Title: Shadows at Noon

Disclaimer: I don't own anything

Author's note: This chapter is a bit odd, but I was in an odd mood when I wrote it. It is written in Chris' point of view as he confronts the Halliwell Museum and deals with the memory of his mother.


Chapter Eleven: Forever Strong

It was the first time I stepped into the Manor, the first time I saw what it had become…

Four weeks since my father came to speak to me, tried to tell me that Wyatt was changing, that I needed to leave him.

Four weeks, at the witch hunters are almost completely gone now. Wyatt has replaced them with his own minions, demons and a few witches, people who promise to protect mortals and the world.

For the most part, they do. Witches are no longer burned at the stake, but they are still hunted out. All magical beings that Wyatt finds, he forces to be registered. To keep them safe, to keep us safe…

I don't know anymore.

Dad, Uncle Jason, Prue, Ria, Adam… I haven't seen them in four weeks. They're gone, hiding away somewhere, and even Wyatt can't find them.

They're hiding from the mortals, the demons… and Wyatt.

That's the irony. For all his efforts, Wyatt hasn't removed the dangers to us all. He hasn't gotten rid of the witch hunters, he's just taken control of them. He hasn't vanquished the demons, he's just wrapped them around his finger. They're still there, in a different shape and form, but with the same motives.

Four weeks, and I left the cave. Four weeks, and I moved out into the open, into the light.

It was the first time I stepped into the Manor, the first I saw what it had become…

In the hallway directly in front of the stairs, a screen slid down into place, displaying with vivid detail the reconstitution of the Charmed Ones. Paige's hair was still dark, too dark for her pale skin. Phoebe had long hair then, why on Earth had she decided to cut it? And Piper…

Mom.

No, not Mom. Not in that picture. That was long before she was Mom. That was when she was just Piper Halliwell, when she was young and…and alive.

And strong.

Her strength, she would always say, came from her family.

That was what she left me with. Platitudes.

I believed everything she said.

If she had told me that the sky was pink and the sun was blue and the wind plaid the violin as it blew through the tree branches, I would have believed her. If she had said that the world spun in opposite directions every day and the sea froze over at night, I wouldn't have questioned the truth of her statements. If she had informed me that fire was cold and snow was hot, and the mountains danced in the summer while angels play poker on the clouds, I would have accepted every word she said as fact.

But she didn't say any of those things. Instead, she gave me platitudes, and I believed them, and I'm not so sure what to think anymore.

To the right of the screen were plastic and Styrofoam mannequins dressed in superhero costumes. Tights and all. Short and skimpy, of course, but all the costumes were like that. It was as though the Powers That Be were playing a great cosmic joke on me, as though they took pleasure in the fact that I was surrounded by memories that my mother used to run around the city practically naked as she fought the forces of darkness.

Couldn't they have ever had her turn into an Eskimo? Just once, couldn't she have worn something with more material than a handkerchief?

Through the hallway and into the kitchen where a series of potion recipes and spells were laid out. They each held a lifetime of memories, good and bad. The spell to vanquish the Wendigo. I had heard multiple times the story where Mom turned into the horrible hairy creature and tried to kill everyone.

And if I remember correctly, when the spell had been broken, she had found herself in the middle of a park at midnight with no clothes on.

Typical.

And so not what I needed to know.

From the corner of the kitchen, one loan picture stared down at us all, watching with what I once imagined was benevolent amusement. But I wonder if she sees benevolence in what is happening how, I wonder if she can look down on her oldest son and watch without remembering what once was and longing for what could have been.

He wanted to move the picture. I asked him not to.

I don't know why.

I also don't know why he agreed.

But he had, and his demons had sneered behind his back at his display of affection and familial kindness.

Sneered until he had killed them all with a simple wave of his hand.

Then he had asked me why I wanted the picture and I had told him the truth.

I didn't know.

It was just a simple picture of Mom. She was standing by the side of the house, staring at something just beyond our line of vision. Her hair is blown in her face, and as I stare at the picture, I find myself wondering if she knew how strong and beautiful she was.

How strong and beautiful they all were.

Always together, always united. In everything they did. Together, they were unstoppable.

I wonder what they think now, when they look down at us.

Do they sit side by side and look down together? United even in the afterlife?

What do they see when they look at us?

My mother once told me that the ends don't justify the means, that the wrong thing for the right reasons is still the wrong thing, that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

Then we buried her under six feet of dirt. And every year I buried another person I cared about until there was nothing left for me.

Look at this world, I want to scream. I want to force her to look around and see what her son has done. I want her to tell me that she still believes all those platitudes she gave me before.

More importantly, I want her to tell me if I should still believe in them.

Wyatt only wants to protect us, protect me. Protect the world. Can I blame him for that?

Mom could say to me, "Look, Chris. Look at what Wyatt has done. He did everything for the right reasons, but it was still the wrong thing."

But then, I would ask her, what would she have done had she been in Wyatt's position?

Would she have let Anya Lakin take me away? Would she have let Ria burn at the stake?

Tell me that, Mother? Isn't 'family comes first' one of your favorite sayings? So wouldn't you have fought for me, for us? Even if it meant crossing a line? Or would you have just stood by and let everything fall apart?

You left us. You left me.

You told me you would always be there for me, you told me you would always love me. You told me you would always guide me and help me because I was more important to you than all the rest of the world combined.

Dad was never around. He's still never around, but now I am the one choosing to avoid him.

I was mad at him. I am mad at him.

But I'll give him this much, Mother, he never lied to me about the world. He may have lied about everything else, but he never pretended that I was worth more than the entire world.

Does family still come first if the entire world is at stake?

Is the entire world at stake? Is Wyatt destroying it? I don't even know anymore.

He's united the demonic Underworld and placed himself as the Source. He's killed mortals, he's turned the Manor into a Museum, he's revealed out lives to the world.

But… the demons don't attack me now. And the mortals… Pratt and the Chairman… their deaths were accidental. And could you even call them innocents?

I don't know what to do.

Does anyone?

Wyatt thinks my mother and aunts know what to do, even in the afterlife. At least, that's the image he wants the world to see. He wants them to be respected and esteemed as goddesses so that he will be given the same reverence.

They are his past, his heritage.

The power from which he was born and that which he possesses.

It's a favorite saying of his, and it almost makes me want to laugh. Almost. The power from which I came and the power that I possess. Did he forget he has a brother and cousins?

Perhaps he did. Or perhaps he doesn't think of us as anything other than an extension of himself. He has taken my home and turned it into a museum. He has taken my life and turned it into propaganda. He has taken my heritage and turned it into a legend.

I don't want the museum, the propaganda, or the legend.

I want my brother.

"What do you think?"

I turn and face him, hiding my feelings behind a blank stare. My brother would have seen through the charade, would have noted my displeasure, but this man in front of me is not my brother. He is just a cheap fraud, a stranger wearing a familiar face, and he sees nothing.

And yet, somehow, he still needs my approval. He still needs me to say that this is imposing, remarkable, awe-inspiring. He still needs me to pretend that it does not hurt to see what he has done to our childhood home.

He wants me to like this museum he has made.

"Impressive," I say.

And it is.

"They'll worship the power. They'll understand what I can do, and they won't try to take anything away from me ever again. They won't take anything away from us. Any of us."

He isn't speaking to me anymore, but this pseudo-brother has not spoken to me in a very long time.

And abruptly I know that Dad and Uncle Jason were right.

I'm on the wrong side of the battle.

The problem is, I don't know what the right side is anymore. Hell, I don't even know what the battle is anymore. And I wish so much that I did, I wish that my path was marked out before me in chalk and paint, a straight line for me to follow.

And I wish Mom and Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige were here. They would know what to do. They always knew what to do, knew the right choice to make. They knew it right up until the moment that fate snatched them from us.

What did I do to deserve this?

What decision could I have possibly made that would justify anything I have lived through?

I got dealt a lousy hand by fate.

Wyatt told me to join him. He held out his hand and I took it.

Family comes first.

Sometimes I really hate my mother and her stupid lies. Those platitudes… She actually believed them.

Maybe they worked in her world.

But they sure as hell don't work in this one.

And where is she during all of this?

Oh, that's right.

She's dead.

Someday, I'd like to point that out to her. I'd like to walk up to her and say, "Guess what, Mom? You left us all, and look what happened."

We fell apart.

She died, and Wyatt avenged her death, and vanquished every last demon that was involved in the attack. And he continued to avenge the deaths in our family, until the Underworld quaked at his feet and fled in terror from his voice. He could not save us, I know that now. But he got revenge, and for that much, I am grateful.

Does that make me a bad person?

More importantly, do I care?

An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Mahatma Gandhi said that.

And then he was murdered.

So maybe Wyatt's blind now. And that is why he can't see what he is doing to us, to me. He threatens the world and threatens me, and then vanquishes any demon that tries to hurt me. He is blind, or maybe he simply chooses what he wants to see.

Maybe we are all blind.

But I tried.

Doesn't that count for anything?

Because, damn it, Mother, I tried.

We're brothers until the end.

And like she always said, family comes first.

But I push the thought away and continue to look around this new museum my brother has made with its stories and memories and legends made out of our lives.

I don't need a reminder of the person I used to be, of the life we could have had. The life where Mom was always there to protect me, and good always won the battle at the end of the day. The life where the man standing in front of me was more than just a stranger in familiar skin.

I have moved on without him, without them, and created a new life for myself, carved it out of the burnt out ruins of my past. I tell myself, over and over, that I can do this without them, that I can live without my brother, my mother, my aunts.

It is, of course, a lie.

But the world has changed now, and to me, my mother and aunts are no longer the superheroes they once were. Now they are nothing more than faded memories, cold gravesites, and half-forgotten legends that haunt my dreams at night.

Because in my dreams they are forever strong.


Next Chapter: Some Other Beginning's End

Due: Fri 5/11