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 – wave – I'm on a roll with this right now, so a relatively quick update for me. Sorry about my little cliffhanger joke and the end of the last chapter – hope posting this one makes up for it. Be prepared for an emotional rollercoaster ride...
Chapter 7
Chris and Future Leo orbed into the attic to find Paige and Patty busily sorting out magic supplies. While there was definitely a strong sense of urgency infusing their activities, they were surprisingly unhurt.
"What is it? What's wrong?" Chris asked, still concerned nevertheless. The girls didn't usually call for no reason.
"A Darklighter attacked," Patty quietly informed him as she reached up to take a large jar down from the top shelf.
"Wyatt?" was both men's immediate response to that worrying piece of information.
"He's fine," Paige replied. "Piper blew him up."
"The Darklighter, not Wyatt," she added off their dumbfounded looks. "Geez!"
"What's with all the panic then?" Leo asked, confused.
"Phoebe had a premonition - there's more on the way, a whole army of them in fact."
Chris and Future Leo exchanged a quick look of alarm; something that didn't go unnoticed by Paige, whose eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What is it?" she demanded.
"Darklighters are a lot more effective in the future," Leo explained. "They learned to work as a military unit, rather than alone or in pairs. Phoebe's premonition sounds like one of their organised attacks. It did all start about now, come to think of it."
"Well, a little warning would have been nice," Paige said, shooting Chris a reproachful look.
"Hey, how was I supposed to know?" her whitelighter protested. "I was minus two at the time."
He looked over at his father. "You think the change in their tactics was tied to what happened to Wyatt?"
Leo frowned thoughtfully. "Could have been, I suppose," he said. "It never really occurred to me before, but yes, that sounds highly likely."
"Well, there's no time to worry about it now," Paige interrupted impatiently. "We need to make enough vanquishing potion to deal with them all, so get your butts in gear and start helping."
As Future Leo and Chris moved to do just that, Phoebe and Penny hurried into the attic, their arms laden with a variety of herb and spice jars. They dumped the items on the table next to the supplies that Paige and Patty had been collecting, and then started setting up one of the small metal cauldrons that the Charmed Ones used to brew their potions in.
A few seconds later, tinkling orb sounds heralded the arrival of Piper and Present Leo. The eldest Charmed One had a changing-bag slung over one of her shoulders, while her husband held little Wyatt tightly in his arms.
"Leo's going to take Wyatt 'up there' where it's safe," Piper informed the room as she passed the bag over to the Elder.
"No, I'll do it," Future Leo cut in, shaking his head and striding purposely across the attic towards his counterpart. "I think you should stay here," he said, taking his small son out of his past self's arms. "The girls might need your help."
"But can't you…?" Present Leo started to protest before he was unceremoniously cut off mid-sentence.
"No! It's not a good idea for me to use my powers while I'm here in the past," his future self said. "Orbing is safe enough because it's relatively passive, but anything more active could adversely affect the balance of the universe."
"How are you going to explain yourself to the other Elders though?"
"I'm not. I'll pretend I'm you – they'll never know the difference."
"I guess that could work," Present Leo acknowledged, and handed over the Wyatt's changing-bag.
Future Leo took the holdall from him and looked around at his gathered family. "You should do this downstairs," he suggested. "You're vulnerable up here in the attic. You shouldn't encourage an organised Darklighter attack in such close quarters."
The Halliwell women quickly saw the logic to his thinking - much to their combined chagrin. "Great! Just when we've brought everything upstairs," Paige said, throwing up her hands in dismay.
Future Leo smiled at the mortified looks that decorated the five witches' faces. "I'm sure your Leo can deal with that problem easily enough," he soothed.
Present Leo shot his opposite number a quick grin, and then orbed the magical supplies and equipment down to the Kitchen with a casual wave of his hand.
"Show off," Phoebe said, playfully poking her tongue out at her brother-in-law.
"Be prepared to let go of your pacifist tendencies when they attack," Future Leo warned his past self then, his expression turning deadly serious.
Present Leo nodded, a cold finger of dread running through him as the ominous meaning of that cautionary statement sank in. Satisfied that his message had been received and understood, Future Leo turned to address his grown-up son.
"Be careful, okay?" he said. "Don't do anything rash."
Chris rolled his eyes in a long-suffering manner. "You did notice I'm not a child anymore, didn't you?" he complained in a distinctly whiny tone.
"You don't honestly expect that to make any difference, do you?"
"Not really. But it was worth a try at least, wasn't it?"
"Chris!"
"All right! I'll be careful, I promise. Just go. Take Wyatt some place safe."
His curiosity piqued by his future self's overprotective behaviour, Leo silently observed the exchange between the dark-haired whitelighter and his other self with interest. There was a lot more going on than first met the eye, he realised. So much was being said beneath the surface of those innocuous words but for the life of him, he couldn't fathom out what.
"Some day soon, you're going to tell me why I'm so involved in your life," he said to Chris, after Future Leo had orbed away with Wyatt. "I get that you've been placed under my protection, but if that's the case, there must be something special about you. Only you don't seem all that powerful to me."
"Okay – way to be insulting!" Chris said, highly affronted by the inference that, in magical terms, he was nothing out of the ordinary. "We can't all be twice-blessed and super powerful, you know."
"I meant that there's something you're not telling us about yourself, and you know it," Leo retorted irritably. "In fact, I think it's about time you enlightened us to what that something is."
Finding himself unexpectedly under duress, Chris fell back on his inherent love of sarcasm to dig himself out of the hole he was in. "Hello? Darklighter attack imminent, or did you forget that significant little detail?"
"You can't keep avoiding the question forever, you know."
"Wanna bet? I came back to save Wyatt, not to tell you every little thing that happens in the future. Now I suggest we get to work on that vanquishing potion – unless, of course, you were actually planning on dying today."
"All right, have it your way. But this conversation isn't over, not by a long shot."
Half an hour later…
"How many is that?" Phoebe asked as she placed another couple of bottles of vanquishing potion on the dining room table.
"Umm – about thirty," Paige replied after a quick count-up. "You think that's enough?"
"Err – I think it's gonna have to be," Phoebe replied as five Darklighters suddenly black-orbed into the entrance hall, crossbows poised at the ready.
"Guys? A little help please!" she frantically called out to the others, who were still mixing up the potion in the kitchen.
Grabbing a bottle each, Phoebe and Paige hurled the potion at the quintet of Darklighters, succeeding in vanquishing two of them before the heavy rain of arrows forced them to take refuge behind the cabinet.
Summoned by her sister's cry for help and running as fast as her legs could carry her, Piper hurtled out of the kitchen, and promptly blew up the other three, her hands opening and closing in rapid succession. The second wave of the attack was upon them in a blink of an eye, giving them precious little time to arm themselves.
"Okay, so Leo wasn't kidding when he said they were more organised," Paige exclaimed as black-robed Darklighters surrounded them. "Hey, are they wearing uniforms?"
With a sharp twang, six crossbows were fired in unison, forcing the main targets of the attack - Leo, Chris and Paige - to orb out to avoid being hit by the poisoned weapons. They re-materialised at various points around the downstairs living space, while Phoebe, Penny and Paige continued to pelt the Darklighters with bottles of the vanquishing potion.
"You three stay back!" Piper warned, systematically blowing up several of their assailants, her eyes narrowed in concentration.
What followed over the next five minutes was a series of well-organised and unpredictable raids by the Darklighter army. As a result, the Halliwell's supply of vanquishing potion was quickly exhausted, leaving a defiant Piper as their main source of resistance.
Chris and Paige did all they could to help though, diverting as many arrows as possible into the chests of their attackers with their telekinetic and orbing powers. They were struggling to keep on top of the unrelenting bombardment however, and their enemies were gradually gaining the upper hand. As was inevitable, a stray arrow finally broke through their hard-pressed defences and unerringly found its intended target.
"PIPER!"
Several voices rang out in horror as the dark-haired witch let out a sharp cry and fell to the ground, clutching at her left shoulder. Chris was on his feet and rushing towards his mother in seconds, his heart thumping wildly in fear. He'd seen her die once before; he couldn't cope if it happened again. Much to his relief though, Piper, although pale and bleeding, was alert and fully conscious.
"Relax," she said, as she hauled herself upright with a grimace of pain. "It's only a little nick…"
"Get down!" Chris cried out, pushing her to the floor as a plethora of arrows headed in their direction. Dodging the flying missiles, the two of them quickly scrambled out of the way, taking cover behind an armchair as the weapons rained down around them in a deadly hailstorm.
"Leo," Chris shouted desperately at the past version of his father. "Energy Blast them!"
Leo was taken aback by the request, wondering how the young whitelighter knew about his newly acquired Elder powers. His future self's earlier words about letting go of his pacifist tendencies echoed in his head then however, prompting him to take action.
Rising to his feet, he allowed the suppressed power within himself to build to a rapid crescendo, then took aim and fired the resulting energy bolts from the ends of his outstretched fingers. With screams of agony, the remaining Darklighter soldiers started to convulse, burning from the inside out before they suddenly exploded into nothingness.
A shocked silence descended over the Halliwell Manor in the wake of the Darklighter's cataclysmic destruction, as everyone but Chris turned to stare at Leo in absolute amazement. Feeling suddenly self-conscious under his family's intense scrutiny, the Elder slowly lowered his hands back down to his sides and deliberately avoided their searching gazes.
"A little healing here would be good," Chris said then, as he helped Piper to her feet with a supportive hand under her elbow.
Leo nodded and hurried over to his wife. Extending his hand towards her injured shoulder, he allowed the warm, therapeutic glow of his healing power to emanate from his palm, curing her oozing wound in a matter of moments.
"Whoa! That was some fire-power, Leo," Paige said, shaking herself out of her shock. "Where the hell did you get that from?"
"It's an Elder power," her brother-in-law explained. "It's only supposed to be used in extreme circumstances. As a rule, Elders are meant to nurture, not destroy."
"Yeah well, we would have been toast without you, so I reckon this classed as an 'extreme circumstance'."
Leo nodded and looked over at Chris. "How did you know? Few people are aware that the Elders possess that kind of power."
The whitelighter shrugged, noncommittally. "'Extreme circumstances' happen pretty often in the future," was the only explanation he offered.
Leo opened his mouth to question the young man further, but was interrupted when his future self orbed back into the Manor with their little son in his arms.
"Sorry," Future Leo said as he deposited Wyatt in the playpen. "I know this is probably a bit premature, but you seem to have everything under control, and I was about to strangle some of my colleagues. I'd forgotten how insufferably self-righteous they used to be."
As Chris watched his father straighten up and move towards them, everything seemed to happen all at once. He caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, just as Wyatt's shield unexpectedly went up. Then, a lone Darklighter rose up from his hiding place behind the wicker loveseat in the Conservatory, his crossbow loaded and at the ready.
"Dad, look out!" Chris shouted out as the bolt left the firing mechanism and headed straight for the unsuspecting Elder.
Gesturing wildly, he frantically pushed his father out of the arrow's trajectory with his telekinetic power. Tossed aside like a rag-doll, Future Leo crashed into the cupboard that stood against one wall, which, unfortunately, placed his youngest son directly in the poisoned arrow's path instead.
Before he'd even registered the danger, the steel-tipped bolt had embedded itself in Chris's chest with a sickening thud. The arrow's sharp tip slid effortlessly through his torso into his heart, and the faltering organ began to pump the poison around his body at an alarming rate. His vision blurring, he crumpled to the floor, his legs giving out under him as his world quickly faded to black.
Dad, look out! Dad, look out! Dad, look out!
Chris's sharp cry of warning reverberated around Present Leo's brain like a lingering echo, as events suddenly seemed to be taking place in slow motion. With an angry gesture, Piper effortlessly blew up the offending Darklighter, who exploded in flames, prompting Wyatt to drop his shield. Chris, meanwhile, slid to the floor like a dying swan, just as Future Leo rose to his feet with a cry of horror.
"Chris! NO!"
It was his future counterpart's anxious dash across the room that finally galvanised Leo into action. As his other self fell to his knees and frantically tugged out the arrow protruding from Chris's chest, he quickly moved to join him at the stricken boy's side.
"No," he said, catching Future Leo's hands in his as he unthinkingly extended them out over the gaping hole in Chris's chest.
"What? He's dying! I have to heal him."
Present Leo was thinking much more clearly than his counterpart was however, not having fully registered that the unconscious young man in front of him was his second son yet. "I meant let me do it," he explained. "You shouldn't be using your powers, remember?"
"All right but hurry, he's not got much time left."
As his healing power began to flow through his body and out of his hands, Leo discovered that was indeed true. The deadly poison already inhabited virtually every cell in Chris's body and he could feel his life force slowly ebbing away under his fingers. It was a battle to pull the whitelighter back from the brink when he was so close to the edge, but Leo was naturally stubborn and so refused to give in without a damn good fight.
Future Leo could only watch and wait as his past self struggled valiantly to break through the barrier of death and bring Chris back to the land of the living. Stroking the hair away from his son's forehead, he bent to whisper words of encouragement in the boy's ear, not knowing what else to do.
"Come on, come on, fight it okay? It's not your time yet, I know it's not your time," he murmured under his breath, his voice cracking with emotion.
Luckily, Present Leo's dogged persistence paid off as, with a bell-like sound, the barrier finally broke. As the colour rapidly returned to his pallid cheeks, Chris sucked in a huge lungful of air and shot upright, his eyes flickering open. Still a little disorientated, he looked confusedly between the two versions of his father, and then his hand went to the now healed wound in his chest.
"Oww!" he said with serious understatement, casting a sheepish look at Future Leo.
Releasing his unconsciously held breath with a whoosh, Future Leo reached out to ruffle Chris's unruly mop of dark hair as wave of relief ran through him. "I thought I told you not to do anything rash," he said, pressing a brief kiss to the top of his son's bent head.
"Erm, excuse me," Paige interrupted, stepping forward with a stunned expression on her lovely face. "Did you call him 'Dad,' back there, or was I just imagining that?"
Chris jumped, his eyes widening as he recalled his inadvertent slip of the tongue. After shooting an uncomfortable glance at Present Leo on his left, his gaze sought out Piper, who was staring at him with a look of absolute shock on her face.
Unable to handle her intense scrutiny, Chris quickly turned to look at Future Leo, taking solace from his steady and comforting gaze.
"Uh-oh," he said nervously, as he realised his carefully kept secret was well and truly exposed.
To be continued…
P.S. I don't know what Leo's power is called btw. 'Energy Blasting' seemed a good as term as any though.