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: New chapter for you all. Sorry for the delay in updating – I seem to say that a lot with this story, don't I? I'm not quite sure why, but this always takes a lot longer to come together than my other story does. Weird!

Anyway, thanks for the reviews – I've replied to any questions/queries using the new reply system.

Last time…

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. 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 for good."

Chapter 24

"I think my future self wanted me to have this memory for a reason," Leo continued thoughtfully. "He was only supposed to give me the memories that revolved around Chris. Some of the memories are pure Wyatt though and nothing to do with Chris at all – significant episodes like this. I guess he wanted me to be able to recognise the signs."

"Where was I?" Chris asked curiously.

"At Victor's," Leo told him, his expression strained. "I didn't want you to witness this. It didn't really work out that way of course – you had to deal with the consequences when you got home anyway."

Chris nodded, remembering now. This must have been when Wyatt had walked out of the Manor for good, turning his back on his family and irrevocably tearing them apart at the seams. Chris had never really known what had happened that night. He supposed he was finally about to find out.

"Are you sure about this Leo?" Paige from the future vision said then, drawing everyone's attention back to the scene playing out in front of them.

Leo's future self nodded. "I don't like it but I can't see any other way. I've tried talking to him, shouting at him, grounding him even, but nothing seems to be getting through. If I'm going to help him, I need to know what's been going on. At the moment, I'm fighting blind and things are getting worse by the day. It's all starting to get out of hand."

"But why now?" Phoebe asked. "The situation has been deteriorating for weeks. Why have you decided to take such drastic action now?"

"Phoebe…"

"No, Leo. This is our nephew we're talking about here and what you're asking us to do, it's just… I trust you but I need to know why."

"We both need to know," she added, throwing a quick look at her younger sister who was sitting beside her.

"I explained…"

"Not properly you didn't," Paige interjected. "Phoebe's right, this has come completely out of the blue. You were all for the softly, softly approach until yesterday – what's changed?"

Leo sighed and rested the bridge of his nose against his interlocked fingers. "Because yesterday Chris accidentally tipped a cup of coffee down the front of his shirt," he began, "Then refused to take it off so I could put it in the wash. He said he'd go upstairs, change and bring it back down instead. I knew something wasn't quite right so I followed him up to his room and…,"

Leo stopped, his blue-green eyes filled with desperate concern. "And his back was covered in scratches and bruises," he eventually said, prompting horrified gasps from both Phoebe and Paige.

"He said he fell…" Leo went on.

"But you didn't believe him?" Paige asked soberly.

Leo shook his head. "Why hide it if that's all that happened?"

"You don't think Wyatt did it?" Phoebe was shocked that her brother-in-law could even think that.

"That's exactly what I think," Leo said. "Chris denied it of course, but I know when my sons are lying to me."

"But his own brother, Leo…"

"I know – that's why I think this is necessary. Wyatt acting out over Piper's death is one thing – bullying his little brother like that is quite another. I won't tolerate it. There is no excuse for that kind of behaviour. It has to stop – now."

Phoebe and Paige exchanged a significant look and then nodded at Leo in resigned agreement.

"What did Wyatt do to you?"

Dragging his gaze away from his future father and Aunts, Chris looked over his shoulder at Piper, who had leaned forward to ask him the question, her brown eyes filled with horrified concern. "It's okay, Mom…"

"No! It isn't okay, dammit! I want to know."

Chris sighed. "I followed him," he said quietly, "Not discreetly enough apparently. I'm pretty certain he knew I was there right from the beginning. He still let me tail him all the way to some alleyway somewhere though. It was the same one that we just saw him orb down to Underworld from, come to think of it. Anyway, he confronted me there and… well, teleorbed me backwards into a load of dumpsters. That's how I got all the bruises and scratches. I don't remember anything after that – I think I hit my head and passed out. He was gone when I came round."

"He just left you there?" Piper was horror-struck.

Chris nodded. "But it wasn't really Wyatt, Mom. The real Wyatt, I mean – he wouldn't have done that. I know he wouldn't... I know."

He turned back to face the front, his eyes back on the vision of his future. "I was weak then," he admitted. "This new Wyatt – he scared the hell out of me. I didn't know how to handle it."

"And he doesn't scare you now?" Paige asked curiously.

Chris looked over at her with a rueful shake of his head. "Not in the same way, no. It wasn't much after this that he kidnapped you and Phoebe, and then cast the memory-altering spell to try to bring me round to his way of thinking. That changed everything. I was all alone in the world…"

"Well, I thought I was alone," he amended with a quick look at his father. "I had a choice. I could either give up or fight for my family and what I believed in. I chose the latter."

"Spoken like a true Halliwell," Prue said approvingly.

"I think it was more a question of survival," Chris replied modestly. "If I'd faltered from that conviction, even for a moment, I would have been lost. What Wyatt wanted me to be part of, I couldn't let that happen. I'd have rather died than become... that. Resistance was the only other option available to me."

Prue opened her mouth to reply but the sound of a slamming door from the window into the future distracted her. The older versions of Leo, Paige and Phoebe all sat up straighter in their chairs, their expressions wary but grimly determined.

"Wyatt – could you come in here for a moment please?" Future Leo called out to his son.

There came the hollow echo of approaching footsteps and then the teenage Wyatt once again entered the frame. His appearance was so drastically different from the previous vision however, that Piper couldn't prevent the soft gasp that escaped her lips at the sight.

Wyatt was taller, significantly older too – seventeen maybe eighteen years of age. The boy was gone – her son was a man now, dressed top to toe in black with long, straggly hair and a proud, disdainful look on his handsome face. Contempt glittered bright in his ice-blue eyes as he regarded his family with a barely concealed sneer on his lips.

"Now here's a welcome committee," he drawled sarcastically.

Leo ignored him. "Sit down; we want to talk to you," he said sternly, his tone hard and impassive.

Wyatt didn't comply, but instead shot a scornful look at his father. "About what?"

Leo's temper snapped. "About why your brother is covered in bruises that's what!"

A muscle twitched in Wyatt's right cheek at this, but otherwise he didn't react to the undercurrent of accusation in his father's voice. "Shouldn't you be asking him that?"

"I did."

"And what? He said I was responsible, did he?"

"No actually, he didn't," Leo replied. "But I'm not stupid, Wyatt."

"Funny," Wyatt said with a twisted grin. "I rather thought you were. Now if you've quite finished…"

Turning on his heel, he made to leave. Paige shot a questioning look at Leo, who nodded, his expression bleak. She nodded back and then steeled herself to do what was necessary.

"Crystals," she ordered with a wave of her hand, instantly trapping her unsuspecting nephew in a magical cage.

"What the hell?" Wyatt demanded, swinging around to confront them, his eyes blazing with sudden anger.

Leo got to his feet and moved to stand in front of his fuming son, his arms folded across his chest. "I said we're going to talk," he repeated, his tone brooking no opposition.

"This won't hold me for long," Wyatt threatened, glaring at the shimmering bars of the crystal cage that encapsulated him.

"I'm aware of that," Leo replied. "It'll hold you for long enough though."

Wyatt laughed derisively. "And what are you going to do, Dad? Torture me for answers?"

"If I have to," Leo told him calmly.

For the first time, Wyatt looked a little unnerved. "You wouldn't," he accused. "You don't have the guts."

"No?" Leo said, his eyes fixed upon his son's face. "I don't think you know what I'm capable of when the occasion demands it, Wyatt."

"They'd stop you," his son shot back, gesturing over at his Aunts.

"No they wouldn't. We all agreed – we'd do whatever it takes."

Wyatt turned his gaze on Phoebe and Paige then, who both stared back at him, their expressions sad but calmly resolute.

"This is madness," he burst out incredulously. "I'm your nephew!" He turned back to his father, "Your son!"

"And Chris is your brother," Leo retorted. "What did he do to deserve such treatment?"

"Stuck his nose in where it wasn't wanted if you must know."

"You mean he tried to stop you going out demon-hunting," Leo surmised. "Something I should have put an end to a long time ago. This obsession of yours – it isn't doing you any good, Wyatt. Look at yourself; look at what you're becoming. Revenge is never the answer – all it does is eat away at you inside until there's nothing left. It's not going to bring your Mom back, nothing will. Just let it go. Move on with your life."

"Thanks for the advice, Dad, but it's a bit too late for all the whitelighter moralising crap. I hate to burst your bubble, but I've already moved on - like a year ago. Someone showed me a better way. I'm the one in control of my destiny now – nothing or nobody will ever cross me again."

"What do you mean 'someone showed you a better way'?" Paige asked sharply.

"They're all dead," Wyatt went on, ignoring his Aunt's question. "The demons that killed Mom, every last one of them. Their species is extinct. I did that. What did you three do? Expand the entry in the Book of Shadows that's what! And what did that achieve? A big fat nothing!"

"How did you eliminate an entire species?" Leo asked quietly, his expression filled with worried concern as a horrible suspicion began to grow inside of him.

"With Itona's Globe."

Leo's blue-green eyes widened in horror. "That's powerful dark magic, Wyatt."

"I can handle it," Wyatt told him arrogantly.

"Nobody can handle it!" Leo returned, his voice rising in volume. "What were you thinking? Haven't I always warned you…?"

"Oh yeah, you've warned me…," Wyatt interrupted. "You've been given great power, son. You must use it responsibly. Don't let yourself get seduced by what you can do with it," he mimicked cruelly. "All my life you've been trying to suppress me, trying to stop me from becoming everything I'm supposed to be."

"That isn't true." Leo shook his head in denial.

Wyatt laughed again. "No? So why have I learned more in the past eighteen months than you, Mom and the Aunts have taught me in seventeen years then? I'm actually kind of surprised you didn't bind my powers when I was little. That'd be so like this family – all pretty words and no real action."

"And where exactly did you learn whatever it is you've been learning?" Paige demanded.

"I can't tell you that. It's irrelevant anyway."

"Like hell it is!"

"I think I'm bored with this conversation now," Wyatt remarked laconically. "In fact I'm bored with this whole family if you want to know the truth. The only one with any kind of potential is Chris and you're determined to turn him into a pathetic clone of yourselves…"

He put on a high, whining voice. "'Please don't go down to the Underworld again, Wyatt. It's wrong. It's too dangerous. You might get hurt. Dad says this, Dad says that…' Well forgive me if I don't really care what Dad says anymore. You always were a sorry excuse for a father anyway, I just didn't realise it until now."

"You don't mean that," Phoebe accused, her eyes wet with shiny tears.

"Don't I, Aunt Pheebs? Sorry but I sure as hell do."

"What happened to you? How did you get so…?" Phoebe faltered, bringing her hands up to cover her mouth as her lower lip quivered in reaction to his taunting.

"Aww! Don't cry, Aunt Phoebe," Wyatt mocked. "You needn't worry your pretty little head about me. I'm fine. Never been better in fact. I do have some place to be though, so if you'll excuse me…"

Without warning, he reached out and grasped hold of a bar of the crystal cage holding him captive. The cage buzzed and hissed in reaction, but Wyatt showed no evidence of pain, he simply twisted his wrist and effectively snapped the cage. It exploded with a loud bang, catapulting various pieces of furniture across the room. Leo, Paige and Phoebe all dived to floor, their arms over their heads to protect themselves from the flying debris. When the dust settled and they rose to their feet again, Wyatt was gone.

"Upstairs," Leo said, but faltered mid-orb when he heard heavy footsteps descending the stairs. He rushed out into the hall, a dishevelled Paige and Phoebe hard on his heels. Wyatt had just reached the bottom step, a bulging backpack slung over his right shoulder and the Book of Shadows tucked under his left arm.

"Ahh – that's nice, you've all come to say goodbye. You needn't have bothered you know. I couldn't be happier to see the back of the lot of you."

"Book of Shadows!" Paige gritted her teeth and forcibly orbed the family heirloom away from her nephew's grasp into her own hands. "If you want to rid yourself of this family then you won't be needing that," she told him.

Wyatt shrugged nonchalantly. "No matter – you can have it. For now at least anyway."

He reached out to open the door, but was forced to leap backwards when Leo shot a stream of energy bolts at the handle, making it white-hot and impossible to touch.

"Nice try, Dad. Too bad it's too little, too late."

"This conversation is not over, Wyatt."

"No actually it is, because I am done! DOOR!"

The entire front door vanished in a mixture of blue and black lights, making Phoebe gasp in horror and Paige turn deathly pale, as both of them finally realised just how far down the path into darkness that their nephew really was.

"Well that's new," Wyatt commented, looking down at his outstretched hand. "Ahh well, never did like the colour anyway. It always was a bit bright."

He stepped over the threshold and turned back to look at them. "Well, I'll be seeing ya!" he said with false cheeriness. "Tell Chris I'll be in touch."

"You stay away from your brother!" Leo warned, his fists clenched by his sides, his face white with shock but his expression indomitable nevertheless.

"Or you'll what?" Wyatt asked, raising his eyebrows sardonically. "Forget it, Leo," His reeling father blanched at the name.

"The only way you can 'protect him'," Wyatt curled his fingers into quote marks as if he didn't see it as protecting at all, "Is to vanquish me and even if you did have the power to do that, I know you won't. You're too weak. Killing your own flesh and blood would be unfathomable to you."

With that, he orbed out in that self same mixture of blue and black lights that he'd previously used to remove the front door. There was a moment of shocked silence after his departure and then Leo forcibly shook himself out of his stunned disbelief.

"Chris!" he murmured, disappearing in a stream of turquoise lights.

Paige turned to a sobbing Phoebe and drew her into a tight hug. "We will get him back," she vowed, letting her own tears flow as she said this. "We will."

Chris looked down at his entwined fingers and kept his gaze resolutely away from his family. He could hear his Mom and three Aunts sniffling in reaction to what they'd just witnessed and he didn't dare look over to where Patty and Penny were sitting together with Wyatt. It would simply be too much to gaze upon his brother's face and see such innocence there.

He felt his father place a comforting hand on his arm, and then winced when the gentle grip unexpectedly tightened. Chris lifted his gaze just in time to see the poignant image of his two Aunt's shared grief shimmer and change into the telltale furniture of their enemy's Underworld home. He drew in a deep breath. This was it; he just knew it. He was finally going to know.

Sure enough, a few moments later, Wyatt entered the cavern and negligently flung his backpack on one of the chairs. "Are you here?" he asked loudly.

"I didn't expect you back so soon." The disembodied voice floated out of the corner as usual.

"Yeah well, I ran into some trouble at home."

"Trouble?" Chris shuddered at the undercurrent of excitement he could hear in his brother's evil mentor's voice.

"Yeah, my Dad discovered some balls and decided to confront me. Coerced my Aunts into helping him too, would you believe. It was a regular convention, I can tell you."

"You didn't tell them anything?"

"About our plans, no. What do you think I am? Stupid? Dad would've immediately gone running to his Elder friends. He'll probably do that anyway, but they won't know what they're up against so we still have the advantage. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I've left home – for good."

"Leo will follow you."

"Probably – but I can block him. He won't find me."

"And you're sure about that, are you? An Elder and his own son – that's a powerful connection. He must not be allowed to discover us."

"I told you, he won't!"

"There is a way to ensure that," their enemy said lightly, almost nonchalantly.

"How?"

"You must sever the link permanently. There is a spell, but it has to be performed of your own free will. It will enhance your power ten-fold incidentally - your connection to your family has always held you back."

"Tell me something I don't know."

"So rid yourself of their binding shackles forever. Cast the enchantment."

There was a blur of purple lights and a piece of yellowing parchment appeared in Wyatt's hand. He looked down and quickly read the spidery verse written on it. "Okay," he agreed after barely a pause for thought. "Not Chris though."

"You must…"

"He can be useful to us."

"He doesn't have your power."

"No, but he's not powerless either. He just needs training. I can persuade him to help us; I know I can. He'll see that this is the only way forward once I explain things properly. And I can block him from sensing me until then."

There was a brief silence as their enemy considered this proposal. "All right, I agree your brother is someone we should think about recruiting to our cause. Maintaining the blood bond will make that easier so, very well, you may omit him from the enchantment."

"That was his mistake," Leo suddenly said, voicing his inner thoughts as the future Wyatt prepared to cast the spell that would divide him from his family for good. "Agreeing to that, I mean. That's how he lost control over him."

Chris looked at his father. "How do you mean?"

"Your brother's soul was so corrupted at this point that his bond with us was the only thing keeping him from turning completely. Severing that link was necessary to get Wyatt on side but he failed to break the bond. He left one string intact - you. You said it yourself, Chris, Wyatt isn't evil in the normal sense of the word – all he wants is power and control."

Chris nodded. "But why did he risk it? He must have known the consequences."

Leo smiled wryly. "I guess he thought you'd be easy prey. Got too overconfident with his victory over Wyatt and forgot that the only reason he succeeded in that endeavour was because he made him vulnerable in the first place."

"You mean whatever he did to him as a baby?"

Leo nodded. "You didn't have that chink in your armour and somehow you found the strength to defy your brother when he pressurised you."

"So why not do the spell at that point then?"

"It's an enchantment that has to be performed of someone's free will, remember? Wyatt wasn't going to let you go, not then. Your refusal to see things his way infuriated him, it made the bond stronger not weaker. If I was a betting man, I'd say you were the reason that Wyatt and him parted company."

On the magical screen in front of them, Wyatt had finished placing various candles and crystals in a symbolic pattern on the floor, and was now standing in the centre of the pentagram-like shape about to recite the spell. Before any words left his mouth however, the vision blurred and refocused itself, just as the effects of the enchantment reached their devastating conclusion.

A mini-whirlwind was whipping up the sand on the floor, while hundreds of blue stars seeped through Wyatt's skin and streamed upwards towards the ceiling and the unsuspecting world above. As the spell ended, he slumped forward, breathing heavily while the dust settled back down around him. When Wyatt straightened up again, Chris drew in a sharp breath, instantly recognising the cold and scarily determined look in his older brother's eyes. He was once again looking upon the tyrannical Wyatt of his future - the transformation was complete.

"And now I think it is time for us to meet face to face," the hollow voice of their enemy formally intoned.

Chris tensed – this was it, he was finally going to know what he had searched so long and hard for.

There was a flare of purple light in the corner of the cavern and then Wyatt's demonic mentor finally stepped out of the darkness and showed his face to his apprentice and the watching Halliwells.

"Geez! No wonder he hides away," Paige exclaimed in reaction to what she saw.

Chris stared at the demon - or was he a man? - and absorbed his horribly disfigured features with morbid fascination. He had a huge scar down the right side of his face, which was so carved into his skin that it looked like his whole cheek was folding in on itself. His eyes were jet-black and glowed with malevolent fire, while his nose was long and protruding and his mouth set into a proud, arrogant sneer.

"Who are you?" Wyatt asked, or rather demanded of his tutor.

From the strident tone of the witch-whitelighter's voice, it was obvious that he wasn't going to accept any cryptic and uninformative answers anymore. Before Wyatt had gained his reply however, the image of the future popped, flickered and died a death.

"What? No!" Chris shook his head in disbelief.

"Alcathan."

Leo's voice was deathly quiet, almost inaudible. The bleakness of his tone immediately attracted the attention of the entire room however.

Chris looked towards his father, but found himself incapable of asking the question that he desperately wanted to ask. Leo's face was pasty white and his wide, staring eyes were still fixed upon the spot on the wall where their previously unnamed adversary had been projected in full Technicolor a few moments ago.

"You know who he is?" Piper asked her husband.

Leo turned to face her and nodded, but seemed unable to speak anything more than the name.

"Alcathan," he repeated.

To be continued…