Despite all of his talents, Wyatt had never managed to somehow get a handle on the gentle finesse of cooking like his mother and brother had. He was by no mean incapable in a kitchen, Piper had seen to it that by the time he was sixteen he was able to prepare entire meals on his own; but cooking was something he had never quite been able to give his all to. Chris never needed a scale or a recipe, instead somehow managed to just know how things worked. The flair for cooking and baking had popped up in his potion making as well; their mother had said Chris just had a knack for the more subtle side of witchcraft, the potions and spells as opposed to power.
To hear the way so many people spoke about his brother, as though he was somehow 'less than', sparked a rage inside him that he rarely tried to quell. It had always been that way, as long as Wyatt could remember. The Elders had been the most common criminals of it, but small things that slipped from the tongues of the magical community never went unnoticed. Despite what anyone – including Chris- thought, however, Wyatt knew that his brother was powerful. He could feel it whenever Chris cast a spell; saw it rippling off him in waves when he used even in smallest amount of magic. It might not have manifested yet, but he knew there was more to Chris than anyone ever gave him credit for.
He and Charlotte had orbed in almost an hour ago, the latter looking infinitely better than the night before. Though the streaks of grey still peppered her hair, there was a light in her eyes and a flush on her cheeks that lifted an anxious weight off the shoulders of everyone in the room.
When Charlotte had stepped into the living room, the books that the Elders had left had begun to hum with energy, emitting a soft aura of light when she hesitantly ran a finger down their spines.
"I think they like me?"
Leo had assumed that the books were, after an unknown amount of years in close proximity to Time Keepers and being filled with their knowledge, had come to know and recognize the power. Though Wyatt had been content to keep sifting through the information about Charlotte's powers, when the discussion turned to his brother's journal, he had designated himself the sandwich maker in attempt to get as far away as possible.
He knew the things that his other self had done weren't his fault; he was well aware that everything he had done had been the influence of a demon that he could never have stopped, and that technically, none of it had happened, but it still haunted him.
"Hi?"
He looked up; nearly dropping the large knife he had in his hand when he found Charlotte leaning in the doorway with an apologetic smile.
"Sorry, I thought you would have heard me come in. Can I help with anything?"
She folded her arms over her chest and bent her head a fraction lower than before, almost as though she were afraid that she had said something wrong. Wyatt gestured to the mismatch of ingredients he had already prepared and then reached for the loaf of homemade bread that his mother had left on the bench to cool.
"Sure, just start putting them together. Mom and Dad will eat anything, but Chris is a mustard hating freak of nature, so maybe make a few without it,"
Charlotte pulled the bowls towards her and hopped up onto the stool, crossing one leg over the other and tipping her head to the side.
"And what about you, what do you like?"
Wyatt frowned and shrugged one shoulder, returning to the neatly sliced cucumber he was preparing, "Pretty much everything. Why?"
Charlotte slathered mayonnaise across one slice of thick-cut break before neatly arranging grated carrot over it, "You told me what the others like, I just thought I'd see if you like anything specific as well,"
She was going somewhere with it, he could tell. The tone of her voice and the barest wink of a smile on the curl of her lip told him as much; but when she didn't press the issue further, he went back to his preparation. Aunt Phoebe had called half an hour ago, yammering her way at a thousand miles a minute so that all anyone managed to catch was 'I'll be there soon', which meant she had probably thought or found something that could help them.
Most of the sandwiches were done by the time Wyatt decided to make the first move. Every so often he would catch Charlotte staring at him, but she would also return to the sandwiches without saying a word. As strange as it was, she reminded him of Chris when he would try and weasel any information out of anyone; Chris had a way of making you spill your guts without even having to ask you anything.
"Not that I mind the company but why are you in here and not in the living room?" he finally asked.
Charlotte looked up from where she was slicing the sandwiches into neat triangles and arranging them on the large platter Wyatt had set out.
"The books make my head hurt," she admitted, "I can feel them buzzing, it's like bugs under my skin and bees in my face. I want to learn, but it's so hard to concentrate,"
She went back to mixing salmon and shallots in a small bowl before spooning it on top of lettuce leaves, "What about you?"
"Sandwiches," he said with a grin, "Or did you not notice them?"
She giggled, but wasn't put off by his attempt at pushing the situation away, "You know what I mean… I'm sorry about bringing out the journal; it's just our only connection to the past until I can put this power on a leash,"
"I don't know what you mean,"
Charlotte finished arranging the sandwiches and dusted her hands free of crumbs, "What Chris writes about Wyatt doing has nothing to do with you. I just want to make sure you know that,"
"Why do you talk about the Other me like we're different people?" he asked, hearing her speak his name but feeling like she was talking about an entirely different person. The syllables rolled off her tongue in a way that was somehow just different enough to make him think, for a moment, that she wasn't talking about him, "Why does everyone act like we're not the same person?"
"Because you're not," Charlotte said, no room for discussion in her tone, "He was influenced by a demon; he made terrible decisions and had no regard for anyone or anything around him but you… you have nothing but love, and good magic inside you. Even if you weren't influenced by a demon, you could have made the decision to do terrible things, but you didn't. When you heard about all the things the Other you did, you could have gone out and started using your powers to annihilate anything in your way, but instead you beat yourself up daily to try and repent for something that you never did. I haven't known you very long, so I know this is probably completely out of line, but…" she sighed, staring him down with confusion in her eyes and at a loss for words.
"I feel like I've known you for so long," she finally admitted, "I can feel you radiating so much… change. I've read the journal, and I can promise you that nothing I have ever felt from you even comes close to the aura I get from him. Last night, you stood up for me even though you had no idea who I was, or what I might be capable of. You stood behind me, and promised to protect me against the Elders. Why is it so hard to believe that I have the same faith in you that you had in me, hmm?"
Wyatt didn't get a chance to reply, the creak of a chair and the shuffle of footsteps making him go back to his sandwich making.
"Charlie?"
Charlotte stepped back and balanced the tray of completed sandwiches on one hand as Chris came into the room, gesturing for her to come over. If he noticed the conversation that had been between Wyatt and Charlie moments before he didn't mention it, instead pulled Charlie into the living room where the books began to hum and whisper again. She could already feel the beginning of a headache buzz in the back of her mind.
"I have something you might want to see," Chris offered, taking the tray from her grasp and replacing it with a book much thinner than the others, the page already bookmarked with a thick, fraying red ribbon. Charlotte flicked to the page, her eyes widening when she saw when Chris had found.
"But how did it know?"
She knew she should be happy, or even surprised; but with the rapidly growing pile of things she didn't want to consider, this wasn't something she definitely had to question.
"I think this one automatically updates on its own," Chris explained, "if you look at it, it's different from the others. It's older. It might even be about as old as your powers,"
The page in question bore a carefully detailed painting of Charlotte, accurate down to the small triangle of freckles just under her left eye. At the top of the page, printed in gold, were the words The Time Keeper.
The previous pages had similar images of Alexander and Nathaniel, complete with details of their time as the Time Keeper and a title underneath their images that said 'RETIRED'. Even further back were the images of the witches who had, at any point in the Magic War, been in possession of the power. Their information was short and clipped, stating little but their achievements and the circumstances surrounding their deaths. Some titles were printed in blue, announcing them lost to the time stream and irretrievable; those who had 'succumbed to the energy' were printed in green, but most of the images wore a single word, printed in thick red ink. DISPATCHED.
Charlotte's profile announced her as the active Time Keeper, though her section of information was bare when compared to her two successors. The only information that had been printed for her was a single paragraph.
"Charlotte Perry is, at this time, one of the first Time Keepers to be called upon since the Magic War for proper use of the Time Keeper powers. Though her actions took place in an alternate timeline, it is noted that she successfully used her powers to aid someone in altering a timeline by changing the past, rather than preventing the first occurrence. The effects of this are still unknown…"
She looked up at Chris and then back down at the page, her brow furrowed, "That must have been with Alexander meant," she whispered, more to herself than anyone else. Off Piper's confused glance, Chris explained what Charlotte had been told before she was given her powers.
"So, you think this tear in the time streams is what's causing Chris' flashbacks? If it was enough for the powers to bleed through to you, it means that's possible, right? What if we just patch the tear?"
"If it was that simple, Alexander would have done it," Leo reasoned, "There has to be something else to it. Something bigger,"
Chris leaned against the wall, arms folded over his chest and a slight frown creasing his forehead, "What if it's connected to what Kellan said? Charlie's powers shouldn't be hurting her this badly; what if the tear in the time stream is causing them to run at a faster pace or something? Either way, we need to look into this. Everything we know about time travel and everything we've got about Time Keepers, it all has to connect somewhere,"
Wyatt, loaded with another tray of sandwiches, came into the room and quietly set them down, having heard the entirety of the conversation. He knew as much as they did about a tear in the time stream, but a lingering thought kept pushing at the edges of his mind. Chris kept talking, his voice droning in and out as Wyatt caught snatches of the conversation. The room went quiet as they hit a lull.
Wyatt hesitated with the question on the tip of his tongue and weighing it down. The curiosity was killing him a little inside, but it was also mingling with a sense of confusion. Eventually, his desire for knowledge won out over his sense of courtesy.
"What happened to Charlotte in the other timeline? We know she was with the Resistance when Chris left, but Bianca went evil and joined… me. What happened to Charlotte?"
He hadn't heard anyone discuss the idea, and he was sure it wasn't because they hadn't thought about it yet or if they were deliberately avoiding the thought.
Chris, with his head down and his eyes wandering, seemed to have a few ideas, but it was Charlotte who spoke up.
"I always assumed Bianca just left; what did she have to gain by taking the rest of us with her? She knew I was a Time Keeper, but the Evil Wyatt never knew about me, not when he sent her back anyway. That's why Other Chris was so worried when Bianca showed up on your side, he thought she had sold me out to Evil Wyatt, but he didn't know anything. I thought I was just holding up the fort at the Resistance," she looked over to Chris, who was trying mighty hard to burn a hole in the floor with his gaze, "…was I not?"
Chris, always one to worm his way out of an awkward situation, seemed stumped by her question and her never ending stare.
"I don't know," he finally admitted, "I want to believe that nothing bad happened, but it's possible that Evil Wyatt took down the Resistance. You might have been a prisoner, you might have gotten free. I really don't know. I'm sorry."
He sounded genuinely wreck by the admission, the look in his eyes clearly showing that he half expected Charlotte to react badly to the news. Instead, she hugged the book to her chest and smiled sadly, "Whatever happened to me in that timeline doesn't matter, and your journal gave the impression that Bianca didn't go mouthing off about my being a Time Keeper, and you and I didn't seem to have shared the information with many other people. Maybe Evil Wyatt just didn't even know or care who I was?" she turned her eyes on Wyatt, "Why did you ask what happened to me? Do you think it could be connected to something?"
Wyatt dropped into one of the couches and propped his elbows on his knees, clasping his hands in front of him, "We know 100% that there's a tear, right?"
"Right, Alexander told me himself,"
"Well if there's a tear and it's causing Chris' flashbacks, it has to somehow be related to you sending him back. But if sending him back was what caused it, it would have had to happen almost immediately. If it did, wouldn't Other you have stopped it or something?"
Now that the theory was out there, there was no denying the tangled web they'd managed to get themselves in. Time travel was a headache in and of itself, but the possibilities of what could have happened were almost endless.
The front door opened, the sound of plastic bags crushing together and the unmistakable sound of glass on glass contact clinked towards them as Phoebe appeared in the doorway, windswept and wide-eyed.
"I have a plan. A great plan. At least I think it's a great plan, but it could just be a long stretch. Anyway, I'll be in the attic, don't come up until I call for you,"
She stumbled up the stairs without further discussion, tripping halfway up but dragging her bags, calling out that she didn't need help. The slam of the attic door, followed by the click of a lock and sudden silence made Piper muffle a snort.
"Someone call Coop and make sure he keeps the caffeine out of reach for a few days," she joked, lightening the tension in the room by a fraction.
"I have a plan," Chris said, taking the lead, "First; we see what Aunt Phoebe is trying to do. If it works, we run with it. If not, we try and figure out a way to find out exactly what happened to Charlotte; or even more about this tear in time. We need to prioritize. Since we're sure the tear is connected, it's at the top of the list. Anything else we should be worrying about right now?"
He pitched the question to the rest of the room, not sure if he trusted himself to be thinking of everything. His flashbacks and Charlie's rapid power use was important, but if it was all connected to the tear, which he was sure it was, it could be put on hold for now.
"Is there any way to officially take her away from the Elders?" Piper asked, "They still must have some kind of connection to her, and I don't like the idea of them coming around and trying to take her away. Not that they would," she hastily added off Charlotte's wide eyes, "But I'd like to be prepared for the possibility."
Leo nodded his face now somber, "I'll look into it. The Elders would probably stop at nothing to get Charlie in their control…" he paused, a new thought cropping up in his mind "What did Lily say in her vision exactly? When Charlotte was in Chris' closet, she said people were coming for her powers. Did she say specifically that they were demons?"
Chris wracked his brain, but came up empty. He was sure Lily had said demons, but it was natural to always assume demons with their lifestyle. Piper was already calling Coop to try and talk to Lily, but Charlotte was looking down at her image in the book, staring into the painted gold eyes.
"Who would I go to?" she asked, "I mean, these powers have needed a keeper since the beginning of magic, so we can't just yank me away from the Elders, can we?"
"Your powers would be our responsibility," Wyatt said firmly, "Between the Charmed Ones, the Twice Blessed and the son of an Elder and a Charmed One; the greatest source of good magic is pretty much everyone under this roof. And we would never cage you like the Elders did to Alexander. We'd just keep an eye on your powers. It's going to be okay,"
Charlie smiled, albeit brokenly, but closed the book and let it rest on the table. Piper ended the call and turned to look at them, "Lily says it isn't demons coming for her, just bad people. It has to be the Elders. She doesn't know when, but let's not give them the chance to stop by. We'll figure out how to do this power transfer before anything gets out of hand,"
She had gone from mother to matriarch in half a second, waltzing out of the living room and into the kitchen to start mixing up a potion. Leo was halfway through the door to Magic School, promising to come back once he had more information about the Elders. When the door slammed shut and the sound of Piper mixing potion ingredients in the kitchen was the only noise in the manor, Charlotte looked around.
"So now what?"
"We wait, I guess,"
Phoebe had transformed the Halliwell attic into a dark cave; pulling heavy drapes over the windows and clearing as much of the floor as she could. As the only one of the sisters with experience handling not only premonitions, but passive powers in general, she had taken it upon herself to find some way to help Charlotte get in touch with her inner witch. Chris had mentioned that Charlotte found light too sensitive; that she had been forced to shroud her apartment in darkness. Based on what Phoebe had seen of the eye tricks Time Keepers had going on, she suspected Charlotte's sudden photophobia was related almost directly to it.
Phoebe had spread out a warm duvet on the cold hardwood and mismatched several cushions across it, making the floor as comfortable as she could get. She could hear Piper clattering around in the kitchen; Paige discussing quietly with Leo what they had been told about the Elders. Paige had arrived shortly after she did, but with grim news. She had been temporarily suspended from her charges, something she was sure was directly connected to Kellan's visit. She had fought for her charges to be left with a whitelighter she trusted, and had won after a number of threats that weren't even slightly veiled; but she had known better than to fight them. They could wage their petty wars if they felt so inclined, but everything that was happening now was more important than their temper tantrums.
She reached into the large canvas bags she had tugged along with her and removed the multitude of hourglasses she had collected. They hadn't been hard to come by, surprisingly; most dollar stores carrying a few trinket types; while the heavy wooden antique she had gotten for a haggled bargain. It was a long stretch, she was sure, but if Time Keepers were created from the sands of time, there was a slim chance that an hourglass would act like a focus for the power. If nothing else, Phoebe had gotten herself a nice conversation piece for the living room.
"Charlotte?"
The thundering response of footsteps up to the attic made Phoebe roll her eyes at the incoming crowd, Charlotte being the last to make her way through the door.
"I want to start with some pretty simple stuff; Chris said you two have already done the breathing and the beginner magic stuff, so we might start there again," Phoebe gestured for Charlotte to lay down, and was mildly surprised when she did so without comment. Phoebe noticed, however, the way Charlotte's gaze lingered on the many pairs of eyes watching her expectantly. She cleared her throat and gave them a pointed eyebrow raise.
"Charlotte told me earlier that she didn't mind if you stayed while we did this, but stop ogling or face the wall. A million eyes won't help anything,"
When Charlotte was comfortably settled among her dozen cushions, Phoebe dropped to her knees and explained her intentions, wanting to be as clear as possible. Passive powers were hard enough to get the hang of, she had no idea what it would be like to have a passive power try and overtake your body. Charlotte, thankfully, only smiled at the hourglasses and seemed content to follow Phoebe's lead.
"Okay, someone get the lights,"
The attic plunged into darkness until Phoebe lit two tall candles, gently scattering a few herbs around them in a wide circle.
"What I'm going to do is try and put you into something kind of like a trance. Normally I would send you on a vision quest, but with your powers I've got no idea what might happen, so I'm going to get as close to one as possible. Just lay back and let the magic flow through you; but keep it controlled. You are the master of your powers, not just their host. Take control of them,"
Phoebe began upturning each of the hourglasses, watching as the steady trickle of sand remained constant in each. Much like the books, the hourglasses began to hum, the noise so slight it could barely be heard in the attic. The granules of sand seemed to flash and glow as they dropped into the bottom half, and Charlotte gently flexed her fingers in the soft covers.
"I'm sleepy… is that good?"
"Sleep is fine," Phoebe assured her, "But I want you to start simple. Don't even try and think about visions, just memories. Let your mind wander back to the earliest memory you have, or even a memory you like,"
A wide grin immediately spread across Charlotte's face and she relaxed into her position on the floor. Phoebe let the memory play out for a few moments before gently curling her fingers around Charlotte's wrist.
"Now I want you to start thinking about the journal entries you've read. Just think about some of them, any of them,"
She set the diary down beside Charlotte's free hand and waited, watching as the sand in the hourglass sped up for a fraction of a second before returning to normal speed.
"Now," she began, her voice low and even, "I want you to imagine yourself sinking into the pages of the journal, becoming part of the entry. It might take a while, but take as long as you need. When you're ready, tell me what you see,"
It took a long time. Almost fifteen minutes of careful, patient waiting before Charlotte's fingers flexed against the blankets and she sighed softly.
"I see Chris," she said, "The Other Chris. But he's here in the manor. Piper's yelling at him…"
Piper bit the inside of her cheek, remembering how she had treated Chris before she knew who he was. Though he often assured her that her treatment to him had been understandable considering his secrecy and attitude, it still burned her to think about.
"…rude," Charlotte mumbled to herself, "You were a smartass, Chris,"
"Still is," Wyatt replied, quick as a whip. The sound of Chris's fist hitting Wyatt's upper arm made Charlotte giggle, and Phoebe smiled as one of the hourglasses responded in turn with her laughter. The sand curved as it fell, spiraling down before falling into a regular rhythm when her laughter ceased.
"You're doing perfectly, Charlie," she said, "Now we're going to try something earlier in the journal. Something with you in it. Do you need any-"
'Extra time' didn't make it out of her mouth before Charlotte was talking again, "We're in the Resistance. I'm in Chris' room and we're talking about sending him back,"
There was no denying that the sand was pouring faster now, if only by a few extra seconds. It spun into the bottom half of the glass and collected there, buzzing and emitting a soft gold glow. This would be the hard part; forcing Charlie to latch onto something she didn't have prior connection to.
"Now, I want you to try and focus on the other you. Become one with her; know her past, present and future. What do you know?"
The minutes ticked by as Charlie remained still on the floor; the hourglasses betraying nothing. Phoebe was beginning to lose hope that Charlie could connect when her hand reached out and seized Phoebe's upper arm, gripping tight.
The sand of each hourglass behaved erratically in its container; one rapidly spewing sand into the bottom half while another climbed backwards from where it came. Phoebe threw a cushion at Paige's back, the youngest sister squeaking in protest but silencing under Phoebe's wild hand gestures. The phrase 'keep an eye on the hourglass' was easy to charade in theory, but it wasn't until Phoebe all but tossed the small item at Paige's head was it that she finally understood. Phoebe needed to focus all of her attention on Charlotte, but the hourglasses seemed to give a good indication of Charlotte's mood. She gently pried Charlotte's hand free and patted it.
"Okay Charlie, this might get a little harder now that you don't have anything else to hold on to. What do you see?"
"The bodies," she said, her voice trembling, "The bodies from last time. They're not… dead… anymore,"
Not good. Not good at all. Phoebe set her jaw but ran a soothing g hand up and down Charlotte's arm, feeling gooseflesh along the way. Charlotte sucked in a sharp breath and grimaced.
"It's so dark here. It feels like death. There's demons lining the walls; but there are bodies on the ground too. I don't understand…." There was another long pause, followed by a soft whine, "I'm scared," Charlie breathed, "There's something here that shouldn't be. Everything about this place is wrong, Phoebe. I feel like-"
She paused and frowned, stopping short in the middle of her sentence.
"Charlie… keep talking to me," Phoebe reminded her, stern but calm. One of the hourglasses tipped precariously, the sand still swooping up and into the upper half despite the angle.
"Charlie," Phoebe coaxed again when Charlotte didn't respond. The girl was gripping the duvet in her clenched hands, her brow furrowed.
"There's something pulling me," she said, her voice trembling and her knuckles turning white, "I can feel it. Phoebe, what's happening?" Her voice pitched in the last phrase, going from confused witch to scared teenage in a split second.
In true Halliwell fashion, when one thing went wrong, everything started to fall apart. After all of their years as witches, it would be easy to assume that everyone was used to thing going wrong, but it was always a shock when something did.
An hourglass shattered, sending shards of glass across the room in a hail of debris. From nowhere, Chris cried out and clutched his head; his quiet cries become agonized screams in seconds, his legs giving out under him as he writhed in pain. Piper and Leo rushed to his aid, Wyatt setting him down on the floor from where he had caught him. Paige was torn, watching her older sister cling to Charlotte, desperate to not let go. She didn't know what was going on, and all the horror stories they had uncovered in the books today meant she would rather die than let Charlotte go through this alone.
"Paige, go help Chris. I've got this,"
The instructions were not a suggestion, and Paige knew that. Phoebe clung tight to Charlotte, feeling the terrified grip that the young woman had on her hand. She could feel the sticky trickle of blood and the dull sting of her wound. The other hourglasses remained intact, but spun out of control, rushing in and out of their areas, bursting with sand.
"Charlie, I need you to calm down," Phoebe said firmly, "You're here in the manor and you're safe. Nothing has got you,"
The last part was probably a bold faced lie. She had no idea if it was possible for anything to latch onto a Time Keeper mid time stream, but with the luck of the Halliwell's, something probably had. Charlotte whimpered, her breath coming in short sharp gasps that sounded strangled and raw. Phoebe could hear Chris begging for mercy in the corner, hear Piper's desperate attempt to soothe her son; but Phoebe clung tight to Charlotte's hand, even as she felt the girl's nails break into the skin of her palm and draw blood.
"Come on, Charlie, you can do this," she coaxed, her gaze darting from Chris and Charlotte, unsure how their reactions were connected but knowing that they most certainly were. Charlotte's eyes snapped open, the gold sand in them spiraling like a vortex.
A roar of wind tore through the attic, sand rushing over everything and temporarily blinding them. Chris' cries slowly petered out into rough sobs and hiccups of breath; the vice on Phoebe's hand dropping. When the sand cleared, Phoebe turned her worried eyes to Charlotte, but balked at what she saw. Sprawled on the floor in front of her, fingers laced tightly together and eyes tinged with calm, measured sand slipping through them- were two Charlotte Perrys.
Beyond the Veil: Moments Earlier
"My Lord?"
The voice was hesitant and laced with fear, boosting Wyatt's ego as he relaxed back into his chair and eyed the demon in the doorway. One of the newest men he had acquired shortly before the change, and one of the first to become a living corpse on the floor of the Underworld. He had awoken only days before- one of the first to do so amid his many loyal followers who hadn't lasted the nearly two decades.
The demon made no move to come inside and Wyatt's lips curled, bringing two fingers into the air with a careless ease and dragging him forward by his neck. The slow build of his power return was undeniable, but it still wasn't enough to satiate his thirst. Some of his followers were gaining power faster than he was, and he couldn't have that. Not here. Not now.
The strangled choking made Wyatt drop the telekinetic chokehold, watching as the demon dropped to the dirtied floor and gargled for air.
"Make it quick,"
The demon hesitated again, and it was becoming more obvious that he had been sent to deliver bad news. Wyatt's other followers would have known, after so many years surviving the hell hole they were trapped in, that Wyatt was always eager to shoot the messenger.
"Spit it out." He demanded, one hand already prepared to bring back the vice on the demon's throat.
His hand darted into his pocket, shaking as it pulled out a single item, dulled by age and worn beyond repair. Wyatt stood up, his chair knocked back by the force of it; but he paid it no mind as he focused on the spinning motion in front of him.
"Get out, and make sure nobody comes near her until I'm done,"
The slow return of life to their secluded prison meant he had regretfully released Charlotte from her pyre. Death was still not a possibility for anyone, but he refused to take any risks where she was concerned. She had been chained to wall in a secluded area of the Underworld, demons patrolling inside and out of her prison every moment. Demons bowed and murmured his name as he passed, his presence and power not lost on them even after so long.
Charlotte's area of the Underworld was kept in complete darkness; but when the light of the torches began to burn, throwing shadows across the cave and illuminating her, she seemed unfazed.
"Oh yay," she mumbled, "Just who I wanted to see,"
Wyatt clenched the item in one hand and assessed her carefully, stepping just out of reach of her chains and kicking dirt towards her face. She was sprawled on the dirt in a heap, curled up so that he couldn't see anything but her matted hair and her clothing.
"Get up,"
"Wouldn't even if I could," she replied, Wyatt catching a glimpse of blood stained teeth from behind messy hair.
He gripped her hair in one hand and yanked her to her feet, ignoring the whine of protest in favour of staring her down. Her jaw was kissed with green and yellow patches of bruise; purple and blue mottled in fingerprints around her neck. The torn fabric of her shirt showed splotches of black around her ribs and slowly healing cuts. Her lip was split and dried blood marked its way from the wound and down her neck. He had given his men instructions to keep her in order by any means necessary; apparently she was yet to learn how to keep her sarcasm under her tongue. Perhaps Chris had taught her that.
"You wouldn't be hiding anything from me, would you Charlotte?" he asked, smiling innocently as he pushed back her hair and wiped the dried blood from her face. She jerked her chains, but he ducked out of reach and resumed fiddling with the small item in his palm.
"Just because I can't kill you, doesn't mean I won't try. We might be stuck in this limbo, but it won't be for much longer. I could put you back on the pyre, if you'd prefer? Or maybe we could try something different?"
Charlotte stayed silent, and Wyatt thought that maybe it wasn't her sarcasm, but rather her silence that was contributing to her long list of injuries.
"I'm not hiding anything from you," she replied, the wheeze and labor of her breath making Wyatt's lips curl at the edges.
"Oh really? Because it seems as though everyone else around here is regaining their powers, but you are still… useless? Seems convenient if you ask me,"
Charlotte growled and tugged uselessly at one of the chains, "How many times did we go over this before? I. Don't. Have. Powers. Anymore," she said slowly, not bothering to hide the tone in her voice.
"Right," Wyatt replied dismissively, "Because sending Christopher back in time sucked them dry. The Almighty Time Keeper can't even send one person back, yet your powers are supposedly so great that you need to be protected. Is that right?"
He knew, admittedly, that her powers had been close to non-existent when he had captured her from the Resistance. Though he hadn't known she was a Time Keeper at the time, there had been infinite opportunities to save herself, and she hadn't taken any of them. But now, as everyone else slowly began to feel their powers growing, he found it difficult to believe that she was immune. Especially now.
Charlotte chuckled, "You can refuse to believe it all you'd like, but I'm still powerless. If I wasn't- you'd be the first person to know. Trust me,"
Wyatt smiled, "You're so eager to dish out threats; are you forgetting who is chained to the wall?"
She rattled the chains, the noise echoing off the empty cavern before dying down as she swayed on the spot.
"How could I? And once again, Wyatt, we've discussed this. Time Keepers are meant to travel the time streams, not send other people. I sent Chris back in time, you know that. Took you forever to figure it out, but you know that. What I didn't know was that sending someone else back on my dime would draw my power out until they came back. And, as you also know… Chris never did some back, did he?"
She cocked an eyebrow and smiled, "So no, I don't have powers. Wish I did, but I don't. I can make sand if you'd like? Not sure how it helps, but if you're insistent I do something,"
A small pile of sand dropped at Wyatt's feet, shimmering with energy before fizzling out after half a second. He grit his teeth and stepped forward, grabbing one of her arms and slamming it into the wall, twisting it until he heard the slight creak of a bone almost at breaking point.
"Don't lie to me, Charlotte,"
"I'm not! Jesus, for once I'm actually not!" she groaned.
"I can see you using it!" he snarled, slamming her hand again and hearing a satisfying crack. He looked down at his free hand where a small pocket watch, tarnished and almost falling to piece sat innocently.
Wyatt shoved the pocket watch under Charlotte's nose, forcing her to watch as the hands spun wildly out of control forward and back in time on a never ending repeat. The hands on the watch hadn't moved since the change; not a tick until the first time Wyatt had seen into the new world Chris had created. With each glimpse he was given, the clock moved forward. But now, without prompting, it was unstoppable.
Charlotte's gaze dipped down to it, confused at first until her eyes widened in sudden realisation.
"….that's not me," she breathed, her confusion turning into a deranged grin that spurred uncontrollable laughter that no amount of broken ribs could hinder, "I'm not doing that!"
Wyatt looked down at the watch, a frown creased on his forehead before he realized what Charlotte was talking about. He realized, too late, that she was focused on the spinning hands of the watch, murmuring to herself as though waiting for the right moment.
He was right. He saw a whisper of gold flash through Charlotte's eyes, sand pulsing across the floor as she yanked violently on her chains, broken wrist and all, to slam her hand against the watch.
X
Charlotte had felt the flicker of power inside her for days, but knew it would never be enough to do any good. She had not lied to Wyatt about her lack of powers, only failed to admit that she occasionally could build enough for minor travel. The sand she had sent to her other self had left her wrecked for days, but the 'being burned alive' had undermined the pain a little.
Wyatt had made a mistake in bringing the watch to her; giving her a way to feel the shift of a Time Keeper searching the time streams. She didn't know how her other self had managed to get here, but she wouldn't complain. She had enough power build up that if she could grab the pocket watch and use it as an anchor, she could grip her other self mid time stream and get the hell out of here long enough to warn them of what was coming.
Her ribs and wrist burned; her throat was raw and every part of her body screamed in protest with movement, but she couldn't give this up. She'd waited too long for this.
Her fingers closed around the watch, the scratch of Wyatt's fingers too late to catch her as she was swallowed whole by an intense, raw power surge. This was it; this could be the only chance she got before everything fell apart. She could feel something trying to throw her off, push her out of the time stream but she held tight. The rush of sand began to cease, turning from a gentle caress to a raw scratch along her body until she felt solid floor beneath her back and a hand held tightly in her own.
Back inside the veil, Wyatt stared at Charlotte's limp, empty body now sprawled on the floor, surrounded by sand.
She'd made her choice. And he would gladly watch her burn for it.