stupid thing wouldn't let me make a change..., so forgive me if a sentence toward the end duplicates a couple of times.

HAPPY (MUCH BELATED) BIRTHDAY TO

IcantthinkofaFnick


He did it for me

Chapter 34

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.

Christopher just turned 19, Chris was already 19, and Wyatt is three months shy of his 21st birthday.

Disclaimer in chapter 1

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"WHAT!" both Wyatt and Chris screeched out at the same time after listening to Penny Halliwell inform them of the other Christopher's fate.

Chris shouted, "How can they be hurting him? How's that even possible, he's dead!"

Penny reached over and pinched his arm, eliciting a yelp from the young man. "That's how it's possible. Just like you, Christopher has not crossed over yet. Therefore, he is neither completely dead nor completely alive. That is the only way that it would be possible to bring him back to life fully—which is why your Aunt Prue, Grandma Patty, and myself all intercepted you both when you died. In case there were a way to bring you back, it could only happen if you hadn't made it to the other side where we are."

Wyatt's eyes flashed angrily as he hissed between clenched teeth, "All this time, you've been hiding the fact that my little brother is up there most likely being tortured for information, and we could have been up there saving him? How could you not have told us? Have you lost your mind?"

Penny bristled defensively, "I didn't tell you because there is nothing you can do about it. You're not dead Wyatt. You can't go storming a spiritual plane otherwise."

"I'm half whitelighter, and they managed to show up there!"

"They've also died. And demons have an element of death in them to begin with."

Chris glared at the woman, "This is ridiculous! Then you should have sent me! I'm dead. I can get him back!"

Prue quickly answered, "No, they want both of you. If you go storming the place, they'll have exactly what they want for who knows what reason"

"Then what were the three of you doing? Why didn't you go after him?" Chris accused angrily.

"Because we can't find him," Penny answered simply. "We tried, but we can't contact him or Patty. She was with him when they took him."

Chris shook his head, "But spirits with a genetic bond can always hear each other, so that doesn't make any sense."

Prue began, "They're blocking us somehow," she looked to her grandmother to tell them the rest.

Sighing Penny guiltily admitted, "Even if they weren't, he wouldn't know how to contact us. We didn't have time to show him how before you left to come here. It's not like we were expecting them to do something like this."

Wyatt threw his hands up in frustration before jumping up, "Well, we can't just sit around here doing nothing and making excuses of why we can't go after him. I'm going to get my little brother back, even if I have to get myself killed to do it!"

Penny tried to calm her oldest great-grandson, and gently pushed his shoulders until he was again sitting. "No, Wyatt, you will not. I'm not letting you get yourself killed. I have an old friend rescuing him as we speak. He's the only one who can do it. He's more powerful than the elders and the demons combined, and he can just walk in there and get him."

Chris shook his head and started to pace nervously, "No, no, this isn't right. If I hadn't come down here, he wouldn't even be in this situation. I have to help him," he said as he bolted for the door before either woman could stop him.

Fearing for his safety, Prue dived and grabbed his leg as he reached the door, tripping him in the process and causing him to land face first into the floor. She sat on his back, pinning his arms with her knees as she tried to reason with him. "Chris! Stop it. There's nothing you can do besides get yourself caught."

His voice was muffled by the carpet, "…off-me". She leaned in closer to hear, but the part she did catch didn't sound very friendly.

"What?" she questioned.

He flipped his head to the side for her to hear him more clearly. His voice dipped down dangerously low as he enunciated slowly, "I…said…GET…THE…F—"

"CHRISTOPHER PERRY HALLIWELL!" Penny interrupted before he could complete the sentence she knew was following with his short temper and admonished him. "Now you stop this nonsense and listen! We will get Christopher back, I promise you. In fact, Clarence should be arriving any minute with him. I didn't tell Prue either until an hour ago, so don't be angry with her, she's only trying to help you. And I didn't tell any of you because there was no other way to get him back, which is why I called on Clarence to do it. He promised he would bring him home to us."

Wyatt paced nervously and growled in frustration, "How do you know he'll do it? We can't trust anybody these days!"

Penny said confidently, "I trust Clarence. I trusted him with Chris' life 20 years ago." Looking to the brunette on the floor, "Chris, who do you think sent him to take care of you when you nearly ceased to exist? Hmm? Who do you think pleaded with them to spare your soul when they were simply going to erase your existence from the face of the earth as if it had never happened? Me. That's who. As soon as I found out who you were, I did everything in my power to protect you. And it was Clarence I sought out to help me do that. He came through. He pleaded with them and tipped the scales in your favor when my word simply wasn't enough. So yes, he will do it. He promised me. All we have to do is be a little patient and give him the time he needs to get him."

Chris calmed a bit hearing of the Angel's involvement, but he still felt terribly guilty for being safe while his counterpart was not. Further still, he felt responsible for what the young man was probably going through since it was him that they were after. His eyes watered uncontrollably as he stared up at his great-grandmother, "This is taking too long to wait. I know what he's going through."

Wyatt's head shot down to him and he questioned with wide eyes, "What?"

Chris ignored his brother and continued, "Please Grams? You have to let me help him. Don't start treating me like a baby just because you found out how old I was. It doesn't change anything. Not after everything I did and went through to save this family."

As Penny stared into those wide green eyes, pleading with her, she was tempted to throw caution to the wind and let him do as he asked. Thankfully for her, at that same moment, she heard her daughter's voice call out for her in her mind. She looked up toward the ceiling, whispering, "Patty?"

The remaining two Halliwell spirits had both heard the telepathic call at the same time, ignoring Wyatt's questioning words and worrisome glances at their sudden silence.

Prue eased off of her nephew and helped him up, turning her head away to avoid the piercing glare he shot her.

Tired of being ignored, Wyatt spun Chris around and asked him heatedly, "What the hell is going on?" He mentally cursed himself for causing Chris to shrink away from him slightly at the anger in his voice. He hadn't meant to direct it towards him, but the younger man was the closest person standing next to him, and thus—the easiest target. He forced himself to soften his voice, "I'm sorry Chris. I didn't mean to yell at you. I'm just upset, but not at you, bro. Honestly. Could you please tell me what's going on?"

Accepting the apology, Chris answered, "Clarence found him. They're with Grandma Patty now. He's bringing them both home, but they just needed to know where we are. Grams told them. They should be here soon."

Relief washed over Wyatt's features as he made a fist. "Yes! Is he ok?"

He shrugged, "They didn't say."

Penny looked up again and added, "They're here. Wyatt, you'll have to lower your shield for a moment, then as soon as they're in—raise it again—say the spell from the book. I don't want to take any chances. Everyone ready? Ok, go!"

No sooner had Wyatt lowered his shield, that Clarence appeared holding the limp six-foot frame in his arms, while the dark-haired woman held onto the boy's hand tightly.

Taking charge once again, Penny pointed to the mattress. "Lie him down on the bed," she directed the Angel. She watched as her family gathered around all corners of the bed. She bent down and smoothed the stray hairs from his forehead, "He's so stiff. And he's not moving." She glanced to over to the man worriedly.

"I'm sorry, Penny. I had to freeze him. There was no other choice."

Patty nodded her head eagerly as shewent to hug her oldest daughter and mother. "He's right, Mom. Clarence saved us. But Christopher was a bit—"

"Upset," supplied the man.

"I was going to say hysterical, actually. There was nothing we could do to calm him. As soon as he saw me, he kept yelling 'You're not real! You're not real! Go away!' He was fighting us so badly, that Clarence had to freeze him again just so we could get out of there."

"Can you wake him now?"

"Sure, but then I'd better be going before he sees me. He didn't react very well to me. They didn't treat him so nice while he was there."

Penny nodded her head sadly, not needing to hear any further details, "I understand." She threw her arms around the Angel and bid him farewell, "Clarence—thank you so much. How can I ever thank you?"

"We'll talk about that later. When this is all over. I hope things work out for you and your family. I'll see you around."

Before waking the other and leaving, Clarence spoke to Chris. "It's nice to see you again, Chris."

Green eyes shifted nervously, "Um, yeah. You too, I guess."

Clarence chuckled, "It's ok. I don't expect a warm welcome, but I'm not here for you. I just wanted to tell you how proud I am of everything you did. That's all." Addressing everyone,"Block his view of me until I get out of here." Clarence waived his hand toward the bed, once again waking the youngest Halliwell witch before disappearing into the night.

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Inhaling sharply, Christopher immediately began thrashing wildly. Strong arms were holding him down once again and he knew that his earlier visions were merely hallucinations. His sage green eyes darted around the room in a panic, focusing on each face. They looked like his family, which just wasn't possible. He was being held by an Elder and plenty of demons that only wanted to hurt him. He was so angry with himself for making them up to look like people who cared about him.

They even sounded like them. He hated his own stupid mind so much for making him think like this when he needed to be fighting. He couldn't afford to let his guard down, not now. He willed them to go away so he could focus on the demons, but nothing changed. He didn't want to give in, but he was so tired.

Out of frustration, Christopher dropped his back to the ground. It even felt like a pillow. That did it. They were going to win. He couldn't make his own mind cooperate any more. But in a last ditch effort to sway them, he mumbled to the demons masquerading as his family, "Leave me alone, I'm not gonna' do it."

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It took Wyatt and Chris a few moments to realize that Christopher had stopped fighting them. That the shaking was merely the sobs wracking the teen's body, which only seemed to worsen as the women tried to comfort him.

They relaxed their grip, each looking at one another through tear-filled eyes and brushing aside the Halliwell women. They knew instinctively that they were the only ones who could get through to Christopher at the moment.

Christopher looked up as the one with his older brother's face let go of him, but still hovered fairly closely. 'Wyatt doesn't cry. That proves it, this can't be real', he thought.

Chris resorted to the only method of comfort he knew of, and joked with his 'twin'. "Hey, mini me. Calm down, will ya? You're freaking Wyatt out. And you know seeing the all-powerful Twice-Blessed-Witch freaking out is not a pretty sight."

He didn't think his own mind would concoct a stupid nickname like that for himself. His other self? Maybe…So was it possible? Was he home? Safe?

"Come on buddy, I'll even give you your clothes back. But I'm keeping the name Chris. You still get Christopher 'cause it always sounds like I'm in trouble when someone calls me that. I guess that's because I usually was."

Wyatt picked up on the tactic as he saw Christopher beginning to respond, although warily. "Yeah, Grams said you have to be called Christopher. I can get used to it. Come on kid, he's right—you're freaking me out. You have to come around sometime—besides, you've got an economics paper due on Thursday. You know your teacher isn't going to give you an extension because of a little thing like you dieing. Come on kid—you're home now. You're safe…I promise."

Christopher looked around at the sympathetic faces hopefully as he thought about what his brother and counterpart had just said to him. 'Kid'. That was the nickname that Wyatt always used on him even though they were less than two years apart. Besides, he was much too serious about school, and he didn't think his mind would make jokes about it like that. Glancing around the room, he didn't recognize his surroundings—so his mind couldn't make that up, right? He gulped nervously just in case. He would still have to be cautious in the event that none of it was real, but he would just make sure that he didn't blurt anything important out. "Wy?"

"Yeah. It's me, kid."

Christopher smiled with relief as Wyatt pulled him up and wrapped his arms around him. Even Chris seemed happy to see him as he joined the hug. With all of the family that was in the room joining in as well, he felt contented. This had to be real. Maybe he couldn't pass out, but he could sure sleep. So that's what he did. And it felt good.

Things were definitely looking up for the Halliwell family.

However in his haste to worry about his little brother, no one noticed that Wyatt forgot to say the protection spell once again.

Tbc…

AN: I know, cliffie? Yeah, I'm going to take your advice and drop those classes:) So what do you think? What doesn't Christopher want to do? I think we'll just have to ask him next chapter. Or maybe we'll ask Julius.