Just One Chance

Sum: Chris had always been crafty and he had always been Wyatt's weak spot. So he let him have a chance.

Dis: I really wish that I owned a show filled with cute boyfriends and smiling babies, but I don't and I'm not making any money either.

I've known my entire life just how special I was. My mom and aunts never made me feel any more loved than my brother or my cousins, which was a lot any ways, but the whispers at Magic School, the looks from the magical creatures that came and went in our lives, the attacks from the hundreds of demons over the years, that was a clue. Still, I was mostly normal for awhile. I played with the other kids in school and helped my little cousins with their homework. I liked basketball.

But then I started to notice how much of a difference there was between me and them. My family had their morals and their dreams but I just, I just didn't. I played by the rules when I could but when the monsters out for my family hit too close to home I didn't mind tapping into that little bit of extra magic that made me so special. I knew no one would understand that so I didn't tell them.

I dealt with things myself until the day it hit me: why spend time letting the demons come to us? All that did was give them openings to hurt us. So I figured, why not take them all out myself before they can hit my family? And that was when I started planning to destroy the entire Underworld.

Somewhere along the way that changed and I started to rule the Underworld, but when you have as many followers as I do that's not really something to be bothered with. The real trouble, when I take the time to consider it, is that the people who I would want at my side most have died fighting me. My aunts, Uncle Henry, the little cousins that I used to love so much. And Chris.

Chris didn't die. No, he was too crafty for that. He disappeared. And then he started a rebellion. I know it was him because I know my brother. Considering the total control I have on the world, he did a damn good job of bringing back hope. But then the tactics changed and I knew that something was going on. The raids and attacks just didn't have that signature 'Chris' stamped on them anymore.

So I sent more spies with better training in to find out what had happened. The few that I had sent in already were really more for posterity's sake and Chris had probably identified them eons ago. Not very trusting, that brother of mine.

The idea that he had been injured and couldn't run things occurred to me or that he had been convinced to sink even farther underground to regroup. Death even flashed through my thoughts but I couldn't think too deeply on that one. Despite everything I have always loved my baby brother and I will always forgive him for his mistakes, no matter how many he makes.

After a few months of rumors and low level information, I had my answer. My darling baby brother had gone to the past to keep me from ever going bad. It was a creative and tricky plan. It would have taken a lot of strength. It created so many variables. He could change too much or not enough, maybe even prevent himself from being born. That idea made me laugh. I'm sure that Chris would gladly risk that for the sake of a world tipped toward the good. But for all the risks and consequences the plan rang of a last ditch hope.

That ring of hope was the thing that made me certain my spies had found the true answer. Hope was always that precious thing that made a plan say 'Chris.'

I could have stopped him. Many people don't realize that. My minions formulated ideas on how to drag him back and how to detect where he'd gone. They created a spell based on a tracer that would put me where, or when rather, he landed just before he had so that I could undo his arrival. But I just lounged in my throne and thwarted the resistance's plans until Chris came back to me.

Because, as I said, I love my brother and his little trip down memory lane could do one of two things. It could put things the way he wanted them and make him happy. Happy Chris was something I hadn't seen in a very long time and I'm always pleased to drag a smile out of him, even when it conflicts with my work. The other option would be that he fails. He would come home tired, defeated, and for once in his life he would not have that hope that he carried in his guarded heart. Then he would join me and I would convince him that my ways weren't all that bad. Then I would be happy anyways.

So I let him go and I pretended that I didn't know, and I pretended that I couldn't reach him. And the months dragged on and I worried that maybe something had happened to him in the past that I couldn't know about from my end of the timeline. So I sent Bianca to kill him. She's always had a weakness for him, just like me, and she failed like I had predicted. I made sure that Chris was alright and then I came home and now I wait.

I wait for Chris to come to me and drop in exhaustion or to smile like the child that he no longer is. I wait for a great shift in magic, a cutting headache or some great sign that everything is different. But for now it is the same and all I can do is wait. Because after all I've done and everything I've become, I still have a soft spot for my baby brother and so I'm giving him this chance to make things his way. Just one chance.