Charmed Oneshot: The Time-Bettering Days

[jesterladyfic]

Title: The Time-Bettering Days
by Jesterlady
Rating: PG
Pairing: Chris/Bianca
Summary: Chris finds out he's a time traveler
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.
A/N: Don't you think Chris should know about how he'd changed time? I do.



The Time-Bettering Days

Chris Halliwell knows a lot about unusual things. He is, after all, half witch/half Elder. His parents are/were the most powerful magical beings ever heard of. His brother is some kind of messiah figure. Not to mention his uncle, the actual Cupid.

So he doesn’t really see why he needs these weekly sit downs. Every week his parents sit him and his siblings down and talk to them about magic, how to use it responsibly, answer any questions they may have, and check up on how each of them is coping with their powers. Chris finds it boring except when they tell stories about things that happened in the past. That only happens in extreme situations though.

Consequently, he isn’t expecting much when he and Wyatt sit down in the attic while their parents sit in front of them. He doesn’t know why his sister isn’t there this time though and that’s new.

“Where’s Mels?” he asks.

“Yeah, how come she gets out of it?” Wyatt agrees.

His mother cocks her head back in that way that means trouble for any one of her family that dares cross her and a look of triumph appears on her face.

“Prudence Melinda Halliwell, you get away from that door and go do your homework and don’t come back up here unless it’s an emergency.”

For most families that meant a serious injury, for his, it meant demonic attacks.

See, Chris knows a lot about unusual things.

There’s a scattering sound as he assumes his sister backs away from the door and down the attic steps as fast as her feet can carry her.

“We thought it would be better if we just talked to you boys today,” his dad says. “What we have to say concerns the two of you. We can tell your sister about it later.”

Wyatt and Chris exchange glances and that’s all it takes for Chris to know his brother is as clueless as he is right now. But he’s also intrigued and he unconsciously leans forward.

“We’ve told you both about how before Chris was born there was an evil after Wyatt.”

Chris nods, anxious to get on with it. The story is so old he can practically recite it from memory. A time traveler from the future came and saved Wyatt and stopped him from becoming evil and then vanished.

“What about it?” Wyatt asks, looking bored as only the Twice Blessed could.

“What we didn’t tell you were some of the finer details,” Dad says, looking sideways at Mom. “We know what happened to that time traveler and we want to talk to you about time travel.”

Chris thinks this must have to do with the incident last week when he and some of his friends from Magic School had been messing around and accidentally went twelve minutes into the past. He’d gotten grounded, but apparently he was in for a lesson on the proper way to time travel or something as well.

“It was an accident,” he says hotly.

“We know, Chris,” Mom says. “It’s not about punishing you. It’s…well, we think it’s time you know some things. That little incident just reminded us that we should do this.”

“Do what?”

“Tell you about you,” Dad says.

Wyatt and Chris look at each other again and Chris can feel that Wyatt doesn’t understand either and that makes him feel better in a way because it seems like Wyatt always knows everything first, always does everything first. Which makes sense because he’s the first born, but the whole Twice Blessed thing seems to make everything a firstborn normally does more potently unfair. Wyatt has powers that even he doesn’t know about.

Then again, Chris has different powers from his siblings or his aunt who’s also half witch/half whitelighter. Chris has power to heal way more powerful than his brother and he’s got the whole lightening active power which he’s not allowed to use under any circumstance unless he or someone else is in mortal danger.

“Me?” he asks his parents.

Dad takes a deep breath and looks more serious than Chris has ever seen him and Mom's worry line is practically throbbing out of her forehead.

“Chris, you were that time traveler.”

“What!” Wyatt asks, sitting up straight.

Chris can’t even say a word because everything in his life has just turned upside down and he doesn’t get anything anymore. His parents have finally flipped and gone crazy or something because nothing else makes sense.

“There was a future where Wyatt was kidnapped for a long time when he was small,” Mom says, looking pained. “As a result, he-he went bad when he was an adult. We don’t know everything that happened, but we do know that both of us died and Chris was left on his own-"

She breaks off then and Chris stares because his mom never lets herself cry in front of them. Dad wraps his arm around her and continues her story.

“So…that Chris used the Book of Shadows to come back in time and prevent it from happening. He didn’t know who it was who had kidnapped Wyatt, but he came to help. He didn’t tell us who he was so we didn’t understand what he was doing until much later. Phoebe found it out first and then Paige, your mom next, and then me. We then discovered that it was Gideon, an Elder, who feared Wyatt’s powers. So I-"

This time it’s his dad who breaks off and that makes Chris stare even more and he knows his brother is doing the same.

“Your dad saved the day,” Mom cuts in, “on the very same day you were born, Chris.”

“What happened to me- him- me?” Chris stumbles. “How can there be two mes?”

“There aren’t anymore,” Dad says. “That Chris…he-he, well, Gideon…”

They don’t need to say anymore because Chris is sixteen and not stupid. His eyes grow big and he swallows hard.

“Oh,” he says.

“Why?” Wyatt demands and Chris can feel guilt welling out of his brother in waves.

“It’s not your fault, Wy,” he says softly.

“No, it’s not,” his parents say firmly together.

“If anything it’s my fault,” Dad says tightly and Mom clenches her jaw.

“Leo,” she says warningly.

“They deserve the truth,” he tells her.

“Dad, you don’t-" Chris says and then stops because he doesn’t know what to say and he does want to know.

“I tried to heal you,” Dad says, tears in his eyes. “But Gideon used a special athame. I was going to send you back to the future, to a new world, but…”

“Stop it, Leo,” Mom says and grips his hand tightly.

Chris has never seen his parents so emotional and it’s scaring him.

“So I died instead of vanishing like you always told us.”

“You did both,” Dad says softly. “In my arms.”

“Why are you telling us this?” Wyatt asks.

“Because of the timelines,” Dad says, stronger now. “Time travel tends to happen to the Charmed Ones.” He exchanges a watery smile with Mom. “And we think it will happen to you too. So you have to understand what responsibilities go along with that. In fact, you taught a lot of them to us, Chris.”

Chris doesn’t really know how to respond to that either. The idea that he could teach his dad anything, his dad, the source of all knowledge magical, is ridiculous.

“Like what?” Wyatt asks.

“Like not revealing things about the future.”

“You just did,” Wyatt points out.

“That future is…in the past. It happened, but then it was re-written. Anything that happened there could potentially happen now, but most likely won’t. Its effects live on through the changes that the other Chris made, but it itself won’t happen. Does that make sense?”

“No,” Wyatt says bluntly.

“Don’t even look at me to explain,” Mom says, looking disgruntled. “I don’t get it anymore than you do. But your dad assures me that it’s all fine.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Chris says softly and Dad looks at him with such compassion and relief that Chris feels overwhelmed.

He gets the impression that his dad has been holding onto a lot of guilt for a long time about something. He doesn’t like that impression. His parents mean the world to him. His whole family does and none of them have ever given him reason to doubt that they would always be there for him.

"Thank you," Dad says in a strangled voice that makes Chris uncomfortable.

“So…basically what I did changed the past and now a different future is happening and the reason you can tell us about it is because it isn’t going to happen like that anymore.”

His dad looks proud and that makes Chris swell up a little inside. Wyatt nudges him and rolls his eyes.

Chris glares at him and retains his feeling of pride.

“So that’s all for this week? Time travel perks and dirty family secrets?” Wyatt asks.

“Those are the facts," Mom says, looking at Wyatt sternly with her 'I'm your mother and you're walking on thin ice, mister' frown. "You can both come to us any time if you have any questions. I know it's overwhelming."

Chris nods because that's the understatement of the year.

"One more thing,” Dad says. “There’s a spell in the Book of Shadows that will let Chris have the memories of that other Chris. We don’t want the other you to be lost, so we think it would be a good idea for you to…merge with him. You’re just getting memories, nothing else. You’ll be the dominant Chris as it were. You’ll still remember everything from this timeline and how it’s shaped your life, but you’ll have access to that other life if you want it. But it’s up to you.”

“And not right now,” Mom says quickly. “We’re not letting you do this until you’re at least eighteen, maybe older. And don’t even think of trying to find the spell because we removed it.”

“Do you even want to?” Dad asks softly, studying Chris.

“Can I think about it?” he asks.

“Of course, you’ve got years to decide,” Dad assures him.

“Okay,” Chris says and then his parents are hugging him like he is dying all over again and he feels extremely awkward.

Wyatt’s own emotions are practically boiling into the atmosphere and Chris almost buckles under the weight of them through their connection.

“Stop it,” he tells his brother while he extricates himself from his parents.

“You stop it,” Wyatt says.

“You both stop it,” Mom says sternly. “I don’t care what guilt or confusion is coursing through that little telepathic whats-it you’ve got going on, but you both shoulder it and move on. We both have.”

“That’s why you were bawling, I suppose,” Chris says petulantly.

“Christopher!” she warns. “I said shoulder it; that means you carry it always. We both think you’re old enough, mature enough, or we wouldn’t have told you. I know it will take time and you can talk to us if you need to, but don’t let it consume you. Enough members of this family have already done that.”

She glares at Dad who makes a face at her and makes her and Chris both laugh.

Chris leaves the attic a whole new person, feeling both proud and lost. He takes his mom’s advice though and doesn’t obsess over it. At least, most of the time. He ponders a lot about that other Chris, the decisions he'd made, what he must have felt about what happened. Sometimes he wants to know those memories and others he doesn’t.

He has many conversations with both Wyatt and his parents about that other Chris and what he should do but he doesn't let it consume his life. Slowly he comes to grips with the idea that he'd lived a whole other lifetime.

He never really forgets about it, but there are way too many other things to think about. He’s got finals and one day there’s a mission where they rescue some girl named Bianca and he forgets about everything else for awhile. Wyatt does his best to keep Chris occupied anyway and so do his parents. He’s got enough cousins to occupy his time and before he knows it, he’s twenty years old and living in his own apartment and it doesn’t even occur to him that it’s what is going to happen until his parents sit him and Wyatt down again.

“Did you make your decision yet?” Dad asks.

Chris is confused until Wyatt punches his shoulder and he can feel the reminder.

“Oh, oh. So yeah, I want them. I want to know.”

He’s felt that way for awhile. He feels sometimes that a part of himself is missing and he knows it must be that other Chris, floating around somewhere in time, waiting to be connected again. He feels like he himself won’t be able to connect fully, to engage in this world, until he knows everything, until he knows what he’s capable of.

He and Wyatt have talked about it a lot and Wyatt agrees that it’s the right thing to do.

"Did you talk about this with Bianca?” Mom asks, her face serious.

He already knows that Bianca was around in that other time because as soon as he’d brought her home the first time his parents had told him.

“She knows, she’s cool with it.”

“Okay then,” Dad says, taking a deep breath and calling for Paige.

His aunts appear in shimmering orb lights and hold hands with his mother.

Power of Three spell then.

"Hear our words and hear our rhyme,
Bring back our kin from out of time,
Bring him home within to dwell
Inside the space he once knew well
Not to own or dominate
Bring balance and wisdom, a change of fate."

They say the words and Chris can feel his insides tightening, wondering what will happen.

There’s a white noise inside his head and he would almost describe it as his head expanding and being filled like water poured into a glass. Sights, sensations, and feelings hit him from all sides at once. He feels tugged in many different directions and then everything suddenly stops.

He doesn’t feel any different, not really. Slowly though, things sink in, memories coalesce and separate, feelings magnify and decrease, and he takes a moment to decide which things he wants to keep and which things aren’t worth it anymore.

His fear and anger with Wyatt he rejects instantly. His frustration and fear for his mother, he dismisses. He embraces the magical knowledge, the understanding of time travel, the power boosts, the enhanced love for Bianca, the battle knowledge, strategic planning, and weapons skills. He throws away the burden of leadership and the fear of the unknown and the need to fix and control things. He struggles with the rage and abandonment issues with his father for a minute, but a lifetime of love and support and sacrifice far outweigh the hurt and he can’t want any timeline where he doesn’t love his dad.

When he opens his eyes again, his parents, aunts, and siblings are all staring at him anxiously.

“I’m okay,” he says slowly and looks at his dad. “Dad, I’m okay. I didn’t give up and neither did you.”

Dad nods and tries too obviously to hide his tears and Chris walks over to him and puts his arms around him and holds him tightly. Dad grips him back just as tightly. Then Chris hugs Mom and tries not to imagine her lying dead on the floor, blood staining her face and eyes gaping open. It works after a minute or two and he knows this is going to take awhile.

“I’m starving,” he announces to the room and orbs into the kitchen and tries to remember a time when he didn’t have time to cook and when he had to check all his food for poison and when he couldn’t heal at all and when…so many things had been.

They have a family dinner and Chris takes his time adjusting.

Later he has a talk with Wyatt and both of them resolutely ignore any tears that may or may not have put in an appearance because of it. They are extra snarky with each other for the next few weeks.

He asks Bianca to marry him in the park where he had once before in another lifetime. They hadn’t found it in this one, but it’s one more way that he merges the timelines and reconciles the past and his present. When she says yes and kisses him, her soft lips remind him of her alive and good, not betraying him or impaled on a stake, and he can’t wait for their own future together.

He still doesn’t really know why his parents told him about it at all or why they’ve always told him time travel was so important. But he figures it doesn’t really matter and if he needs to know he will. Sometimes he and Wyatt argue about it, but that stops when Wyatt goes back in time himself and sees how he could be evil.

One day he and Wyatt are kicking a little demon ass when Wyatt’s powers stop working. Yeah, that doesn’t happen. Not ever. Chris may have greater lineage, but Wyatt has more power, more destiny, not to mention a really shiny sword, and his powers always work.

But Chris is the one prepared for it because the instant it happens he realizes it is because of something in the past. He recognizes the signs and so he and Wyatt cast a spell to go back in time and find so many different timelines merging it’s ridiculous.

It’s a little weird because Chris remembers being back here and he calls Grams by name and then realizes that Wyatt hasn’t even met her. (Long story short she’d done something Up There to earn wrath and hasn’t been allowed to come down since Melinda’s Wiccaning so Chris is the only one who really remembers seeing her and that was in his other life.)

Still, they do their part and win through in the end and Chris isn’t the one who gives away too much about the future, because he knows better. Still, if it gets Uncle Coop with Aunt Phoebe, he’s all for it.

He still teases Wyatt endlessly about it after they’re in their own time, powers intact.

At least he knows now why his parents wanted so badly for him to understand about time travel, because they’d known there would be one final time for Chris Halliwell to help save the past. When he’s back in his own time he confronts them about it.

“We trust you, Chris,” Dad says simply.

“Don’t tell Wyatt, but you’re a much better time traveler,” Mom says wryly.

“I’m so telling him.”

“I imagine you already did,” she says, rolling her eyes.

“I love you guys,” he tells them, hugging them and orbing away before things can get totally mushy.

After all, his fiancée from two different timelines is waiting for him and he knows just what to do with her.