RP for fulltimewitch
Who: Chris and Prue, assorted others as needed
Where: The manor attic
What: Chris reaches a breaking point and turns to the only person who can help. Unfortunately, that person doesn't know he exists.
( Hear these words, hear my cry, spirit from the other side. Come to me, I summon thee. Cross now the great divide. )
Where: The manor attic
What: Chris reaches a breaking point and turns to the only person who can help. Unfortunately, that person doesn't know he exists.
( Hear these words, hear my cry, spirit from the other side. Come to me, I summon thee. Cross now the great divide. )
Realizing this made Chris beam happily, but his joy was short-lived when Prue made it clear she didn't recognize him. "What?" he asked impulsively, unable to conceal his surprise and, okay, his disappointment. "You...don't recognize me?"
This was a bad idea. He'd called Prue to ease his guilt about his family, and now he felt even more lost and alone.
Suddenly, too late to save him from being hurt, he figured it out. Okay then, so this was a bad idea and he was an idiot.
"...because...I...don't exist yet," he pieced together slowly for Prue. He sighed heavily, shoving his hand through his hair. Crap. Now he didn't know what he was supposed to do. He couldn't te ll her the truth, could he? But how else was he supposed to gain her trust and convince her that he wasn't evil or just crazy?
"I-I'm sorry. I shouldn't have...I'm sorry. You can, uh, go back now," he tripped over his words, eager to send Prue back before she exposed him or tk'ed him out the window. Unfortunately, he knew her better than she thought, and he also knew that, like him, she was fiercely protective of her family and she wasn't about to just take his word for it that he wasn't a threat.
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If it were possible, Prue's arms tightened across her chest. She jutted out one leg and cocked her eyebrow. "I might be dead, but I'm not stupid." Prue hadn't admitted to herself that she was 'dead'. The word was harsh and felt too final; it slipped out as though she was used to saying it. She didn't even notice she'd spoken it while she glared down Chris.
Something was familiar about him, but Prue couldn't pinpoint what. It felt like how it did back with Cole. She knew something was off - he was always around when a demonic attack occurred - but she couldn't pinpoint what.
She barely caught the statement of existing. He doesn't exist yet? That ... Prue couldn't make sense of that. Was this what kids these days were saying? Looking at him - judging him - had her guessing he was a kid, maybe early twenties. She knew how much trouble kids could be at that age; Phoebe had been uncontrollable throughout her teens and she hadn't grown out of it until they were given their Charmed heritage.
"Listen, Marty McFly, I'm going to give you to the count of five to tell me what you're doing in my attic or I'm going to send you flying out the window." If only she knew the reference actually applied to this situation at hand. Prue may have been confident, but she didn't know if her power would work at all after being summoned. She knew Grams had complete control of her Telekinesis, but Prue was still new to this. Hers wasn't as powerful as her grandmother's, and perhaps never would as it would never have the time to develop.
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"I don't think so," he replied, quickly lunging forward to grab one of the candies to break the circle. Prue wouldn't have access to her powers until she went corporeal, and she couldn't do that until she stepped out of the summoning circle. He clutched the candle near his chest, eyeing his aunt warily. God, he hoped he was right.
"Look, it...it's nothing, okay? I'm from the future and I just... I'm not evil, okay? I wouldn't be able to summon you if I was. Oh, and look," he went on, walking over to touch the Book of Shadows. He gave Prue his best "see?" look when the Book didn't immediately fly out of his reach. "The Book trusts me. So chill, all right?"
He wanted to let her go solid so that he could hug her, so that she could comfort him like she always had. Would. Whatever. But with his luck, she might have run off to her sisters, told them everything, and then he, his mission, and the entire world would all be screwed. He couldn't afford that.
"I'm Chris," he said quietly. "I'm the Charmed Ones' new whitelighter."
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Here was a Whitelighter - her sisters' Whitelighter - who wasn't Leo, but a very young man. Why didn't she know of the switch? Where was Leo?
He wasn't evil. But the Book had fooled them a few times before; she remembered when she was being married off to a warlock and how her turning evil affected her sisters. This could easily be a repeat of the wedding from hell.
Though, it didn't make much sense if it was. Why would he be summoning her here? She wasn't exactly on the hit list anymore, and she wasn't a part of the trifecta.
Being on the attack wasn't going to get her any answers. He may have proved that the Book trusted him, but the evidence she required - the hardcore kind - was something she knew she'd never be given. To have Piper or Phoebe back him up would be what she needed.
"Why did you call me here, future - Chris?" Calling him names was probably not a wise decision, considering he could send her back Up There at any given time. So she thought. She had too many questions. She wanted to prolong her stay for as long as she could for one of her sisters to stumble upon her. Maybe this was the Elders lifting their restrictions. "How did you call me? My sisters have been met with roadblocks for the past three years."
Then came the kicker. It occurred to Prue that she should be as faceless as he was to her - apart from the photographs she hoped were still scattered around the Manor of her - and she couldn't see why he called her down, of all people. "You don't even know me."
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Of course not. She'd been dead for a while and if she'd been expecting anything, it most certainly wasn't being greeted with a time displaced nephew. His luck, she'd probably just think he was Wyatt, anyway. Did she even know about Wyatt, either?
He sighed, exasperated; dead or alive, the Halliwell sisters had a talent for frustrating him to no ends. "How? I used the spell to summon the dead. You remember that one, right?" he snapped sarcastically, wanting nothing more right that moment than to send Prue away and then orb back to the club. He was stupid to ever think he could stay in this house for any length of time and not do something foolish, though calling the long-lost original Charmed One was pretty high up on that list of foolish things.
"I know you," Chris answered in his usual oblique way, revealing just enough to cause even more confusion without actually answering anything. "Don't ask me how. I can't tell you, 'cause I can't risk messing up the future. And I know you don't have any reason to, but just...trust me, okay?"
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If he was her sister's Whitelighter, then she should trust him. Regardless of him not being Leo, Prue always trusted her sister's judgements - most of the time. So, she found herself relenting, despite the fact that her instincts - the ones that told her about Cole, and the ones that told her she had to act fast with Dr Griffiths standing in their foyer - were telling her not to.
"I don't trust people blindly," she said, shaking her head. "Not anymore." Not after Cole, and definitely not after what he did to Phoebe. Prue had heard about it because it was big news Up There - Cole becoming the Source of All Evil and dragging the Charmed Ones straight to hell. Prue knew she was right about him. It killed her that she was.
"If you want trust, you're going to have to give me something to work with."
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"Are you serious?" he cried, throwing his hands out in disbelief. "Well, for starters, I haven't tried to kill you or steal your powers or anything yet. That counts for something, right?" Chris sighed dramatically, easily adopting his mother's martyr complex. Given her brutal sarcasm and the no-nonsense workaholic attitude he'd adopted from Prue, it was really no wonder the much more easygoing sisters avoided him whenever possible.
Just one more reason he'd always felt more comfortable around Prue than his other relatives.
"In the future," he began somewhat reluctantly, "you're my whitelighter. Kind of. I mean, not officially, but I kinda, uh, picked you." Chris was fully aware that his rambling probably didn't make much sense, but it was still true. He glanced down at the candle still in his hand, then back at Prue, grinning almost shyly. "And if you promise not to freak out and throw me down the stairs..." He trailed off and knelt down to replace the candle, once again completing the circle.
"Go on," he urged, taking a step back just in case. "Corporealize."
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"You picked me?" That's what she figured she'd focus on. She didn't understand why, or how. And if her sisters couldn't pick her to guide them - or simply be available - she didn't understand why Chris could.
And after that question, Prue corporealised. It felt weird, being solid. She didn't feel like how she did back when she was a contributing member of the land of the living, but she felt different. Anchored. She stared at her arm for a moment before something clicked. He said Whitelighter. Do Whitelighters have Whitelighters? "Are you a witch?"
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"You okay?" he asked, still grinning but with genuine concern edging into his voice. When Prue didn't immediately fall apart or whatever it was he'd been half-expecting, Chris wandered over to the old weapons chest and sat down atop it, fingertips tapping a mindless beat against the wood.
"I'm...yeah. Half-witch," he clarified. Half-witch, half-Whitelighter, and engaged to a half-witch, half-demon. Because nothing at all in his life could ever be less than insanely complicated.
He wanted to confide in her; he always had, after all, even if she wasn't aware of it yet. More than that, he just wanted to confide in someone. He knew all along that coming back would be difficult, but he'd underestimated exactly how hard it would be. All those wounds he thought he'd healed were reopened immediately once he saw his parents, his aunts, Grandpa...and, of course, Wyatt. And though he'd been doing a pretty good job of keeping his distance from all of them, he still caught himself accepting dinner invitations and buying them birthday presents and all the other things that said he was in no way, shape, or form over what had happened. He needed to talk to someone, have someone he trusted with his secrets, because it was becoming entirely too taxing on his emotions to keep pretending that he was just any other do-gooder from the future.
But if he told Prue, he ran the risk of blowing his cover before he was ready. And if Prue told her sisters -- hell, if she even appeared to them -- the Elders wouldn't hesitate to send Chris right back to his own time as punishment for breaking one of their precious and arbitrary rules, so all of this would have been for naught.
Sighing, he glanced down at his shoes and then back up, sheepishly scratching behind his ear before speaking. "I'm...you're...my aunt," he admitted finally, barely able to hold Prue's gaze as he spoke. "Piper and Leo are my parents. Or they will be, anyway. I hope," he added this last part under his breath, not even wanting to think about how he was going to work his way out of that mess.
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She's a bit busy embracing what feeling semi-human felt like when he says it. She looked up, frowning a little, keeping her eyes on him as she let it sink in. "You're -" Prue didn't know whether to be incredibly happy for Piper and Leo, or to be suspicious. She took a few steps towards him, but kept the distance as she still wasn't familiar with him.
Taking him in, she could see what she had missed originally. His snark, which he got from Piper, and his kind, light eyes, which looked so familiar, she felt like she was looking in a mirror. But behind them held Leo's warmth. And the hair - She didn't know how she missed it, despite the fact that she simply wasn't paying attention.
"Piper has another son?" She clasped a hand to her chest, surprised. Piper never struck her as the type to be baby friendly, but she was brilliant with kids, despite not thinking so. And Leo - well, she always wondered how that would work, considering he was dead.
But there was something she was missing. "Why are you here, though? Did someone throw you into a vortex, too?" She gave a grin, but it fell flat and disappeared. She remembered how she was thrown back in time to deliver Melinda Warren. Was this exactly like that? Was he meant to protect someone? Why was he here?
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He struggled to keep his eyes level with Prue's, swallowing hard past the odd lump that had hardened in his throat. He felt like he was going to be sick. That wasn't exactly the greatest welcome back present he could offer his long-dead aunt.
He nodded in response to Prue's first question, then finally dropped his eyes to the floor as though he suddenly found the floorboards infinitely entertaining. "Yeah," he murmured, hands shoved into his pockets in a defensive, almost guilty gesture. "Or she will, anyway. Soon. Hopefully." He added this last with a self-deprecating roll of his eyes, not particularly keen on the idea of explaining to Prue how his own poorly thought out plan to pose as the sisters' new Whitelighter might well have erased his very existence.
When Prue continued, Chris looked up again, startled, then shook his head. "No, no. I'm here -- a vortex? Really?" he changed tracks abruptly, just a hint of an amused grin making the corners of his mouth twitch. "Uh, no. I'm here voluntarily. Used a spell in the Book that Phoebe wrote a long time a--actually, no, she hasn't written it yet." He put a hand to his head and closed his eyes for a moment. Generally speaking, he was pretty good with handling the theoretical aspects of time travel. It just turned out that he wasn't so great at trying to explain those theories to anyone else.
"They don't know who I am," he explained, sitting down next to the ring of candles and drawing his knees to his chest in another unconscious defensive move. "The sisters, I mean. And Leo. No one here does. And it has to stay that way." He looked pleadingly up at his aunt then, not explicitly ordering her to keep his secret -- brash as he was and as bossy as he could be with the Charmed Ones in the past, he still knew better than to try to control Prue.
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She stayed silent after he finished speaking for a few minutes, trying to process all of this. What he just told her to what he had revealed the moment she appeared in a swirl of bright lights. Here was her nephew, determined to change the future, all the while keeping his identity a secret. Either he was a strong, young man or he was absolutely and incredibly stupid. He got the latter from Leo.
So, she decided to tackle one issue at a time. Starting with Piper. She caught how 'hopefully' was tacked onto the end that thought. That left her confused. Wasn't it destiny that he would be born? Just as it was her destiny to save innocents and be a third - or fourth, really - of the great Charmed Ones?
"What do you mean by 'hopefully'?" She narrowed her eyes, not accusingly as before, but in thought. She was trying to follow this. "You're not born yet, right? So ... It's going to happen. It's destiny."
Prue knew she was kidding herself there. Her destiny never said she would be killed by a demonic hitman and her younger, half-sister would fill in the gap she left behind. Destiny was a fickle bitch, and Prue knew how it felt to be slapped by it.
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But the mission...he couldn't stand the idea that everything he'd done up to now, all the sacrifices, could be undone in one careless moment. His two remaining cousins, Bianca, Grandpa, the whole world was depending on him to set things right. You're the only one who can save us.
Paranoid as ever, it took him a few moments to snap out of his thoughts and realize Prue was speaking again. She...hadn't left the attic to go find her sisters? She wasn't already flipping through the Book to cast a truth spell on him or anything?
He really had to get a grip before he lost what remained of his sanity.
"I mean...I mean she's not pregnant. I haven't been conceived yet," he pointed out, and try as he might to distance himself from Piper by calling her by name, it still made him deeply uncomfortable to discuss anything even remotely related to his mother's sex life. Or lack thereof. "And if she and Leo don't get back together soon, I'm not gonna exist anymore."
It was the first time he'd said anything of the sort out loud, and the reality of the situation finally hit home. He'd thought about it, of course, but he'd never actually voiced his concerns -- who could he talk to in this time, anyway? He let out a weary sigh and draped his arms over his knees, then rested his chin atop his arms.
"I wouldn't even care that much -- I mean, I do, obviously, but I knew the risks coming into this. But I can't -- I have to fix the future first. Period. Which is kinda why I called for you," he admitted quietly, realizing he was rambling but powerless to stop himself. He'd spent so long with all of this information kept locked tight inside that he was finding it next to impossible to keep quiet once he started talking.
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There was something more important to worry about than the fact that the relationship she always viewed to be rock solid and destined was broken. And that was that her nephew - her future nephew who she was positive was going to exist in the near future - needed help.
She might not trust him, but she trusted family. And he deserved a chance to earn it.
"What do you need me for?" She couldn't see what she could do. She wasn't even technically meant to be here, or possibly summoned. "You do know I can't do anything? The Elders are breathing down my neck more than they did when I was alive."
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After taking a moment to regain his composure, Chris cleared his throat and looked up at Prue through long, dark lashes, fighting to hold her gaze. Strange how he could look his other aunts, even his own mother right in the eyes and lie to them over and over without hesitation, but the first time he actually tried to be honest, he felt like a child all over again, scared and unable to find just the right words.
"I...I need advice," he answered shakily, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth for a few moments before continuing. "I've been here for months and I still haven't...uh, accomplished what I came here to do," he added clumsily, unwilling to reveal his mission when he hadn't even found a way to tell his living family members yet.
"And I just came back to change one really big thing, and I thought I could do it, but the longer I stay here the more tempted I am to change...something else. Or try to. I mean, it's magic's fault that it happened, magic brought me here, maybe I'm supposed to -- magic owes us, dammit, so why can't..." He trailed off with a deeply frustrated sigh, pushing a hand through his hair and only succeeding in messing it up further. "If you were in the past and you knew something terrible happened and that you could change it, or at least warn the people it happened to, would you?"
Piper had told him once about the time she and her sisters had gone back in time to their childhood, and Chris knew that of course they had to have had mixed feelings about interacting with their mother, but Piper had never mentioned anything about that, just the amusing incidents that had happened with their younger forms. Since he couldn't very well ask her or Phoebe without outing himself, and since Prue had always been his primary source of advice, it made sense to ask her now.
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"But wanting that doesn't always make it right," she looked at Chris, pointedly. She didn't want to come right out and say that changing the future - all of it, the very big parts that could change the paths of others - wasn't the smartest idea. "Other people's destinies are tied to what happens. If I hadn't -" she closed her eyes for a moment and skipped over the word died - "Paige wouldn't be here if we changed things. It was meant to happen."
But that didn't mean that Prue wanted it to turn out that way. She wanted to live until forty, fifty. Whatever this bad thing was - she was going to find out, either way, but at this very moment, she deemed it not as important as easing his mind - it wasn't worth changing everything over. Things happened for a reason. Prue was the collateral damage. "You change one thing, another thing changes. Sometimes it does more harm than good to change one little thing."
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