Charmed: The Return

Disclaimer: See Chapter One.

Summary: After their parents' deaths, the Charmed Children moved on with their lives. Now they return home to where it all started and to the world they turned their backs on.

Author's Note: The year for this fiction is 2032. That means, the Halliwells died in 2027. Long paragraphs or sentences that are in italics are flashbacks, and any words that are in italics are just like that to show emphasis. There is mild language and violence.

Chapter Eleven: Worst Day

So you're scared and you're thinking

That maybe we ain't that young anymore.

Show a little faith, there's magic in the night.

Bruce Springsteen, "Thunder Road"

The rain continued to pour outside, covering the great city of San Francisco in a blanket of water. The wind had started to pick up as thunder and lightening graced the sky. Everything was as it should be. Except 1329 Prescott Street.

Upon looking at the pink house, you would see lights on and cars in the driveway. Perhaps they were eating dinner, or doing work? Maybe they were picking out their clothes for the next day, or perhaps they were lying in pools of their own blood.

Inspector Cassie Abridge tried to wake Christopher Halliwell. The gentle anthropologist, who lay on the landing knocked out. There was some blood on his forehead. Wood from the banister lay under his body and on top of him. She reached across his strong frame and pulled the wood of him. She gently shook his shoulder, whispering his name, not in the hard policewoman voice she uses at work, but a gentle, soothing, almost caring voice. And he stirred under her touch.

"Wyatt?" he groaned as his eyes flew open. His green orbs meeting her blue. "What are you doing here?" Chris asked, nervous as he sat up.

"Take it easy." she said as she placed a hand on his shoulder. "I came by to talk and I heard an explosion. What the hell happened here?"

"I'll explain later. I have to check on them!" Chris said in urgency.

"I called the paramedics. They'll be here shortly."

"Cassie, I need you to call them and tell them not to come!" Chris said as he checked Rachel's pulse, who was lying next to him.

"Chris, you need medical attention." she argued with him.

"Trust me, this isn't something I can easily explain. Now call them off, I need to wake up Wyatt. He can heal us."

Cassie looked at him like he was crazy but complied. She picked up her cell phone and called off the calvary. Chris stumbled down the stairs and went over to the clock and saw Wyatt laying in a heap. His blood matting his hair. His blue eyes closed. "Wy, I need you to wake up. Come on, we need you!" he shook his brother.

'Damn it, Wyatt, NOW!" Chris yelled at the oldest witch. Wyatt stirred as his blue eyes opened. "Chris, what the hell happened?"

"Jekyll, when we vanquished him, he caused an explosion."

"Vanquish?" Abridge said from her spot at the bottle of the stairs.

"Who's she?" Wyatt asked as he reached forward and placed a hand on Chris' heart. A gold light emanated from his hand and Chris took a deep breath. Moments later, Chris' physical wounds disappeared.

"How did that happen?" Cassie asked, shocked and rather scared.

"Ask questions later." Chris said as he helped his injured brother up. Wyatt wasn't able to heal himself, they would call a whitelighter later.

Wyatt limped over into the dining room and saw Sam laying on the collapsed table. Blood pooling at the back of his head and his right arm outstretched. Wyatt took a deep breath and placed his hand on Sam's chest and five minutes later, Sam woke up.

"Ugh, what happened?" Sam asked, groggily.

"You almost died. It took almost five minutes to bring you back." Wyatt said as he helped the younger man up.

"What else is new. Did we get him?"

"Yeah, we got him. Now excuse me, more healing to do." Wyatt said as he went up the stairs to Rachel. Chris was attempting to wake up Rose up, who was starting to come out of it.

"Ali!" Sam yelled into the house. No answer.

"Ali!" Sam called out again, this time banging into Cassie.

"Who are you?" Sam asked rather rudely.

'Inspector Cassie Abridge. I work with Chris." Sam looked at her weirdly.

"Who invited a mortal to the party?" Sam asked as he continued his search for Ali.

"Mortal?" she asked stupidly.

"A human. Now I have to look for my sister."

"Brown and pink hair with lots of tattoos?" Cassie inquired and Sam nodded.

"She's over there." Cassie pointed towards the solarium and Sam ran over.

He dropped to his knees as he saw his sister. Allison Montana lay with her right arm twisted under body. Her left arm was outstretched and limp next to her. Her brown and pink hair was coated in blood as a pool of the crimson liquid pooled around her head. Glass lay in her skin, as well as slivers of wood. "Wyatt!"

Wyatt, who just healed Rachel, looked up and saw Sam frantically tugging at an arm. Wyatt stood up, but his leg wouldn't let him move. He closed his eyes and was enveloped in a swirl of blue light. Cassie jumped, "Who the hell are you people?"

"The good guys." Chris said, as Rose opened her eyes. "Welcome back." and she glared at him.

Wyatt reappeared next to Ali and Sam, who had Ali's blood on his shirt. Wyatt proceeded to pull the glass and wood from her skin, leaving behind gouges of torn skin and blood. He took another deep breath and released his power.

Rose and Rachel walked over to the scene and gasped when they saw Ali, lying there in a puddle of her own blood. Chris looked over his shoulder and saw Cassie against the downstairs bathroom door. Her arms across her chest as in a protective cocoon.

"What's taking so long?" Sam asked Wyatt hurriedly as Wyatt poured more of his energy into Ali.

"She's near death. She bled out too much. It's taking longer than expected." he said in a calm, cool, collected voice.

"It's been almost ten minutes, damn it!"

"Sam, calm down. Freaking out won't help her." Rachel reassured as she placed a hand on his shoulder.

"How can I not freak out! This is five years ago all over again! Mom died this exact same way!" Sam huffed as he tears started to moisten his eyes.

"I know, but Ali's strong. She'll pull through. She's still alive. I can sense that." Rachel said.

"I can't lose her. Especially not now." the tears started to erupt.

"And you won't." his cousin said as he pulled him into a hug.

"I still don't understand, what's going on. Who are you people?" Cassie spoke out to the group of witches. Rose and Chris were huddled next to each other. Sam and Rachel were in a deep embrace, and Wyatt was still bending over next to Ali.

"Cassie, you've seen a lot of strange stuff today, and I know it's hard to grasp, but please, just sit tight and I will answer all your questions. Right now, we need to help Ali." Chris said to her in a gentle voice.

"Or better yet, stay on ice." Sam said angrily as he snapped the fingers on his right hand at her and she froze in place.

"You had to freeze her?" Chris asked.

"She's not helping us by standing there and asking questions."

"Sam, she's a human and she's confused."

"Chris, it's not excuse. It's not your sister laying a pool of blood!"

"Okay, Sam, come on, let's get the Book and see what we can do." Rachel said pulling Sam away, and giving a glance at Chris.

"The Book doesn't know who we are, how can we use it?"

"I'm thinking that by killing Jekyll, the charm would have worn off. I mean, the Book was only charmed to stop us from using it to kill him."

"How do you know that?" Sam asked the slightly older woman.

"Because it's the best I can offer. Let's go. Wyatt will continue to work."

The two left the room, and Chris and Rose looked at Wyatt. "It's not good."

"Wyatt, it's been almost twenty-minutes." Chris said nervously.

"I know. I don't think there's much more I can do."

'Let me look." Rose said as she got down on her hands and knees and inspected the body. She saw the cuts had started to heal, but there was still some blood.

"Her pulse is feeble. Her eyes are equal and reactive though, so she's still with us, she's not in a coma or anything."

"Thank god. But what do we do if Wyatt can't heal her?" Chris asked.

"There's nothing the hospital can do either. As of right now, it is my medical opinion that if Wyatt can't heal her, they can't either. Not to mention right now it's 50/50 on survival. If she has a brain injury, it can be hard to tell."

"So what do we do?" Wyatt asked, slight panic in his voice.

"We can call a whitelighter?" Chris suggested.

"No use. My healing is just as good as theirs."

"So this is it. She lays like this for the rest of her life?" Chris asked.

"She's probably just unconscious. She'll come out of it."

"What about internal bleeding?"

"Hard to say, we would need to get her to a hospital." Rose said, as Wyatt stopped healing Ali and reached over and placed his hand on Rose and started to heal her. She was the only one not healed, other than himself.

"I'll get Sam and Rachel. We need to have Sam unfreeze Cassie, and then we can go." Chris said, as he orbed out.

"This can't be happening." Wyatt said, as he looked at the serene face of Ali.

Rachel and Sam arrived into the attic. The Book lay on its stand, opened to page of Jekyll. The last page it was on before it was cursed to their touch.

"Do you think it's going to work?" Sam asked.

"Not going to know unless we try." Rachel said, taking a step forward and knocking a crystal out of place to let her in. She approached the yellow tome that contained almost three hundred and fifty years of magic. She reached a manicured hand towards it and laid it on the text. Nothing happened.

"Oh thank god." Rachel said, picking up the Book and hugging it closely to her chest.

"Thank the heavens. Hurry look for something." Sam said as he walked up to her and she placed the Book back down and started flipping through its pages.

Just then, Chris orbed in.

"Chris, the Book is ours again!" Rachel exclaimed as she flipped through it. He had a grim look on his face.

"We need to get her to the hospital. Wyatt can't seem to heal her all the way and there might be internal bleeding."

"What?" Sam said almost in a childlike manner.

"She's hurt pretty bad and we don't know what else to do. You need to unfreeze Cassie, so we can go. It's the only way of saving Ali."

"Alright." Sam said as he orbed out.

"Do you think she's going to be okay?" Rachel asked her cousin.

"Honestly, I don't know. If this were any other family I would say yes, but with our track record it's not looking good."

"Chris, she can't die. It would tear this family apart, not to mention Sam would sink faster than the Titanic. Sam could resort back to drugs and alcohol. Damn it, Chris, we were just starting to be a family again. This can't be happening!" Rachel exclaimed, her brown gentle eyes slowly turning a bright white, as if the iris was taken over.

"Rachel, you're eyes. What's going on?" Chris said, almost scared.

"This won't be happening damn it! This is our family! I'm tired of demons taking our family members away from us!" her eyes were completely white and her brown hair started to blow around her face, as if a breeze was in the room, but there wasn't.

All of a sudden, Chris started shouting out in pain. His hands went to his head and covered his ears and he started to yell louder. His eyes were clenched shut and he was biting hard. He could hear voices in his head, and feel things. Things he's felt before: anger, lust, love, happiness, sadness, fear and surprise.

Rachel looked at him, as her eyes returned to normal. "What just happened?"

"You totally zoinked out and I started to hear voices and feel things!" Chris exclaimed.

"How?" she asked.

"I don't know, but whatever it was, it was like total overload. I have never been in such pain before."

"You felt things?" she questioned.

"Yes, I felt things."

"Like my empathy. I hear voices and feel things all the time. Could I have somehow projected my empathy onto you?"

"It's plausible. I mean, Aunt Phoebe was able to do that." Sam said.

"Today is the worst day of my life." Rachel said as she slammed the book shut.

The three together descended the stairs to take Ali to the hospital.

"She'll be fine, Sam. She's a fighter." Chris reassured. And he kept thinking to himself, Who's going to reassure me?

There's Chapter Eleven. Read and Review please! Chapter Twelve will be up in about a week and half. I will be in Kentucky building houses from July 1-9, 2006 with my high school. So in the meanwhile, read and review! I would really love to come home and see at least five reviews to bring this story's total up to 30! Happy Fourth Everyone! Damien455