Post by StoryGirl83 on Oct 1, 2008 23:19:46 GMT -5
Chapter Twenty-Seven – On the Topic of the Future
Chris felt the fight go out of him as he looked at the serious expression on the face of the young man sitting across the room. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
Toby nodded. “We don’t know what Aka saw. She didn’t have enough time to tell me, but she was concerned and more so when she realized they couldn’t possibly be after us, since they didn’t know we were there to start with.”
“I still don’t get why demons would be after you. You are one after all.”
Toby shrugged. “Just because I am a demon doesn’t make me evil. None of us are, but most cannot accept that.”
Shimmering caused both young men to look up startled. Toby looked unsure. Chris waited. When it formed into Seth, Chris breathed a sigh of relief. “How many times do I have to tell you, don’t do that to me, Seth?”
Toby watched them warily. “You trust him, I take it?” Toby asked with a slight frown.
Chris nodded. “He’s Wyatt’s best friend, but I take your point. Demonic blood doesn’t make you evil, though I’m not sure how you can be a darklighter and not be evil.”
“I can be a darklighter and not be evil, because like you didn’t become a whitelighter the normal way, neither did I become a darklighter the normal way. I was born this way, I don’t see how you or anyone else proposes to change that.”
It was to those words that a far more unusual form of transportation, swirled hearts, appeared in the room and deposited the teenage form of one of Chris’ cousins. Prudence Brianna Halliwell, better known to one and all as Ladybug, looked around the slightly crowded room. “Chris do you mind if we talk?” Concern filled her eyes.
“Sure, what’s the matter?” Chris said as he stood.
Ladybug looked at the two others in the room. She sighed.
Seth scrunched his nose in thought. “Hey, why don’t I give you the grand tour, Mr. . ?”
Toby chuckled. “Edmunds. My name is Toby Edmunds.”
Seth turned to Chris in question. “That’s okay, right?”
Chris nodded. “I haven’t decided how much to trust him, so I might as well warn you he is half some sort of demon and half darklighter.”
Seth’s dark eyebrows rose as he looked at Toby. “That’s some odd combo there.”
“Aka’s the same, more or less,” Toby informed him. “Demon darklighter, that is, though a different demon.”
Seth shrugged, not really caring who Aka was, and led the way out of the room. “Now this . . .” Seth said, before Chris tuned him out and looked at his cousin. “Now what is the matter, Ladybug?”
Ladybug had gone on to explain how worried she was, having not heard from either of her parents in over two months. She had also mentioned various little things that had been going strangely wrong over that same period of time. Now, standing in front of Aunt Phoebe, over twenty-two years in the past, Chris wasn’t sure how to broach the subject without telling her too much.
Phoebe looked him over. “You are different, you know.”
Chris looked up at her surprised. Different? How could I help but be different? I am different. I am a different person in more ways than one, even if I am in some ways the same.
“Are you the young whitelighter who came to the past to change the future?” Phoebe asked, unable to resist. “Did you somehow survive?”
Chris sighed, recalling a similar question, a lifetime ago.
Phoebe motioned Chris aside and unsure how to approach the subject that was still just a theory they stood there in the backroom in P3 for a few moments.
Finally she took a deep breath and asked her question. “Are you Wyatt’s little brother?”
The silence was like a thick barrier between them; Chris’ face a mask. He sighed and looked away. Phoebe waited. His words, said in a near monotone, spoke of an uncertain future. “Only if I can get Piper and Leo back together in time.”
With another sigh, Chris looked his aunt squarely in the eye and told her, “You know I can’t answer that, Aunt Phoebe.”
Phoebe nodded. She had known that was a long shot. The question still lingered in her mind, but she knew she wasn’t going to get an answer. “In that case, why did you want to talk to me? Your response to Paige was rather cryptic, but it sounded like you actually want to talk about something in the future. Coming from you, that’s just odd.”
Chris nodded, trying to figure out how to word this. He couldn’t just out and out state to be careful when she and Coop went on their second honeymoon. She didn’t even know who Coop was. He didn’t know what was going on, so he couldn’t very well tell her something vague pertaining to what happened. He wasn’t even sure how to give her a timeline. Chris couldn’t very well say "just around Valentine’s Day right after magic came back". She didn’t know magic was going to quit being usable by witches, warlocks, and demons for over twenty years.
“Chris?”
Chris gave her a sheepish look. “Sorry, Aunt Phoebe. I do have something to say, it’s just I’m not sure how to word it.”
“Something about the future?”
Chris sighed. “Something I don’t know the outcome of.” He walked over to the window facing the back yard. “Aunt Phoebe, I am so very confused.”
“About what?” Phoebe asked walking up behind him.
Chris turned around. “Someone I can usually count on to be level headed and unconcerned came to me very worried.”
“About me?” Phoebe asked, watching her nephew’s eyes.
Chris nodded. “About you. About you and someone you went on a trip with. For all I know everything is just fine, but the thing is I don’t know. I guess since I don’t know I don’t feel that I am altering the future by telling you. Maybe nothing’s wrong. Maybe everything is.”
“You’re going to have to give me more than that to go by,” Phoebe told him.
Chris shook his head. “No, I don’t think I can.”
“Not even where I was going?”
Chris made a face. “Yeah, I don’t even know that one. You wouldn’t tell anyone.”
Phoebe stared at him for a moment. “Let me get this straight. I, as in me the world’s worst secret keeper, as in the lady who after promising your dad I wouldn’t tell me sisters he was a whitelighter broke that promise without any prompting, as in me. You are saying that I wouldn’t tell anyone where I was going.”
Chris chuckled. “Put that way, it does seem rather odd, but yes, you wouldn’t tell anyone. Maybe that’s all you need to remember.”
Phoebe stopped, silent. For several seconds she looked at him, then a smile broke on her face. “Yes, maybe that is all I need to know. Thanks, Chris.” She pulled him into another hug.
Chris squeezed him. “I love you, Aunt Phoebe. Don’t do anything too reckless.”
“Who me?” Phoebe asked in mock innocence as she pulled away.
“Yes, you,” Chris affirmed with a grin.
“Was there anything else?” Phoebe questioned.
Chris shook his head. “No, I think I more or less got my point across.”
Phoebe grinned. “All right, then why don’t we go back to the other room? I’m sure your parents will want you back.”
Chris grinned broadly. “Yes, ma’am.” He walked away from the window and headed back to the kitchen.
An even broader grin on Phoebe’s face, she followed him out of the room.