A Charmed Story - Part One:
Saving The Future Over And Over Again
Chapter 9
Chris sighed. "Well, whatever... Let's see what we can do about that when we finish this. Penny, you should go to sleep."
"No, child, I'm staying."
Chris smiled. "Ok... hey, can I have little Wyatt with me for a while? I won't have many opportunities to play with him this way," he added jokingly.
"Sure, man," laughed Leo. But their expressions were very worried.
Chris went over to his little brother, picked up a ball and started to play with him.
Leo smiled while watching that scene. Then he went over to Penny.
"What will happen to him?" he asked, "I mean... if this is all over, if Wyatt is safe... Will he disappear?"
Penny frowned: "Actually, I don't know. Those things he changed seem to have a lot of affect on him. By the way, I'm sorry, that I didn't think about that Elder-problem, when I wrote that spell, I..."
"Don't mind," Leo said, "I care about other things now."
Penny nodded and went on: "I think it depends on the question how much of an Elder he is..."
Now Leo was the one who frowned.
"Chris, sweetheart, come over here for a moment," Penny said.
And so he did, Chris took Wyatt and sat down between his father and his grand-grandma.
"Sweetie, I have to ask you a few..." Penny said.
But suddenly Barbas appeared. He didn't lose time and threw a few balls of fire against the family. That all happened so fast, that they were unable to react. Seconds later Barbas was standing in the middle of nine unconscious bodies. Only little Wyatt was crying.
Barbas went over to adult Wyatt. He tried to wake him up. He shook him, he hit him... But nothing worked.
"What a bullshit" he yelled. Then he was looking at that small boy. "Why the hell is your shield not working?" he said to himself.
Suddenly he had an idea, which made him smile. He went over to the wall and wrote a little note. Then he took little and adult Wyatt and disappeared with them to the Underworld.
& & & & &
Meanwhile the sisters saw all that in Wyatt's memories.
"What is he writing?" Piper asked.
Paige read:
"Don't know what you've done, but wake up my Lord Wyatt or you will never see your baby again! B."
"Oh my God, we have to wake up!" Phoebe said, looking at the wounded body of Cole.
"Yes, we have to," Piper said, "we have to prevent this from happening."
"But how?" Paige asked.
The sisters were looking worried at each other. They tried everything that they could imagine, spells, orbing and so on... But they were still in Wyatt's memories.
"It seems there is no way out," Phoebe said frustrated.
Meanwhile the scene had changed again without there notice.
"Look!" Paige said. They were in a cave, were adult Wyatt was lying on the ground while Barbas was playing with little Wyatt who really seemed to have fun.
Piper was shivering. "This can't be!" she said, growing pale. "Is THAT the beginning! Is it our fault! We're sleeping, stuck here, unable to help my son..."
Phoebe was thinking hard: "We have to get out, heal all of them and get Wyatt!" She was panicking.
Her sister was mumbling all the time: "Oh, no, don't let it happen, oh no, don't let it happen..." Piper wrapped her arms around herself. 'I want this day to end. Please, let it end. I can't take that anymore. Please, please let it end.'
Paige saw Piper, who was now calling gently for her "mommy" and Phoebe, who tried not to freak out but miserably failed.
& & & & &
Meanwhile in the attic, Chris was wandering through darkness. He was reaching out. But for what? He didn't know that. He just saw a slight light in front of him. He was going straight to the light. After a short time, which seemed to take ages, he reached the light, stepped in and was suddenly in a big and endless white hall.
'What's this!'
He thought those words, but he heard them, like he had spoken them out loud.
'Huh!'
'Chris.'
Again, he heard it, but it wasn't spoken out loud. It was as if he had heard someone thinking loud and it was definitely not him.
'Where! Who!'
'Behind you.'
Chris turned around. He saw himself.
'What!'
The Chris we know stepped back, trying to hide.
"Don't be afraid," he said. It was his calmed and melodic voice Chris heard, but he still couldn't believe that he stood there - wherever the hell he was - and looked at himself, like he was looking in a mirror.
"Who are you!" he asked to himself.
"You know that."
Silence.
"What do you want from me! Where am I! I have to help my family! And..." he wanted to go on talking but the other 'him' waved his hands.
"Calm down... me..." he said a little bit confused himself but smiling. "I used your fainting for reaching out to you. I have to tell you something very important."
The original Chris watched himself perching down on the floor.
"I have been you, yes, but at the same time, I'm not. I'm a memory, a slight thought of you. I'm a note to yourself, a help to remind you of something important."
"You're my conscience!"
"No," the second Chris laughed but then got serious. "Listen to me, to yourself. All the time you told yourself that something was wrong, all the time you had a problem with Wyatt, your family or the going-back-to-the-future thing, you wrote something like a note to yourself. It happened unwittingly. All these thoughts, feelings and experiences formed me. I'm here to guide you."
"Guide me!"
"Yes. You formed me in the future, to warn you about the time loop, you've started."
Before Chris could say something, his second self went on talking.
"We're stuck in a time loop. With every re-run you've noticed something else going wrong or not being right and you kept that in mind. We could say, that you have all the memories of your past lifes, of the re-runs. It took you quite a time to gain enough knowledge to form me to warn you."
Chris couldn't believe what he was hearing. They should be stuck in a time loop! In a never ending re-run! Because of him!
"How can I stop the time loop!" he asked himself, still confused, but willing to do everything to save his family, the future and to stop the loop.
"That's where I come in. I know, what happened all the times. You changed the future several times, but not the way you liked it. You were never able to save Wyatt..."
"Does that mean that.."
"...Wyatt is destined to be evil? I don't know, it looks like he is..."
"NO!" Chris, our Chris, yelled, "I'LL NEVER BELIEVE THAT!"
The other Chris lowered his eyes, but said nothing.
"There must be a way, I know it, I FEEL IT..."
"Actually I don't know if there is a chance... I only know that you've failed hundreds of times," the other explained.
"Then show me what you know, so I can try to make it better this time," Chris said, still willing to do everything to save his family, ALL of them.
& & & & &
Meanwhile in the attic Leo slowly gained back his consciousness. He raised from the ground, looking around. He noticed that Wyatt was missing, both of them.
"Oh no," he said. Then he heard Cole moaning. He went over to him. The ex-demon was hit very badly, but he was alive. Leo healed him.
"Thanks," Cole said and stood up. "What happened?"
"Barbas," Leo answered.
Cole looked around, then asked: "Where is the boy?"
But Leo didn't answered. He just ordered Cole to look after Chris while he would help Penny.
& & & & &
"Calm down girls," Page said.
"What?" Piper answered, "how can you be so..."
Paige sighed and raised her hands in defense: "O.k., just stop and think clear for a moment!"
The sisters were looking at her with expectation.
"We've seen that the other lost there consciousness, that's all... They are not dead. They can't..."
"How can you be so sure?" Phoebe asked.
"Because we still have Chris, he is in Wyatt's memories, look..." Paige pointed to a Chris about maybe 8 years, playing on the ground with a girl about two. The scene around them had changed again.
"He is alive," Paige went on, "that means Leo is alive. And if Leo is, then he is able to heal all the others in that room."
Piper nodded: "But we need to go out..."
"Well," Paige sighed again, "I think we can't, so we should try to learn as much as we can about that, how long it ever will take..."
At this moment Wyatt orbed in.
& & & & &
"Leo!" Cole yelled, "I can't wake him up, he is alive, but he won't wake up."
Leo who had already helped Penny to stand up, told her to look after the sisters. Then he went over to his son.
Chris was lying on the ground. He was sweating. His eyes were closed but they were moving very fast.
"It seems like he is dreaming," Cole said.
Leo nodded. He touched his cheek. "He's cold," he said with sorrow.
"The sisters are alright," Penny said. She had just gone over to them.
"What can we do? We must do something!" Cole said with panic. "We have to help him!"
Leo felt helpless, he had no idea: "That's a kind of magic I don't understand."
Penny was also at her wit's end.
Cole was looking at them, with tears in his eyes. He felt that they couldn't afford to lose him, not now...
Leo looked into Cole's eyes. He knew what he was thinking about, but he had no idea, what to do.
"Hey..." Chris whispered.
The others turned to him in surprise. The young man opened his eyes slowly.
"Are you o.k., son?" Leo asked.
Chris felt as if he had got hit by a truck, but he nodded: "So it seems."
"So, what happened?" Cole asked
"I'll tell you later," he half raised and looked around. "Where is Wyatt?"
Chris was pale, he was shivering, but he tried to hide everything he felt under his mask, as he always did. He looked around waiting for an answer that never came...
"Where's he... where are they?" he asked again, more tired than freaked out.
"Barbas took them both, Chris... " finally answered Leo.
"I'm so sorry..." Chris smiled feebly. He knew that. He knew he had lost him again... The other Chris, the piece of memories, the note, the conscience, or whatever he had just seen and spoken to, had shown him all the different ways in which he had lost his brother, once and again... So he knew he'd lose him this time too.
The young whitelighter, or Elder now, sighed: "It's not your fault, dad. Nor yours, Cole, or any of you... It's only my fault."
Leo patted his shoulder: "Do not even dare to repeat that, Chris. After what you have done, you're not allowed to blame yourself!"
Chris was almost crying, but swallowed and nodded before answering: "Maybe... maybe I'm trying to fight something which is greater than me... Destiny cannot be changed!"
Cole stared at him full of sorrow: "Hey, let's sit down, and think about this. Look, this time it was Barbas that took him. That's what we have to handle now.
"We have time, sweety," said Penny, "and the girls are still in Wyatt's memories, they could find something and help us..."
Chris, too tired to argue, did what they told him to do, he sat down.
& & & & &
"Hi Chris!" said Wyatt with a wide smile on his face. "Hey! My little sweet cousin, Patricia, how are you?"
He went towards the girl and started to play with her.
"Where have you been, Wyatt?" asked the 8-year-old Chris, looking worried.
"With my friends, brother."
"I couldn't sense you."
Wyatt sighed, starting to get angry: "You didn't need to try to sense me, I'm fine. I was fine, I'm the twice blessed and your older brother, you don't need to worry about me. I need to worry about you!"
Chris lowered his eyes, but continued speaking: "You're my brother, and I have to worry... That's what brothers do, and let alone if your brother is half Elder and even so he cannot sense you!"
The sisters looked at each other, in surprise: "Half Elder?"
"Wow... I thought he was half whitelighter... or full, now." said Phoebe.
"Leo is an Elder, so..." Piper frowned.
"So maybe we made him a full Elder?" Paige raised a brow. "But then, if Wyatt is half whitelighter, that means..."
"That means Chris has more powers, could it be so?" finished Phoebe.
Piper kept pensive.
"But he doesn't have the powers, I mean, the young Chris. We cast the spell on the adult Chris," she murmured.
"Which means..." Phoebe was getting the point.
"Which means..." Chris was still talking, "you were in the Underworld!"
& & & & &
"That's it!" exclaimed Chris, all of a sudden.
"What is it?" asked Leo, Penny and Cole, confused.
"My powers! The new ones! That makes me more powerful than Wyatt! I mean, now... He's only half whitelighter because when he was conceived, dad was still whitelighter. But it seems I'll be conceived -or have already been- when Leo was -or is, sorry- an Elder. So technically, I'm more powerful."
"But the girls had to cast a spell that triggered all those powers... " intervened Cole, trying to follow his thoughts.
"Yeah..." Chris stood up. "Maybe because my new future baby self and all my future selves won't have the powers or won't be taught how to use them... whatever! It doesn't matter. The powers are there.
"And?" Penny couldn't see the point. Leo, however was pensive.
"This time, Barbas wants Wyatt because he thinks he'll be the most powerful being on earth. But he won't actually. It'll be ME!"
"Chris..." Cole frowned, feeling he was falling under his own new powers.
"No, look... This is what happened, what will happen: Barbas HAS to believe, that Wyatt is not that powerful. I AM. So he'll come after me."
"No way!" exclaimed Leo. "I won't change an evil son just to get another one!"
"Oh, please! I won't become evil... You can kill Barbas... When he's confused..."
Leo shook his head: "We were told that it had been an Elder that turned him the first time. Then, it was Barbas. This is a time loop, Wyatt always turns evil, only by different people. We can kill Barbas, of course... But another one will come, this time after you. And he'll take you, and then we'll have adult Wyatt coming to the past once and again to save you!"
Cole chuckled, but hid his face.
"Dad..." Chris looked straight in his eyes, "that's why you'll bind my powers."
All of them kept silent, shocked.
"What?" muttered Leo and Cole at the same time.
"That's why I didn't know about my powers, probably."
"The future changed, this time you could know..."
Chris shook his head again: "I don't remember having powers." He smiled: "I would have those memories now. So just bind them, I'll be fine."
"Wyatt is not good... That didn't change, so this plan failed." said Cole.
"We don't know..." answered Penny, "adult Wyatt is sleeping... If the plan works, he'll be good when he awakes... technically."
"You got it!" said Chris, grinning. The other Chris had shown this to him. All the times he had tried to save Wyatt, he had died fighting him, or the evil that turned him... But he had never sacrificed himself truly. He had never offered his own life... He had never trade himself and got something even worse than death: His becoming evil himself. Or accepting the loss of all his powers, so that he didn't hurt anyone... so that he was kept in the good side, until the right moment to get the powers back had arrived. Something which Wyatt had never had the strength to do. To give up his powers in order to save all his family.
& & & & &
"Do you really believe I'm willing to spend the whole day hunting demons, brother?" Wyatt smiled, while playing with Patricia. Then he turned to Chris: "Ok, see. You didn't sense me beCAUSE I was preparing something for your birthday, are you happy?"
Wyatt grinned as he saw Chris's happiness reflected on his face. "I blocked you, because the fact that the only power you have from Elders is that stuff of sensing, you're always bothering me, brother. I didn't want you to see what I am up to."
Chris frowned: "But why can't I develop my Elder powers?" he asked, sadly.
"Who knows... Maybe some day, we'll get the explanation, don't you think? Meanwhile, let me take care of you, I'm still the twice blessed, and your oldest brother..." he winked.
The sisters looked at each other again. Now the thing was really confusing... They were in Wyatt's memories, they could see he wasn't lying. They could see he had really been preparing something for Chris. There was no evil in Wyatt this time... No Barbas, no evil Elder... They frowned.
"Maybe they got it," Paige said, "maybe the others out there found a way to change it, to save Wyatt."
At this moment Cole went in, and hugged his daughter. Then he turned to the boys: "Thanks for looking after her, you're the best cousins in the world."
"No problem, uncle," Wyatt said smiling.
"So he is now good?" Piper asked with suspicion. She really wanted this to be true, but she had seen too much.
"So it seems," Phoebe said.
"Well it seems you're a little too fast, with your happiness." The scene had changed again. They were now in a dark cave. Paige pointed to Chris, maybe 17 or 18 years old, lying on the ground unconscious.
Barbas was walking around him.
"Where shall that lead us to?" Piper asked.
At this moment Wyatt orbed in.
"Barbas you Bastard!" he yelled.
"Oh little boy, what about our friendship, I didn't see you for a long time."
"You killed our friendship, when you went against my uncle, and you know that!" Wyatt answered.
Barbas just smiled.
"Let him go," Wyatt yelled with a lot of anger, "Or I will kill you once and for all!"
At that moment two lights appeared when two Elders orbed in.
"Calm down, Wyatt," one of them said.
"What?.. . What are you doing here?" Wyatt asked with confusion.
"Your brother is half witch and half Elder, you know that," one of the Elders explained, "he is too powerful, that's why your father cast a spell on him to bind his powers. But those spells don't last forever, only till the person turns 18."
"Which is in about ten minutes," Barbas remarked.
"I don't understand..." Wyatt said sill confused but with the feeling that something went wrong here.
"Wyatt," the other Elder started to speak, "we have to stop him!"
"You want to kill him?" Wyatt yelled with despair.
The others were looking at him: "Wyatt, we won't hurt you, we..."
"No, I will never let that happen!" Wyatt yelled, and threw an energy-ball against Barbas who exploded. Then he turned his aggression against the Elders.
A huge and evil fight began. Wyatt tried everything to protect his little brother.
At this time Chris slowly gained back his consciousness. Confused he looked around.
"Wyatt!" he yelled when noticing his brother fighting with those Elders.
"Chris, orb away, they want to kill you!" his brother screamed.
But Chris wasn't able to react. One Elder threw a flash of energy against him. Chris just managed to turn aside before he got hit.
Then another light appeared around the young man. Fearful he tried to escape but the light was all around him. Then it went into him. A kind of magical heat was suffusing him. He felt that... he felt that something was changing inside him. The sisters could read it on his face.
"We have no time for this," one Elder said, still fighting against Wyatt and not noticing what happened to Chris.
"So we have no chance," the other Elder said, and threw a flash against Wyatt, who got hit very badly.
"NO!" Piper yelled, but Paige held her back.
"NO!" Chris yelled and jumped up. He ran over to his brother and got down next to him.
"Leave, little brother," Wyatt whispered.
Chris shook his head.
Now the Elders turned their powers against Chris, they wanted to end this.
But Chris felt the danger at his back, so he turned around and sent out flashes, like the Elders did before, and killed one of them.
"No," Wyatt whispered.
The other Elder was looking fearful. "It's too late," he whispered again and again.
"You are good," Chris yelled, "why are you fighting against a good one?"
But the Elder didn't answer.
"There is no good in this world," Chris said to himself, "even the good is evil."
Then he looked at his brother. Wyatt had tears in his eyes, same as Chris.
"I swear you will have revenge for that, I will avenge this..." Chris said, then he turned against the Elder and killed him.
"Oh my God, now he is the evil one," Piper said helpless.
Then Wyatt died.
(Chapter 9 written by Belén, Chrissy.W.x and Dark Angel)