Neurotic


Disclaimer: Charmed does not belong to me.

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


Author's Notes: So, June 9th, pretty happily, I uploaded chapter 53 and 54 onto fanfiction dot net, sat back, dusted myself off, drank a whole bottle of my favourite caffeinated soda in celebration and congratulated myself for the second time in my life actually finishing a multi-chaptered fic. (The other one was a CardCaptor Sakura one, under another penname.)

And then I sat and waited for weeks, wondering why NO ONE LIKED IT. Then I went home, and had no access to the Internet for weeks. And then I opened my inbox last night to a small flood of reviews. I sat and opened them quite happily, thinking, finally, they've read the end – how did you all like it? Maybe you all didn't like the end, but had still left some criticism how I could write better…

So I read 'em, only to read they were chapter 52 reviews, asking why I was leaving it there.

And that's when I realised.

I'D UPLOADED THESE LAST TWO CHAPTERS, ALL RIGHT, BUT ONLY ONTO DOCUMENT MANAGER. I HADN'T PUT THEM ONTO THE STORY.

I'M SO LAME! WAH!

So, yeah, I hope you enjoy the last two chapters of Neurotic! Thanks for coming along for the ride. If you've any questions, ask them in your chapter 54 review (please do tell me how you've enjoyed the whole story as I've never written anything so long, and I'd like to do it again, but better, so please tell me how to improve!) and I'll answer them by PM.

If you've got this far in the story, thank you, you're the best!

Roll on the end of Neurotic!


Chapter the Penultimate

"Brother my brother"


"He did ask me to prove it," Wyatt said, his voice still callous and strong, but Chris detected a hint of uncertainty beneath it all.

He didn't blame Wyatt for once. Uncertainty was a feeling he could definitely empathise with.

How could Paul be just gone, just gone, just like that? There was no way this was genuine… Chris shook his head in despair, sliding to the ground, his hands sliding down the bars with a reluctant squeak.

Despair was tangible, and felt like the silvery sour taste of blood, strong in his mouth. Ahead of him, Paige was still clasping her stomach in horror, blood pouring out, with no way to stop it. Phoebe was kicking and screaming to no effect. Piper was whimpering with pain from labour, Leo's hands on her.

And Chris was still dying.

Things, Chris thought, were going well.

"You didn't have to prove it that way," Chris said. "Talk about crushing an ant with a boulder." He was aware of the disaster in the background, with Paige bleeding, demons holding Dan back, and Piper in labour, but he couldn't do anything about it, so tried to blank it out as best as he could.

Paul's ceasing to exist…

It could have so easily happened to Chris, over the last few months, and he hated how numb he felt. But there was time for tears later.

If we survive this.

"You're talking about clichés at a time like this?" Wyatt demanded.

"You killed our brother at a time like this," Chris said, sinking against the bars, his voice high-pitched with disbelief.

"Except he wasn't our brother," Wyatt said, crossing his arms, his tone surly. "And now we're stuck in here forever."

Chris thought about that for a moment, and realised Wyatt was almost right. "You're right," he said stupidly, and then started to laugh.

Wyatt shot him a weird look. "You're not doing that thing where you laugh instead of panicking, are you? Because that's so tired."

"Actually, you're almost right. But you could be right. I don't know," Chris said, then laughed some more.

"You're not making any sense!" Wyatt said.

"No shit." Chris giggled for another moment, feeling incomprehensibly weary, and then his face slid into a solemn expression. "Trapped in here, we'll all die."

"No shit," Wyatt mimicked, rolling his eyes, and sinking to the ground in frustration.

Chris looked across to his mother, his aunts, and his grandfather. "I came to the past to stop Wyatt. Not to cause the death of the Charmed Ones." His voice broke. "I could fulfil my aim, but lose all of you."

"Chris, you're not making any sense," Phoebe said.

"Like that's something new," Wyatt said.

"I can get us out," Chris said, a little unevenly. "I can get us all out."

"That's impossible-" Wyatt started. "Unless you do have the Book of Words. I was right, wasn't I?" He climbed to his feet, his eyes sparkling with triumph. "You do have it!"

"No," Chris said, his face steeling. "I don't."

"Then how-"

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

The words rang out in the cave to a stunned silence, and Chris took advantage of the silence to grab onto the bars and heave himself to his feet. "I can't believe that to get rid of you, Wyatt, that the world should be deprived of the Charmed Ones. I won't believe it." He gripped onto the bars. "Spellcasting!" he yelled, "O, P, E, N!"

A bright light filled the cave, so bright Chris had to throw one arm over his face, and there was a rush of heat, then some sort of explosion. He was bodily thrown through the air backwards, and when he opened his eyes, dust surrounded them.

When it cleared, he could see that the spellcasting had worked.

To be honest, it surprised him every time it worked. The first time, he'd been five years old. There was a television show, sort of an adventure quiz show for kids, that he'd been absolutely addicted to. It was called Knightmare VR and was a remake of a British CGI show for children made in the late 80s and early 90s. Kids would be blindfolded with a helmet and guided around a virtual dungeon by three of their friends, and have to pick up spells and objects to defeat the evildoers and get to level 3 to defeat the evil Lord Fear.

Chris found a release in that show, believing it to be proof that most people knew about magic, even if they didn't know it really existed. He always wanted to be one of the dungeoneers and walk around the dungeon, even though it was only computer generated, but as it was only for children in the United Kingdom, he couldn't apply for it.

Instead, sometimes he'd run around the garden with a bucket on his head, or watch TV with a clipboard on his knees, writing down clues to help them survive the dungeon.

On Knightmare VR, the kids would collect spells, but they didn't have to chant a rhyme or wave their hands. Chris thought it was so cool that they didn't need a poem to get spells to work. All they had to say was the word 'spellcasting', followed by the kids spelling out the word – and spelling it backwards to dispel it.

Chris had tried it one day, stood in the sitting room on his own, watching the kids on screen battle a twenty foot ogre. They said: "SPELLCASTING! L, E, V, I, T, A, T, E!" so he did too.

And ended up hovering by the ceiling, his hands grasping outwards, unable to get down.

He yelled for someone, but no one came. They couldn't hear him. So he floated around by the ceiling uselessly for a few minutes, watching the kids battle the ogre and win.

Then they dispelled it by shouting: "DISPEL! E, T, A, T, I, V, E, L!" Chris copied it, and sank to the carpet in a heap.

Just in time for Aunt Phoebe to come in and yell at him for making so much noise when he knew she had to work from home that day. Chris apologised, showed her his grazed knees, told her he fell over, and she abruptly became much nicer and cleaned him up, and told him not to get so excited over a kids show or they'd stop him watching it. He never told anyone after that what happened, fearing they'd stop him watching it, and he kept absolutely silent when Piper enquired why there were greasy handprints over the ceiling.

It was a decade and a half later, with extensive research and testing, that Chris discovered the power came from the force that defined the universe, and in that same year when he discovered he was it. It was an integral part of him, but it did not define him. He could use the power, but every time he did, it wore him out. When Wyatt definitively took over the world, he knew no one could ever find out what he was, or he'd be used to death.

It was still that same year when Chris discovered he didn't have to say 'SPELLCASTING!' to activate the power, he could just will it, but after fifteen years of quiet and small experiments, not yelling the cry of 'SPELLCASTING!' was a hard habit to drop.

But the power wasn't really meant to be used. Chris didn't know how he knew, and just supposed the knowledge was part of being the Book of Words – he knew in the same way he knew he was the Book. He was just supposed to exist to keep the Book alive, but could become a conduit for the power of the Book in extreme cases.

The most he'd ever used it was for really small, impossible kind of things. Getting out of tight corners that Wyatt had trapped him into. Only once he did something big, and it was what he'd done earlier – the force field. After that time, he'd spent a week in a coma.

Now he was forcing himself to stay awake. He'd used it too many times over the last week, from transferring Piper's pain to himself, to the force field, to opening the impossible cages.

"You are the Book of Words, hm?" Wyatt looked at him, interestedly. "So if I do this-"

Wyatt brought up his hand, and sent six energy balls deflecting off in different directions into the cave, careering into the others. Chris jerked his hand and they all flung into the demons keeping Dan, Cole and his Grandpa in custody.

"Chris, don't!" Cole shouted. "Don't use that power!"

"Why not?" Victor asked. "He can kick Wyatt's butt!"

"Because it's killing him," Cole said, his eyes trained on Chris. "Use the power any more, and it'll kill you."

"That makes sense," Wyatt said, his lips curling into a horrible smile. "Hm, join me, or die. That sounds a familiar offer, doesn't it."

"I came here to stop you," Chris ground out, even as his legs collapsed beneath him and he crashed to the floor. A blur in the corner of his eye told him Phoebe had rushed to help, but Wyatt brought up his arm and she smashed backwards. Cole caught her before she hit the ground.

"Dad, help Paige," Chris said quickly. Leo nodded and reluctantly left Piper for a few moments as he quickly healed Paige, who stayed in a ball on the ground, sobbing.

"I could kill mom," Wyatt said, even as Leo ran back to Piper's side, standing in front of her protectively. "Then you'd cease to exist. I'd be fine."

"You've already killed her once," Chris said through gritted teeth. "I won't let you do it again."

"How?" Wyatt asked, his voice almost taking on a purring quality. "We've already established that you're not powerful to do anything to stop me any more?" He flicked his hand casually, and a grieving Dan lifted into the air and then smashed against the wall, falling unconscious to the ground. "You really should have left us both to rot in the cages. Now you've no chance. No power for any spells."

"I have power for three small spells," Chris said, then narrowed his eyes. The air shimmered in front of him, and a small syringe appeared, the needle glinting. Chris clumsily grabbed hold of it, his arms shaking, wheezing as he tried to breathe.

Wyatt laughed. "You really think I'm going to let you inject me with poison?"

"It's not for you," Chris said, and picked up the needle, and jammed it into his chest. He grunted in sheer pain as he pushed the liquid directly into his heart, and his body tensed up as he yanked it out with both hands, and slowly clambered unsteadily to his feet, his mouth slightly frothing, his eyes bloodshot.

"Adrenaline," Wyatt said, his eyes narrowing as he shifted his body into what was unmistakably a fighting stance. "It'll give you fifteen minutes, tops, in a weakened state. Congratulations."

"I've still got two summons left in mind," Chris said, spitting the words out as he teetered on his feet.

Wyatt held his hands up in defence, but said, "Try your worst."

"Spellcasting, S, U, M, M, O, N!" Chris held his palms out, and the middle of the cave shimmered. A large stone with a sword stuck in appeared, alongside a bewildered looking man.

"Excalibur and Gideon?" Wyatt sounded confused.

Gideon registered what was around him, and tried to bolt, but Chris held out his hands. A weak strain of white light spluttered first, terribly pale, but obviously enough to hold Gideon there.

"How about this," Chris said. "You're so sure that you'd be like this whatever happened, because good and evil doesn't exist. That's what you believe. Do you believe it right down into the core of your very being?"

"Yes," Wyatt said, lifting his chin haughtily. "I do."

"So even if I'm right, and Gideon did something to you when you were a baby to turn you, as I believe it, evil… It shouldn't matter. It might delay your rise to power slightly if he did do something to you, but it wouldn't change your core ideology, that there is no such thing as good and evil," Chris said.

"What are you trying to say? Spit it out before you do die," Wyatt said.

"Kill Gideon," Chris said. "If I'm right, you'll cease to exist. But you think I'm wrong. If you take Excalibur, and kill him, and nothing happens, then you're right. You'll have unshakable proof. And I'll have unshakable proof, that good and evil doesn't matter. If that's true… I know the spell. I can use the last of my strength to transfer the Book of Words to you."

"You'd do that?" Wyatt said.

"Yes," Chris said. "I believe in Good and Evil. If there's no such thing… If Gideon didn't turn you evil, if power is all that does really matter… Then I don't want anything to do with it."

Wyatt walked forwards and pulled Excalibur out of the stone, his eyes cool and hard.

"In front of these witnesses, you vow to transfer the Book to me if I kill him and nothing happens?" Wyatt said, his eyes lighting up with the prospect of all that power.

"That's all you have to do," Chris said.

At that second, a cry filled the air.

Baby Chris was born.

Wyatt made his decision, and with his hand extended, Excalibur flew forwards and solidly connected with Gideon.

And the instant Excalibur hit, Wyatt turned surprised dark eyes to Chris, and then promptly vanished.


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