He did it for me
Chapter 13
By: teal-lover
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Being twice blessed, Wyatt thought that nothing could ever hurt him. It's devastating to find out how wrong you can be. Takes place in the future that Chris changed.
Chris just turned 19, and Wyatt is three months shy of his 21st birthday.
Disclaimer in chapter 1
AN: It's been a while since I've been sick & able to update, so here's a nice long one for you. Hope you like it.
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Paige landed in the underworld and quickly dropped her sister's hand. She shushed her sister with her finger as she listened to a conversation nearby. When she heard one that had mentioned Wyatt's destruction in the cavern the night before, she guessed that they would probably be familiar with the demonic brothers. She mouthed to her empath sister, how many?
Phoebe motioned seven and gave her baby sister hand gestures signaling a countdown to surprise the group of demons. When she reached one, they both jumped out at the unsuspecting group and began firing off their enhanced Charmed Powers, careful to avoid the demon that had spoken. Paige targeted the darklighter in the corner of the room who quickly materialized a crossbow, sensing the witch-whitelighter's presence. She didn't say a word as she thought of the weapon, and it immediately found it's way into her palm—much to the surprise of the unfortunate darklighter who was vanquished by his own weapon.
As two of the demons closed in on either side of her, Phoebe was glad that the powers she had once seen of her future self had finally taken residence in her body. It had been discovered years ago that her empathy would allow her to amplify any power—both natural and otherwise.
She rubbed her fingers together and created a tiny spark. A few of the demons watched her and laughed confidently at what they thought was her minute display of power. Their amusement soon faded as the static electricity she created with the tiny motion quickly generated a deadly stream of high voltage electricity. They turned to run, but she was faster and focussed the electricity on their fleeing forms, incinerating them on the spot.
When she turned, Paige already had the demon who spoke corned, while his cohorts had all either fled or been vanquished. She eased in front of him and decided to give him a further demonstration of their power, just in case he decided against cooperating. The empath mentioned to her sister casually, "Paige? I really love that purple sweater you're wearing. Would you mind if I tried it on?"
The youngest Charmed One smiled knowingly at the familiar game they liked to play to intimidate demons. Her ability to mentally call for things on the molecular level had come quite in handy on several occasions. "Oh, do you? I like your red blousetoo. How about we switch?" She followed up her question by mentally swapping clothing with her sister right before the demon's eyes. The switch was instantaneous while he watched in wide-eyed confusion.
Paige leaned in closer to him, "You know I can move whatever I want—wherever I want." She pressed her ear to his chest and commented, "Are you nervous? Because your heart is beating very fast. But it's a little hard to hear. Do you think maybe if I hold it in the palm of my hand, I could hear it better?"
Phoebe clasped her hands together with a chipper expression, "That's a great idea, Paige. See! That's why I lent you my red blouse! Go for it!"
"NO-NO-NO-NO-WAIT!!! Whatever it is you want, I'll give it to you!" the demon begged quickly.
Phoebe dropped the false pretenses and began her interrogation. "You have a very big mouth. And we've found that a big mouth always goes hand and hand with big ears. You mentioned the witch. We know he was down here last night. We want to know what you saw."
"More specifically, who you saw. Who did he fight?" Paige added.
"The Korack," he mumbled nervously.
"And just who are the Korack?" the red head hissed.
The demon laughed despite the threats he was under. "Brothers. Two very stupid low-level demons. The morons actually thought they could go up against the Twice-Blessed Witch! It was suicide."
Phoebe questioned, "And why would that be?"
"Because they couldn't fight without tripping over their own big feet before yesterday! You know, they were always inseparable. Good thing too, because together—sometimes they actually almost won a few fights in the underworld. Almost…"
The two sisters shared a hardened stare as more fuel was added to their conspiracy fire. "And just where did they learn to fight all of a sudden—and what made them think they could win?"
The demon held his breath nervously, afraid he would be vanquished if they didn't like his answer. "I don't know. I swear—I don't know. The only thing I do know is that there was a rumor that they had gotten some kind of power boost from someone pretty high up."
Phoebe suddenly thought of another question, "This Twice-Blessed Witch—Do you know his name?"
"Of course. Everyone knows his name. It's Wyatt. Wyatt Halliwell."
"And what of Chris?" the empath drilled.
Cocking his head sideways, he asked in genuine confusion, "Chris who?"
"Never mind. This power boost they got—it was pretty substantial then, right?"
"Sure. It was enough to make them think they could take him on. Something they've always dreamed of, you know?"
Paige rolled her eyes at his response. "Yeah, a real Cinderella story," she muttered sarcastically. "And I take it you don't have a clue who it was that gave them this power?"
As the sisters relaxed, so did he. "Nope. But you gotta' hand it to them. They always had big plans. It's a shame. We were all even routin' for em' to do what none of us could." His eyes grew wide as he realized his slip.
The idea of someone cheering on the death of their oldest nephew set off both of the sisters. Phoebe rubbed her fingers and created a spark, but Paige lowered her arms and dragged her away.
Phoebe protested even while being pulled along. "What are you—I was going to—"
"Yeah, Phoebes. I know. But there's no need."
"But—"
"Trust me," the red head replied as she turned back to watch him shimmer away. "Have you ever wished you had eyes in the back of your head?"
"Sometimes. Just not literally, why?" she admitted.
Paige winked, "Maybe you can ask him what it's like next time we see him?"
"You didn't!"
"I did. And I suppose he'll be having a few other problems as well."
"Such as?"
"Use your imagination." The younger witch grinned. "So you want to snoop around a bit more, or go and see how Leo and Piper are doing?"
"I think we should try and find out more. Do you think Chris was right? That this had nothing to do with him? Maybe they really were after Wyatt?" Phoebe questioned worriedly.
"No, I think it's connected. They seemed too focussed on Chris. I mean, the demon went straight for him."
"Yeah, but this one didn't even know who Chris was."
Paige sucked her teeth in annoyance. "He's low level scum, Phoebe. Just because he didn't know, doesn't mean that this higher-up person doesn't know who Chris is. Just think about it—you give a couple of morons—who also happen to be brothers—this really awesome power. Then you sick them on a previously unbeatable opponent, knowing that he would most likely kill at least one, but not two with these new powers. So Wyatt vanquishes one and that leaves one very angry demonic brother. And what does he do? Returns the favor…"
Phoebes eyes widened at the theory, "So you're thinking that somebody used both Wyatt and the Korack brothers to set Chris up?"
"Exactly."
"Who could pull that off?"
"That's what we're here to find out. But I think a bigger question to ask would be, why?" Paige said as she held out her hand to orb to another location in the underworld.
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When Penny arrived in the waiting room, she found Christopher sifting through a pile of ancient looking books. Since he didn't look up or notice her presence, she focussed on her great-granddaughter. "What's he hoping to find in those old things?" she whispered.
Prue covered her mouth to hide her grin, "Nothing. I'm just keeping him occupied and out of trouble." She pressed her index finger to her lips and shushed her, "But he doesn't know that."
The older woman chuckled but admonished gently, "He's not stupid, you know."
Smiling proudly, "I know that. Quite the little book worm actually--takes after Piper. You remember how smart she was in school. But really, I think he's just fascinated by those old things."
"I take it since you set him loose in the library, he was becoming quite a handful?"
Patty joined the two and sighed rather loudly, "That's an understatement. He kept insisting how the family would know the difference—and then on and on with an endless string of questions about Chris. And, I just didn't think I should be the one to answer them."
Prue spoke up, "In other words, he was driving Mom nuts. I think he picked that irritating trait up from Phoebe."
Patty scolded her oldest daughter, "Don't talk about your sister like that. And speaking of your sisters; Mom—Did you find out anything? DID any of them know the difference? How was Chris? Is he ok?"
"Let's see: The family is off looking for clues; No they didn't know, just as I thought. And at first, Chris was a little spooked. He wouldn't let them near him. But he did ok after Wyatt showed up. You see--this is good for him. He even had a great idea of how to find out who gave Leo his orders."
Christopher walked up quietly to the group, having caught the tail end of their conversation, "But I bet Wyatt will figure it out. Even if the rest don't. He knows me better than they do. And then what's gonna' happen? I told you before you left, that you had to tell Wyatt if nobody else."
Penny shook her head confidently, "Wyatt won't know either, Christopher. Not until—and unless we tell them."
He smiled almost smugly before heading back for his books, "Then you don't know Wyatt as well as you think you do. Give him time. That's all he needs."
Patty listened to his words carefully and began to question their validity. "Mom? What if Christopher's right? How did Wyatt react?"
"There's no way. He—" she quickly thought back to Wyatt's questions and lack of attention span—possibly adding up to his mind working overtime on…
"He what, mom?"
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Halliwell Manor….
As his younger brother always used to be the one with the ideas and strategy, Wyatt turned to the dark-haired young man and asked, "Shouldn't we be doing something while they're gone?"
As his younger brother always used to be the one with the ideas and strategy, Wyatt turned to the dark-haired young man and asked, "Shouldn't we be doing while they're gone?"Chris shrugged his shoulders, "Not really. I don't think there's anything we can do until we find out who is behind this and why."
Wyatt nodded as he tried to get a read off of him. He purposely questioned vaguely, "Well, do you want to go finish the paper," he laughed as he thought of the computer screen flashing with nothing but the title and name, "I'm sorry—I meant, start the paper?"
Hearing his brother's laughter, Chris quickly joined in as he admitted his ignorance quizzically. "What paper?"
Wyatt smiled falsely as an idea formed. He reversed the facts to confirm his suspicions as he turned and headed for the door, "My economics term paper, Chris. Come on, you're the smart one. You were supposed to help me with it. And you know how important college is to me…"
Still having no clue as to what the older Halliwell was referring, Chris absently agreed and rushed to catch up, eager to spend any time with him—even if it was doing homework. "Ok, sure. But I don't know how much help I—" his words drifting off as Wyatt halted abruptly, causing him to bump into the back of his stiffened form. "What's wrong?" Chris asked hesitantly.
"You tell me." The blonde man answered as he turned and began to stare into deep green eyes.
Fearing discovery, Chris tried to reply with as much of the truth as he dared, "I told you, I'm fine. I'm still dead, but other than that--I don't know what you're talking about. You know, my memory's not so great right now."
"Yeah, why is that?" the older man countered.
Wyatt walked around Chris, studying him from head to toe with blatant suspicion. He noted no physical differences in his brother, but the partially empathic powers he had inherited through his wiccan bloodline, combined with his whitelighter senses, told him that there was something different—yet strangely familiar about the boy. He knew that if he focussed—dug a little deeper—he would be able to figure it out.
Unnerved by the blonde circling him, Chris was reminded of his own timeline when his brother would do the very same thing in an attempt to get a reading off of him—usually to test his loyalty.
Back then, the Twice-Blessed's natural empathic abilities had been enhanced by the demonic powers he had amassed, which made deception on Chris's part next to impossible. Up until that point, he had always been able to concentrate and block all thoughts and emotions from the older Halliwell boy when he wanted to. He concentrated and hoped that it would work now.
Chris fidgeted anxiously under the scrutiny as he yelled in frustration, "Wyatt, you're making me dizzy. WILL YOU STOP THAT!"
Replying calmly with a smirk, "I will if you will."
"Stop what?" Chris asked genuinely confused.
"Stop calling me Wyatt, for one thing!" he remarked in annoyance.
"But it's your name," he pointed out jokingly, hoping that amusement would again calm his brother.
Wyatt narrowed his eyes at the brown-haired teen, "And since when do you actually use it? You haven't called me WYATT since you were little and couldn't pronounce my name and you ended up calling me WHAT all the time. It's been WY ever since. You remember nothing about any of our conversations—pretty convenient if you ask me. And you get nervous every time I ask you about you acting so weird. Add that to the fact that you know almost nothing about me, kind of makes me doubt who you say you are."
He advanced on Chris with what he hoped was his most menacing look, causing the wide-eyed brunette to back into the wall. "You may look like him. Sound like him. Even act—like him. But I know you're not my brother that was killed here yesterday."
When he grew close enough, he grabbed Chris's shirt collar and pulled him inches from his face, lifting the shorter man off the ground a bit. "I'm going to ask you—and be careful what you answer—you may be dead, but I can still make sure that you spend eternity someplace where the weather is a little on the hot side. Now. You wanna' tell me who you really are before I start to think that you had something to do with what happened to my brother?"
Tbc…
AN: Thank you for the reviews!!!! I love to check my in box & read your comments. It's so exciting!
Now what is that crazy boy up to??? LOL.
By the way, I thought it was kind of funny to upgrade Phoebe's powers like that. I got the idea since I'm always shocking people at work. Maybe if I keep rubbing my fingers together, I'll be able to fire off electricity to people that annoy me:) Like at one of my brothers?
And one more thing:
OK—I'M NOT EVEN A FOOTBALL FAN BUT SINCE THEY WEAR MY FAVORITE COLOR—(TEAL)—GO EAGLES!!!!!
