By Saberi
Chris never told anyone, but when he dreams, Wyatt is evil.
He's had the nightmares for as long as he could remember. Of a world where Wyatt is cruel and cold, where his father ignored him, and where his mother and aunts were dead. In other words, nothing like reality.
In reality, his brother washis best friend, his father loved him (even if he is somewhat overprotective), and the Charmed Ones were alive and well, still fighting the good fight.
And yet... something about the dreams made Chris think that they're more than just his subconscious fears. There's something tangible and solid about these night terrors.
Chris shivered, trying to divert himself from this train of thought. It wouldn't do to be thinking such dark thoughts, not today.
Just then, the object of his thoughts entered the room.
"Hey little bro," Wyatt grinned and ruffled his hair playfully. Chris made a face at his older brother and slicked his hair back once again.
"Thanks, Wy," he groaned sarcastically. "Just after I managed to get it looking right, too," he glared at his brother, "and why the hell aren't you dressed? I'm getting married in half an hour!" he cried in dismay.
"Relax, relax!" Wyatt laughed. "You're too young to be so uptight."
Chris said nothing, just rolled his eyes.
He eyed himself in the mirror critically, and then straightened his tie. He wanted everything to be perfect. It was his wedding after all. Kind of hard to believe that it was finally happening.
He remembered the first time he'd brought Bianca home to meet his family. He told them she was a witch, but he hadn't said anything about her family profession. But they'd known, somehow. He could tell from the way they reacted, as if they'd expected him to say something more. And Bianca had told him afterward that there was something familiar about his mother and her sisters, something that she couldn't quite place.
Though his days after he and Bianca started dating were some of the happiest of his life, his nights more often than not were filled with even more nightmare images.
Bianca, carrying on the family tradition of the Phoenix, and Wyatt, as her master.
Wyatt causing her death.
A tap on his shoulder brought him back to the present. Wyatt stood before him, dressed in his tuxedo.
"Do I pass inspection?" he smirked. Chris narrowed his eyes as if he were deep in thought.
"Well... you'll do, I suppose," he said with a shrug.
"Thanks, bro." The reply was sarcastic, but Wyatt's expression was warm, his eyes filled with brotherly affection. Just as it had always been. Oh, sure, they'd had their share of arguments- and with two children whose powers included telekinesis, fights in the Halliwell household could and did quickly get out of hand. But when push came to shove, the brothers knew where their loyalties stood: with family.
A comfortable silence descended on the room as the two brothers finished getting dressed.
Finally, Wyatt broke the silence with a quiet "Chris..." younger brother turned to look at elder, a question in his eyes. "There's something... something I think you should see. I found it by accident yesterday, and I haven't told anyone else about it, not even Mom or Dad, because it concerns me, and, well, you, or maybe you, I don't know, exactly. I can't really explain-"
Chris held up a hand to stop his brother's nervous chatter.
"Wyatt. You're babbling. Slow down."
Wordlessly, Wyatt reached into his pocket, drew out a picture, and handed it to Chris, who stared at it in confusion.
"I... I don't understand," he turned the picture over, reading the caption, written in his mother's unmistakable handwriting: Wyatt and Chris, April 2004.
And it was the two of them- at least, sort of. There was baby Wyatt, about fourteen months old. Nothing strange about that. It was the other person in the picture that was making his head spin, because that should have been impossible. Someone with his name and face, twenty-two years in the past?
"Where did you get this?" Chris demanded.
"I was looking for baby pictures of you, you know, for the slideshow at the reception?" Chris groaned involuntarily at that, inwardly wondering why so many family traditions seemed to center around embarrassing the family member they were directed at. "Anyway," Wyatt continued, "I found it in a box in Mom's closet." From his expression, Chris could tell that Wyatt hadn't exactly asked permission to go through their parents belongings on his picture search. Well, his expression and the fact that he'd made a discovery regarding something that they had obviously intended to keep secret from the brothers.
"You went snooping in Mom's room? She's going to kill you!"
"Don't I know it! I just wish I knew what the hell this was all about."
"Maybe... maybe he's a long-lost cousin or something, and they named me after him?" Chris suggested, but even he knew it was feeble.
"I don't think so, little bro. I mean, he looks exactly like you. That goes a little beyond mere family resemblance, don't you think?"
"Yeah, I guess. I just..." he trailed off, staring at the picture. Something about it nagged at him. He could almost see himself, holding a squirming Wyatt while his mother, pregnancy barely beginning to show, held the camera ready.
"You just what?" his Aunt Paige strolled into the room then, grinning.
"I just wish I knew what this meant." He said abruptly, and thrust the picture at her. Her grin faltered as she glanced at it.
"I thought Leo had gotten rid of all of these years ago," she said softly, fingers tracing over the faces in the photographs. "He told me it was too painful, seeing those reminders of y- him. Where did you find this?"
"Mom's closet, in a box at the back." Wyatt confessed, for the second time.
"She must have kept a few of them for herself. None of us ever told her what really happened, so of course she wouldn't understand why Leo went and threw them all away," Paige mused.
"What happened, Aunt Paige?" Chris pleaded. "Will you please tell us what's going on, who that person is in the picture with Wyatt and why he looks exactly like me?"
Paige bit her lip, uncertain of how to break the news. Finally, she opted for the same method she'd used all those years ago when she'd told Piper about Chris being her son.
"He doesn't just look like you, Chris. He, um, is you. You travelled to the past from the future- well, a future. To change it, the future I mean, and it worked. Obviously. Since we're standing here having this conversation, I mean."
The truth hit him like ice water, and suddenly he understood.
They weren't just dreams, they were memories. His memories. Or at least, the memories that belonged to an alternate self who ceased to exist once the past had been changed.
"Wait," he said, as a thought occurred to him. "Does that mean Mom named me after myself?"
I'm thinking of maybe writing some more in this little universe. Lemme know what you think of this story, though =)