Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.
Summary: So many secrets, manipulations and half-truths. Christopher Perry's life in the past suffer many changes after Piper throws him out of the Manor. AU of season six. Chris revelation story.
IMPORTANT NOTE: this is an AU of season six. I took the liberty to play with the order of the episodes and other things. For example, 'Sword in the City' and 'Chris-Crossed' hasn't happened yet. Piper and Leo are separated but not divorced. Paige and Phoebe are living in the manor. The family doesn't know that he is half witch half whitelighter. Piper isn't dating Greg or any other guy. The story will start after 'Prince Charmed', but Chris hasn't told them about Wyatt being evil. Piper threw him out of the house because he tried to convince them to bind Wyatt's powers and the chaos of the birthday and all that.
AN: Thank you for the reviews. I loved them all.
Sarah, I haven't been able to answer you because you don't have an account. Thank you so much for the kind words.
I hope all of you like this new chapter.
This chapter was beta'ed by the very pretty Evil Amplified.
Chapter 4
Piper's eyes widened at Paige's declaration. Her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of the water. She shook her head, thinking that maybe, just maybe she heard it wrong. Chris couldn't be her son, could he?
She turned her head and saw that Leo looked like her, like he had just received an electric shock.
Phoebe turned to Paige with an incredulous expression; she couldn't believe that her baby sister had spilled her nephew's secret. And she was the one who couldn't keep a secret. She turned her eyes to Piper, and realized that Paige did well in confessing the truth. Her older sister was seriously off the rails and needed a good shock.
Paige stood straight, her face betraying nothing of her inner turmoil. Chris was going to be pissed at her for betraying his trust, but she couldn't take Piper's attitude anymore.
After a couple of minutes of stunned silence, Piper finally found her voice. "W-w-what?" she stammered, looking at her baby sister, pleading with her sister to say that it all was a big cosmic joke, that she hadn't been horrible to her child so many times.
Paige smirked and her eyes blazed with rage. "That's right, Piper. You just blew up your own kid. How does it feel, huh? I bet it must give you a fuzzy feeling in your stomach to know that you almost killed your own son." She clenched her fists when she remembered Chris' pained face and moans. "You bitch, you almost killed my nephew!"
Piper's knees buckled as she let out a scream of pain. Tears started to fall down her pallid cheeks and she sat on the floor. She raised her blurry eyes and saw that Leo had fallen at her side, a broken expression on his face. "H-how?" she asked with a raspy voice.
"Do you want me to explain the birds and the bees to you?" Paige asked in a sarcastic voice.
"A premonition," Phoebe responded in a hard tone. Although she was severely pissed of with her older sister and brother in law, she didn't want to drag on the conversation. She looked at Leo and saw his broken face. An internal voice said that he deserved it; after all, the guy almost didn't heal the boy.
Phoebe saw that the two of them stared at her with confused expressions and rolled her eyes. "Last Saturday, after you threw him out of the house, Paige and I went after him. I touched him and had a premonition of him. He was calling you mom," she said in an unfeeling voice.
Piper closed her eyes and more tears fell down her cheeks. It was really true. Chris was her son. Wyatt's little brother. A loud sob escaped her lips and she started to hit the floor with her fist. She had treated him in such a horrible way. She had downright despised her own son. How could she? Her eyes opened when a thought hit her. 'I will never forgive you for this'. He had said those words just before orbing out. She turned her body and hid her face in Leo's chest. In that particular moment she didn't think that she would ever stop crying. The pain, recrimination and guilt were too much. Her son hated her, and she completely deserved it.
Leo felt turmoil within him. This was too overwhelming. Chris was his son and he had treated him horribly. He closed his eyes in pain when he remembered Valhalla, how he had put a sword to his son's throat. How he had beaten him that same day. How he had tried to get his wings clipped and his soul recycled. Every terrible deed came back to haunt him and he felt his heart break into a zillion pieces. He had harmed his son in many ways. How was he ever going to make up for it? How was he going to face him? He didn't deserve his forgiveness or his love. He was a terrible person and deserved pain.
He was pulled out of his painful thoughts when he felt Piper's head on his chest. He tried to find words to comfort her, but couldn't. He couldn't even comfort himself, how could he comfort anyone else?
"What are we going to do, Leo? I screwed it up badly and he hates me! How didn't I see it? How didn't I recognize my own son?" her voice was muffled by Leo's shirt.
Phoebe couldn't help feeling a pang of pain at her sister's words. She wasn't the only guilty party there. All of them were at fault. She turned her eyes to her youngest sister and saw that Paige was unrelenting. She was not going to sympathize with neither Piper nor Leo yet. She was too upset.
The middle sister sighed and sat at Piper's side. Piper felt her presence and looked at her, prepared for more yelling and recriminations. Phoebe started to talk in a pained voice. "We all are at fault, Piper. We didn't recognize him when it was obvious that he was family. The way he looks, acts, talks, moves. It just screams Halliwell and we didn't see it. We didn't want to see it. We didn't see past his devious behaviour." She took a breath and was cut off by Paige.
"I'm going to go talk to him." She turned her sharp eyes to her brother in law. "Don't you dare follow me or look for him." With those harsh words, she orbed out of the manor.
"Why didn't he tell us? It would have been so much easier…" Leo said brokenly a few minutes after Paige's exit.
Phoebe closed her eyes in pain. "You know, Paige asked him the same thing when we found out his identity. We said that we would have never treated him badly if we would have known who he was." She paused and more tears fell down her cheeks. "He said that all his life he had seen how we dealt with demons and human beings; and that since his arriving in this timeline he had been treated as if he was the Source reincarnated."
The distraught parents felt even more pain at Phoebe's words. "Why didn't you tell us, Phoebe? Why didn't you stop me from hurting him?" Piper asked desperately.
Phoebe's eyes blazed in anger at this. "I tried, Piper. Paige tried too." She couldn't hide the resentment she felt in that moment. "We spent the entire week trying to make it better, trying to convince you to give him a chance. And you just didn't. You kept talking about how much you hated him." The couple hung their heads in shame and pain. "And you know what? Do you remember Thursday morning? When you gave us a list of reasons to hate him? He heard every single word." She stretched every word. "He was here and heard you. His own mother talking about how much she hated him." She moistened her lips and dried her puffy eyes.
"I don't hate him," Piper said in a tiny voice.
Phoebe scoffed. "I don't know if he will believe you. I think he's quite pissed off at you at the moment. Besides, it's not everyday that a mother tries to blow her son up," she said harshly. Her emotions were running wild. One moment she wanted to forgive and comfort her sister and the next moment she wanted to throttle her.
"Stop it! Stop it!" Piper cried while she stood and started to pace the room in anguish.
"The truth hurts, huh?" she retorted. "I'm not going to stop yet, Piper. I'm not going to forget my nephew's pain and bloodied face anytime soon. I'm not going to forget that if Leo hadn't moved, Chris could have died. I'm not going to forget that Paige and I tried many times this last week to make you see reason, but you refused to see anything past your nose and then suggested that he and Paige were having sex. Talk about disgusting."
"Then you should have told me who he was!" she nearly choked on her tears and Leo stood up to embrace her again.
Phoebe took a deep breath in a vain intent to calm down. "He pleaded with us to keep his secret. He didn't want any of us to find out his secret. He actually asked us to forget who he was and then convinced us to keep his identity a secret."
"Why?" Leo asked, his heart breaking again at the thought that his son didn't want them to know who he was.
Phoebe closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Her head was beginning to hurt again. "Look, I don't want to talk about it anymore, ok? I have a headache. I'm worried about my nephew and I am still seriously mad at the both of you." Without giving them a chance to protest, she swiftly left the bedroom and went to take a shower, in the hopes that she would feel better afterwards. Besides, she had to do something to take her mind off of Chris and Paige's conversation.
Piper and Leo were left alone in Paige's bedroom, both in their private hell where past words and actions were haunting them.
& & &
Paige orbed to the backroom in P3 and found her nephew sitting on the bed, with his head in his hands and a forlorn expression on his face. Her heart went out to him and she walked slowly to him.
Chris raised his head and locked eyes with his aunt. He saw her tears and swallowed. Paige grabbed his hand and squeezed it.
"I'm so sorry, little angel," she said and he smiled softly, remembering his childhood nickname.
Chris sighed and closed his eyes, squeezing his aunt's hand. "I… I don't want to talk about it, ok? I don't want to see her, or talk to her for a while." He paused trying to arrange his thoughts and feelings. "I'm too disappointed, I guess."
"You have every right to be mad and disappointed, little angel, but she will want to see you sooner than later."
"Why?" he stared at her with confusion and a little bit of fear.
She swallowed, knowing that he'd get mad at her and most probably would feel betrayed. "I-I told them," she murmured and Chris barely heard her.
When the words registered in his brain his eyes' widened. "Why did you do that? Why?" he asked with a pained voice and more tears fell down Paige's cheeks.
"I had to. I couldn't take her attitude anymore. She was hurting you too much with her harsh words and then almost…" her breath caught in her throat. "She almost k-k-killed you." She paused to compose herself. "She needed to be stopped."
Chris stayed in silence for a couple of minutes, trying to force the anxiety, pain and dread that he was feeling to the back of his mind. They knew that he was their unborn child. What was he going to do from now on? He didn't want to face them. He didn't want to face their excuses and sorry apologies. It was so different with his aunts. They hadn't been mean to him and they had tried many times to be helpful. But not Piper and Leo. They had gone out of their way to be spiteful to him and now they knew his identity.
He felt so emotionally drained that he didn't know if he should yell at his aunt for giving away his secret, when he had asked her not to, or if he should forgive and face the situation and be done with it.
Paige took his silence in a bad way. "Chris, please, forgive me. I know that you didn't want them to know, but I couldn't"
She was cut off by him. "Just, drop it, ok? I'm too tired to fight right now. Right now I don't know if I should feel betrayed by you or what. I just… need some time, ok?"
Paige let out a breath. "Ok, little angel. Just… don't hate me for talking, please."
Chris smiled softly. "I won't hate you, Aunt Paige." The woman smiled broadly at his term of endearment.
"Good," she said softly. "Because your Auntie Paige loves you very much and only wants the best for you." She couldn't resist and hugged him tightly. He hugged her back and then stood up.
Paige hated to break the moment. "Piper and Leo will want to see and talk to you sooner than later."
Chris scowled. "Well too bad, because I don't want to talk to them." He started pacing the room. "I want to be alone, ok?"
"What are you going to do, Chris?" she asked worriedly.
"What I came to do. Search for the demon who took Wyatt." He didn't give her time to respond, as he just orbed out of the room.
Paige closed her eyes and tried to sense him, but he was blocking her. "Darn!" she said worriedly and orbed to the Manor.
& & &
*The next morning, december 14th, 2003. P3's backroom*
Piper opened the door and entered quietly, afraid of making a sound. She turned on the light and a disappointed sigh left her lips. He wasn't there. She had hoped that she would find him there.
She walked slowly and paid close attention to her surroundings. If she didn't know he lived there, she wouldn't even realize that he used the backroom as his bedroom. The room was really clean and tidy, and didn't have any personal belongings at first sight. She reached the closet and opened it. A little smile appeared on her lips when she saw a backpack. She grabbed it carefully and then sat on the bed.
Her eyes blurred with tears. The bed was old and uncomfortable. Her baby boy had been sleeping in a horrid bed. Paige was right. She hugged the backpack to her chest and closed her eyes tightly and let the tears fall down her pale cheeks. She hadn't slept during the night and had spent the entire day recriminating and kicking herself. She would never forgive herself for the way she had treated Chris. She would never forget his pained face when she blew him up, or the way he said that he'd never forgive her. And why should she forgive herself? She had hurt him in so many ways. She didn't deserve any kind of relief or forgiveness.
A loud sob escaped her lips and she felt even more horrible. She desperately wanted to see him, fall to her knees and beg him for another chance, for an absolution that only he could give. But he was nowhere in sight. Neither Leo nor Paige had been able to sense him. Where was he? Was he in the underworld or was he just blocking them? She hoped that he would be safe, wherever he was. She couldn't take if anything else happened to him.
After a few minutes she managed to calm herself and slowly opened the backpack. He practically didn't have any clothes. She grabbed a deep blue shirt that had the word 'Nightwish' written on it and lifted it to her nose and then inhaled deeply, losing herself in the smell of his aftershave and his own essence. She then folded the shirt and put it back in the backpack. She searched for any other item and big was her surprise when she found a photo.
With trembling fingers she lifted it and saw some written words on the back of the photo. The words were blurry and childlike. She squinted her eyes and managed to read the words. 'My seventh birthday. Mommy, Wyatt and me'. Then turned the photo and gasped at the image. There she was, with her hair longer than ever and a big, happy smile on her face. She had two boys on her knees. On her left knee sat a blonde boy with soft curls, blue eyes and sweet smile. In her right knee sat a little boy with a mop of brown hair and amazing green eyes. His smile was so big and beautiful that it lightened the whole room.
Her heart clenched painfully. She stared at the picture for many minutes, memorizing every feature. She was pulled from her rapt contemplation of the picture by the sound of orbing. She raised her eyes and saw Leo.
Leo pinched the bridge of his nose when he saw the distraught expression on his wife's face. The past day had been really hard for the two of them. He hadn't seen her in hours, deciding to look out for his future son. Without a word, he sat at her side and looked at the picture in her hand.
His breath caught in his throat and felt his eyes blur with unshed tears. There were his children, his beautiful children. The two of them sat in silence for many minutes, just staring at the image.
Finally, Piper broke the silence while she traced Chris' face with her index finger. "He has such a beautiful smile," she started to say and sniffed. "A-and it breaks my heart that he doesn't smile like this anymore." She looked at her husband. "Have you seen him smile, Leo?"
Leo closed his eyes in pain. "No sweetie, I haven't seen him really smile. He just smirks and scowls in my presence."
"We really failed him, Leo. We really did," she said brokenly and Leo hugged her tightly, letting in her cry on his shoulder.
"Don't you think I know, Piper? I hit him for God's sake!" he exclaimed brokenly.
Piper broke the hug and stared at him with incredulous eyes. "Why? When?"
"After I got out of Valhalla. You were just turned into a Valkyrie and I lashed out at him." He took a long a pause. "Then I took him back to Valhalla, intent on finding you. I led him to a cage and challenged him to sword fighting. I put a sword against my son's throat, Piper. You can't possibly know how much I hate myself at this moment."
Piper sighed. "I know how you feel, Leo." She took a last look at the picture and then put it back in the backpack. Then she stood up and put it back in the closet. After a few minutes she sat back at her husband's side. "It's amazing the feeling of being a mother, you know? Just a day ago I resented his very existence and right now I love him with every fibre of my being. I don't know how to explain it, but just knowing that he's my son…" she said quietly and stared at her husband. She could see that he felt the same way. "And I know that the love I feel for him will grow and grow with every little thing he does." She smiled softly. "I'm not even mad at him anymore. I just want to know why he did the things he did, you know? I want to understand his actions, his reasoning."
"I know what you mean, sweetheart. I would really like to know why he did the things he did, but I don't hold anything against him anymore." He paused and braced himself. "I want to know why he didn't tell us about Wyatt before."
Piper let out a sob. "I still have trouble understanding where we went wrong with Wyatt. How could he be evil, Leo? Wyatt is… is the Twice Blessed Child, a child of a Charmed One and a whitelighter. He's supposed to represent everything that is good and beautiful in this world." She wiped her eyes. "Both Wyatt and Chris are supposed to represent that." She finished sadly.
Leo kissed her temple. "Maybe… maybe he was too powerful and we couldn't contain him," he said lamely.
Piper shook her head. "That can't be." She stayed in silence trying to come up with a good reason of their future failure with their eldest child. "I just feel like such a huge failure as a mother. I failed Wyatt and he turns evil, and I failed Chris in this timeline and hurt him in unimaginable ways." She turned her head into Leo's shoulder and cried some more.
Leo tried to stay strong for his wife but after a while couldn't contain his pain and the tears fell. Both embraced strongly for many minutes, basking in the other's presence.
Both stood there in silence, hoping that their youngest son would appear at any moment and they'd be able to start the long process of forgiveness. After an hour or so, their shoulders slumped and they went back to the Manor. After all, they had a baby to take care of.
"To be continued"
AN2: Please review! They inspire me to write faster! ;)