Disclaimer: Nothing in the Charmed world belongs to me and no copyright infringement is intended.
A/N: Alrighty then. I had mixed responses to Chris turning evil but I guess that was to be expected. Chris is supposed to be the hero isn't he. Well don't worry, he still is. Anyhow Chris may seem a little emo in this chapter but it's just because he's having to process alot really quick. Don't worry that wonderful strong, cocky Witchlighter will be back in next chapter. Now on to the chapter.
Chapter 4 - The Pain of a Brother
The only sound heard throughout the attic was chalk clattering to the floor. Wyatt looked up to his family seeing the shock he had caused in them all, then he turned around to look at his brother who was standing numbly next to the wall one hand holding him there as if the connection was the only thing keeping him standing. "I'm sorry," Wyatt whispered praying that his brother wouldn't hate him for bringing such horrible news.
Chris' head started to move back and forth in denial as he swallowed hard past the lump that was forming in his throat. He tried several times to force words past his lips until they finally took form. "That can't be. Look at me. I'm not evil."
Wyatt stood and took a few steps towards his brother. "I know you aren't now, but that's just because little Chris hasn't been turned yet in this time period," Wyatt tried to explain. "If you step through that portal though… You'll merge with the older version of yourself that I left back there and I can't say if you'll be overtaken by the evil or not. You can't go back there."
A strangled sob was heard from Piper as she clutched her baby tighter. She didn't want to believe Wyatt. They had already gone through this once. It wasn't fair. She didn't know if she could handle the worry over losing another child to the evil again. Especially not the precious baby she held sleeping in her arms. Leo immediately stood and went to Piper wrapping his arms around her trying to shush her sudden tears.
Phoebe and Paige were both rooted to their spots staring at the two brothers on the other end of the room. Neither knew what to say to help the situation.
Chris' eyes scanned his older brother and deep in his heart he knew he saw no deception there. His body suddenly slid down the wall to the ground and he wrapped his arms around his legs his face falling to his knees. "What have I done?" came the muffled words full of pain.
All three sisters stood and Leo moved forward ready to comfort Chris, knowing how much pain those words held but Wyatt motioned them back as he stepped forward and sat on the floor next to his younger brother. They weren't touching but Chris could feel his presence there. "You didn't do anything wrong, Chris. You being here just somehow managed to bring your existence to someone's attention. Whoever it was that got to you saw an opportunity to control a very powerful Witchlighter. And considering the fact that your younger version hasn't developed any powers yet it makes him a much easier target than I was."
"Wait, are you saying that whatever happens to Chris happens soon?" Leo asked panic again gripping him.
Wyatt nodded sadly. "In about six months from now."
"And let me guess, we don't know who does it?" Paige asked bitterly. Of course that would be too much to ask.
"No, whoever the demon was he was a shape-shifter and very powerful at cloaking himself." Wyatt knew he didn't have much for them to go on but he'd give them as much information as he could, future consequences be damned.
"Do we at least know how it was done?" Phoebe asked wondering if maybe they could find a way to counteract the damage.
"No, Chris was taken and it was never determined how he was turned." Wyatt looked at Chris who had raised his head but still had said nothing else. Wyatt wondered if just maybe he was in shock.
After several long seconds he managed one word. "Taken?" It was the only thing he had been able to garner from Wyatt's statement.
Wyatt again froze on his words. Yet again another blow to hurt his brother. Chris looked at Wyatt and could see the hesitancy. "Wyatt, you said I was taken. Where and how long?" Chris was desperate to understand what had happened to him and that one word 'taken' seemed so sinister to his ears.
It was Wyatt's turn to look at his own knees. "We never learned where."
Piper had been keeping quiet but this shocked her into speech. "But we got him back, right? How did we find him?" It was impossible to keep the tremor of fear from her voice.
Wyatt looked towards his brother, knowing his words would be an even harder blow. "No, we didn't. We never found him."
At that moment little Chris woke with a loud cry, probably because his mother had him in a death grip. Piper immediately turned and walked to the other side of the room shushing her child as she cried the whole time. The words 'I lost my baby. I lost my precious little angel,' running over and over in her mind.
Chris stared at his mother, whom he could see wasn't very far from a mental breakdown. Leo, Paige and Phoebe had all moved close to the wall kneeling next to where Chris and Wyatt sat facing them trying to offer as much comfort ans support to Chris as possible. Chris had a thought then that he tried to push to the back of his mind but he couldn't help it from tumbling out when he opened his mouth. "Did they look for me?"
"Chris, of course we would," Leo said sharply wondering if his son was still suffering from some of the insecurities that he had arrived in their time with or if he was just so far into shock that he didn't know what he was asking.
"Sorry, Dad. Bad habit. I should have asked what did they do to try to find me? Why didn't it work?" Chris amended as a horrible feeling sunk into the pit of his stomach.
"They tried everything they could think of actually. But things were strange then. Not at all what the Charmed Ones were used to." Wyatt knew that he'd have to go into more detail as he stared at his family's perplexed looks. "It was quiet. For many years after you were taken there were very few demon attacks and no upper level demons came after them. It was as if they were all in hiding. Someone was bidding them to keep their distance. They all went on demon hunting parties into the underworld quite regularly actually. Even I was allowed to go when I became a teenager. But we only found lower level demons that never had any information for us. We tried spells to summon a lost witch. We tried scrying. Dad even begged the Eldars for their help, a lot of good that did though. It was as if you just vanished from the planet."
"How can that be? We found Leo in Valhalla. We've found demons in the Underworld before. There has never been a time when we absolutely could not find whoever we were looking for," Paige questioned. None of it made any sense to any of them. It shouldn't have been that hard.
"For a long while there I wondered if maybe he was dead," Wyatt admitted in shame. He hated to let Chris know that he had given up on him. "But not Mom and Dad. They said they could feel that he was still alive. Part of me thought it was just wishful thinking. But no, they were right. Not long after your fourteenth birthday you surfaced. That's when we realized why we had never been able to find you by scrying or summoning. That's when we realized just how much we had lost you."
"Are you saying that it gets worse?" Chris asked praying that his brother's next words wouldn't tear his fragile heart completely apart but fearing that was exactly what was to come.
"I'm afraid so." Wyatt bit his lip trying to force himself to say the words he knew would destroy his brother's already messed up psyche. "I don't know how it was done. I don't know who initiated it, but somehow the spirit of The Source was summoned and had possessed you."
Phoebe sucked in her breath sharply and fell back on her bottom from the shock of those words. "No, The Source was destroyed when we vanquished Cole, damnit," she cursed angrily. She couldn't accept the fact that all they had done, everything she had gone through and lost had been for nothing.
Piper had moved forward after she placed her baby in the bassinette next to Wyatt's playpen. He had quickly went back to sleep. But before she moved away she whispered softly to her toddler. "Watch your baby brother, Wyatt. Please don't let anything happen to him." She knew it was irrational to expect a small child like Wyatt to protect his brother, much less understand that his brother needed protecting but still something told her that he would do what was necessary.
Piper was finally ready to deal with what was happening around them. She would not let anything happen to her baby and she stepped forward speaking the one thing they all knew. "But that wasn't the first time someone vanquished that sorry demon's spirit so none of us should be surprised that he managed to find a new way."
"No it wasn't," Paige agreed. "Why does he always manage to find a get out of hell free card?"
Chris shook his head as a small chuckle escaped his lips. At least someone could see the irony in this situation and use it for a laugh.
Piper looked down at her youngest son. She could see the anger and bitterness flashing in his beautiful eyes. He didn't deserve this pain and it angered him that after all he'd been through this was the reward he had won. She didn't blame him but still his anger wouldn't help him. She knew she'd have to take control and soon before they all ended up lost. "Okay, let's see what we got to work on here. First, we do know when Chris is taken. Second, we don't know who takes him. Third, we don't know where he was taken. And Fourth, we don't know what turned him or how he became The Source of all Evil. Does that about sum it up?"
Wyatt nodded sadly. Hearing his mother lay it all out like that certainly made the utter failure of it all stick out in their minds.
"I'm screwed," Chris said dejectedly letting his head fall back to his knees again.
"Christopher!" Piper's eyes flashed in anger.
"Sorry, Mom. I'll watch the language," came his muffled reply.
She stopped the angry tirade that had started to form on her lips as she heard the pain in his voice. "Look at me, Chris," she said softly kneeling on the ground in front of him reaching out and running her hand through his unruly brown locks. His head rose and she looked into those crystal green orbs and saw the despair there. "Chris, I'm not mad at you because of the language. I'm mad because you seem to be giving up."
Chris was lost in thought for a moment as he stared into his mom's eyes that were filled with all the love and tenderness he had ever hoped to regain. But wasn't it a little too little, a little too late for him now? "Mom, you guys try everything in the future to save me. You heard him. None of it works. Is there anything else I can do? I'm beginning to wonder if maybe it would have been best if Wyatt hadn't come back to heal me." For the first time in his life Chris felt completely helpless and out of control. Even in his past when Evil Wyatt had been torturing him he had always held hope that somehow he would fix it all. But this, this all seemed impossible to fix.
Leo gasped at his son's words. Never had he imagined that Chris would have wished death on his self. He had always been a fighter. "Chris, don't say that. You can't really mean that."
"Why not? Believe me I'd much rather face death than to become The Source of all Evil, Dad. I saw what evil did to Wyatt. I couldn't live with myself if I became a cold blooded murdering tyrant." Chris hadn't meant to compare himself to the former Wyatt. He knew that this Wyatt didn't have any memories from that other time and that it would be like a slap in the face for him, but he couldn't just keep it all bottled up inside. He glanced for a second at his brother and saw the way his face blanched at the mention of what his alter self had done. "Sorry, Wy. I didn't mean it like that."
"It's okay, Chris. I understand where you are coming from, believe me." He hadn't mentioned the horrible things that his brother had done in his altered timeline either. He knew that Chris was tilting on the brink of a breakdown as it was. He wasn't willing to push him over the edge just yet.
Piper decided that she had to redirect her son's thoughts if she was ever gonna get him on the right track. "Chris, when you came back to the past how much did you know about what changed Wyatt?"
"Not much. Just when he was turned," he answered seeing the connection but not commenting on it.
"How hard did you fight to save Wyatt?" she asked her second question.
Chris just shrugged, not exactly knowing how to answer her.
"Chris, you worked day and night trying to find who turned Wyatt. You often went with too little sleep, too little food, and never with enough support from your family," Piper answered for him.
"But I had too," was all he could think to say. "And that wasn't your fault. You didn't know."
She decided to ignore his need to not place guilt on his family. That wasn't important right now. "Why did you have to? Why did it have to be you? Was it your responsibility to save your brother? You weren't the one who turned him evil. You weren't the oldest. You weren't his parent. You were not responsible for your brother, but still you took on that responsibility of your own free will and you never gave up." Her words made Chris frown. There had never been any question on whether or not he would try to save Wyatt. It was in his nature to do it and something he couldn't ever back down from. "So why are you so willing to give up on yourself when you weren't able to give up on him?" she asked softly.
Chris opened his mouth to answer her but then closed it again, knowing she wouldn't like what he was about to say.
"Go ahead, say it," she coaxed guessing that she already knew what he'd say.
"I had several reasons actually. Because it was Wyatt. Because everything he was doing to our world. Because he was important. He was the Twice Blessed child. Because I knew how much it would break your heart to see him like that. Because it killed me a little bit each time I saw him hurt someone. But most of all because he was my brother and I wanted him back." There were a million reasons but the last one was the one that had always been at the forefront of his mind.
"But what about you?" Piper asked hoping to finally pull the truth from him.
Chris frowned now. Why couldn't she just let it go? Did she really have to hear him say it? "Because I'm not important. Because I don't really matter." He could see the shocked expressions on his family's faces. "Oh come on. Don't tell me that you don't see the difference."
Leo wasn't sure if he wanted to throttle his son or take him into his arms and deny his words. Instead he settled on more information. "I don't know about anyone else here, Chris. But you are seriously gonna have to explain that one to me."
"I think it's rather obvious, Dad. Wyatt is the Twice Blessed one. The one that all the prophecies mentioned. For god sakes he's the wielder of Excalibur. Look at all his powers. He was most certainly meant to be here and meant to be special. But look at me. There's nothing special about me. I've got the same parents he has but I didn't end up with powers like his." He looked around to the others thinking that maybe one of them would understand. When his eyes lit on Phoebe a thought occurred to him. "It's just like you said, Aunt Phoebe, that day that I almost ceased to exist over nine months ago. Maybe I wasn't meant to exist. Maybe my whole reason for being was just to come back and warn you all about Wyatt."
Piper shot Phoebe a deadly look for even suggesting such a thing about her son but Phoebe ignored the look. She was more concerned about Chris' mental state at that time. "Chris, you know I didn't mean that when I said it. I was just frustrated because we couldn't find your parents and you were disappearing before our very eyes. You can't still believe that can you?"
Why shouldn't he? What proof did he ever have in his life that he was meant for anything more than just to be Wyatt's little brother? And by the looks of the Wyatt who was sitting next to him, who had grown up without a brother, he obviously didn't even need him to turn out okay. But what would their reaction be if he said something like that to them? He couldn't.
But he had to say something. Something they would understand possibly. "If you all would look at this the way I am, you might understand where I'm coming from. Everything in my life has seemed to work against me. First it was my original life, where you three died way too young, and Wyatt turned evil, not to mention the fact that Dad was never there for me and could have cared less if I lived or died. Then I come back here to the past and what happens then? How many times did I screw everything up before I managed to get it right? I split Mom and Dad up. I nearly got myself and all of you killed… oh I don't know, maybe a million times. And I made you all hate me and don't say that you didn't hate me, because you did, all of you. If Phoebe hadn't found out who I really was you might still hate me." They all began to interrupt him at that point but he shushed them and continued on. "Okay so fast forward to new future and hell that's worse than everything else. You don't have to say the words Wyatt. I can guess exactly what I've become and the things that I've done. I'm sorry but I just can't honestly say that I was ever meant to have a good existence and right now no existence is looking pretty damn tempting to me." To all of them listening his words seemed almost cold and unfeeling as they rambled out of him a mile a minute and none of them liked the way it sounded.
Wyatt was the only one able to talk after that as the others dwelled on everything else he had said. "So what are you suggesting, Chris?"
Chris turned to stare at his brother and the look on his face was enough to freeze the blood in Wyatt's veins. "Wy, you are not that dense. You are the freaking Twice Blessed. The most powerful witch alive. Get up and go back to the future and vanquish my sorry ass." His words were angry and they were bitter but he meant every one of them.
A/N: Well what do you think? Any questions, any comments? Is anyone confused about why this Chris is not evil in this timeline? I think I explained that part decently but I'm not sure. Anyhow next chapter we learn more about what happened to Chris in the future and action is taken.