FINDING PEACE
Summary: Chris is Piper's son but he hates her even more than he hates what Wyatt is doing. The shocking truth comes out when Chris gets a surprising visitor from the future.
Disclaimer: I own nothing – please do not sue me.
CHAPTER ONE
"Are we all sure that we want to do this?" Paige asked, looking around at her sisters and ex brother-in-law worriedly.
"Absolutely," Leo said with malice in his tone that was totally uncharacteristic for an elder.
"I haven't trusted him from the start," Piper said viciously. "Letting a demon near Wyatt was just the last straw so I'm going to get some answers from Chris even if I have to cast them out of him."
Phoebe wasn't as quick to agree as Piper and Leo were, but eventually she too nodded. "I know that you trust him and he makes an effort to get along with you but he's not like that with the rest of us. We can't take the chance that he's the one going to hurt Wyatt. You understand that, don't you?"
"Yeah," Paige said in a small voice. That didn't mean she had to like the plan, though.
"So is everything ready?" Piper asked eagerly. This was her chance to get the dirt on her neurotic, interfering whitelighter that she needed to vanquish him and she wasn't going to mess it up.
Leo handed her a vial of potion. "Ready and waiting to be thrown the second that Chris steps in the house."
Phoebe straightened up from where she had been pouring over a notepad. "The spell's ready."
"Can I see?" It had suddenly occurred to Piper that lately Phoebe had been writing awful spells that backfired every time and there was no way today that she wanted this to be messed up. She was right – it was a stupid spell – but after a couple of changes she thought that it would be okay.
"Where's the trust?" Phoebe joked.
"We have to do this correctly," Leo said seriously. "If Chris really is trying to hurt Wyatt this could be our only chance to bust him."
"I was kidding, Leo."
"So what exactly is going to happen?" Paige asked nervously, ignoring her bickering family.
"It's simple, really," Piper explained. "The spell is a truth one so that we know Chris isn't faking what we see and the potion will show us what Chris wants more than anything. If we're right and Chris really is trying to hurt Wyatt then we should have some sort of a vision of him doing so and we can act accordingly." The manic glint in her eldest sister's eyes as she talked about acting accordingly told Paige that Piper was already convinced that their whitelighter was guilty and was fantasising about all the things that she wanted to do to him. It was going to take a miracle to get her to back down.
"Right," she said quietly. Privately she felt that this went against everything that the Charmed Ones stood for, not that her family would listen if she pointed this out. Another worrying thought had occurred to Paige. Personally she was starting to trust Chris and as much as she didn't want to believe something so awful about her sweet baby nephew, the young whitelighter's arguments did make a lot of sense. With no one but her even entertaining the thought that Chris could be innocent, Paige was painfully aware that if their spell proved him right – that Wyatt really was evil – then all hell was going to break lose.
"Can't we just call Chris?" Phoebe asked. "I'm tired of waiting around."
"But will he come?" Piper asked.
"He has to if she senses that you're in danger," Leo pointed out. "But I think that Paige should be the one to do it because chances are he will ignore the rest of us."
"True," Phoebe said.
Piper, of course, also agreed with the plan and so, much to Paige's chagrin, the youngest sister found herself trapped in the magical crystal cage while Leo made himself, Piper and Phoebe invisible and untraceable. Wyatt was spending the day with Victor so Chris would assume that Paige was alone in the house and would walk right into their trap – literally. "Do it," Piper ordered.
Phoebe nodded. "Call him Paige."
Paige closed her eyes and sighed sadly. She didn't want to do this at all but considering the vulnerable position she was in at the moment she knew that she didn't have a choice – she wouldn't put it past Piper to turn on her. It was times like this that she really did feel like Prue's replacement in the family – Piper would never have asked Phoebe to do this.
"Now, Paige," Leo's disembodied voice said.
Reluctantly Paige opened her mouth and did as she was told. "Chris, help me!"
The whitelighter appeared in a flurry of blue orbs and looked around the room anxiously. "What the hell happened, here?" he demanded, bending over to move on of the crystals so Paige would be freed.
"We decided that enough was enough and we are getting some answers no matter how we have to get them," Leo said coldly, coming up behind Chris.
The young whitelighter paled as Piper and Phoebe came into view. "What the hell are you people doing?"
Paige stepped out of the circle of crystals. "I'm really sorry Chris," she said tearfully.
"Don't apologise to this lying piece of scum. He's the one that should be apologising to us!" Piper screamed as Leo shoved Chris backwards and trapped him in the cage where Paige had been only moments before.
"Yeah I'm really sorry for trying to save your psychotic son," Chris said sarcastically. "I don't know what I was thinking. No matter that the world's going to hell. I'll never do anything so awful again."
"Shut up!" Piper roared. "My son is not evil."
"Whatever you want to believe, Piper," Chris said in a resigned voice. He'd known that this was going to be a rough day – every day in the past away from the love and protection of his father and the friendship of his cousin was rough – but he had never imagined that things would get this bad. He knew he was going to be in for a long and possibly painful afternoon. The only consolation was that Paige didn't appear to agree with what the rest of them were doing – hopefully she could stop them from killing him. She always had been his favourite aunt, more of a mother really.
"Let's do this," Phoebe said. "Piper throw the potion."
Chris gagged as a vial of pure white potion exploded by his feet and a similarly coloured gas filled the air around him. Before he collapsed he was vaguely aware of the sisters reading a spell and in spite of his precarious situation, marvelled at the fact that for once they had managed to write a spell that wasn't going to backfire. He was strangely proud of them really.
Leo and the sisters also collapsed and when they opened their eyes again they found themselves in a dark and twisted corridor. "Whoa, I so didn't expect this," Phoebe said. "Where are we?"
"I think we're in Chris' mind," Leo said, looking around.
"Well how do we find the truth?" Piper asked.
"We just wait," Paige said, reluctantly, gesturing to the silvery-white balls of matter that were floating around. She had been doing a lot of reading about the workings of the mind at magic school lately so as much as she hated herself for it, she was able to explain. The only silver lining she could think of was that at the very least she could stop Leo and her sisters doing something that would cause Chris permanent damage. "They're Chris' thoughts and memories. The relevant ones will come to us."
"Cool," Phoebe said. Paige could tell that she was looking around, analysing everything from a psychology point of view. She wanted to tell her that Chris was a person, not a museum piece but at the very least she supposed it stopped her from hurting him.
Slowly a few of Chris' memories began to show themselves to Leo and the sisters. Mainly they were all of his time in the past and his interactions with the family. Paige could tell that Leo and the sisters were getting frustrated at seeing something they already knew about but unlike them she knew that this had a purpose and felt horrible at how badly they had treated the young man that was only trying to help.
"Here comes another one," Leo said as another memory opened up before them. This time it was something good.
Chris was pacing around a small, dark room while having a conversation with a teenage girl that was sprawled across the sofa. "Can we please just admit defeat and start working out how to vanquish Wyatt?" the girl asked.
"Things are bad Lizzie but I don't think they're that bad yet," Chris said. "Let's just wait and see what dad says. I'm hoping that he'll let me have a go at my plan before we resort to vanquishing."
"Why would you want to save him? Have you forgotten what he and his mother did to you?"
A look of sadness crossed Chris' face. "I haven't forgotten, Lizzie and I hate them both for it but as hard as I try I just can't forget about the bond that Wyatt and I share."
"Chris you have to get over the past," the girl said gently. "Ben didn't and look where that got him."
Before Chris had a chance to respond to that, a bright white light burst into the room and Chris absorbed it into his body, turning deathly pale as he did so. "It's a message from dad," he said.
"What did he say?"
"Wyatt attacked Darryl's family and the Hunters. They're all dead."
Lizzie swallowed a wave of grief for the boy that she loved violently overtaking her. A second later it was gone and there was nothing but bitterness and determination in her eyes. "Now can we vanquish Wyatt? He killed Amy, too you know."
For a second Chris looked equally grief stricken as Lizzie had been a second ago but then he just looked resigned. He had known for years that this moment would potentially come up but he had always managed to avoid it.
He swallowed and then took a deep breath. "Okay, we can vanquish Wyatt."
There was a flash of white light and Leo and the sisters appeared back in the Halliwell Manor attic. "I knew it," crowed Piper. "He is trying to hurt Wyatt. Well if he thinks that he's going to succeed then he has another thing coming." She appeared to have totally overlooked the fact that according to Chris, Wyatt had killed Darryl, one of their best friends and his family, as well as at least one more family and some mysterious person called Amy.
"What was that white light in the vision?" Phoebe asked.
"It's how elders send messages," Leo said. "I thought that only elders had the powers but maybe it becomes more common in the future because somehow I can't imagine Chris being the son of an elder." He looked over to where the young whitelighter was still lying unconscious on the floor and snorted. "He must have come here to vanquish Wyatt so that he wouldn't get a fight."
"He will get a fight," Piper insisted.
"But why is Chris the one to vanquish him?" Paige asked, mulling over what she had just seen. "It seemed to me that the girl was the one that really wanted to do it."
"Yeah and is it me or did she look familiar?" Phoebe asked.
Paige looked thoughtful. "Could she be related to us?"
"If she's family then she never would try and kill Wyatt," Piper snapped. "I would never have anyone like that in my family. Now it's all well and good trying to work out who the girl is but can we please get back to the fact that someone is trying to kill my son. I say we vanquish him."
Leo nodded. "I agree."
Piper's eyes lit up. "But before we do it I want him to know that we figured out his plan and that we have won."
Leo nodded and walked over to the cage, kicking one of the crystals out of the way and freeing Chris. Without the bat of an eyelid he threw an elder bolt at the younger man, the electricity jolting him out of his unconsciousness. "Wake up scum bag."
With a great deal of difficulty Chris opened his eyes but couldn't find the strength to fight back. "What happened?"
Leo kicked Chris in the stomach and Piper smiled evilly. "What happened, you little bastard, is that we worked out what you're planning and now we're going to vanquish you."
Suddenly Leo and the sisters all looked around warily as they heard the unmistakable sound of a portal being opened and were shocked to see a familiar face, clearly from the future emerge. The visitor looked around the room, his eyes falling on the rapidly weakening Chris, his mind mulling over what he had just heard Piper say. He glared at them all.
"If you know what's good for you then you will not lay a hand on the boy."
The End: There's the first one done – please tell me what you think. I have a lot on at the moment so updates probably won't be that fast but I won't forget about it.