"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."
What Ship Would Come to Me
Chris blinked. That had been Leo's voice, strong and steady as he'd seldom heard it in his life. It was a voice that left no room for argument.
But it hadn't said the words he'd expected.
"If you want to take my son from me, you will have to fight me," that was Piper, and she sounded like the earth goddess again, not willing to budge an inch.
"You will have to fight all of us." Phoebe.
"And you know how well that worked out the last time." Paige.
Chris blinked again, not sure what had happened to the world he'd known. One moment they'd been in the middle of a terrible row, and now his parents and aunts were standing between him and the shell-shocked Elders, presenting a united front and protecting him and Sarah.
He knew the way they were standing, shoulder to shoulder, heads straight. It was the way they stood right before they headed into battle.
He looked to his left, and saw how Sarah's lips were white with anger, how her eyes were narrowed, taking in everything around her. He noticed the knife she held half hidden at her side in a white-knuckled grip. And realized: The only thing that stopped her from attacking two Elders to protect him was the fact that he was still holding her hand.
"Do you realize what you are saying, Leo?" Marcus now asked, his voice quite a bit higher. "We have come to expect this sort of disobedience from your former charges, but you will stand against your brethren?"
Leo looked as if he wanted to punch Marcus, a part of Chris' mind realized, while the rest of him was still busy staring at his family and friend, ready to fight for him. Had this been all that was needed? Did he just have to give up so that someone else would step forward and take over the fight? Was this what his mother and aunts used to talk about, before they died, when they'd said that family needed to stick together no matter what?
"Chris is a hero," Leo said, and Chris almost burst out laughing again, but Leo's face was completely serious. "He has sacrificed too much already. We will not allow this."
Again, Marcus' face grew red with anger, and suddenly, Chris was worried. The Elders could punish his family, after all. They could take away their powers and leave them helpless, or even recycle Leo's soul, and while his relationship with his father had never been easy, Chris didn't intend to be responsible for his death, either.
"It's okay," he therefore tried to calm them all down. "What's another sacrifice? One for the road, eh?"
Too late he realized that sarcasm wasn't really the best way to pacify his family.
"Look," he tried again. "This really isn't worth…"
"Stop talking, Chris," his mother told him without taking her eyes off the Elders. "You're not going to convince us that you're expendable. Sarah, if they try anything at all, flame him out and don't come back here. Understood?"
"Understood," Sarah agreed and grabbed his hand tighter.
"This is ridiculous," Marcus argued, his voice tight and angry. "We have allowed the Charmed Ones a certain leeway over the years, but clearly that has only served to make you forget your place. We are the highest authority, and you will obey our decisions."
"You are guys who watched while one of you tried to kill Wyatt," Paige shot back, really angry now. "And now you plan to punish the man who sacrificed everything because you didn't do your job properly!"
Marcus raised his hands. He looked about ready to exercise his authority now.
"If you prove recalcitrant, it is the Council's right to remove your powers, Paige Matthews. You will respect our decision. We will not be crossed in this!"
"Oh, yeah?" Piper asked, and raised her hands in turn.
This would not end well.
And then Leo took a deep breath, lowered the hands he had raised in protest, and something in Chris' chest tightened and loosened at the same time. This was what he'd been waiting for.
"Perhaps they are right, Piper," Leo said. "Fighting over this is no solution."
He turned to the other Elders.
"Can we respectfully request a reconsideration of the Council's decision?" He asked. "Please take into account what Chris has done for this world, and what the Charmed Ones have done. There must be a way to lighten the sentence."
Marcus looked as if he wanted to disagree and bring the situation to a head, but Sebastian, whose eyes had flickered from enraged witch to enraged witch for the past minute, stopped him quickly.
"We shall grant your request," he intoned magnanimously. "But Chris will have to come with us, I'm afraid."
Sarah's hand on Chris' wrist tightened again, cutting off his circulation. She opened her mouth to a snarl…
"I give you my word as an Elder that Chris will not stir from this Manor," Leo said. "You may take away his power to orb if you wish. We will keep him here until you return."
Yes, Chris thought, the tightening in his chest increasing. It was getting hard to hold onto his new serenity with all this drama around him. This was basically what he had expected from Leo in the first place.
For a moment, it looked as if Marcus and Sebastian would disagree, but Piper's half raised hands, Phoebe's open outrage and Paige's anger convinced them to make their exit while they still could. Which didn't stop them from sweeping them all with a haughty glance, of course.
"Very well," Sebastian said slowly. "Chris' orbing ability has been removed and a tracing spell will make sure that he can't escape any other way. We will communicate your request to the Council, Leo, and return with a final verdict."
And they orbed away.
As soon as they were gone, a ripple of relief ran through the room. Phoebe and Paige took a deep breath, Piper threw her arms in the air in silent frustration, and Leo actually leaned against a wall for support. But Sarah did not let go of Chris' hand.
"That should buy us some time," Leo said. "Quick now, Chris, how did you plan to get back to your future?"
What? Chris thought, then struggled to express his confusion over this new twist adequately.
"What?" He said. If the world didn't stop spinning this wildly soon, he would get seasick.
"Your return to the future," Leo repeated, as if that was the most important thing about this situation. "How did you plan to do it? A potion? A spell?"
His left hand still clasped in Sarah's, Chris sat down, absently using his other hand to check his own forehead for signs of fever. First the evening had erupted into discord. Then the Elders had appeared and he'd agreed to being deleted. Then Leo had protested and the Elders had threatened them. Then Leo had relented and agreed to keep him here. And now Leo was asking questions about time travel? What the hell?
"I'm confused," he confessed. "What is going on here?"
"Oh, sweetie," Phoebe whispered, probably intending to tell him that it was no wonder, what with the shock of it all, but she was interrupted by Sarah, who withdrew her hand from Chris' grip and elbowed him in the ribs.
"Concentrate, Chris," she said sternly. "We don't have much time. What Leo said was a ruse. They intend to get you safely back to the future before the Elders return. So stop behaving like a civilian!"
Oh. That explained a lot, actually. Although Chris still found it hard to believe that his father would take a stand against the Elders, let alone even lie to them like that.
He looked up at Leo and met his eyes.
"But they will punish you for that," he protested. "They might even take your powers away, and then Wyatt would be unprotected. You can't risk…"
But Leo's eyes were steady.
"This is not open to discussion," he stated. "Now, how did you plan to get back?"
Chris was so thrown by this sudden decisiveness that he didn't even shrug off the supporting hand Leo had placed on his shoulder. Not immediately, at least.
"I didn't," he finally answered the question. "Plan it, I mean. In fact, I never even thought about this part."
"Hard to believe. I mean, you always seemed to have a plan for everything," Paige joked, trying to alleviate the atmosphere.
But Chris didn't really notice. He was still trying to work through the bewildering fact that his father was willing to stand up against his bosses, along with his whole family, and all to keep Chris safe.
"I didn't really expect to survive," he answered absently. "So planning for that possibility seemed like a waste of time. I had more important things to do, after all."
Piper made an odd, choking sound. Leo's face paled, and Paige's smile wobbled.
"Well, then we'll have to do the planning for you," she said, her voice a bit hoarse. "Piece of cake, right?"
There were a lot of things Chris could have answered, a lot of ways he could have commented this outrageous statement. But his head still felt as if it was stuffed with cotton candy, and so he concentrated on the thing that seemed most important to him.
"But why?" He asked, helplessly. "You could get into a lot of trouble, and all of that for someone you don't really want in your family, anyway. You should concentrate on the important stuff, here!"
Again, Piper made that choking sound, and after a moment, Chris recognized it as the way she always cleared her throat when she wanted to keep herself from crying. But when she sat down by his side and took the hand Sarah had only recently let go of, her eyes were dry and her voice was steady.
"We want you, Chris," she said clearly, leaving no room for doubt. "We might not understand you very well, and we have made a mess of things, but we do want you. We have as much right to fight for the family we love as you have, don't you think? Let us do this for you."
And Chris looked up into Piper's eyes, and saw her willingness to stand up for him, and her love, and for the first time since he'd come to the past, he recognised his mother in her.
"Okay," he said, not liking how small his voice sounded, how vulnerable. He was the leader of the Resistance, damn it, not a little boy, and there were larger things at play here than how he was feeling, how she was feeling. But somehow, he couldn't bring himself to tell her that.
"Okay," he whispered.
As the evening progressed and research was being conducted at dizzying speed, Paige found herself thankful for every single magic lesson her sisters had made her take. She was also thankful for Leo, whose quiet strength had snapped back into place with a vengeance and was now keeping all of them upright, together and going.
But most of all, she was thankful for Sarah's presence, who was a mean hand at potions, knew a good deal more about time travel than all of them, and, most importantly, was actually willing and able to answer questions, in contrast to the bewildered Chris.
To be honest, his confusion and shock was, in turn, confusing Paige so much that she couldn't for the life of her concentrate properly. So when Sarah grabbed her arm and towed her off to the attic, to 'search for ingredients', she didn't even think about questioning her.
Only when Sarah had positioned them in the middle of the attic and began whispering a spell did Paige remember that they kept their ingredients in the kitchen. But by then Sarah had already started talking, and what she said drove every other thought from Paige's mind.
"Listen, Paige," she said, dead serious. "Chris would never allow me to tell you this, but you need to know a few things. Listen closely. You won't be able to write this down, in case someone finds it, so you must make sure you remember it."
"What?" Paige asked, totally confused.
"On March 3rd, 2009, a clan of demons will attack Phoebe at work and she'll barely get out alive. When you go to vanquish them, do not leave the children in the Manor. Take them to Magic School, or to the Elders, but don't leave them on this plane."
"I… what?" Paige repeated, even though the date and the advice seared into her mind like writing on a stone and she knew she would never forget this. "Why are telling me this? I'd think Phoebe or Piper…"
Again, Sarah fixed her with hard eyes that held a strange, desperate urge.
"Of all the sisters, you stay alive the longest in my future. You are also the only Charmed One who can keep her mouth shut and act quickly when the moment comes. They must not know the things I tell you, or the future could be changed in terrible ways. Now listen: On Chris' fourteenth birthday, you and Phoebe were busy, so you only arrived at the Manor in the late afternoon. Don't, under any circumstances, come that late. Arrive for breakfast and stay the day. Don't be late!"
"So you're telling me when we'll be in danger? Is that it?" Paige asked while memorizing the date.
"Not every time you'll be in danger," Sarah corrected her absently. "Danger will be part of your lives, and many events are necessary for the future to unfold in the right way. Perhaps some things will not occur, now that we've changed Wyatt's destiny, perhaps things will be different. But there are some… moments… that really shouldn't happen this time around. It would be better for all of you."
In that moment, Paige realized that Sarah was handing her an incomparable treasure, here, the chance for a better future, and she knew that she would keep this close to her heart and guard it with her life.
"Why?" She whispered, shocked that Sarah would go directly against Chris' wishes and all his convictions.
"Because he won't do this for himself," Sarah answered calmly. "You saw him just now. The thought of making things better for himself doesn't even occur to him. So I'll take care of that."
She took a deep breath.
"Now Listen: November the fifth, 2018…" she continued, leaving no further room for questions.
And so Paige closed her mouth, and nodded, and concentrating on remembering every single one of the events when she would have to save her family.
A/N: The title of this chapter is a quotation from Galadriel's Song in the "The Lord of the Rings":
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?
A/N: Okay, dearest readers, here's the deal: We've talked about a sequel, which is pretty fleshed out in my mind, but the truth is that things are so busy right now that I honestly don't know when I'll be able to write it. So I've thought long and hard how to give you at least a hint of what I promised for the time being, and this is my idea:
I'll finish the story as planned, then add a long two-chapter epilogue that takes place in the future. This way, you at least get to see our characters arrive and the repercussions of that. Should I have time to start the sequel, I'll just take the epilogue down and flesh it out as the beginning of the story.
What do you think? Do you like the idea?
