Changes: Piper dies when Chris is ten not fourteen in the original timeline. And also Chris has more powers than just orbing and telekinesis though I won't say which ones.

Not sure if I'll move past this chapter and add more. Let me know what you think.

-Charmed-

He thought it was normal. It was all he'd ever known. What toddler or child would think that they were different from anyone else in such a big area. It wasn't until he came across the boxes in the attic that he learned the truth.

Even then, he never said anything.

When he was little he used to have awful nightmares. Odd thing was, his family never knew. He slept ten feet from his older brother and yet no one ever heard him scream. He wondered why for a while until the memory came to him. He'd learned to shield the area where he slept so that it was sound proof and no magic could get in or out. That was a good thing seeing as he also started to gain powers as he got older. Well more than telekinesis and orbing.

The worst part had originally been what to call the twenty-three years of memories floating around in his head. Was it the first time? Was this the first time? He didn't know. He tended to call his memories the other time and the current time his life. He used to think everyone did that. Then he found the box.

It was confusing at times. Growing up with two sets of memories could cause a headache. Sometimes he would wake up and remember the day exactly as it had been for him the other time. As he'd go through the day he'd know some of the things that would happen and then other things would be different. Sometimes he'd find himself longing for that other time to be true because it seemed so much more pleasant. Then he'd remember what happened later in that other time and he wouldn't wish that anymore.

Sometimes he'd find himself day dreaming about life from the other time. He'd wish that he could be there, see those people again. Run through the underworld tunnels with his friends as they played a came of hunt and evade through the resistance headquarters. Could watch the older council members wanting desperately to yell at them to stop running only to bite their tongue because he was the founder of the resistance and he was playing as well. Sometimes he'd want to be back there, in the kitchen with his mother, learning to cook and getting into mini food fights only to end up laughing. Missing the way that his older brother would make time for him, comfort him, when their father would brush him off. He'd miss those things and selfishly wish to get to do them again.

Then he'd remember that the other time was only better for him. For the rest of the world this was the better time. So this was the time he lived in and that was the time he would go to at night. And then he'd wake up screaming and repeat the process.

He used to think it was normal to live with the memory of a life already lived stuck in his head and one life going on around him. It had never occurred to him that others weren't going through the same thing. He always just thought that the others preferred this life so they ignored the other and he was the odd one out. He'd kept his mouth shut not wanting to offend them. He believed this for eight years.

Then he found the boxes in the attic.

The boxes were full of things from his memories only they were sitting in the attic of his current life. The boxes were all labeled Chris but the clothes were far too big for him. There were pictures of the adult that he knew would one day be him only said adult was playing with an infant version of his older brother. It was weird to look at. The items that stuck out the most though were the engagement ring and the two pictures. One picture he remembered his oldest aunt taking of him and his mother after one of their cooking episodes. His mother had her arms wrapped around him and they were both smiling and covered in flour. The other picture was hand drawn. It was of him and his friends form the resistance. Three demons, two dark lighters, three other witches and him. One of the resistance members had drawn it of them when he was fifteen.

Smiling at the pictures he tucked them away in his pockets for a later time along with the ring. These were memories from the other time, the time he thought was just another option that fate had decided against. Now he knew different. The other time did exist.

It was later that night and for the following year when he remembered. Remembered coming to the past and saving his brother. Remembered dying at the hands of an elder's cursed blade.

The other time wasn't just fiction, something that could have happened had they made different choices. It had been real; he had lived it. He had done everything in his power to change it. And sometimes he wondered if he'd done the right thing. He would debate with himself if life hadn't been better back then, in the other time, until he looked outside at the busy, happy streets or he looked at his family who were happy and smiling, especially his older brother.

No he couldn't have that other life back for, as strange as it sounded, it was only a better life for him. The rest of the world was better off in this life and he would have to live with that.

On his tenth birthday he'd been assaulted with memories. He'd had them before but never this hard. Never this real. His mother, the center of his life in that other time, had been murdered. Not only that but she'd been murdered and he'd been unable to stop it. After that he'd been trapped in the manor alone with the body for two weeks. His father and older brother had been 'up there' on an extended training session, his oldest aunt had been out of the country with her family and his youngest aunt had passed away two days before his ninth birthday.

The house had been locked down and he hadn't been able to get out or call for help. He had tried to escape; he'd broken every window and door in the house. He'd tried spells and potions but nothing had worked. He had tried to patch up his mother but she had been too far-gone. The phones weren't working. He'd called for every family member with even a gram of white lighter blood but they hadn't come. Eventually he had passed out of sheer exhaustion curled up into his mother's body. Three days later his father finally came back with Wyatt.

He had awoken screaming and crying at that point only to look over and see his brother lying safely in the bed next to his. He'd rushed out of his room and threw the door to his parents room open only to sigh in relief as he looked upon his mother as she walked out of the closet.

"What are you doing here?" She'd asked.

He'd merely shook his head and stepped out, shutting the door behind him. She was still alive, those had been memories from the other time. Regardless he hadn't left his mother alone all day. Naturally that irritated the woman who did not appreciate having a constant shadow. Still, nothing his mother could do would shake him off. In the end the day had been thankfully uneventful and he'd gone to be that night happy that they never did celebrate his birthday because he didn't think he'd have been able to explain his actions properly if others had been there.

When he was younger he used to think that his family didn't spend much time with him because they didn't need to keep an eye on the children now that Wyatt was safe. He knew better now. They just didn't like him since they learned who he would grow up to be.

Regardless it led to a lot of time spent at magic school or the underworld. Places his family didn't spend a lot of time. Once he learned that his family didn't want to be around him because they didn't like him he decided that he didn't want to be around them either.

No one ever questioned where he had been or what he had been doing. He just had to make sure he was at the manor for family dinner and that he was in hid bed when his parents popped their heads in to look at Wyatt. Other than that he could do what he liked.

Before he found the box he'd spent his free time at magic school because it was a place his family believed he would be safe. They used to drop him off at the magic school nursery as a toddler and leave him there all day. He used to stay there until they came back. By the time he was four his sense of curiosity had gotten the better of him and he'd started to sneak out. Wasn't hard for a four year old with twenty-three years of experience to slip out of a room monitored by one adult.

When he started kindergarten he also started classes at magic school. Neither were interesting for him. He already knew everything in regular school and he was well versed in magic.

His family never knew of his boredom in school. One of two things would have happened if he'd have told them. They wouldn't have cared and left him where he was or they would have had him skip a few grades. He knew from the other time that skipping even one or two grades was a bad idea. He kept his mouth shut.

Instead of trying to get out of school he'd used that time to do as he liked. It was helpful that he received the power of astral projection two days after school started. It was also nice to know how to use that power due to his other memories. He used the hours he should have been in school to explore magic school. By the time he was eight he already knew the place better than anyone else alive. Turns out that endless hallway isn't endless, it stops eventually and branches out to other hallways but by the time it does everyone else had quit looking.

The abandoned hallways of magic school became his training ground. He filled the rooms with books, dummies, weapons, and potions supplies, furniture. It was his home away from home. He cloaked it with a spell and warded it. No one could go there without his permission. It was the one place he'd ever felt truly safe.

After he'd found the box and received the rest of his memories he started moving beyond magic school. He started going to the underworld.

It was on his seventh trip to the underworld that he'd run across someone from his memories. Lith. One of his friends from the resistance.

He'd changed the color of his orbs and passed himself off as a dark lighter. He and Lith became fast friends. Soon Lith introduced him to others, Kavish, Ordin, Bosh and Mintor. The ones whom he used to run around with – well at least some of them. The most important one to him was Carden. The two of them had used to be inseparable; they had been as close as brothers in that other time.

In that other time he and Carden had shared a room at the resistance headquarters. Their room had been right next to Carden's parents Shelf and Jasper. They had been kind dark lighters. They had taken him in and treated him as one of their own. They had made sure that both he and Carden had taken breaks and had the time to just be kids even in the middle of a war zone. They had soothed his nightmares and let him celebrate holidays with them. They had become his family.

He had even been listed as a son at their funeral.

But that had been the other time. In this time he had been nervous that Carden would want nothing to do with him. He needn't have been.

When he was fifteen Carden had learned the truth of who he really was. In the other time it had come out when his older brother had taken over the world but it hadn't mattered because anyone opposed to his older brother was part of the resistance demon or not. In this time Carden hadn't taken it too well. Still, they had made up, eventually. He just had to promise not to vanquish any of Carden's immediate family – unless lethally attacked – and Carden had to promise not to attack any of his immediate family – unless lethally attacked.

Carden's family had accepted him for who he was. It had been the first time that he hadn't wished to be in the other time. The first time he'd been happy in the life he was currently living.

Now here he was. It was his eighteenth birthday. He'd graduated high school two weeks ago. His biological family hadn't shown. Carden, Shelf, Jasper and Carden's little sister Ciara had all been there, cheering him on. They had taken him out to eat after. When he'd gotten back to the house his mother had yelled at him for missing his older brother's celebration dinner, his older brother had just gotten back from his sophomore year of college.

Today his parents had taken his older brother and gone to meet up with his family for weekend getaway to Disney land. He'd been left behind. They hadn't even thought to ask him.

In two days time, when they would come home, they would be greeted by an empty house and a goodbye note on the table in the entryway.

Signed Christopher Halliwell.