Chapter Two
Disclaimer: If I owned Charmed, then Chris would be alive and hotter than ever and would be the main character of the show...and I would be his WIFE, living it up on the beach!
Well, hope y'all like the update. I'm afraid I've been out of the Chris-centric loop for a while...if I tried to explain it might take longer than the chappie itself! I'm unbelievably busy. Long live winter vacation.
At least it's warm outside,Chris mused as he walked down the street. He saw his neighbor, Kelly, who sometimes babysat them (she'd had more memory wipes than he could count on his fingers and toes). She was in high school, and she was getting into her car. Chris waved.
She smiled at him oddly and waved back with an uncertain air to her gesture.
Chris scowled as she slammed the door shut and backed out of her driveway. Kelly obviously had no idea who he was…even with the memory wipes, she knew all of his favorite games and TV shows. Mel's and Katie's, too.
Didn't anyone remember him?
Then a thought occurred to him. Why hadn't he even thought of this before? Maybe his Aunt Paige still knew who he was. Right now he knew she was taking leave off of Magic School because she was pregnant, so she should be in her San Francisco apartment. She and his Uncle Zack were married two years ago—Zack was a mortal, but he was in on all of the witchy business.
Which was sort of Chris' fault. Back when he'd been in preschool, Piper had been late to pick him up. His teacher, Mr. Samms, stayed to look after him, and while Chris was in the classroom a demon attacked. It was totally random—not even after Chris, weirdly enough. The demon had no idea that Chris was a witch, let alone a Charmed One's son.
Chris, of course, had mastered telekinesis by now and stopped the demon in its tracks before too much damage could be done. But Mr. Samms needed an explanation, and who was a four-year-old Chris to deny him those words? Within the five minutes it took Piper to pick him up, Mr. Samms might as well have been a witch in training.
Piper made it Paige's job to try and wipe his memory, but Mr. Samms and Paige fell in love. So now there was a pregnant Paige Samms with a little boy on the way. Chris couldn't wait until the baby was born…maybe he'd be a better sort of brother than Wyatt was.
Hope still in his heart, he orbed into Paige's apartment.
A woman shrieked. "DAVE!" the shrill voice cried out. "DAVE, THERE'S A BOY IN THE—"
Chris screamed back. "Where's my—"
Now a man was rushing in the room, though, with a baseball bat in his hands. Chris, knowing enough not to make the same mistake twice, ran out through their main door into the hallway before orbing away.
He found himself in front of his preschool building, the one where Uncle Zack used to teach him. School hadn't yet started, but there were a few early birds. Chris checked his wristwatch for the time, but found only to his dismay that there was no longer a wristwatch on his hand. Peering in through the window he saw the clock read 7:05. School began in fifteen minutes.
Chris opened the door to his Uncle's room, expecting him to be in there.
"Hello," a woman greeted him. "Are you the older sibling of one of the children?"
"Um, no. Have you seen Mr. Samms?" asked Chris. "He was my teacher a couple of years ago, and he's married to my—" Chris shut his mouth, though, because suddenly the woman grew quite pale.
"Oh, deary, you don't know?" she asked him dramatically, sitting down at her desk. "How awful."
"What? What's awful?" Chris demanded.
"Oh, you poor thing. He's been dead for five years. Murdered in the classroom—the police never found out quite what happened to him." She stood and grabbed her tissue box, walking over past the little chairs and handing it to Chris.
Chris pushed the tissue box away. "My uncle isn't dead. I talked to him last night."
"Your uncle?" The woman frowned. "Are you sure we're talking about the same person? I don't believe that Mr. Samms had any siblings with children."
"No, he was married to my Aunt Paige."
"Then we're definitely talking about the wrong person," the woman confirmed. "The Mr. Samms I knew was so devoted to teaching…I don't think that dating ever crossed his mind, the poor man."
"But…" Chris trailed off. He looked over at the clock again and realized he had ten minutes to get to class.
"Well, thanks for talking to me. I'm sure that…" He was going to say something like, "I'm sure that people will remember me soon and all of this demonic stuff will be over," but that didn't seem quite appropriate. So he shrugged and left the room instead.
"Do visit, it was nice talking to you," the woman called on his way out the door.
Chris rolled his eyes and ran over to his classroom on the other side of the school, sitting in his seat just as the bell rang.
"Excuse me, you're in my seat," Angie Harkins, one of his friends, said to him nervously. "Are you sure you're in the right classroom?"
"I'm sure. And you sit over there, Angie. 'Halliwell' comes before 'Harkins' in the alphabet."
"Oh, you're new then," she said. "Does Mrs. Kay know you're here? Where'd you come from? I moved here from Los Angeles last year…believe me, this place is like, WAY boring. But my brother likes it because he got a job at some dock somewhere, and my dad works for the Bay Mirror. My mom likes our new apartment, and I guess the schools are pretty cool here. How old are you? I'll be ten in three months. My brother is twenty, and he has brown hair like me, but he doesn't have as many freckles…"
The teacher at the front cleared her throat and Angie stopped talking incessantly. Nineteen pairs of eyes craned their necks around to stare at him as he sat in Angie's seat. Blushing, Chris stood.
"Why are you all staring at me?" he asked them.
"No need to start a fuss," said Mrs. Kay. "You're obviously new. Why don't you go down to the office and get a slip so I can get you adjusted?"
"I'm not new," Chris said defensively. "I've gone to this school since I was four. So has my older brother, Wyatt, and my two little cousins are here, too."
"Wyatt Halliwell?" Mrs. Kay asked him doubtfully. "I wasn't aware that he had a brother. He was my student two years ago, and I knew of his cousins but never a brother."
"I've been your student for three months," Chris reminded her. "And I knew you when I was, like, five. Because one time I scraped my knee in the recess yard and you took me to the Nurse's office to get a band-aid."
"I don't recall," said Mrs. Kay, frowning to herself. "And you certainly haven't been in this room for three months. I may be spacey, but I'm sure I know all of my students by now. Everybody sits in alphabetical order. It's quite simple."
"I know. I'm Halliwell, I sit here."
"But don't I…?" Angie cut in.
"You're right, Angie, that's your seat."
Chris got out of the way for her. "Look, I'll go to the office. They'll work this out," he lied. He knew that the office wouldn't work it out. He knew that nobody would work it out. He was screwed until the demon showed their face and stayed long enough to get vanquished.
So as soon as he left the classroom, he headed in the opposite way of the office, walking away from the school grounds. The school soon disappeared from view as he walked away, headed towards the bustling city of San Francisco. For some reason he didn't think to worry that an adult would catch him and ask questions—he felt invincible now that he didn't have an identity.
He walked on and tried to think things through. Obviously, he'd been erased completely from everyone's lives. Was this world, the one he was living in now, the result of what would have been had Chris not existed?
A lot was different, some of it good, some of it bad. For one thing, his mother was completely wacked out and dressed up for meetings, acting strict and mean. In his ordinary life she was the exact opposite, turning up her nose at mothers that acted that way and saying it was no way to raise children.
And usually, Piper would cook breakfast. Toaster waffles were almost unheard of in the Halliwell home. On the rare occasion that Piper went away for the club, maybe once a year or so, toaster waffles were deemed acceptable. Since Aunt Phoebe, Uncle Cole, Mel, Katie, Wyatt, himself and his mother all lived in the manor on a million crazy schedules, they all resolved to eat breakfast together and an early dinner so his Aunt Phoebe and mother could go work the club, P3. Their Uncle Cole or Uncle Zack and Aunt Paige would watch them.
Which led him to another thought—where was his Aunt Paige? Now that Mr. Samms was dead…
Chris gulped. Mr. Samms was dead, and it was his fault for not being there to save him from the demon. Without four-year-old Chris' telekinesis, Mr. Samms died of an "unexplainable cause." Guilt began to run his blood cold when he realized how much he'd screwed things up.
But it wasn't his fault! He didn't ask for this. And soon enough it would all be righted. Wouldn't it?
A man bumped into him in a rush. "Oh, excuse…" Chris began, but the hurried man was already off. Chris looked in front of him then, trying to gage where he was. He'd been lost in thought.
In front of him was the P3.
But it wasn't his mother's P3. He knew for a fact that the P3 was clear on the other side of town. Why was it all of a sudden two miles from his school? How did his absence cause for the P3 to move? He knew for a fact the club had been created years before his birth.
He looked around him to make sure nobody was watching before he approached the door to this odd P3.
Club P3—Doors open at seven and close at midnight Monday-Thursday. Open until two on Friday and Saturday. Closed on Sunday. Call Manager Mallory Timbers with questions or comments.
"Mallory Timbers…?" Chris muttered to himself. He knew the name from somewhere. Wasn't she Piper's assistant at P3? Yes, now he remembered. Sometimes she brought the kids candy bars. Chris always called her Ms. T, though, so he didn't recognize the name right off.
There was a picture of Mallory with a sign underneath it that read "Manager." She looked the same as always—young, hip, in her mid-twenties. She had a boyfriend, Jake, who was also nice to Chris and Wyatt, Chris remembered.
Suddenly someone cleared their throat behind him.
Chris whipped around. "Oh, hi, Ms. T!" he said brightly.
He didn't exactly receive the same sort of reaction back. "What did you just call me?" she asked. "Only Piper's little nieces call me that."
"Because I'm Piper's…son's friend," Chris lied. "I'm Wyatt's friend from school."
Mallory cocked an eyebrow. "Shouldn't you be IN school, then?"
"Yes…but why do you own P3 now? I don't get it. I thought M—Wyatt's mom owned it."
"Yes, she owns all five of the P3 clubs. I manage one of them," Mallory explained. Then she narrowed her eyes. "Why so curious? Are you trying to play hookey, young man?"
"N-no. I just think it's odd that there's more than one P3 now…"
Mallory shrugged. "Piper's got a lot of time on her hands. Wyatt's her only kid, and she just dumps him on her sisters a lot."
Chris felt a pang of sympathy for his older brother. Poor Wyatt.
"I'm glad to finally get a good job like this. It cost me a lot, though…" she said wistfully. "Some guys just can't keep up."
"You mean Jake?"
"Yeah, we broke—hey! How'd you know about—?"
"Wyatt told me," Chris lied. "Well, congratulations on the job. I'm just going to be heading to class now. See ya."
"Wait—"
But Chris had already run behind the club and orbed away.
Thanks for all the super cool reviews! You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Like a TEDDY BEAR. Lol.
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