A/N: Again thank you for all who have reviewed. I just couldn't sleep with this chapter floating around in my head and with all the crazy firework action as well.
Disclaimer: Nope still don't own Charmed. Just Sara and a few others.
Chris cast a worried look at his sister. She was beginning to thrash and squirm, sweat was beading on her forehead. Chris sighed and moved to sit on the bed next to her. He had been expecting this. The last twenty-four hours had been enough to trigger her nightmares. After their parents had died and Wyatt's crazy leap into darkness these dreams had tormented the both of them. He only considered them dreams because they were asleep when they came. In all reality he knew they were just repressed memories that haunted them when their guard was down.
"No…Wyatt…stop…Mom!" Sara moaned in her sleep giving Chris a good idea as to what memory he sister was going through. The night of their parents had died.
Sara watched as her thirteen-year-old self flew up the steps to the manor followed closely by her brother Chris. She cringed knowing what she was about to relive.
"Beat you again!" she crowed happily.
"Head start." Chris rolled his eyes. Sara was one of the fastest people he knew, girl or boy.
"Spoil sport." She laughed as she threw open the manor door. "Mom we're home!"
Chris shut the door with a wave of his hand and orbed his backpack to his room. Sara quickly did the same with hers.
"Mom?" Chris called walking toward the kitchen where the smell of baking cookies was coming from.
"Hey you two," Piper said from the kitchen sink where she was washing dishes. "Homework first, then cookies."
"Mom it's Friday!" Chris said grabbing a chocolate chip cookie from the cooling rack. "Teachers aren't that mean."
"What he said." Sara laughed also grabbing a cookie.
"Where's Wyatt?" Piper asked bemused by her two youngest.
"Detention." Sara whispered after a moment's silence. "He said he would be home by five."
"That boy is getting weirder by the day." Piper frowned. Sara and Chris both knew what she was talking about. Wyatt had begun to act differently in the last few years. Their parents blamed it on puberty but Sara and Chris had begun to wonder other wise. Wyatt wasn't just moody; he was almost down right sinister at times. He was rarely home during the day and at night he would sneak out threatening Sara and Chris if either one spoke a word to anyone.
"I guess." Chris and Sara muttered at the same time.
"What are the two of you not telling me?"
Piper asked them suddenly.
"Nothing." They both tried heading
for the door only to be stopped in their tracks.
"Christopher Perry Halliwell! Sara Prudence Halliwell! Both of you get right back here."
Both teens slowly turned around knowing they had been caught. Piper rarely yelled or used their full names.
"Where is your brother?" Piper demanded. "Don't even tell me detention because the school would have called me. So spill the beans. Now!"
Sara nervously glanced at Chris who shrugged his shoulders and looked back at their mother.
"Don't know." Chris said.
"I think you do." Piper mused. With a shake of her head she called for her husband. "Leo!"
Chris snorted, amused causing Sara to glare at him.
"What?" he asked his sister. "Not like he ever comes when you call anyway."
"Your father's a busy man, Chris." Piper sighed knowing he spoke the truth to a certain degree. She knew that it was unlikely that she would get much more out of Chris or Sara so she sent them on their way. "We'll talk about this later."
"We should tell her," Sara whispered as they ran up the stairs toward their rooms. "Maybe they can help him."
"Wyatt's just moody."
"Moody?" Sara screeched earning her a dirty look from her brother. "He sneaks out at night, associates with demons, loathes the two of us and he seems to be getting meaner by the day."
"We can't say anything!" Chris all but shouted at her. "He made us promise not to."
"I don't care!" She growled back. "Someone needs to stop him now before he totally cracks! Mom and Dad can help."
"NO!"
"Yes.."
"I'm the oldest and I say no! Just give him time. Our brother is not bad. He's just having issues."
"But…"
"Lets just give him some more time. I know him he's not…" Chris was cut off by shouting from the kitchen.
"MOM!" they both yelled running toward their mothers frantic shouts for help. As they came around the corner both were shocked to a stand still. A very familiar figure had just thrown an energy ball directly at their mother's chest. Time seemed to slow. For a reason that was beyond her two frightened youngest, Piper Halliwell neither blew up the intruder nor froze the deadly blue energy ball before in collided with her chest. They watched as their mother was thrown backwards and slammed into the counter with a sickening crash before falling to the floor still. Both teens found themselves unable to move as they waited for her to get up, knowing she never would.
They were to overcome with shock to realize they were not alone. Sara cried out when she was suddenly hit with a darklighter's arrow and toppled into her horror stricken brother.
"SARA!" He screamed cradling her lifeless body to his sinking to the floor. "Dad, HELP!"
Within a seconds amount of time their father appeared looking aggravated.
"This better be important," he stated before he had fully materialized. "Sara!"
"Heal her!" Chris shouted angrily at his startled father.
Leo had only just healed his daughter when he was stuck with an arrow from behind. Groaning he also fell to the floor. Sara, still disoriented, crawled away from Chris to her dying fathers side. Crying hysterically she tried to heal him. Trying to force the golden glow to come. It was the one power she hadn't been able to master.
"Daddy please…" she whispered pulling his shaking form close. "Help me! I don't know how!"
Leo just gazed lovingly at his two of his children's tear soaked faces that were hovering above him. He knew he didn't have much time. He could sense that Piper had befallen a similar fate as him. She was gone. Focusing his thoughts back on his children he tried to comfort them in what way he could.
"Take…care of each…other. I…love…you both…so much." Sara moaned when her father's eyes glazed over. She curled up next to him throwing her arm around him sobbing into his ear. He had to come back.
"Daddy please. Dad! Please daddy I can't lose you too. Daddy come back. Please come back." Sara was pulled from her grief when she heard Chris' startled gasp.
"Wyatt?" Chris gasped upon looking over accusingly at the two darklighters and the owner of the deadly energy ball. His brother stood before him, dressed from head to toe in black with an awful smirk upon his face. There was no remorse. No sadness that their parents had been brutally murdered and no telepathic connection that had always existed between the three of them. Only ice cold blue eyes and that awful smirk. It was only when Sara screamed in rage that Chris accepted that Wyatt was the truly gone from him. That he had been the one to kill their mother. "Why?"
"It had to be done." Wyatt said in a voice that was not his own but one much deeper. "You'll both understand one day."
"Are you fucking mad?" Sara shrieked. Before she had a chance to launch into a hysterical tirade Wyatt struck her across the face. Sara fell weeping to the floor cowering at Chris' feet.
"Your too young to be speaking like that Sara." Wyatt growled. "I apologize for having you shot by the way but it was the only way to get Dad down here." With a wave of his hand the two darklighters disappeared in a swirl of black orbs.
"I hate you." Sara all but whispered as Wyatt turned to leave.
"No you don't Sara." Wyatt gazed at his siblings. Chris had kneeled down and taken Sara into his arms. His eyes seemed dull as he gazed back at Wyatt. Sara clung broken to her brother. Both of them were covered in their father's blood. "I'll be coming back for the both of you one day when it's safer. I have to do away with the underworld at the moment and can't be tied down with you yet. We're going to rule together one day. The power of three." With that he was gone, leaving his two terrified and heartbroken siblings with dead parents.
Sara screamed as she awoke, sobbing hysterically. She quickly found herself in Chris' arms. Unable to speak she just clung to him sobbing. The sight of her parents lifeless and bloody bodies was too much. She could still see their glassy eyes staring blankly at her, the smell of the burning cookies that had been long forgotten in the oven still lingered. Still hearing Wyatt's voice as he taunted them.
Chris held his terrified sister close, patting her hair, calling her name softly. Anything to try and sooth her distress. He knew Piper and Leo were hovering in the doorway, anxious to know what the screaming was about yet sensing that this was not something they could help with. He grew more worried when he could not get Sara to relax. She was making herself sick.
"Shhh." Chris whispered. "You're ok, I'm here Sara."
Her sobbing only intensified at the sound of his voice and she was shivering, drenched in sweat from the dream. She was definitely going to be sick. Reacting quickly he orbed her to the bathroom in the hall holding her as she gagged.
"Breath Sara." He spoke softly, holding her up with one arm and tracing comforting circles on her back with his free hand. It was all he could do to keep his composure. Her pain was more than he could bear yet from years of grief and hardship he found strength to comfort her. "I'm here."
When her sobbing had gone from coughing to ragged breathing Chris wiped her face with a cool cloth and gave her a glass of water, never breaking his physical contact with her. It seemed that was the only thing that was able to calm her. After she had managed drink the water Chris orbed her back to her bed.
Easing her shivering form back under the soft down comforter, he brushed the stray hair from her eyes. Her gaze was haunting and full of sorrow. Unable to look into her painful gaze any longer he kissed her burning forehead and began to move away.
"Please don't leave me too, Chris!" she whispered shaken as she grabbed for his hand.
"I won't." He sat back down next to her holding her clammy hand. He watched as she settled back into a light sleep. Not wishing for her to find herself in more unbearable dreams he mumbled a soft spell he had learned from the many times his Aunt Phoebe had had to use it for the both of them.
"Close your eyes,with softest of sighs,
sleep in peace,
let all your dreaming cease."
Chris didn't know how long he sat there in a distraught and exhausted daze keeping his promise to Sara. He jumped startled when Piper laid a soft hand on his shoulder. With out a word he let her guide him to the other side of the bed and tucked him in next to his now peacefully slumbering sister. He was only mildly surprised when he heard her say the same spell for him that he had just cast over Sara.
"I love you, mom." He mumbled softly. He was already asleep when Piper leaned down and kissed his forehead.
"I love you too." Piper whispered into the soft darkness of the room as she sat down in the chair to keep a protective and loving watch. "Sleep well."