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 in this chapter.
Also: Italics are flashbacks.
Chapter Fifteen: Open Hearts
"Truth shall and will be truth in spite of men and devils."
– Robert Calef, More Wonders of the Invisible World
The rain continued to pour violently as five witches gathered in the attic of their beloved home. Chris and Rose sat nervously on the couch, as Rachel flipped through their large, ancestral magic book, The Book of Shadows. Wyatt was standing by the window, looking down at the rain drenched streets, awaiting the arrival of the police. Sam stood quiet against the potion bookcase, watching the actions of his cousins.
"We need to figure out a way to seal off this room, or else we're screwed." Rachel said as she flipped through the book.
"What time did Morris say he was going to get here?" Wyatt asked looking out the window.
"Around seven, the police should be here around the same time."
"This is ridiculous. I don't know what they expect to find, we didn't kill her, and the demon that did is dead, so they aren't going to find any proof here." Sam said angrily.
"Either way, we're suspects. We brought her in, and even though we made the story look like a simple falling down the stairs death, but the medical examiner thought otherwise." Rose said as she smoothed out her blue scrubs.
"Her head injury is consistent with falling down the stairs, but the massive amounts of internal bleeding aren't." Chris said, knowing his boss's intentions.
"Okay, but how do we explain the third helix? They're going to want our blood and if we do so, they're going to find it in all of us." Sam said frustrated.
"Let's focus on one problem at a time. We have to wait for the FBI to show up about the blood, and they're coming from Virginia."
"Chris, why are they coming from Virginia? We have a field office down the street." Wyatt said.
"They want their forensics lab to do the test themselves to confirm and the only forensics lab in the county in at my office and that's the same one the San Fran FBI use."
"This is a mess. We need to seal off this room. Everybody got all Wiccan stuff out of their rooms right? Potion vials, books, athames, spells and the like right?"
"Yes, Rachel, for the third time this evening." Rose said.
"I'm just being careful. My empathy picked up a lot of negative and curious energy from that cop."
"Speak of the devil, that Inspector and Morris just showed up." Wyatt said nervously as he backed away from the window.
"What do we do?" Rachel asked nervously.
"You use your empathy to keep them from coming upstairs." Wyatt said.
"I can't do that. I can't control their minds like that. Only emotions."
"But you did it that time at your office, you made him not check your ID." Chris remembered.
"I shocked him with feelings of love and infatuation, and I've been fielding calls from him since then." Rachel said annoyed.
"Oh." Chris said.
"Wait, what if when they head up here, you use your telekinesis to keep the door from opening?" Sam suggested to Chris.
"That may work." Chris said and Rose nodded her head in agreement.
"Guys?" Wyatt interjected, but was ignored.
"Yeah, and if they manage to get it open, you freeze them and we like shut the door again or move the stuff out of the room, while they're frozen?" Chris asked Sam.
"Guys?" Wyatt tried again.
"Or maybe I can use my cyrokinesis to keep the door frozen from the inside?" Rose suggested.
"GUYS!" Wyatt yelled, and everyone looked at him in shock.
"What?" Chris asked.
"We could just lock the door and play it from there." Wyatt said as the doorbell rang.
"Good idea." Sam said and the five headed out of the room.
The doorbell rang a total of three times, before Chris opened the door. He wore his dark blue scrubs. 'Dr. Halliwell, I presume?" the Inspector asked.
"Yes, come in. Thank you for coming, Darryl, as Darryl walked past Chris.
"As I explained to ADA Morris, if you are in fact indicted, he can't act as your defense council."
"What?" Rachel asked Darryl.
"I'm a prosecutor. I can't defend you when my office might be trying you on charges, but I don't think we need to get ahead of ourselves."
"Okay, James, start searching. You have one hour." Rachel said sternly.
"I'm afraid the warrant has no time restraints." James Gray spoke.
"Yeah, but we have dinner reservations at eight thirty." Rachel said with a smile.
"It seems like you did that so I would have to stop searching, and that's a crime."
"Prove it." Rachel said sternly as the cop pulled on a pair of latex gloves.
"I want to search their bedrooms."
"Upstairs. Mine is on the left at the top of the stairs. Rose is across from mine. Chris' next to hers, and Wyatt across the hall from his. Ali's is at the end of the hallway and Sam's is next to hers." Rachel said.
"Rachel, I didn't think to clean Ali's room." Sam whispered in her ear.
Rachel's eyes bulged. "Do it while he's in another persons room." she whispered.
"Excuse me?" James Gray spoke.
"Nothing. Go ahead and search. You'll find no evidence here."
He looked at Rachel with his shifty, beady eyes as he headed upstairs.
"There's no witch stuff he can find right?" Darryl asked.
"Not a single item." Wyatt reassured him. Darryl Morris Jr., was entrusted with the family secret of magic. Having grown up with the Halliwell offspring, he was accustomed to demonic attacks. Unlike his father, he never had any reservations about magic or the creatures associated with it. His mother, Sheila, taught him to accept the Halliwells as they were and promised him that their mission was a cause worth fighting for and a mission that must be kept a secret. No one other than the three Morris family members knew of the magic, not even Darryl Jr's wife and kids.
The search continued innocently enough, having turned up no evidence of magic or foul play in any of the rooms. James Gray was shocked to find a skull in Chris' room, but Chris explained it was a reconstruction he used in his anthropology classes. James was skeptical at first, but moved on. He was now about to enter the room of the eldest child, Wyatt.
Wyatt's room, his room was nice and organized. His bed was made perfectly without a wrinkle. His bed sat in front of the bay windows. A dresser on the left of the door and a desk near it. The right side of the wall had photos on the wall and another dresser.
Gray started to poke through drawers, and Wyatt couldn't help but feel uncomfortable and irked. The cop dug through everything and never once put anything back, a habit Wyatt hoped he would abandon in his room, but no luck.
He was going through Wyatt's bedside table and pulled out two orange vials. "Lithium and Zoloft, and what do they prescribe those for?" he asked the blonde.
"None of your business." Wyatt said, but Rose answered for him.
"Bi-polar disorder and depression."
Wyatt turned around and glared at Rose with eyes of death.
"Are you bi-polar and depressed, Mr. Halliwell?" the cop asked.
"That's between me and my psychiatrist."
"A Doctor June Keller at Mt. Sinai Outpatient Psychiatric Facility?"
"Yes." Wyatt said with malice in his voice.
"The same Doctor Keller that sent you to a two week psychiatric hospital in Oregon three months ago."
"How the hell do you know all this?" Wyatt asked, extremely mad and embarrassed.
"I did my research on all of you. Including Ms. Dean's run in with the law and failed marriage."
"You were married?" Wyatt asked Rachel.
"You were in the looney bin?" she asked back. Both had looks of hurt and embarrassment on their faces.
"I think my room is done now." Wyatt said, his eyes watering.
"I think so too. Now it's time for Alison's." Gray said as Sam appeared in the doorway.
"What did I miss?"
"A lot." Chris said, eyeing his brother with a look of betrayal. And Wyatt looked down at his feet.
Everyone left Wyatt's room, except Wyatt. Rachel's demons weren't as bad as his. Sure, she lied about that, but he was sure there was a good reason, but no matter what he couldn't convince himself that his demons had a good reason to stay buried. He looked at the two pill bottles laying on his comforter. His eyes overwhelmed with tears as he released the water from his eyes. He started to sob harder and harder. His head in his hands as he tried so hard to cast the memories of his pained past out of his head.
He sat on his bed crying for what must have been hours before he heard the front door slam shut and two cars drive off. "Wyatt!" he could hear Chris yelling for him and he could hear Chris' sneakers pounding against the stairs.
"Chris, look just leave him alone. He needs to be alone right now." Sam pleaded with Chris as Chris opened Wyatt's room, and saw the blonde sitting on his bed. His eyes puffed and red. Tears on his gray t-shirt.
"No, Sam! I can't believe you've been covering for him for this long!"
"Christopher, he is in no condition to talk about anything!" Sam said defensively as he stood in Chris' way.
"Samuel, move." Chris said sternly.
"No. We are all quick to attack Wyatt but has everyone forgot about Miss Rachel's husband?"
"In my defense, it's ex-husband." Rachel interjected.
"Let's all sit down and talk about this like adults. No sarcasm, no attitude, no judgment." Rose said, as she entered the room and sat on the bed next to Wyatt. The others agreed and sat down in the room. Chris on the floor, leaning against the dresser. Rachel in the desk chair, and Sam on the bed, the closest to Wyatt.
"There's a lot that has happened in the last five years that we have tried to keep buried." Rachel started. "Four years ago, when I was twenty-one, I met this man named Greg Marshall. He was a wonderful man at first. I was young and naive, and I had just started working for the paper officially. I was vulnerable, still in pain over the incident a year earlier. He helped me overcome my pain and I fell madly in love with him." tears were in her eyes.
"He asked me to marry him two months later and I did. We flew to Las Vegas and got hitched. And I thought my life was complete, until he started hitting me. Where were you last night? Or why isn't dinner ready? He would ask, and as I would answer, I got smacked, punched, kicked. When I was twenty-two, I finally retaliated. I hit him over the head with a frying pan as I was making dinner. I was arrested and charged with battery and assault. I was released on bail and I went home, and he was waiting for me. He was angry, like I had never seen, not even when he was hitting me. He chased me with a knife and he actually stabbed me, right here in the shoulder." Her eyes were wet with tears as she removed her white blazer and pulled the tank top strap down to show the pale scar.
"I retaliated this time not with a weapon or anything like that, but my magic. I used my empathy on him and made him think he was a five year old boy. And he's now serving life in a psychiatric facility in upstate California. He still thinks he is five."
"What about personal gain consequences?" Sam asked as he too had tears in his eyes.
"The personal gain was that I had to live forever with the fear of men. I haven't dated a man since then. I divorced him and it became official two years ago."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Wyatt asked.
"Because we all secrets we try to keep buried, no matter how painful." Rachel said, her eyes meeting his.
"Sis, you should have told me, or better yet you should have called me!" Rose said sadly as she hugged her sister.
"It's a shame, how the death of our families caused us to not talk to each other for five whole years." Rachel said.
"It's the biggest mistake of our lives." Chris said.
"You're telling me." Wyatt said as he held his pill bottles in his hands. And four sets of eyes looked to him. Care and comfort in some eyes and betrayal in the green eyes of his brother. He was ready. He had no choice. He had to explain, the past five years.
Two updates in one day! Wow, I was really on a role with this story this week! Please review! It would mean the world to me. Thank you and review!