Of All the People
Chapter 11
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.
AN: During their 7 day countdown and nothing else to do, Wyatt & Chris are actually talking and remembering these events from 2018, which played a large part in both of their personalities down the line.
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At the manor…2004, day three."…future child of mine,
I call to you,
Through my blood that courses your veins,
With this bond,
I summon you near,
Come to rest and settle here."
Piper waited patiently while the blood from her hand dripped into the pot. Her eyes glistened hopefully as they searched the room for any indication that the spell she had just cast was going to work.
The empath watched as her sister's hopeful demeanor was quickly replaced by despair. She placed her pen down and crossed the room, wrapped the older woman in her arms protectively and removed the knife from her hands. "Honey, maybe you can't summon him that way because he hasn't been born yet. So technically, there is no blood connection yet. You can't keep doing this to yourself."
Piper shrugged out of her grasp and picked up the athame again, all the while shaking it at her sister before pointing it in the direction of the table. "I don't care, Phoebe. So what if this one didn't work, something is bound to. I'm not giving up and neither are you. Now go back over there and keep writing. As soon as Paige gets back with Leo from the underworld, we'll try one of your other spells again. How many do you have so far?"
Phoebe ran her fingers through her short hair as she drifted over to the old desk. She picked up the scattered pages and counted them. "Eight," she said tiredly.
Piper gave her a stern look, "That's it? Well we'll go through those pretty quickly. You need to—"
The younger woman cut her off irritably, not wanting to hear another lecture about writing until her fingers fell off. She knew she was reaching, but she needed a distraction to get the woman off her back for a while. "Don't you need to go and feed Wyatt or something? I think I hear him crying."
She opened her mouth to speak, but then pursed her lips as she cocked her head to the side and listened for her baby. She walked closer to the baby monitor and her shoulders drooped a bit hearing him stir. He would be wide awake in only a few short minutes demanding her attention, giving her less time to concentrate on finding his little brother. "Damn. I'll be back in a little bit. Maybe I'll just bring the playpen up here."
"You said you didn't want to do that. Remember, you and Leo talked about not wanting to expose the baby version to anything else negative because he's apparently already screwed up enough?"
Piper turned away angrily, "You don't have to remind me, Phoebe. I know very well how much of a terrible mother I must be if Wyatt could turn out to be so evil."
"That's not what I meant, and you know it. Something happened to Wyatt, that we obviously had no control over—it couldn't have been something you did or didn't do. Chris wouldn't have come back so far into the past to save him otherwise. If he thought it was something you did wrong as a parent, he would have been trying to give you parenting skills the whole time he's been here, not trying to get us to vanquish every conceivable threat to his brother. So you need to stop beating yourself up over this. We'll fix things. Wyatt is not going to turn out that way—we'll save him."
"Well we can't do that until we get his brother back and find out when the littlest Halliwell is supposed to make an official appearance." Piper suddenly looked up, her features wrought with worry. "When I saw them together, even though they don't look anything alike, Wyatt didn't look that much older than him."
The empath agreed, "Yeah, I'm guessing they're not more than three years apart—four tops."
"What if Leo and I aren't back together in time?"
Phoebe shook her head confidently, "Honey, that's not going to happen. Chris was obviously meant to be born, otherwise, he couldn't have come back from the future." She winked at her sister, "If you're not sure, you and Leo will just have to get together every month when you're—how should I say this, uh—fertile? And then you guys you know—for the next two to three years. It's bound to happen. The bonus is, you'll be a much happier woman," she dipped her head conspiratorially but then suddenly had a thought, "Oh, what about this month?"
Piper shook her head dismissively as she headed downstairs to check on her toddler, "No, no. I'm already past that. I'm sure of it."
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Mausoleum…2004, day three."We never would have had to go through any of that if you had just let me do what needed to be done from the beginning," Wyatt admonished.
Chris only grinned at him, "Oh, come on. You liked all that cloak and dagger stuff. I could tell…"
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Bryson Home for Boys…2018Wyatt wished that one of them had inherited their mother's power of freezing, because then, that would make sneaking Chris into the house much easier.
Hearing footsteps approach, they ducked into a closet to avoid being seen. Wyatt shook his head, wondering for possibly the hundredth time, why he was following (in the loosest sense of the word) the laws and rules of these ordinary mortals. He glanced over at his brother, who had finally calmed down and he wondered no more. Chris had asked him to, and the boy had an influence over him that he didn't think he'd ever be able to explain.
They could have just orbed or cast a spell so that no one would notice, but Chris was dead-set against it for fear of a backlash from those damned Elder's and their obsession with 'personal gain'.
They stayed in the cramped closet for a good hour before they no longer sensed anyone's presence in or around Wyatt's new bedroom.
Chris had started to push the door open, but Wyatt gabbed his hand back and frowned at the boy. 'Now he's going too far,' he sulked. He shook his head at the absurdity of trying to walk into the room, then touched his shoulder and orbed them directly into the room he shared with another boy his age named Ryan.
He opened up the closest and pulled an extra pillow off the shelf before he tossed it to the floor of the cubicle.
Chris stared at him in disbelief, "You want me to sleep in the closet?"
His brother grinned at the reaction and teased him lightly. "Why not, it's big enough for a little runt like you. It's a good thing you take after mom. I bet you could even stretch out in there." When the younger of the two crossed his arms and glared at him pointedly, practically having to stand on his toes to make the look even mildly threatening, Wyatt offered a slight bit of encouragement. "Don't worry, you're only sixteen. It's not too late for you to have a growth spurt pretty soon—I bet you will."
Even as Wyatt said it, he wondered if it were true. While he had inherited the physical stature and appearance of their absentee father, his brother had inherited everything from their mother's side. From his looks, to her slight build, even to a variation on her powers.
Unfortunately for Chris, that fact had usually caused him problems throughout most of his teen years. He was always the smallest boy on any team, and often found himself being picked on by most of the other boys his age because of it. Though no one ever got away with that when Wyatt was around.
With the older Halliwell currently being close to six-feet tall—and still growing—with an increasingly stocky build, it was a rare occurrence to find anyone willing to go up against him. He could be intimating if he chose, and he liked that fact. It suited him—the heir to the throne of Excalibur.
He stared at the dark-haired teen pensively for a moment. Maybe he could do a spell to ensure that the boy filled out and garnered a bit more height, he mused.
Wyatt quickly discarded those thoughts to address the matter at hand, "Now get in. You'll be fine. Besides, my roommate hides his girlfriend in here all the time, so I know there's plenty of room."
Chris shrugged in silent agreement before he perked his head up, "Someone's coming!"
"I know," he said while shoving him in.
His roommate burst in the door just after Wyatt shut it and sat down on his bed. He nodded at the giggling couple. "Ryan, Brittany."
Ryan greeted him a slight smirk and nod of his own. "Brittany's staying over tonight," he informed with an air of confidence, expecting acceptance with Wyatt's usual complacent nod.
"Not tonight," Wyatt said simply, a hint of smile gracing his features at the shocked look on the other boy's face.
"Why not? You've never minded before?" His over-moussed dark and curly hair moved stiffly as he shook his head, trying to gauge the blonde's suspicious behavior. Hazel eyes darted to the closet and he smirked knowingly. "Unless—ohh. Currently occupied?"
Wyatt gave the barest hint of a smile, hearing the unspoken words of appreciation and admiration from the other boy, but refused to rise to the bait and give any indication of whether his guess of an assumed female companion was accurate or not. He leaned back and began absently flipping through a magazine, thinking the subject closed when the coupled turned to leave.
Ryan couldn't contain his curiosity and dipped back to yank open the door. His mouth fell open in shock at not having found what he expected. Glancing at Wyatt, he stammered apologetically. "Oh. Sorry man. I didn't know you were into that kind of thing. But he's kind of young though, don't you think?"
Wyatt rolled his eyes languidly as he rose to help his brother out, "He's sixteen—and why is that the first thing everyone thinks of? Is there some law that I missed that says that people have to look like one another in order to be brothers?"
Ryan let out an understanding sigh. "Oh, ok. So why are you hiding your brother in the closet?"
"Because I'm not sending him back there."
Chris eased himself in front of his brother, hearing the sudden forceful tone to his voice. He didn't want to be any trouble and thought that Wyatt's posturing may have put the young man on the defensive. "Hi, I'm Chris. I'm sorry about all this—but please don't say anything. I just can't go back there."
"Go back where? Hey, if you guys are brothers, then I wonder why they didn't put you in the same place?" he asked.
"I don't know. I thought it was because Wyatt was close to being an adult and I wasn't. So they put me in with some guy named Tate."
Ryan covered his mouth sadly while his girlfriend blanched a bit, "Aw man…"
"Thomas Tate?" she asked.
"Yeah, do you know him?"
She scoffed, "I think everybody who's been in the foster system here knows of him. Mrs. Tate is kind of nice, but Tate is a real piece of work. You were smart to run away from there. You know, before…"
Wyatt didn't like where the conversation was going. He crossed his arms and shot his brother the same stern look their mother always gave to make one of them squirm. "Before what?"
Chris tucked his hair behind his ear and shifted nervously under the withering glare.
Ryan answered for him, "I've heard of that dude. I had a friend that went there for a couple of weeks once before he got adopted. He said just about every kid that's ever been there has gotten some broken bone or another by Tate. Some even worse. Now I know why they split you two up."
Wyatt's anger was quickly building again. The very idea that someone had intentionally set out to cause them more grief than had already befallen them was inexcusable. His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Why?"
Ryan ignored the icy glare he received from his roommate, simply glad that it wasn't actually directed at him. He glanced at the smaller boy and ticked off his fingers, "Because every kid that goes there fits a certain mold—an orphan, under five-feet-five, on the skinny side, and most importantly, looks like they've never been in a fight a day in their life. And no offense or anything, but you fit that—Wyatt doesn't. Tate probably thinks the little one's won't fight back."
Wyatt spun around, his face a mixture of anger and worry. "Chris…" he warned, demanding an explanation.
Chris was nervous. He knew how protective his brother could be of him at times, and he knew that if he mentioned the events from earlier that day, Wyatt would do something rash. Probably getting them both into trouble and causing their separation to be a lot longer than they had planned. Though it was the first he had ever told him, the partial lie rolled easily off his tongue. "Nothing happened, Wy. But I saw him rough up a couple of others and I didn't want to stick around in case he got bored with his regulars." He turned to the couple and asked hopefully, "So can I stay here until Wyatt and I move out next week?"
"Next week?" Ryan asked the older boy asked incredulously. "You think just because you're turning 18 that they're just going to let you do as you please? That they'll let you be his guardian? Sorry man, but it just doesn't work that way. They don't care about any of us. Brittany's older sister is 21—fully legal in every state—and no matter how hard she tries, or how many lawyers she finds, they still won't let her get her little sister out of the foster system. Brit's just gonna' have to wait until she's old enough to get kicked out on her own. We all will. Once you're in, you're in."
Wyatt listened to the young man with dread and he believed him. The way that the judge had completely disregarded his worthiness of being responsible for Chris should have been enough to prove that to him. No one else but Chris had ever been on his side, so why should they start now. He closed his eyes to avoid the look of fear and panic that he knew was beginning to set in the familiar green eyes.
Breathing in deeply, he opened his crystal blue eyes again to meet those of his brother. He squared his shoulders firmly in determination as he sought to settle the panic, "Not if I can help it."
TBC…
AN: I decided to catch up and say thank you to everyone who has reviewed since I last said thanks, because they mean so much to me. But I decided not to respond to each individual comment--unless of course you ask a specific question & I will email you back-- (because I still managed to mess it up last time), and I just couldn't think of anything original to say other than A THOUSAND THANK-YOU'S, so please forgive me and accept this as my humblest apologies. I thought this was a little safer. And lots of hugs to all of you wonderful people for taking the time to let me know what you think of the story:) I hope you still enjoy it as much as I enjoy writing it.
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