Why couldn't The Cleaners erase Chris and what happens now that they have taken him? How does Piper react? Well, you'll find out. I would like to thank everyone for reading and commenting. I do not own Charmed!
Piper stormed up the stairs, rushing passed her sisters rooms without evening thinking to check if they were home or if everything had turned out all right after their high school reunion from hell. Leo called after her. "Piper, where are you going?" He was following a few feet behind her.
"If you can't find him, I will." She stammered. As she made her way into the attic, she saw someone waiting on the couch, someone she hadn't seen in months. "Wyatt." She was surprised to see him after all this time. After he had killed Sigmund, he had distanced himself from them and Chris.
"Where's my brother?" He demanded to know. He stood, looming over his mother. "I can't sense him."
She looked up into his brown eyes. They were different than she had remembered, they were almost empty, devoid of emotion. "Your father can't sense him either." She replied.
Leo walked in behind Piper, stopping when he saw Wyatt. He hadn't seen him since that fateful day in magic school when he had killed Sigmund. "Wyatt, where have you been?" He asked curiously.
"That's not your concern. I want to know where my brother is." He demanded once more.
"And you think we don't want to know?" Leo shot back. "The Cleaners took him."
"What?" Wyatt replied in anger. He had nearly forgotten that they still existed in this time. In the future, he had killed them all.
Piper moved away from Wyatt, making her way to the book of shadows. She flipped it open and began to browse the pages. "He was in public when demons attacked." She explained. "Magic was exposed." She stopped on one page.
"What demons?" Wyatt asked curiously.
Leo was about to answer, but Piper spoke instead, reading something aloud from the book. "I now invoke the law of three, he who was taken return to me." She said.
"What are you doing?" Leo asked. He started towards her, curious to see the page she was reading from in the book.
"I'm trying to find my son." She claimed and it was the truth.
"You didn't answer my question." Wyatt snarled at them. "What demons?"
Leo turned to Wyatt. "Scabber demons." He answered angrily, turning back to Piper quickly. "What makes you think some spell is going to bring him back?"
"It worked with Wyatt, sort of." She stammered. She was flipping the pages again. "Maybe I should try the spell to call a lost witch."
Wyatt looked at her dumbfounded. He hadn't a clue as to what she was talking about. He reached into his memory, knowing he should have some inclination as to what she was referring to, but the memory didn't come. He had forgotten that The Cleaners had tried to erase him when he had been a child.
"No, Piper. I don't think a spell is going to work." Leo replied, grabbing her hands, keeping them from ferociously flipping the pages in the book. He was worried, with each page she flipped, that one of them was bound to rip right out.
Victor walked through the attic door. "Any luck finding Chris?" He asked. His eyes fell on the tall blonde man. He resembled Leo in some ways, but the look in his eyes seemed to be that of almost pure evil. "Who are..." He trailed off, assuming it was Wyatt.
Wyatt stared at him with a hatred. After Piper had died and Leo had left in the future, Victor had moved into the manor to take care of him and Chris. As Wyatt started changing the world, molding it to his own liking, Victor started to stray away from him and focus mostly on Chris. Wyatt didn't really understand why his own grandfather had pushed him away, it seemed as if his whole family had been pushing him away at the time. Of course, he didn't think that him changing the world had anything to do with his grandfather's sudden reaction to him. He didn't think that killing his own cousins had anything to do with it either. Wyatt was too self centered and twisted to realize that anything was his own fault. He had never deemed anything he did as wrong or even evil. It simply was a part of who he was and how he was.
"We haven't found him yet." Piper replied. To Victor, his daughter looked and seemed hopeless. She seemed beyond frustrated as well and she was.
She cradled her belly, glancing down at it. "Oh god, please don't let me lose him." She fought back a few tears that were starting to sting her eyes.
Leo stepped around the podium with the book and took Piper in his arms. "We aren't going to lose him." He replied, trying to comfort her. His hand graced her cheek as he slowly caressed her. She turned to him, letting her tears fall. She buried her face into his shoulder. "I don't care what I have to do, we will find him." It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself than he was Piper.
Chris was nearly blinded as he took in his new surroundings. The ground was a blinding white. Black lines ran from the outer edges of the floor meeting at a circle in the center. The men in white suites were gone. His eyes went up, focusing on two heads that seemed to be floating before him. Out of the corner of his eyes he saw two more heads. "What's going on? Where am I?" He asked, though he was almost afraid to even speak.
The heads seemed to loom over him. One of them spoke. He had gray hair and seemed to be the oldest one of them all. "We are the tribunal, a council consisting of Elders and demons. We monitor magic, to be sure it isn't being exposed." He replied. Chris' eyes met each face, trying to discern which were the Elders and witch were the demons. "I am Aramis and this is Adair. We are the Elders."
"I am Thrask and this is Crill." Another head spoke. Chris was left to conclude that they were the demons. "You are here because you were involved with the exposure of magic."
Before Chris, in the center circle, an image formed. It was a replay of the scene at Brennigans. The scabbers came from behind, as Chris tried to get his grandfather out of the way. The acid, spurted out from one of the scabbers, burnt through the table. In mere moments, the table was in the air, headed at the demons.
"This has been replaying on the local San Francisco news." Adair said. "Soon it will probably be playing all across the country."
"I didn't know that was being taped." Chris stammered in defense. "They attacked me. It's not like I had a choice in what I did."
"There are always choices." Thrask replied.
"And what choices were those?" Chris asked. He didn't see any other choices in what he did. Besides, his use of powers wasn't necessarily caught in the video. What he did to the table was visible, but his motions that made the table move as it had weren't visible.
Neither head addressed his question, though Aramis spoke. "This isn't the first time you have used magic in public is it?" He asked Chris.
Chris took a step forward, not realizing he was in the circle. "What, I haven't...well..." He wasn't sure how to answer the question. In the future he came from, magic out breaks had been rampant through the city. Most of the country had known about magic. He didn't have to worry about using magic in public when he was in the future. He jumped back when a memory of his started to replay in the circle. "Wait, how..." He didn't bother finishing his sentence.
In the memory, Chris was fighting a demon in a school yard. He was nineteen at the time. Children behind him were being ushered into the building quickly, as a few older kids stayed and stared in awe at the fight that was ensuing. He was shielding his cousin, Gracie. She was twelve and terrified at the demon before them. "I won't let you kill her." Chris had shouted. His hand went out and the demon was forced backwards, striking a tree with velocity enough to rattle some of the leaves free from the branches. The demon jumped back to his feet, sending a reel of energy balls at Chris and Gracie. Chris used his telekinetic orbing, channeling the wave of energy balls and sending each one back at the demon. The few children that stayed to watch, screamed out in fear at the demons display of power and they decided to finally take cover inside the school.
The memory faded and Chris stood, barely able to breath. That was the day Gracie had died. She wasn't killed by that demon, but by Wyatt later in the day. She was a threat to him and he couldn't risk her growing older, her powers getting stronger. He couldn't risk her being strong enough to someday fight against him, as he assumed she eventually would.
After seeing parts of that day as if he were an outsider looking in, Chris began to wonder why he came back to save Wyatt. Why he didn't just find away to kill his brother and be done with the madness? He was a ruthless monster and maybe he didn't even deserve to be saved. His thoughts left him as Crill spoke.
"It seems you were quite careless with your magic. I'm surprised that The Cleaners were not there to clean that up." He said.
Chris shook his head in disbelief. They must not have realized that his memory took place in the future. "They probably didn't even exist in the future. I'm sure they were probably eliminated." He informed them, speaking about The Cleaners. He wasn't even sure who they were, but he imagined they had something to do with keeping magic from being exposed and he assumed they had probably worked with the tribunal.
"The future?" Aramis questioned. "Why do you bring up the future?"
"Because that's where I came from." Chris blurted out, almost in a tone of annoyance. "That memory was in the future. I was trying to protect my cousin."
"You exposed magic." Thrask stated.
"Magic had been exposed for a few years already, so I wasn't exposing anything." Chris replied in defense. "What is the point in all of this?"
"The Cleaners were supposed to erase you, as they do with most that expose magic." Adair explained.
"They were unable to erase you on their own, so they brought you here for us to decide your fate." Aramis added.
"I don't think so." Leo said from behind his son.
Chris turned to him in confusion and curiosity. "Dad." He said, some relief washing over him. Finally, he had a familiar face with him.
Leo walked up to Chris. "I'm not going to let them erase you." He looked up at the Tribunal. "You won't erase my son."
"How did you even get here?" Thrask demanded to know.
Leo took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "I used a spell." He claimed.
Aramis looked at him in confusion. "Only a few Elders and demons know that spell, how did you..."
Leo cut him off mid-sentence. "I forced it out of one of the Elders." He said. Chris looked at his father with bewilderment. Did his father really force something from another Elder? Surely some trouble would await him for doing so.
"There will be a price to pay for that you know." Aramis claimed.
Leo didn't seem worried though. "As long as I save my son, the price was well worth it." He replied.
Chris could barely believe Leo. He stood, starring at his father in awe. His Leo, the one of his future, never would have stood up for him like that. He never would have put his own neck on the line to protect him like that. This Leo, was the Leo he had always wanted his father to be.
Crill eyed Leo. "This is not your decision." He said.
A ball of golden sparkles appeared before them, slowly forming into the figure of a black woman in a a bluish, almost silver robe. Her dread locked hair was pulled back into a ponytail. "His fate has already been sealed." She spoke. Her tone seemed to comfort Chris, ease him almost. He had no idea what that fate might have been or even who the woman was, but something about her voice soothed him.
Leo had never met an Angel of Destiny before, but he had heard others describing them, describing the ball of golden lights they appeared in, describing the nearly silver robes they wore.
"I don't understand." Thrask replied.
"Chris' fate is bigger than any of you can imagine." She explained as she addressed the council. "You can not erase him because he doesn't quite exist."
Chris didn't understand what she was talking about. He didn't quite exist. What did that even mean? She turned to him, her gleaming blue eyes locking with his green eyes. "What do you mean?" He asked.
"The future you came from is ceasing to exist. It's crumbling and changing. A new future is emerging in it's place." She explained. "There will be no place for you in the new future, not this version of you anyways. When the time comes you will be reborn, but in the meantime, your fate lies with your family. Protect Wyatt and you protect the future. I have seen it so."
"Wait, but..." Leo was filled with many questions as was Chris. The Angel of Destiny didn't seem concerned with them though.
She had turned back to the council to address them once more before leaving. "You will erase the demons that played a part in exposing magic and erase the evidence of that exposure, but you will let Christopher Halliwell be. Is that understood?" She asked.
Each council member nodded their heads, understanding that they were to leave Chris alone. The Angel of Destiny slowly faded into the golden sparkles she had appeared in. A moment later, they were gone. Thrask addressed Chris. "I suppose we are done here. You may leave." He said.
Relief swelled in Chris. He turned to his father and saw a smile escape his lips. "Lets go home." Leo said to him.
He took a deep breath and reached for Leo, enveloping his father in a hug. Leo returned the gesture and orbed them out of the Tribunal at the same time, taking his son home where he belonged.
Ok, so I've completely changed relationships in my story versus the real season. Piper is more worried about Chris than she ever was in the real season and to me, my interactions between them and her feelings are much more realistic. Don't know if you feel the same way though. Also, Leo and Chris' relationship is a little different as well and Leo actually wants to be there for his family and has been there throughout her pregnancy. I never liked how he left after "Courtship of Wyatt's father." Anyways...more to come soon. Comments are appreciated.