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: This part keeps switching between what the characters are watching in the future and what they're thinking/feeling in the present. Hope it's not too confusing, but I didn't want it to be just a flash forward with no reactions from anyone. The main POV in the present is Chris to keep the consistency, which will hopefully make it simpler to read.
Thanks for the reviews – replies to individual ones below:
Re: To all those reviewers who assured me my Prue was okay – thanks for the vote of confidence - this was something I was worried about, not being able to remember her all that well. I do remember she was the 'take charge' person, much more so than Piper, which is why I've written her like that. I was originally planning to make her Chris and Wyatt's whitelighter. But then I read a few stories with that already in, so I decided to take a slightly different route and keep her effectively dead like Penny and Patty instead.
Re: Victorious Light re: Prue/Chris storyline. Yeah, I am planning to put it in at some point, only I'm not quite sure how yet because no one is supposed to know! Piper, Chris and Prue know something, but Leo is the only one who knows everything and he's not going divulge it to anyone, not with his son's life at stake. I think I'll just have him thinking about it, but I need to find a suitable point in the story for him to do that.
Re: charmedtomeetyou – Prue is going to stick around for a while longer, but she's not in this chapter much, I'm afraid.
Re: Nubilina – I've not forgotten about my other fic – look out for another update in the next couple of days. I was hoping to get it finished this weekend, but I've had less time to write than I thought I would, so it will be a little bit longer.
Anyway, enough of my rambling. As I mentioned above, Prue isn't in this chapter much but she will be back. This part is about future Wyatt, so for obvious reasons, Chris, Piper and Leo are the main players in the present.
Chapter 23
Handing baby Wyatt over to his grandmother, Chris sat down, cross-legged, on the wooden attic floor, watching as the teenage version of his brother pulled out a backpack from under his bed and began to stash various items of clothing in it.
Chris was both dreading and anticipating what he was about to see through this fateful window into the future. This had been without doubt the most painful time of his life, and yet he was strangely hopeful that it would finally give him some answers as to why his brother had gone so completely off the rails.
His Dad sat down on the floor next to him, while his Mom seated herself on the couch directly behind him, with Paige and Phoebe either side of her. Prue perched on the arm of the sofa next to Phoebe, and Penny and her daughter sat down in two empty armchairs, Patty with little Wyatt happily ensconced in her lap.
"All we need now is popcorn," Chris quipped, trying to lighten the mood, despite the nervous pounding of his heart inside his chest.
His joke fell flat however and he sighed, resting his chin on his knees and gazing intently at the developing scene in front of him. Nothing of significance happened until his own voice sounded eerily in the tense quiet of the attic.
"You're not sneaking out again tonight, are you?"
Wyatt whipped around and the angle of the picture widened to reveal Chris's fourteen-year-old self standing in the doorway dressed in blue and green striped pyjamas. Even to his own eyes, he looked thin and pale. His cheeks were sunken and hollow, dark shadows ringed his haunted eyes, while his clothes were hanging off his too skinny frame. Piper gasped and Leo quickly reached over to take her hand in his.
Chris frowned, struggling to remember this particular night – he'd asked that same question so many times over a period of months that he lost track of each individual occurrence. Try as he might, he couldn't recall this specific moment, although it couldn't have been very long after he'd emerged from his catatonic state, given his unhealthy-looking appearance and his brother's short hairstyle.
"What's it to you?" Wyatt asked, somewhat snappily.
"I don't think you should go – it's too dangerous."
His brother laughed. "I can take care of myself, Chris."
"Dad would lose it big time if he knew what you were doing."
"Yeah well, what Dad doesn't know won't hurt him," Wyatt replied in an offhand tone.
"I don't see why you have to go out every night anyway."
"Because there's a never ending supply of demons to hunt down and kill that's why!"
"Can't you just give it a rest for a while?"
"No I can't," Wyatt shot back impatiently. "Do you want what happened to Mom to happen to Dad?"
Chris stared at his elder brother in horror. "No! No of course I don't."
"Then leave me to do what I have to do then."
"I don't like it, Wyatt."
"You don't have to like it – you just have to keep your mouth shut and let me get on with it."
Unconvinced, Chris stubbornly shook his head. "No, it's not right - the way you're going down to the Underworld all the time. You shouldn't be doing it."
"And how exactly are you going to stop me?" Wyatt asked derisively.
"I'll…," Chris hesitated for a moment, obviously not liking the solution that presented itself. In the end though, he knew it was his only option. "I'll tell Dad," he threatened.
Wyatt reacted instantly and furiously. Grabbing the fourteen-year-old Chris roughly by the arms, he slammed him up against the wall. "You do and you'll be sorry, you little sneak!" he hissed venomously, his fingers bruising his brother's skin where they dug painfully into his flesh.
Seeing the look of horror on his younger self's face, Chris finally realised when this was and he momentarily closed his eyes, dreading what was about to come next. This was the first time Wyatt had ever been anything approaching violent with him and it had shocked him to the core.
Recognising that he'd gone too far, Wyatt backed off, holding up his hands in a gesture of apology. "Sorry, I didn't mean… I just don't want anything to happen to Dad. He's all we've got left, Chris."
"What if something happens to you though?"
"It won't."
"It might Wyatt! Promise me you won't go down to the Underworld anymore."
"I can't."
"Then I'm going to tell Dad." With that avowal, the younger Chris fled from the room as fast as his feet could carry him.
Wyatt swore and took off after his little brother in hot pursuit. The scene unfolded from his perspective as Chris ran down the landing and took the stairs two at a time before grinding to an abrupt halt in the downstairs hallway. Wyatt stopped about halfway down the steps, watching as his brother's gaze remained riveted on something in the living room. Eventually, the younger Chris looked back over his shoulder, his green eyes full of unshed tears. This seemed to be Wyatt's cue to continue on down the stairs and, as he finally joined his brother in the hall, the thing that had stopped the dark-haired teenager in his tracks became painfully apparent.
Leo sat on the sofa in the lounge, his head in his hands. It was obvious he was crying from the telltale shaking of his shoulders, but no noise could be heard emanating from him. The lack of sound only served to make the poignant scene all the more heart-rending however.
"See, it's not fair to bother him with a little thing like this," Wyatt said in a low, persuasive murmur, prompting the view to shift away from the grieving Leo and back onto the two brothers. "He's just lost Mom – the love of his life. And he's a single father to two teenage boys, one of whom has, well, emotional problems - something that only adds to the burden."
Fourteen-year-old Chris swallowed convulsively and wrapped his arms around himself in an act of self-protection, his gaze fixed firmly on his bare feet.
"I know it's not your fault," Wyatt pressed on, "But you've gotta see that you being ill made things so much harder on Dad after Mom died. You don't want to cause him any more unnecessary stress now, do you?"
With a strangled sob, Chris pushed past his brother and rushed back up the stairs, his feet hardly making a sound on the carpeted steps. A slow, satisfied smile spread across Wyatt's handsome features and the older Chris felt an icy shiver run down his spine at the sight. Drawing in a shaky breath, he looked away from the scene only to find Leo's gentle, understanding gaze upon him. Unfortunately, this made him feel about ten times worse. Feeling guilty and responsible, he felt the need to offer some sort of explanation for his reticence.
"I'm sorry, I should have told you," he said, "But I just couldn't, not when you..." he stopped before trying again. "I know Wyatt was deliberately manipulating me but he was right in a way, wasn't he? I did make things worse for you."
"No, no you didn't, don't think that," Leo said, reaching out and laying a consoling hand on his son's forearm. "It was a difficult time for everyone. If you want to know the truth, Wyatt's erratic mood swings were just as worrying to my future self as your problems were. Neither of you were a burden though, quite the contrary in fact - you were my… his reason for carrying on."
Drawing some comfort from this, Chris turned his gaze back on the vision of his past playing out on the wall in front of him. Wyatt had retreated to his bedroom again and had just finished packing a change of clothes into his knapsack. As pulled the drawstrings of the canvas bag tight, he looked up sharply, obviously alerted by a sound that his watching family couldn't hear.
Quickly kicking his backpack under the bed, he toed off his pumps, pulled his t-shirt off over his head, then leapt into bed, grabbing a book from the nightstand as he tugged the covers up over his denim-clad legs. Moments later, there was a light knock on the door and Leo entered the room. The Elder's eyes were slightly swollen and red-rimmed, but otherwise he seemed perfectly composed.
"Don't read for much longer Wyatt, okay?" he said to his son. "It's getting late and you have school tomorrow."
"Yeah, I know. I just wanted to finish this chapter," Wyatt replied amenably.
Leo nodded. "Has Chris gone to bed?"
"Yeah - a while back. He looked kind of tired."
"All right – I won't disturb him then," Leo said, turning towards the door before something prompted him to turn back.
"You will keep an eye on him tomorrow, won't you?" he said to Wyatt, his blue-green eyes reflecting his concern for his youngest child. "It's his first day back at school after your Mom… I'm not sure he's ready yet, but he insists he wants to go."
"Don't worry, Dad. I'll make sure that everyone knows that if they give him a hard time, they'll have me to answer to."
"That's not what I meant, Wyatt," Leo chided. "But I'm glad to hear the sentiment anyway. You've not been very supportive lately, you know."
"I know, I'm sorry, I just… I hate seeing him like that, Dad." Wyatt said, gazing up at his father with a convincing look of sorrow in his ice-blue eyes.
"And the Oscar goes to…," Chris murmured sarcastically under his breath.
Piper closed her eyes at the bitter hurt she could hear in her son's voice. This was harder than she thought it would be. She'd steeled herself to face an uncaring Wyatt, but to see the emotional and physical damage her death had wreaked on her other son, and witness her husband's grief over her loss, had been almost too much for her to bear.
Chris had lived through this though, she reminded herself. And Leo too in a way, now that he had his other self's memories. She had to be strong for them, see this through to the bitter end. If they found out who had gotten to Wyatt, then maybe they could stop history repeating itself. Prevention was better than a cure - hadn't she always been taught that?
Squeezing Leo's fingers, she sat forward on the sofa and smoothed her hand over her son's dark hair, pressing a gentle kiss to the top of his head. Chris glanced back over his shoulder at her, the look in his green eyes pained but an expression of steady resolve on his face nonetheless. She nodded encouragingly at him and he gave her a tight smile before returning his gaze to the future scene in front of them.
Future Leo was just bidding his eldest son goodnight and leaving the room. After the door had closed behind his father, Wyatt lay there for a couple of minutes, and then threw back the covers and clambered out of bed.
Quickly redressing himself, he retrieved his backpack from its hiding place under the bed, and then crept over to the window. Undoing the latch, he pulled the sash open as quietly as he could and threw his leg over the ledge. He then climbed down the side of the house, agilely jumping the last few metres to the ground and landing in the flowerbed with a soft thud.
"Why didn't he just orb out?" Phoebe asked as Wyatt hurried off down the lamp-lit street.
"Because I would have felt it," Leo told her, "Especially from the next room. He would have to get a significant distance away before the sound of his orbs blended into the background noise."
"But surely Future You was able to sense that he'd gone?"
"Yes – except that he had no reason to just then. As far as he was concerned, both his sons were safe in bed. Later on, when Wyatt's behaviour got completely out of control, it was a different story, but at this point in time, my future self just thought he was acting out because of Piper's death. There was no reason to suspect anything different."
The future picture in front of them suddenly lurched and blurred, and then refocused on a dark, garbage-strewn alleyway. Seconds later, Wyatt rounded the corner, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He was dressed in the same clothes – a scarlet t-shirt and blue jeans - telling them that this was still the same night. He paused, looked this way and that, and then finally orbed out, his blue orbs descending down into the ground rather than ascending to the heavens above.
The scene blurred again and they were in what was clearly the Underworld. Chris sat up straighter, immediately recognising the torch-lit passageway in front of him.
"What is it?" Leo asked sharply.
"This is it," Chris said an undercurrent of suppressed excitement in his voice. "This is where I was when he kidnapped me – the demon after Wyatt I mean. The Trileb Demons' lair is just ahead."
Wyatt turned and followed the passageway in the opposite direction to that which his brother had taken some fifteen years earlier however, eventually coming to what looked like a dead-end. Standing on his tiptoes, he lightly ran his fingertips over the rough stone until he found what he was looking for, and then pressed hard against the indentation in the rock.
There was a loud, grating sound and a narrow opening appeared in the rock-face, filling the dimly lit passageway with the greenish light of what lay beyond. Wyatt squeezed through the gap and the hidden doorway immediately clanged shut behind him. Oval lamps of phosphorescent rock illuminated the short corridor that the teenager was now standing in, while the double doorway at the far end was constructed of a burnished mahogany wood.
These doors swung inwards of their own accord as Wyatt approached, and Chris found himself looking around the home of their enemy once more. Not much had changed in the fifteen years that had passed, apart from the addition of a large, circular table that stood in the centre the room. The walls were still lined with tall, heavy bookcases, and the rest of the furniture was also positioned pretty much how it had been when Chris had been imprisoned there.
"Good Evening, Wyatt," the dry, dusty voice of their demonic adversary echoed from a dark corner of the room.
Wyatt shot a slightly irritated look in the direction of the disembodied voice. "Aren't we ever going to meet face to face?" he demanded petulantly.
"Have patience, child. The time will come soon enough."
"When exactly?"
"Very shortly, I believe."
Apparently satisfied with this answer, Wyatt moved over to stand in front of the table, a gleam of anticipation in his blue eyes. "What tonight?" he asked eagerly.
The air above the table shimmered and a globe-like object appeared on the surface. Mounted on a shiny, brass cradle was a transparent glass sphere filled with a swirling, purple mist.
Wyatt's face fell in obvious disappointment. "A crystal ball?" he asked scathingly.
"Ahh, but it's so much more than that," his mentor informed him. "Look into its depths and you shall see."
Wyatt stepped closer and peered down into the ball. The purple mist inside eddied and cleared and he stiffened in shock, his eyes blazing with sudden, intense anger.
"I thought they were all dead," he hissed, his hands gripping the edge of the table so tight that his knuckles turned white.
"I'm afraid not, boy. The demons who stole your mother so cruelly from you are many in number. You have killed but a mere fraction of them."
"Then I'll hunt down every last one of them until they're all dead," Wyatt vowed, his voice filled with iron resolve.
"That could take years, decades even."
"So?"
"You have other things to do with your life, Wyatt – great things. Do not waste your potential on empty revenge. Finish it now and move on from it."
"How?"
"Use the Globe."
"It will show me where they are?" Wyatt asked with barely suppressed excitement.
"If you ask it to, yes, but I suggest you use it to finish this once and for all instead. You need not even step out of this room if you do not wish to."
"I don't understand."
"Itona's Globe is not merely a window on the world, my child. It will channel its user's will to every corner of the cosmos if necessary. In the hands of a strong and influential witch such as yourself, its power knows no boundaries."
"You mean I'll be able to kill them all in one go?"
"I believe so, yes. Nobody has ever used the Globe for something so ambitious before, but I think it is perfectly possible for you to achieve what you desire. Your power is already greater than any I've ever known, and you are but sixteen years old."
"Tell me how," Wyatt insisted in a commanding tone, his eyes alight with hungry zeal.
"Place your hands on the glass," his demonic mentor softly instructed.
Wyatt did as he was told, causing a plasma ball type effect within the Globe. The purple mist sparked and streamed towards his fingertips as the Globe began to emit a low humming sound. "What now?" he asked.
"Fix an image of your mother's murderers in your mind and focus that image on the Globe. Then command it to use your power to seek out and destroy them. Do not let anything distract you. You must concentrate all your efforts on holding that image firmly in your mind or the effect will become diluted."
Wyatt nodded in understanding, then drew in a deep breath and stared intently down into the glass ball, his forehead creased in concentration. The Globe's humming immediately rose in volume and the purple mist inside began to churn like a tornado.
"Now!" Wyatt commanded through gritted teeth.
The Globe's violet light contracted, then suddenly flared and the sound of agonised screams filled the attic. The watching Halliwells could not see the flickering images inside the Globe, but the teenage Wyatt could not tear his eyes away from them. A look of grim satisfaction spread across his face as he watched the systematic destruction of his demon enemies, prompting him to tighten his grip on the Globe and pour even more of himself into the grisly task.
Chris watched in open-mouthed horror as the cobalt blue of his brother's eyes suddenly slid away to be replaced by iris's of pure black. Leo – rather uncharacteristically - swore vehemently at this and Chris could hear his Mom's muffled sobbing coming from behind him. He couldn't look at either of them though; his eyes never left Wyatt's face as his brother took his vengeance and effectively destroyed a piece of his own soul in the process.
And then it was over, Wyatt's hands slid from the Globe and he slumped to the floor, physically and mentally drained by what he'd just done.
"See to him, Nazcheck."
A figure, that non of them had noticed before, hurried forward and lifted the unconscious Wyatt off the ground and transferred him to a couch on the other side of the room. Chris gasped - it was the sceptical darklighter from the day before. He was older certainly, and no longer had bleached-blond hair, but it was definitely the same person.
"Is it time master?" he asked eagerly.
"Not yet, Nazcheck. There is still a way to go yet. We have made significant progress here tonight however."
"But the others…"
"The others do not have Wyatt's strength, his power - corruption of a soul as strong as his takes time. We must be patient."
"You could have taken him when he was an innocent though, turned him when you first infected him."
"And I would have weakened him in the process. To know the way one's enemy thinks is the ultimate advantage, Nazcheck. For that very reason, it was essential that Wyatt be raised by his own flesh and blood. We must be careful not to push him too far, too fast – the ties of family still bind him, but they are loosening as each day passes. He grows ever more defiant of his father and his Aunts, and he is no longer so sympathetic to his brother's plight. These are all good signs, but the battle for his soul is not over yet."
"You're damn right it isn't, you…," Paige called their enemy something that wasn't repeatable in civilised conversation.
"Wyatt doesn't know he's evil, does he?" Phoebe suddenly said. "I wonder how he explained away the fact that he lives in the Underworld."
Chris looked sharply at his Aunt, realising that she was right. His reasoning might have gotten twisted somewhere down the line, but Wyatt's initial motives had simply been to protect his family from further heartache and exact revenge on his mother's killers. He hadn't knowingly chosen to walk on the dark side.
"Power is seductive," Leo said. "And prolonged use of dark magic corrupts the soul. By the time he realised what was happening, it was probably too late. He was hooked and he had to keep going back for more."
"This guy knows what he's doing, doesn't he?" Prue mused thoughtfully. "He purposely played on Wyatt's grief and his timing was impeccable. Sixteen is an impressionable age - it was the perfect time to reel him in."
"After he had first planted the seed during his babyhood," Leo put in. "Without that, Wyatt might have had the strength to resist. It was a slow, gradual process – I think that's why my other self didn't see it until it was too late."
"Maybe you would have done if I'd told you what he was doing," Chris said dully.
Leo looked at his dejected son. "How long had you known at this point?" he asked, waving his hand at the picture on the wall, where their adversaries were quietly waiting for Wyatt to come round.
"I don't know – about two, maybe three weeks, I guess."
"Then I don't think it would have made a difference," his father said firmly. "Look how strongly he reacted when you tried to prevent him from going – it was already like a drug to him. He was hopelessly addicted at that point. From what my future self's memories tell me, it wasn't much after this that I found out anyway."
Chris nodded, remembering the huge row that had ensued – he'd never seen his mild-mannered father so angry – ever. Grandpa Victor had been staying with them for a few days because Leo had Elder business to attend to, and Wyatt had gotten careless, thinking he didn't have to take so many precautions to avoid being caught out. Leo however, had orbed back home a day earlier than expected, and had caught his son red-handed just as he had been climbing out of his bedroom window.
"I never knew about him though," Chris felt the need to say.
Leo nodded. "No, me neither - not in the beginning anyway. My future self just thought that Wyatt was recklessly hunting down demons for revenge. He had no idea that there was more to it."
"So when did you find out the truth?" Piper asked her husband. She was pale, her face tear-streaked, but she also had a look of resigned acceptance in her brown eyes.
"I…," Leo started to say when the window to the future suddenly emitted a loud, crackling pop and went blank.
Chris stared at it in horror. No! This could not be happening. It wasn't enough. There were still so many unanswered questions to resolve. They'd learned some more about how Wyatt had been turned, but they still didn't know anything about why. And more importantly, who had done it. This was not happening. It wasn't.
The silence dragged on interminably as they all stared at the hovering circle of light, desperately willing it not to vanish. Eventually though, it popped again and the picture inside returned. This time it showed Leo, and an older-looking Paige and Phoebe, sitting around the kitchen table in the Manor. All of them had tense, worried expressions on their faces. Chris had no recollection of this, but the pained look on his Dad's face told him that he did.
"This is it," Leo said quietly. "This is when we realised that we'd lost him."
To be continued…