Chapter Four
"Godspeed, little man. Sweet dreams, little man. All my love will fly to you this night on angels' wings." Dixie Chicks, "Godspeed"
Somewhere in the Mediterranean, 2033
"Who's this?" Phoenix asked as he scurried up onto the couch beside his mother, wooden picture frame in hand.
Jordan took the frame from her son, brows drawn together in confusion similar to Phee's.
"Where'd you find this, little man?"
"Silvio and I found it when we were climbing in the library," he admitted easily, then stopped. His blue eyes widened as he realized that he had confessed to a grievous sin. He clapped his hand to his mouth and turned away, burying his face in the couch pillow.
"Oops, huh?" Jordan could not help but grin. "Phoenix, those books and shelves are old and special, and I don't want you climbing on them."
"Yes, Mama. I'm sorry," he answered, muffled by the pillow and his hand.
"Alright, just don't do it again. Now let's see about this picture," Jordan smiled, flipped over the frame, and froze at the pair of liquid brown eyes staring back at her.
"She seems familiar, Mama," Phoenix explained as he sat up, and then trailed off as he noticed his mother's frozen posture. "Mama?"
She had not thought about Casey in a long time, mostly because she rarely thought anymore except about her son and his father.
Jordan and Casey had been close before the chaos, but Casey had fallen in conjunction with Wyatt, ever faithful to her revered cousin. Her defection had made the fall that much harder on Wyatt's queen, making that many more tears slip past her defenses.
There had been a connection between the two since the first time twelve-year-old Casey bumped elbows with the angel at the Halliwell dinner table. They had told each other nearly everything: Casey had counseled Jordan through many marital squabbles while Jordan had guided Casey back into the magical fold.
Eighteen year old Casey had even been Jordan's maid of honor, her only bridesmaid. Since the very essence of Camelot demanded that she and Wyatt relinquish their Baker High friends, family was their only outlet. Jordan had thought she was prepared to lose her friends, since she'd known it was coming all along. She even stayed a year longer than originally planned. Graduation, however, proved her wrong. Not without tears, Wyatt Halliwell and Jordan Berkeley left their high school friends behind (for a small liberal arts school back East and the Australian outback, respectively) to become the next King and Queen of Camelot. With the loss of Jess and Madi, Casey quickly became Jordan's only girlfriend and confidante.
Despite their friendship, however, Casey was foremost loyal to her beloved cousin Wyatt. This was no problem during the good years, when everyone was undyingly loyal to Wyatt, even Chris. But when the chaos came, Casey chose Wyatt without hesitation, while Jordan chose Phoenix. They had not seen each other since.
And now those deep brown eyes were smiling tauntingly from a forgotten snapshot from Casey's twenty-first birthday party (organized by Mrs. Halliwell herself) at the lonely Jordan. The angel had devoted her immortal life to her son, to his security and happiness. She wouldn't give that up for anything, but deep within her she ached for a confidante again. She no longer had Wyatt or Casey to spill her heart out to, and her relationship with Chris (her listener since before he could listen) had been emotionally distant at best since the precursor to the chaos.
"That, little man, is Aunt Phoebe's daughter, Casey," a new voice interrupted Jordan's stunned reverie.
"Grams!" Phoenix exclaimed, leaping up to bury his head in her stomach as a part of his bone-crunching hug.
"Hi, Phee," Piper, the oldest and only surviving Charmed One, greeted her only grandchild with a smile. "It's so good to see you."
The picture was immediately forgotten in the wake of the matriarch's arrival. Phoenix immediately began to pummel his Grams with questions about life and stories of his island exploits as Riccio, Prince of the Hill.
Jordan watched the contrasting pair walk down the open hall, hand in hand. One was the last, aggrieved echo of a much brighter time, and the other the luminescent only hope of a grieving generation.
The four years in hiding had dramatically aged Piper Halliwell. It wasn't the constant, paranoid fear of discovery that got to her, like it had her younger son: it was the idle watching while her older son destroyed the world she had sworn to protect, the helpless looking on while her heart's joy jealously murdered the other recipients of her affection.
Paige had gone first, by Casey's hand but Wyatt's order. Phoebe's death had been slower, her life gradually drained away by the pain of her only child's betrayal. It had only been a year since Phoebe's body failed, but it seemed to Piper like she had truly lost both sisters in one blow.
Leo had been the last of the Elders to go, though he had not been strongly associated with the magical council since Wyatt's late adolescence. His death had occurred two and a half years ago, the victim of direct patricide at the hands of the son he had sacrificed everything to protect. The thought still made Piper shudder.
But she did not fear for her own safety, never had. To Chris, the hiding was about staying alive, To Jordan, the hiding was about saving Phoenix's soul. To Piper, the hiding was Wyatt's own unique brand of torturing his mother. He had already stolen everyone but Chris, Jordan, and Phoenix, and the constant hunt for the remainders of the Halliwell clan was specifically engineered to keep the rest of her loved ones away.
And the hunt, Piper knew, would go on ceaselessly. Wyatt's cronies scoured every plane of existence day in and day out, and would continue to until the King's wife and, most importantly, son were returned to the dark mockery of Camelot. Piper had heard the order repeated by a bounty hunter once:
"So Zankou says ta me, 'The King's clearly outlined the terms: the son, alive, and the Queen, alive if possible.' She is a traitor, ya know, and that she's the mother of the heir is the on'y thin' keepin' her from the immediate execution list. Zankou tol' me that the King said it would be 'understandable' if the Queen were to be killed in a successful exercise to return the prince."
Piper, however, did not believe that Wyatt would keep anyone alive who had killed Jordan, regardless of how much he might have "understood" the circumstances. As a result of this well known fact, most attempts to find Phoenix and Jordan were blazingly unsuccessful.
Also adding to the failures was Phoebe's last, enduring gift to the Halliwell line: the spell protecting the island. Tucked away form more conventional types of reconnaissance and guarded against any magical creatures save the remaining good Halliwells, the elf Seilya, and Wessex, Phoenix's half-leprechaun tutor, the island provided the ideal hide-out for the fugitive Queen and Prince.
As Phoenix crawled up beside her just a few short hours after her arrival, clad in his long, white cotton nightshirt, his round face scrubbed clean, curls wet and combed, and teeth brushed, begging for a bedtime story, the running, the hiding, and the death seemed to Piper a steep, but worthy, price to pay for precious moments like this. She remembered how as a toddler he would wail for his Gramps to tuck him in any night he stayed over: her strong little man didn't even ask for Leo now, though Piper was positive he remembered. He remembered Aunt Phoebe, too, Piper believed; the Phoebe he remembered, however, was not the same woman Piper wanted in his memories. Paige and Casey were for now lost to him, though Piper worried that the sharp boy would soon recall them, and more.
"Grams, how 'bout another one 'bout leprechauns? Ooh! Or elves… Yeah, elves'd be great. Like Seilya."
"Oh no, that's all for tonight, baby," Piper smiled, kissing his forehead. "Climb on into bed so I can tuck you in."
"Snug as a bug in a rug," he recited through a yawn, crawling under his covers.
Piper closed her eyes against the tears summoned by the young voice, dangerously reminiscent of his father's.
"That's right, baby," Piper smiled with watery eyes, leaning down to kiss his cheek and tuck the covers under his chin.
"Grams!" he objected, freeing his arms and wrapping them around her neck in a quick hug. "You know I like my arms free."
"Sorry, Phee."
"S'okay," he yawned, "'Night, Grams. Love you."
"I love you, too, little man."
She leaned over to extinguish the kerosene hurricane lamp by his bed and then crossed to the door. She waited in the doorway, turning for one last glance at his curl-framed face illuminated by the sliver of moonlight.
"G'ams?" Phoenix asked, sleepily. "Where do you…" Yawn. "…live?"
"Lots of places, my love. Goodnight."
She began to close the door.
"Grams?" he spoke again.
"Yeah, baby?" Piper tried to hide her exasperation.
"What's Magic School?"
Silence.
"Grams?"
She forced a laugh to cover her shock and teased, "That's enough questions for tonight, my sweet little boy. Sleep now. I love you."
Then she closed the door as quickly as possible without appearing suspicious. As soon as the door was closed, she pressed her back against it and tried to breathe.
Why now? Why is he finally starting to remember? What does it mean if he does?
These questions raced through Piper's mind before she could even stop to understand their gravity, and they were followed by innumerous others. Only one, however, slowed to a stop in her consciousness, mockingly still in front of her eyes.
What if I lose him, too?
Jordan stood on the balcony again, the one stretching out over the entranceway and overlooking the dusty road up the hill from the village. She was almost always there, surveying the place that could never be home, no matter how much she loved the island, its residents, or the villa that warmly embraced her. Her son called it home, she knew, and it would always claim him as its own. His bare feet left indelible prints in the streets below and on the beach beyond, just as the Mediterranean sun, the warm, salty air, and the affectionate smiles of the villagers had become ingrained in the heart of her little boy.
But her home would always be a pink Victorian on the shores of another ocean, on the other side of the world. It was there she had fallen in love, seen life with the kind of youthful innocence she thought would never be taken from her. Her mortal life had ended so abruptly that she had never even known love before, nor felt the hollow ache that follows irrevocable loss. Then, she met Wyatt Halliwell face-to-face for the first time.
She had watched him from afar for all of his life, knew of many of his greatest achievements and deepest disappointments. She had thought she had known him before she even turned the corner and purposely bumped into him on that late August afternoon. But as she had fallen to the ground (not so purposely) and he had picked her up off the rough concrete, she discovered that there was something more to Wyatt than could be observed from afar, something snug in his gentle touch, kind eyes, and genuine smile. He could make anyone feel like she was the most important person in the world and know it was not an act.
They became fast friends: the White Lighter in each allowing a very candid connection. He was modest, even a bit shy at times, but could command the attention of an entire room if he wanted too. He was charming without trying to be, and chivalrous without even thinking about it. Jordan attributed the latter to his upbringing at the hands of three strong women.
She fell in love with him within the first month. She wouldn't say instantly; that was too cliché, and it was not entirely true. But she fought it for months afterward (six to be exact), knowing the Elders would never approve, knowing it was against the rules. The age difference never bothered her, since, she bitterly remembered now, she would nineteen forever.
One Saturday morning on her doorstep had too easily changed everything. The next ten years had been bliss. Those years had seen a love strengthen and grow. They had seen a proposal, Wyatt on one knee in the attic. They had seen a wedding, two expansive smiles filling the living room. They had seen a birth, another amazing baby boy entering with a flourish. They had seen family dinners and Christmases and laughs and smiles and tears. A family was reunited and growing.
And then it came crashing down.
A part of her, one she struggled every day to keep buried deep inside, still hated Christopher for the role he played. Another part, one not nearly as hidden, still hated herself for her own responsibility, for her own weakness, her own loneliness. No part of her hated Wyatt, no part of her could ever hate Wyatt. She feared him, yes. In fact, she was absolutely terrified of him, and her gut twisted with sick horror at how very wrong it was that her love for her husband occupied the same space in her mind as complete fear for her life and that of her son.
Her dreams were filled with what-ifs. She had been aware of Christopher's growing affection for some time before that night; she was, after all, a White Lighter. Weeks at a time passed where she forgot that fact. Maybe if she had spoken to him sooner, thrown cold water on whatever dreams were occupying his mind, none of this would have happened. He was still young, and still sheltered. He had, indeed, spent three years "in the real world", attending Baker High School, but afterwards returned to a world with little opportunity for first loves.
She hadn't stopped it, however. In fact, she had evenbeen a little flattered by the constant attention, since her husband only gave his in manic spurts. She had never meant for it to get as far as it did, never meant for Christopher to feel comfortable enough to do what he did. But she had allowed it to, and he had been comfortable enough, and it had all spun out of control.