Chapter 5 of 9
Going on with the mission
Wyatt was waiting up when Chris finally decided to show up around two in the morning. After the Bridge he had gone to the Underworld. He was very close to getting to one of those demons who had been recruiting. When he orbed home Wyatt was sitting on his bed on their grandfather’s spare room and staring at Chris.
“I don’t want to talk about Piper and Leo, Wy.”
“Okay, then let’s talk about Oxford,” Wyatt said slowly picking up a sheet of printed paper ad reading. “Apparently there is this program where they handpick students from all over the world and invite them to study at Oxford,” he turned the print towards Chris, “You left the page open on Grandpa’s computer. Now why would you be looking into this program?”
Chris sat down slowly next to Wyatt, “Remember the day everything went to hell?” Wyatt nodded. “When mom called I was coming out of Mr. Thomas’s office. He had just told me they chose me.”
“Wow, that’s- wow,” Wyatt said impressed. He always knew his brother was a nerdy braniak but wow. “Congratulations!” he thumped Chris’s arm. “Too bad you’re going to have to tell them you were already accepted by Harvard,” Wyatt smiled but his smile faded at Chris’s uncomfortable expression. “Chris, remember. There was the plan, for you to be able to go to Harvard and orb back home. England is too much of a time difference for the plan to work.”
“I was thinking that maybe moving away would be a better choice,” Chris said not looking at Wyatt and fiddling with the hem of his shirt.
“For who?” Wyatt asked narrowing his eyes.
“Everyone,” Chris answered not lifting his eyes.
Wyatt took a slow breath to calm down, realizing that right now blowing up wouldn’t do either of them any good.
“Look, I know mom and dad have been hard on you this last few weeks but-“
“It’s not just these two weeks you saw Wy,” Chris said lifting his eyes and meeting Wyatt’s. “I’ve been thinking this for while now, way before they busted us. I- I can’t Wy. I just can’t go back to the future and pretend we’re a happy family again. Pretend I don’t know.”
“Chris, you don’t know! They’re not like that! It’s like the aunts have been saying! They never saw you Chris. They decided you were evil and to blame for everything from the first second and never gave you a chance. Never got to know you.”
“What if you’re wrong? What if they just didn’t like what they found?” Chris asked in a whisper.
“You’ll never know if you don’t give them a chance,” Wyatt said quietly squeezing Chris’s shoulder. Chris nodded swallowing hard.
Piper caressed the blond locks of the little baby in the crib and sighed sadly. How could have she been so stupid, so blind? She closed her eyes and she could picture Chris so well. His eye rolling, his mannerism, his way of talking. Everything that screamed Halliwell is so many ways and she had never seen. How many times had his face seemed to fall in pain at one of her harsh words just to immediately assume a neutral façade as if she had imagined the pain? Had she made him be like that? Had she treated him the same way in the future? Wyatt said no. That she had been a great mother. And so had Chris in his letter. And that was why Chris was so hurt by her attitude.
She opened her eyes and looked at baby Wyatt and couldn’t help but remember how Wyatt had emphasized her relationship with Chris, not mentioning Leo at all.
“Dad would have sent a letter apologizing and promising he’d be there next year.”
Was Leo the one who trained Chris in hiding his emotions? Was that why Chris was more hurt by her than Leo? Because he was used to Leo never being there for him?
She shook her head straightening up. She had to fix this. She had to get Chris to forgive her, because for the first time Piper realized that everyone was right and she had been horribly wrong. She looked down at her stomach and gently put her hand over it. She would fix this. She would make everything better for her baby boy, and he would stop hurting.
Leo observed the city from the exact same spot his son had a few hours ago, and in the exact same position. Chris hadn’t known. He had been so lost in thoughts that he hadn’t sensed Leo orbing on the bridge and not wanting to scare his son away Leo cloaked himself and just observed him, sitting there lost in thoughts. Until, much later, Chris had orbed out and Leo had taken his spot.
Leo had really looked at Chris for the first time and he didn’t like what he saw. He saw a broken boy. He saw a sad boy and then he saw that same boy hide all of his emotions, that he had let appear in the solitude of the bridge, behind a fierce mask before he orbed out.
Had he been fooled by that mask? He might not have seen how hurt Chris was because of the mask but no, he knew by observing Chris that the mask wasn’t what had kept him from seeing who Chris was. He had been fooled by his own stubbornness and pig-head. He had been fooled by the fact that he never had wanted to know Chris, because blaming Chris with everything that was going wrong with his life was easier than acknowledging that he had been the one to accept to become an Elder without considering how that would affect his family.
But now he had to. He had to stop and think because now he was seeing everything, including the fact that Chris was hurt by Piper’s actions but he almost expected Leo’s. Which meant that in the future Leo was not a good father, and he did not want to become a father that breaks promises to his son’s. A father from whom his son expects the worse.
He once again made a decision without consulting Piper, but this time he didn’t think she would be angry at him. He orbed away.
Phoebe trotted down the stairs happily. So, yes, things weren’t looking good but in her point of view they were looking up now that Leo and Piper knew the truth and they could start to heal the wounds they caused. It wouldn’t be easy, but today things looked a lot better than yesterday, in Phoebe’s opinion. She opened the kitchen’s door ready to make a fresh cup of coffee and who knows, pilfer some of those cookies Piper had baked yesterday, once she had gotten home. And everyone knows that a guilty Piper leads to loads and loads of baked goods. She stopped on her track as her eyes landed on Leo immersed in paperwork. A lot of paperwork.
He didn’t seem to sense her, or hear her for that matter as she approached and peered at the papers he was putting in order.
“What are you doing?” she asked and he jumped up startled.
“Oh, hi Phoebe. Didn’t hear you there,” he smiled nervously and tried to unsuccessfully to cover up the papers he had been working with.
“What’s all that?” she asked.
“Hum, nothing- er- just some stuff the Elders gave me as –hum- reward.”
“Reward?”
“Yeah,” he answered vaguely.
“For what?”
“Good service?” he answered with a nervous smile and it sounded more like a question than an answer.
Phoebe’s response was to raise an eyebrow.
Leo sighed, “Look. I just need to tell Piper first. But this is good, okay. I promise.”
“If you say so,” Phoebe shrugged looking at him suspiciously. She was receiving some very nervous feelings from him, but she could detect a lot of hope too, and certainty. Whatever he was doing might be making him nervous but he was damn sure that he was right.
She didn’t have to wait much though. As soon as she got the coffee pot Piper entered the kitchen carrying Wyatt and sitting him on his high chair. She looked at Leo and frowned.
“What’s all that?”
Leo took a slow breath. Got up, took Piper’s hand and led her to one of the chairs.
“Those are my documents. Birth certificate, diplomas etc. The Elders used their magic to kind of bring them up to nowadays. They’re not fake or anything. If anyone goes looking in the system they will find a Leo Wyatt born in 72 and graduated in Med School. They even gave me refreshed knowledge from all the medical advances that have happened since I graduated, so I can just start practicing. And they gave me some background experience to show a future employer and all.”
Piper was confused. Why would Leo need all that?
“Leo- what?”
“I quit the Elders,” he said firmly. “I don’t want to be a father who doesn’t come to his son’s birthdays. I thought a lot about this and becoming an Elder has only brought pain to our family. So I quit. I’m a mortal again. And I think I might go back to practicing medicine. I don’t know yet, but most importantly I want to be here for our family. And I told them that. And they agreed and they also agreed that they owe you girls a lot and me too because of how I helped with the Titans so they helped me.” He stopped talking and stared at Piper waiting for her reaction. Phoebe was frozen holding the coffee pot and just staring at both of them. She couldn’t believe what she just heard.
“I- what?- you-“ Piper stammered lost at word, “You quit the Elders?” Leo nodded. “You’re not an Elder anymore?” Leo shook his head. “They can’t jingle you anymore?” again he shook his head. “And you can’t orb away?” his last shake of head was interrupted as Piper threw herself on him. “Thank you,” she whispered and then got on the tips of her toes and kissed him. Now Phoebe was hugging the coffee pot and working very hard not to coo at them, with tears in her eyes.
“You’re kidding me?” Victor asked over breakfast.
“Nope,” Wyatt shook his head. “Aunt Phoebe just called with the gossip. He quit the Elders last night. Now he’s a common mortal, no powers. He thinks he might go back to being a doctor but doesn’t know yet.”
“Wow, that’s- wow,” was all Victor could say as Wyatt stole a glance at his baby brother who was doing a very poor job of pretending he wasn’t interested in the news.
Chris cleared his throat and looking at his plate he frowned, “We should go tell the sisters what I found out.”
“Of course, we should,” Wyatt agreed happily. Especially since that fated day when his parents had practically ran him off the manor Chris had not once volunteered to go anywhere near the couple. Wyatt didn’t miss his grandfather smirk either.
Chris orbed himself and Wyatt to the empty living room of the manor. Or almost empty. Baby Wyatt was playing and babbling with some soft toys.
“Oh, look. You’re drooling,” Chris remarked happily pointing at the baby who was munching on a toy.
“Very funny!” Wyatt glared at Chris.
“Here you go Wyatt,” Piper’s voice came accompanied by the woman who was bringing another toy and had stopped dead on her track as she spotted her grown up sons.
“Hey,” she said awkwardly. Chris nodded jerkily avoiding Piper’s gaze and Wyatt answered.
“Hi- er- we have news- demon-wise.”
“Oh,” Piper said dazed. “I’ll call the others.”
Soon after, they were all sitting in the living room and all that Chris could say was that that had been the tensest meeting of his life as he told them everything he had found out and his parents stared at him as if they could X-ray him with their eyes.
“So they are low level demons?” Phoebe asked.
Chris nodded, “At least the ones doing the recruiting. They go around demon bars trying to spread their philosophy. That the only reason good is always wining is because they are fractioned and we’re not.”
“They do have a point,” Paige nodded. “I mean, even though we don’t work together with other witches we do all the work “under” the Elders orders and we have Magic School to help. We are more organized. And we’re not always trying to kill each other.”
“And that’s exactly where they attacked. They attacked our points of organization, The Elders and Magic School and the most prominent forces of good. The ones who could have rallied any magical being left together,” Chris added. “We are starting to think that the demons in power were low level demons. That they just used a figure of a source but there was none. And by always talking in this source’s name they managed to get the upper level ones to listen to them.”
“That would be quite ingenious actually,” Leo nodded appreciatively.
“Yes, but that also means that getting rid of them only won’t work,” Wyatt said. “What if someone they talked to decides to take their project forward? We need to stamp down their idea.”
“We need to make them think it didn’t work,” Phoebe said lighting up.
“How? They all know your Whitelighter from the future came back because the future is grim,” Chris asked.
Paige raised an eyebrow, “What if you hadn’t? What if you just said that but you came back to stop only one death? What if the demons didn’t get what they wanted and all they managed to do was incur one of the Charmed ones progeny’s wrath?” and she finished looking at Piper.
“What now?” she asked dazed.
“She’s right,” Leo nodded. “Right now every demon thinks that breaking the Power of 3 is enough but in the future killing one of the Charmed Ones might not be, after all, there are your kids,” he nodded at Phoebe and Paige, “and Wyatt and Chris. All we have to do is make them think they failed spectacularly. That you first crushed them there and then came back to crush them before they could kill Piper.”
“And why come so far behind?” Wyatt asked.
“Because Chris didn’t want to be recognized by the family and stopped from breaking the rules,” Leo said simply. “So he told us something that would be enough to allow the rule breaking. Which only his mother’s death wouldn’t. And he had to come to before he was conceived, so we wouldn’t recognize or suspect who he was. They don’t need to know you’re here too Wyatt.”
“And how do you explain my investigation? If I already knew who they were?” Chris asked.
“You knew who they were, but not where they were,” Piper said simply. “But you didn’t want to scare them away so you pretended you knew nothing.”
Chris traded looks with his brother. He saw the logic in this but he couldn’t help but notice the irony of them coming up with such a lie so quickly after they berated Chris for doing the same.
“You’re on the right path dad,” Wyatt said smiling when he found his father organizing his paperwork and looking up the local hospitals and clinics.
Leo looked up from the kitchen’s table and nodded seriously, “I want to be a good father.”
“I never said you were a bad father,” Wyatt shrugged taking a seat. “You were a good one to me. The best. Now you just have to remember you have two sons, not just one. Because sometimes, being the best father to one son and the worst to the other is worst than being a bad father all around. Hurts more. Hurts everyone. Hurts the neglected child, hurts the cherished child because he wants the same for his brother and hurts the mother who is trying to protect both her children. So concentrate in being a good one for both of us and leave the best title to whoever might want it.”
“Is that why he hides his emotions?”
“To spare me and mom? And maybe even himself?” Wyatt asked and Leo nodded. “Yes, he didn’t want us angry at you so he started pretending you missing his birthdays, games, etc, after promising to be there didn’t matter. After a while he stopped asking you to come. I think that when you died you wouldn’t have been able to tell which grade Chris was on, much less know the Colleges he had been accepted to.”
“I won’t be like that,” Leo said firmly.
Wyatt smiled. “I hope not.”
Piper found Chris sprawled on the attic’s floor taking copious notes from both Book of Shadow. She was a little nervous, she really didn’t know how to approach him. To Chris it seemed as if nothing had changed, he just went on with his mission. She overheard Wyatt telling Leo of how Chris used indifference as a coping mechanism and decided that, apparently, thanks to Leo, she was going to have to be the one to breach the gap between them because Chris would just go on as they are.
But the problem was, she really didn’t know how to. She had to admit, Chris had taken after her, she wasn’t one to start heartfelt conversations either. She remembered something Chris said and decided to break the ice with that. She sat down in front of the books and he didn’t even notice.
“It’s not true that Snape kills Dumbledore right? You were joking right?”
“He does, Dumbledore asked him to,” Chris said distractedly, then apparently something clicked in his head and his head snapped up, “HEY! Those books aren’t out yet! Stop weaseling out information!”
“Why would Dumbledore ask him to?” Piper asked, not only curious, because let’s face it, she had scorned Paige when she started reading a children’s book but Paige managed to get everyone in the family hooked on the Harry Potter Series, but she also wanted to continue talking to Chris.
“You’re going to have to wait and see,” Chris said huffing. “No, regard for future consequences at all,” he mumbled as he went back to his notes.
“I really don’t see what that is going to change my future that much,” she protested.
“You never know,” Chris said. “You might end up doing something you weren’t supposed to because you were reading the book the first time around but this time since you know the ending you won’t.”
“Believe me, I’ll be reading the book anyway. Unless you have a copy of the last two with you,” she asked hopefully.
‘Yes, because we really thought that the Harry Potter books were essential for our survival when we were packing to flee the demons,” Chris drawled.
“Sarcasm is not appreciated here young man,” Piper huffed.
Chris stared at her for a while and he almost, almost bit his lip. He seemed to realize what he was about to do and stopped, then he ducked his head back to the books and mumbled.
“We took our cousins backpacks to pack with stuff, one of them was into writing Harry Potter fanfiction and Aunt Paige had given them a special collection with all the books in light paper so they could carry them around. We didn’t really empty the bags well because we were kind of in a rush and only realized later, and then, I know it was stupid, it was added weight but- it was the only personal thing from anyone in the family that we had, so we kind of didn’t throw it away.”
Piper’s head came up and her heart squeezed, she couldn’t imagine not having anything to remember her loved ones by. I mean, just look at the attic, they kept everything. He continued.
“The last three books were on the bag,” he continued. “If you’re good, and promise, promise not to utter a word to anyone before they come out, I’ll talk to Wyatt about letting you read them.”
She smiled to herself, he might be hurt by her, and she had a long way to go but at least he wasn’t orbing away anymore and even if this seemed impersonal, talking about a book, he was willing to break the rules for her. He still loved her, even after all she did. “I promise,” she nodded seriously.
Chris nodded and ducked his head once again back to reading and taking notes. Piper wanted to sigh. There went her thread of light conversation.
She took a deep breath and said, “You never let me apologize.”
The hand with the pen stopped moving but Chris didn’t look up.
“You see,” she continued. “I figured you might already know this but I have a bit of a temper,” she heard him snort. “I was angry. I blamed you for Leo becoming an Elder and our marriage ending because you were an easy target. I couldn’t take it out on Leo, I love him, or my sisters, they weren’t at fault-“
“Neither was I,” he said tightly.
“I know, but you weren’t family- I mean, I know you were but I didn’t know then, and I thought you might be a threat and you were there for me to vent on and I just could, and I know that was wrong but I just did. I took the easy way out, I blamed you because blaming you meant I didn’t have to really look at what Leo and I were doing wrong. And because of that I only saw in you what I wanted. You said in your letter that you didn’t know if you could believe in your mother’s love. That she might not have liked you because I don’t, but the truth is Chris, she knew you, I don’t. I don’t know you so I can’t know if I like who you are. Don’t doubt her love because of the two of us she was the one being honest. Not me.”
In all her speech Chris never looked up but he had moved both his hands to under his chest and Piper could see how tense his jaw was.
“Give me a chance to get to know you Chris, to love you. Please. I know what I did was unforgivable but I am asking just that from you. Forgive me,” he didn’t answer and she realized she should let him think on everything she said. “I’ll leave you alone to your work now,” she said quietly and slowly got up leaving the attic. She hovered at the door and her heart broke when she heard his muffled sobs.