A/N: Thank you for welcoming me back so warmly!
The Chariot's Coming
Chris was behaving like a brat, and he knew it. He also knew that he should pull himself together, but the tight knot of hurt, pain and anger in his chest simply wouldn't let him.
He'd braced himself before coming here tonight. He really hadn't expected much from this dinner – or so he kept telling himself.
But the truth behind their outward acceptance and love, the realization that once again his mother was not seeing him, but had twisted him into a likeness of her ideals that she could live with – that still hurt. And it made him angry.
He couldn't say if things would have gone better had she not mentioned the 'difficult times' he'd been through, with an apologetic face and an all too visible eagerness to sweep his whole life under the carpet of that label and forget everything about it.
Chris knew very well what trauma experts meant when they used the word 'trigger', and he knew this was one. He knew that she couldn't possibly be aware what her words had to sound like for him, but that didn't stop the memories from rising before his eyes.
That didn't stop his mind from transforming this house into that half deserted, cold and echoing place it had become after his mother's death, the comfortable domestic clutter turning into chaos because two teenagers couldn't keep up with the housework, especially not with one of them busy recruiting demons for his secret plan of world domination.
It didn't stop him from remembering how the Manor had looked the day he had confronted Wyatt with ultimate proof of what the Twice Blessed had turned into – the fine layer of dust on the furniture, the dead potted plants on the window sills, the greasy impression of finger prints on the table he couldn't bring himself to wipe away, because one of the finger prints might be that of his mother, and cleaning it off was like killing her all over again.
He remembered how he had faced Wyatt in this very room and across this very table, with a voice that was breaking with the tears he cried (he had not yet learned to pretend he didn't care). How he had told Wyatt that something was wrong with him, that he needed to stop, stop now, or he would destroy everything their mother had ever stood for.
"I know it's not you, Wyatt," he had whispered, argued, pleaded. "I know there's something inside you that's doing this. You would never hurt anyone. You're good. You're my brother. But you can't go on like this. You can't! And I can't let you!"
He remembered how Wyatt had laughed it all away, again, telling Chris that what he did was necessary to keep them safe and that it would all work out in the end.
"Don't worry, Chris, I'll keep you safe."
He remembered the taste of his own tears on his skin. He remembered how young he had been, how naïve, how stupid.
He remembered how he had offered Wyatt the servilis-spell, explained it, watched his brother's face harden as he read the theory and description of the spell.
"Please, Wyatt," he had begged. "If you love me, if this family means anything to you – please stop. We can use the spell or not, if you think you can do it another way, but you have to stop this, if not for yourself, then for me!"
He remembered how Wyatt had looked at him for a long time, eyes narrowed, and something about his face had sent a tendril of fear down Chris' spine. It was the first time in his life he'd been truly afraid of his brother.
Then Wyatt had crumpled Chris' notes on the spell and put them in his pocket, careless that he was crushing Chris' hopes along with them.
"Brother," he'd said, in that honeyed voice of his. The Elders had trained him as a public speaker, because he would have to address crowds again and again in his life, being the heir of Excalibur, and Wyatt's rhetorics had always been excellent.
"Chris. These past months were difficult for all of us, and I know you're still adapting to what happened. I know you're missing Mom. I know you've been disappointed by Dad. But don't take it out on me."
This was the way all their talks had gone, and, worse, all the talks with his aunts and uncles, too. Every conversation always turned to his parents, as if no one could imagine that Chris was more than a grieving, confused child, that Chris had actually seen something they were missing. And Wyatt had been using that ruthlessly.
"That's not what this is about, Wyatt," Chris had said wretchedly. "It's about you recruiting demons for something that looks very much like an army. It's about you performing magic in public! It's about the magical community that's beginning to fear you. Some even claim that you've been killing innocents, Wyatt."
Wyatt just shrugged. He ignored Chris' words like he had ignored his proof, like he had ignored the spell. It was as if nothing Chris did could touch him, as if no argument could even reach him. His blazing conviction made a sick, desperate feeling rise in Chris' stomach.
"I know things have been hard for you, Chris, and it's natural to lash out when everything becomes too much, especially against family. But we only have each other. We belong to each other, and once you're through this rebellious phase, you'll realize that I'm only doing this for you. I'm trying to keep you safe in these difficult times."
Chris would have laughed, if his last hopes hadn't turned to ash just minutes ago.
"You think this is a phase?" He had asked, fighting the mad urge to scream. "You think this is just because times are difficult? You are mad, Wyatt!"
Wyatt's face grew stern. He looked every inch the concerned brother, and even now Chris wanted to trust him desperately, wanted it so much that his head hurt.
"If there's anyone here that's mad it is you, Chris. And I'm beginning to think I should keep a closer look on you, reign you in a bit to make sure you don't endanger yourself. Perhaps you shouldn't leave this house for a while… yes, that would be best."
Chris stared at him.
"You're going to lock me in?" He asked, not believing his eyes. "That's your solution? Lock the only person who can see what you're doing away, until it's too late to stop you? I'm sorry, but I can't let that happen, Wyatt."
As if he could see that Chris was on the verge of orbing out, Wyatt's face hardened.
"You're hurting no one but yourself, Chris," he said. "And you're destroying the last family we have in the process. Don't you think the aunts have told me what lies you've been spreading about me? Don't you think I know you've been following me around? It's as if you want to make things harder for me."
He sighed.
"Have you ever considered that this behaviour of yours is what made Dad retreat to the heavens? Can't you even try, Chris? Just a little bit? You know what family meant to Mom. I know you're taking this so hard because you're responsible for her death, but still, she would be so disappointed in you."
Even as Wyatt's words hit him like a fist, even as his eyes filled and the tears spilled over on his face, he understood what his brother was doing to him. He understood that his pain was only a tool to Wyatt.
"You… you've gone bad!" He whispered. He'd known it before, intellectually, but it had taken this, his brother using his worst fears against him without remorse to truly convince him. "You've turned into someone else, Wyatt, no matter what you say. You may have started out as my brother, but I can't even recognize you anymore!"
He took a deep breath that didn't manage to steady him.
"You have made a choice, Wyatt. But so have I. And I tell you now – if you continue in the direction you're going, I won't just watch from the sidelines. I love you, and I will always love you, brother, but if you declare war on this world, I'll be standing against you, defending it with everything I have."
They had stood facing each other across this very table, in a house devoid of life. For an eternity they had stood, locking gazes, gauging the other's intentions.
Until finally, Wyatt broke the duel of stares. He looked down at the table, swiping his hand over the dusty surface, and there were no emotions left on his face.
"Very well," he said. "If that's your decision, Chris. To abandon me. To abandon everything this family meant to us."
Chris' felt himself shiver, and with a determination he hadn't known he possessed, he willed himself to be strong, not to break down in front of a brother that had become his enemy.
"That is my decision, Wyatt," he had whispered.
"Then so be it," Wyatt had agreed, and in the next moment, an energy ball from his hand had ripped a hole into Chris' side, splattering the table and the wall behind him with his blood and flesh.
Chris had been fifteen when he'd nearly died by his brother's hands for the first time.
So no, Chris couldn't try, not even for his mother, because if there was one thing that had carried him through fire and death, it was the decisions he had made, the person he had become, and he would not be ashamed of that, nor consider it a flaw when it was, in fact, the thing that had saved his family.
Perhaps he was broken, but even broken he was stronger than most people.
And in that moment, sitting silently at the table that wouldn't witness the final break between him and his brother now that he'd changed the future, in that moment Chris realized that all this back and forth between him and his family meant nothing, really. It all boiled down to one question: After all he had sacrificed, was he willing to sacrifice his integrity, too?
"This above all: to thine own self be true," Polonius had told his son Laertes, and it was good advice, even though Polonius would be the first one to be killed when Hamlet slashed through the Gordian knot of his family.
Once more he let his eyes sweep across the table. He had lied for such a long time. In the past, because it had been a necessity. In the future, because they had needed him to be someone he wasn't.
But he had lied enough. And if there was one freedom he had earned for himself, it was to be who he was. He was done pretending.
That decision gave him the strength to stop the situation from escalating. It gave him the strength to cut through the emotional chaos of his mind. It gave him the strength to decide to leave.
And it was in that moment of clarity that the orb lights of Marcus and Sebastian filled the room.
"We bring news," Marcus said, and the satisfaction in his voice had Chris tense and anticipating the worst. Marcus had never liked him. "The Council of Elders has come to a decision concerning the time travellers Christopher Perry Halliwell and the girl Hand. We have passed judgement on them and are here to inform you of their fate."
For a moment, there was complete and utter silence.
"What do you mean, judgement," Phoebe then asked.
And Chris couldn't help himself. He burst into laughter.
Of course.
Of course.
He couldn't even be surprised by this turn of events. He had fulfilled his mission and even come to a decision concerning his future. But of course it couldn't be over. Of course there had to be yet another twist, yet another way in which his life was completely messed up. And now that the villain was gone, who else to step in but the so-called guardians of good, who had only ever made his life more difficult, anyway.
His family around the table were shooting him anxious looks, and he realized that he was acting like a madman, standing in front of the two pompous immortals, cackling hysterically. But he couldn't bring himself to care.
"Let me guess," he asked, still unable to control his amusement. "You have sentenced me to something, right? Because of my crimes? Oh, I bet it will be something awesome, something only the oldest bureaucracy of creation could ever come up with. Do you have the forms with you? In triplicate, perhaps?"
Sarah was twitching by his side, and a glance showed him that she seemed to be torn between sharing his amusement and real worry.
"This behaviour is entirely uncalled for, Christopher," Sebastian reprimanded him, just as Leo raised his hand towards him and said, in a voice that was probably meant to calm him: "Chris, please…"
"Oh, sure," Chris answered, unable to stop himself and not really caring. "Just give me a moment to prepare myself, so that I can take it like a man!"
Marcus' face reddened. He looked about ready to abandon his Elder calm and force Chris into behaving, but the red of his face and the gold of his robes made such a fetching contrast that Chris could only laugh harder.
Until he felt Sarah's shoulder bumping against his.
"If you laugh too hard," she whispered to him. "You won't be very good at running and dodging."
That thought sobered him up.
He took a few hiccuppy breaths, then steadied himself and tried to pretend he actually cared. They were, after all, the bosses of the universe.
"Bring it on, then," he said. "What did I do? Orbing without blinking? Misuse of cleaning charms? General bad attitude?"
Marcus glared at him.
"You killed an Elder," he said accusingly.
Chris burst into laughter again, just as about everyone else in the room started shouting.
"Thank you," he told the Elders after he had somewhat recovered and the general chaos had died down a bit. "I really, really needed that."
"This is no joking matter, Christopher," Sebastian said warningly. "We are entirely serious, and so is the offense you've been found guilty of. Can you deny that Gideon had suffered debilitating injuries before you stopped his heart with your powers? Can you deny that his death was a gratuitous killing that occurred not in the heat of battle or in self defence, but for calculated reasons?"
"You must be joking!" Piper protested. "Gideon has been trying to kill Wyatt for months, he's been plotting away in front of your eyes, and he's attacked me and my sisters several times! Chris has prevented a catastrophe, and you're going to punish him for that?"
Marcus just raised a hand.
"Chris," he demanded. "An answer, please."
Chris sobered at the memory of that moment – Gideon lying before him, bleeding from the head, almost helpless but already recuperating, already gathering his wits and powers for the next attack. The Elders were right. He had made the decision to kill him. There might have been other options he hadn't been willing to risk, and so he'd decided to end a life.
But he was not about to tell them that.
"Gideon was badly hurt, yes," he said, serious now. "But so was I. Sarah had no power left and was unconscious, and I didn't know how long I could stay awake. Gideon was injured, but he wouldn't have given in. He would have killed both of us if I hadn't moved first."
"Why didn't you call for help?" Marcus asked snidely. "Leo or the Charmed Ones, or any other Elder. "You could have asked for assistance, which would have eliminated the need to kill a defenceless man."
"Defenceless?" Piper shouted, but Leo stopped her quickly. Her protests would only rile the Elders further.
Chris shrugged.
"I'm not used to getting help from outside," he commented. "The thought didn't even occur to me."
"So you had enough presence of mind to stop a man's heart, but not enough to shout a name?" Marcus, disbelieving now.
Chris sent him a long look.
"You've never actually been in a battle, have you, Marcus?" He asked pleasantly. "If you had, you wouldn't bother with such a stupid question."
"This attitude will not help you, Chris," Sebastian cut in. "As we said, we have incontrovertible evidence of your offense. We have already passed justice. This visit serves merely to inform you."
Suddenly, Chris felt the clarity of understanding return. What could they do to him, really? His job was done, his mission was fulfilled, and he had finally understood who he was. Even if they decided to erase him – he was free. And he had evaded Wyatt – how could they ever hope to catch him and keep him contained?
So he shrugged again.
But the rest of the room didn't share that view on the situation
"You aren't here so serve justice," Sarah said sharply. "You're here because a simple whitelighter had the power to kill an Elder, and that frightens you. You want to make sure that something like this can never happen again."
"You would be wise to remember your precarious situation, girl," Marcus shot back. "You are not in your own time, and the judgement does pertain to you also."
That jolted Chris awake.
"Just a moment," he protested. "To be quite clear: Sarah had no hand in killing Gideon. She was unconscious at the time. So unless you want to convict her of fighting evil, which would be hypocritical even for you, you had better wave her judgement now, or I will call on the Tribunal and run circles around you until I die a natural death. Don't believe I can't do it, Elders."
Marcus' eyes narrowed calculatingly.
"Does that mean you won't try to evade your sentence if we acquit the girl?"
"No it doesn't," Sarah said, but the Elder simply ignored her.
Looking back, that moment would always surprise Chris. He was a thinker. He had always been a thinker. Even in the worst moments of his life – his mom dying in his arms, his brother slicing into his body, his fiancé bleeding out in front of him – he hadn't stopped thinking. His mind was always busy, calculating, summing up risks and options, running through possible solutions, planning three, five, seven steps ahead like a chess player.
He had hated himself for that more than once, even though it was the very thing that had kept him alive. He had wondered what it was like to not think, to just know, in that instinctual, absolute way that seemed to come so easily to other people.
It came to him now.
As if his newfound clarity had only been the first rung of a ladder, he stepped up to a higher ground, and there, with a beautiful simplicity, lay an answer waiting for him, an answer he didn't feel the need to question.
"Yes," he said, feeling calm and strangely happy and so, so light. "It does."
Now they were all shouting around him again, and Sarah's hand in his – he was still holding her hand? – tightened painfully around him ("don't do this, Chris, please, don't do this," she was whispering over and over again), but the Elders ignored all that to close their eyes and commune with the Council, and Chris ignored it, too, bathing in the feeling of serenity that was so new to him and felt so good.
Let them shout. He didn't have to anymore.
"We agree," Marcus then said. "The girl is acquitted. She can go her way."
He hesitated, then added: "I am surprised you would give yourself for her freedom willingly, Christopher. I didn't peg you as the selfless type."
That caused another storm from his family, but again, Chris simply shrugged.
"I'm done here," he said. "I can do with my life what I want. What's the sentence?"
Silence descended on the room abruptly as everyone stopped arguing and shouting and listened instead.
Marcus took a deep, artificially long breath. He was enjoying this, the bastard, and if he hadn't been so drunk with serenity, Chris would have wished him an aneurysm.
"The Council acknowledges that your efforts to protect our world are commendable and have to be taken in account. However, your questionable morals and your knowledge about that different future pose a threat to this very world. Therefore, the Council has decided to return you to the future and erase your memories. You will merge with your alternate self and remember neither the future you come from nor your time in the past."
For a heartbeat, no one reacted at all. Then Chris nodded.
"That actually does sound astonishingly fair," he commented, surprised.
Then waited for another chorus of protests to pass.
"Did you say fair?" Phoebe asked him finally. "Chris, what they're proposing is to basically delete you!"
"No," he disagreed. Inside himself, he searched for a way to explain what he was feeling.
I could go anywhere I wanted, he had told Sarah on Golden Gate bridge just a few days ago, although it felt like another life, be anybody I ever wanted to be, hell, be a nobody, do anything!
And she had told him that this feeling, this lightness descending on his shoulder that he was experiencing again this very moment, that it was what other people called freedom.
"It's a fresh start," he said. "A chance for the other me to become what I didn't."
Freedom, he mused. He'd fought for it all his life, it seemed, but never really for himself. In fact, the thought of what he would do with it had never really occurred to him.
"I will probably live a happier life this way, an easier one, certainly."
Freedom. Perhaps the only way he could ever experience freedom was this: To not fight anymore, to step away from the battle field, allow himself to feel his own exhaustion, and not fight. Just let things happen. Just accept, not rage and claw and bleed.
"But what makes you unique," Phoebe protested. "Your experience, your memories, the things that shaped your personality, would be gone!"
She looked and sounded distressed, and suddenly Chris felt so tired of this charade, of the endless need to keep up and ahead and control and assert himself, that he flung all tactic and strategy to the winds. Why couldn't they just all tell the truth for once?
"But would that really be so bad?" He asked and saw the sisters and Leo flinch. "I mean, the other me would be born and grow up as a Halliwell, and never be bothered by my terrible character traits. It might be easier for all of us, and at least I would turn out less neurotic and be able to a good night's sleep without nightmares, right? I might have a better destiny this time around. I might not be so broken."
Despite the twinge of bitterness he couldn't help but feel (No good deed goes unpunished), he felt the truth of his words sink into his being. As long as Sarah got to decide her own fate, he would be okay with this solution.
He could rest.
"I won't fight the sentence."
There. He'd said it. Now they only had to agree. They wouldn't even have to argue and agonise over how to justify this to themselves, and pretend that they wanted him instead of the perfect boy they might have had. They only had to agree. And he was sure Leo would be the first to do it, he had only ever seen Chris as a threat, after all…
"But I will."
A/N: The title of this chapter refers to the gospel song "Good News":
Good news! The chariot's coming,
and I don't want it to leave me behind.
There's a pair of wings in the heaven I know,
and I don't want it to leave me behind.
Good news! The chariot's coming,
and I don't want it to leave me behind.
xXx
I hope I'll be able to update at the beginning of next week, but my schedule's pretty busy. Feel free to motivate me, though! In other words:
Review, please!
