Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed, but I do own a lot of IMPATIENCE. Evil people are bothering me on IM. It's disturbing. I WISH THEY'D GO BYE-BYE. They're school peoples...eeeeeesh how they got my sn is BEYOND me...they aren't particularly friendly lol. I shall survive, however, just as soon as a buy a pony and ride away to Anarctica and live with the penguins. Hey, anyone else see March of the Penguins?I saw it with my BOYFRIEND (man, do I relish that word...I FINALLY HAVE A BF, EVERYONE...) on our second date (the first one was at the pool with his lil bro and parents...the second, the movie, was with my whole family...they won't leave us alone, but we don't really mind because we're way too young to do anything that they'd disapprove of lol!). It wasa cute movie...but SAD, too...-tears-. We're both so dorky and kind of like misfits in school, so it's a perfect match. Except I'm smart and goofy and he's REALLY REALLY smart and sorta serious, lol. I have no idea what we see in each other, BUT IT'S FUN TO BE WITH HIM! lol. It's our first time ever dating anyone for both of us, so he does stuff that he sees in movies, like holds my hand at the "scary" parts of the G-rated movie (Yeah. G-rated. How frightening lol.) and holds open doors for me lol. He's soooo sweeeeeeeet. I heart him. lol. I'm shutting up now. On with the story!
So. Not. Cool.
Chris watched his body stay completely still beneath him as he—oh, great, was this convenient or what?—floated up above it. What the hell did this mean? Was he officially dead now?
Well, that had certainly been unexpected. Sure, he'd told Owen to tell the Halliwells all that stuff, but he was still hoping that there was still some way he'd live. After all that had happened, he'd felt pretty invincible. The massacre? Aw, no biggie. Meeting your family after ten years, overcoming amnesia, falling off a bridge, being assaulted by a demon, finding out that everything you knew was a lie and your mother refusing to believe you're real? Been there, done that.
And now a stupid stab wound had killed him?
"Athame," Owen explained, his face looking drained and empty. "I'm pretty sure it was poisoned.
Now, maybe THAT made more sense to Chris. But even so, it was pretty unbelievable and weird looking at your own body. To some degree, this is what he thought would happened when you died, but he thought he'd be frightened. He'd always feared death. So why wasn't he afraid now? Everything was so…peaceful and serene.
He even stayed in that mind set when he saw Paige start crying and Wyatt shaking uncontrollably. He felt drugged—that seemed like the best word for it. There was no panic, no desperation like there was every waking moment when he was alive. He just sort of…floated there. Staring.
A thought occurred to him: Am I going to be a freaking ghost and hang around here forever? Can they even see me?
"Paige? Wyatt? Owen?"
Apparently they couldn't.
"Wonderful." Chris kicked the bed. His foot went through it and he groaned. "Just peachy."
"Don't worry."
Chris whipped around.
"Hey, you're dead, too," he said flatly to the stranger floating next to him.
The stranger laughed. Chris recognized that laugh immediately as his own. "You're… are you…?"
"The same person as you are?" The other boy, in his early twenties, raised his eyebrows. "Yes and no. See, I came from another timeline. In my timeline, there was a massacre and it caused Wyatt to turn evil out of nowhere. There never was an Alliance, actually, because most demons were slaughtered right with the witches. The remaining ones were under Wyatt's control. He started this all at the age of fourteen."
"My age now," Chris commented.
His older self nodded. Chris couldn't even imagine trying to achieve world domination when you were barely a teenager.
"Wyatt was so evil that the world became unbearable. San Francisco was destroyed; there were no people busily roaming the streets, no seagulls at the bay, not even a beautiful sunrise anymore. Nobody was safe. And I…I went back in time, before I—you—were born. Wyatt was only a baby, and mom wasn't even pregnant with…us…yet."
"You screwed with the timeline?" Chris asked his counterpart incredulously.
"By that time, there was no other option. Mel and Annie? They were dead. The Charmed Ones? Kapow. It only took one blow to knock out half the elders and whitelighters, too."
"So you changed the timeline," Chris repeated numbly.
"Yes. While I was there, I found out that it wasn't the massacre that turned Wyatt. The day we were born, a horrible, twisted man tried to kill Wyatt. Wyatt, being the powerful being he'll always be, evaded him in my timeline, but in your timeline I managed to send the alert to where Wyatt was. Wyatt was spared. But it came at a price."
"Our life," Chris figured out.
"That's right. Our lives had to be taken if Wyatt were to ever become good."
"But…but…" Chris stared down at his brother, clearly upset and angry, trying in vain to try to bring his body back to life. "How will this make him good? How will my dying change him?"
"I'm getting to that. See, I died because the man that tried to kill Wyatt—Gideon was his name—stabbed me because I stood in his way. There was no way to heal the wound he caused unless he healed it himself." His counterpart's eyes clouded. "I sometimes wonder, you know, now that I'm dead, if he really did intend to come back for me after he stabbed me. He thought that killing Wyatt was right and good, only because he knew through me coming back that one day Wyatt would abuse his power. What he couldn't accept, though, was that he was the cause of it. I don't think he meant to kill me. He didn't want to."
"But he did."
"Yes, he did. And then I didn't get to go back to the future where I wanted to go after it was fixed. I died, and at the same moment I died, you were brought to life. The next Chris. The new generation."
"But…how the hell is this any better?" Chris demanded. "The massacre still happened and now there's some creepy Alliance. How does that make anything better?"
"The Alliance, my friend, is dead and gone. Only the original leader remains, too weak and without any cronies left to do anything threatening."
"What…what do you mean?"
"The Charmed Ones and Wyatt and Cole just vanquished pretty much all of them down at the manor while you were…dying. That's why they were too late."
"But obviously YOU knew what was going to happen," Chris said accusatorily.
"Well, duh. How could I not know? I'm you. I've been waiting for you to die for, like, fourteen years," he said.
"You're sick," Chris shot back.
"No, I'm not sick. I've been waiting because I have another mission for you. You may be dead, but you're not exactly finished here."
"Oh yeah? What can I do now that I'm dead, hm?"
His counterpart smirked. "Lots of things. I'll show you why, this time, Wyatt's not going to turn evil."
PPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
Wyatt and Paige stood in shocked silence for a minute or so. Wyatt's shoulders were shaking and Paige was crying quietly behind him.
Wyatt finally burst, "He's not dead. He can't be."
Owen closed his eyes to stop the flow of tears. "I'm sorry. He's dead…I watched it happen. You must be his brother."
Wyatt nodded, gulping back a sob, and got down to his knees, desperately trying to heal his brother. "He can't be dead. He lived last time, didn't he? He was alive for ten years! He can't be…dead…"
Paige softly put a hand on his shoulder. "Wyatt," she said in a hushed, horror-filled voice, "He's dead. You've got to let him go."
"No!" Wyatt cried. "Not…until…I know…for sure…"
"What do you mean?" asked Paige. "Wyatt, you've got to stop. He's dead. We…have to go home—they'll be worried."
Wyatt shook his head, his blonde hair blocking his pained expression. "How do I know that he's not really dead? How do we know for sure? I'm not going to leave him again, Aunt Paige. I'm not going to leave him here!"
"Wyatt…let him go. If he died…then it was his time."
"No! No, it wasn't. He was too young for it to be his time. It's not fair."
Owen sighed, shuddering from his tears. "Life isn't fair to anybody."
Wyatt stepped away from Chris' body, stumbling a bit. "I just…I just feel like he isn't really gone. He wasn't even here for a day, really, but it seems like it was a lifetime. I can't believe…after all this time…he's really…" He swallowed, and said painfully, "dead."
Paige moved her hand off Wyatt's shoulder and faced Owen. "You need a place to stay, don't you?" she said. Without waiting for an answer, she commanded, "Come with us. You're not safe here. For all we know, there are still Alliance members out there that might come looking for you."
"I'm not worth anything to them," Owen said bitterly. He softened. "But…thank you. It means a lot to me."
"Wyatt, you orb Owen home. I'll…take Chris."
Wyatt nodded, taking a deep breath and orbing himself and Owen back to the manor.
"Where's Chris?" Cole badgered him. "Who's that?"
"I'm Owen." A fresh bout of tears formed in Owen's eyes and he looked at the ground. "Chris' friend."
"You're the one he went to bring back here, aren't you?" asked Phoebe. "Where are Chris and Paige? What happened? Why…why are you two…?"
"Oh my God," said Piper, "are they…?"
Wyatt looked at Piper dead in the face. "Chris is dead, Mom. Your son is really dead this time. Are you happy now?" He retreated up the stairs, indicating Owen to follow. He knew he wouldn't be able to handle seeing Chris' body again. It was too much for him.
"No," Piper said, her voice barely a whisper. "No…he can't be dead."
Paige orbed in and Piper clutched the marble counter for support, her knuckles turning white. Cole stared at his nephew's body with wide eyes, disbelievingly. Phoebe turned abnormally pale.
Paige set the blood-covered body on the couch and announced shakily, "He's dead."
Piper was the first to make a noise, letting out a long wail of remorse.
You know what's really weird? I was all, "Man, this story's getting blah." So I killed off Chris for variety and then I'm all -sighs- "This means I have to bring him back now. Damn." So I sat at the computer for five seconds all frustrated and then I started typing and...voila. This chappie. I dunno how it happens, lol, but it's fun to post!