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! I know it's been forever since I updated so apologies for that. Combination of a busy time at work, a couple of weeks holiday in Italy and a case of writer's block with respect to the third scene in this chapter – the others have been written for a while now.
Anyway, finally managed to complete it so here it is :-) Last time - if you can remember that far back – the Halliwells had imprisoned Future Wyatt upstairs in the Manor attic, while Chris was struggling with a mysterious injury…
OOOOOO
Chapter 31
"What are you concentrating so hard on?" Phoebe asked her younger sister curiously.
She was preparing breakfast at the kitchen counter, while Paige sat at the kitchen table, chewing absently on the end of a pen, her eyes lost in thought. On the table in front of her was a notepad covered in half-finished sentences and a myriad of crossing-outs.
"I'll tell you when it's ready," she told her sister vaguely as she put pen to paper once more.
Phoebe was about to press the issue when a shimmering sound alerted her to the fact that a hidden doorway had just opened up in what was usually a solid wall out in the hallway. The sound of Piper and Leo's murmured conversation immediately followed and she smiled as the two of them entered the kitchen, hand in hand.
"Hey guys! Sleep well?"
"When son number two finally got tired of using Mommy as a trampoline, yeah," Piper said ruefully, smoothing her hand over her rounded belly as she crossed to join her sister at the counter.
"Where's son number one?" Phoebe asked, "The baby version I mean."
"In Magic School day-care," Piper answered.
"Really? They do that?"
"Apparently so," was her sister's succinct reply.
"Is Chris still asleep?" Leo asked then.
Phoebe nodded. "I think so," she said. "It's getting kind of late though. Do you think we should wake him?"
Leo shook his head. "No, leave him be. He could use the rest. I think all of this is starting to take its toll on him a little bit."
"What are you doing?" Piper queried with a frown, as Phoebe sliced yet another muffin in half and added it to the small mountain of different varieties that were balanced precariously on the plate in front of her.
"Making Mr Antisocial upstairs some breakfast," her sister replied. "I figured you wouldn't want us to starve him."
"Nor do I want you to give him a major sugar high," Piper said with an exasperated shake of her head.
"Yeah," Paige piped up from across the room. "He's hyper enough already without that."
"Do we have any eggs?" Piper asked, elbowing her sister aside and quickly taking charge of the situation.
"Yeah, I think Chris got some when he went grocery shopping yesterday. They're in the fridge…What?" Phoebe broke off and looked questionably at Piper, who was staring at her with an incredulous expression on her face.
"You sent Chris out grocery shopping?" she said. "With everything else that he had to deal with yesterday?"
"Of course not," Phoebe said. "He offered - said with you and Wyatt at Magic School, the rest of us would either starve or end up with clogged arteries if he didn't."
Leo chuckled at that. "Wise boy," he commented.
"Mmm," Piper agreed, looking at her siblings in mild censure, "Seems I managed to teach my boys to be self-sufficient, but somehow failed miserably with my sisters."
"Hey! Just because we don't, doesn't mean we can't," Paige protested. She smiled beatifically at her older sister. "We just know how much you enjoy organising and looking after us, Piper."
"Oh right, so you're doing me a favour, is that it?"
"Exactly!" Paige concurred with a bright nod and another winning smile.
Phoebe laughed and Piper rolled her eyes in long-suffering affection. Despite their teasing, her sisters didn't really leave her to do all the chores on her own, although she definitely did the lion's share. They helped her out on a regular basis though, and she knew they were grateful for the loving care she heaped on them in between times.
Besides, Paige wasn't completely wrong, she did gain a certain level of satisfaction from her domestic duties. Plus, if she left them to their own devices, her well ordered and efficient home would rapidly descend into one of chaos, and that just wouldn't do. No, she preferred to be captain of her own ship, thank you very much. An opinion her youngest son obviously shared, given the well-stocked fridge she was greeted with when she looked inside.
Removing a carton of eggs and a packet of lean bacon, she set about preparing her eldest child a significantly more nutritious breakfast than the one his Aunt had been intending to feed him. The act of doing so brought her thoughts round to the confrontation that she'd been secretly dreading however. The thought of facing an evil Wyatt was twisting her insides into painful knots.
She wasn't sure how she was going to reconcile the love that she felt for him with the person she knew he had become. She was his mother after all and she didn't want to hate him. But how could she excuse the pain he'd caused his little brother, his father and the rest of his future family? Not to mention the other evil acts she knew he must have committed in his time. Acts, incidentally, that she had no real knowledge of, since both Chris and Leo were reluctant to fill her in on the details for fear of upsetting her unnecessarily.
"You don't have to do this you know."
Piper looked up to find Future Leo standing by the counter. She had been so lost in her melancholic thoughts that she hadn't heard him enter the room. She had no trouble distinguishing between the two versions of her husbands now, for they no longer looked completely the same. Her Leo was younger, more carefree, whereas this Leo was tired and worn, a shadow of his former self. He was regarding her with quiet sympathy in his blue-green eyes, and she immediately dropped her gaze to the pan of eggs she was stirring, knowing that he had the uncanny ability to look right into her heart if he chose to do so.
"He has to eat," she said evasively.
Future Leo studied her bent head knowingly. "Maybe, but you don't have to be the one to serve him."
Piper drew in a deep breath and finally looked him in the eye. "No, I have to know," she said firmly. "I need to know, Leo."
Future Leo nodded. "As long as you're sure."
"I am." Piper was resolute despite her misgivings.
She needed to know because it would give her the impetus to do everything in her power to prevent it from happening again. Not everyone got a chance to look at their future and see where they might have gone wrong. The knowledge would make her a better Mom, she knew, but that didn't mean the reality was any easier to face right now. At least she'd done something right, she consoled herself, thinking affectionately of her other son sleeping peacefully upstairs in his bed, the one who was the very essence of all that was good in the world. That had to count for something, didn't it?
"Just be careful, okay?" Future Leo said softly. "He can be very manipulative. Don't let him make you feel…"
"Guilty? Responsible?" Piper interrupted.
Leo shook his head. "No. Like his Mom."
"What's that supposed to mean? I am his Mom."
"Yeah and he's more than capable of playing on that, Piper. Making you believe that he is suffering in some way for instance, to trick you into getting too close to him."
"So he's incapable of feeling anything? Is that what you're saying?"
"No, that's the point… he does still feel things, especially where you and Chris are concerned. He never fully broke the link with his family remember? He held onto his brother because he wanted him to fight by his side, but in doing so, he left a small part of his soul intact. Because of that, some of his behaviour will be genuine, but that's only going to make it harder for you to distinguish the parts that are not. You need to be aware of that and stay on your guard."
Piper nodded solemnly, understanding what he was trying to say. Her inherent desire to make her son appear more likeable, more human, could be her undoing. She could easily read more into his behaviour than was actually there. It would have been simpler if he were pure evil in the end. There'd be no shades of grey to see through then.
"But Chris would more than likely be dead," Leo said, somehow reading her thoughts.
She looked up at him, astonished, and he smiled. "We were married a long time," he said with a shrug.
"Okay, I think I got it!" Paige said triumphantly.
"Got what?" Piper asked, distracted from their conversation by her sister's exclamation.
"A little something to help deal with the King of Verbal Diarrhoea upstairs," she said, holding out the piece of paper.
Future Leo took it and glanced over the short verse. "I'm not sure that's entirely ethical," he said with a chuckle.
"What?" Piper demanded, snatching the piece of paper from her future husband's hand. Her eyes widened as she read the spell. "Paige!"
"Hey! You haven't met him yet," her sister protested. "I swear that if I'd listened to him long enough, I might have been persuaded that what he was saying was reasonable. If he can't talk though, there's no danger of him manipulating us."
"You just can't take away my son's voice!"
"I'm not," Paige said. "I'm just making it so we can't hear him, unless we learn to lip-read that is. I'm not suggesting that we use it all the time, Piper, just as a defence mechanism if he starts to get to any of us."
"The idea does have a certain amount of merit," Future Leo said, "Although it'll only be a temporary measure. I don't imagine it'll take him too long to figure out how to reverse it."
"But without his powers…" Paige protested.
"He's still a powerful witch," Future Leo reminded her. "He's got Chris's powers and his own memories. He can't get out of the cage because that's not strictly a spell. It's a magical barrier and it requires a physical power to break through it. It also doesn't let any active magic out, as you know, but a reversal spell is slightly different. The active part of the spell is outside of the cage, so it can slip through the net if you know how to control the circumstances correctly."
"Okay, so now I've got a headache," Paige complained.
Future Leo smiled. "I think I've probably spent too much time in the Magic School library over the years," he admitted. "I suppose in a way I enjoyed the study as well as the teaching."
"Teaching? You taught at Magic School?" Paige asked incredulously.
Future Leo exchanged an amused glance with his present self, knowing that it was also Paige's destiny to teach there at one particular point in her life.
"Yeah," he said. "Magic School was created by the Elders, and I'm an Elder. It seemed a logical thing for me to teach there, especially as it allowed me to be close to my family. The Elders also thought it might be prudent to have someone on hand to deal with the boys too."
"Our boys, you mean?" Piper questioned. "Wyatt and Chris?"
Future Leo nodded.
"Why? What were they expecting? Delinquents?" Piper was deeply offended by the inferred slight on her mothering skills.
Future Leo laughed. "No, just normal growing boys – ones with a whole lot of magical power though, a lot more than any previous student at Magic School. It did make a certain kind of sense to be honest. They had a particular knack for creating havoc in their wake as I recall. Not so much with their own magical experimentation, although there was some of that to clean up too, it was more that they inspired their peers to try things that were beyond their capabilities. Powerful magic in the hands of amateurs is not a happy combination, believe me."
"I can imagine," Paige agreed with a shudder.
The toaster popped then, making them all jump. Piper removed the two slices of crispy bread, placed them on a plate and piled the scrambled eggs and bacon on top. "Okay, this is ready," she said somewhat shakily, placing the finished breakfast on a tray with a large glass of orange juice.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Future Leo asked her again.
Swallowing hard, Piper nodded and squared her shoulders determinedly. "Let's get this over with," she said firmly.
OOOOOO
Meanwhile upstairs…
Slowly, almost as if he were wading through a sea of molasses, Chris came awake. He opened his eyes and blinked until his vision cleared. Despite the closed drapes, the lightness of the room informed him that it was already mid-morning. The alarm clock on the nightstand confirmed this opinion – nine thirty – several hours after his normal getting up time.
He felt calm, strangely serene in fact - the after affects of the sleeping potion that his Dad had given him, he quickly surmised. He also felt much better physically, although he was still rather weak and somewhat lethargic. The dull ache behind his eyes was gone though, and the nausea seemed to have finally abated, which was definitely a good thing.
Sitting up, he pushed down the waistband of his pyjamas to look at the athame injury on his stomach. This, unlike his other symptoms, appeared considerably worse than before however. The jagged wound was scabbed over and oozing unhealthy-looking yellow pus, and he almost gagged at the unpleasant sight.
He was suddenly filled with the need to escape. He desperately needed to leave the claustrophobic surrounds of the Manor and his brother's oppressive presence within it, and break free of the stress of it all for a while. Remembering his previous day's decision to find out more about the demon who had attacked him, he rose from the bed and strode down the corridor towards the bathroom with a renewed sense of purpose.
After showering and dressing in double-quick time, he scribbled a quick note to his parents to let them know he was going out, then left it on the pillow of his messily made bed for them to find when they came in to wake him. Next, he orbed to a secluded alleyway a couple of blocks away from his intended destination, before making the rest of his way there on foot…
OOOOOO
In the Attic…
Wyatt was pacing. Back and forth. Round and round. Circling the circumference of his magical prison like a predatory animal preparing itself for an upcoming hunt.
He couldn't quite believe he'd gotten himself into this mess. He should have seen it coming and yet he'd walked right into his father's trap, utterly oblivious to the danger. Leo had played him. Pure and Simple. And it pissed him off. Big time.
He was never usually this sloppy, but he hadn't been able to resist the opportunity to taunt his father with his… well, evilness for wont of a better description. Leo had apparently known that, for he had played the grieving father to perfection, right up until the point where he'd thrown a handful of sleep dust in his unsuspecting son's face.
"Sorry son, but you're not the only one who knows how to play the game," he'd said as Wyatt had slipped into a magically induced dream-state.
That had been his mistake, he realised. To dismiss his father as a threat just because he preferred to take the pacifist route. Leo could – and would – do whatever was necessary if the occasion demanded it, especially if his family were involved. Wyatt should have known that and yet, somehow, it had passed him by.
So here he was, stuck in a quandary of his own making and without a hint of an escape plan in sight. His family had cleverly outmanoeuvred him and it riled him something chronic. He was the Ultimate Power; he should have been above this. Alcathan had made the mistake in believing he could control his protégé, but Wyatt had disabused him of that notion as soon as he'd been strong enough to wrestle away the mantle of power. Why had his family succeeded where his demonic mentor had not? It didn't make any sense. It was unfathomable.
A waft of bacon and eggs hit his nostrils. The eggs buttery and soft, the bacon strong, salty and cooked to perfection, just like his Mom used to make it… He stiffened in shock as a familiar presence intruded on his senses, a presence that he hadn't felt in over eight years...
Wheeling round, he came face to face with the mother that he had thought lost to him forever, and it hit him like a ton of bricks. He felt dizzy, confused, his world blurred until the only thing he could focus on were her soft brown eyes, the ones that held a hint of fear - Of him! - But also the immeasurable strength of a mother's unconditional love.
Standing behind Piper and observing his son's reaction on seeing her, Future Leo felt a surge of renewed hope ripple through his body. Wyatt went pale and literally swayed on his feet. His features seemed to blur, and, for a brief instant, Leo caught a glimpse of the son that he might have had if everything hadn't gone awry.
Short, slightly tousled blond hair, blue jeans and a bright red t-shirt, the casual garb of a young man in his mid-twenties. And his face… his face was devoid of that proud, hateful arrogance that twisted his good looks into something grotesque. It was rounder somehow, the features softened by the lack of an ego. The power was still there for certain, but now it was tightly controlled, only part of the man he was rather than the thing that defined him.
It was a picture of a better future, which all too soon was gone, a fleeting promise that evaded his grasp despite his desperate need to hold onto it. The power of love had only been able to cleanse his son's soul for a transitory moment in time. Wyatt was too far gone for it to effect any permanent change. His soul was corrupted, damaged beyond all repair. The only recompense they had was prevention; a cure was forever out of reach.
Drawing on every last reserve of strength within her, Piper made a concerted effort to steel herself against the sight of her son's distress. The look that had swept across Wyatt's features on seeing her was a carbon copy of the one that had decorated Chris's face, when she'd inadvertently reminded him of her death the day that they'd first found out who he was. It was a turbulent mixture of grief, intense trauma and righteous anger at the life that had been stolen away from them when they'd least been expecting it.
Swallowing hard, she stepped forward, bent and placed the tray of food on the ground near the outside perimeter of the crystal cage. "I brought you some breakfast," she said matter-of-factly, her voice sounding amazingly calm despite the roiling emotions inside.
She pushed the tray between two of the white prisms, then quickly rose to her feet and retreated a few steps. Wyatt's blue-eyed gaze dropped from its contemplation of her face to the breakfast before him. He seemed incapable of speech which, given what the others had told her, was definitely out of the ordinary. Nodding slightly, he moved forward and retrieved her offering, then sat down cross-legged on the floor.
"Thanks," he said, his voice low and scratchy. Picking up the fork, he then began to devour the eggs as if he hadn't eaten a proper meal in days – which for all she knew, he hadn't. He looked too thin for a young man of his age, height and build, she decided.
Seeing Piper's resolve waver slightly, Future Leo stepped forward and placed a warning hand on her forearm. While he believed Wyatt's mute shock was genuine, he knew it wouldn't be long before he gathered his shattered wits about him and tried to turn the situation to his advantage. Luckily, the sound of his other self's heavy footsteps on the attic stairs seemed to pull Piper out of her stupor.
"Chris?" she quickly asked, when she saw the worried look in her husband's blue-green eyes.
Present Leo had gone to check on Chris while they'd delivered Wyatt's breakfast to him. He was holding a crumpled piece of paper in his hand, which he offered to his future counterpart as he answered his wife's question. "He's gone out."
Future Leo glanced down at the note. 'Mom, Dads,' it read. 'Gone out for a while. Need to clear my head. Be back later, Love Chris.'
The words were too innocuous and they immediately sparked Future Leo's concern, a feeling his present self apparently shared.
"Where?" Piper demanded.
"He didn't say," Present Leo replied.
"He's with his Chippy," Wyatt's laconic voice cut across their conversation.
"His Chippy?" Present Leo questioned, not fully understanding the reference.
"Companion of the female variety – seems vaguely familiar actually." Wyatt shook his head, seeming to dismiss that thought as soon as it entered his head. "My, my - has little brother forgotten all about the fair Bianca already? And here's me thinking they were the modern day Romeo and Juliet. He was certainly doe-eyed enough over her."
"I think you'd do well not to joke about that," Future Leo said, his tone hard and ripe with censure. "You're damn lucky your brother is still prepared to fight for you after what you did."
Wyatt laughed sardonically. "Lucky? Is that what you call it? And besides, what happened to Bianca was an accident."
"I notice you didn't try very hard to heal her though," his father retorted.
"She betrayed me, let Chris escape," Wyatt said as if that justified his actions. "And… well, my healing power doesn't work too good anymore. Bianca was already too far gone for me to make a difference, so what was the point?"
Future Leo nodded gravely. "Healing is triggered by love, Wyatt, you know that. The less you allow yourself to feel; the weaker your power will get."
"Well, it was never much use to me anyway," Wyatt said dismissively. "I mean if you can't heal yourself, then why bother?"
Leo sighed. He was aware that his son's remark was mainly bravado, but he also knew that it was what Wyatt would coach himself to believe in the end. He deliberately hardened his heart against anything that might make him vulnerable, anything that, in his eyes, made him weak. He remembered a time when Wyatt's healing power was a blazing beacon of light in a sometimes cruel world however. The young witch-whitelighter had never actually brought anyone back from the dead, but every time he healed, it was one of the strongest expressions of love that his father had ever seen.
Take the injury that Chris had received from a darklighter's arrow several months before for instance. His present self had struggled to bring their son back from the brink of death that day, and he knew he himself wouldn't have found it easy, despite the depth of love that he felt for his youngest child.
The Wyatt of old would have healed his brother in an instant though, the effort it took him no more than a mere blink in another whitelighter's eye. His power was made all the more remarkable by the fact that it came from someone so young and lacking in life experience. The potential had been there for all to see, what a force of good he could have become if that potential had been allowed to reach its proper fulfilment.
But, there was no use dwelling on such things. What was done was done. They needed to focus on the here and now, pave the way for a different future. To that end, Future Leo's thoughts returned to his younger son. Wyatt had indicated that his brother had sought out female company - someone who seemed vaguely familiar…
Suddenly it came to him – of course, the girl who Chris had rescued from the demon the other day. Hadn't he said that she was related to his friend, Sarah somehow? What was her name again? Stella? No Stacey. Yes, that was it. Question was, why had Chris gone to visit her in the first place? With everything that was going on, it seemed a little inappropriate to be socialising…
OOOOOO
Stacey Macklin's apartment, ten minutes earlier…
After securing the photograph in the silver frame, Stacey turned it back over and looked down at the picture with a smile. The photo had been taken just yesterday and she looked the epitome of the proud, first-time Aunt, beaming into the camera with her baby niece sitting happily in her lap.
Her brother had called her unexpectedly around lunchtime the previous day, asking if he and little Sarah could come over to her apartment for the afternoon. Some close questioning revealed that he had offered to look after his daughter for the day, while his wife took a well-earned break and went shopping with her two sisters.
Unfortunately, he had then discovered what he had let himself in for. Sarah was generally a happy baby, but she could be quite demanding at times. She pretty much needed constant entertainment when she was awake and didn't sleep much during the day, despite being only a few weeks old.
"I swear those books are a torture device designed to send new parents round the twist," Brian had said when he'd finally managed to settle Sarah off for her afternoon nap. "'At six weeks, your baby should be sleeping for at least three hours in the morning and another three in the afternoon.' Please. As if!"
Stacey chuckled, remembering the sight of her normally very together older sibling, tearing his hair out over the sleeping habits of his teeny-tiny daughter. At seven weeks, Sarah was already the apple of her Daddy's eye and Stacey suspected it would only get worse as she got older. She'd have to remember to ask Chris about that when she saw him next. She bet Sarah had her Dad wrapped around her little finger in his time.
She'd sensibly refrained from telling her brother about her encounter with her niece's future friend. For one, Chris hadn't given her permission to reveal his true identity to anyone and secondly, Brian would more than likely end up giving the poor guy the third degree for his trouble, something she thought Chris could probably do without right now. Not that she actually knew very much about his agenda of course. He had time-travelled from twenty years in the future and that was all the information she was party to. She didn't have the faintest clue why he was here, or for what purpose.
Chris didn't strike her as someone who would mess with the laws of time just for the fun of it however. He was intense, serious and completely focused on whatever he had come here to do. All of which pointed to the gravity of the circumstances that had led to his mysterious mission to the past, rather than the frivolousness of them.
There was a knock on her door then and she went to answer it. "Chris! Hi!" she said in surprise. "I was just thinking about you."
"Should I be worried?" he quipped with a glimmer of a smile. He looked ill, she noticed, his face pale and drawn and his brow furrowed in anxiety.
"No," she said, ushering him inside and closing the door. "My brother brought my niece over for a visit yesterday and I was just framing that." She showed him the photograph.
Chris took it from her and studied it carefully. A wistful expression crossed his face as he took in his friend's face. It was clearly Sarah. Even as a baby, she bore hints of the woman she would become in twenty years of time.
"Are you okay?" Stacey asked.
"Yeah…" Chris stopped and deliberately cleared his throat. "I just miss her, I guess. She's so easy to talk to and I…"
"Could really use someone to talk to right now?" Stacey finished for him when he trailed off.
Chris nodded. "Yeah," he said heavily and she could hear the weary tension in his voice.
"So I'm listening," Stacey said, seating herself on the sofa and patting the cushion beside her in invitation.
Sitting down next to her, Chris kept his gaze on his feet for a long moment of contemplation before finally lifting his head and looking her directly in the eye. She could see that he was debating whether to entrust her with his confidence or not, and she smiled encouragingly at him, hoping to alleviate his disquiet. He sighed, opened and closed his mouth a few times, and then eventually spoke in a slow and deliberate tone.
"My… my brother is here," he said, the simple words rife with hidden meaning.
"Your brother?" Stacey questioned. "As in Wyatt? From the Future?"
Chris nodded in the affirmative, but kept his gaze downcast, making it difficult for her to read his mood.
"But… umm, isn't that a good thing?" she asked hesitantly.
Chris let out a short, barking laugh. "Yeah, you'd think so, wouldn't you?" he said bitterly.
"But it isn't?"
Chris shook his head. "No."
"Why?"
Well, that was it. The million-dollar question. Chris cast his companion a searching, sidelong glance, weighed up his options for one final time, and then made the decision fling open the doors to the room that held the deepest secrets of his soul...
Three-quarters of an hour later, Stacey sat back against the sofa cushions, stunned by what he'd told her. "Wow!" she said, fully aware of the level of understatement in that single word.
"Yeah," Chris agreed, his voice hoarse from over-use.
He hadn't realised how much he'd needed talk, to let everything out. It had been immensely cathartic to unburden himself, to reveal the full extent of his emotional turmoil to someone outside of the close sphere of his family. It was like releasing a pressure valve inside him, one that had been threatening to blow up like a barrage balloon if he had continued to do nothing about it.
Because, as much as he loved his family, they were too close to the situation for him to be completely honest with them. He didn't want to hurt them with his ambiguous feelings for his brother, worry them with his lack of confidence in his ability to defeat Alcathan, frighten them with the cold, sure fingers of death that he could somehow feel running like ice-water through his veins…
"So this Alcathan? He's like the Ultimate Big Bad?"
Chris looked up as Stacey's voice cut through his reverie. He nodded. "Yes."
"He murdered your Mom, turned your brother evil, and basically sent the whole world to hell, is that what you're telling me?"
He nodded again.
"And now you're going to try to kill him?" she went on. "Using Wyatt's powers?"
"Try being the operative word," Chris remarked dryly.
"Wow!" Stacey said for the second time.
Uncomfortable after sitting in the same position for so long, Chris shifted in his seat and then winced at the sharp flare of agony that shot across his stomach as a result. Despite his best efforts, he was unable to stifle his gasp of pain and Stacey glanced over at him in concern.
"Are you all right?" she asked.
Leaning forward, she placed a gentle hand on his forearm and drew in a shocked breath as she registered his altered appearance. His skin was like ice to the touch and what little colour had been in his cheeks to begin with had drained away to almost nothing, leaving him looking like a pale imitation of a ghost.
"I'm fine," Chris assured her a little too quickly.
"No, you're not," she immediately contradicted.
"Damn! Busted," Chris returned with a rather forced smile before his gaze slid away from hers to focus on the opposite wall.
"Chris?" Stacey prompted, lightly squeezing his arm in encouragement.
Chris opened his mouth to fill her in on his predicament, but the words stuck in his throat. It was as if there was a barrier there, preventing him from revealing the truth about what ailed him. He struggled with it, but it was no use. He decided to show her, only his hands wouldn't move. Despite his brain's prompting, they simply would not respond to its command and he let out a frustrated breath at his inability to articulate what his mind was crying out to tell her.
Stacey however, had caught the downward flicker of his eyes and reached out to pull up his t-shirt, remembering the way he'd doubled-over in pain earlier.
"Jesus Christ!" she swore, the vehement exclamation hissing out from between her teeth. "What the hell happened?" And then her eyes widened as she realised. "The demon the other day – the one who attacked me – he slashed you with that athame."
Chris nodded.
"But your Dad healed you."
"I know," Chris said, finding his tongue had unstuck itself from the roof of his mouth at last. "It came back."
Stacey stared at him and then blinked. "Why couldn't you tell me?" she asked with a puzzled frown.
"I don't know – the words, they just wouldn't come out."
"But you're telling me now…" Stacey pointed out.
"Maybe once you discover the truth it breaks the interdiction," Chris said.
Stacey nodded. It made sense, she supposed. "So what do you think it is?" she asked.
Chris touched the oozing wound with his fingertips. "I don't know. That's why I'm here. I was hoping you might be able to remember something about the demon, give me something to go on."
"But you must have some idea."
Chris sighed. "I think that maybe it's a curse of some kind."
"A fatal one?" Stacey asked, a sliver of fear curling in her belly.
"Well, there wouldn't be much point otherwise, would there?" Chris responded, an edge of sarcasm to his tone.
"So if the spell stops you from telling anybody, your family don't know about this either, do they?"
"No, they don't, and you can't tell them, Stacey."
"Of course I have to tell them! Jesus Chris, look at you, you look like death warmed up and then some."
"NO!" Chris's tone was harsh. "You can't tell them. You don't understand."
"So explain it to me then!" Stacey shot back.
"If they know, they won't let me go up against Alcathan. They'll try to find a way to save me first."
"And this is a bad thing?" Stacey was aghast at his apparent lack of concern for his own well-being.
"If it means I miss my chance at destroying Alcathan, then yes, it is. One thing I've learned over the years, Stacey – timing is everything where prophecies are concerned. Delay their fulfilment and you're toast with a capital 'T'. I told you what it's like in my future. Do you want Sarah to live in a world like that?"
"Of course not. But…"
"But nothing! This is what I came here to do. Nothing matters more than that."
"Not even your own life?" Stacey demanded in horror. She could already see the answer shining in his emerald-green eyes and it shocked her to the core.
"Nothing," he repeated, confirming her suspicions with the kind of steely conviction that sent a shiver of dread trickling down her spine. "Absolutely nothing…"
To be continued…