Disclaimer: You know what? If fanfiction's going to make us write these stupid disclaimers, they ought to provide us with therapists to compensate for that empty, hollow feeling that BURNS IN YOUR SOUL once you finish writing it, lol:D WHO'S WITH ME? It's like, by writing a disclaimer you're basically wearing a sign on your forehead that says, "Sorry, I'm not the REAL thing, so I'm not really IMPORTANT."

Okay, okay, I'll say it. I don't own Charmed.

The Lighters' Love

Leo

I stand there in a stupor for a moment, realizing that Chris just orbed. No, he didn't just orb—he demolished the most terrible foe the Charmed Ones had ever known in about ten seconds flat. My son did that.

If somebody had told me, say, a year ago—even five years ago—that one of my boys would vanquish Barbas, I would've immediately assumed it to be Wyatt. I realize that I was prejudiced right from the very beginning. But, how could I not be? I watched Wyatt grow from a little baby to a teenager. We missed so much of Chris. By the time he got back to us, he was tainted. Different than the other Halliwells.

I'd always associated "different" with "bad."

And now I'm paying for it. The first time in years that he orbs, and he orbs to get away from me. What kind of a person am I? How blind could I be, all this time, with Wyatt committing evil right and left?

All those people, murdered at the hand of something I created.

My two boys: one evil, one good. And I realize here what's going to happen. There going to be complete opposites now, no matter what I do. Nothing I do, nothing Piper does, nothing any of the sisters or Magic School could do is ever going to change them. The only thing that can change Wyatt lies in his opposite: Chris.

If there's anything I know, it's that deep down, Wyatt loves Chris. That's what scares him the most—he considers that a weakness. What kind of a sick world do we live in when love becomes a weakness? A fault? Something unwanted?

So he decided to get rid of his brother. But he wouldn't do it himself; no, he'd hire an assassin to do it. A frightened novice was to go out and kill Chris.

I admit to myself that, yes, I was afraid of Chris as well. I was afraid to love him fully because a part of me wondered if he could ever truly be a Halliwell. A part of me thought that he would never last; it was too good to be true, and he would be taken away to train as a lighter again. But did that make me a sick person? I'm not sure. It does make me a negligent person, though. Chris was clearly trying to point Wyatt in the right direction, and all I did was make it harder for him by accusing him of doing the things that Wyatt was really responsible for.

I sigh, knowing full well that I have no right to try to follow Chris now. He obviously needs time alone to sort things out—but how long would he last out there? Could he heal himself?

I bite my lip, pacing Barbas' pit in the Underworld, and try to decide what the right thing to do is.

Chris

This time, I know where I'm going before I finish the orb. I think to myself, "What the hell? I destroyed this place. I hate this place. Everything that I've ever despised in myself, in other people, in the world, is RIGHT HERE."

But I feel so calm and at peace with myself. Relieved, almost, to finally be here after so long. This is the only familiar place I've ever known. This is where I grew up, and first learned right from wrong…well, "right" from "wrong." The elders had twisted views, and they were cruel, and life up here was miserable, but it was all I had when I was little. My friends were always here with me, always willing to lend a hand and reach out when there was nothing, always so safe.

The only problem was that I was dead alone up here, where the Embassy used to stand.

Yes, the Embassy. The ruins look exactly the same as they did so many years ago when I blew the place up. I open my eyes again and expect to feel tears rising in them, but I don't. I can't cry. Not in this place, at least. All I can think about is the consequences of displaying emotion.

I try not to stick on the negatives of this place. If it hadn't been for these elders, I wouldn't be as strong as I was today. I wouldn't have been able to deal with Wyatt. Maybe I wouldn't even be alive right now—Bianca could've killed me if I hadn't known what to do. I wouldn't be nearly as intelligent and careful as I am now, either. I owe my life to those elders, no matter how badly they screwed it up in the process. I owe them my life.

But how much was my life worth in the big picture? Not very much. I'm not going to change the world. I can't even get my own parents to believe that I'm innocent half the time.

I sigh. I can't go back there just yet, no matter how bad the injuries. I was taught to deal with pain, right in this very place where I stand. Maybe that's why I'm here right now. It's so easy to just move on and forget pain when you're here.

And then I realize I'm not alone anymore.

Hal

"Hey," I say softly.

Chris winces. "Hey."

A silence passes through the air between us. We don't need to use words; not here, in the Embassy. The connection between us here, as it is between all of the lighters, is stronger than a connection between anyone else on Earth.

Minutes pass, but it seems like an eternity. Everything on the Embassy seems like forever. On Earth, everybody's always hurrying, trying to get on with their lives. They try to beat the clock—we were slaves to it.

We both sit on a fallen pillar from what used to be a mighty, condescending building we lived in. I never thought I'd be up here again, facing this place in this state. I wonder why it hasn't been cleared away yet; all these years and the mess seems to have been ignored. Looking around, I realize what this is to the elders.

It's a display of what they created. They created this power—the power that sent this whole place to its doom—through Chris. They were the ones that improved his abilities until he got so fed up that he did the impossible.

"You need to go back down there, you know," I break the silence.

"Yeah." He looks down at the pillar, where his blood has stained it deep red. "But it's not going to be easy."

I nod my head in agreement. "It never is. Every time we have a meeting, all the lighters in one place, it's…just not easy to come back to reality. To these new families, these wonderful people, who will try their best to understand but never really get what it was like. Nothing can separate the lighters, no matter what."

Chris smiles. "No matter what."

I smile back.

"I bet your family's worried," I remind him. "They were pretty preoccupied with looking for you, you know. You should at least tell them you're alive. They might think you're dead, what with the…" I motion to the various wounds and burns.

Chris laughs bitterly. "We both know that this could never kill me. Not after what happened here."

"Yeah, but they don't know that."

"I guess you're right."

"They're probably going to need you now more than ever, too," I say to him seriously.

"Why?" he asks. "Why would they need me? They have Wyatt." Then his face, if anything, fell even further. "But now Wyatt's…"

"Evil," I finish for him.

Chris pauses, thinking to himself. His voice cracks as he says, "I guess this is why he wasn't made a lighter. He was never pure."

"But Chris, I don't think that's why he wasn't made one. He wasn't born tainted. We're all born pure and innocent. What bad can a little baby do? We were chosen because we'd stay pure—constantly and unchangingly pure. Other human beings aren't made that way, but they can change."

"I don't know if Wyatt can change. He's already done so much, killed so many people. He just tried to kill me!"

I gasp. "But…"

Chris nods. "He sent an assassin. Luckily, I managed to get her to change her mind before killing me. She was good on the inside."

"And maybe Wyatt is, too," I say softly.

Chris is silent.

"What I mean is, if you can change an assassin…changing Wyatt isn't impossible. I think that's your purpose right now, Chris. Saving the people that might suffer at the hands of your brother. It's your destiny to change him—and the world—for the better."

Chris raises his eyebrows. "But not without you all."

I nudge him. "Like you could get rid of us if you tried," I tease.

He laughs, and suddenly there's a soft blue glow forming around him. The wounds close up and the scars fade away. He's a whole and normal Chris.

"Never could do that before," he comments.

"You're getting more powerful," I explain. "Just think of what you could do."

"I don't want to think about that," he says, shuddering. I realize what he means: he could end up the same way Wyatt is.

"You know you're stronger than him, don't you?"

"How could anyone know who's stronger? We're brothers. Besides, he's practiced his powers way more than I have, and he has powers that mean something. I can have premonitions and feel emotions. That's all that's happened these past few years. Just now I orbed and healed myself, but what good's that gonna do if I can only do it sporadically?"

"What exactly happened back there?"

"Oh," says Chris, as if just remembering the events after being hit on the head. "I vanquished Barbas."

I cock an eyebrow. "With your 'lame' premonitions and emotion-reading?"

"No," he admits. "It was the same thing the caused this." He motions to the ruins again.

I sigh. "But it's not power that caused you to have that power. That's what's so ironic to me, I think. It's that, you know, we were trained not to have emotions. We couldn't love anyone or anything. It was forbidden. And yet…when we were saved, we were the ones that loved more than anyone else. Loving was never forbidden to Wyatt, and he abused it. Just another example…"

"Of how being up here really did benefit all of us," Chris finishes. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense."

"You ready to orb back down, then?"

"Uh…"

"C'mon, Chris, you gotta face them eventually."

Chris blushes. "It's not that. It's just that I don't know whether I can orb on command or not."

"Great."

And then we start laughing like we've never laughed before. It's irrational, unexplainable and completely random. But sometimes you just need to laugh, even when everything's gone wrong.

Thanks for all the reviews, guys! Sorry for not updating. I got swim team and...and...(SOBS LOUDLY) Our team, our UNBEATABLE SWIM TEAM just LOST A SWIM MEET. Okay, okay, you're probably all, "One swim meet...shut up and quit crying." BUT YOU DON'T GET IT. Our team's been UNBEATEN for five years--that's 29 swim meets! 29! That's a hell of a lotta meets. People quake in fear when they hear the name of our team. We're in Division 1--the highest division out of, like, more than 18 in the state. And we were the BEST in that division, literally making us the BEST team in the state. Yeah. Believe it. DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA HOW MUCH THIS BURNS? WE LOST TO SOME OTHER TEAM. UGH. UGH. Ugh. So now we're not the best of the best of the best anymore. I kinda think the coaches were a little too obsessed with winning, though, so it's a bit refreshing to get a slap in the face like that. It's almost like the coaches are only nicey-nice to their fastest swimmers--the ones that will win meets for them--and ignore the rest of us. All they talk about is winning. I do swim team for fun and to stay fit. I don't think winning is everything--it really bugs me that they're making a big deal out of it. People are crying, the coaches are, like, dead silent. It's like a funeral over there. I don't even want to go to practice on Monday, even though it's the last practice of the summer before year-round starts up in September. It's just awful. It's too depressing--and why in the bloody hell should we be sobbing over a swim meet when there are people dying horrible deaths all over the world?

Wow, this rant needs to end RIGHT NOW. Sorry lol. Needed to vent.

R&R!