Disclaimer: NO! I don't own them (what a shame)! But they are playing for me anyways (sticks out tongue!)

A/N: 29.6.2007 Another chapter revised by Rachel, yay!!!

Chapter four: Hitting the ground

His existence was one big scream.

He could not see anymore, nor hear or feel anything – just scream.

The scream was in him and he was in the scream.

He was the scream.

Suddenly it was over.

Chris found himself lying on the cold steel-floor of Wyatt's high security cell.

One hand shielding his still bleeding chest, Chris tried to stand up instantly.

He was pushed back hard by his laughing brother.

"You have empathic powers, my dear brother, what an amazing surprise. I had loved to see how long you would hold out, but with all your screaming around, there is no way for a nice twosome conversation. So I decided to block you out!" Wyatt said with a derisive grin, now totally the evil despot Chris had learned to fear.

Chris lay panting heavily on the floor, desperately trying to find some sort of strategy.

There was none.

His head was completely and utterly empty, like an exhausted well.

So he looked at the ceiling, trying to ignore his brother and trying to fight back the immense pain that was spreading through his maltreated body.

"Nah, brother! No cheeky comments or new evil-tyrant names? I'm disappointed! Doesn't matter, the reason my demons have brought you here is one simple question. And my advice for you is that your answer should be yes."

Chris knew what was to come…."Will you join me?"

He remained silent.

"Ah, we are stubborn again today! I think I will grant you some more time for reflection."

Chris turned his head and glanced up reproachfully at Wyatt. His anguished look said I'm dying here, and you give a damn!´ but that would never pass his lips.

'Damn it Christopher, your stubbornness will kill you one day!´ Wyatt thought, but said:

"Don't think I'll heal you now! Let us see your pain as punishment for your disobedience. Who knows - it may even help you to find your voice again.

Take it as a lesson for life, little brother, and you´d better have an answer when I return…!"

The unspoken threat hung heavy in the room.

Chris could tell despite the calm mask his brother put on, inside he was boiling with rage. The game he played with his brother was extremely dangerous, as he knew out of hard-bought experience. But now, to know how to push the red button at his brother's temper-control was the last weapon to fight for at least a bit of his dignity.

Wyatt left and the steel door closed with a hard obtuse thud behind him.

Chris curled up to a ball, like he had done under his blankets as a small boy, to hide from the "monster" under his bed.

The difference was that this monster was awfully real.

There was no blanket in the whole world that would hide him from his brother!

The hours went by and Chris didn't know how long he still could survive in this cell without any healing.

One thing he knew for sure. Wyatt was willing to go to the edge – like always. He would feel when he was going to die, and only then come and heal him. Of course not without enjoying his superiority. But not this time, Chris swore by all that was holy to him.

Whatever Wyatt would do to him, he would not back off, he thought with the braveness of the desperate.

As Wyatt returned Chris was half on his way into the dark comfort of unconsciousness.

With his healing, Wyatt ripped him away from his last way to escape – the death.

Chris didn´t want to die, but living as a slave of Wyatt's insane totalitarian ideology was not a suitable alternative - ever.

He tried to regain as much power out of Wyatt's healing as he could, without letting his brother know what he did. He would need every ounce of power that he could summon up, for whatever would come next.

Wyatt had finished.

Carefully Chris sat up, with his back on the wall, eying Wyatt with fierce anger through the strands of brown hair that fell onto his pale face.

"So have you reconsidered an answer for me? Sure you have….Oh, let me guess!" Wyatt said almost amused.

Chris remained silent, panting heavily. His brother knew he would never join him at all.

Wyatt's face softened for a moment, and it was, as if Chris could see the old Wyatt, his caring brother, gaining the upper-hand.

"I don't want to do this to you Chris! You stubborn mule of a brother. But you can't run around destroying everything I have built up for us!"

Chris still remained quiet.

Soon Wyatt's patience was lost by the blank silence of the boy.

He beckoned over two demons who had human appearance.

"Do what has to be done," Wyatt said quietly "but don't kill him, you understand!"

"Yes mylord!" the demons answered in unison.

Wyatt turned to leave the room, as the demons chained Chris to the wall.

"You want an answer?" Chris spoke up surprisingly "Here you get it!"

Wyatt turned around to Chris, staring at him from the door frame.

"NO!

No! I will not betray everything our mother lived for! And

No! I won't bury my humanity for a powerdrunken heartless murderer.

No! As much as I loved my brother, I can't find him anymore!

No, Wyatt I won't join you. Not now, not tomorrow – never ever!

NO!"

With his last words the room exploded. Tons of steel and the rubble of what seemed to be half of the building crashed down onto the two demons and Chris. Wyatt was dashed out of the room by the blast wave.

Black silence.

…

Chris opened his eyes, but everything remained black. Was he dead? No, being dead would not hurt like this, he thought with a pain-racked face.

He was still here, wherever "here" at the moment happened to be.

Was this him? Had his anger caused that blast? He knew he had done it before today

- Or yesterday?

The difference was that the last time he wanted to do this, but this time?

Chris was shell-shocked.

Carefully he tried to move. There was not much space around him and his legs seemed to be stuck underneath something heavy.

A sudden movement was going through the rubble. Chris heard muffled voices.

Was someone coming to save him?

"Find him!" Chris instantly identified Wyatt's upset voice, and buried his fond hope of freedom beyond the ruins. There was only one thing he could do now.

Hastily he spoke out a cloaking spell.

Now, without Wyatt sensing him, they would never find him. Not in a million years, he thought grimly.

Finally he laid his head down and did the one thing that had waited a long time to be done.

Christopher Perry Halliwell cried.

He cried about the loss of his mother, the loss of the whole damn world, and he cried about himself, for the first time.

The boy felt a strange kind of liberation, doing this.

…

+Why do you awfully stupid bum cloak yourself, right when we come in to find you!?+

A voice broke telepathically into his mind. This was not Wyatt!

This was… the resistance!

Chris spirits revived again. There was rescue nearby. With all his will he sent out a telepathic tracking signal trough the cloak for his friends.

He laid his head down and waited anxiously, as his world once again faded.

…

"Come on Chris, wake up kid! I didn't blow my way right into Wyatt's central building to save you, just to loose you now. No way!"

A warm feeling spread through the semi conscious young whitelighter.

He was saved!

He was save, and everything else didn't matter at the moment.

TBC…