Of All the People…
Chapter 3
By teal-lover
Summary: Wyatt reflects on the events after Chris Crossed and decides to do something about it.
Rating: PG13, T
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed, just borrowing, promise to give them back when done, don't get any money for this.
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Piper looked around in shock, recognizing the stark white surroundings. She quickly recalled how Chris had been hit and she began to worry for the young man's safety.
But her worry soon changed with another thought, what if this had been a trap? Just to get her out of the house. He did after all, orb her up here. Leaving him alone in the house with her baby.
Frantically, she ran through the hall screaming her ex-husband's name, "LEO!"
Out of a doorway, Leo emerged hearing the familiar voice where he shouldn't have. He lowered the cowl on his Elder robe and met her halfway, "Piper? How did you get up here? What's wrong?"
"Chris," she panted breathlessly, "I think he set me up to get Wyatt alone! We have to get back down there!"
A cold fury washed across Leo's face as he took her hand, "We'll get Phoebe and Paige on the way down. He won't get away with this."
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Chris leaned up against the wall and rubbed his stomach where he had been hit. "That hurt."
"Good!" his brother retorted.
Chris rolled his eyes, "Change back!"
Wyatt had planned to, but simply because his little brother had demanded it of him, he refused. He smirked and dipped his voice an octave lower, "Why should I? I answer to no one. Least of all you."
Chris ground his teeth together and his eyes narrowed, "Because I want to look into the true face of my murderer."
Wyatt threw his hand up dismissively, "Please. If I wanted to kill you, you would already be dead."
"The only reason I'm not is because Bianca stopped you! And then you killed her!" Chris yelled before taking a swing at his brother.
He let out a satisfied snicker when his fist landed across Wyatt's face, splitting his lip open in the process. Oh yeah, that's gonna' leave a mark, he thought happily.
He went to swing again but was blocked when Wyatt rushed him full force.
Chris grunted when Wyatt body-slammed him into the marble table that stood in the hallway. He felt the table legs start to buckle underneath him, but he was far too angry to care. Using his weight and shifting, he rolled them both onto the floor and landed atop his brother, who in turn grunted painfully. He used his position advantage to land several more punches and screamed in his face, "I HATE YOU!"
As Chris leaned down again, Wyatt's eyes blazed with fury and he took the brief opportunity to shift his little brother off balance. Kneeing Chris in the stomach, he followed through with his hands and threw him over his head.
Both of them rolled to their feet quickly, circling each other predatorily. Up until this point, neither had seemed willing to use their powers on each other, content with just a good old-fashioned fight.
Chris was busy studying any weak points to attack, just as his Aunt Phoebe had taught him so many years ago. He looked up when his brother spoke.
"So, you hate me," he questioned disbelievingly.
"YES!" he sneered back.
Wyatt snorted self confidently, "Then why are you here?"
Chris gritted his teeth angrily, both the question and his brother's attitude infuriating him to no end. To hell with this, he thought suddenly. He allowed the anger to build, drawing on the feeling to guide his actions. He had pushed the majority of his offensive powers aside when Wyatt turned, for fear of becoming like him, keeping only what he thought was necessary for survival. But at the moment, he didn't care about possibilities or consequences. Right now, he only wanted to wipe the smugness off the Twice-Blessed Witch's face.
The younger man let loose a power that had been unique to him in the history of witches due to his whitelighter lineage. He could spew electricity from his finger tips like his father, but his witch powers, enhanced by his mother's freezing capabilities, transformed the streaks of lighting into short solid objects, effectively creating electric spikes.
Less than two feet away, he was guaranteed not to miss.
He flicked his wrist, sending the spikes barreling toward his older brother.
The elder of the two saw this and powered up an energy ball, releasing it at the same time.
Wyatt was thrown backward into the solarium, the electric spikes burning straight through his shoulder and left leg before imbedding themselves into the wall behind him.
Chris was propelled backward by the medium voltage ball crashing into his stomach and he flew into a glass cabinet, shattering it on impact.
Both men got up again a little unsteady, bruised and bloody. Wyatt limped with the damage from the spikes in his shoulder and leg, while Chris hunched over from the slight burn on his torso and the shards of glass littering his back.
Wyatt taunted at the use of something his brother had sworn off using nearly adecade ago. "Using powers you swore you would never use again, Chris? I feel so special."
"Not nearly special enough." Chris retorted before firing off another round, grimacing as Wyatt easily dodged them this time. "You turned the only woman I ever loved against me, and then you murdered her, you bastard!"
"Then you should have told her to stay out of it!" Wyatt fired back.
"Well maybe I would have if you hadn't been choking me to death at the time!"
"Like I said before, if I had chosen to kill you, we would not be standing here right now. YOU would not be standing. Period." the older man hissed back.
Chris laughed and taunted him just as his brother had done earlier, "Then why are we standing here? Why did you come back? Were you just sitting back there stewing? Mad as hell because I outsmarted you? TWICE."
His jaw muscles twitched before he answered. "It doesn't take a genius to stab someone in the back."
"If you call risking my life to come back here and save you from yourself 'stabbing you in the back', then yes, I guess I did. Though I'm starting to wonder why, cause you're not worth it."
Wyatt tried not to let his brother's words affect him, but somehow, they slipped through his stony façade. His thoughts bubbled to the surface in a fit of rage and he ranted angrily, "You are such an ungrateful little ass. After everything I've done for you. This is how you repay me? By betraying me? Your own flesh and blood for some no good tramp—who by the way was so easy to get to turn on you. I am the only person alive who has cared for you, sheltered you, protected you—raised you! I built an empire. Not just for me, but for us! I've allowed no one else but you to rule it by my side. And you throw it all back in my face!"
Shaking his head at the tirade, Chris answered heatedly, "Well I don't need or want anything you have to offer. I don't want to be like my big brother, Wy. You've become a tyrant. A power hungry dictator that builds his empire on the bloody backs of people he considers insignificant. And yes, I admit it--for five years—you raised me, took care of me when there was no one else left. That's one of the only reason's I came here."
Wyatt was furious. How dare his little brother judge him? And justify his traitorous actions with his so-called good intentions. "To screw up the past in order to change me? Accept it! It's. Who. I. Am. I was born to power—to be king. You have no right to interfere with my destiny!"
Chris spoke with conviction, finally letting out all he had ever wanted to say to his older brother in the past several years. He had never imagined ever getting the chance to speak his mind. Before he had left for the past, his brother had trusted him completely, not having even the slightest inkling of what he had been planning. And so he had never confronted him. But now, he saw no reason to hold back.
"This is not your destiny. You weren't like this before. You think I'm so screwed up because I happen to think it's wrong to terrorize people who refuse to follow you? But how quickly you forget. You're the one who taught me right from wrong in the first place after I had no one else to teach me! And I learned a lot from you before you turned. This person you are now—is not my brother. Him, I loved. But I hate this iron-fist, power-hungry dictator that killed him."
Wyatt clenched his jaw at his younger brother's impassioned explanation. He really seemed to believe what he was saying, he fumed silently. But the older of the two had had enough and decided to test it. He frowned at him in disgust. "I didn't teach you to turn your back on family. So traitor, if you hate me so much—so be it." He turned and waved his hand toward the ceiling, materializing his baby self in Chris's arms.
Chris stared in shock at the younger version of his brother openly, then to his hand that the older version had seemingly conjured into it.
Wyatt goaded him, "Go ahead! Kill him. Get rid of all your problems right here, right now—the monster you hate so much. Before he becomes a menace to society." He waved his hand, directing Chris's arm with the athame toward the unsuspecting child. "DO IT!" he yelled. "He trusts you! Stab him right in the back! After all, it is the only thing you're good at!"
Chris's lip quivered as he glanced at the athame in his hands. As angry as he was, he couldn't bring himself to end his brother's life—in any stage.
He stared at the glistening knife. It would be so easy, and the world would be safe. If the resistance knew he was standing here, so close to putting an end to their woes and still refusing to do it, they would probably kill him on the spot. But he just couldn't do it. He wouldn't do it. Not when they had asked him before he had left for the past. And not now while his brother was encouraging him to take his own life. He struggled against the force of the telekinetic push towards his brother's baby self.
He glared at the mop of curly blond hair and imagined the smirk he knew the older version was currently wearing. He wanted to be as angry with the little one as he was with the big one as he set him down with one arm, the knife in the other.
As soon as the tiny feet touched the floor, Chris only vaguely heard his aunt's voice somewhere behind him call for the sharp object. He and Wyatt had both been too distracted fighting with each other to notice their sudden presence.
All they could see was him towering over the child, athame in hand—as if prepared to plunge it into the toddler's body. Instead, when the knife imbedded itself deep in his own chest—far too close to his heart—he knew that they had come in much too late in their debate to understand the truth. As he felt his life slipping away, he surmised that now they never would.
Before his brother hit the floor, Wyatt yelled and flung out his arm angrily, sending Paige skidding into the living room on her back.
While Phoebe rushed over to grab the baby, Piper and Leo threw everything they had at the intruder.
But Wyatt now had the advantage. He quickly raised his shield, bowling them over and sending them scattered back out of the room, his baby self in tow.
With the shield intact, he rushed over to his fallen brother, hoping it wasn't already too late. "Chris? Please…Not like this."
Chris tried to laugh seeing the water cascading down Wyatt's face, but ended up choking on the blood in his throat instead. "She beat you to it, huh?" he joked.
With one of them hovering over death's doorstep, their differences seemed to have been quickly forgotten, and their sibling bond the only thing that remained strong.
Panicking for the first time in years, Wyatt unsteadily held his hands over his brother's wound hoping desperately for the golden yellow glow. He had been angry with his little brother. Infuriated even. Down right livid! But he had never wanted him to die. Not once. And certainly not by the hands of his own family.
Rapidly loosing his strength, Chris pushed his hand away gently and reminded him. "You can't heal, Wy. You gave that up a long time ago."
Realizing the truth in his words, Wyatt's head quickly shot to his father hopefully. "Heal him," he demanded.
Piper scoffed heatedly, "You must be kidding. He tried to murder my son!"
Leo agreed with her and hung back, glowering at the two men in the shield. "I'll tell you what--lower the shield, and I'll make his death quick and painless."
"Forget it. I was living on borrowed time anyway," Chris murmured to his brother as he tried to nod his head in Leo's direction. Wyatt turned around again, looking his father up and down. Ignoring the seething look of hatred in his eyes, he spotted what Chris was referring to. He was wearing Elder robes. No, he thought with distress. In their timeline, as soon as Leo had become an Elder, their parents had divorced and saw very little of each other. On closer inspection, he saw no wedding rings on either of their hands. And it was too soon for his brother to have been conceived. He began to panic even further as he questioned his brother, "You made him an Elder?" At the slight nod, "Chris, it was too soon. Why?"
"For you. To save you."
"Why do you always have to do such stupid things?" Wyatt admonished.
He smiled slightly, but the twinkle in his sage-green eyes had all but vanished as the life slowly ebbed out of him. "Runs in the family, I guess. Change back," Chris begged him. "Please. I don't want to die with a stranger."
This time, not caring about the petty defiance, Wyatt immediately removed the glamour, shocking everyone in the room with his appearance.
The bright blue eyes; sandy blonde hair; all of his features eerily reminiscent of the small boy that Phoebe held in her arms...
TBC…
Thank you all so much for the reviews. I'll try to respond personally in the next chapter—I have somewhere I'm supposed to be right now, but I wanted to get this posted for you in the mean time :D