Hey everyone... yes, it really is a new chapter! Sorry it's not all that long. Thank you so much for all your reviews and also for not abandoning this story. I promise I haven't. Honestly. It will be finished one day soon, I hope. The end is almost in sight!

Edit- I can't believe how long it has actually been since I updated last! I am soooooooooooooooooooooooooo sorry guys. Truly sorry.

Chapter 29

The rest of the fight was a blur to Chris. His anger and rage combined to make his head spin, his heart ache and his magic to burn within him. Later, he couldn't say how long the battle had continued after Wyatt left, Excalibur still dripping Sheila's blood onto Sanctuary's cool, white floor.

He vaguely remembered fighting shoulder to shoulder with Darryl and Prue, both their faces streaked with tears and twisted with angry, gut-wrenching pain. He had fought like a madman, Bianca later told him, carefully keeping her voice steady. Any of Wyatt's demons crossing his path were blown to smithereens in a matter of seconds. The three of them had been unstoppable.

But the fighting was over now. Sanctuary was a mess of broken bodies and blood, and people moaning and crying. Chris supposed they must have won again: the demons were dead while the resistance still lived after all. It was a strange, shattered, pain-filled sort of living, Chris mused, but the resistance had survived, in part at least, to fight another day.

Bianca was beside him. Chris reached for her hand as he stood, half-hidden on one of the balconies, surveying the scene below him. She was silent, holding onto his hand tightly.

"We have to move." Chris muttered, his voice hoarse.

"Move?" questioned Bianca, studying his face uncertainly.

"Sanctuary's not safe. Not anymore." he clarified, "We have to go somewhere else. Find somewhere else to go."

Bianca nodded, biting her lip. She glanced sideways at him and opened her mouth, as if to speak, but then stopped and turned back silent.

Chris paused.

Bianca spun back, "Chris... I-" she started hesitantly.

They locked gazes and Chris could see the sympathy in Bianca's eyes.

"I'm sorry." she said eventually. "About Sheila. I- I know what she meant to you and I know that saying how sorry I am about it isn't going to fix anything but... I am. Sorry, that is."

"Thanks." Chris muttered, feeling his heart clench within him.

Bianca reached out her other hand to caress his cheek. "I mean it," she told him, "If there's anything I can do, anything I can say to help make this even a little better for you..."

Chris laid his hand over hers. "Just be here." he said softly. "The fact that you made it through the fight, that you are standing with me right now..." he shook his head. "I don't know if I could survive if I lost you too. I don't think I could survive if I lost someone else that I love."

"I'll be here." Bianca promised, "Right by your side, right 'til the end, whatever that end may be."

And she was. Later, when the haggard and battle-scarred remnants of the resistance stumbled into the devastated remains of what had been P3, Chris still held tightly onto her hand.

When scouts had determined that the entire block surrounding his mother's old club was empty and abandoned, but still habitable for those desperate enough, Chris announced his plans to set up camp here, to start over with a new base, with Bianca standing at his side.

When night fell and Chris, Prue and Darryl clung to each other and cried, cried heart-wrenching tears for their wife and surrogate mother, Bianca was waiting. And when Darryl had assured Prue that he didn't blame her for Sheila's death, that Wyatt was the only one to blame, when Prue had cried herself to sleep in Darryl's arms and Darryl had fallen into an exhausted slumber, Chris left them sleeping and went to Bianca's arms where he cried even more tears, more tears than he thought possible. And when he couldn't cry any more they slept themselves, clutching onto each other as if they would never let go.

Over the next few days, the resistance gradually picked themselves up and got back on their feet again. The mood was different, sombre. Everyone had lost someone now. But they were also determined. Now they had little left to lose.

Orion and Mayer had survived the fight as well and soon things were getting organised, with scouts send out to find out as much as they could.

"California is entirely under Wyatt's control." Darryl informed the four of them, "And he's spreading ever outwards. More and more cities are falling each day. There's nothing that can stand in his way."

Chris studied Darryl carefully. The man was mourning his wife, and mourning hard, but was determined to do as much as he could for the resistance, and for Chris and Prue. Much like him, Chris mused, Darryl was throwing his all into this fight, keeping as busy as possible so that he didn't break down. But there was an air of recklessness about him now, that Chris didn't recognise. Darryl had always been so careful, so cautious, yet now... war changes everyone, Chris thought bitterly. Even Prue had changed. Sometimes, when Wyatt was mentioned, her eyes went cold and hard, and her smile was rarely seen these days. Chris supposed he was much the same.

"What can we do?" asked Orion. "We are finding more and more survivors hiding in the rubble, human's mostly, and our numbers are growing again. Yet we are not in any position to start any fights. We can't help these other cities."

Mayer nodded his assent. "Another attack would decimate us." he said.

Chris squared his shoulders. "Well, then, we start again. Do what we did at the beginning. Small sorties, information gathering, that sort of thing. Make our blows count. We start in San Francisco and do what we can. Whatever we can to stop Wyatt."

The other men exchanged glances and nodded. "We start again." Darryl repeated grimly.

Time passed.

Wyatt stared out over San Francisco, from his ostentatious office. He controlled so much of America now, he thought gleefully. Almost two-thirds. New York had yet to fall, as had Washington D.C. but Chicago had fallen only yesterday. Nothing could stand in his way.

Kezlar was going a good job of leading his troops, Wyatt considered. He, himself, rarely had to step in and do any actual fighting. There had been a few powerful witches who had thought to stand up and fight that he had to take care of himself, but he relished those. He was the twice-blessed, the most powerful witch ever to exist and winning only increased the fear surrounding him.

The only problem, as ever, was his little brother. Wyatt had expected the resistance to fall, and fall swiftly, after he had left the battle. He had been furious when the unexpected news had been brought to him that the resistance still continued. Damaged but still, no doubt, a force to be reckoned with. Wyatt supposed he should have stayed to fight 'til the end. To make sure. But somehow he had felt..., he wasn't sure what, but he knew he had to get out of there as quickly as possible.

Wyatt turned to gaze at Excalibur, laid carefully out on his desk. The blade was clean now but sometimes, sometimes in the corner of his eye, it looked as if there was still blood on it. Sheila's blood. Wyatt closed his eyes and her face swan before him. The look in her eyes as she flung herself in front of Prue, as the blade slid into her. He shook his head angrily. Sheila had chosen her side. She had chosen to die for Prue. He shouldn't feel anything for her; just as he wouldn't have if he had succeeded in killing Prue.

Wyatt snorted bitterly. If that was true then why was he having to convince himself so hard that it was true? But Prue wouldn't join him and so she had to die. "It really is that simple," Wyatt told himself firmly.

Chris was different though. Chris was his brother and they were stronger together. So, somehow, he was going to get his little brother to see things his way.

But for now, Wyatt watched one of his magical detecting probes whizz through the sky. Chris' resistance group was becoming a nuisance again. The probes were thankfully reasonably successful at catching unauthorised wielders of magic, but Chris had yet to be caught and many of his important assets here in San Francisco had undergone attacks by the rebel fighters.

But hopefully his most important asset would be safe from them. His new, grand idea, would become the greatest monument of all time. A way of celebrating the power which he was born into. A museum.

A museum celebrating the Charmed One's and their Twice-Blessed progeny.