Neurotic


Disclaimer: Charmed does not belong to me.

Summary: His name is not Chris Perry. It's Christopher. Christopher Halliwell.

Author's Notes: Urgh, I lose at the Internet. I'm still fighting this battle, and I will finish this! grits teeth Honestly, thank you so much for all your lovely support, it's because of you that I'm fighting past the real world and getting through this. Thank you all so much.


Chapter 45

"Betrayal"


When Wyatt stopped pacing, Phoebe resisted the urge to laugh at him, not wanting to provoke him. Last time she'd provoked him, he'd disappeared off for a whole day, leaving his baby self frantic and without food, and when he came back – reluctantly with milk for his baby self because he didn't want his baby self dying of starvation – he smirked for a good hour.

"What's wrong?" Phoebe eventually asked, with Wyatt stilled at the window. Phoebe had thrilled with hope when seeing that window in the building she was imprisoned in, but it hadn't been an iota of help.

"My amnesia spell broke," Wyatt said. "Still, it served its purpose."

Phoebe could see Wyatt's reflection in the glass. He was brooding and didn't look too happy.

"And what purpose was that?" She asked, boldly. Normally he didn't answer her questions. She was getting quite used to the rhythms of her captivity, and she didn't want to appear too strongly to be attempting escape any more. That way, if she finally managed it, it might be enough to take him by surprise.

"Time," Wyatt said, turning to her, baring a surprisingly toothy smile at her. "Isn't that what life's all about? Time. Space. Power."

"I thought life was about family. Happiness. Love."

"So deluded," Wyatt said, softly, almost sadly.

"Yes, you are."

Wyatt laughed out loud. "I'd forgotten how delightfully witty you could be," he said.

"You see, that's what happens when you kill family members," Phoebe said.

"Oh, I never killed you," Wyatt said, in a sing-song voice that almost purred with delight.

"Right," Phoebe said. "You've cheered up."

"Yes, I have," Wyatt said, with a feline smile. "With your words of family… Blood relations… You've just reminded me how I can try and scry for the Book of Words."

Phoebe looked at him quizzically.

"Legend has it that is has a rather… sanguinitated… binding," Wyatt said.

Phoebe pulled a face, even as she bobbed baby Wyatt up and down on her knee. He was asleep. Lucky him. "Sanguinated… Blood?"

"The blood of the universe," Wyatt said, delighted. "And what's closer to the blood of the universe than the blood of someone Twice Blessed?" He pulled out a knife from a sheath on his leg, his dark eyes coldly watching her as he did, and Phoebe couldn't look away as he deliberately cut deep into his hand, and then spilled the blood onto a crystal he pulled from another pocket.

The blood dripped down the crystal, and he padded over to a large table with a map.

Phoebe held her breath as he suspended the crystal over the map. Words from just a couple of weeks before filtered through her thoughts, winding her. A Map will show you the way. Wyatt had been there too, during the reading. And she knew better than others, sometimes fortune telling could give two meanings – the one you think of right away, and the second meaning that you only realise in hindsight. You look at the world through a narrow perspective, but you will understand.

And to Piper: …your son, you three will hurt him, quite deliberately. You will mean him harm and you will deal him harm.

Maybe it didn't just mean Chris. Maybe it meant Wyatt too, and Paul. Or any of them.

She wished suddenly that the crystal in Wyatt's hand wouldn't move, but it did, and he smiled at her as it started to circle around the map.

Phoebe narrowed her eyes at it, and furiously meant him harm.


"I told you he didn't say he'd orb us here." Cole's voice was petulant as they walked up the street, past all the fancy cars and gleaming sidewalks.

"I'm sure he did," Victor said, frowning, his hands in his pockets. "And I still don't think we should have left my apartment – if he does orb in, we won't be there."

"Whitelighters don't just orb to places, they can orb to people," Cole said, "and Paul knows both of us."

"I guess being blood related to him helps," Victor said.

Cole responded with an uncommitted grunt, unable to tell Victor the truth – that Paul was not blood related to him in the slightest. "He probably just forgot," he said instead, looking up the long street. "Besides, the further we are from that monstrosity in your apartment that you call your couch, the better."

"Hey, leave Lumpy alone," Victor said. "He's an important piece of furniture."

Cole raised his eyebrows.

"When Chris told me his secret, he revealed I was an awesome grandpa, and he liked Lumpy," Victor explained.

"I always knew Chris was a bit of a nutcase," Cole said. "He actually said he liked Lumpy?"

"Yes," Victor said quickly, "he said he and Lumpy go way back-- Well, maybe he didn't use the verb like, but he implied it."

"Hm," Cole said, turning the corner up to the Halliwell mansion, worried at how quiet is seemed.

"I don't know what you're implying with that hm but I don't like it," Victor said.

Cole rolled his eyes and pressed the doorbell. Victor had been in that mood since they'd put the phone down, and then a blast of pain had hit both of them, and then they remembered just why they were there in Victor's apartment.

Things had started to make a whole lot of sense after that. Cole had thought it was weird that they were just hanging out, but hadn't been able to put a finger on why he was actually there until the spell – for it had to have been a spell – wore off.

Unfortunately, the confusion was then replaced by a brief clash of despair, and then a warm rush of hope as he did remember Paul's words. Phoebe's alive. Cole could live on those words, he could breathe them in forever, he could fly with them. She's alive! Remembering Paul's words struck a memory in him, and he did remember that Paul had said he'd come and get them.

Damn.

It meant Victor was right. But he wasn't going to admit it to his infuriating ex-father-in-law any time soon.

Besides, there were worse connotations to the fact that Paul had said he'd collect them. Because he hadn't. And no one was answering the door-

There was a shadow of movement, and then the door clicked open. Piper stood there, breathing hard, heavily pregnant and heavily worried. "Come in," she said. "I'm sorry Paul didn't come to get you. But there's been a development."

She didn't say any more for a while, as Victor insisted on fussing over her, getting her sat down before she explained.

"What development?" Cole asked as soon as Victor had plumped one last cushion behind Piper's head.

"Right," Piper said. She pulled a wry face. "This might take a few minutes."

"We have a few minutes," Cole said, impatient.

"Dan figured out who's going to turn Wyatt," she said, and told them.

Cole stared.


There was a lot of staring going on in Gideon's office.

Chris stared at his double in the mirror in consternation, a million thoughts flooding through his head about the implication of such a magical construction, and the implication of magical theory and psychology- but the thought that stood out most clearly in his head was mostly irrelevant. And was about his hair. Long. Eww. He shook his head to dispel that thought, knowing he needed to be thinking logically right now, and then shivered as he noticed his double mimic his actions exactly. At the same time.

"This is weird," he breathed, startled at his double's echo.

"More than weird," Paul and mirror!Paul said.

All four of them shivered.

Chris opened his mouth to speak, then saw his mirror double was doing the same, so shut his.

"I guess you're good then," mirror!Chris said, disdainfully. "Stands to reason you'd shut up for the greater good of the situation." His voice was thick with mocking. "Guess I'll get to the point. You hair, by the way, is horrid."

"My hair? Your hair?" Chris automatically said, pulling a face.

"Gideon," mirror!Chris said, ignoring him, sneering. "I'm guessing the Gideon's of both of our worlds have been communicating through mirror to kill Wyatt."

Chris nodded, agreeing.

"So we need to cut off their communication point, and then cut off… well, anything of him, really," mirror!Paul said, laughing.

Chris looked over at Paul, who was fidgeting, and looked a little pale.

"You can't be specific when it comes to violence, can you?" mirror!Chris said to mirror!Paul. "No wonder you were able to masquerade as good for so long."

Mirror!Paul stuck his tongue out at mirror!Chris. "Stick it back in or lose it," mirror!Chris warned.

"Ahem," Chris coughed loudly, getting their two evil doubles to look back at him. "My turn to speak." Mirror!Chris rolled his eyes, but kept his mouth shut to let Chris speak. "If we both turn our power on this mirror, it should destroy it. I know it's the proof we need to prove that, uh, our Gideon is evil, and yours good, but if anyone should pass through onto the other side-"

"-the Evil and Good balance would tip, and who knows what would happen," mirror!Chris finished for him.

"Ooh, that could be fun to try, though," Paul and mirror!Paul said, their brows furrowing as they both contemplated it.

"Not in a million years," Chris and mirror!Chris snapped at the same time, before looking at each other and laughing.

"As messed up as this is, we need to do this," mirror!Chris broke in quickly before Chris could.

"Agreed," Chris said.

Mirror!Chris nodded up at him, and they both raised their palms up. Chris thought suddenly that it was a horrid shame this piece of magic had to be destroyed, as it would be weird to see what their world would be like with good and evil reversed, but they couldn't risk it. Like his mirror self said, if someone went through it, even accidentally, the entire universe would be altered, probably permanently. With regret, he told Paul to step back, and saw mirror!Paul step back so knew Paul was stepping back too, and he flicked his wrist.

A chair flew through the air and slammed into the mirror, shattering it.

The shards of the mirror fell to the floor in a pile, sparked once, and then were dull. The broken pieces weren't even reflective any more- the spell had completely broken.

"That was weird," Paul breathed. "Bizarro world."

Chris tried to cover up that he was just as weirded out by saying dismissively, "You and your comics."

"This is it, then," Paul said. "That magic's illegal, been banned for centuries. Gideon's our target."

"It appears so," Chris said heavily, suddenly sinking down into a large, intricately carved wooden chair. "I can't believe it, though." He looked up at Paul. "It's hard to marry the horridness of the future with Gideon. He was supposed to be our friend." His eyes dropped to the floor. "And he was the one that tried to-" He choked on the words. "Tried to kill Wyatt. And turned him instead. And made out future a living nightmare."

Overwhelmed, Chris shook his head, and then stilled, almost lifeless.

Paul dropped to his knees beside his brother, and put his hands on Chris' arm. "That's what we're here. To stop that living nightmare." Their eyes met, and Chris nodded slowly.

"All this time, and we could have stopped him," Chris said slowly, his tone lighter.

Paul nodded. "Yeah. Go figure. All this time, and we could have solved it in five minutes if we'd known," he said. Chris felt that stab in him, somewhere down low, somewhere that was still horribly grieving for their mom, a place that was weirdly strangled by Piper's presence in this time. "But Gideon will pay for this evil," Paul said.

"You promise?" Chris said.

Paul was about to, but that's when the chair Chris was sitting on let out a small cracking sound. They only had time to look at each other in confusion, and then the floor disappeared beneath them, and they fell into a deep black nothingness.


Wyatt was still smiling. The crystal was spinning, getting near some target that Phoebe strained to try and see but couldn't.

The crystal was edging closer to some spot on the map, and Phoebe wished and wished something would happen to Wyatt to stop him, to stop this. She didn't know what would happen if Wyatt found the Book of Words, and she didn't want to know. It couldn't be good, especially with that malevolent smile still playing on his face.

Please, oh please, oh please, Phoebe prayed, desperately. And something must have heard her.

The crystal spun faster for a second and then flew out of Wyatt's hand, impacting against the wall and shattering into a million pieces.

He turned with a desperate howl, running to the shattered crystal in disbelief, picking through the shards, hoping the answer was still in them.

"But that's impossible," Wyatt said, his head tilting slowly. "The Book of Words can't just disappear from the universe, it is the universe! It-" He froze, his head flying backwards. "Unless- No. It can't be."

"What?" Phoebe demanded, getting to her feet, her hands gripping the bars of her prison. "What can't be?"

Whatever had struck Wyatt to make him go into this semi-trance obviously inhibited his normal reticence in explaining things like this to her. "It disappeared from the universe. Chris and Paul disappeared from the universe, I felt them, in my head, just gone," he said.

Phoebe's stomach abruptly fell, and her knees weakened alongside it, and she had to grip harder to the bars to stay upright. "What do you mean they've disappeared?" she demanded. "Are they dead?"

"They've gone beyond dead," Wyatt said. "They're alive. That's not the point."

Even though it seemed like the point to Phoebe, she let him continue, letting him talk, hoping she could use it later when she was free from this place.

"What is the point?" Phoebe said lightly, not wanting to disrupt him from this talkative mode he was in.

"It's too big a coincidence," Wyatt said, "the Book of Words disappearing at the same time as Chris and Paul?" He shook his head. "No wonder Chris has always been so resourceful!" He clapped delightfully, lowered his head, and stared at Phoebe. "Don't you understand what this means?"

Phoebe could only shake her head.

"Chris has the Book of Words," Wyatt said. "He had it all along. And all I have to do is find it, and take it from him…" He grinned, all fury and power and a force of destruction. "And then it's mine."


T - 8