Disclaimer: I do not own Charmed or the song "How Soon is Now" by The Smiths

Takes place after Chris- Crossed

I'm sure there are like five million ' I'm feeling down cause the family doesn't love me' one shots about Chris, but I've read a ton of them and still love them so I thought why not add my own. Sorry if it sounds like everything else. I started this a while ago and just decided to finish it in the past couple days.

……………………………………………………………………

I am the son and the heir
of a shyness that is criminally vulgar
I am the son and the heir
of nothing in particular.

I have finally come to a conclusion to all my thoughts and problems. It took me long enough. It cost me a dead fiancé and impossible charges, but I finally get it.

The answer is simple enough-

I cannot win with these people. I can't.

I've tried pleading

I've tried arguing

I've tried lying, many times

Hell, I've even tried telling the truth, not so many times

Nothing works

I realize it might seem harsh to call my own family, my own blood, "these people" but the idea of family ties and unity has no value or importance to me anymore. Not when I saw a son kill his own mother, a father abandoned his children, or when I myself was betrayed by my own brother. Maybe I betrayed him.

So as I sit here and go over all these things in my head I can't help but be amazed at the complete irony of the whole situation. Seeing my family again was what I wanted most over everything else, to have them back, safe and happy, but now that I have it, it's the worst feeling in the world.

Aunt Paige is carefree, she's fun, she's happy.

Aunt Phoebe is still crazy about love, almost to the point of desperation- finding it, surrounding herself with it and doing the same for everyone around her.

And Mom… Mom may not be as carefree or in love as her sisters, but she has hope. Hope that one day she'll get her normal life. Hope that her children won't live the way she has for the past years.

That's something I didn't get to see much in my last memories of them. Too much had happened.

And while it's amazing to see them so different, it doesn't happen often when I'm around.

I am the main source of my own mother's pain. I am the reason she is stressed out.

Her son, her precious Wyatt, needs to be saved. She knows now that her worst fears come true. She doesn't protect him. She doesn't manage to keep him safe.

If only she knew the half of it…

"Chris!" Piper yells at me, clearly exasperated. Her eyes are blazing, not yet with hatred, but more mistrust, and I can't figure out which one would be worse. I'm afraid one day soon I'll see both, "Chris, are you even listening to me?"

I turn to Leo and he's looking the same, but is that already little hatred I see?, "Chris, tell us what you're up to. You didn't check in with the Elders for two weeks, two whole weeks! Now I come down here to find out that Piper hasn't seen you either!"

"I cannot win with you guys," I repeat my earlier conclusion.

"What's that suppose to mean?" my own mother snaps at me.

"Exactly that- I can't win. First, I send you after too many demons. 'Chris, give us a break we want to eat lunch first. We'll vanquish the demon that might be the reason the world is completely fucked up in the future after we go out on a date'," I say in a mocking voice, but at the end I'm practically yelling. I'm probably acting like a baby, but at this point I can't muster up the energy to care, so I just continue, "And now, when I give you exactly what you kept asking for, some space and time away from demon hunting, my God I must be up to something."

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

Piper looks a bit taken aback by my tirade, but the cost of shutting her up means I actually managed to piss her off even more. Angry Piper is not something I really want to deal with right now so I try to take her silence as permission to leave.

"Well, if you don't mind I'm going to go work on the next demon, and if you're feeling so left out I'll come by tomorrow and tell you about him,"

And just as I start to orb out I get that unpleasant feeling of being pulled back against my will, and my unpleasant feeling heightened when I realized I was still facing my parents… just great.

"What?" I ask impatiently.

"I didn't say you could go. Now you are going to tell us what you've been up to or-"

They don't even consider the fact that losing a fiancé can have a little affect on a person. Even if that person is me.

"Or what, you're gonna send me back to the future? You know what? That's fine with me. I don't really care. Seriously let's go right now."

I almost laughed when I saw the look on their faces, but I don't. I think maybe I've forgotten how.

Having taken them off guard, I manage to orb without interference.

There's a club, if you'd like to go
You could meet somebody who really loves you
So you go, and you stand on your own
And you leave on your own
And you go home, and you cry
And you want to die

When I look around the city from my view I try to remember every detail. Every building still standing. Every person walking outside whose biggest fear is if they're going to make it to work on time. Aunt Phoebe's probably out there as one of them. I want to remember this because I don't know when I'll see it again.

Before I realize what I'm doing I find myself near the edge of the bridge and not wanting to back away.

I've had this feeling before but don't remember it being so hard to fight.

I have to save the world from my brother. I can't give up. I owe my family… what used to be my family… that much.

They're dead though. I have absolutely no one to go back home to, and I've never felt so completely alone in my entire life.

When you say it's gonna happen now
Well, when exactly do you mean?
See, I've already waited too long
And all my hope is gone

I'm searching for some reason, some obligation, that I have to make me stay but nothing is coming up.

I mean, since when did it become my duty to give up everything I have to fix someone else's mistake. Since when did I have to pay for things that I did not do?

The metal that I'm gripping is getting cold on my fingers, slippery from the sweat on my hands.

It's taunting me, telling me that everything will stop if I let myself fall.

A voice is screaming for me just to let go, screaming so loudly that I can't hear the rational side of my brain. Or maybe it is the rational side that's doing the screaming. Maybe this is for the best.

My fingers start to slide off and I'm beginning to move forward when I loud voice, not my own, yells my name, startling me enough so I lose my balance completely.

You shut your mouth
How can you say
I go about things the wrong way ?
I am human and I need to be loved
Just like everybody else does

Falling forward, the only thing I can think about is how scared my mom sounded when she yelled my name, how much danger she might be in.

Is this something she can handle on her own?

There's time to orb to her, still time to keep fighting.

But as I near the ocean below me, still indecisive, I can't help but wonder what or who it is that I'm fighting for.