A/N Here comes the continuations! I hope you'll enjoy=)
Chapter 9
Leo's Point of view (the of the fight)
The moment Chris orbed out, I felt something inside me broke, something stopped existing. I felt as a failure. I always thought that I made a good father, but apparently I was wrong. The good father see when his child was hurt and I never did. After the Chris from the other timeline died in my arm I promised myself that I would never make him feel excluded from the family life and my life. But here we were and every promise I had ever made to myself and that Chris were broken. I failed him and I guess this time it was more serious.
I look around the room and watched my family, or what was left of it. My eldest son shut his eyes, clenched his fist and disappeared in blue and white lights. I wanted to call him but conscience argued against it and I let him leave. My youngest son was looking through the window, his face covered in tears and he was mothering something. I thought he said 'I'm so sorry'. For the first time in all my life I saw such empty and dull eyes as Paul's. And finally I shifted my gaze at my wife. Piper was sobbing and rocking herself. She looked so shattered, so lost. She wanted to believe that that day was just a nightmare, but she couldn't. I wanted to come back to the beginning of the day and stop it from happening but again it could only postpone the day and it would just be the other day when I felt this way.
Now observing my family I asked myself, why I never stopped being an elder, why I never took the day off just to be there and talk with my son. And I wished right now about one thing only to find the way to bring my baby home and make the family work again.
"We need to find my baby." I heard Piper's whisper. "We need to correct our mistakes. I want to bring him home."
"You didn't hear him, did you, mum?"Paul snapped at Piper. "He isn't coming home. Hell, he doesn't even consider this place as his home! He has home but not with us. He has other family. For God's sake, we, no, YOU failed him and Wyatt and I never took notice how miserable he was. You made him irrelevant even in our eyes." Paul shouted at my wife and I. I didn't blame him because we really did. We always compared him with his brother, we never praised him but always found the reason to accuse him of something, now that I thought about it, it became clear.
"Paul, we will bring him home! I will do everything I can to make up to him! But we need to notify your aunts before it. They can help." Piper said sternly.
"Piper, I don't think that it a good idea. I think first we need cool down and then discuss the situation we're in." I stepped in the conversation. "Piper, you of all people should know that it won't be easy. If he just for a little bit is resembling the Chris he won't let it go easily."
"Leo, he's my son!"
"I know that, he's mine too. And unlike you I saw his other version die, I held him in my arms when he took the last breath, and need I remind you that you at the moment was in the hospital giving birth to our Chris. And now I met the fact that I still the neglectful father I was in the other timeline! Don't you see you are NOT the only one hurting we all do. And right now we need make sure that everything we do only in Chris best interests." I finished and looked at my son. Paul had his mouth slightly open and his eyes were filled with confusion. And only after that I understood that I let the biggest secret of the family slip away.
"Die? What does that mean? When did Chris die? Wait, you said from the other timeline at the Chris birthday? You mean he travelled to the past?" My youngest son bombarded us with questions. I saw that my wife began shaking and her face filled with horror.
"Paul, we need to tell you something. It's about…." Piper cut me off.
"Oh no! You are so not doing it! You have no right!" She shrieked. Frankly I was tired of keeping it as a secret. I came to the conclusion that it was time to open up.
"Piper, they have right to know. You can't shut me up now. I never wanted it to be a secret but you insisted and I came along but it high time the change that. We already lost Chris, but we got lucky and baby him was born. Than I've just found out that I could have lost him once again because of what we did and you asking me to keep important information from my other sons and risk losing them too. No way in hell!" I said to my wife. I watched her, she started crying again and couple minutes later she nodded her head with agreement. "Ok, then. I call you sisters and ask them to come over. We need to decide what to do and you try and call for Wyatt. I don't want to repeat the story more than needed."
With that I turned and left to make a call. I could hear Piper calling our eldest son while I dialing Phoebe's number. After several seconds of waiting I heard Coop's voice.
"Hello?"
"Coop, it's Leo. Take your wife and come over we have an emergency."
"Leo, what happened? Does anybody hurt?"
"Just come here as soon as you can, we all explain." With that I hang up. Then tried to call Paige but nobody answered. So I decided to use the old way of calling those who had the whitelighter blood in them. Merely a minute later she appeared in the pajamas and her hair messed up.
"What do you need Leo?" she asked sleepily, but the moment she took in my puffy eyes she asked: "Is everybody ok?"
"Paige could you come and take your husband we need to discuss something. And no, not OK." She opened her mouth to continue the interrogation, but I gave her a pleading look and she orbed out. The moment she did, Coop and Phoebe appeared in the blue heart. I didn't say anything and gestured them to go to the living room.
I followed them. Coming in to the room I saw Wyatt standing near the fire place, his whole posture said that he annoyed and he didn't want to see any of his parents right now. Before I got the chance to tell him anything blue and white orbed filled the room and then they materialized into Paige and Henry.
"So, what's going on? What the emergency?" Phoebe asked.
"After you left the dinner, we wanted to talk to Chris. But nothing went the way we imagined. We had a great fight and Chris left." I began.
"So… He's teenager, who is acting out, he'll come back when he cool off. I don't see the emergency here."
"He won't be back. He left for good unless we can bring him home. During the fight he said that we're bad parents, that he has other people who he considers as his parents and that we neglected him his whole life." I pause, to keep my tears at bay. "And I afraid to admit it but he's right. Today is his birthday, but none of us ever remembered it. And when I thought about it I knew that we never did. Not when he was seventeen or ten or even five. I don't know how he knew that it is his birthday as we never said 'Happy Birthday, Chris'. I can't remember the thing about us spending time together, just having fun, only the memories where we fought with him and compared him with his brother. Not once I said him that I loved him." The two youngest Charmed ones and their husbands were shocked, but according to their facial expressions, they looked back too, and did find any good memory with Chris.
"We gathered you here, because we will need your help in finding him and at least making him talk to us. I'm not asking more just that. And Leo and I came to the conclusion that we need to open our biggest secret, we've kept for the last eighteenth years." After that she told everything about what happened when Chris from the other timeline came back to save his brother and his family and how he died trying to complete his mission. Next half an hour went quiet, my sons held each other, my sisters-in-law were crying reliving these memories, Coop and Henry were beyond shocked and I was heartbroken.
When she finished the story of the past, Wyatt jumped up and began pacing around the room. His eyes shone with such an anger and pain, that I thought he felt it physically. Once he stopped he looked at us and hissed.
"After everything he did for you, for this family you couldn't find five minutes a day to talk to him, to hug him and say how special he was? After he scarified his life for me you just took it as granted. Before that I thought that you just made mistakes with Chris and proved them with us, but I was wrong you're just bad parents." I could understand why the other Chris was so determined to make Wyatt good, to stop evil. Because even being good he could frighten you to death.
"Wyatt!"Piper gasped.
"Now, excuse me, I need to find my brother and make sure he is OK. Make sure he …" My eldest son didn't finish the sentence, but I understood what he was afraid of.
"We find him. We need to work together as a family" I assured him. "Only this way we can achieve something. Because if he's something like the Chris, it won't be easy."
"He is as the Chris, I think even more than him." I youngest son mumbled. "He extremely good with his powers and with spells, and you never trained him. Either he remembers his past life or he was trained by that other family he has, or may be both."
That idea terrified me. If Chris knew about his other self we wouldn't stand a chance to find him. Because the Chris knew the Book from cover to cover and he knew how to make himself undetectable. I hoped that Paul was wrong.
