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: Thanks to all my reviewers and sorry for keeping you all waiting – hope you've not forgotten what's happening! Hit the dreaded writer's block with this chapter - I knew what was supposed to happen but it was a real battle to put it into words for some reason. Finally managed it though.

Re: trina-k : No, I decided to create my own baddie rather than use Gideon. And there will be more Present Leo/Chris interaction as the story progresses.

Re: Victorious Light: Although I could understand how Chris might have been unintentionally sidelined, I couldn't see Leo being that bad a Dad either, which was the whole reason for writing this.

So, on with the story...

Last time…

"All right," Present Leo cut in. "You," he said, pointing at his son, "Sit. And tell us what happened – from the beginning and don't miss anything out."

Chapter 13

Ten minutes later…

"I'm sorry; it's not exactly much to go on, is it?" Chris said apologetically, once he'd finished telling his tale. "I don't even know what he looks like."

"Well it's more than we had yesterday," Paige said, getting to her feet and striding over to the Book of Shadows. "We know he can do this blood-smelling thing – which is like 'eew' by the way. There has to be something in the Book that'll point us in the right direction."

"I'm not so sure about that, Paige," Future Leo interjected. "In the future, we've already been through the Book from cover to cover trying to find a clue to what happened."

Chris looked puzzled. "I don't understand – how could you have? Wyatt has the Book."

"Now he does," Leo told his son. "But he didn't in the beginning. There's nothing in the Book that can help us with this, trust me."

"But the demons that killed Mom were in there," Chris protested.

"Yes," Leo nodded in agreement.

"So - that's not nothing. Maybe they know something, we should find them."

"Chris buddy – it won't do any good." Future Leo said quietly. "You were wasting your time looking for them earlier."

"No!" Chris shook his head in emphatic denial. "You don't know that."

"Yes son – I'm afraid do," Future Leo contradicted with a regretful sigh.

"But how?"

"Because we already tracked them down – right after your Mom…," Leo broke off, unable to say the words.

Chris's brow furrowed in confusion. "I don't remember that. Why don't I remember that?"

Future Leo crouched down in front of his son, reaching out to take his hands in his own. "What do you remember about that time?" he asked gently.

"I… I remember…,"

Chris broke off and looked over at Piper, tears welling up in his eyes. His hands tightened convulsively around his father's and he swallowed hard, looking down at the floor as the salty drops overflowed down his cheeks.

"What else?" Leo pressed, rubbing his thumbs in soothing circles over the underside of his son's wrists, trying to comfort him.

Sucking a deep breath, Chris forced himself to move past the painful memory of his mother lying cold and lifeless on the kitchen floor. Closing his eyes, he tried to recall what had happened in the weeks afterwards instead. His mind briefly flashed on an image of a single red rose falling from his unclasped fingers, but other than that, there was nothing.

"I don't…" Chris shook his head, and then his green eyes snapped open in sudden remembrance. "I remember Wyatt's birthday," he said, then frowned. "But… but I don't understand. That was like…,"

"Four months afterwards," Leo finished for him, his blue-green eyes bright with unshed tears. "Or seventeen weeks and two days if you want to be precise," he added, his voice shaking slightly with suppressed emotion.

"But I don't understand," Chris said again. "Was I sick or something?"

"It was a difficult time – for all of us – but you…," Leo trailed off and then tried again.

"You would get up, get dressed, eat and sleep when prompted, but other than that you were just this empty shell. It went on for so long, I didn't think we'd ever get you back, and then it was like somebody flipped a switch inside and the light came back on again. On Wyatt's birthday, you just came down to breakfast of your own accord. When you spoke I don't think I've ever been so grateful in my life."

Future Leo stopped and a silent tear slipped down his cheek as he reached out and smoothed his hand over Chris's unruly mop of dark hair. His son gave him a wobbly smile in return. He remembered that morning, remembered how his Dad and his aunts had hugged him so tightly that he thought he'd pass out from the lack of oxygen. He hadn't understood why at the time but now he did.

"How can I have been so unaware?" he asked incredulously. "And why did you never say anything?"

"The doctor said we should act as normal as possible around you, so we did. You didn't seem to realise that you'd been completely oblivious to your surroundings for four months, and we were told not to push you to talk about it. You were finally grieving properly for your Mom, and, at the time, that was all that mattered."

"So I'm a basket case?" Chris asked, his face screwing up into a rueful grimace.

"No! Don't ever think that, okay? Look how strong you've been since then, how you've coped with all that's happened in the past few years. You shouldn't feel ashamed because you couldn't handle losing your mother in such a traumatic way. Grief affects different people in different ways, that's all. You internalised your pain, whereas your brother…"

"Externalised his on a major scale?"

"Yes. Okay so maybe he was given a good, hard shove in that direction, but he basically pushed the self-destruct button himself."

"And it's that which keeps him there," Chris said shrewdly.

"What does that mean?" Phoebe said. "I thought you said he was evil."

"He is – kind of," her nephew told her. "With Wyatt, it's more about having ultimate power over everything though, and he doesn't care who he has to hurt to get it. If he's the master of the game, he can move all the pieces how he likes, you see."

"No, I don't see," Phoebe said irritably.

"I think I do," Present Leo said slowly. "If he controls events to his liking, then he never has to face that kind of pain and loss again."

"Exactly," Future Leo agreed. "Unfortunately, he doesn't have the ability to influence destiny in that way. The iron control he fights so hard to hold onto escapes from him all the time, and then he…"

"Gets extremely pissed off," Chris put in helpfully.

"Watch your language, mister," Piper immediately admonished her son.

"Sorry Mom," Chris coloured and lowered his eyes in contrition.

Hit with a bolt of nostalgia, Future Leo couldn't help smiling at the little exchange, but then his expression turned serious again. "He ends up lashing out when that happens," he explained, "And innocent people suffer as a result."

"So what do you reckon this demon's deal is?" Paige asked. "If he has some kind of personal grudge against us, why isn't he in the Book?"

"Because I don't think he does," Future Leo answered. "I think what he wants is control of Wyatt's power."

Chris scoffed at that, inadvertently attracting everyone's attention. "Sorry," he said. "It's just he was so smug about turning Wyatt earlier. He's gonna be mighty disappointed when he discovers things didn't go according to plan, after all."

"What does that mean?" Piper asked her son.

"Well if he thinks he can control Wyatt, then he's seriously mistaken. My brother's nobody's puppet, believe me."

Future Leo nodded in agreement. "Chris is right; Wyatt is definitely working to his own agenda. I've always had my suspicions that he was receiving some kind of guidance in the beginning though. Some of what he did was a little too sophisticated for someone of just seventeen years of age. Wyatt may be mature for his years but not to that extent."

"And there isn't anything you can remember that might give us a clue?" Present Leo asked, looking between his future self and his youngest son.

Future Leo shook his head. "No; whoever he is, he likes to keep to the shadows. For some reason, anonymity is important to him."

"Chris - what about you?"

"I… umm," the young whitelighter shifted uncomfortably, casting a guilty look at his father.

"Chris…" Future Leo said in a warning tone.

"He told me not to say anything," Chris suddenly confessed in a rush.

"Who did?"

"Wyatt."

"Told you not to say anything about what?" Future Leo asked sternly.

"After Mom, he… he used to sneak out a lot."

"At night you mean?"

"Yeah."

"To do what?"

"I don't know for sure. He said he was hunting demons but he would never let me go with him, so maybe he wasn't. He could have been meeting this demon guy instead, I suppose."

"And you failed to tell me any of this because?"

Chris looked away from his father's piercing gaze, refusing to answer the question.

"Chris!" Future Leo's voice was sharp with exasperation.

"Because he said he was doing it so what happened to Mom couldn't happen to you as well, okay?" Chris cried out. "I believed him. I'm sorry – I guess I thought it was a good enough reason to keep quiet."

"Oh honey," Piper moved swiftly to sit next to her adult son. She slid her arm across his shoulders, pulling him into a half-hug. With a heavy sigh, Chris rested his head in the crook of her neck for a brief moment, before he reluctantly pulled away from her warm embrace.

"He's always so very good at manipulating me," he said, his eyes clouding over with bitter anguish. "I'm just a pawn in his twisted game and I hate it!"

Not knowing what to say, Piper stole a glance at her eldest son, who was playing happily in his playpen on the other side of the attic. It broke her heart to hear that her sons didn't share the same closeness as her and her sisters. How could it all have gone so horribly wrong?

"He does love him," Future Leo quietly reassured her.

Chris looked stricken at that. "I'm sorry; I didn't mean… I don't hate Wyatt; I just hate what he does. He's still my brother and I do care about him, even if I wish that I didn't sometimes."

"I actually meant that he still loves you," Future Leo said with a faint smile. "You think you'd be pretty much free to come and go as you please if he didn't?" he continued off Chris's dubious look. "You've made quite a nuisance of yourself over the last few years, you know. I know there have been consequences to that, but he's basically let you get away with it. Anyone else would be dead or imprisoned by now."

"I guess," Chris conceded. "It doesn't feel much like love though."

"I know, but it gives me hope that some part of the old Wyatt still exists beneath all that darkness. Realistically, I know the best way to save him is to stop him from being turned in the first place, but I need a reason to keep on fighting when I return to the future. Believing that there is still a chance, however remote, to get him back in our time gives me one."

Chris's heart constricted inside of his chest as he was forced to face something that he'd been trying to avoid thinking about. His father would be leaving soon and if he succeeded in his goal of saving Wyatt, then he would never see him again – ever – because he would be going back to a future where this version of Leo didn't exist.

"You don't have to go back," he said desperately. "You could stay here."

"You know that's not possible, Chris."

"Will I forget? About us, I mean. And what about when I go back? Will there be two of me?"

Future Leo shook his head. "No, I don't think so, because you'll be returning after the future has changed. I've done some reading up on the subject. What I think will happen is you'll merge with your future self and retain both sets of memories. You'll always remember our timeline, but your newer memories will be the more dominant of the two."

"But you won't be there."

"Not in this incarnation, no, but my other self will be."

"It won't be the same."

"He'll still be your father, Chris. You'll remember growing up as his son, just like you remember growing up as mine."

"But he won't know about this me, will he? Nobody will. I'll be the only person in the whole, wide world, who remembers what it was like in the other future."

"Which is why it's important for you to make the time to bond with this version of your family while you're here. That way, when you return to the new future, you'll have people who can love and support both sides of the person you'll become."

"All I wanted was to get my brother back," Chris said dejectedly. "I never really thought about what it would mean if I succeeded."

"It'll be a better life, I promise," Future Leo said, sitting down next to his son. "What you'll gain will outweigh what you've lost in the end."

"But you won't be there," Chris repeated, his green eyes shiny with emotion.

"No," his father agreed. "But you'll have the life that I always wanted for you. Just try to remember that okay?"

Chris nodded as Future Leo reached out and pulled him into a fierce hug. While father and son clung to each other as if their lives depended on it, the rest of their family looked on, all deeply affected by the emotionally charged atmosphere between them.

Getting up from the sofa, Piper crossed to stand by her husband. "You okay?" she asked quietly, recognising that Chris's words must seem like a rejection to her timeline's Leo.

Present Leo shrugged. "I feel like a spare wheel."

"He doesn't mean to push you aside, Leo."

"I can't believe I'm jealous of myself, how dumb is that?"

"It's not dumb. You're not the only one who's feeling somewhat inadequate as a parent right now. I'm envious of the connection that Chris has with him too, you know. Our future son is going to be effectively orphaned soon however, and it's down to us, as his future parents, to make that as easy on him as possible, don't you think?"

Leo nodded and squared his shoulders. "You're right. This isn't about us – this is about building a better future for our sons."

"That's the spirit," Piper said, tilting her head back to shoot him an encouraging smile.

Taking advantage of the opportunity presented to him, Leo threaded his fingers through her hair and pulled her close, dropping a kiss on her upturned lips. Moulding her body to his, Piper wrapped her arms round his waist and kissed him back.

"Ahem!" Paige deliberately cleared her throat when it appeared that their embrace wasn't going to end anytime soon. "Do you think you could save making Chris until later please?"

"Okay – so not needing that mental picture," her nephew said, grimacing in disgust.

Paige grinned at his discomfort, and then returned to the point. "We have a demon's sorry ass to vanquish in case you've all forgotten. Any ideas on how we're going to do that?"

"You'll have to lure him out into the open first," Future Leo said.

"Why not just give him what he wants?" Chris suggested.

"What you mean use Wyatt as bait?" Phoebe said, horrified. "I don't know how you can even suggest that. He's just a baby."

Chris rolled his eyes. "I meant me, not Wyatt."

"Absolutely not," Piper said. "Look what he did to you this morning, not to mention the fact that he threatened to kill you."

"He caught me off guard, Mom, that's all. He won't kill me until he gets the information he wants. Anyway, this time we'll be calling the shots, not him."

"It's still too risky."

"I agree," Present Leo concurred. "We'll find another way."

"Like what?" Chris shot back, frustrated at being treated like a child. "Come on – it's a good plan and you know it."

Leo hesitated, he didn't like it one bit, but he could see his son's point of view – this might well be the only way to trap their enemy. He looked over at his future self, trying to gauge what he thought of the situation. The troubled expression on his counterpart's face indicated that he was thinking much the same thing, which immediately made Leo feel less guilty for considering the idea.

"Look, it's not like I was planning on going down into the Underworld, sticking my hand up and saying 'Hey, come and get me'," Chris said persuasively. "I was kind of hoping I would have The Power of Three to watch my back."

"What do you think?" Present Leo asked his future self.

"I think I don't want my son put in any more danger," Future Leo replied. "But, I also have to accept that he's not a little boy anymore and capable of making his own decisions."

"Not when that involves putting his life at risk, he's not," Piper immediately retorted.

"Then do everything in your power to minimise that risk, Piper. You and your sisters have got to start thinking more strategically, rather than just reacting on pure instinct like you usually do. We know he doesn't make his move against Wyatt for a year or so yet, so there is plenty of time to plan everything down to the last detail. Use the time you've got to make sure all your bases are covered. Get the whole plan watertight and the risk to Chris is close to negligible."

"You make it sound like a war," Paige said.

"The whole future is a war-zone, Paige. It's good versus evil on an entirely different scale to what you're used to. If you don't want to live in that kind of world, then set aside your everyday life for a while, and do everything you can to prevent it from turning out that way again. It's not that much to ask is it?"

"You've gotten hard, Leo," Phoebe said then. "What happened to the mild-mannered whitelighter we know and love?"

"His wife was brutally murdered, his eldest son turned evil and the whole world went to hell. On top of that, he couldn't do anything to stop his youngest child from suffering horribly because of it all," Future Leo replied. "Is that reason enough for you?"

"It's reason enough for me," Present Leo said quietly, breaking the shocked silence that followed Future Leo's harsh words.

The three Charmed Ones looked at each other, finally fully accepting the seriousness of the situation that faced them. "And me," they said as one.

To be continued…