He did it for me
Chapter 36
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
AN: I'm still not telling why, but this chapter will at least tell you how. I've also explained chapter 35 in more detail here since I know how confusing I can be sometimes. But if you thought my imagination was 'out there' before, wait until you're done with this chapter:)
So thank you to everyone who has reviewed so far, even if it was to tell me that I confused the hell out of you (don't worry, I do it to my family all the time—including myself). And if any of you are still confused when you're done, drop me an email—or a review:) and let me know. I'll be sure to explain it personally cause I know I'm pretty strange, and my mind works in mysterious ways—in fact, I think I hear the theme song from x-files playing in the background…
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Chris suddenly held up his hand for Christopher to stop talking. Putting his finger to lips in a hush gesture, he followed the action by tip-toeing over to the door and yanking it open quickly.
With his ear pressed against the door, Wyatt grunted as he fell face first into the room and looked up at his brothers sheepishly. "Uh…hi? Yeah, see I was just polishing the door knob for Aunt Sheila…"
Chris rolled his eyes and slammed the door shut again once Wyatt had pulled himself up and into the bedroom. "Really? 'Cause it looked more like you were snooping to me. How much did you hear?"
Sighing at being caught, Wyatt's feigned look of innocence quickly turned to one of concern as he remembered that Christopher told at least some of what had happened to him. He rushed over to the brother he had grown up with. "Everything," he answered before he touched his shoulder gently, "Are you ok?"
Christopher shrugged him off with an irritated glare that suggested that he was anything but, "I'm fine. And before you ask—NO! I do NOT want to talk about it. But since you know what's going on, then there are other things we need to discuss right now."
Wyatt shook his head in confusion as he looked at both versions of his younger brother. "No, actually I don't know what's going on. I heard you, but I didn't understand what you were talking about."
Christopher grumbled in irritation as he pointed to the Chris that had been killed by Gideon. "He is not the first one to come back to the past. There was another Chris. Just so we don't get confused here, let's call that first one, oh, I don't know—'Bob'."
Chris snickered as he mouthed the word 'Bob', which earned him an icy stare from his counterpart.
Christopher again faced his older brother and tried to explain it to him, "You with me so far?" At Wyatt's nod, he continued. "Good. Bob's brother—was also named Wyatt. Well Wyatt fell in love with the seer and got himself killed, along with his seer fiancé who had become human to marry him. That's where Julius comes in. He looked into her seers pool and saw all of our timelines. Bob was so distraught over the loss of his brother, that Julius was able to convince him that he had to go back to the past and get Gideon to help them later on down the line so that Wyatt wouldn't get killed. What Bob didn't know, was that Gideon was always a paranoid freak, and he inadvertently let it slip how powerful Wyatt was going to be. Now, as low down and slimy as Gideon was, he lied and told Bob to go back to the future. He said not to worry, everything would be fine, and that he would take care of things to make sure Wyatt didn't die and would be ok. What Gideon really meant was that Wyatt should have never been allowed to exist. He decided that he was going to remedy that—he tried to kill him as a baby as soon as Bob left."
Christopher was walking around the room and stopping to point at Wyatt ever so often to make sure he followed his line of thinking. "Ok—you're both still with me here, right?"
Chris smirked in response, "I was already with you buddy. Wyatt?"
The blue-eyed witch nodded hesitantly as his mind processed the complex information, but he still followed up until that point.
Christopher pointed again to Chris with one hand and continued to explain to Wyatt, "And that's where Chris who died trying to save you comes in. Bob went back to the future thinking everything was going to be ok. When he got there, he merged with Chris over here. Problem was, Wyatt was now evil because Gideon had traumatized him trying to kill him as a baby. So you see, Bob accidentally created that domino effect forcing Chris to go back and stop Wyatt from turning evil."
Christopher turned to his older brother, "and once he had saved you, Chris was supposed to come back to the future and merge with me. But instead, Julius had other plans. Since he still remembered, he told Gideon to curse the blade and to stop anyone who got in his way with it—knowing that it would be Chris since he's the one who came all this way to save his brother. Cursing that blade would ensure that Chris would not be able to be healed, and die. Then Julius only had to wait until I turned the same age, and send someone to kill me too."
Wyatt nodded excitedly as he finally began to comprehend, "Ok, I think I'm getting this. So if all of that's correct, there shouldn't be two of you standing here now—you should both be the same person, right? And Gideon killing him messed that up, right?"
Christopher nodded emphatically, "YES! That's it!"
Chris scratched his chin and stood up with a look of confusion, "Ok. So I get that Julius tricked Bob and set all of these alternate timelines in motion. So why does he remember, and none of us do?"
"I'm not positive, but I think it's because he's the one who started it," Christopher answered simply with a shrug.
With a mildly teasing and challenging tone, Chris added "I thought you saw everything."
He merely glanced at him in annoyance before answering sarcastically, "That's right. S-A-W everything. That doesn't mean I knew what people were thinking. If I did, I would have tried to figure out what the hell you were thinking when you cut your hair and spiked it like a rooster when you first got back to the past. Dude! What was that about?"
Chris folded his arms defensively as both young men snickered, "I thought it was the style. Look, Bianca told me I had to blend in, so that's what I did."
Smirking at his counterpart, Christopher retorted "You mean tried to blend in. I see you got rid of that awful look pretty quickly."
"Can we focus here, please!" Chris grumbled.
Christopher continued grinning at the other's flustered expression. "Fine by me."
Wyatt's curiosity was nagging at him, and he decided to ask. "Who's Bianca?"
They both swung their heads around and answered at the same time, "Never mind."
Wyatt shivered jokingly, "I've said it before, and I'll say it again. That's just downright spooky."
Chris ignored the comment, instead focusing on the matter at hand. "So why do you think Julius wouldn't want me to get back here alive? And then why would he want to turn around and kill you?"
"I don't know why. Like I said before, the seer's pool only allows you to see a person's actions, it does not take you into their minds. It's like watching a movie. If you want to know why he did all this, you'll have to ask him that. All I can tell you is what he did; what he intends to do."
"And what is that?"
Christopher began to pace the floor agitatedly and mumbled, "Merge us together."
Wyatt shook his head, not understanding why his brother seemed so upset about the prospect. "But that's a good thing, right? That's what was supposed to happen."
He flailed his arms wildly, "Not while dead, it wasn't. Chris and I are not completely dead. We're kind of like in limbo, only without our bodies. It wasn't by just sheer luck that Grams was able to intercept us and keep us from moving on."
Addressing the other, he looked slightly grateful. "Chris, Julius knew where you were for the past 19 years. He just lost track of you when you switched with me and came down here. If you hadn't done that, they would have had us both."
Wyatt was not convinced and said as much. "Sorry, bro—this still isn't looking like a bad thing. I don't understand. Why would merging you two together be so wrong?"
"BECAUSE WE CAN STILL FEEL PAIN!" he exclaimed loudly and began to hyperventilate. The panic in his voice and water welling up in his eyes caused the Twice-Blessed-Witch to draw him into his arms, trying desperately to sooth him.
Christopher said he wasn't going to talk about it; at least not with his overprotective big brother. But there was so much at stake, and he had to get him to understand. Not only that, but he suddenly found that all of the anger, frustration, and feelings of betrayal were building up inside him and threatening to erupt. He wanted to yell; scream; anything to let it out. But it came out in more of a whisper, and once it started, he just couldn't stop the words from pouring from his mouth. "Wyatt, they drowned me! They suffocated me. Arel seemed to make it his personal job to make me experience pain. Like that was his goal in life. And it hurt like hell! But that'll be like a walk in the park if Julius gets to merge us together now!"
Wyatt closed his eyes and fought hard to control the repressed rage overcoming him. He imagined a multitude of different ways to mutilate and destroy those responsible for hurting his little brother. They would pay dearly when he got his hands on them.
While Wyatt held on for dear life to the brother he had grown up with, one look across the room showed the same hard-edged anger reflected in the other set of bright green eyes. He glanced down at the dark head of hair on leaning his shoulder and noticed that the teen seemed to have calmed a bit. He spoke quietly, "I'm not gonna' let them hurt you Christopher. Either one of you. No one's going to get to either of my brother's without going through me first. I would die before I let that happen, I promise."
Christopher, now much calmer sat up but carried a look of defeat. "You can't stop him, Wy. I saw it. It's going to happen."
Chris strode over to them confidently, "Well, we'll just have to change it. None of this makes sense. Does he just get his kicks like this or something? What is merging us together and causing us pain going to do for him?"
"It's because you have everything from your whole timeline—that whole universe in you, Chris. It would be too much for the both of us to handle. And then he gets us to do his dirty work." Christopher stared down at the floor despondently.
Wyatt shook his head, "I don't get it."
Chris snapped his fingers, finally understanding what his counterpart was getting at. "I think I do. Correct me if I'm wrong, Christopher? OK? Wyatt--Imagine taking every single person, place, and thing in the entire universe, balling them up and condensing them all into one person. Well, I AM that one person, because I am the only one left of my entire timeline—essentially like—the keeper of my timeline. Right? So in me, is the essence of everything and everyone that existed in my whole universe. Am I right so far?"
Christopher nodded then looked at Wyatt, "Yeah. Had he lived and went to the future, that essence would have simply faded away when he merged with me."
Chris agreed with his counterpart and finished his thought, "But Julius caused both of our deaths. Then he allowed us both to stay on that spiritual plane."
Wyatt was growing frustrated with being the only one in the room who wasn't following their train of thought. "Why?" he ground out.
Christopher explained sadly, "Because with us both being dead like this--it would be like, sensory overload for me to merge with Chris and all of his "baggage". Kind of like filling up a water balloon with way too much water until it finally explodes. We wouldn't be able to handle it. The physical pain would simply be too much. That's what Julius is counting on. Because eventually, the only way for us to end the pain, would be to end everything."
"Meaning?"
Christopher grew angry and lashed out at his older brother, "I thought EVERYTHING was pretty clear, Wyatt. I mean--The world. The Universe. People are killed. Places are destroyed. All things would be wiped out. Everything--ceases--to--exist. Is that clear enough for you? And once we start it, no one can stop it. No one can stop US! Not even the Charmed Ones, not even the Twice Blessed Witch. NO ONE!"
Shaken to the core by the declaration, Chris' face had drained of all color. Fearing his legs would give out, he sat down on the bed heavily before he fell down. Though hearing it out loud had finally convinced him, he tried to deny it as he looked up into an identical set of green eyes. His voice wavered nervously, "We don't have that kind of power."
Christopher nodded firmly even as the other shook his head vehemently, "You do, Chris. You have within you your entire universe at your disposal. Every bit of power that ever existed in your world, is now a part of you. Every bit of good magic, evil magic, and everything in between. And if we merge, it will be a part of me too."
The room was painfully silent in the wake of Christopher's admission. No one moved. No one commented. Breathing even seemed to have been put on hold.
After minutes went by that had seemed morelike hours, Wyatt was the first to break the strange silence. Even his voice shook as his mind flashed with images of his little brother bent on destroying the world. "So how do we stop it?"
Wyatt noted with dread that the eerie way both versions of his brother answered was not funny anymore.
Once again they intoned together in a whisper, "I don't know if we can…"
TBC….
AN: Well, what do you think?
