He did it for me
Chapter 16
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; also I borrowed a few lines from the Courtship of Wyatt's Father for a vision.
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As the orbs formed into his aunts, Wyatt stepped in front of his brother. For some reason he could not explain, he still felt a bit protective of the boy despite his own protests that his family would never intentionally hurt Chris. "Hi. Did you guys find out anything in the underworld?"
Phoebe crossed her arms and stared at the three, noting the fact that Wyatt had yet to move from his protective stance as both sisters made their way over to the trio.
In light of recent events, she had expected him to do that in case something or other should attack, but she certainly hadn't expected him to remain that way after he recognized them. She got a strange feeling when she looked at them—it was almost as if they were hiding something from her. Phoebe tried to probe the depths Chris and Penny's minds, but failed. There was no real surprise there since she wasn't expecting to be able to read the mind of the dead, but she thought she would check just to be sure.
Instead, she turned her attention to her oldest nephew. Now there was a surprise. Because of the two Halliwell's sharing an empathic connection and bloodline, it was often enhanced to the point of sharing thoughts and images, along with emotions. She always told herself that she was just keeping an eye on him to ensure that he didn't turn.
As a result, Wyatt was used to this connection with his Aunt and was normally an open book to her and made no point of ever hiding anything. She had even found him amusing at times because he would be aware of her presence and quickly open up—often showing her some of his more intimate escapades with his latest girlfriend, which of course had the desired effect of her shutting down the connection flush with embarrassment.
This time, however, was quite different. He sensed her intrusion just as he had done on numerous other occasions. This time, he consciously blocked her out. The mental barrier that he had erected around his mind to keep her out was higher than she had felt before. Her heart skipped a beat as she wondered if that was how it started in the first timeline. And the knowing smirk that he gave her left no doubt that it was intentional, and sent a shiver down her spine.
The empath pushed her worrisome thoughts aside as she tried to hide her surprise with indifference, "We actually found out quite a bit."
Paige watched the interaction between the two empaths with interest, deciding that something had startled the older of the two. She would ask her later when they were alone. For now, she tried to focus on the problem at hand. "We think that what happened to Chris was no accident, nor a coincidence."
Chris glared at his youngest aunt angrily and replied sarcastically, "I hate to break it to you, but you knew that before you left."
Paige was momentarily taken aback by his venomous tone. Apparently, she thought, he was angry with all of them for letting him die. But his tone of voice was unlike anything she had ever heard from him, and directed at her. She frowned as he reminded her of someone else. "What I meant to say was that the Korack brother—the demon who killed you—well, it was planned. He didn't have the skills or the power to be able to pull that off."
Wyatt disagreed, "No, I fought them both. They were good. Not good enough to beat me, but I hadn't run into anything like that in a long time."
"But that's just it, Wyatt. They weren't. That's what we found out. Before yesterday, the Korack brothers were a couple of inept morons who couldn't fight their way out of brown paper bag. Someone gave them enough power to take you on. Only they knew they were giving them just enough power to give you good fight, but not enough for the both of them to win." She held up her fingers to show a small space in between them. "They wanted you to kill one of them."
"Why? If they were so unimportant? Why would anybody care if I vanquished one of them?"
"To make it less obvious when the other one came after Chris." Phoebe surmised.
Penny asked, "Yes Dear, but who gave these two brothers the power?"
The Charmed Sisters both hung their heads in embarrassment as they both chimed in, "We don't exactly know."
Chris glanced at the women smugly, "So in other words—you still know essentially nothing? Oh that's right—they were the Korack brothers. Cause you weren't down in the underworld for the last several hours finding out just their names. Nah..."
Wyatt elbowed Chris signaling him to let him handle the questions, especially since it was obvious that Chris had decided to hide his hurt behind a wall of anger and sarcasm. "This person was obviously very powerful in order to give them powers like that overnight. But since they are that powerful, why go through such a round about way of taking Chris out? There are certainly easier ways to do it—I mean, this was like trying to hit a moving target with a ricocheted bullet."
"Someone who enjoys a challenge?" Phoebe proposed.
"Or maybe someone who couldn't risk getting caught—and this way they even get Wyatt to take care of getting rid of the evidence—the Korack brothers."
Chris added testily, "Well—I don't think it would be a demon, because it would have to be an upper level demon. And they're not real big on secrecy. They simply wouldn't care who knew. The only other group I can think of that's powerful like that—are Elders."
Phoebe countered, "It's not looking good for them. But we don't know for sure that they're responsible for this."
Pushing his brother aside, Chris nearly shouted his response as he gestured in disbelief, "Why not? It's not as if the Elders are above murder if it suits them!"
She stammered a bit, now clearly upset as well. "I didn't say that, Chris. Honey, I know you're angry with us for not getting here in time, and I'm so sorry. Please—I don't know what else to say. I did everything I could, we all did…"
"You didn't do enough," Chris glared at her angrily before turning to stalk away. Reacting quickly, Phoebe wanted to try and explain so she grabbed his arm as he tried to pull away. She froze in shock as she was thrown into a vision while Wyatt grabbed her arm to see what she saw:
They were in the attic just after Paige had blown up a potion. She sighed loudly in frustration as Phoebe walked in, "Maybe I'm trying too hard."
"Or maybe it just wasn't meant to be."
The younger sister admonished shortly, "Phoebe!"
"Come on, you weren't thinking the exact same thing?"
Paige replied quickly before she admitted, "No. Okay, fine, but for like a second. The point is Chris is meant to be."
"But not if he changed too much by coming here. You know, messed up his own timeline," the empath replied coldly.
Paige tried to defend his life again, "We're talking about his very existence."
"Paige, I know, but there's only so much we can do," Phoebe replied exasperatedly. "Especially now with that Darklighter out there. I just think that we have to face the reality that Chris's destiny might have been just to come here and warn us about Wyatt, and that's all."
He'd heard enough, and Wyatt was fuming. Feeling betrayed by his aunts for their callous responses toward Chris, he viciously pried Phoebe's fingers from the boys arm and shoved her away.
Phoebe stumbled backward dizzily, nearly tripping over her younger sister. Breathing heavily both from the shock and the strain of sharing a vision with Wyatt, she struggled to ask Chris, "How did you know about that?"
Being Twice-Blessed, Wyatt turned out to be the stronger of the two empaths and was able to maintain his composure from the strain, but only barely. He still felt a bit drained and breathed heavily as he accused her, "That was true? You actually said those things, didn't you?"
Paige helped her sister to a bench and looked up at the others. "What things? What just happened here? Would somebody please tell me what's going on?"
Phoebe hung her head low to avoid all eyes staring at her. She had always been ashamed of her behavior that day. Of how she kept telling herself that she was only playing devils advocate, but in actuality, was more than a little frustrated with Chris at his constant manipulation of them since his arrival. And when he tried to manipulate her into helping him one last time, she knew she was being obstinate out of an immature and selfish desire to keep him from getting his way.
It wasn't until after things had worked themselves out without any intervention from her, did she begin to feel foolish. He had worked her nerves like any typical teen or young adult, and as a mother—she was quite familiar with the tactic, but she had nearly made him pay for it with his life. She would always regret that day, and many more following. But she had thought she had gotten over it. So why now, was she having visions from the past? Continuing to stare at the floor, she muttered to no one in particular, "I-um. Saw something that happened in the past."
Paige was confused and tried to correct her, "Your visions don't work like that, Phoebe. You don't see things that happened in the past—only the future."
"Well it did yesterday. I saw what I thought was a premonition, but in fact Chris had already been killed. I think that whoever messed up my power in the first place didn't fix it yet. It's still working backwards. And I don't know why I saw that, but—"
"What did you see?" Paige kneeled down in front of her sister and questioned worriedly.
Phoebe looked up and spoke in a hushed tone, just loud enough for the Charmed One to hear her, "Do you remember—you and me here in the attic; almost 20 years ago; a love potion and—what we talked about?"
The red head's brow wrinkled in confusion for a few seconds before her eyes widened in understanding.
Tbc…
