Charmed Fic: Made Weak by Time and Fate: Epilogue
Epilogue
Chris watched his dad disappear through the portal and then turned to survey his surroundings. It was a little bit surreal to come from a place that was the exact same as the one he was in, but know that it was years apart.
In fact, he needed to sit down for a minute because it felt like his head was about to implode from all of the memories and facts and feelings he was experiencing.
It was confusing, to say the least, and he almost lost himself to the dizzying array of options available to him. Putting everything into place, cohesively structuring his life, it almost didn't even seem like an option. He had been and was too many people, all at the same time.
But he wasn't just anyone. He was Chris Halliwell, a time traveler, a witch, a Whitelighter, a son, a strategist, a brother, a freedom fighter, a nephew, a cousin, a fiancée, and a paradox in and of himself.
On the one hand he was himself as he'd always remembered, growing up alone and terrified and small and unwanted, learning to fight, to run, to plan, to win. He'd planned his entire life on fixing events, researching how they'd occurred, doing everything on his own because there was no one else to help him.
On the other hand he was a man who had traveled into the past and learned that just because events had happened one way, didn't mean they couldn't change. That perhaps circumstances were a better thing to blame than people for the ruin of his life. He'd learned to trust, to love, to do many things that he'd never been able to do before, either through lack of time or resources.
He was one last thing: he was Chris Halliwell, a strange mixture of lives lived fully in cognizance of each other, but completely separate for all of that. To the first Chris, it was like waking up after a bad dream, but knowing it would never leave you; for the other Chris, it was like remembering something you'd forgotten, something important, yet strangely inconsequential.
But it was very evident to him who he was. More and more he understood the linear path he'd taken to become this weird amalgamation and that made it clear to him that the life he'd lived, the life he was going to live, was the one here and now, the one where he'd grown up with two loving parents, a house full of cousins and siblings and aunts and uncles, a magical education, and where he'd gone off to college and met a girl, where she had lived and loved him and become his fiancée, shortly to be his wife.
One would think it would be too difficult to understand the things he’d done and how the timelines were rearranging themselves in his head, but he found it startlingly simple. It would probably take him a long time before things stopped taking him by surprise and he had to constantly readjust his opinions and memories, but he wasn’t afraid of the challenge. It was a far better life to live than his original lifetime.
Chris wasn't sure how long he'd sat there readjusting his worldview and desperately trying to find a new sense of identity, but he felt it was time well spent and he only stopped when he heard someone say his name.
"Chris?"
Chris looked up and saw his father standing in the doorway. He was old, so much older than when Chris had seen him a short time before and a whole lifetime away. There were wrinkles and lines that had not been there before, a certain stooping to the posture and gray hairs amid the blonde. It felt right somehow, even though Chris knew it was only a glamour, something to help the outside world know that Leo was aging along with his wife. But it would have been too weird to see a father who looked exactly like the one who had just left to go back to the past.
"Dad," Chris said and stood up.
"Whatcha doing up here?" his dad asked, smiling so his eyes crinkled at the corners. "Your Mom said you were going to do some studying before dinner."
Yes, Chris remembered that. He remembered coming home for the weekend because it was Wyatt's birthday and having a big test to study for and wanting to do it now because Bianca was taking him cake testing tomorrow and then Chris had sat down and suddenly stood up just now as a completely different person.
"I-I," he said, stammering, "I remember…everything."
His dad's face went pale and then he swallowed tightly and spoke.
"Are you okay, son?"
Chris slowly smiled and walked closer.
"Yeah, Dad, yeah, I am."
His dad heaved a sigh of relief and wrapped his arms around Chris tightly.
"Thank you, thank you so much. I've been waiting years to be able to say that to you."
"You already did," Chris said, holding onto the man who had been an inspiration and a teacher and a constant figure in his life, and yet someone he'd once hated and resented with everything in him.
"I can't wait to hear everything," his dad said, wiping tears from his eyes. "About how you remembered and what and how the timelines merged in you."
"Later," said Chris. "It's still swirling around my head a little."
"Of course. You ready for dinner? Wyatt and Mels are waiting on you. And, surprise, your aunts are here."
"Sure," said Chris, actually eager to see everyone through the same eyes, yet so different.
And it was strange. Everyone was there, the people he'd remembered his entire life and the people he'd met as an adult and people who had never existed.
Wyatt was still tall and strong and magical but Chris knew Wyatt would never try to kill him as Chris knew Wyatt had done.
His mother was older now too, wrinkles and worry lines all over her face, but her smile was as radiant as ever. But she was alive and Chris didn't have to remember her dying anymore.
His dad led him into the dining room chock full of Halliwells. The cousins all shouted hello and strived for attention. Somehow his dad managed to corral the adults into one corner and whispered something that had them all turning to Chris and looking at him with something akin to awe and worry.
"I trust you'll remember us with our proper adult dignity and not as somewhat rambunctious witches under a green Whitelighter," said Paige into his ear in passing.
Chris grinned at her.
"I make no promises."
"Oh, come here," said Phoebe, grabbing Chris into a hug. "Oh, you're so precious."
"You don't have a happy spell on you, do you?" he asked.
But soon his mother's arms were around him and she held him closely.
"No squabbling with your brother," she said softly.
Chris just laughed and went to go join everyone else at the table. His now Uncle Richard, his Uncle Coop, his little sister Prudence Melinda, his many and myriad cousins, and his brother.
Glancing back he saw his dad had taken his place in his mother's arms and a thrill of satisfaction shot through him.
He had felt like he'd failed quite a lot in both of his lives, but he knew now he'd done something right, he'd done something important. He'd made a mockery of the life fate had dealt him and used time as his tool, transforming it into something better. Funnily enough, it didn’t make him feel overly proud, just grateful he'd been given a chance and the love and actions of all of these people that had helped him shape that chance into a future worth living in.