Charmed -:- Borrowed Time
Episode Summary:
Gnomes, Fairies, Wood Nymphs, and now Witches have been going missing with increasing frequency over the past few months, and it's Wyatt's job as the Twice Blessed to solve the mystery. However, the enigma that is Chris has him distracted. When trouble strikes a little too close to home, will Chris be able to keep his secret...?
Author's Note(s):
Okay, we are back! Sorry for the delay, I was away on holiday (which actually gave me the inspiration for this little ficlet!) Thanks to all my wonderful readers and a special shout out to lizardmomma and charmedtomeetyou for reviewing!
This chap/part/story…whatever…takes place about two or three weeks after Chris's birthday…
Enjoy!
Two -:- The Menagerie
Chris's Apartment, San Francisco
Something was wrong with his brother.
Wyatt didn't what or why, but he knew it had happened on his birthday. His normally friendly and relatively social brother had suddenly become withdrawn – so much so that Wyatt hadn't actually seen him in two weeks, and neither had anyone else for that matter. Mom, Dad, even his over-protective Aunts were all refusing to be worried, claiming that he just needed some time. Chris had only turned twenty-three; a little premature for a midlife crisis!
No, something was very, very wrong with his brother; and he wasn't going to leave Chris alone until he found out what it was.
He materialised in the living space of the small two-bed apartment, making the occupant of the kitchenette jump. It wasn't who Wyatt was looking for. "Hey Sean, you seen Chris?"
"Morning oh Twice Blessed one, never heard of a door?" Sean Cooper, Chris's roommate and first Charge as a Whitelighter, sarcastically greeted. The two of them had been friends since college when the Elders had meddled with their admissions to make them dorm mates. Sean was a reluctant and indecisive first-generation witch who had needed some serious baby-sitting in the magical world. He still did, hence the shared apartment. "The sulking one is in his room. Well he was last time I checked – but it's hard to tell when you people don't use regular exits."
"You will get over that one day, won't you?" Wyatt replied with an irritated eye-roll. His brother must have the patience of a saint to put up with this Charge. Sean shrugged non-committedly, and then recommenced eating his breakfast. "Has Chris seemed different to you recently?"
"You mean all silent and broody instead of loud and constantly nagging?" Sean asked, taking a ridiculously large mouthful of food. Wyatt nodded. "I wouldn't know – I haven't seen him in a fortnight. He refuses to leave his room." Sean finished chewing and grabbed up a bag. "Now, I have to go to work, see ya."
"Demon-hunting?" Wyatt asked curiously before Sean could use the lowly mortal escape route, commonly known as a 'door'.
"Hell no!" Sean denied forcefully. "The office. There is no way I'm doing any of that stuff while my Whitelighter's out of commission."
"Well, be careful anyway," Wyatt warned, growing increasingly worried. Chris had never let his Whitelighter duties slip before; to leave his Charges high and dry like this, things must be even worse than he thought. "A load of Witches have gone missing recently – watch your back."
"Well that's just great," Sean huffed, slamming the door shut behind him loudly.
Wyatt was then left alone in the eerily quiet apartment, more determined than ever to figure out what had turned his brother into Mr Irresponsibility. He knocked on the bedroom door but received no answer. "Hey, Chris, it's me – you in there?" He knocked again, and then tried the handle to find it locked. Since when did Chris lock his door? "Chris, come on, let me in." He tried irritating his brother into opening the door with his incessant tapping on the wood, but as always, Wyatt's patience ran out first. "The lock really isn't going to stop me, you know."
To prove a point, he ignored all rules of privacy and simply orbed to the other side of the door, and gasped. Chris's room was a den of organised chaos. Photos, pages torn from books, newspaper clippings and hand-scrawled notes littered the walls and dangled from strings that divided the room in half. Books clearly stolen from Magic School littered the floor; open on seemingly random and unconnected pages. In the middle of all this stood Chris, looking every bit as if he just wanted to orb away before Wyatt could begin asking questions. "What the hell is all this?"
"Nothing," Chris instantly denied, but seemed to realise that that answer wasn't going to cut it. "Just some research…for a Charge…"
Wyatt crossed his arms disbelievingly. "Oh really? Which one?"
Chris's eyes flickered to one side as if he was trying to recall some long-forgotten memory. When he answered, he hadn't quite hidden the uncertainty in his voice. "Sophie…?"
"The eight-year-old daughter of Anna, your actual Charge?" Wyatt retorted sarcastically, making Chris flinch. Something was beyond wrong, how could their parents have just accepted this as normal? The Charmed Ones had been possessed and imitated so many times that they were usually overly-vigilant for this kind of behaviour – so why weren't they concerned, when they so clearly should be? "Chris, tell me, what the hell is going on with you?"
The dear-in-headlights look Chris was currently giving him would have been hilarious in any other situation. "Nothing…" he tried again, but with even less conviction than before. He looked so tired, and when he looked up the determination that usually lit up his eyes was extinct. "I just… Something… I'll be fine, I just need a little time."
"So you don't want to talk? Fine," Wyatt sighed. He hadn't let it go; he was just going to try a different tack. "Then you're going to help me instead."
Chris looked confused for a moment, and then seemed to figure that this was the better option. "Help you with what?"
"In the past month, eighteen Witches have gone missing," Wyatt explained, immediately all-business. He was the Twice Blessed after all; these kind of things weren't meant to happen on his watch. "And the Magical Community has reported missing faeries, leprechauns, nymphs and a whole load of others over the last half a year. At first I thought that the two were unconnected, but now I'm not so sure."
"You think a demon did all that?" Chris asked, a semblance of his old self coming through. Wyatt resisted the urge to smile at the minute success. "No, it would have to be a faction of them, or maybe someone's trying to organise the Underworld again. You would think they'd have given up on that by now."
Wyatt clapped a hand on Chris's shoulder and grinned. "Let's go find out, shall we?"
Magic School
"And that's all for today class," Mrs Demoir shouted above the din of her class desperately packing up their things. "Don't forget! There's a pop quiz on Advanced Potion-making tomorrow! Study up!"
Melinda Halliwell joined the stampede out of the classroom door but then veered away. The vast majority of students boarded at Magic School, but she was one of the few who didn't. On her way to the door that would send her back home (her now-mortal father had led to her being the only one of her siblings unable to orb) she considered the extreme unlikelihood of her revising for the dreaded pop quiz. It was disturbing how like a normal high school the pocket realm was, though to be honest, she only had minimal experience of school in the real world.
As if to encourage her to do the studying her teachers were constantly pushing for, the door home had been placed in the library. It was probably one of her father's more subtle hints that her grades were nowhere near as high as her over-achieving brothers had been at her age, but she wasn't particularly bothered. If she wanted to she could always cheat on the tests anyway, they should have been proud that she was honest enough to admit the limit of her education.
She rolled her eyes with a sigh as she stepped through the door and into the Halliwell Manor. As always, she found herself halfway up the stairs – a strange place for a supposed-to-be-inconspicuous door – and she used the back of her foot to nudge it closed.
Aiming for an after-school snack she went down the steps and into the dining room. And then promptly froze. They had house guests.
A demon of some description made a grab for her, but with a frightened squeal she managed to dance out of his reach. She swung her heavy schoolbag off of her shoulder and into the side of his head and then spun on her heel. Another one came for her but she was just fast enough to avoid his lunge. She made for the stairs and the door back to Magic School as she had always been taught, but she was pulled back with a yank on her bag. "Let me go!"
Instead of pulling away, she purposely threw herself at the offending demon, surprising him enough that her meagre weight was enough to send them both to the ground. She scrabbled back to her feet, stepping on the demon in the process, and ran again for the door. "Wyatt! Chris! Help!"
She made it up a few steps this time before a third demon shimmered into existence and blocked her escape, energy ball in hand. The first two demons had recovered and waited for her at the bottom. Where the hell were her brothers? With a split second decision, she vaulted herself over the banister and made for the front door – exposure would keep them from following, surely? "Wyatt!"
More demons appeared, cutting her off again, and she swerved into the front room. She realised her mistake too late. They blocked both of the doors – short of throwing herself through the window there was just no way out. As the accumulative force of six demons all took menacing steps towards her she found the window option to be more and more appealing. "Chris! Wyatt! Someone!"
The Underworld
Chris ducked an energy ball that was aimed at his head, and then blindly flicked out his hand, sending a telekinetic wave in the general direction of the attack. They had only been down in the Underworld for a few hours before stumbling upon a horde of naberius demons that had taken to using them for target practice. It was safe to say that the investigation wasn't getting very far.
"We should go!" Chris yelled at Wyatt who was taking cover on the other side of tunnel that they had been bottlenecked into. Wyatt seemed to be having too good a time to listen and grinned as he deflected the flock of energy balls back at their creators. "Wy! Come on! We gotta go!"
"What? And leave these guys here to hurt future innocents? No way!" Wyatt replied as he changed tactics and started orbing boulders and rocks into the enemy. It was his duty as the Twice Blessed to not only fight the forces of evil but to keep them from doing evil in the first place. He spent more time in the underworld thinning out the ranks than he did topside protecting Innocents. The Wyatt of the bad timeline had seen more sunlight than this one, but at least he was vanquishing the demons instead of rallying them to his cause.
Wyatt! Chris! Help!
Both brothers looked upwards at the panicked call, and then at each other. "Mel!"
"Chris, go!" Wyatt instructed as he stepped out, protected by his force field. "I've got this!"
Chris nodded and vanished in a flurry of blue lights. He reformed at the bottom of the stairs in the manor just as his sister's scream sounded from the front room. He sprinted the short distance and skidded through the archway. He had a millisecond to take in the sight of the six demons surrounding Melinda before he sprang into action. He threw up his arm, slamming the three demons blocking the other half of the front room into the ceiling before letting gravity do the rest. "Mel! Run!"
He officially had the remaining demons' attention as they turned on him, allowing Melinda to scarper through the arch and back around to the stairs. Chris returned their energy balls back to sender, vanquishing two of them in a flare of flames. The one remaining took one look at the piles of soot and made to shimmer out. Chris caught him before he could and sent him flying into the coffee table.
"Chris!"
The first three recovered from his first attack and ran towards the scream. To head them off, Chris backed out of the front room and down the entrance hall parallel to them. He just caught sight of Melinda once again surrounded by more demons that seemed to be crawling out of the woodwork, before he was thrown off of his feet and smashed into the banister. He hit the floor with a pained grunt, but his sister's panicked cry had him standing again before he had even registered his injuries.
Two of the demons had grabbed a hold of Melinda and were about to shimmer out with her but he managed to telekinetically pull them away from her before they got the chance.
There were too many of them, that much was clear. For every one he was able to vanquish two more would show up in its place. And they were pretty adamant that they were going to get Melinda. He sent another telekinetic wave at them, catching a few of them unawares, and shouted for Wyatt. There were times when you just had to admit that your Twice Blessed brother was stronger than you; inferiority complex or no.
Melinda tried to run for the door to Magic School while her attackers were occupied with Chris, but the move was anticipated and she found herself trapped again. "Chris!"
He didn't get the chance to even try and save her this time. He barely registered the fact that he was airborne before suddenly the world went dark.
The Halliwell Manor
Wyatt orbed in a few seconds after the demons had shimmered out with his sister. He appeared by the front door, where he froze for a moment as he took in the carnage around him. The front room was a shelter for broken furniture; flowers escaped their vases and picture frames surrendered to gravity. There didn't seem to be a thing that had escaped unscathed – what the hell had happened?
"Mel? Chris?" he called cautiously to the abnormally silent manor. He took slow, wary steps deeper into the minefield, ready for any nasty surprises. He wasn't ready for what he actually found however. "Chris!"
His younger brother was collapsed on the landing half-way down the stairs, suspiciously still. Wyatt closed the distance between them in a few long strides and came to kneel at his side. A pool of blood had accumulated beneath his head and ran from his ear, and his arm folded under him at an unnatural angle. Immediately, Wyatt set his healing hands aglow and held them over the worst injuries, silently praying that he wasn't too late. "Come on, Chris…"
The severity of the injuries meant that the process took longer than usual, but after a few paranoid minutes, Chris sprang upright, gasping. Disorientated, his eyes roved their surroundings until his memory returned. "They got Mel."
"What? Who got Mel?" Wyatt demanded as he helped drag Chris to his feet.
"I don't know," Chris replied, furrowing his brow as he struggled to remember. Everything had happened so fast. "There were too many of them…I tried…"
"What did they look like?"
Chris shrugged. "Like every other demon that attacks us?" Wyatt gave him his 'not impressed' look. "They used telekinesis and energy balls and shimmered. They might have been generic warlocks but I can't be sure. They only seemed interested in capturing Mel, not killing her, though they didn't seem overly bothered about my wellbeing – you reckon they need a telepath for something?"
"Maybe I'll ask them right before I vanquish their sorry asses," Wyatt retorted angrily and then turned to head upstairs. "Come on, we'll scry for her and hunt down these bastards."
They followed the usual procedure for missing family members; scrying and checking the Book of Shadows. Though it didn't happen as often in this generation, it was still a disturbingly regular occurrence and everyone was well rehearsed in the methods. But the atmosphere in the attic was more tense than usual; it had never been their baby sister before. She had always been protected and sheltered from the demon-hunting side of their magical lives – she had never been a target – so why was she now?
It wasn't long before Chris was slamming the Book closed with an exasperated growl. Considering the size of the tome in this time it should have taken him far longer to peruse its entire contents; but he had studied it enough for two lifetimes now and had practically memorised it. "There's nothing! Well, there are plenty of things they could be – but the damn things are too generic, they could be anything!"
Wyatt studied Chris for a moment before answering. He knew his younger brother was acting out of character and the outburst contrasted greatly with his usually methodical and level-headed, if a little neurotic, nature. For now though, he just put it down to the fact that their baby sister had just been taken, and in Chris's eyes, he had been the one who failed to stop it. "Shouldn't be too difficult to vanquish then. Lots of the same generally mean low-level. We probably won't even need any potions – if I could just find them."
Chris!
Even Wyatt heard the urgency of the jingle meant for his Whitelighter brother, and for a moment his scrying hand stilled. "Was that…?"
"Sean." Chris finished. Ever since his change he had been keeping his Charges on mute – he would only hear a call from them in an emergency, and judging by the fear and panic that had laced the psychic cry this certainly counted. But Chris was torn between a Charge he hadn't had the time to re-know and a sister he had just failed to save. Thankfully, Wyatt made the decision for him.
"Go," he nodded, setting the crystal swirling again. "It only takes one of us to scry."
With that Chris disintegrated into a column of blue and white lights to reform again in a very public, yet thankfully deserted, parking lot. The only occupants were a bunch of familiarly generic demons and a petrified Sean.
In both timelines Chris had always been conscious of exposure so he gave the area a cautious scan before jumping forward to help his Charge. With the coast clear he flung out his arm and sent three of the five demons flying into various parked vehicles. At the sound of smashed glass and creaking metal Chris spared a thought to the hopefully insured owners, but was pulled back into the moment just as quickly as his mind had strayed. "Sean! Run!"
The demons still standing conjured twin energy balls that they then threw at Chris, who with barely a flick of his wrist deflected them back. Wyatt had been right about the easy to vanquish part as the demons burst into flames accompanied by their own screams of pain. Sean was on his feet and running towards his Whitelighter at the start of the attack, and was by his side before the flames dissipated. "About time," he muttered irritably, but only to hide his own fear – he never had been one for the demon-hunting. "Can we make with the orbing now?"
"Not yet," Chris snapped back, causing Sean to give him a surprised look. Before Chris had always been for the safety of his Charges first, with the vanquishing coming as a close second – so why was he hanging around and keeping Sean in danger?
The three demons left had recovered and were advancing carefully, energy balls at the ready though they were quite happy with keeping themselves at a relatively safe distance, waiting for a better chance to strike. But Chris didn't wait for them to make the first move. He caught sight of some shrapnel from the earlier collisions with the stationary cars – nothing identifiable beyond being sharp and pointy, and smirked.
Without warning he was orbed on the opposite side of the lot, the demons between him and Sean, and telekinetically shooting the shrapnel pieces into the backs of two of them. The one remaining in the middle took one look at his flaming brethren and did the smart thing. His form had just begun to dissolve into a shimmer when Chris stretched out an arm and mentally held the demon in place.
"Hey!" Sean shouted indignantly. "Why aren't you vanquishing?"
Chris studied the demon. Despite its generic-ness he recognised him from the Manor less than an hour ago. "Because, he knows where my sister is."
"No, that really wasn't what I ordered, Jake," Piper Halliwell huffed into her cell phone that was tucked between her shoulder and ear, leaving her hands free to manhandle the array of shopping bags through the front door. "No, no. I wanted 300litres of fresh cream, not two gallon of skimmed milk – how could you even get that wr-" She caught sight of the disaster zone that was her home. "I have to go."
She dropped the bags on the table in the entrance hall and shut the front door as she cut off the call with a short beep. As she took in the mess around her; a mess that from experience can only be caused by a demon attack, her thoughts and fears went straight to her only child that still lived at home. "Mel! Melinda!"
The carnage had found its way into every room besides the kitchen downstairs, and had taken out part of the staircase as well. Too used to the once regular occurrence to be bothered by the destruction of material things she didn't care about the mess – she was more concerned by her daughter's lack of reply. What the hell had happened?
"Mom!" Chris appeared at the top of the stairs, a guilty and slightly panicked expression on his face. Piper didn't have time to analyse the look and immediately spiralled into questions; though she never paused long enough to get the answers. Maybe because, on a subconscious level at least, she knew that she wouldn't like them when she heard them. "Mel's been taken."
"What?" Piper practically shouted though she knew that she had heard him perfectly well. She was storming up the stairs to meet him in an instant, as if maybe the distance was causing her to mishear him.
Chris relayed the story quickly, all the while avoiding her eyes. "Wyatt hasn't had any luck scrying for her, but we've got a demon in the attic that will be willing to talk," he finished, though he didn't look done. Piper raised her eyebrows as a prompt, and Chris finally met her gaze. "I'm sorry, Mom. I… I should have protected her…"
Piper gave her son a half-smile as she studied his guilt-ridden face. She could so clearly see the two versions of him in his sea-green eyes; the broken yet determined fighter of the bad timeline that was ashamed of his failure and the protective big brother who would do anything for his little sister. She pressed a hand to his cheek "Don't blame yourself, Chris. Blame the demons we're about to vanquish."
Chris smirked at that, and then broke the moment by turning and heading back up to the attic, leaving Piper to follow. He held the door open for her, revealing the demon in the crystal cage, and the very irate Wyatt that was currently threatening him. They both looked up at their arrival, the demon grateful for the brief reprieve, and Wyatt looking just as guilty as Chris had for the whole situation. It seems the entirety of the next generation had inherited the self-blaming gene.
Taking a deep breath to bring her own emotions in check, Piper placed herself in the demon's eye line. It was rare to see a Charmed One these days, and just her presence had the demon cowering.
"You are going to die. That is not debatable or negotiable. What is optional is the manner in which it happens." It was out of character to see her quite this ruthless; but it was a demon she was threatening, and there were no lines that she would not cross for her family. "So unless you want to draw out your suffering for a very long time, I suggest that you start talking."
Wyatt raised his eyebrows at his mother, and then glanced at the demon that seemed very close to spilling his guts, both figuratively and literally. He didn't know whether to be in awe or disappointed that his status as Twice Blessed hadn't instilled half as much fear as his extremely pissed-off mother. Then again, if the stories were to be believed, Piper was a force to be reckoned with when she was angry.
About half a minute passed before Piper lost her patience. "Fine."
With the flick of her hand, the demon lost an arm in an incredibly well-controlled explosion. He started screaming in pain and writhed on the floor. Opposite each other, Wyatt and Chris shared a look. It was not often that their mother was directly involved in the battle against evil, and sometimes it was easy to forget what she was capable of. Neither were condemning her actions, it was just odd to watch their benevolent mother torture a demon.
"Would you like to take your other arm to Purgatory with you, or should I blow that up as well?"
"Wait! Wait!" the demon hissed, holding up his remaining hand in a defensive gesture. Piper lowered her own, though it was clear she was rather eager to follow through on her threat. "I'm just a hired gun tasked with collecting good witches and creatures…"
"'Collecting'?" Wyatt asked, confused over the choice of words. Surely 'kidnapping', 'capturing' or even 'catching' would have been better terms.
"For the Menagerie."
"No," Chris whispered, barely audible, but both Piper and Wyatt heard and turned to look at him. "That shouldn't exist… that was his collection…" he blinked, and suddenly seemed to realise that he was being stared at. In an attempt to cover his slip up, he continued louder "It's basically a zoo of live trophies for evil's viewing pleasure."
Piper knew that Chris was drawing on memories of the bad timeline, so in order to distract Wyatt she drew on her own anger and fear for her child "A zoo? My daughter is on display in a freaking zoo?"
"Where is it?" Chris demanded, glad for the interference, though Wyatt didn't appear to have forgotten. He would probably bring it up later, but for now, Melinda was far more important.
The demon looked to the enraged Piper and wisely decided to keep talking instead of losing more body parts. "In a shielded part of the Underworld, in Glaxon territory. But you won't get in. Not without paying the fee."
"What fee?" Wyatt asked.
The demon sighed nervously, his eyes flickering between his three captors as he tried to come up with a way out. When Piper raised her hands however, he seemed to come to the conclusion that a quick death was his best hope. "Powers."
With barely a movement on his part, Chris telekinetically summoned an atheme from its place in storage. Upon closer inspection, one would see the initials 'WW' on the handle. It was from twenty-three years ago when Phoebe had taken on the powers stored in the blade and used them to vanquish demonic game show hosts and a bunch of their voyeur audience. Only the Chris from the bad timeline knew of its existence and remembered where Paige had put it after she had had to stab her sister to remove the evil powers.
In a split second, the crystal cage lowered and the blade embedded itself in the demons chest.
Once the flames had subsided, an awkward silence enveloped the attic. Wyatt was looking at his brother as if he was seeing a stranger, both fear and shock in his eyes. Piper was wondering how she was going to explain what had just happened to the son she had been protecting from the truth all this time. Chris however, was only concerned about one thing. Saving his sister.
He called the atheme back, and then looked to Wyatt. "Shall we go then?"
The Underworld
There had be no attempt to make her 'enclosure' anything like her natural environment beyond the mural of the Halliwell Manor that served as her display's backdrop. But that was more to show off her heritage and standing as a child of a Charmed One than to make her feel at home.
All around Melinda there were demons, warlocks and other evil creatures, milling about like humans at a museum. Some wandered aimlessly, pausing every now and again at the force field cages to study its occupants, while others went directly to a particular display. Unsurprisingly, hers was proving to be very popular. She may be the youngest of her siblings, and thus the least powerful with no offensive powers, but she was still a Halliwell, so her capture was quite impressive.
The cave itself was classic Underworld, the only odd thing being its unusual size compared to most of the evil lairs she had heard about. She had never been down here before, but she recognised the cavernous structure lit by torchlight from the stories. Sometimes she hated being the overprotected, precious baby girl, but if it kept her from regularly visiting places like this, she supposed that she should really be grateful.
Melinda was pulled from her reverie by the presence of a demon that had pressed itself as close as he dared to the force field and was staring at her like a piece of meat. Feeling relatively safe behind the shield's protection she leaned back in the chair she had been given "What you looking at?"
The demon sneered nastily, his eyes studying her with an odd mixture of hunger and hatred. But then he was promptly shoved aside by another demon that was clearly of a higher level than him. When the new demon looked up at her, Melinda just about stopped herself from cheering.
It wasn't because he had just evicted her creepy admirer; it was because she recognised him, and his friend. The two of them turned to look at her, their hands in their pockets and their demeanour entirely casual. They were glamours that her brothers wore for their Underworld activities. Incredibly powerful glamours that could even mask their powers; making orbing look like shimmering and such. Melinda may never have seen these particular disguises before, but she was a telepath after all. She could see through the best masks.
The taller one, which was definitely Wyatt, despite his dark hair and grey eyes, scanned the room warily, and then glanced at Chris. "We are severely outnumbered."
Chris looked to Melinda, careful not to alert nearby viewers of their familiarity "Does this place close?" She shook her head, making Chris sigh. He then studied the layout of the room and turned to Wyatt. "If we found a way to drop all the force fields it would provide enough of a distraction for us to get Mel out."
Wyatt immediately shook his head, looking stunned that Chris would even suggest that "No way, too many innocents would get hurt."
"Okay," Chris shrugged. "Civil War, then?"
That made Wyatt grin, Chris's previous suggestion at least temporarily forgotten. They then split up and made their way to opposite sides of the cavern, both selecting a large concentration of the demonic public. It was ridiculously easy to start a brawl in the Underworld; demons were simply predisposed to infighting and seemed to relish the slightest opportunity to thin out their own numbers. All Chris did was telekinetically trip one demon into colliding with another, and the chain reaction was started.
The klutz staggered into the demon who then made it eat a fireball; the subsequent vanquish accidently knocking a nearby Warlock's drink who then retaliated with an energy ball which knocked the demon into a Darklighter who then summoned his crossbow and missed the demon but took out the Warlock whose death disturbed the viewing pleasure of a nearby Fury who then leapt into the fray and began clawing the nearest demon who blindly threw an energy ball that-
"Woah!" Chris ducked just in time to avoid the flying ball of death which took out the Warlock that had had the misfortune of standing behind him. His colleague, clearly peeved that Chris didn't take the energy ball that was meant for him, threw a fireball that Chris barely dodged by orbing out (though it appeared as if he had shimmered) and rematerializing behind him. The fireball hit the Darklighter, and so the fight continued.
Wyatt and Chris managed their brawls, barely having to do any of the fighting themselves, all the while backing up towards Melinda's cell. Once the numbers had thinned through both the battle and the retreating of others, the two brothers shared a look. Without any verbal communication they simultaneously dropped their glamours and launched into the fight as Halliwells, taking vengeance for their sister's mistreatment. They had to send a message that Melinda was never to be touched after all.
The atmosphere in the cavern went from anger to fear as the remaining demons recognised the Twice Blessed. A good few were stupid enough to stay and try their luck, but most took one look at the mass of vanquished demons in Wyatt's wake, and thought better of it.
Chris may not have been the dreaded Twice Blessed, but he had the memories of a timeline where battles like this took place on a frighteningly regular basis. He was taking out just as many demons as his brother, and was soon having them shimmer out rather than face him.
The last demons standing were quick to realise that they didn't stand a chance, and soon only good was left to occupy the Menagerie. Cheers erupted from several enclosures, and Wyatt grinned at his brother. Chris may have been acting weird recently, but it was clear that he had kept his demon-hunting priorities straight. Not that he was going to let the issue drop, not after all the strange hints he had been getting all day.
"So…" Chris gestured around them "How do we get them out…?"
The Halliwell Manor
Piper wouldn't stop hugging her daughter, to the point where Melinda was pretty sure that she had saved only to be smothered to death. She was still shaky after her ordeal and she was glad for her mother's love, but there was a limit. "Mom…can't breathe!"
Finally, Melinda was released and she took several deep, gasping breaths for dramatic effect and then beamed happily. She was home and she was safe. Piper kept her arms around her, though the death grip was loosened. They sat side-by-side on the couch in the front room, after some magical assistance with the clearing up, with Wyatt sitting opposite them. Chris hadn't orbed home with them, obviously wanting to avoid having to talk to his brother for as long as possible.
"You know, don't you," Wyatt said quietly, unintentionally wiping the smiles of their faces. They looked at him with unreadable expressions. "You know what's wrong with Chris."
Piper shook her head while Melinda remained carefully quiet. "There is nothing wrong with your brother, Wy."
"How can you say that?" Wyatt demanded, pushing himself to his feet. "Are you blind or in denial? Something is seriously wrong and you damn well know it – why won't anyone tell me? Did I do something?"
Piper flinched at that last question, confusing Wyatt even more. What had he done that was so bad that his entirely family would lie to him? Surely he would remember doing something that momentous. "No, Wyatt," she said firmly, meeting his eyes. "I am not in denial. I am being understanding. Chris has… Chris has been through a lot recently, so I am giving him some space. You should too."
Wyatt really didn't understand. Nothing had happened to Chris as far as he knew. But then again, that was probably all part of the big secret that he wasn't a part of. It was so frustrating to be kept out of the loop, especially when he could see that something was wrong with his little brother. And besides, what could Chris have been through that explained his behaviour?
"How did he know?" Wyatt wouldn't let it drop, and Piper sighed heavily. "How did he know about the Menagerie; about the atheme in storage? Why has he been letting his responsibilities slide? The decisions he's made, Christ, Mom! The way he fought – it was like he was a different person! How can you claim that any of that is normal?"
"Wy," Melinda murmured as she got to her feet as well. "For your own sake, please let this go."
Wyatt studied his little sister as she looked up at him with her dark brown eyes, basically begging him not to care. Piper was pleading with the same eyes; not with worry for Chris, but with sympathy for Wyatt. And that was the clincher. Something must have happened, and he was the cause – that was the only explanation. There wasn't a chance in hell that he was ever going to let that go.
"I'm sorry," Wyatt began to orb, his next words emanating from the empty space he had just occupied. "But I can't."
Chris's Apartment
After the battle in the Menagerie, Chris felt completely drained. He orbed back to his apartment, avoiding the Manor completely, and collapsed onto his bed. In the bad timeline he had been used to fights like that, hell, that one had been pathetic in comparison to some of the attacks he had survived. But he had to remember, his body was from the good timeline, and it was gravely apparent that it had never had such a rigorous workout.
He would have to fix that. If he had to spend a year (or technically, less than a year now) in this new Chris, then he would have to get himself into the shape he was used to. He may not have had a purpose anymore, no mission to drive him, no world resting on his shoulders, but he still had a family to protect and a future to preserve. He had always been a goal-orientated person – the lack of a target was driving him mad.
Even more so than the confusion of memories in his head. You would have thought that two weeks of doing nothing but thinking would finally get his two sides in order, but you'd be wrong. That's what the mass of papers and string that littered his room was about.
There were two main strings, colour coded for convenience, that ran from one wall to the opposite. The red string represented the bad timeline, and the blue string the good one. Starting from the Titan attack all the way back in 2002, he had mapped every key event in both timelines; the occasional string connecting both where inevitable things had occurred.
And speaking about inevitable Chris thought to himself as he dragged himself onto his feet. He collected up his notebook and scrawled the date and 'The Menagerie' on the page. He then tore it off and pinned it onto the blue string.
Then he tied another piece of string to the note and unravelled a length about a metre or so long. With a pained sigh, he found the corresponding paper from the bad timeline, and tied the other end of the string. 'August 2024 – Prue taken as part of the Menagerie'
He had never been able to save his cousin. None of the Resistance had ever been able to find the Menagerie – Wyatt kept it too well protected. Even now, even though he knew that it hadn't happened in this timeline, Chris still felt weighed down by the guilt and the loss. When he had found out that Melinda had been taken he had been beyond determined that he would save her. In fact, he had been reckless, practically revealing the truth to his brother, or at the very least making Wyatt curious enough to start searching on his own. Chris knew that it was going to come back to haunt him, but he hadn't cared.
The past could not repeat itself.
