Author's Note: This a prequel to Keeps Getting Better. Definitely can be a stand alone. Thanks for reviews. Also, thank you so much to all of those who put the story on alert.
Like I said, if you have ideas, please do share! Soon, preferably, because I'm probably going to get stuck verrrry soon.
Also Allison, you're entirely right. The way Piper found out was unbelievably unrealistic. I realized that after publishing the chapter and too many people had read the chapter by then.
I didn't want to change the story even more and confuse people. Still, flaming doesn't really help writers.
I'm not sure if you're a writer yourself, but writers improve over time by learning from their mistakes.
That is the funny thing about the Internet, it completely desensitizes people towards conflict.
Remember, everyone is human.
Joseph S, My best advice for finding a school is putting all your preferences into CollegeBoard's "College Matchmaker".
You can find this widget by googling it. Good luck! Let me know how that works out for you :)
Wyatt swallowed anxiously. The boy took a breath of air, looking very much like he had held his breath for a moment too long, "You're Chris? M-m-my little brother?"
Chris nodded grimly. He had been especially thankful when the younger form of his brother had not recognized him as family and instead, had merely thought of him as a friend.
Curiosity made Chris wonder what his parents had told Wyatt about him and his disappearance.
"Why are you here then? Where is big me? Why didn't he save you!" Wyatt demanded angrily.
Chris could see familiarity in Wyatt's hatred, it was the same expression he had given Leo when their mother had died.
This time, though, the hatred was directed at himself. Chris began to ponder whether Wyatt had always been like this or if this was just a phase.
Did he blame himself for their mother's death like Chris had?
"He's in the future." Chris murmured softly to his brother, "But you don't need to get upset."
Wyatt couldn't help but notice how gentle Chris was. He guessed some things would never change, but there were things about this older version of Chris that bothered him.
He didn't seem worried about his death, unlike Wyatt, their mother and their Aunt Paige. He seemed to immediately accept it and that scared Wyatt.
"If you're Chris, then you're my baby brother!" Wyatt cried out earnestly.
Underlying guilt was abundantly apparent to the adults, "I don't want my little brother to die!"
"Wyatt, what happened?" Paige asked her nephew gently.
"I was mean to him." Wyatt sniffled, looking indirectly at Chris. He couldn't bear to look at the man who had been revealed to be a much-older version of his young brother.
His younger brother would one day come to the past and protect him and Wyatt had treated his brother like he was a bother,
"I told him to leave me alone and to go bug Mommy instead... and he got really sad."
Chris normally would have let the situation be, letting the small boy absorb the guilt, but he knew that was wrong.
Wyatt genuinely cared about him, not only as friend, but now as a sibling.
"Chris knows you didn't mean it, sweetie." Piper comforted her son, pulling him into a protective hug.
She rubbed his back as an act of support, "Right, Chris?" She asked him, giving him a warning expression that it was better if he disregarded any of Wyatt's future actions and focused solely on the child present.
"Of course I know that, Wy." Chris felt pity for the blonde boy. Wyatt desperately want to protect him, even though he was just a child and Chris was now the adult.
In his own twisted way, Wyatt was still like that in the future.
He believed that the only way to protect his family was to control them along with everyone else, this didn't bode well, as those who disobeyed him were sentenced to a morbid fate.
"Now that you know, you can live." Wyatt pointed out cheekily, he was hoping Chris would change his mind.
"Why don't we have a private talk, alright bud?" Chris suggested cautiously.
Paige snorted, knowing that the future would be discussed and that she wouldn't be present.
Piper, on the other hand, fully supported the dialogue between the brothers.
She hoped with all conviction that Wyatt would convince Chris to change his fate. She smiled, knowing that Wyatt was too cute to resist.
"Piper, they shouldn't be keeping secrets from us." Paige advised.
Piper turned to Paige with a warning glance, "Let it be, Paige."
Wyatt grabbed Chris's hand quickly, not noticing Chris flinch in reaction, "I'm ready to go." He said with an adoring smile. Chris nodded and the two disappeared in orbs.
Paige frowned, "Piper, why do you think this a good idea? What if Chris goes all John Ashcroft and blames everything on one of us?"
"And what, we're Bill Clinton? Paige, give it a break. I trust Chris to take care of Wyatt." Piper hand-waved Paige's concern.
Paige left it alone, "It's gotta be hard for Chris to see Wyatt again."
"It's better for little Wyatt to be here than an Adult Wyatt. By all accounts, future Wyatt doesn't seem like one for peaceful negotiations.
It's just so hard to believe that that little boy will grow up to be evil." Piper's strength began to crumble at the thought of her sons fighting each other,
"He just doesn't seem evil to me. He wants to save Chris, not hurt him."
"How does Wyatt know that Chris is going to die anyway? Chris just being here has had to have affected the timeline somehow." Paige questioned skeptically.
"It's possible that Wyatt comes from a different future than Chris. Our goal right now is to save Chris, even if he doesn't want to be saved.
I am not letting anymore of my loved one's get hurt by magic." Piper said, suddenly determined to save not only the future, but Chris as well.
"We're up really high." Wyatt remarked as they appeared on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, "Is it safe?"
'By Mom's standards? No.' Chris told himself with a slight smirk.
"You're going to let us save you, right?" Wyatt asked his younger brother, "I don't want you to go away." He closed his eyes, allowing the wind to blow through his hair.
"That's what I'm curious about, Wyatt. How do you know me?" Chris inquired.
Wyatt opened his eyes, "When I was really little you lived with Mommy and Aunt Paige and Aunt Phoebe, but then before you were born you went away somewhere."
Wyatt began with his parent's version of the story, "But Aunt Phoebe says that a monster tried to attack me and that you protected me, but the monster hurt you really bad."
"What kind of monster?" Chris asked desperately. He just had to know who was trying to turn Wyatt. Lives were at stake.
Wyatt frowned, "I don't know. Aunt Phoebe said that Daddy knew him and that when he attacked you Daddy got really mad and defeated the monster."
Chris blinked slightly. Leo, his pacifist bastard of a father, had killed someone to avenge his anguish? It seemed so unreal to him.
"So what's the future like?" Chris questioned hazily.
Bright as Wyatt was, his expression turned to one of confusion, "You said not to tell."
Chris laughed sardonically, "You can tell me. I'm already from the future."
"Well there's me and you, but you're little; You're four. And Mommy's pregnant with a girl."
Chris exhaled; With all the changes he had made to the past he was both surprised and relieved that his parents had still conceived his younger sister,
"What about Phoebe and Paige?"
"Aunt Phoebe is really fat." Wyatt grinned. Chris hoped that by 'fat', he meant 'really pregnant'.
He silently mourned for his deceased cousins, promising them he would change their fate and the next time around they would survive.
"So it's you, your brother, and your mom?" Chris asked the boy for confirmation.
Wyatt frowned, "You forgot daddy."
'He forgot me first.'
"Right, dad lives in the Heavens." Chris countered hurriedly, wanting to move away from the topic of Leo as soon as he could.
"No-" Wyatt corrected defensively, "Daddy lives at home."
"Elders don't have families." Chris mimicked what his mother had said when he accelerated Leo's fate as an Elder.
"Are you sure you're from the future?" Wyatt asked irritatedly, "Daddy isn't an Elder. He's a whitelighter."
"What?"
"After he was an Avatar they made him go back to being a whitelighter." Wyatt explained simply, "Daddy lives with Mommy, me and you."
"And who is daddy dearest's favorite child?" Chris shot back pretentiously.
"Daddy says he doesn't have a favorite." Wyatt spoke as if he heard the statement often.
'Of course he did.'
"But Daddy is really protective of Chris. Daddy gets really scared when demons try to attack him. Then Mommy saves the day by making the demons go boom!"
Wyatt mimicked Piper's molecular combustion power.
"Does he write us letters?" Chris continued the game of twenty questions.
"No. letters are for people who are far away. Daddy is never far." Wyatt seemed awfully defensive of their father.
'No letters? Just what did I do? I didn't come here to fix things with Leo...' Chris mused.
"Are you close to your brother?" His voice was softer than before.
"He's my best friend." Wyatt admitted with a proud grin, then his face fell, "I was really mean to him."
"He'll forgive you." Chris responded immediately, wrapping his arm around Wyatt's shoulder, "He'll always forgive you."
Paige's remark that Chris might pull "a John Ashcroft" and Piper's inquisitive response that they're "Bill Clinton"
is a reference to a statement that then-US Attorney General Ashcroft said regarding the September 11th attacks.
To be summed, he blamed 9/11 on Bill Clinton for lack of preparation against terrorism.
Like I said in the previous chapter, Paige seems like she would be liberal. Also, I like pop culture references (I use them a lot in real life).
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