"You did it sweetie, you changed everything," Chris heard Piper say, but nothing was making sense. He felt sluggish and tired, but he didn't have time for this, Gideon had Wyatt, he had to do something. His brain started to catch up to his senses though and he realized he was in an oddly familiar room surrounded by people, too many people. Alert again, he sat up quickly looking wildly around the room, nearly losing his emotional mask completely when he saw Bianca sitting at a desk chair, removed from the crowd around him. Bianca's alive? Unbidden, he remembered saying good bye to her, the fragmented wood that tore through her body covered in blood, his own hands covered in her blood. Reflexively he reached to his pocket to find her ring, but it wasn't there. Now he was really starting to panic.
Phoebe recognized his fear immediately, "Chris," she started gently, his eyes snapped to her. "Chris, what's the last thing you remember?"
Something wasn't right, everyone looked different somehow. He shook his head, taking a breath and swinging his legs over the side of the bed so he could sit properly. What was the last thing he remembered? He let his manic thoughts coalesce. "Gideon, Wyatt!" He exclaimed trying to stand up, looking pleadingly at Piper and Leo. Piper shushed him, keeping a gentle pressure on his shoulders to bring him back to sitting. That's when he noticed his mom wasn't pregnant. He stared at her stomach for a second before looking up at her, "But, but…" he stopped again, thinking, whatever was happening it didn't matter, he had only gone to the past for one reason, he needed to save Wyatt.
Leo moved directly in front of Chris and squatted to his eye level, "Chris, Gideon has been dead for twenty-three years."
Chris's head shot up, staring hard at his father, then he let his gaze travel around the room until he found his brother. Wyatt was standing, arms crossed with genuine concern on his face, Melinda was next to him, leaning into him a bit as they both watched Chris struggle to understand what was going on. Not that either of them understood, but Wyatt noticed that none of Chris's reactions seemed to be surprising or worrisome to his parents or aunts. Obviously they had in fact been hiding something from them all, something big.
Understanding spread across Chris's features and he looked from Wyatt to his parents, then to Bianca before burying his face in his hands and taking a few steadying breaths. He looked back up, "But, I don't remember," he said despondently.
Piper closed her eyes, visibly deflating. How could this happen? Her son sacrificed everything, everything, to save his family, to save the world, and this is how the universe repays him?
Sensing Piper's distress, Phoebe stepped up, "You know, why don't I just take everyone downstairs Piper?" She smiled nervously, "You and Leo can…" she eyed Chris, scrunching her nose, "um get Chris up to speed, ok?" She looked around at everyone in the room, raising her eyebrows, "Ok, guys, off we go."
"Up to speed Phoebe? On twenty-three years?" Piper asked of her sister's hastily retreating back while the room emptied.
Chris shrugged, "Good to know Phoebe is as awkward as ever when she's nervous, I guess that doesn't change no matter what timeline you're in," he quirked, then laid back down on the bed, with a sigh. Looking confused, he began looking at his arms, then taking turns flexing different muscles while Piper and Leo watched, their own anxiety growing. He sat back up and then suddenly jumped to his feet and shook his head. "Pathetic, really. C'mon, did you not ever make us train?" he asked his bewildered parents. He looked from one to the other, "How do I manage to fight demons like this?"
Realizing war must have had some physical effects on Chris's body, Piper and Leo both felt foolish, just sitting there staring at Chris.
"Definitely going to have to fix this," Chris mumbled, still working different muscles. "So…" he looked at his parents, raising his eyebrows. "Bianca?"
Piper just shook her head, "You really don't remember anything? Anything?"
Chris took a deep breath, closing his eyes and cocking his head to the side as if he were trying to identify a faint sound. "I don't know," he finally said. "I remember being in a lot of pain, worried about Wyatt and you, Mom. I remember before that… and then… other things," he paused, thinking again. "It's weird, I can remember my life… er… my first life… but…" he stopped again, at a loss for how to describe what he was experiencing. "But, there's something else, they aren't memories though… more like, more like feelings. Feelings that don't fit though."
"Well," Leo started, "Maybe that is something… Chris, nothing like this has ever been done before, no one knows what to expect."
"But," Piper spoke up, "demons are, of course, trying to take advantage of it anyway."
"What do you mean?" Chris asked, noting the worry in his Mom's voice and the soft lines she'd accumulated around her eyes over the years- years he'd seemingly lost. Piper and Leo motioned for Chris to sit down, even if they didn't have the time or emotional capacity to get Chris up to speed on the last twenty-three years right this moment, they did at least need to get him up to speed on the current demon threat.
)0( )0( )0(
"Okay Aunt Phoebe, Aunt Paige, what the hell is going on?" Wyatt demanded once they all made it downstairs.
Paige and Phoebe exchanged an uncomfortable look with each other, then looked around at the four pairs of eyes looking to them for answers, just as Brody quirked his head in response to a faint chiming.
"Saved by the jingle!" Paige exclaimed.
"Not for long," Brody deadpanned, then orbed away.
"Oh, I think this one might take a while," Phoebe, nervously laughed and elbowed Paige who just rolled her eyes and looked back at Wyatt.
"We're going to have to explain that," Paige motioned towards the rooms above with her hand.
"Well, I mean, maybe we can just wait. You know shouldn't their parents tell them?" Phoebe stalled, then panicked, "oh god we're going to have to tell our kids…"
"Ok, now you're just freaking us out more," Melinda interrupted.
They'd known something was happening, hell, they'd expected something was going to happen for the last twenty-three years, but somehow they'd never quite planned on how to actually explain it. It all just sounded so ludicrous. Phoebe knew there were times over the years, when she was watching her nephews run around the Manor, she'd think back to Wyatt's first year and wonder if they'd just dreamed the whole thing up completely. Who goes back in time? And who believes it when someone says they are from the future? Ludicrous. She had no idea how they were going to explain this. How could they ever tell Wyatt what he might have become? And, god forbid, what if they all started getting memories from the original timeline? She shook her head, trying to focus back on the current moment.
Paige scrunched her mouth to the side, surveyed the worried faces around her, took a deep breath and went for it. "Ok, so yeah," she started, hands gesturing wildly, "your-brother-went-to-the-past-to-save-you-from-turning-evil-Wyatt-and-changed-the-timeline-so-much-he-nearly-erased-himself-and-now-we're-worried-that-karma's-gonna-catch-up-to-us-all-we-don't-know-what's-going-to-happen-and-of-course-demons-are-taking-advantage-of-the-worse-the-usual-crazy…" she let out another loud breath, nodding her head, hands on her hips, quite satisfied with her rushed explanation. At least until Wyatt and Melinda started laughing.
"What?! That's insane!" Wyatt exclaimed, nearly doubled over he was laughing so much.
Melinda wiped her eyes, still laughing. "It's fine," she said, "we get it, you're not comfortable explaining, but really, we aren't that stupid." She rolled her eyes one more time as she turned to leave the room. Phoebe and Paige just looked at each other, open-mouthed and at a complete loss.
)0( )0( )0(
"Don't you get it Phoebe? Your way doesn't work," he said, pacing the ground, stirring up the dust.
"Wyatt," she said, struggling against the magical bindings that had her pinned to the wall, "You can't do this!"
"I can't? Of course I can," Wyatt smiled, then practically pounced on his aunt, his handsome features twisting, almost feral. He could feel her nervous breath on his face as he studied her closely. "Your way got Mom killed."
Phoebe's expression steeled, "And now you're the one killing people Wyatt, good people. All this death, all this destruction won't bring her back."
Wyatt just laughed. "I'm the most powerful being ever," he shook his head for emphasis, "ever."
His aunt watched him strut away, he could feel her eyes poring into his back as he approached the figure leaning against the rock, hiding in the shadows. "Don't you dare try to help her Chris," Wyatt ground out as he pushed past his brother and then nodded to the demon waiting just beyond. The demon jumped at his chance, gleeful as he sped into the cave. Seconds later all Wyatt could hear were his aunt's screams, he smiled and kept walking.
Wyatt lay in his bed, face smushed into his pillow as the sun blasted into the window.
Brody hadn't returned to the Manor that night. It should have been Wyatt's first clue that something epic was happening. No, actually his first clue should have been his brother's mysterious wound fueled by an unknown poison created by an unknown elder. His second clue should have been the way Chris looked at Bianca when he and their parents finally made it downstairs and the strange way he bolted from the house, silencing all their calls.
And now an entire night of disturbing dreams. He could still hear the screams from the disjointed images swirling through his mind and the headache forming was worse than any hangover he'd ever had, but he forced himself up and stumbled over to Chris's doorway only to find an empty, unslept-in bed.
"Damn it," he cursed aloud to the empty room.
)0( )0( )0(
"How much time do we have?" Nomed glared at Trina. He hated the subway, and gods knew why she insisted they get to New York and insisted they take the subway, this particular line and this particular car. Trina shushed him with her hand, leaning around a nearby passenger, eyes alert.
"As much as you want, not enough" she mumbled, half to herself.
Nomed tried to control his frustration. He still didn't have all the relics and he had no idea how he was going to stage a complicated ancient ritual in the middle of the damn ocean. And now, now he was on a time clock. He could hear the seconds tick, tick, ticking away as the world ripped itself apart, getting ready to heal itself. Trina knew how frustrated Nomed was, she could feel his irritation rolling off of him in waves, it was delicious. Honestly, she could have gone on this particular errand alone, but she did enjoy toying with him and watching his handsome face as he worked to control his temper. Nomed could learn a thing or two from the demon they were headed to see though, she thought. She despised this particular young demon's physical appearance, she would never understand his fondness for megasize slurpees or his fascination with human technology but he did have his uses. She fingered the ancient box she'd brought through the Otherworlds and knew Myroq was the perfect demon to help her get this precious trinket into the unwitting hands of that pesky Phoenix who landed herself smack dab in the middle of the Halliwell brothers.