Hi guys, I'm back once again. After I took 3/4 of exams, I decided to (finally) update again. Please R&R!

Chapter seventeen: What made you change your mind?

Chris old apartment, night

Chris couldn't remember how he had managed to get out of the living room and into his own room.

Now he was leaning against the closed door, taking several deep breaths to calm his shaking body down.

He was on an emotional roller coaster. Shock, relief, pain, anger and hate were rummaging through him like a tornado.

He couldn't believe it. Even after Wyatt had nodded his head slightly to answer his unspoken question he just couldn't believe it!

The lamp on his nightstand began to shake violently and then suddenly crushed against the wall.

"Calm down, Chris, just fucking calm down!", he thought, trying desperately not to loose his control over his powers.

Suddenly, a figure shimmered in.

Chris was ready to throw whatever demon it was against the nearest wall when the figure finally formed into his brother.

"How...?", Chris started, but Wyatt interrupted him.

"Bianca shimmered me in."

"What do you want?", Chris growled. He knew he was unfair. Wyatt wasn't to blame for any of this mess. But seeing him standing there watching him carefully was just too much.

13 years. 13 years of pain, being heartbroken, of missing him terribly, blaming himself for not being able to prevent his death and now he learned that it wasn't true.

Wyatt watched his now older little brother carefully.

Chris was pale and shaking. Even his voice was trembling. Wyatt hadn't seen him this upset since the day their mother had died.

He remembered how the whole manor was shaking from Chris' telekinesis, like someone had put an earthquake simulator under their house. He remembered windows breaking and certain things flying through the air.

And from the way things were looking now, Chris was on the edge of loosing it again.

He really didn't need that. Not when he hadn't his powers to protect himself from his brothers outbursts.

And a little voice in his head reminded him that now - two and a half decades later – Chris powers probably had grown so much that this time it would probably be the whole city shaking.

"We need to talk.", Wyatt therefore answered in the calmest way he could.

Chris let out a suppressed sound, which Wyatt figured could either be a laugh or a sob.

He carefully took a step towards his brother but stopped when the ceiling started to shake slightly.

"This is going to be a long night!", Wyatt thought as he sat on the bed, trying to take a less threatening position.

After a few moments of silence he stated: "You're really upset, aren't you?"

Chris let out a choked laugh.

"Upset? Me? What gave you that idea?! I just found out that my dead brother, who was murdered 13 years ago, actually isn't as dead as I thought. So, why would I be upset?!" Chris voice was dropping with sarcasm.

But Wyatt remained serious. "That's actually a good question. I mean, since you consider me as evil I actually thought you would be happy to have me gone."

"I would never..." Chris started furiously just as a light bulb of the ceiling lamp busted. He took a calming breath.

"Things have changed in the last years, Wyatt. I know that... I didn't understand you then."

"But now you do?" Wyatt asked surprised.

"Yeah"

The blonde Halliwell let this information sink in.

"So, does that mean you've joined me?", he then asked incredulously. "What has happened?"

"That's a long story." Chris answered.

"Well, as this is going to be a long night anyways, I think we have plenty of time.", Wyatt snorted.

Chris even laughed a little and took a seat next to him. "I guess you're right."

Then he hesitated a bit, trying to figure out where to start. "You told me over and over again, that there's no good and evil. And I just couldn't understand what made you think that. I was sure that evil exists, I still am. Demons aren't like human beings, they live to destroy and cause pain."

"Yeah I know what you're going to say.", Chris grinned as Wyatt opened his mouth to protest.

"They're doing it to gain power. You're right, but even when they have it they don't stop. But that's not the point. The point is that until then I was just as sure about good as I was about evil. Call me naive, but I think I needed these beliefs to cope with all the things we have suffered. I told myself that there had to be a reason – and that this reason was the 'greater good'. I think I would have broken down long ago, if I hadn't had this concept I was clinging to so fiercely."

"What made you change your mind?", Wyatt asked curiously.

"My trip to the past. You know I thought that a demon had turned you, had made you evil. It was the only explanation I could come up with. I just... I thought if I could find that thing and destroy it, then everything would be ok again. Stupid, huh?" Chris sounded like was on the verge of tears.

"Not really.", Wyatt admitted. Sure, what Chris had done was stupid – and dangerous, he could have gotten himself killed – but Wyatt would lie to himself if he claimed he couldn't understand his brothers reasoning.

Chris gave him a small smile. "As it turned out, I wasn't so wrong. Something really changed you, but it wasn't a demon. It was an elder, Gideon. You know what's ironic? He was an old friend of dad. He had kidnapped you and tried to kill you."

Wyatt had suddenly turned pale. Chris wasn't supposed to know this, he wasn't supposed to know any of this! Images of dark caves welled up in front of his inner eyes, images of screams and weird figures and darkness.

"It was like dad once said." , Chris went on, looking his brother directly in the eyes. "Imagine being away from all of us for weeks, maybe even months – constantly fighting of Gideon's attempts..."

"Stop it!" Wyatt cried out, fighting back the tears. He didn't want to remember that time; he just couldn't deal with it.

Chris nodded slowly as he crouched down in front of his brother, taking his hands in his. "It was then that I understood. It isn't about power, is it? But about control. Because if you're in control, nothing can happen to you. If you're the monster, you aren't the victim. That's why you're a control freak. That's why you flip out every time you loose the control over a situation. Because then you're vulnerable, then the fear comes back, doesn't it? And to prevent that you need power. If you're powerful enough, you can control everything, am I right?"

Wyatt just glared at him. Of course, Chris was right – God, every single word was true. But Wyatt would rather bite off his tongue then to give Chris the satisfaction of being able to look straight into his soul.

"Anyway", Chris continued. "I also realized that you were right, that there isn't a 'greater good' - just our own one. So I ... came home. We had quite a long talk."

"So, after 8 long years I finally got to you?", Wyatt asked. He still couldn't believe his luck.

"You know it wasn't just my fault.", Chris declared as he let go of his brothers hand began pacing in the room. "If you would have told me what happened to you sooner... "

Chris shook his head and ran a hand through his hair. "Whatever, we finally made a deal. I left the resistance and joined you. In return, you agreed that if it came to killing people in order to get what you want and I could find a way to reach the same goal without killing someone you would listen to me."

"And it worked?", Wyatt asked. He had to admit, the thought of having Chris working with him instead of against him was very tempting. Chris might have not been as powerful as Wyatt, but that lack he made up with cleverness.

"Yeah, it did." The brown haired Halliwell grinned.

"So, I had you..."

"Finally by your side, like you always wanted."

"That sounds too good to be true."

Chris smile fell. "Well, it was."

XXX

Alex was puzzled. He couldn't make any sense from the things that happened around him. After Chris had practically fled from the room the blond man, Wyatt, had turned to the women in the black leather suit and said something about shimmering him to Chris. Next second, he had faded away from the room.

Alex was nearly bursting with questions. Why was Chris so upset and why was there a younger version of him in the room? Was this Wyatt guy a zombie or what did they mean when they talked about him being dead?

He would have loved to ask Benji for answers, but his self-estimated protector looked so destroyed that he simply didn't have the heart to bother him.

Since he could do nothing else he took a look around the room. A small gadget on the desk finally caught his eyes. He went over to the desk to take a better look at it. It was an MMCP-Player. The screen was still on. Alex curiously picked it up when he could suddenly see someone on the display.

The man had long dark red hair and a large scar that went from his right eye to his cheek. He smiled deviously.

"There you are, kiddo! Don't worry I'll find you and your friends."

Benji, who had turned by the sudden words like the others, quickly crossed the room and snatched the MMCP-Player out of the teenager's hands and snapped it shut. "Shit!", he cursed.

"What's wrong?", Bianca asked.

"A demon has Alex MMCP-Player."

"Thanks, this far we came ourselves!", Chris snapped.

Benji shot him an angry glare. "If he has the MMCP-Player, he has also Alex contact list with the numbers of all his friends. And if you have the number you're able to locate the person to which it belongs. It's the same principle that goes with the cell phone."

"Wait, does that mean that they are going to find us?", Chris asked alarmed.

"No, when I first got the thing I made sure that nobody can locate me over the gadget. Problem is, since he has it he can probably locate everyone else on your contact list.", Benji explained.

Alex felt sheer terror when he realized what that meant.

"My mom!", he cried out. God, no! This thing was able to locate his mother!

"OMG, I have to help her!", Alex thought panicked. All of a sudden, he disappeared in a swirl of blue and white lights.