Post by StoryGirl83 on Aug 28, 2008 18:00:59 GMT -5
Chapter One – Home Invasion, Halliwell Style
Back in San Francisco, though not Melinda’s San Francisco, Wyatt Halliwell was sitting on the couch in the living room of the apartment he shared with his brother. He flipping channels on the TV, but no remote was in sight.
From the kitchen, his younger brother, Chris, called to him. “I think that’s a little thing called personal gain.”
Wyatt looked straight ahead, across the room into the kitchen, where his brother stood in the doorway. “No, it’s not. All these channels and there really is nothing on. No gain, personal or otherwise in that.”
Chris gave him a look. “Then, stop flipping the channels.”
Wyatt looked at the TV and it shut off. “I need to practice. I’m years behind you.”
Chris entered the room. “Please, you got the hang of that a month ago. Are you going to ready to go in five minutes? Mom wants us there to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of her restaurant.”
“Says the guy who a month and a half ago couldn’t remember she had a restaurant,” Wyatt shot back, though a grin was on his face.
“Very funny,” Chris quipped. “I remember now. My memory is fully intact.”
On the opposite wall from the TV, the one that had a window to the outside, to the left of Chris and the right of Wyatt, a triquetra faded onto the wall between the window and a bookcase. Then, when it was fully there it glowed blue and dumped five people out of it onto the floor.
Wyatt and Chris stared at them in stunned silence. What was going on?
Melinda was the first one to get up. She stood and looked at the brothers for several seconds. Unsure what else to do and on the verge of tears, again, she turned around to look at her aunt, uncle, and cousins, her cousins huddled together, her aunt and uncle staring up at the two boys. “You’re right, Aunt Prue. I messed up. Now, we’ll never get them back.”
“Prue?” Chris mumbled to himself, recognizing the name.
Hearing his brother, but not understanding the name from all the way across the room, Wyatt looked at Chris. Then, he looked at the small crowd now in their apartment.
Deciding that it would do no good to stick around until they knew who these were, Andy stood and tried to orb Up There. He figured that based on their reactions, these two knew about magic at least. When nothing happened, he looked down at his wife. “Prue, move something. I can’t orb.”
Prue looked across the room and tried to move the rarely used remote with her eyes, her normal way of controlling her power. When that didn’t work, she stood before she waved her hand and still nothing happened.
Pat and Vicki watched their parents and both tried orbing. Vicki’s power wasn’t exactly active and Pat’s would have been a little destructive, so both girls stuck to orbing.
Melinda frowned, but unlike the other four she didn’t do anything to test her powers. She had a feeling that it would be futile. She looked at Wyatt and Chris, accusation in her eyes. “What did you do to our powers? Is there an anti-orb spell on this apartment?” She knew there wasn’t, or if there was it blocked other things, too, since Aunt Prue’s power had nothing to do with orbing.
Instead of answering right off, Wyatt blinked and a book orbed into his hand. “Hardly. Who are you and why are you here?” The last was directed not at Melinda, but at Prue.
When Prue realized she was being asked she set her eyes on Wyatt. “My name is not important and it is none of your business why we are here.”
I beg to differ, Wyatt thought. Considering this is our home I think we have every right to an explanation. He sighed, impatient. Then, he blinked and a phone appeared in his hand. “Chris, call mom and tell her we’ll be late.”
All things considered, Chris walked across the room and took the phone out of Wyatt’s hand. He pushed a button on it. “Mom.”
Wyatt looked back at the group. “Well, I guess you had best have a seat.” He waved his hand in the direction of the two couches and two arm chairs scattered around the room.
Pat and Vicki squeezed onto one of the chairs. Andy only moved far enough to stand next to his wife.
Melinda folded her arms in front of her and glared at Wyatt. She knew if she let her guard down she would be in tears once more. Mom.
Wyatt raised an eyebrow and decided to take that as a challenge. “How about you? What’s your name?”
Melinda ignored him and turned to Prue. “Maybe we should try calling Dad.” She had an ominous feeling that this too would prove impossible.
Realizing, that she was not going to get information without asking these two young men, Prue turned to Wyatt. “What’s the date?”
Wyatt raised an eyebrow. “How about you tell me your name and I’ll tell you the date?” To forestall the potential repetition of known information he added, “And I know your first name.”
Prue decided telling him her name was unlikely to cause too much trouble. “Prue Trudeau.”
Chris hung up the phone as she said this. His eyebrows shot up at the name.
“Trudeau,” Wyatt repeated. “That sounds very familiar.”
“The date,” Prue requested having held up her part of the “bargain”.
“February 13, 2027,” Wyatt informed her before adding, “Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day.” A bad day considering last year I had Amber and this year, no one even knows what happened to her.
“The date’s right,” Melinda realized, slightly depressed. “That means we didn’t travel back any.”
“Time travel’s tricky,” Chris informed her, unknowingly parroting Vicki’s earlier words. “Believe me, I know.”
“That’s what I told Mel,” Vicki informed him, her eyes settling on him for the first time.
“What’s your name?” Chris asked, hoping he had found someone who would talk.
Vicki was silent for a moment before she answered. “Victoria Penelope Trudeau.” With a half attempt at a smile despite eyes still red from crying she added, “People call me Vicki.”
Chris grinned, an idea forming in his mind, the names were just too much of a coincidence. “That is a mouthful.” He tried to pay attention to everyone as he said, “I’m Christopher Perry Halliwell. People call me Chris.” He wasn’t disappointed as all eyes, other than Wyatt’s, were at once on him.
“Halliwell?” Prue questioned, her thoughts warring.
Chris nodded. “Halliwell,” he confirmed. Trying hard he thought back to what little his mom had told him about his aunt Prue. “We had an Aunt Prue, you know. She died years ago, though.”
Shocked, Prue turned to Melinda. “Melinda Wyatt, what have you done?”
“Hear that, Wy?” Chris asked his brother, not bothering to pretend it didn’t matter. “Her last name it Wyatt. I think we need to get Mom and Dad.”
Melinda’s head almost whiplashed and she turned to look at him. Why does he feel the need to involve his parents? “Who are your parents?”
Chris hesitated. I could be wrong. It can happen, easily enough, too, but what if I’m right? Deciding to take the chance he said, “Same as yours, I’m guessing.” Drawing on a memory not from this time line, but the other, he said, “I remember Aunt Phoebe telling us about the time she went with Aunt Prue and Mom to the future. In that future Aunt Prue was alive, Wyatt and I didn’t exist, and Mom and Dad had a girl named Melinda.”
Vicki turned her head to look at Pat. In a whisper she announced. “His name is Wyatt.”
Wyatt remembered hearing the same story, though in this time line, since he only had one set of memories. “I think Mom said that Aunt Prue was blonde and Aunt Phoebe was burned to death for killing someone with her powers.”
“I’ll be right back,” Chris informed anyone who actually cared. When no one replied, he orbed out.
Melinda watched him go wordlessly until he was gone. “Where did he go?”
“To the manor,” Wyatt informed her. “Mom and Dad are waiting for us.” Looking more closely at Melinda he thought about what his mom had said about this sister he never had, or more likely the child his parents never had because they had him instead. “So you’re Melinda? I’m Wyatt.”
Trying to comprehend what was going on, unsure if she was unable or unwilling to believe it. “So if I’m dead, who is the power of three?”
“Mom, Aunt Phoebe, and Aunt Paige,” Wyatt informed her.
By the doorway to the kitchen, Chris orbed in hugging both Piper and Leo. He let them both go once they were materialized to allow them their own assessment of the situation.
Leo looked better than he did in Melinda’s reality, happier. Still to Melinda’s eyes it wasn’t exactly a good change. She wanted him happy, but she wanted him hers and much as he looked like him, this wasn’t her dad.
After catching her balance, Piper surveyed the room. Her eyes stopped and fixed when they say Piper. She stared, motionless for a several seconds. “Prue!” Piper ran over to Prue and hugged her tight. After she let go she looked around at the others. Her eyes stopped on Andy. She frowned, confused. “Andy?”
If things were as they appeared, Andy realized that she probably still thought him dead and only that. Once the thought was in place, it felt awkward to face her, as awkward as it had been the first time she had learned he was still about, probably more seeing as he had been dying that first time around. “Hello, Piper.”
Piper looked at her sons. “Wyatt? Chris? I can understand why you might summon Prue, but Andy? I don’t understand. What’s going on?”
Wyatt and Chris looked at each other. Chris motioned for Wyatt to answer. Wyatt shook his head and indicated that Chris should talk. Chris scowled and looked at the five people from the other reality. Chris waved a hand in Melinda’s direction. “Ask her. She seems to be in charge here.” Not exactly true, but she did seem to be the one who came up with the plan that ended them up there.
Piper looked at Melinda. “All right. What is going on?”
Melinda glared annoyed at Chris and Wyatt. “That is not fair play, Mr. Halliwell.”
“Mr. Halliwell?” Piper mouthed.
Melinda turned and faced Piper. She took a deep breath. She gulped and finally talked, her eyes glued on Piper and Leo. “Dad got home earlier and told me that my mom and one of my aunts were dead. I wanted to fix it.”
Piper looked at Prue. “Translation?”
Prue searched for words, the right ones to fit the suspicion she had been harboring. “Alternate reality?”
Inhaling a harsh breath, Piper pointed at Melinda. “Who is she?”
“Your daughter,” Prue informed her, “Melinda.”
“You aren’t a ghost, are you?”
Prue shook her head. “No.”
Piper looked at Pat and Vicki. “And they are?”
“My daughters,” Prue informed her proudly, “mine and Andy’s.”
Piper looked at Andy, startled. “You’re not dead either?”
Andy shrugged. “Well, yesterday, I was a whitelighter, if that helps.”
Piper stared at the five of them, each in turn. After several moments of complete silence, Piper said the only thing that came to mind. “Can I keep you?”