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. The "Film Noir" storyline is a good 'un, which is why I've nicked and altered it. It doesn't belong to me either. Sigh.
A couple of you mentioned Chris' 'mistake' – about Wyatt being of age to adopt Paul and Melinda. Basically, he was partly confused as to what he's told who, he was partly lying and there were clones, too. Besides, Chris never said Wyatt DID adopt them, he said Wyatt was OF AGE to. Yeap, he's one sneaky (but pretty) lad.
Chapter The Twenty-Eighth
They followed Eddie Mullen as he shuffled into his inner office, chucking his hat onto the hat stand as he went. Dan closed the door behind them.
"You don't seem too happy to see us," Dan said, hesitantly.
"Well, should I be?" Eddie said, arching an eyebrow at Dan as he took out a cigarette and lit it. He held it to his mouth.
"What're you doing?" Paige questioned, suddenly irate. "Don't you know those things'll kill you?"
Eddie smiled sarcastically and drew in a whole mouthful of smoke. He exhaled it languidly. "Well, if the smokes don't get me, the bullets will." Paige didn't know what to say. Eddie looked away, doubtful. "Just like they got Dan."
"Excuse me?" Dan looked at himself.
"Who's Dan?" Paige questioned brusquely, ignoring Dan's outburst.
"My brother. A couple of corrupt cops shot him. They were trying to stop him
from getting to the Falcon before they did," Eddie explained.
"The Falcon," Paige said, in awakening awareness. "What is it with this Falcon? Why does everyone want it so badly?"
"'Cause we wrote 'em that way, that's why. It's their whole motivation."
"Very impressive," Paige said. "Quite a magical world you boys have concocted here."
"Dan was the creative one at school. It was his idea. I was just along for the ride. It was supposed to be fun." Eddie's face was suddenly drawn with melancholy.
"Wait, school?" Paige blinked. "You're from the magic school?"
"Yes," Eddie said, looking curious. "You didn't find this book in the library?"
"Someone sent it to us," Paige said, furrowing her brow. She looked at Dan. "It must have been future Wyatt. He'll have known what the book does. It had to have been him – anyone else would have opened the book and gotten sucked in."
Dan nodded, while Eddie looked a little confused.
"Future Wyatt?" Eddie questioned.
"Yeah, he's an evil overlord from the future, who has come back to the past to wreck havoc. If we don't get out of here soon, the future could be screwed," Paige said, matter-of-factly.
Eddie looked quiet.
"So why haven't you left yet?" Dan asked, wanting to break the suddenly oppressive mood.
"I can't," Eddie said plaintively. "The only way out is to end the story. Can't do that until the Falcon's found."
"You don't know where it is?" Paige asked.
"No," Eddie said, looking at the bottom of his shoes a little. "Dan and I laid down the fundamentals, the beginning. The story's got a life of it's own now."
"When, uh, when did you write the book?" Dan asked, looking around at the setting.
"Not in the thirties," Eddie said, with a bit of a laugh. "We started writing it yesterday." Paige and Dan exchanged a look. "October 30th."
"Which year?" Dan asked.
"1974, morons," Eddie said, rolling his eyes and taking a drag from his cigarette.
"It's 2004," Paige said, her voice suddenly quiet.
"Two thousand and-" Eddie's eyes bugged. "But we've only been in here a couple of days! Dan only died yesterday-" He stopped, his voice breaking.
"You guys must have created some sort of different time in here, one where no one ages..." Paige said. It sounded as if she was musing out loud.
"No," Eddie said bitterly. "They just get killed. Thanks to me."
"This is ridiculous, all right?" Dan spluttered. "Look, kid—"
Whatever Dan's outburst was going to be was lost forever as the phone spluttered into life.
Eddie picked it up. "This is Eddie. Hold the line, please." He looked up pointedly at Dan and Paige. "Now, would you all mind ..." He tilted his head at the door.
"Yeah, no problem," Paige said, and she and Dan left the office.
"We had noodles," Chris announced as he walked through the door, Victor in tow, upon sighting Paul.
Paul looked up from the book and scowled, waving a pen at him. "I hate you," he growled, narrowing his eyes.
Chris stared at him. "What happened to your hair?"
"What do you think happened?" Paul demanded, shaking his newly shortened locks. "Piper happened, that's what."
"Aw, but he's so cute," Pippa gushed as she rounded the corner with a pile of books in her hands. Chris glowered at the books.
"They don't look like demon volumes to me," he said, his voice bordering on a full-on growl.
"That's because they're not," Pippa said, rolling her eyes as if Chris was an idiot. He supposed she might have a point in the making that gesture, as he did bring himself to the point of exhaustion yesterday, but still.
"Then. What. Are. You. Doing. With. Them," Chris ground out. "I hope your answer is that you plan to throw them at demons, otherwise-"
"They're to put Piper's feet up 'cause she's getting cranky," Pippa explained. "And she has swollen ankles, and it's all your fault," she added, in a mischievous undertone. "Piper's already taken a pair of scissors to Paul, so unless you want her even crankier, then you'll let me pass."
Chris reluctantly moved out of the way, by moving into the sitting room. Piper was sat on one of the armchairs, a ridiculous amount of cushions on a pile on the floor.
He stared.
"Why aren't you using the stool?" He blurted out. "It's right there."
Pippa and Piper exchanged a look, and then looked over at the soft stool, and then at Chris. They blinked at the same time.
"You," Chris said, pointing at Piper, "are pregnant. It's excusable. You," he added, pointing at Pippa, "are just stupid. No excuse."
"Chris-" Pippa exclaimed, a little startled. Hurt washed into her clear brown eyes.
"Chris me later," Chris sniffed. "I've got some work to do."
Without looking at any of them, he brushed past Victor and headed upstairs to the Book of Shadows. Victor watched him go, his face awash with concern for his young grandson. "Do you want me to go?" Victor asked gently.
"No, I will," Pippa said, with a steely determination. "I've been putting this talk off for a while." She looked with understanding at Victor, and then quietly followed Chris up the stairs.
"What talk has she been putting off?" Piper asked in bewilderment.
Victor shrugged, but his eyes were clouded. Chris was still very angry about his childhood, or lack of. I'm going to have to keep Piper down here, or she'll hear something she shouldn't.
"What do you want?" Chris snapped, not looking up from the page he was currently engrossed over. He made a few marks on a notebook.
"I want to talk."
"Then talk."
Pippa sighed, and crossed the room. She laid her hands hesitantly on the top of the Book. "Face-to-face," she said gently.
Chris reluctantly lifted his gaze. "Then talk," he stubbornly repeated.
"I was wondering when this would all hit you," Pippa said softly, moving across and dropping to the sofa, her hands knotted on her knees as she looked up at him. Her whole stance gave off the impression of pleading.
"When what would all hit me?" Chris' voice was mocking. "The fact that, oh, I don't know, we have just over three weeks to find out who turns Wyatt, and in the interim rescue Paige and Phoebe?" He looked at her, fury tilting his eyebrows. "I'm sorry to tell you this, mom, but I've been here for a year, and every day I knew this deadline was coming!"
"That's not what I meant," Pippa said quietly.
"Or maybe it's even further back you mean," Chris said darkly. "I saw the world's destruction years in advance. My whole life has been leading to this."
Pippa's hands shook, and she looked down at them, distractedly.
"But I guess the truth hurts," Chris said evenly, turning back to the Book. His own hands weren't that steady.
"I didn't plan to leave you!" Piper said, fire in her voice and on her face. "I didn't know he was going to ki- to try and kill me." Her voice wavered, although her eyes did not. They were trained directly at her second son. "I've lost some of my life too. And I've lost one of my kids. I do not need to lose you too."
"You already have," Chris said softly, with hatred. "I love you, but I can't pretend I'm okay with this any more. I've been trying to, god knows. This deadline is more important than any of us. And it's a hell of a lot more important than you and me."
He didn't have to look at her to know she was crying, and it made him bristle rather than feel for her. He'd been fucking trying his best to be calm and collected, but seeing her made everything so confused. He loved her and he hated her, he wanted to embrace her and tear her skin off with his hands all at the same time. He wanted to live and die with her, without her, all and none of the above.
Leo was right. About the hatred. He hadn't told Chris that it kept on going, even when you didn't want it to stop, but then Chris hadn't admitted then that he'd hated Pippa. And he did. He hated her so much. Maybe accepting it will help you move on, a voice from his memories said, and it sounded so much like Leo that he shook it away.
"You weren't the only one who lost eight years that day," Chris said quietly.
Pippa looked up at him. His image wavered through the hot tears she couldn't stop, and she brushed them away angrily. When his image cleared, she could make out the water in his own eyes, the water she knew wouldn't fall until he'd left her presence. She'd heard it, before, once upon a time. When you abandoned him. When you abandoned him even before he thought you were dead.
Silence settled on them, like a thick jumper that was scratchy and stifling.
"I need some space," Chris said, eventually. "I can't forget what you did to me, how you made me feel."
"All right," Pippa said, her voice broken, her face reddened and darker, like a bruised peach. "I just-"
"You just what?" Chris looked at her, and Pippa recoiled at the pain on his face, nestled deep in his eyes, like a glowing ring.
"God, Chris, you don't have to treat me like this," Pippa said, pleading again. "I'm your mother."
"Yeah?" Chris questioned briefly. "You haven't been my mother for the last twenty-one years." Anger rang in his voice, rang into the attic, rang in her ears like a death knoll. "So why are you starting now?"
It was the tiredness in his voice that got her, that winded her and made her breathless. She nodded unsteadily, got to her feet, and left him alone in the darkness and drifting shadows of the attic.
Drifting down the stairs as if she was almost in a dream, she almost made it to the hallway stairs before everything crashed down inside her. She lowered herself to the carpet, unable to stand, tears still standing like war wounds on her cheeks. I made this, she realised. I made him like this. It's my fault. She vaguely registered that maybe Barbas was still hanging around, and didn't care. She deserved to feel this depressed.
"Mom?"
Pippa whirled at the sound of the word, using the banister behind her to lever herself up. She opened her mouth to scream, but no sound came out. Eyes like deep whirlpools smirked at her, grabbed her by the wrists, and only when the strangled scream emerged from her throat, resounding around the house, did she realise that it was too late. Wyatt had her, and maybe this time there would be no escape…
