Post by StoryGirl83 on Aug 27, 2008 21:38:51 GMT -5
Chapter Five – Painful Remembrances
and Archemnene
Flashback
Flashback
Flashback
Flashback
Outside the room, Chris pushed open the door and flicked on the light before stepping inside. Chris saw Archemneme only a second before Archemneme grabbed hold of the sides of Chris’ head. Chris tried to break free of Archemneme’s grip on his head, but the more he tried to the more his face pinched in pain. Finally the pain was so great Chris screamed and collapsed on the floor, momentarily out of Archemneme’s grasp.
At the sound of his brother’s scream, Wyatt was instantly on his feet, his chair pushed back against the wall.
Victor was pushing his chair against the wall, pushing himself into a standing position.
Not able to deal with helping his brother and protecting his grandfather from whatever was after his brother, Wyatt put out his hand in a stop gesture. “Stay here, Grandpa. I’ll be back.” Hoping that leaving his grandfather there was the right decision, Wyatt ran out of the room into the hallway. He ran across the small hall and entered Chris room.
As Wyatt entered the room, he waved his hand and threw Archemneme across the room, away from Chris.
Chris moaned and gritted his teeth as he opened his eyes.
Wyatt didn’t notice. All his attention was on the demon trying to hurt his brother. “Leave my brother alone!”
Archemneme tried to get to Chris, but Wyatt threw him across the room again with another wave of his hand.
Chris grimaced as he pushed himself up against the wall. He started to shake and breathing heavily.
Archemneme tried once again to reach Chris, but was again stopped at Wyatt telekinetically threw him away. Archemneme looked at the two brothers, realizing he won’t get anywhere near Chris and shimmered away.
Wyatt dropped to his knees next to Chris, finally allowing himself to assess the damage done to his brother. “Are you okay? Where does it hurt? I’ll heal you.”
Chris gritted his teeth and shook his head. “You can’t. Just . . . just go.”
Wyatt looked at Chris confused. His brother was hurt and refusing his help. “Chris?”
“Go away, Wyatt. Just go away,” Chris begged. He couldn’t deal with Wyatt right then.
“What did he do to you?” Wyatt needed to know.”
“Please,” Chris repeating, begging more. “Leave.”
“What if he comes back?” Wyatt asked, trying to figure out what he was supposed to do, hurt by his brother’s words.
“Why come back?” Chris asked with a dry laugh. “I remember everything and you don’t know how much I wish I didn’t.”
Chris pushed passed Grandpa as he ran into the backyard. “Wyatt!” he screamed.
His fifteen-year-old brother orbed in next to him. His eyes widening as he saw what had Chris so horrified. He ran the length of the yard and fell to his mother’s side at the same time Chris did. He put his hands over her and held them there. Nothing happened. He tried, again and still nothing happened.
By this time Victor had reached them. He knelt at Phoebe’s side feeling for a pulse. Feeling one, he turned to his grandsons. “Phoebe’s alive.”
Wyatt looked up. With a sad look at his mother he stood and hurried to his aunt’s side. He put his hands over her and the warm gold glow that came from his hands made tears come to his eyes, even as it healed his aunt. “Dad,” he called, his voice pained and desperate.
Still at Piper’s side, Chris tried holding his hands over Piper. Even knowing he had never managed to heal anyone, that he most likely didn’t have that power, he still tried. As nothing happened he pounded the dirt below him and scrunched up in a ball sobbing.
Phoebe’s eyes fluttered open and she looked up at her nephew. “Piper,” she whispered.
Wyatt shook his head, his tears flowing free. “Mom’s dead.”
“Leo?” Phoebe questioned looking around.
“Wyatt shook his head. “He won’t come. I called him.”
Phoebe shook her head. “No, we already called him. Where is he?”
Wyatt gulped and rose to his feet. “I don’t know.” He looked around the yard, looking for some indication that his father was here, or that he had been. Seeing a pair of shoes sticking out from the corning of the Manor, he ran over through the yard. He reached his father’s side and dropped to his knees. Very little could kill a whitelighter, seeing as they were already dead, but the black arrow sticking out of his father terrified him. His father hadn’t ignored him. He had been unable to come.
Wyatt looked at the arrow and blinked. Instantly the arrow was out of his father and lying on the ground a few feet away. He dropped to his knees next to his father, hoping he wasn’t about to lose two parents in one day. When the warm golden glow emanated from his hands, he sighed with relief.
It was the last time Wyatt had healed anyone. Over the next half a dozen years or so, Wyatt had spiraled out of control.
Piper’s death had pushed him over the edge. Looking back, Chris had realized that Wyatt hadn’t been all good even before then, but from then on Wyatt became obsessed with power. At first he said, that if he had only had enough power, he could have saved their mom, even though she had been dead when they reached her, but eventually Piper got left out of the equation.
Piper’s death had changed both brothers. For Wyatt it was a need for power, spurred on by the desire to never be that weak again, never to be unable to save someone he wanted to save. For Chris it was the desire to have his brother back. It would have been so easy for Chris to just join his brother, but something in Chris kept him from doing that.
Whatever should have kept Wyatt from turning evil had malfunctioned. In Chris, however, it had kept him from going over the edge, at least fully. He had done things that horrified, even killed a magical innocent, a thought that horrified him. Now, that all his memories were back from both time lines, he realized that he had been missing memories from the time in the past. And those missing memories made him shiver. He didn’t want to be that man. Yes, he had done some good, much good, but he had also done much bad, much harm.
Chris shivered as he hugged his knees closed to him and rocked back and forth. For all that he wanted to know what he forgot, now that he knew, he didn’t want it. He didn’t want it at all.
It was the only time Chris had seen his then older brother show remorse, when Aunt Phoebe had lain dead on the ground at Wyatt’s feet, her blood pooling around her head and the rest of her body. With her had died, not the Power of Three, for that had died long before with Aunt Paige, but with her had died the last of the former Charmed Ones, the last of hope. Aunt Prue had been the first of the Charmed Ones to die, killed by the Source’s assassin, Shax, long before even Wyatt was born. Aunt Paige’s death, not long after Meta had turned her to stone only two years later, had forever ended the Power of Three. Almost sixteen years later, on Chris’ fourteenth birthday, demons had attacked and only one Charmed One had survived, Aunt Phoebe. It had been almost seven years later, only weeks before Chris had begun his trip to the past, when Wyatt had killed Aunt Phoebe.
Chris and Victor were only a few feet away. Victor stared down at the dead body of his youngest girl, his old body shaking as tears racked him. Chris did not looked at Aunt Phoebe. It was at Wyatt he looked. Until that moment he had believed that Wyatt still held some tenuous grasp on good. As strange as it was, the horror in Wyatt’s eyes convinced Chris that he was right. That was still good in Wyatt, but it wasn’t in control.
Wyatt looked up from Aunt Phoebe’s body and in a chilling voice he said, “Leave.”
Chris met his older brother’s eyes. He both saw and heard the terror.
Victor looked up at his younger grandson. Though tears still filled his eyes and streamed down his face, it was no longer the tears that made him shake.
“I don’t want to kill you tonight.”
“Tonight?” Chris asked in the steadiest voice he could muster, which at the moment wasn’t very steady.
“Go!” The word was a command, with anger tightly bound by the remnants of lingering love. That was the only reason he wanted them out, away from him. He still loved them. Evil could not love, proving once more than good still existed, but its strength was small, not enough to save them for long, but enough to save them for now. “Now!”
Chris looked down at the body at their feet. He looked up at Wyatt and nodded. I’ll save you, Wyatt. Chris grabbed Victor into a hug and orbed them out of there.
As soon as they reappeared outside Victor’s house, Chris waved his hand, turning the lock and opening the door. He pulled Victor inside and shut the door behind them. He manually locked the door and closed his eyes with a sigh. Chris looked at his grandpa. “I won’t let this happen, Grandpa.”