Author's Note: This is the sequel to Repeated History. It's a good idea to read that one first, but probably not necessary. This will be decidedly darker, focusing on the days of Camelot's establishment, and the part of the legend no one talks about. We all know Jordan is Wyatt's Guinevere, but there was one part we all forgot: Arthur and Lancelot were brothers in arms, Wyatt and Chris are brothers in blood. What does this variation mean for the future of the world?
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc. "After this, therefore because of this."
Prologue
The beach was quiet, as usual, save for the gentle lapping of the small waves upon the shore, specifically on one small boy's bare feet. The boy, blessed with a head full of unruly blond curls and a pair of brilliantly blue eyes, squatted in the waves, the sleeves of his white Oxford neatly rolled to his elbows by a loving hand and his khaki shorts ending just above tanned knees. Both the shirt and shorts were spotted with sea spray, the sticky cotton of the button-down revealing a complexion darkened by years on the sandy shores of this nearly deserted island, just as his slightly freckled nose revealed too many lost sun hats. He was about six, and his young attention was fixed on an object just below the barely breaking surface. He squatted closer, oblivious to the sea water filling his back pockets as he did so.
"What do you think he is looking at?" a tall young man in his late twenties asked in a low tone to the woman beside him.
His companion looked very young, barely out of her teenage years, but in truth she was much, much older. She allowed her hair, long and sun-burnt brown, to fly loose in the sea breeze, the sun catching the natural blond and red highlights for only a moment at a time before the wind blew it into a completely new arrangement. Beneath the frolicking strands, two pale green eyes were hidden, their sadness even further masked by the smile brought at the sight of her inquisitive son.
"Something bound to get him into more mischief," she answered, her light tone failing to disguise her constant sorrow from the man at her side.
The man allowed a small smile, watching the boy's hand dart quickly underwater and emerge in possession of whatever had been interesting him.
"Mama!" the boy cried, his shout and the splashings of his feet in the surf breaking the silence of the beach as he tore up the sand towards them. "Mama! I caught him!"
Arriving at his mother, he opened his small fist to reveal a shelled crab resting on his palm.
"He's beautiful, Phee," she praised, "He must have been very hard to catch."
"Yep. I had to watch him for hours and hours," the boy explained, bright eyes searching his mother's face for the smile he so loved to bring her. Her eyes met his, first noticing the curls plastered to his forehead with sea water, and he was rewarded with that coveted beam of approval and happiness.
"Better be careful with him, Phee. He has some nasty claws on him," the man warned affectionately.
"Oh, I will, Uncle Chris," the boy started to respond, but was cut short as the creature chose the moment of distraction to exact his revenge. The boy yelped and threw his hands in the air, a shimmery blue light spreading around him in a protective shield as he drew his hand tenderly against his belly.
His uncle laughed softly and waved a hand towards the repelled sea creature, lifting him off the sand with invisible hands and re-depositing him in his original habitat.
"Come here, baby," the mother beckoned soothingly to her son, gently coaxing his shield down as she reached for his offended hand.
There was an angry red pinch where the thumb met the palm, and a few pricks of blood dotted its edges. His fingers curled defensively, reflexively around the injury. She used a light touch to push his chubby fingers back, but in the process brushed his wound. The shield leapt to life again, pushing her back onto the sand bank.
"Mama!"
The boy immediately forgot his injured appendage and buried his head in the soft linen of his mother's white tunic, mumbling his apology repeatedly.
"Shh, baby," his mother calmed him, "It's not your fault. It's just a part of who you are."
"I didn't mean to, Mama, honest," the distraught boy promised, peppering kisses on his mother's belly.
The mother laughed lightly, both at her son's earnest innocence and the tickling effects of his butterfly kisses.
"Look at me, Phee," she commanded gently, spreading her arms so the boy could get full view of her body as he rocked back on his heels in the sand. "No harm done. Are you ready to go eat dinner?"
"No!" the boy cried, glancing back towards the setting sun. "I still have this much more daylight." He held his hands six inches apart to underscore his point.
"Okay, darling, just a few more minutes then."
He grinned his thanks and ran off.
Beside her, the young man offered his hand to help her to her feet.
"He's a powerful little boy already," the boy's Uncle Chris observed, watching the mother dust the sand off the royal blue wrap knotted at her hip.
"I know," the mother answered, her sorrow back in full force, now tinged with fear.
"He can't find you here, Jay," he assured her, resting a hand on her shoulder in an attempt at comfort. "The island is protected, isolated. Aunt Phoebe wrote the spell, remember? It's air-tight."
She took a few steps away from him, towards the small fishing village around the point of the beach, the island's only settlement. She glanced first at her son, newly involved in the sea's edge again, then back over her shoulder at the villa rising behind Chris's shoulder.
"Phoenix is his son, Chris. He will never stop until he finds him. They have a connection, and it is only a matter of time before he finds some way to get to us."
Chris's heart broke all over again, knowing she did not see the villa she now called home, but an old Victorian manor once filled with all of the love a family could stir up. The sun caught her highlights again as it cast shadows across her face. If she had been mortal still, the pain would have etched lines of mourning into her beautiful face; her immortality, however, left her skin smooth and young, leaving only the pale green of her eyes to tell of her grief. He had loved her once, in the passionate, full way a young man loves a woman, full of the vigor of youth and the innocence of first love. It had been a dangerous, disastrous love, one that had caused all of this pain now weighing heavily on her graceful shoulders. The love faded in the ensuing agony of realization, the passion replaced with a brotherly affection and respect, but the damage was already done.
"I won't let him find you two, Jay, I promise."
As she turned to him, he saw a single tear slide down her cheek, losing itself in the crevice of her lips. How many tears had she let fall since the chaos? He could remember each single tear she allowed him to see in the years before it had happened: at her wedding, Phee's birth, his Wiccaning. The salty drops of the post-chaos days bled together in his mind.
"You can't stop him, Christopher," she whispered, her voice shaky with her withheld tears.
With that, she wiped the traces of sorrow from her face as she knelt to catch her beloved son as he leapt into her arms. A shiver entered the base of Chris Halliwell's spine as he escorted Jordan and Phoenix back towards their villa, and it was not caused by the breeze drifting in from the Mediterranean Sea.
After this, his mind echoed, therefore, because of this.
Disclaimer: I own Jordan Berkley Halliwell, little Leo Phoenix Berkley Halliwell, and the plot. And that's about it.