Neurotic


Summary: "My name's not Chris Perry," Chris said, as if it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say. "It's Christopher." He paused, almost reluctantly. "Christopher Halliwell."

Disclaimer: Charmed and Chris don't belong to me, doo dah, doo dah, I'm not making any money from this, oh, dah doo dah day.


Chapter The Seventeenth


Chris was still staring at his hands. No one quite knew how to console him. He looked more spooked than anything else, as if one wrong thing would send him running off, startled.

Pippa walked over to him, and knelt down by his feet. She looked up at him, eyes searching his drawn face. "You're not evil, Chris."

"No." His eyes flew up to meet hers. His face was drawn and pale. His voice was filled with an edgy bitterness. "You're so sure now."

"-Chris, look, I'm sorry about everything that happened before- we had no right to say that of you," Pippa said, incomprehensibly to those watching on. She put her hands on his. "We should have believed you, and we didn't. We let you think you were going crazy, and that was inexcusable. But you're not... You're not."

He wrenched his hands away, suddenly angry. "Yeah," he said, his eyes alight with fury. He got to his feet, and walked out to the back of the house.

"You let... him think he was going crazy," Paige's eyes widened as she took in the words. "What the hell?"

"Oh, god, oh, god..." Piper looked like she understood better. "It was when Wyatt was doing evil things, wasn't it? Chris- for some reason, Chris saw them, and you didn't-"

"Yes," Pippa said, the admission hurting her. She closed her eyes, and collapsed right there on the floor, leaning against the chair Chris had sat in and staring out in the direction he'd left in. "I couldn't believe that Wyatt was evil, and Chris paid for it..."

"So he really, really is close to the family in the future," Paige said, musing out loud. "Do we adopt him, or something?"

Pippa's face closed over. "I can't tell you that," she said, her voice wavering. She looked as if she wanted to get up and talk to him, but hadn't the strength left in her limbs to do it. "I can't-"

"Want me to go fetch him?" Paige asked, getting to her feet matter-of-factly.

"You know, I think I will," Dan said quickly, leaving the room before any of them could stop him. The girls exchanged a glance and shrugged.

Chris sat with a thump on one of the benches in the back garden. It was lovely out here. He didn't know why the girls didn't spend more time outside... Actually, in theory he did. If a demon attacked, it was easier to conceal if it happened inside than out in the open.

He could feel someone behind him even though the grass had hidden the sound of their approach, and he turned, expecting Paige or Pippa. Dan's appearance surprised him. Dan was standing with his hands in his pockets, and an analytic expression on his open face.

"You're from the future," Dan said slowly. Chris nodded, not knowing what else to say, and looking up at Dan because if he didn't, he knew he'd stare at his hands. And I don't want to look. I don't want to remember what I did... "Okay, laugh at me if I'm wrong, but I just got the strong impression that your name isn't Chris Perry. Just the way you flinched a little when they said it. And there's other things that..." Without asking permission, he sat down next to Chris. "...that seemingly don't add up about you. But tell me to go away if I'm being too pushy. You've known me for what? Ten minutes?"

"Does it help if I say I've known you longer?" Chris said, looknig straight ahead and not at Dan.

"All right," Dan said, although the words made him feel a strange combination of uncomfortable and... right. "It helps a little." He spent a moment to take in the appearance of the other, and knew he'd jumped to more or less the right conclusion. "I think I know who you are," Dan admitted quietly. Chris turned to him then, his face set fixedly. It was a mask that supposedly gave the impression of composure, but terror lurked beneath the surface of those sea-green eyes that Dan knew so well. They were Leo's eyes. He'd hated that man long enough to recognise his facial features in another. "And frankly, I can't understand how the girls haven't seen it."

Chris looked away, and exhaled, hard. "To be honest, me too. I guess people don't see what they don't want to see."

"Ain't that the truth," Dan said softly. "It must be hard."

"God- you've no idea." Chris' eyes were scanning the landscape, as though looking for something that wasn't there. "How did you-"

"You have Leo's eyes," Dan said. "And when you look at Piper- both of them- you just look upset."

"I don't mean to be." Chris' voice was filled with a self-hating note that Dan didn't like to hear from someone so young. "If we don't stop Wyatt, he'll destroy the world as we know it. I can't let that happen." He clenched his fists helplessly in his lap. "I won't."

"You say that with such fervour, and you think you're turning evil?" Dan questioned. Chris opened his mouth to retort, and then shut it stupidly, looking up at Dan.

Finally he smiled. It was like the first rays of sunlight on a snowdrop. "Yeah, you're right. You won't tell them, will you? Who I am, I mean..."

Dan shook his head. "No. That's your job."

Chris shot him an exasperated look. "That's what Grandpa said too," he said, sounding almost as if he was annoyed, but the look on his face told Dan otherwise.

"He's obviously a wise man," Dan said.

Chris grinned.

"You going to come inside?"

"Yeah..." Chris breathed. He looked up at Dan. "Thanks."

"No problem," Dan said. "One thing I have to know though. Is Leo- was Leo good to Piper in your time?"

Chris shut his eyes as if it hurt. "To Piper? Oh, yes."

"Good," Dan said. He felt a rush of curiosity and wanted to question him further after that reply. He must have worded it that way deliberately... He shoved that line of questioning aside, and walked back into the house, smiling as Chris followed him.


"Leo. There you are."

Leo looked up from his seat to see the smiling but concerned face of his old mentor, Gideon. Leo blinked a few times. "Hi."

"I came to enquire how you are. Several of us have been... worried... at your distance over the last week or so," Gideon said. "I, in particular, am worried that you've been spending too much time down there."

Leo sighed. "With the Piper from the future coming... a lot's going on for the girls. It's hard to leave them in the care of another, especially-"

"-when you miss your son so much" Gideon said.

"Yeah, that's it exactly," Leo said.

"But you said in your report that Chris was trustworthy," Gideon said, looking puzzled as he sat next to Leo.

"Oh, he is," Leo said. "I'd trust him with my life. He-" Leo knew he should tell them the truth, that Chris was his son, but felt somehow that with his previous pain it would be almost like whinging. "He's a good person."

Gideon just nodded. "Does he have any idea what will turn Wyatt?"

Leo shrugged. "He's had a couple of new ideas, but none have panned out yet. The girls visited a fortune teller, and seem to think maybe it's a friend, someone we know, that will betray us."

"A friend," Gideon's face was heavy. "That would be disastrous indeed."

"Yeah," Leo said. "So they're chasing up that lead too, calling old friends, seeing where they are, researching them. They've even put us on the list," he added with a laugh.

"Us?"

"Elders," Leo clarified. He grinned conspiritorially at his mentor. "They even put you on the top of the list. Don't know why, maybe you're more evil than I am."

Gideon laughed along with the joke, but it was a little forced. Leo put it down to the stress he'd been having with the school.

"I've resigned from the school," Gideon said, heavily, as if he'd read Leo's thoughts.

"What? Why?" Leo said, astounded. "I mean, I knew you were going to, but-"

Gideon's face clouded over. "Yes, I've had letters galore, but I swore to myself no innocent lives would be lost. I would be compromising everything I stood for if I let myself continue." His gaze was heavy. "I think the school may even close."

"No!" Leo blurted out. "You can't do that! A whole generation of magical children will be left even more susceptible to magic!"

A door shut in Gideon's eyes. "Be that as it may, I cannot. We must pray someone will take over the job. As for I, it is too late..."

They settled into an uncomfortable silence. "I see," Leo said. He frowned suddenly, as if remembering something. "Actually, I think I have an idea of who could possibly take up the job..."


"Sail home, as straight as an arrow,
My yacht shoots along on the crest of the sea;
Sail home-"

"-you can stop caterwauling like a kitty on speed, I'm here," Paul snapped out irritably as he orbed onto the beach. Wyatt's projection was already there, sat out staring into the water.

"Did you get the potion?" Wyatt asked, cat-like, without turning around.

"Yes. And I put it into Piper's coffee," Paul said, as if reciting a long and boring lesson. "And I hung around outside in time to see Chris spurt flames out from his hand and storm off."

"Good," Wyatt said. "I hope that wasn't a note of regret I heard, though, in your voice."

"No, of course not," Paul said, but he sounded unsure and Wyatt did not believe him.

"Yenene didn't trouble you much?" Wyatt said. "She can be... strange... to those who have never met her before."

"She said you'd already paid her for the potion," Paul said, "although I can't see how"

"You shall know when it's time, and not sooner," Wyatt said, sounding peeved. This time he turned around, looking at Paul through slitted eyes. "You are having second thoughts." It was not a question.

"I don't want to be caused to not exist," Paul said, drawing himself up to his full height, and trying to stare Wyatt down. "It's a natural fear, I think, for any messing up the timeline."

"Chris started the messing up," Wyatt said. "And you know I would rather you existed. Although, if you are going to be ridiculous, and turn... you know the price."

Paul swallowed. "Would I be so stupid? Chris betrayed me, they all did. I'm not going to 'turn', I know the truth. That good and evil thing got old a long time ago."

Wyatt seemed satisfied by the answer, and he turned away again to stare aimlessly at the sea. He leant backwards on his hands, and resumed the singing in a soft golden voice.

"Sail home, as straight as an arrow,
My yacht shoots along on the crest of the sea;
Sail home, to sweetest Melinda,
In her dear little cell
She is waiting for me..."

Paul shivered as Wyatt disappeared, as he thought of his cousin, trapped, scared... alone. Chris never went back for her, either. He left me for dead, and left her too, and I won't. I won't. His eyes lingered where Wyatt had sat. He would callously harm Melinda if he betrayed him, and he knew it. Hang on, Mel. I'll get you out. I promise.

Walking over to where Wyatt had sat, Paul looked out at the landscape, hugging himself, and then, on a whim, looked down to where Wyatt had sat. His handprints were still there, outlined deeply in the sand, his footprints pointing out towards the sea...

Projections through a time portal don't leave any physical marks, a voice told him from his memories, and he swallowed it back. Oh, mom, I miss you so much!

He swallowed, and knew how come he was being so closely watched. He was glad he had not betrayed Wyatt even as he'd had the chance.

Wyatt wasn't projecting himself to the past. Wyatt was already there.