powers until the magic snapped and killed someone.

Then they were executed.

It was all over the news. There were social media sites dedicated to it. There was activists for both sides and the demons were soaking it up. What better but to attack witches out in the open where they can't protect themselves without signing up for another death sentence? "Summoning spirits doesn't work." Wyatt shook his head and rubbed at his neck. "If the Elders have shut down the heavens, there's no way a spirit can find its way down here to counsel us."

Melinda's hair fell into her face and she looked at him through the strands with a frown. "Then why come here?"

Wyatt shrugged and stretched his arms above his head, rolling his neck to get out an invisible kink. "I couldn't stay there."

Melinda looked like she understood – Melinda always understood – but still she sighed and her shoulders drooped. "What are we supposed to do, Wy?"

She was his baby sister, though. Nineteen years old and more lost than he was. But Melinda had a power that could be hidden. Telepathy wasn't something that could easily be shown to the public, after all. She knew how to defend herself and she could brew potions like no one else, but whereas Wyatt had a slew of powers and Chris could use Wyatt's as he saw fit, Melinda only had her telepathy. And as long as the Elders had shut down the heavens there was no way she was going to get anything else. She had all the makings of a powerful witch, with about half the confidence, but she wasn't quite old enough to inherit more powers.

Which Wyatt was happy about - at least for the time that there were people looking to hunt down witches. It wouldn't be good to have Melinda out there with powers she couldn't control.

Even Melinda looked at Wyatt for a plan of action, though. This must have been how Piper felt when Aunt Prue died and she inherited the title of Halliwell Matriarch. "We'll wait to see if Chris turns up any new leads, keep the cousins at Magic School, they're safer there than out on the streets." Especially since Henry still hadn't gotten a hold on his orbing and would accidentally orb to China if he sneezed. "Keep an eye out for any witches that need sanctuary. We'll offer it to them there. Put up a protection spell on the Manor and I'm going to have to make Chris put one up on his place."

That was all he could think about for the moment. Wyatt cared about the innocents out on the street – he cared about the other witches being executed and tortured – but he cared most about keeping his family safe. He had to put a leash on his own powers. Not for the first time, Wyatt was very thankful that Piper and Leo made him get his driver's license like everyone else. "And then what?" Melinda asked softly, playing with a corner of the Book. "They're going to want a leader, Wyatt. They're going to need one."

"I'm not a king." Wyatt snapped before he could stop himself. "They can save themselves." Melinda looked at him curiously, her eyes sad for a moment before brightening again.

"Maybe Chris will be their king." She winked.

Wyatt couldn't help the laugh that passed from his lips. "He always did have a talent of rallying people."

"Don't tell him that." Melinda cautioned. "It'll go right to his ego."

"Who are we talking about?" Chris appeared in the doorway, leaning casually against the wood, his green eyes on Wyatt like he expected him to pounce.

"Not you, don't worry."

"Liar."

Wyatt smirked and shrugged, pushing himself to his feet. Chris's worried look disappeared and a lopsided smile appeared instead. "Mel," He turned to their sister, allowing a soft caress of his mind against Wyatt's through the link. Prying for something, but Wyatt wasn't sure what he was looking for. Why he couldn't just ask was beyond him, but Chris had always been more than a little bit eccentric. "Do you think you could come up with a powerful protection spell?"

"I've been working on a boundary potion for months, Chris." She rolled her eyes. "I think a protection spell is something I've already mastered."

Chris sighed as though she was the most annoying creature on all of the earth – which, to Chris, she was most of the time. The joy of siblings. Their constant bickering was something that annoyed Wyatt, but Chris and Melinda were fiercely protective of one another. "Mel, please work on the spell." Wyatt interrupted before Chris could escalate things. "Chris, kitchen." He ordered with a wave of his hand.

"I thought you weren't king?" Melinda teased.

"I'm your oldest brother," Wyatt crossed the room to ruffle her hair a little bit. "I'm allowed to boss you around."

"No you're not." Chris insisted.

"Kitchen, Chris."

"You're really bossy."

"I've had a really bad month." Wyatt reminded him in the hallway. "I'm allowed to be bossy."

"I guess." The rest of the trek down the stairs was silent, Leo was at Magic School, trying to keep as many students from disappearing as he could with the rest of the teachers. "They will expect you to lead them, you know." Chris said softly, hopping onto the island counter, his long legs hanging off the edge and kicking out at the air. His hair flopped into his face and he toyed with his fingers.

"I don't want to lead." Wyatt could admit that to anyone that asked. He had no qualms about telling anyone that Chris was the better leader out of the two of them. Melinda knew, Chris knew, Piper and Leo knew… Wyatt would try his hardest, but sometimes leading and having this large destiny was enough to press him into the ground until he couldn't move.

But sometimes Wyatt thought it was only Chris that understood that Wyatt didn't want to lead. He specifically turned down management jobs when offered to him because he didn't want to add on that responsibility. DJ's name was on the lease for their apartment because Wyatt would forget to pay the rent if it was in his. Wyatt was no good at leading. Piper told him that he just hadn't found the right thing to lead yet, seeming to overlook that Wyatt just simply never wanted to lead. Destiny was rude to throw that onto him.

"I know." Chris picked at the corner of his thumb nail. "But I don't think you have much of a choice."

"Will you have my back?" It was supposed to be a simple question. Wyatt and Chris always had each other's backs. But Chris tensed like the question was harder than he thought it would be. Wyatt felt like there was a great distance between the two of them, and that with each passing day they went in different directions. Chris was holding him as far away as he could without damaging their relationship beyond repair. He was afraid of something but he wouldn't tell Wyatt what. Either way, Wyatt wasn't sure how to phrase the question. Hey Chris, I noticed you seemed quite terrified of me and it hurts and can you please explain didn't seem like the right way to ask.

Chris didn't pause for long but the fact that he did pause caused Wyatt to worry that they were growing a lot farther apart than he thought they were. He didn't want to grow apart from Chris. He wished he would tell him what was going on. But Chris wasn't one to explain himself, wasn't one to talk about his feelings or his thoughts. He'd lay it out in the open when he was ready – or when he wasn't ready and it would be a mess of "I should have told you" that would leave Wyatt scrambling to understand the way his brother thought. Chris's mind was complicated and terrifying sometimes and Wyatt loved him but sometimes he thought that he really hated him.

"Of course, Wy." Chris licked his lips. "I'll always have your back." His eyes didn't meet Wyatt's, though, so he knew, with an ache in his heart, that that wasn't necessarily true. Chris was noble and strong and if he left Wyatt wasn't sure what he would do. His brother was someone that always believed in him, even when Wyatt didn't believe in himself. Wyatt wasn't so sure if he could trust him for that anymore. It seemed most days that Chris didn't even trust himself.

What happened? Wyatt couldn't ask. He didn't want to start a fight.

"I have to call DJ." Wyatt pulled his phone from his back pocket, toying with the case and trying to ignore how his throat burned from tears.

"I'll start on dinner?"

"Don't bother." Wyatt shrugged and Chris looked, for a moment, remorseful – like he knew he screwed up somewhere but was at a loss at how to fix it. "Today's date night."

"You still have those when the world is ending?"

"The world isn't ending." Wyatt pressed the speed dial 3. Chris was 1, Piper was 2, and Melinda was 4. "We're just in a complicated mess."

"Just another day, huh?"

"Just another day."