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: Apologies for the delay in updating. Real life has been pretty busy the last couple of weeks - I became an auntie for the first time. :-) I haven't had that much free time to write therefore. Hope this is worth the wait.
Last time…
Piper was about to respond when suddenly an almighty crash from above shook the whole house on its foundations. They both jumped to their feet in alarm.
"Oh my God! What the hell was that?" Piper exclaimed.
Chapter 15The Attic, twenty minutes earlier…
"Hey! Can I come in?"
Chris poked his head round the attic doorway and smiled shyly at his Aunts. Despite his brief conversation with Phoebe earlier that morning, he was still a little unsure of how to act around them, now that they knew who he was.
Three days ago, he'd simply been their nagging, neurotic whitelighter, now he was their grown-up nephew. It changed things and he wasn't certain which role he should be playing. It was much more clear-cut with his parents somehow, he was their son and that's all there was to it.
"Sure you can," Phoebe said, beckoning him in. "You don't have to ask, silly."
Chris crossed the room to join them. They were both sitting cross-legged on the floor, with the Book of Shadows and various other spell books scattered around them. "You come up with anything?" he asked as he sat down beside them.
"Not yet. So far, every scenario we've come up with ends up with you…" Paige made a slashing motion across her throat with accompanying gruesome sound-effect. "Not the outcome we were looking for."
"Glad to hear it."
"It'd be much simpler if you had a shield like Wyatt," Phoebe said, looking at him hopefully. "Do you?"
Chris shook his head. "Afraid not - guess I wasn't deemed worthy."
"Oo – someone's got an inferiority complex," Paige teased in an annoyingly singsong tone.
Chris shot her a withering look. "Well, can you blame me?" he replied. "You try growing up in the shadow of a more powerful elder sibling."
"Been there, done that," Paige said quietly.
Chris nodded in acknowledgement. "Difference is; Prue wasn't really any more powerful than you. You just felt you had to live up to her memory in order to be accepted properly into the family. Once you realised you could just be yourself, it was no longer a problem."
Paige's eyes opened wide at his astute assessment of her issues. "How do you know that?"
"Oh… umm… we talked… about stuff – in the future, I mean," Chris shifted uncomfortably, realising that he'd treated her with more familiarity than maybe he should have done under the circumstances.
Paige however, smiled broadly. "So I was like an 'agony' aunt?"
Chris laughed. "Oh yeah, you were agony all right," he joked, earning himself an indignant punch on the arm. "No, you were great – you were both great, all the family was. Wyatt might have been more powerful, but we weren't treated particularly differently at home."
"But outside of home, it was a different story, I take it?" Phoebe asked.
Her nephew nodded, then sighed. "Yeah – at Magic School especially."
"Magic School?" Paige queried.
Chris groaned at his slip of the tongue. "You see, this is why I didn't want you to know who I was," he said wryly. "I relax my guard around you and all these secrets start popping out."
"So you're not going to tell us what you mean then?"
"Actually, Dad just said that we should tell you about Magic School. We could require the refuge it offers when we go after whoever is trying to turn Wyatt, you see. You would have found out soon enough anyway. I don't know much about these things, but I imagine my little-big brother is nearly old enough for 'Mommy and Me' classes, right?"
Phoebe nodded. "So Magic School is what then? A School that's Magic? Or a School for magically gifted children?"
"Kind of both."
"Where is it?"
Chris frowned. "You know, I don't actually know. In some sort of hidden reality plane, I think. It's protected by Elder Magic so its pupils can learn to control their abilities in a safe environment."
"And both you and Wyatt went to school there?"
"Yeah. I didn't quite live up to my brother's reputation when I arrived though. They were expecting another genius and all they got was me."
"You're not exactly powerless though, are you?" Paige pointed out. "You can orb and you've got your telekinesis. Your Dad says you can use that on spells as well as objects, which is kind of cool if you ask me."
Chris glowed with pleasure at the endorsement. "You think so?" he asked, his green eyes sparkling with boyish delight.
Paige laughed at his reaction. "Yeah, I think so – you can have a gold star to put on your chart if you want."
Chris pulled a face at her. "Very funny," he said sarcastically. "Besides, they were silver, not gold," he added with a quirky smile. "Mom said silver ones were better, although I think she just got fed up with trailing round the shops to find gold ones. They were always out of stock, you see."
Paige grinned at her nephew, and then her expression turned serious as a sudden idea struck her. "Could you project a spell?" she asked him.
"How do you mean?"
"Well, I'm guessing that when you sense a spell aimed at you, you wave your hand to deflect it somewhere else?"
"It's a little more complicated than just waving my hand, but that's pretty much how it works, yeah."
"Right, so do you think you could slow the whole process down? I mean, sort of absorb the spell into you, and then project it away at a later time?"
Chris frowned in thought. "I guess I could," he said slowly. "I've never really tried anything like that before though."
"What are you getting at, Paige?" Phoebe asked her sister.
"Well, we've been talking about how it'd be easier if Chris had a shield like Wyatt's to protect himself. What if we make him a 'Power of Three' one?"
"Which he can control with his telekinetic ability," Phoebe finished for her. "That's a great idea!"
"Didn't know you had a genius for a little sister, did ya?" Paige preened, extremely pleased with herself for coming up with a solution to their dilemma.
"Err – hold it with the self-congratulation, girls," Chris cut in. "I'm not saying it's not possible, but what you're talking about would take a tremendous amount of self-control on my part. The more powerful the spell, the harder they are to move, and, in this time and place, a Power of Three spell is the most potent magic there is."
"Well, you'll never know unless you try," Paige said. "I'm not saying we hit you with a Power of Three spell straightaway, we'll start with something small and work our way up. Practise makes perfect, right?"
"If you say so," Chris said, somewhat dubiously.
"You need to believe in yourself more," Phoebe told him. "So what if Wyatt's more powerful than you, forget about him, just concentrate on making the most of the power that you have."
Paige got up and rummaged around in one of the boxes of junk, producing a rather ugly-looking vase. "Nobody likes this, right?" she asked, holding it up.
Phoebe shook her head. "No, even Grams hated it; I don't know why she kept all this stuff. I think she just couldn't bear to throw anything away half the time."
"Okay, so this is the perfect opportunity to de-junk a little," Paige declared, setting the garishly coloured, pottery vase on top of a large chest of drawers, before rejoining them on the other side of the room.
"It'll be easier if you know when the spell's coming at you, I suppose?" she asked of Chris, who nodded in reply.
"Okay then," Paige said, pulling open a drawer and taking out a small drawstring bag, together with a pad and pencil.
Chewing lightly on the end of the pencil, she deliberated for a few moments, then scribbled a few lines on the top sheet of the pad and tore it off.
"Just a little something to blow that disgusting thing to smithereens," she explained as she upended the cloth bag and emptied out its contents into the palm of her hand.
She spoke the small rhyme that she'd composed, and the glittery powder glowed a brilliant white as it absorbed the spell. The youngest Charmed One then turned to her expectant nephew.
"All right, so instead of just TKing the spell away from you as soon as it comes near, let it get as close as possible," she instructed him. "Then, try to hold it for as long as you can, before directing it at the vase."
"It will just blow up the vase, right?" Chris asked nervously.
"Yes, don't worry," Paige reassured him. "I really don't think my sister and two brother-in-laws would be very pleased if I shattered you into a million pieces. The spell will only destroy inanimate objects, I promise. Are you ready?"
Chris braced himself, and then nodded. Paige lifted her hand to her mouth and blew the glittery powder directly into his face.
Sucking in a deep breath, the witch-whitelighter resisted the instinct to push the spell immediately away from him, and, instead, allowed the magic to enter his body. Holding up his hand in a halting gesture, he gritted his teeth, striving to keep control of his aunt's magic as it raced around, unchecked, inside of him.
It was an incredibly weird sensation – he could feel the essence of whom Paige was in a way that he'd never been able to before, not even with his sensing ability. Because her mind worked so differently from his though, her magic proved extremely difficult to control.
His shoulders heaving with effort, Chris held onto the spell for as long as he could, but soon felt like he was going to explode. Unable to hold it in any longer, he gestured wildly at the vase with his hand and threw the spell away from him, letting out his breath in a grateful rush as the unbearable tension left him.
Unfortunately, his aim and control were decidedly off. Not only did the vase explode with a deafening crack, sending pieces of pottery to every corner of the attic, the shelving unit behind the chest of drawers cleaved away from the wall, and crashed, with its contents, to the floor, creating an almighty racket.
"Okay," Paige said, as the three of them stared at the destruction in stunned amazement. "So maybe you could think about using a little less force next time."
Phoebe began to laugh. "I'll second that," she said, picking bits of broken pottery out of her hair and tossing them aside.
"It's not funny," Chris grouched at the sniggering pair. "Mom's gonna kill me and it's all your fault."
As if on cue, clattering footsteps ascended the stairs before Piper skidded into the attic, Leo close on her heels.
"What the hell happened?" she said, her hands poised at the ready. "Where's the demon? Did you vanquish him?"
Her question only made her sisters laugh harder, and Chris glared at them in irritation.
"Will somebody please tell me what's going on?" Piper demanded, turning towards her son when she got no answer out of her giggling siblings. "Chris?"
"It was Paige's idea," he protested defensively. "It's not my fault it didn't exactly go according to plan."
Piper looked over at the mess on the other side of the attic. "You did that?"
Chris cringed at her sharp tone. "Not deliberately. Paige's magic is more difficult to control than mine, that's all."
Piper looked confused. "Paige's magic?" she asked in a puzzled tone.
"We were talking about how it would be easier to protect Chris if he had a shield like Wyatt," Phoebe started to explain, once she'd recovered her composure somewhat.
"And?"
"Well, you know Future Leo said Chris could TK spells?"
Piper nodded.
"Well, Paige thought we could make him a 'Power of Three' shield that he could control with his power."
"So, we decided to try out the theory by getting him to shatter that hideous orange and green vase with a spell of mine," Paige took over the narrative. "Only things went a little bit awry, and your son shattered a whole lot more than just the vase when he projected my magic."
"So I see," Piper said acidly.
"He'll get better with practise," Paige assured her sister.
"Will the house still be standing though?"
"Hey!" Chris protested. "It's not like I've ever done this before, you know. I don't think it was that bad for a first attempt."
"You can talk anyway, Piper," Phoebe cut in. "Remember what it was like when your exploding power first developed? We all had to duck every time you lifted your hands."
Chris laughed at that bit of information, earning himself one of his mother's 'looks.' Un-phased, he shrugged. "I suppose it's like mother like son," he said, grinning cheekily at her.
Against her will, Piper found herself smiling back at her son. She didn't think she'd seen Chris looking so relaxed before. Usually the strain of his self-imposed mission to save Wyatt was permanently etched on his face, she realised with a pang. How could she have been so blind to his obvious emotional turmoil? He may have been secretive about his reasons for coming to the past, but the clues had been there all along.
She had often caught him quietly watching her taking care of Wyatt, his sad, soulful eyes full of hidden emotion, but had thought nothing of it at the time. His reaction to her dating was decidedly over the top as well, he certainly took a violent dislike to Greg that was for sure. In fact, she wouldn't be surprised if the two guys, who had inexplicably stood her up, had had a little encouragement to do so, courtesy of her second son.
As that thought struck her, her brown eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Ben Marsh's great-aunt didn't really fall down the stairs and break both her legs, did she?" she asked.
Flushing guiltily, Chris immediately dropped his gaze from hers and refused to answer the question.
"Who's Ben Marsh?" Phoebe asked, puzzled.
"You know the doctor, who stood Piper…," Paige broke off and stared at her nephew. "Oh you so didn't…?"
"He was a preppy jerk. And don't even get me started on the fireman."
Leo laughed at his son's belligerent tone. It warmed him to think that, even with the effects of Wyatt's spell, Chris had still refused to accept any other man in his mother's life. Guessing her husband's thoughts, Piper reached out and slipped her hand into his, squeezing his fingers affectionately.
"I guess only Daddy's good enough, huh?" she said.
Chris nodded in agreement. "I could be biased, of course," he added with a broad grin.
After smiling warmly at her son, Piper turned to Leo, but what she was about to say died on her lips, when she saw the telltale blank expression on his face.
"The Elder's aren't jingling for you now are they?" she asked, annoyed at the interruption. This was a perfect opportunity for her husband and their errant son from the future to get to know each other a little better.
Leo blinked a couple of times, and then focused his gaze back on his wife's face. "Umm… not exactly," he replied. "I'm jingling me."
"Why?"
"I don't know."
"I'll come with you then."
"Me too," Chris said, getting to his feet.
Leo shook his head. "No, he said to come alone," he told them firmly, then disappeared in a cloud of blue orbs before they could object.
"I hate it when he does that," Piper said to no one in particular.
High up on the Golden Gate Bridge, Future Leo stood gazing out over the lights of San Francisco, lost in thought. A bell-like shimmering sound announced the arrival of his past self, but he didn't immediately look around, needing to compose himself before he spoke.
Seeming to sense this, Present Leo seated himself on the orange-coloured metallic beam and waited patiently for their conversation to begin. Eventually, Future Leo moved over to join him, sitting down with his legs dangling over the edge as he looked down at the busy road beneath them.
"I have something to ask you," he said slowly. He lifted his gaze from the scene below and looked his other self directly in the eye. "But, whatever happens, it has to be your decision, okay?"
His curiosity piqued, Present Leo nodded. "Okay," he agreed.
Future Leo's lips quirked up into a small smile. "I guess I'm hoping that, as you're essentially me, you'll make the same decision that I would make, under similar circumstances."
"That doesn't seem wholly unreasonable."
"You don't know what I'm going to ask yet."
"So how about you enlighten me then?"
Future Leo pulled a small bottle out of his shirt pocket and handed it to his counterpart. Present Leo turned it over in his hands before asking, '"What is it?"
"A memory-restoring potion; similar to the one that I gave to Chris when I first got here."
"I don't understand," Present Leo said, puzzled. "What would I want with a memory-restoring potion?"
Future Leo didn't reply, but he didn't need to because the meaning of his request suddenly dawned on his past self.
"You want to give me your memories of the other future," he realised.
"Yes," Future Leo confirmed.
"Why?"
Closing his eyes for a brief moment, Future Leo drew in a deep breath and began to explain…
To be continued…