FALSE MEMORIES

My first posted story here. Also my first Charmed Fanfic, although I have written fanfiction for other shows.

Disclaimer: The characters in Charmed do not belong to me. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.

Summary: Loved the Piper/Leo/Chris family dynamic in Season 6 so that's when this story is based. Set after Chris-Crossed and Prince Charming. Nobody knows who Chris is yet, but they're about to find out, courtesy of an unexpected visitor from the future…

Notes: Hey! Another update for you. Thanks for all the lovely reviews – I'm so glad you're enjoying my story. On with the show then – it's the calm before the inevitable storm…

Chapter 6

Bouncing a gurgling Wyatt on his knee, Leo watched as Piper moved industriously about the kitchen, gathering the various cooking utensils and foodstuffs she needed for the batch of cookies that she intended to bake. Dressed casually in jeans and a t-shirt, and with her long dark hair tied back into a loose ponytail, she looked every inch the content wife and mother as she happily immersed herself in quiet domesticity.

Up until now, Leo hadn't really realised how much inner tension Piper had been suppressing since their break-up. She was a strong woman, he knew, but the months as a single mother had been a tremendous strain on her. When she'd broken down and wept in his arms the previous night, he'd been shocked by the extent of her distress.

Her renewed interest in dating had just been a smoke screen, he discovered, a way to convince herself and her sisters that she was doing fine, when in reality she was falling apart inside. His own 'I'm okay with it as long as she's happy' attitude had only served to compound the problem, making her think that it had been easy for him to let go of her, when in truth it had been anything but.

Prompted by his future self's revelations though, they'd finally opened their hearts and been truly honest about their feelings for the first time since their split. They'd talked late into the night, eventually reaching the conclusion that they both wanted their marriage to work. Although they had a way to go before everything was back to normal, things were on the mend now, and that brought them both a great deal of comfort after the recent months of emotional stress.

"So when are you going to speak to the Elders?" Piper asked, pulling a pastel blue apron over her head and securing it around her waist.

"I figured I'd wait until my future self has gone back to his own time," Leo replied, trying to distract his squirming son by jiggling a set of car-keys in front of him.

"I'm not putting it off," he added, when his wife shot him her patented 'you've got to be kidding me' look. "It's just him being here and blatantly disregarding the rules about time travelling isn't exactly the best advert for allowing an Elder to have a family life."

"I suppose not," Piper looked down, not completely mollified by his reasoning. She was petrified that her husband would be taken away from her again. She just wanted the impending confrontation with the Elders to be over, so they could move on with their lives without all the uncertainty hanging over their heads.

Sensing her disquiet, Leo stood up and deposited Wyatt in his high chair, then pulled her into the circle of his arms. "Don't worry," he said into her hair as he held her close. "I'm not letting you go again. If I have to, I'll quit."

Piper clung to him for a moment, before stepping back and looking up at his face. "You can't do that," she said quietly. "It's part of who you are."

Leo gently cupped the side of her face in his palm and rested his forehead against hers. "So are you," he replied. "I honestly don't think it will come to that though. My future self knew what he was talking about - things are pretty chaotic 'up there' at the moment. They need me more than I need them right now, which means the bargaining power is all ours."

Buoyed by his quiet confidence, Piper looped her arms around his neck, stood up on her tiptoes and kissed him. "You know what's weird," she said, when they eventually drew apart a short while later.

"What?" Leo asked, leaning against the counter-top as she began to weigh out the ingredients for the cookie dough.

"How easily I've managed to forgive Chris for everything he did to us," Piper replied. "I should be angry at him, only strangely I'm not."

"I know what you mean," Leo agreed. "It's like I know I should be giving him a hard time, but I can't bring myself to do it. Maybe it's because we know for sure now that his only motive is to save Wyatt."

"No, it's more than that. Your future self is so – oh, I don't know – protective of him, I guess. There's this whole adult/child dynamic going on. I know it makes sense, seeing as in the future, he's Wyatt's age, but I just never thought of Chris in that way before."

"What you mean as a kid desperately trying to save his friend in the only way he can think of?"

"Exactly. It changes things somehow. I… what was that?" Piper broke off as the sound of a loud crash came from the other room.

Scooping Wyatt up into his arms, Leo cautiously followed her through into the Conservatory, preparing to orb out and protect his son if necessary. The room was empty though. One window stood wide open however, creaking on its hinges in the wind.

With a puzzled frown, Piper bent down to pick up the smashed photograph frame that lay face down on the floor. "Do you think someone was here?"

"Either that, or someone just forget to latch the window properly," Leo replied, as he set Wyatt down on the floor amongst his toys, and went over to shut the window.

"Phoebe and Paige are still upstairs right?"

"Yes, both present and correct," Leo replied, quickly sensing his sister-in-laws' familiar presence in the house.

Piper relaxed. "I swear I'm getting paranoid – I see demon attacks around every corner. Let's go with the simplest explanation until we know otherwise, shall we?"

"Sounds like a good idea to me," Leo replied, smiling down at Wyatt, who was holding up a plastic shape and looking up at him with a hopeful expression on his little face.

"Okay, you play with our son, and I'll go and finish those cookies."

"What have you got there, Wyatt?" Leo asked, as he knelt down besides the baby and reached for a large spherical object with various shaped holes cut into it. "Shall we play post the shape, huh?"

With his forehead creased in concentration, Wyatt stubbornly attempted to fit the circular shape in his hands into the square hole. His father eventually persuaded him to try another shaped slot though, and the small boy cooed in delight when the object disappeared into the hollow plastic ball with a satisfying plop.

Her lips curling up into a contented smile, Piper turned on her heel and went back into the kitchen to finish her baking, leaving her husband behind to entertain their little son.

Meanwhile, high up on the Golden Gate Bridge…

"I remember the first time we came up here – I was about five, I think."

Chris was perched, cross-legged, on a wide beam suspended high above the busy road that traversed the bridge far below. He sat facing his father, who was leaning against the supporting column with his legs stretched out in front of him.

"Four," Leo immediately corrected. "It was the week after Wyatt's sixth birthday."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, I'm not likely to forget, believe me. I was in trouble with your Mom for days after."

"Why? Oh right – because of Wyatt."

There was a brief silence, and then Chris began to laugh, his shoulders shaking with mirth.

"Chris – it's not funny," his father reproved, despite the smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

His mild censure only increased his son's amusement however, and Leo shook his head with a smile, casting his mind back to the incident that was the cause of all the hilarity…

Sometime during 2008…

"Okay little guy – I think that's you about ready to go," Leo said, as he zipped his younger son up in his thick, padded coat.

With woollen gloves on his hands, and a blue and white striped bobble hat covering his shock of dark hair, the little boy looked as if he was about to go on a trip to the Artic. Leo knew Piper would kill him if he allowed their son to catch cold though.

Of course, if she knew the destination of the father and son outing that he had planned, she would probably have his guts for garters anyway. He was prepared to take the risk however, for the pleasure that he hoped the excursion would bring to his two boys.

Speaking of which – his eldest was currently engrossed in a cartoon on the television, and had so far ignored repeated requests for him to come and get ready.

"Wyatt, if you don't turn that off and come and put your coat on right now, then we'll go without you," he threatened, raising his voice to attract the six year old's attention.

With an exaggerated show of reluctance, Wyatt turned off the television and stomped into the hallway, his expression sulky. Completely ignoring the boy's petulance, Leo calmly handed him his coat, and then pulled on his own jacket.

"Where are we going?" Wyatt asked, finally doing as he was told when he realised his father wasn't taking the bait and attempting to appease him.

"It's a surprise," was Leo's rather cryptic reply.

The young boy perked up a bit at that. "Cool!" he declared.

'Cool' was Wyatt's word of the moment, he used it to describe everything, whether it was appropriate or not. Having heard it at least twenty times a day for past month or so, Piper was on the verge of casting a spell to ban it from the English Language forever. It had taken some fast-talking on Leo's part to persuade her that it wasn't such a good idea to mess with something as fundamental as the spoken word in that way.

"Put your gloves on," Leo instructed, as he bent and hoisted Chris up into his arms.

The Elder waited patiently while Wyatt did just that, and then reached out to take the boy's hand in his. He then orbed all three of them to an out of the way spot with a clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge, where he set Chris back down on his feet.

"We're going up there," he informed the two boys, squatting down to their level and pointing out the bridge with his finger.

"Right to the top?" Little Chris's mouth dropped open and his green eyes grew round with awe.

"Right to the top." Leo confirmed.

"Cool!" his younger son said, unconsciously echoing his brother's earlier comment.

Wyatt however, was dubious. "What if we fall off?" he asked.

"You won't if you stick by me and don't go running off," Leo replied soothingly. "If you slip, then just orb back down here, okay?"

Wyatt nodded, still not entirely convinced but trusting his father's judgement. Taking both boys firmly by the hand, Leo stood back up and orbed them to one of his preferred spots, a relatively sheltered alcove on the bridge's South Tower.

"Look Daddy, Look Wyatt. Look how far you can see!" Chris said, his face lighting up with delight as he took in the spectacular view.

"Chris, be careful!" Leo warned sharply, as the little boy scampered excitedly out along the metal beam with no heed for life or limb.

"Can you see our house?" Chris asked, turning back to face his father, his eyes shining with wonderment.

Leo quickly moved to join his son, reaching out take him by the arm to stop him from running off again. "It's over that way," he replied, pointing in the general direction of the Halliwell Manor. "But it's too far away to see."

Chris nodded solemnly, carefully taking that information in. "Come and look, Wyatt," he called to his brother. "You can't properly see from there. It's so cool!"

Puzzled by the lack of response from his eldest, Leo turned around to find Wyatt ashen-faced and trembling. He looked positively green, his face dewed with beads of sweat and his eyes wide with terror. Leo hurried over to kneel in front of the petrified boy.

"Come on," he said, holding out his hand in encouragement. "It's perfectly safe."

Instead of taking his father's hand, Wyatt shrank back against the supporting column, trying to stay as far away from the edge as possible. "I don't like it," he said, his eyes filling with tears.

Chris stared at his brother, open-mouthed in astonishment. What was wrong with him? He was the one who needed a nightlight because of the possibility of monsters under the bed - Wyatt wasn't scared of anything! He said Chris was stupid because he was frightened of the dark.

"Are you going to be sick?" he asked curiously. "You look like you're going to be sick."

"Chris!" Leo admonished, before turning back to Wyatt. "Come on buddy – just take my hand. I won't let you fall, I promise."

"NO! I want to go home. Please Daddy, can we go home?"

"Okay, okay," Leo gently soothed his panic-stricken son. "I'm sorry; I thought you'd like it. We can go if you want to."

"But we only just got here," Chris protested, his mouth turning down at the corners.

"We'll come back another time," Leo pledged in an attempt to pacify his disappointed second son.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

With that assurance, the Elder orbed his boys back to the Manor and prepared to face his wife's wrath…

Back in 2003…

"Who'd have thought it, huh?" Chris mused, once his laughter had died down. "The all powerful Wyatt Halliwell afraid of heights."

"He learned to control his fear eventually."

"But he never completely got over it though, did he? Coming up here – it was the only way I could get away from him." Chris's expression darkened as his thoughts turned to bleaker times. "He wanted me to join him, you know."

"I know. I'm so proud of you for resisting. I know he put a lot of pressure on you. I tried to help, tried to protect you from him, but you wouldn't let me anywhere near you."

"I'm sorry…"

"No, no apologies Chris, okay? It wasn't your fault."

"But the things I said…"

"Hurt a lot. I won't deny that. But Wyatt was responsible, not you."

"What happens if I can't save him?" Chris blurted out, finally giving voice to his deepest fear.

"We'll cross that bridge if we come to it," his father replied firmly, refusing to even discuss that possibility. Instead, he focused back on the reason why he'd suggested they come up here to talk in the first place.

"You don't have to deal with this alone, you know. If you just t…" Leo stopped, as an echoing cry suddenly broke free of the background murmur in his ears and grabbed his immediate attention.

Chris! Leo! We need you!

Father and Son were on their feet in seconds. "Paige," they said in unison as their molecular structure dissolved into shimmering blue lights…

To be continued…

I know, that was evil, but cliffhangers are cool :-)