Disclaimer: Charmed is not owned by me.
Summary: Wyatt's coming into the future to fetch his wayward brother … at all costs.
Chapter 3: The Unexpected Help
"Well then it's too bad for YOU!" Wyatt threw an energy ball at Chris, but before he could react, someone shimmered him out. Along with Piper, Phoebe, Paige, Leo and Cole.
The six landed awkwardly, crash landing on the floor. Behind them, a voice spoke. "Sorry 'bout that. It's a little hard to shimmer people without having contact with them."
Chris quickly got onto his feet, hand ready to sent the person flying into the wall. Behind him, Paige and Phoebe rushed to Piper, checking her over and inspecting that she had not injured the baby.
"Relax girls, I'm fine. Just a cut on my arm."
"Leo! Heal Piper now, quick." Paige hurried him.
Leo knelt and the familiar golden glow encompassed his hand, and Piper's wound slowly closed up.
Cole looked around, and voiced out, "Where are we? Who brought us here?"
"Me." said the voice and she walked out of the shadows.
Cole took in the girl and a fireball formed in his hand, ready to throw. "What are you doing here!" He spat.
Seeing Cole's reaction, the Charmed Ones quickly poised themselves to attack.
Chris however, narrowed his eyes and let his hand fall. He repeated Cole's question, "What are you doing here?"
"God Chris, I just saved your life. The least you could do is to say thanks." she rolled her eyes.
"Maya, I have no time for this. What are you doing here?"
She sighed, "Wyatt found me out. He sent bounty hunters after me and since you weren't in the future, I couldn't go to the Resistance. The only logical choice was to come here."
"You used the time portal in your father's cave?"
"Yeah."
"All of you, relax. She's on our side."
Cole shot Chris an incredulous look. "How can you be that sure? She's one of Wyatt's high level minions you know."
Chris turned his gaze from Maya, and spoke directly to Cole. "And she's also the Resistance's top informant."
Cole stared. His gaze flicked from Maya to Chris. "But I'm the one managing the spies now. If she's a spy, how come I don't know it?"
"Well, I didn't really tell you all the identities of the spies. Some trust me with their life, like Maya here. I can't possibly just hand over their names, could I?"
Cole extinguished his fireball and said, "I'll trust you, for now."
"So, where are we … whatever your name is." Paige asked.
Maya answered, "You're in an abandoned warehouse near the San Francisco Port. There are
extensive wards all over the place. It'll block us from Wyatt for now. And the name's Maya." She finished with a smirk.
"Okay, I don't care what your name is. But I want answers! Firstly, why is Wyatt here? Secondly, what is Cole doing here? Thirdly, what-" Piper got cut off before she could say anything else.
"Like I said before, future consequences. You can't know anything you aren't suppose to know, and if that happens to be everything," Chris shrugged, "Tough luck."
"But Wyatt coming here changes everything. You have to tell them more that what they've been told. They need the information to help us stop Wyatt from turning evil, as you so eloquently put it." Cole pointed out.
Maya snorted at Cole's last statement. "Assuming that Wyatt even turned evil. I don't get why we don't just kill his baby self and get it over with!"
Before Chris could even return a retort, Leo snapped. While he was an Elder, who was supposed to be a pacifist, the father part of him couldn't help but get angry at the current conversation. They were talking about killing his son!
Leo blindly threw an electrical bolt at Maya, who widened her eyes in shock, unable to move. Chris moved so fast that he was just a blur. He pushed Maya to the floor, and received the bolt for her.
Maya scraped her elbow, and the wound bled red, instead of the demon blood black. Chris flew backwards and his back met the wall for the second time in a long day.
Chris slid down the wall and used the wall to pull himself up. He bit back a groan. Make that a very long day.
Cole was by his side in seconds, and after helping Chris get up, he stared at the agitated Elder in disbelief. "Leo! In case you missed the memo, we're on the same side here. How could you aim a bolt at Maya! That could have killed her."
Maya threw a murderous look at Leo, and ignored her wound. Summoning a fireball, she threw it at Leo.
Leo dodged and all war broke out between the two. Electrical charges, fireballs and energy balls shot out.
Finally Phoebe shout out, "Hey! Empath here! Snap out of it before I assess Piper's powers and blow the two of you up!"
The two stopped and glared murderously at each other before backing off. Cole and Chris came over from beside the wall.
An awkward silence fell, which was broken not long later by Paige. "Answers?" she asked the future people meekly.
Chris opened his mouth to say 'future consequences' but Cole beat him to it.
"We could give you answers on certain things, but not all of it." he said carefully, fearing Chris' anger.
To his surprise, Chris gave no comment. It seemed he agreed, but Cole was sure when the Charmed Ones asked something Chris didn't want them to know, he'll cut in.
Still, at least Cole got to tell them something.
He looked Phoebe straight in the eye. "You'll ask, we'll answer."
The sisters and the Elder exchanged looks. This was the only chance they were ever going to have. And they would have to be very stupid not to treasure it.
Paige fired off, "What were you guys talking about when you said things like, managing spies, top informant and the what resistance?"
Maya answered that, "The Resistance is a group of people dedicated to fighting against Wyatt. Our numbers, including their families, reach to about 16 million or so. We managed to wrest Home, or Australia here, from Wyatt's rule. Actually, Chris here did most of the work.
Home's the only place really safe from Wyatt, and both Home and the Resistance is governed by the Council. Cole here is a Council member, while Chris is the Council Chairman, effectively making him leader of the Resistance."
Cole took it up, "Formerly when Chris was just a Council member, he managed the entire network of spies that we have all over the world, spying on demon bases and trying to find out what Wyatt does when he travels to different parts of the world.
Now that Chris' Council Chairman, I'm the one managing it, while Chris deals with massive paperwork … which is still piled on his desk." He added as an afterthought.
This was big news to the four. It isn't everyday that you hear that your whitelighter from the future is actually a leader of 16 million people. They wondered how powerful Chris really was, to be able to go head on with the wielder of Excalibur.
Piper voiced something she didn't understand. "If you're the leader of this Resistance, then by right, Wyatt should be trying to kill you or something. However, I don't think he was trying to kill you just now. Yes, you got slammed into a couple of walls but that wasn't really getting injured. So what is Wyatt trying to do with you anyway?"
Cole opened his mouth to say something. Chris, knowing it went along the lines of, "He's Wyatt's brother," immediately sent him a glare to silence him.
Cole didn't survive so long as a demon by being stupid. He wisely kept his mouth shut. Maya however, didn't have that much experience with things. "That's because he's Wyatt's lov-"
Panicking, Chris telekinetically forced Maya's lips together, effectively shutting her up. Maya had intended to say 'Wyatt's loving brother' but Chris cut her off at the wrong time.
Of course, the sisters and Leo had filled in the blanks … and gotten them wrong.
Chris cringed at the shocked looks on their faces. No doubt they had thought he was Wyatt's lover. Just the thought along gave Chris nightmares.
Ewwwwww… that was just plain perverted.
Chris stormed off, no doubt going somewhere to sulk.
Leo was thinking, "Times are changing …"
Paige was thinking, "So he's gay. Wonder how he hid that."
Piper was thinking, "I wish I did not ask that."
Phoebe was thinking, "Did Wyatt call Cole uncle at the attic? Maybe I heard wrongly but I'm almost 100 sure he said Cole was resurrected, and remarried me …"
Phoebe voiced out her thoughts, "Are you my future husband?"
Cole, caught unawares, could only nod.
Paige snapped out of the 'gay train thought' and exclaimed, "Don't we ever get rid of you!'
Cole started to defend himself, and Maya slipped off to look for Chris.
The warehouse was pretty big, but she found him sitting on a bench. She had no idea where the bench came from, but since it was there …
She sat down beside him, and for awhile, silence surrounded them.
"Maya … do you ever miss your parents?"
It was a question that Maya had not expected. Maya's family was far from normal. Her demonic father could have been the Source of All Evil if he wanted to. But her mother coming along changed that.
Her mother had been a witch, and a powerful one. When she died, she was turned into a whitelighter, which was rare. Few whitelighters were witches previously; most of them were humans.
Her mother retained her witch powers as a whitelighter, which made her a very powerful person. Her father sought to seduce such a woman to his side and give birth to an heir. His heir would have had the powers of whitelighter, witch, and demon.
In the end, her father succeeded, but fell in love in the process. They both ran off, hiding from demons and Elders and whitelighters, having a quiet life.
Maya had the same life, until someone, for their own untold reasons, led the Charmed Ones to vanquish them.
Maya had of course sought revenge, and befriended the witchlighter. She agreed to give up on her path of vengeance when she found out that the Charmed Ones had been led to vanquish her family.
Chris and Maya remained friends, even though Chris' family didn't know. Their relationship could probably progressed further, had it not been the death of Piper and Wyatt taking over the world.
Now, faced with such a question, Maya didn't know how to answer. She decided to go with the truth. "I miss them … a lot."
"What would you do if you had a chance to see them again … but there's one catch. They don't know who you are, and you can't tell them."
Maya thought she knew where this was going. "I would take it."
Chris chuckled. "I have this chance you want. And when I first went to the past, here, I was … happy I guess. To see Mom, the aunts … even Leo. But when I reached here, everything was so messed up. They treated me with so much hostility. I guess I was shocked. I thought Piper would take one look at me and know I was her son from the future. How many people have told me I look like my mother?" A sad smile crept up his face.
"Don't understand why I was hoping for them to accept me. They never did in my own time. Why would they now? Piper and Leo never treated me like their son. I guess I can't really blame Paige, Phoebe, Kyle and Cole since they had their own families. But couldn't they at least noticed me?" Chris said bitterly.
"Maybe there's still some semblance of a child in you … who still craves for acceptance from his family." Maya quietly stated.
"There was once a child in me. A child who was innocent and naïve. That child slowly died as his father never once looked at him, his mother never concerned herself with him, his aunts basically ignored him, and his uncles not knowing he existed.
By the time he reached his teens, there was probably still a little bit of the child left. But that child finally died when he was fourteen, in a deserted building. Alone, and no one noticed until two weeks later." Chris stated.
Maya knew Chris had always been bitter about his death. How no one noticed. Piper could have cried all the waters in the entire world to show how sad she was when they found Chris' corpse, and Leo could have looked like the most remorseful person in the entire world … but that did not erase what they did to him for years … what drove him to death.
"Chris … maybe you didn't just come back to save the future from Wyatt. Maybe you came back to change your future too. You don't have to hide your identity from them. They can know."
Chris laughed a bitter laugh, which echoed around them. "How many times must people be told? I never mattered, Wyatt was the one who did. It doesn't matter that in the new future, I die again at the age of fourteen. This time, I won't come back alive. That's because Wyatt's good, the world doesn't need my saving, and the Tribunal doesn't see fit to bring me back to life."
"You can change that. Tell them the truth. Let them be aware what their actions brought about. They'll be careful, thinking about what to do. It'll even be easier for us to do things."
"Letting them know I'm their son and nephew … it's much easier doing things without them knowing. The child who needed their love is dead. What remains is just a person born of neglect, pain and war."
Chris got up and left, most likely going off to see how many more secrets Cole had blurted out. Maya was left alone.
Chris, you might deny it for all you want, but you know deep down in your heart, the child that was full of innocence and naive is still there. Perhaps a part of that child had indeed died when he was fourteen. But a part of him is still there, wanting acceptance from his family. And it's up to you to acknowledge it.
Back with the Charmed Ones, Leo and Cole, Paige and Cole were having a quarrel.
Paige exclaimed, "Don't we ever get rid of you!"
Cole defended, "Someone resurrected me before I could even make the decision for myself you know!"
"Then why didn't you vanquish yourself and get it over with!"
"I'm not that stupid to reject a second chance at life you idiot!"
"Well maybe you should try being that stupid! And I'm not an idiot!"
"You sure seem like one acting the way you are immature brat!"
"Who are you to call me a brat! You're not that much older than me anyway!"
"Actually I'm more than a century all, but I guess you tiny-sized brain couldn't register that fact!"
Paige paused to consider that, and continued, "So what if you're more than a century old? You still got vanquished by us and that reminds me, you need to be vanquished again! By the way, do us a favour and tell me who resurrected you so I can get rid of that person as well!"
"For you information, you three were the ones who brought me back in the first place!" Cole shouted out before clapping a hand over his mouth.
"God, Chris is going to kill me for that." he muttered, as the Charmed Ones and Elder shouted, "WHAT!"
Paige floundered and regained her composure while Leo was frowning. "We brought you back!"
"Yes, I believe that was what I said." Cole said irritated.
"You must have gotten some demon to possess one of us so we would bring you back, didn't you?" Paige said crossly.
"No, I didn't do anything to you three. In fact, I was just having a nice time enjoying myself in hell when I got pulled back onto Earth." he said sarcastically.
It was at this point of time that Chris came back.
Looking at the two quarrelling people who were trying to kill each other by sending death glares, Chris sighed.
"What did you tell them?" The question was directed to Cole.
Cole just shrugged and said, "I might have accidentally told them there were the ones who brought me back from my vacation in hell."
Chris couldn't be bothered to find the energy to shout at Cole. So, he just said, "Don't do that again …"
"What is it?" Phoebe asked when she saw Chris' attention waver.
Piper and Leo looked around, suddenly overcame by a strong cold.
"Get out, now!"
Cole didn't bother asking why. He grabbed Phoebe and shimmered. Leo grabbed Piper, while the other two half-whitelighters orbed out by themselves, all five of them automatically heading for the Manor.
The large door of the warehouse was blasted open seconds after they left. Wyatt strode in, along with his remaining demons.
It was at this moment that Maya wandered back. Squinting at the sudden strong light, she let her eyes adjust, and caught sight of the imposing figure standing directly in front of her.
Wyatt's hang shot out and gripped her wrist tightly. He smirked. "Too bad Chris managed to slip past me. No matter, with you with me, he'll come running soon enough."
Maya lost herself to panic and tried to shimmer out, not succeeding as Wyatt's presence blocked out her powers.
Wyatt waved his hand to leave behind a flaming message, before flaming straight into the Underworld, where he would await his brother.
Back with the good guys, the six orbed/ shimmered into the Manor. Wyatt was gone and Piper immediately rushed to the nursery to check on her son, Leo following closely behind her.
Paige went up to the attic for the Book of Shadows, while Phoebe hesitated, wondering would it be better for her to stay with the two men, in case their intentions were far from good.
She trusted them however, and she didn't particularly feel like being with her future husband right now, as well as her neurotic whitelighter.
She turned and headed for the attic, trailing after her younger sister.
Chris however, felt that something was wrong. Someone was missing.
It hit him faster than a thunderbolt could. Maya. She was still in the warehouse.
Chris orbed there without even offering an explanation to Cole. There, floating in mid-air were words, formed by fire.
"Your first vanquish …"