BEFORE NIGTH AWAKENS
By Sickle Sword
--o0o--

Disclaimer: I do not, under any circumstances, own Charmed, nor would you want me too. All of them belong to higher powers that will sue me if I said otherwise, so let's be reasonable for a minute and don't try to say they're mine, even though I would appreciate the gesture, because then I'll have gods on my tail. Got that?

A/N: This is the first chapter about Chris's life, and although I mostly ignored the events in the show, they are there somehow. Keep that in mind. All reviews will be welcomed, critic also, just don't burn me alive. I just healed from sunburn.

It should have been me who had told him the truth, even when I didn't know what the meaning of the truth is, for I have lived in a lie. I should have held him close to my arms and closer to my heart and even when he chose to go away, I should have followed. It should have been me who died. Not him.

Chapter 1: Nascence

What do you do when the gap between reality and fiction is being erased and one day you simply wake up to discover that everything you've believed in wasn't more than a lie?

You've believed that you were someone- not too important or irreplaceable, but someone that mattered in the small circle of your relatives, only to lose that false assumption. And to realize the truth. You were never really you. Your mother is not the woman you thought she was, your bigger brother is a world saviors, your baby brother is the second most powerful being on the planet, and you. . . you were never special. At first it's alright. The death of you parents is making it really hard for you to concentrate on anything but their absence. In time, however, your mistakes slap your face harshly when the father you thought died appears, because he is no less that a frigging Angel. And your brothers, the ones who were always so secretive with you, so formal and informal so many times, conquer their righteous throne.

You stay alone in the midst of everything, pray that even though yesterday had happened, it really was only a dream. You would even settle for having a one-time episode, hallucination of a kind that your lonely mind created, wanting to punish you because you stopped eating days ago. So you keep clinging to the fact that none of it is real and continue building castles of sand while everything else crumbles. But you can't keep lying to yourself anymore, so you go to the people you hold dear the most- your brothers, only to hear them laugh to your face. You are not needed. You are powerless. You don't matter. You never did.

At the nights you cry so at the days you will be strong for you friends' sake, because somehow, you've never really bothered to inquire how, they know that those who have now the power upon life and death, are related to you. So even though you have no power, you promise you'll protect them. You swear to that the void, because everyone else will not want to hear. You will do something. You won't just sit and let them being slaughtered like you did with your family.

And somehow in the next morning you find that you can orb, and you bless every high and small force that exist in the universe, don't really care that your power is like a lamp- providing light, but other than that- useless. But it gives you hope to fight.

So you fight.

You fight those you considered friends and allies, you face more death in one year that some see in a lifetime, and every time you hear the inhuman voices of those you know were born with hearts, like you, this is too hard not to remember. Each and every time you hold back the memories, you don't need them. Going sentimental all of a sudden can't save you, and definitely not the world. So you store all those memories in the blackest part of your brain, sealing it so you'll never have to face them again.

Not that it helps. The memories are tricky, and every once in a while when you least expect it, you hear giggles coming from an empty swing and the woman with her friends who are walking down the street behind you are changed to be you mother gossiping with your aunts in the same way they liked to do so much, and something in you just knows that this is what they are doing now, simply not here. Simply in another plane of existence, when ghosts and hallucinations are together.

And one day, when you can't hold everything inside you anymore- the tears, the memories, the guilt and the hate, you unleash your anger upon your unsuspecting friends and see them screaming in agony while you can't stop yourself doing it, because you have no idea how you started it in the first place.

And they are gone. Just like mom.

The next days are becoming like a blur when you discover yon have so much to offer the world, only to stand on your feet and realize this is not enough. Despite all the changes you have been through in the two years that now seem like eternity, you know that you are not ready yet to face your brothers. Maybe you never will.

Nevertheless, you start preparing when you feel a strong stab of pain that sending you kneeling on your feet, blind. Then you get up and know. You baby brother had just died.

It is just the two of you now- the one who holds all the powers in his hands, and you who still needs to know how to move things by your unwilling hands, not to mention by your mind. So you practice and fight tiredness and hunger and dread and loss of hope, you fight every single thing that connects you to this world as a human being. And you lose. You cannot fight yourself. You are too weak.

You were always the weakest brother, weakest witch. But you try anyhow, and you fight your own brother. You see him becoming pensive, something compassionate rising on his face as he asks you not to do it. But you think you know better than anyone else. You ignore his pleas.

In a matter of seconds you fall, breathing heavily in defeat as his pitying gaze lighting anger within you that you've never thought a human being can feel and survive. The view that surrounds you, however, shows you have survived. And you look at your brother, the one you would give your life to take his, and you know that something has changed in you.

You are on his side.

--o0o--