Chapter One

"How long did you torture Bianca?"

Meaningless words pierce through the muddle that is Wyatt's mind. He struggles awake, fighting the grogginess that clings to him; the effects of the spell, or drug, wear off slowly. Sleep beckons but he shrugs away from oblivion and forces his brain to make sense of the question that lingers in the air.

"What?!" He opens his eyes and then slams them shut with a groan. The fist-sized crystals arranged around his prone body are glowing far too brightly. Now that he is fully conscious, he hurts, all over. His limbs are not sore like he overexerted himself but feel like he was rammed by a bulldozer. Or a bus. Wyatt vaguely remembers a bus.

"She wouldn't have told you my plans, not willingly. How long did you torture her?"

Recalling the events that brought him here seems like a Herculean feat for his throbbing head. He came to the past looking for Chris, not his Chris but the one from an alternative, horrible timeline. Then he found Chris, and then….and then. He raises his head from the concrete floor and squints over to where his brother is standing. "Did you push me in front of a double-decker?"

A scowl crosses the younger Halliwell's face as he stalks across the floor of the warehouse and halts at the edge of the magical cage. "How long did you torture Bianca?" He repeats, enunciating each word slowly.

"I didn't."

Chris glares and crouches down. His hand twitches towards the closest quartz, fingers grazing the white surface in a deliberate threat. Once more, the question is asked. "How long?"

Wyatt has interrogated enough demons to know what will happen if that rock is moved more than an inch to the side. He ignores the protests of his body as he sits up. "I don't know any Bianca," he says, urgent and earnest. "I swear! Chris, look at me."

Green eyes meet his.

"It worked. Alright? Your plan to change the past worked."

Quartz crystals flare. The white bars of the cage bend inward and writhe, tendrils of light twisting and clawing toward the captive witch. Wyatt ducks down, crouching futilely away from the brightness and the pain it will bring.

There is a scraping against the concrete as Chris replaces the crystal, the bars of the cage return to position without so much as singeing Wyatt. A snarl has transformed Chris's face into an expression that is entirely alien. "Stop lying."

Wyatt coughs and mentally adds a sore throat to his list of injuries. "I'm not." He sits up again, eyeing Chris's hand as it twitches once more towards the crystal. No, not twitches. The hand is trembling, fingers wracked by minute tremors. His gaze shoots up and he studies his brother, concern mounting as he looks past the stony expression.

Chris's lips are a grim line drawn against ashy skin. His cheeks are sunken, not dramatically, but enough that Wyatt can spot the beginnings of bruising beneath his eyes. He has not slept recently, or if he did it was not restful. He also has not been eating. The long sleeved shirt that hangs on his frame does little to hide that he is not just lean, but dangerously thin.

"I only arrived here yesterday." The younger witch-whiteligher is stating. "I haven't changed anything yet, I haven't even approached the Charmed Ones."

Yesterday?

In between tracking his brother's magical signature, finding the wayward witch-whitelighter, and being telekinetically shoved in front of a double-decker bus Wyatt had no chance to realize how off the date was. "I meant to arrive some time after the aunts and…everyone knew who you were." He says, "I don't know why the portal brought me to here, now."

The grays and greens of Chris's eyes churn and froth like the sea before a storm, stirred up by disbelief, annoyance, and no small amount of anger. He rises and paces away from the cage. When he turns back his emotions are better controlled. "I have no intention of telling them my true identity." He says.

Wyatt scoffs and then winces because scoffing is not good for his ribs right now. "Yeah, well, they are Halliwells." He points out and watches as a startled smirk crosses his younger brother's face, they are both well aware of how persistent and inquisitive the family can be. "Chris, I swear to you, I'm not the Wyatt you grew up with." An idea strikes him and he shoots to his feet. "You can test it." Wyatt offers and wobbles as pain twinges up his thigh. "Look into my mind. Our bond, I can't lie through-."

"You severed that, years ago." Chris states. The return of his scowl does little to hide the echo of hurt in his eyes.

Wyatt swallows the denial that forms automatically. He has only a vague notion of how evil he was in the alternate future. His parents and aunts shared what they knew, but it wasn't much. It is beyond horrifying to think that any incarnation of himself would intentionally damage the connection that he had felt and nurtured before his brother was even out of their mother's womb. Beyond horrifying and wrong, because… "Why can I still feel you then?"

Chris looks at him sharply.

"Reach out Chris." He insists, mentally prodding at the connection between them.

Any other time it might strike him as funny to see his brother shrink away from someone who is trapped and effectively incapable of doing harm. "Chris please. I won't," he pauses, rewords things and puts as much reassurance in his voice as possible. "I could never hurt you."

That, apparently, is the exact wrong thing to say.

"You could never hurt me?" The brittleness in Chris's eyes evaporates as he strides back over to the cage, reaches up, and stretches down the collar of his shirt. Scars, jagged and stark white against his pale skin, peak out from beneath the fabric. "These say otherwise." He straightens and spins on his heel.

"Chris wait!" Wyatt calls but the other doesn't look back, doesn't slow, "Wait!" The Twice-Blessed resists the urge to throw himself against the cage, make the magic submit to him, and race after his younger brother. This is not how things were supposed to go. Chris is supposed to listen and believe, he is supposed to let Wyatt save him.

This is not how things were supposed to go.

Chris flees the warehouse. On foot because he hasn't the concentration to orb right now. Panic and rage work together to spur his heart until it is galloping in his chest. His lungs beg for him to breathe deep but all he can manage are shallow sips of air that hiss through clenched teeth. Fisted hands tremble as he wrestles with the frenetic emotions. He is not going to have a panic attack here, not when the Lord Wyatt is just inside

A laugh chokes him for an instant as he remembers that his brother was also around the last time he was overwhelmed by panic. Then the hysteria is pushed aside by anger because Wyatt is not supposed to be here!

'Of course Wyatt is here.' He sneers silently to himself and another wave of fury slams through him as he notes that his mental voice sounds an awful lot like Leo. The Honorable Elder was against his plan from the start, not that Chris bothered to tell him the entire plan. He harped about the improbability of success, criticizing the endeavor as a fool's errand.

"Well, you're right again. I am a fool." Chris snarks as he casts his olive-toned eyes skyward, careful not to focus his words at anything in particular; his bad day will only get worse if the present, younger version of his father hears his griping and comes to investigate. "Hope that makes you happy."

The panic is fading to a manageable level and he reins in his heartbeat, forcing it to a more sedate pace. Anger remains but Chris pushes that down into the recesses of his mind. Unlike some of his family he will not be ruled by his temper.

Wyatt is not supposed to be here. But he is and Chris has to deal with that problem. A part of him wants to leave his brother in the cage. The Twice-Blessed has the power to break free, but it will take days, days that the younger witch-whitelighter could spend going deep into hiding.

"If only I were that much of a coward." Chris mutters. Running away is not an option. He won't abandon the world to the mercies of a tyrant who holds knowledge of the future and he can't let the question of Bianca's fate go unanswered. He has to go back inside and face his brother but, a sigh gusts from him, just not yet.

Chris closes his eyes, calls up the image of his destination, and disappears in a spiraling spray of blue.

The wait gives Wyatt time to assess the situation. Slouching on the concrete he looks over his injuries and finds them not as bad as he first suspected. It is puzzling that there are no broken bones. Being plowed over by a bus should leave more than a few vivid bruises. He lifts his shirt and winces as he pokes at his ribs. It hurts to breathe deeply yet his questing fingers find no fractures.

For an instant he wonders if this version of his brother has managed to master healing, then he shakes his head. Aunt Phoebe was quite clear about Chris's lack of skills in that regard and besides, pain doesn't linger after a whitelighter heals something. It does linger after some other methods of healing however.

He rubs his fingers across the bruised skin and then brings them to his nose. The smells are faint and it takes him a moment to identify eucalyptus and spearmint. There is some citrusy scent mixed in as well but Wyatt can't place a name to it.

Unsanctioned magic. Wyatt laughs and then winces as his unbroken ribs ache. His brother used unsanctioned magic to heal him. Why the hell didn't anyone tell him that this Chris dabbles in arts the Elders forbade long ago?

The answer rises in his mind, because they didn't know. Chris told them the bare minimum to ensure that his mission succeeded and nothing more than that. There is any number of other secrets that Chris could have kept from the Charmed Ones.

Wyatt is sitting lotus position and still evaluating what that new information means for him and his own mission into the past when Chris returns.

He looks better, or at least less haggard, as he tosses a paper bag at Wyatt. The bars of the cage wobble as it passes through them, and then straighten again. "Eat."

"What is it?" Wyatt pokes suspiciously at the bag.

"Food."

With a snort at the succinct answer he pulls open the paper sack. Standard fare, fast-food. Wyatt can't help the face he makes; he has been spoiled by home-cooking. His stomach informs him that he is too picky and that it wants fries now. "What about you?" He asks as he digs in.

"What about me?"

"Did you eat?"

The expression on Chris's face is jarringly familiar, even if it is out of place. Typically it takes more than a simple inquiry for him to look at Wyatt like he is wondering about the older Halliwell's sanity.

Wyatt meets his gaze, trying to suss out why his brother is thrown by the question.

Chris shakes himself and paces across the warehouse floor. Bewilderment fades from his face, replaced by hard lines. "You would never have come here without some sort of insurance." He states when he returns his attention to his brother. "Who did you capture?"

No answer is forthcoming from the captive inside the cage.

"Is it one of the cousins? It's not just Bianca, you would never think she was enough. You would-"

"Stop telling me what I 'would' do!" Wyatt protests.

Chris ignores the interruption. "Did you find P.J.?" He demands. Frustration and worry bleed into his voice and he scrapes his fingers through his hair. "God, I told her to be careful with her raids."'

"I don't have insurance." Wyatt says, shuddering in revulsion at the thought of any family member being used for that purpose.

A snort of angry disbelief sounds from Chris's side of the cage.

"I don't." Wyatt reiterates and then sighs because his words clearly aren't getting through. "Did the titans happen already?" He asks, changing tactics entirely. "The aunts said you showed up while the titans were rampaging, all white knight like."

His brother is still seething, but now something curious is glimmering in his eyes. "That's when I plan to approach them," he admits.

Why didn't anyone in the family realize that Chris had arrived early and planned things out? Wyatt wonders as he studies the younger Witch-Whitelighter. "When is now anyways?" He asks. It certainly isn't the time he was aiming for, that's for sure.

"You'll be born in less than a month." His brother says after a moment of contemplative silence.

The surreal nature of their situation pulls a smile across Wyatt's face. "That is so bizarre. I'm not alive, and yet here I am."

Chris chuckles along with him, and then forces himself to straighten up with a visible shudder. "Stop that." He says, agitated by the rapport that still springs up between them after so many years of being enemies.

"Stop what?"

"You can't just talk to me like you're not Lord Wyatt."

He stares through the bars of the cage, taking in Chris's rigid posture. Then he says, solemnly, "I am not Lord Wyatt."

"Stop it!" Chris snaps.

The older Halliwell falls silent with a heavy sigh. Logically, he knows that he isn't the same person that caused his brother's pain, but he cannot stop guilt from griping at his chest as he watches his brother struggle. It literally hurts to see Chris so broken and exhausted.

Wyatt lets his eyes fall closed, blocking out the upsetting image but unable to ignore the whispers that echo through their bond. He reaches out, mentally following the gossamer thread that unites them. Exhaustion is a weak word for the fatigue that shadows Chris's mind. The other emotions he can sense are erratic, shifting too quickly for Wyatt to name them.

"Get out of my head!"

Eyes jolt open, not so much because of the snarled words but because of the fury that roars from his brother's mind.

Chris surges over to the cage.

The edges of quartz bite his palm as his fingers wrap around it. All he has to do is move it an inch. Wyatt can't fuck with his mind if he is incapacitated by pain. Just one inch, but his hand won't move.

'You're nothing like him,' Bianca had said once, after Chris had asked if she was afraid of him becoming like his brother. It is times like now that Chris hates how right she was. He can slaughter demons, even allies if he has to, but he can't hurt Wyatt while he has no way of fighting back.

Chris looks expectantly at the Twice-Blessed and waits for the jeer, for Wyatt to smirk and tell him how weak he is. Instead the whisper is gentle as it breaks the silence that has enveloped the warehouse. "Chris."

"Shut up." His voice quakes as he peels his fingers off the crystal. "I'm not you."

"I'm not me either, or at least not the me that you know." Wyatt says and his hazel eyes look too blue and caring as he stares at Chris.

Hope flashes through his mind but Chris violently squashes it down and shoves himself away from the cage.

"Wait."

Dammit. He knows better, there is no point in giving attention to his brother's lies. His body stills anyway.

"Do I look like him?" At least Wyatt seems to know how ridiculous that question is, because he elaborates. "I know we're technically the same person, you can't tell me there aren't differences."

"You're not usually one for head games." Chris says with a sigh. He is tired and doesn't want to participate in whatever game his tyrannical brother has cooked up. And yet, his olive-toned eyes are drawn to Wyatt, taking in the details that he hadn't even realized are bothering him. "You cut your hair."

"I can't stand long hair, short curls are bad enough." Wyatt says and shows off a bright grin that Chris hasn't seen since childhood.

It is not possible. Chris tells himself firmly, why am I even entertaining it? Maybe the sleepless nights he spent preparing for his journey through time are finally catching up. Exhaustion impairs judgment, doesn't it? Or maybe he's simply the fool that his father has always believed him to be.

Chris shakes his head, trying to clear his thoughts. "Your arm." He says, and then elaborates when Wyatt looks at him funny. "Show me your left arm."

Wyatt obliges, rolling up his sleeve and holding said limb out for inspection. Blue eyes show confusion as Chris glares at the unmarred skin.

There had once been a mark there, a ropey scar that started below Wyatt's elbow and curved around his arm, finally stopping just below his shoulder. It had not been Chris that gave his brother that injury, but he had been there for it. He had seen the blood on the poisoned tip of the scythe when he was rescued from the Twice-Blessed's dungeon. "How did you remove the scar?"

"I've never had a scar on my arm. Except for this one." Wyatt says and points to a small white mark on the side of his wrist. "Some boy stabbed me with a pencil during math class. A bunch of kids saw so I had to let it heal naturally." Chris familiarized himself with every aspect of Wyatt's early life before jumping into the past, trying to find the moment responsible for his brother's darkness. He has never heard this story.

He holds tightly to his disbelief, glowering at Wyatt while his brother only looks serenely back. His grip falters. Somewhere deep down inside him is a little boy who just wants his older brother to like him. It is that long buried piece of his psyche that finally nudges him to move, bending down and grasping the nearest quartz before the rest of him can talk him out of it. The bars shimmer and fade, the glow from the crystals dimming. It takes all of his control not to flee as Wyatt stands. "What did I mess up?" He asks.

"What do you mean?"

Chris silently gathers up the quartz, orbing them to one of the storage boxes in the far side of the warehouse. He turns to his brother after a few minutes. "if you are good, then I succeeded. At least at my main goal." He says, emphasizing the 'if'. "Yet the mighty Wyatt Halliwell is here to save the day. So what did I fuck up?" That sounds way too bitter even to his own ears.

"You didn't fuck up." Wyatt protests, "Chris, you died!"

Chris frowns at him. "That doesn't explain why you are here."

"Doesn't it?"

"Why are you here?"

"The wounds that killed you appeared on Chris, my Chris, two days ago." Wyatt says and his expression twists as if some horrid memory is playing through his mind. "I put-," He draws in a shaky breath. "I had to put my baby brother in a coma to keep the poison from getting further into his system."

End of Chapter One

Next time:

Chris has a plan; it is not terribly elaborate, but then keeping it simple ensures that it will be adaptable if/when the situation changes (as situations tend to do). Wyatt's arrival forces him to make adjustments to the plan, especially when his brother informs him of who the real threat is. Never, in any of the scenarios that Chris's paranoid mind cooked up, has he considered that his quarry might be a paragon of good.

Now, in addition to becoming reacquainted with his brother, he has to figure out how to kill an elder.