Neurotic


Disclaimer: Charmed does not belong to me.

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


Chapter the Fifty-Second

"Cage"


"This is not good," Piper breathed heavily, as Leo kept his hand on the small of her back, making her keep moving, walking a small circuit around the sitting room. "Hospital, I need a hospital-" She gasped, and her knees weakened. Leo caught her, his worry almost tangible. "Now."

"I don't know if we can afford the power of three to be apart right yet," Leo said, his voice low and unsure.

"Paige and Phoebe can orb into the delivery room," Piper snapped.

"Except you would be apart, and I'd really rather you were all together right now."

Piper's insides froze, even as everything inside her was whirling, recognising the disembodied voice before Wyatt shimmered into the room, something white grasped in one hand, Excalibur grasped in the other, and a smirk on his face.

"Wyatt, no!" Chris yelled, and Piper only had time to look at each of her adult sons in turn, before Wyatt threw whatever it was, and the whole world went black.


When Chris came to, he wondered if he was dead and in hell. The floor was hard and red, and he was hot, too hot, sweating, and his entire body was still shrieking in pain.

"Chris," a voice said, soft by his ear, and Chris gravitated towards the comfortably familiar voice.

"Paul?"

"Sleeping beauty wakes," a cold voice purred, and Chris opened his eyes fully and yanked himself upwards to see Wyatt standing, hands on his hips, as he stared coolly down at him. Paul was by his side, one hand carefully on Chris' leg, his eyes flicking nervously between Chris and Wyatt. "We wondered how long it would take you."

Chris blinked. "We?"

"Look around," Paul said, his voice low and quiet in Chris' ear.

Chris looked.

And swore, loudly.

Wyatt laughed.

Chris, Paul and Wyatt were in some sort of cage with thick iron bars, a cage Chris recognised from the Book of Shadows – a cage that restricted any magic use. He remembered his mom telling the story of being trapped in it when Phoebe was in her Queen of the Underworld mode, and recalled vaguely needing the Power of Three to break it.

And from the look of things, they didn't have the Power of Three.

Piper and Leo were in one cage, Paige another, Phoebe and baby Wyatt in a third. Outside the four cages, in the Underworld cave they were most likely in, Cole, Victor and Dan were being held by a group of Darklighters. Darklighters surrounded the cave too, their weapons trained on each of them.

Chris blinked furiously, trying to understand what was going on. Why would Wyatt lock himself in with them, when he didn't have the power to let them out? And if someone else held the power to get them out, weren't they more likely to keep them all in cages and kill them and get rid of the Melinda Warren legacy forever?

The only thing that could get them out of the cages was the Power of Three. And Wyatt had deliberately locked it away.

"Keep going," Wyatt said, his voice soft, his eyes trained on Chris. "You'll get there."

"Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you where you stand?" Chris said, his voice level as his brain tried to sort through the seemingly impossible situation they were in.

Wyatt laughed. "With your bare hands? When you're too weak to stand?"

Chris glared at him, but didn't deny it. He was much too weak to do anything. He didn't even know how long he'd been unconscious. He might not have much time left at all. He edged a look at Piper and Leo, and his heart sank further. Piper was struggling, her face red, her breathing harsh, her mouth pressed together even as contractions racked her body.

Baby Chris was coming. And soon. Possibly only minutes away.

Despair twisted so sharply in Chris that he could taste it. It tasted like stale blood.

"Besides, Paul already tried," Wyatt added.

Chris turned quickly to Paul. He hadn't noticed that Paul's face was covered in bruises and blood.

"I didn't know that Whitelighters could be hurt," Chris said.

"We can't die," Paul said. "But sometimes we can be beat up."

"Why are we here?" Chris said, his eyes moving back to Wyatt's face.

Wyatt laughed. "Haven't you figured it out yet?"

"I don't have the Book of Words, Wyatt," Chris said.

"No?" Wyatt said, his voice light, his eyes cold. "But you must know where it is. And you must know how to use it."

"How did you come to that conclusion?" Chris asked, sounding a lot braver than he felt. He tried to raise his body from the ground and couldn't.

"Because you used its power," Wyatt said. "That's why I made poor little Jenny do the Calling. To see if you would use it."

"To see if I'd lead you to it, you mean," Chris replied.

"Which you didn't," Wyatt said. "I was impressed."

"Ooh, lovely, my evil Overlord brother was impressed. I'm sorted for the rest of my life now," Chris said, making no attempt to hide the sarcasm.

Wyatt laughed again. Chris wished he wouldn't – the sound grated. "Oh, you mean the last hour of it."

Chris looked at him hard.

"You said you weren't going to kill us," Paul said, his voice angry as he moved forwards instinctively.

"I said I didn't plan on it," Wyatt returned slowly, "unless you gave me no choice. But that's not what I was referring to, is it, Christopher?"

Chris exhaled, and looked down and to the side. He couldn't look at Paul, even though he knew Paul was staring at him in concern.

"Chris?" Paul said. "Chris, what's he talking about?"

Wyatt laughed again. "He used the Book of Words. But no one's supposed to do that. The human body's too frail for that much power. And he's used it too many times."

"What do you mean by that?" Paul demanded angrily. "Chris, what does he mean?"

Chris looked at Paul's furious, protective expression full on. In despair, he whispered the truth, but his words caught on and echoed through the chamber. "It means I'm dying."

"No!" Paul stared at him in horror, and then held his hands over Chris' body. "No, I won't let that happen. I won't." Desperately he ran his hands above Chris' body, his eyes screwing up in concentration. He pulled them back and looked up at Wyatt, angry. "Get us out of here, you freak, get us out!"

"I can't do it on my own," Wyatt said.

"Then I'll help," Paul said, through gritted teeth.

Wyatt smiled. "The cost will be great," Wyatt said.

"I don't care," Paul said. "Just don't hurt him." He turned to Chris, who stared at him with wide eyes. "I can't lose you, you're the last one left."

"But not if the cost is too great," Chris said fiercely. "And this is Wyatt."

Paul looked at Chris helplessly.

"He's already said he'll do anything," Wyatt said. "And the fact remains that there is only one way out of here."

"Then we'll stay in here," Chris said. "We'll stay in the cages. And we'll all die." He looked at Wyatt. "And your younger self will die. And our whole family. And the Charmed Ones." Sadness welled up in him, alongside the pain, but he didn't care. "But it might be worth it, to stop your tyrannical future."

"So you'd let your family die, and abandon the world to a future of demons and no Charmed ones to stop it," Wyatt said. "Well done, you're beginning to sound like me."

Chris looked at him, trying to be angry, but was angrier with himself, because Wyatt was right. He was sounding like Wyatt.

"But you can live," Wyatt said, his voice level. "You and Paul and me. We could live forever. The three of us. Side by side."

Chris glanced up at Paul, who looked just as confused. "What do you-"

And he froze, suddenly understanding what Wyatt meant by all of this. His head whipped up and he stared at him in surmounting horror.

"Yes," Wyatt said. "You always thought that power corrupted me, and I know you didn't agree with some of the changes I made to the world. But think about it. You'd be there. And Paul. We'd have all the power in the world, and could make the decisions together. I always wanted you to rule with me."

He stepped closer to Chris, and knelt down, putting one hand lightly on Chris' chin. Chris couldn't get himself to look away. "Paul's already said he'll do anything to save you. If we say the words, we can be the Charmed Ones. We can organise the world however you want. The whole world will know our names. We won't have to hide who we are. Bianca can be yours again. Melinda would live. I know I made a mistake terminating them, but I was just angry. I wanted my brothers with me."

"We'd make decisions together?" Chris asked, his voice tremulous.

"Chris, no," Leo shouted, only for a Darklighter to lean into the cage and hit him. Leo stumbled back, and Piper called his name, and Leo reluctantly returned to her side, helping her breathe. Chris looked at them, torn. His birth was really only minutes away.

"We'd be brothers. Together. Unstoppable. If you two want to destroy demons, then we'll kill all the demons. Whatever you want." Wyatt's voice was soothing, hypnotising. "We'll have the future we always dreamed of."

"We'll bring mom back," Chris said, a little unsteadily.

"Chris," Paul said.

Chris looked at Paul, a little wide-eyed, a little upset. "Think about it, Paul. We wouldn't have to hide. And we could make things better. We could have the perfect future we always wanted. Maybe we've spent our whole lives fighting a battle that should never have happened, if we'd stuck together…"

Phoebe and Paige started shouting, but Chris blocked them out of his hearing, concentrating on Paul.

Paul looked absolutely torn as he stared at Chris, but then visibly sagged. "All right," he said. "You want to say the words, I'm in."

"Help me up," Chris said, feeling dizzy and light-headed, pain still coursing through him, but everything else in him felt leaden, as if everything was leading to this in his whole life, everything was leading to this car wreck, and he couldn't stop it.

Wyatt held out a hand, and Chris took it. Paul stood by Chris' other side, supporting him, and Wyatt held forth a piece of paper.

Chris looked at the words, and swallowed.

"We don't have to do this," Paul said, his voice low and desperate.

"No, we don't," Chris replied evenly.

"And with Wyatt… It won't be a good Power of Three," Paul added.

"It's that or our whole family dies," Chris said. "Phoebe. Paige. Mom. Melinda."

Paul's eyes darkened, and he took the other side of the paper, holding it out in front of them.

Chris knew Phoebe, Paige, Piper, Cole, Dan, Victor and Leo were all shouting now, all screaming at them, offering the family up as a sacrifice, telling them they'd rather die than have an evil Power of Three, and he started to cry, even though he didn't want to. The tears burned and blurred his vision, but he swallowed and began to read, hearing Paul and Wyatt's voices intermingle with his own. As wrong as it sounded, their voices in harmony also sounded right.

"Hear now the words of the witches, the secrets we hid in the night, the oldest of Gods are invoked here, the great work of magic is sought. In this night and in this hour, I'll call upon the ancient power, bring your powers to we brothers three, we want the power, give us the power."

There was silence as they finished, the words ringing out. Chris could feel his family's stares, the disbelief that they'd gone through with it tangible on the hot air.

"Did it work?" Paul's voice was small.

"Let's try it," Wyatt said, his voice grim. "The power of three shall set us free. The power of three shall set us free…"

Chris took up the chant, the words thudding against his heart like the heaviest betrayal of them all, and he could hear Paul starting to say the words before Paul burst out laughing.

Chris stopped in confusion as Paul bent double, laughing and wheezing.

"You two really thought that would work, didn't you?" Paul said, through his laughs.

"I-" Chris said, then dropped Wyatt's hand and stumbled back, looking at them both in confusion.

"But it can't work," Paul said.

"Because you're not a witch but a Whitelighter?" Chris said, confused.

"It should have worked!" Wyatt said, snarling.

"It can't," Paul said again, before laughing. Wyatt stormed forwards to hit Paul, but Chris held him back with a burst of strength he didn't know he had, which abruptly worried him that it had worked.

"Why?" Wyatt demanded. "Even if you weren't willing, Chris and I were. It should have worked."

Paul stopped laughing, and he was suddenly serious. "You know, I always wondered why I existed. I always suspected at the beginning of my life that it was to stop Chris being turned. But then he always seemed so incorruptible, so I stopped thinking that. But in the end, I guess it's true. I was here to stop evil turning you." He looked at Chris.

"What-" Chris began, his eyes searching Paul's face for a coherent answer.

"For the Power of Three you need three brothers," Paul said. "You only had two." He smiled at Wyatt.

Chris stared at Paul. "What are you saying?"

"Piper's not my mother," Paul said, his face still serious. It softened slightly. "Paige is."

Chris' disbelief joined with the pain and he sank to the ground again, on his knees, staring at Paul. "That's not true," he said, but he knew in that instant it was. It's what Cole was going to tell him, before. It's the truth he'd seen in Paul and Pippa's interaction a few weeks ago. And it was a truth he'd probably seen and denied his whole life.

"That's a lie," Wyatt said, furious, angry.

Chris saw a movement in the corner of his eye, and knew it was Paige, standing up in confusion and denial and surprise.

"Yeah?" Paul said, his voice low and harsh. "Prove it."

"NO!" Chris said, his voice angry, and Paul looked at him in confusion, until he realised what he'd just said.

"Too late," Wyatt said. He gestured at Paige and one of the Darklighters. "Shoot her."

Paige's mouth dropped in horror, but she wasn't fast enough. There was a blur as Dan tried to move but he wasn't fast enough either.

One of the Darklighters fired.

A second later, a dark arrow was protruding from her stomach, and Paige had fallen to the ground, Dan supporting her, a silent 'O' dying on her lips.

"I always wondered," Paul said, "if I only existed for one thing." His dark eyes flickered sadly over Chris, first cold and distant, and then with warmth. "And it's not true. I existed for you. To save you from being turned. My own purpose in life was just that."

"What?" Chris blurted out, confused. "No. You had more purpose, you did, you're supposed to exist, you are, you're supposed to exist, not just for me. Paul."

Paul smiled, didn't respond, and then turned to Paige.

"I always loved you the most." He looked at Paige and Dan, his eyes wet with emotion, his face creased into an apology.

Paige stared at Paul, then touched her stomach, the arrow still protruding, and then stared upwards in muted horror.

"No," Paige breathed as realisation flooded through her, the realisation she'd been pregnant, and now… "No!"

"I was always glad I was your son," Paul said, simply, his eyes locked to hers. "Don't be sad. I had a wonderful life because of you."

And then he disappeared.


T - 1