A Future so Changed
by Lady Dawson
Chapter One: Chris's Return
"I'm here now," Chris could hear his father saying as his strength was drained out of him. "You can—hold on, okay? Hold on, hold on. I'm here now, you can hold on, okay? Don't give up, okay?"
Chris blinked at his father, giving him a small nod. "You either," he said with what little strength he had. As he said those last words, he could feel his life leaving his body and then his spirit detaching from it. Looking down, he saw his body fading away and then he was floating up and away.
At least, at first. One minute, it seemed as though he were floating towards something bright and peaceful and then the next, he was yanked from that peaceful place and shoved into a tight hole, being thrust through it. Chris tried to yell, but it seemed as he had no voice.
And then suddenly it was over, it was as though he had landed somewhere very abruptly. He lay where he was for a minute, trying to figure out where he was. As he strained his ears, he could hear people talking downstairs and laughter.
With a groan, Chris opened his eyes and pushed himself up off of the bed he was lying on, taking a look around. To his uttermost shock, he saw that he was in his old room at the manor. The room that had been his in his future, before everything had been torn apart. "What's going on?" he muttered as he got up and peered outside.
Chris had to blink and take a second look because the entire city seemed to have changed from the nightmare that he had known it to be in his time to the one that he had grown used to in the past. But he couldn't be in the past, could he? Not when he was in his own room, with his stuff cluttered everywhere.
The door opened and a familiar female voice said, "Chris, you'd better get downstairs, your mom's on her last nerves down there."
Chris whirled around, his heart leaping into his throat as he stared at the young woman in front of him. She was opening some drawers, looking for something, her light brown wavy hair falling into her face. Impatiently, she shoved it out of her face, revealing vivid blue-grey eyes.
"What did you do with those invitations that we ordered, anyway?" she asked him, looking up at him at last. Her eyes suddenly went wide and she was instantly at his side. "Chris, are you okay?" she wanted to know. "You've gone all pale; you look like you just saw a ghost."
"You're not too far off, Kathryn," Chris croaked, barely able to speak from shock and astonishment.
Kathryn Lennox stared at him, frowning slightly. Chris was having trouble breathing. The last time that he'd seen his first love, she had been lying in his arms, dying. Kathryn and Chris had met when he'd been forced to leave the manor, looking for a place to stay. She had brought him into her house and they had fallen in love. They had formed the Resistance together and worked together against Wyatt . . . until Kathryn had been killed in a crossfire. Before she had died, she had made him promise to find love again, to find some happiness for himself.
At the time, Chris had wanted to scream at her for it. How could she tell him such a thing, when it was her that was in trouble? But eventually, he understood the truth: she had wanted him to keep going, even though she wasn't there to help him.
And now . . . seeing her standing before him, looking so alive, was more than he could handle. Feeling her touch against him . . .
"Chris, what are you talking about?" she asked him. Concern was etched into her features, her pretty face drawn with worry. She was always worrying about him and never worrying about herself. Taking his hand into hers, she asked him again, "Are you okay?"
Letting out a slow breath, Chris tried to calm his panicking heart. "Yeah," he said softly, realising the truth of those words. He was okay, better than he had been in the longest time. "I'm all right." Kathryn looked at him sceptically, not believing him. "I promise, Kate," he said. "I'm all right." He gave her a reassuring smile.
Kathryn frowned, but let it go. "All right," she said sceptically. "Do you know where you put the invitations at?" she repeated her earlier question. She walked over to the drawer and started searching through it.
"Sorry, no," Chris said truthfully. Invitations for what?! he wanted to scream at her, but tried to stay calm. After all, this wasn't her fault. Besides, he was glad and ecstatic to see her alive again.
Suppressing a sigh, Kathryn closed the last drawer in the desk and proceeded to go over to his closet. "Well, I'll keep looking. You'd better get downstairs and help Piper. Bianca's getting on her last nerves down there," she told him.
Chris froze when he heard her words, but Kathryn didn't notice because she was still looking for the invitations. Bianca? he thought in shock. But why was Bianca here? If he had things correct, then he and Kathryn were still together and he never would have met Bianca. And she had said that his mom was downstairs . . . his mom . . . she was still alive!
Chris felt an engulfing joy radiate through him and knew that he had to get downstairs and see this future. He had to see just how much he had changed from his trip to the past.
"I'll be downstairs if you need me," he heard himself saying. Kathryn smiled at him, nodding as she continued searching through the closet for the missing invitations. Chris tried to pull himself together as he exited his room and headed downstairs.
The first thing that he noticed was that the entire house was decorated. There were streamers from floor to ceiling and bows in every corner. Looking around the first floor, he finally saw his mom sitting in the living room, talking with . . . Bianca.
"Morning, sweetie," Piper said when she saw him. She was looking harassed, he noticed, as he entered the living room and leaned against the doorframe. "You sleep okay?"
"Yeah," Chris said, wondering if he had. "It's been . . . an interesting morning."
His words caught Piper's attention and she looked at him, alert in her brown eyes. "Uh . . . Chris, why don't you help me in the kitchen?" she said, leaving no room for argument in her voice. She looked towards the phoenix. "Bianca, I'm sorry, but—"
"It's okay," Bianca said, getting up. "I have to get home anyway. See you later, little brother-in-law," she added to Chris as she walked past him. Chris would have replied if it weren't for the fact that his mouth was now stuck to the roof of his mouth.
"Brother-in-law?" he muttered, unable to comprehend this. But Bianca was already out the door and Piper was in the kitchen.
"Chris, kitchen now!" Piper barked. Almost shaking with a mixture of shock and disbelief, Chris obeyed, walking into the kitchen and feeling like he did when he was a kid and done something wrong.
Piper was at the island, mixing ingredients in a bowl when he entered. "Okay, what's going on?" she demanded, looking up at him. "Come on, Chris, I can clearly see that something's going on."
"Mom, trust me I am just as confused as you at what's going on," Chris said truthfully. "That's kind of the problem."
"What do you mean, honey?" Piper asked, her tone dropping a few levels. "Chris, what happened? Did you and Kathryn have a fight or something?"
"No." Chris shook his head, dropping down into a chair and trying very hard to explode onto her. "No, what's wrong is that I don't know what's going on, two of my dead girlfriends are alive, and one of them just called me her brother-in-law!"
Suddenly awareness flew into Piper's eyes and she dropped the bowl onto the counter, coming around to look at Chris. She had a shocked look on her face. "Chris?" she whispered. "Are you telling me that—"
"I'm the Chris from the other timeline, yeah," Chris agreed, looking up at her. "And I don't have any idea what's going on here."
