This is only my second fic in the Charmed fandom, so I should warn you that it will be AU and OOC! And even though there is a lot of violence in this one, this fic doesn´t carry any deep hidden messages about guns and violence at school. It´s just a background for a short Chris and Wyatt story. There are not enough of them out there.

Desperation

by KatiKat
 


He was in the gym when the first shots rang out. Everyone froze in place as the staccato of gun fire and the screams and shouts of pain and panic reached them. All the commotion echoed from the school´s main building where the classrooms and the cafeteria were situated. And then the chaos broke loose.

Boys, girls, and teachers started to run, trampling everything and everyone that got under their feet in the desperate attempt of getting away from the school. They knew what a madman with a gun could do in a building full of children. The people were yelling and crying, stumbling over each other, pouring out of the school´s property like water out of a faucet. Everyone was trying to save themselves...

Except for one boy who was running exactly in the opposite direction - towards the school. He was pushing his schoolmates aside, fighting against the stream of desperate people. One teacher grabbed him by the shoulder, trying to stop him.

"Where are you going, Wyatt?" the PE teacher shouted.

The blond boy tore his arm out of the teacher´s grip. "My brother is in there!"

Before the man could do something more to divert him from his mad intentions, he lost Wyatt in the teeming crowd.

Wyatt ran through the now empty corridors of the school´s old building. The floors were blood splattered, here and there, his schoolmates were lying in pools of blood, some of them obviously dead, others still breathing, moaning with pain or crying for help. He didn´t pay them any attention though, for he had only one goal - to find Chris. Deep down in the very core of his being, he knew that something was wrong, that something happened to his younger sibling.

Rounding a corner, the blond boy headed towards the cafeteria without any hesitation. He knew that Chris had been headed there after they parted. Wyatt stepped over fallen bodies, coming closer to the swinging door leading to the cafeteria. Both wings of the door were being kept open by the body of an unfortunate girl who was shot directly in the heart. Her empty eyes were staring at the ceiling. Wyatt realized he knew her from the Chem class they had together. But none of that mattered. He was being pushed forward by the desperate need to find his brother.

He heard another round of shots. They were awfully close now, echoing from the cafeteria. Wyatt dropped to a crouch, leaning over the dead body of his classmate to take a look into the hall. Yes, there, in the middle of the room, a boy stood on a table, waving a machine gun around, shooting at random. Wyatt knew this madman too, he realized. He didn´t remember his name, but Chris brought the quiet, mousy looking boy home once or twice to study for exams. Wyatt never gave him a second thought.

Shifting his attention from the boy with the gun, Wyatt looked around the room, trying to spot Chris. His eyes kept skipping over bodies, still or moving, until... there. By the counter only a couple of feet to his right, was his brother lying on the ground. He was curled up on his left side, facing Wyatt. The brown-haired boy´s jeans and blue shirt were soaked with blood, but Wyatt could not see any wounds from his position. Chris´ lax face and closed eyes, together with the awful paleness of his brother´s skin told him everything he needed to know though.

Crawling forward, keeping low to the ground, he tried to keep the gunman in sight without giving himself away. It took him an impossible amount of time to reach Chris. When he came within reach, he almost reluctantly extended his hand to lay it on the brown-haired boy´s cheek. It was cold and clammy. Swallowing painfully, his insides coiling hard, he slid his fingers to his neck and almost started to shake with relief when he found a pulse - it was weak and faltering, but it was there.

He pulled himself together quickly. It was not the time for a nervous breakdown. There was nobody else except him to save Chris´ life. He needed to get his brother back to the manor, to Leo. Their dad would take care of everything. The quickest way would be to just orb out immediately, but he couldn´t risk anybody seeing them. Revealing the existence of magic to humans would equal a bullet between the eyes.

Taking a deep breath, he peered over the overturned table. The boy was still turning around and around on the table. Crawling closer to his brother, he silently put one arm under his knees, the other around his shoulders and took a deep breath. Then he raised his head and threw all of his power against the madman. He knocked him off the table, smashing him into the wall. The gun slipped out of the murderer´s hand, clattering to the floor together with him.

Wyatt scrambled to his feet, lifting his injured sibling off the floor, hoisting him up. Chris hung limply in his arms, the awful wound in the left side of his chest finally revealed. Wyatt quickly made his way towards the open door, heedless of the enraged shouts of the gunman. He was stepping over the fallen girl again when the gunfire started anew, the bullets chipping the paint off the wall above and beside the blond boy.

Wyatt gasped, back arching slightly as one of the wayward bullets found its mark in his lower back. He stumbled forward, catching his balance in time though. He moved down the hallway as quickly as possible and when he round the corner and entered an empty corridor, he and the boy in his arms dissolved into a swirl of bright blue light, orbing out of the school...

... and into the Halliwell manor. As soon as they materialized again, Wyatt fell to his knees, his body finally succumbing to the shock the bullet wound in his back caused.

"Dad!" Wyatt cried out, his voice full of pain as he lowered Chris as gently as possible on the carpeted floor of the manor´s entry hall then slumped over him, half unconscious.

A second later, another swirl of bright light entered the house from above, revealing two people.

"Wyatt! Chris!" shouted Leo and Piper at once, rushing over to their injured children.

The Whitelighter held his hand over the wound in Wyatt´s back, healing it quickly. The golden light died down, leaving not only the skin and tissue whole again, but the blond boy´s garment too. Wyatt opened his eyes, blinking at his parents in confusion and letting Piper help him sit up. His mother pulled him gently to the side, giving her husband access to the other injured boy.

While Leo was using his powers to save their younger son, Piper touched Wyatt´s face, then ran her hands down his arms, checking for other, unseen injuries. "Are you okay, Wyatt? What happened?" her voice was frantic, the expression on her face bordering on despair. Too many times in her life had she lost loved ones.

"I´m okay, I´m okay," he said, eyes fixed on his brother and father. "One of the boys in our school went mad and started shooting everyone. He hit... he hit Chris..." His voice faltered and he swallowed painfully. No matter how much they fought, that was his brother lying there and even though he would never admit it to his face, he loved him dearly. Should he die... "What´s taking so long, dad?" he asked, pulling away from his mother´s arms and crawling closer.

Leo´s brows were furrowed, sweat staining his forehead. His hands were glowing brightly but they were also shaking visibly. Some of the blood from Chris' clothes disappeared but he was still white as a sheet and barely breathing.

"Dad?"

Piper knelt opposite him, laying one hand on the brown hair of her younger son. "Leo, what´s wrong?" she asked, a tremor in her voice. She hated not being able to help. Especially where her sons were concerned.

It took a while before Leo was able to answer. His voice was strained. "He is too far away. Barely there..." he whispered.

Gripping his brother´s hand tightly, Wyatt whispered. "Come on, Chris. Come on, bro..."

Suddenly, Chris arched his spine, taking a deep, jerky breath.

Caressing her son´s hair, Piper leaned closer. "That´s it, Chris. Come back to us. Come back."

The brown-haired boy´s chest started to move again, his shallow breathing growing deeper with each breath he took. The blood on his clothes started to disappear as if soaking back to the place it seeped from in such a large amount. Then the wound in his chest closed, the hole in his blue shirt knitting itself closed too.

The gold light from Leo´s hands disappeared and the man slumped, extreme weariness etched into the features of his face. "Thank God, thank God..." he kept repeating silently, as he laid his hands over his son´s strongly beating heart.

When Chris finally opened his eyes, he was still lying on the floor of the entry hall. He found three very concerned faces looming over him. "Mom? Dad? Wyatt?" he said, each word a question of its own.

"You scared us to death, you dork!" Wyatt snapped at him, face set into a scowl once again.

"Wha..." The confusion disappeared from his features soon though, replaced by an expression of such horror, such deep grief that the hearts of his family clenched. "They're dead. All of them..."

Piper and Leo looked at each other, then over at Wyatt who met their eyes directly. The message they conveyed made it obvious that whatever happened at school had been truly horrendous.

"Chris..." Piper whispered, wanting to say something wise and soothing, but she couldn´t find the words to ease such deep pain.

Using his brother´s grip for leverage, Chris sat up, groaning softly. His parents supported his back, helping him up. Sitting on the carpeted floor, the brown-haired half-witch bent his legs and wrapped his arms around them, slipping his hand out of his brother´s.

"The ones who died quickly didn´t suffer," he whispered, hanging his head.

Piper and Leo exchanged another look before the witch asked. "How do you know that?"

Chris didn´t lift up his head. "I met Clarence... the Angel of Death... he was happy to see me again... I said that we hadn´t met before - he just smiled..." For a moment the look on Chris' face grew confused, before returning back to its troubled state.

This time Piper and Leo looked each other in the eyes for a much longer period of time. They never told Chris about his second self coming back from the future to save them. Sometimes they wondered if they made the right choice, but in moments like these they realized they really did the right thing after all. Their sons had enough to deal with, being half-witches and the sons of a Charmed one... There was no need to trouble them further.

"He promised me that he would take care of them... guide them to their families," he continued, oblivious to the wordless conversation that was going on between his parents. "I... I could have saved them... if I just..."

"Stop it!" snapped Wyatt again and looked his brother directly in the eyes when Chris´ head shot up, a startled expression on his face. "What could you have done? Used the super kick aunt Phoebe taught you?" His voice was almost mocking. "Or would you have used magic? Would you have exposed us all?"

Chris´ expression darkened. "This is one family against the lives of dozens!" His voice grew angry.

"Bullshit!" Wyatt exploded, but his parents were too preoccupied with what happened to reprimand him for his language. "This is not just about the Halliwells! There are hundreds of witches out there in the world. And what about the feys and gnomes in the woods? If you had used magic, you would have started a hunt on every magical being in the world! What are a bunch of high school students in comparison with thousands of us?"

Chris looked startled, just like his parents. The whole family had been thinking of Wyatt as an insolent brat that didn´t think too deeply about things he did or risked. His hard, cold words rang true, but too cruel coming from a teenager. For the first time since Chris´ birth Piper and Leo saw the emotionless conqueror from the future in their older son.

The tense silence that settled over them was broken by the ringing of a phone. Collecting herself, Piper got up to pick it up. "Yes. Oh, hi, Daryl. Yes, yes, I heard about what happened in the school. No, the boys are at home... they... managed to get away. Did you catch him? Oh... I see... Yes, yes, bye..." She slowly lowered the receiver.

"Piper?" Leo said softly.

She turned to them. "The boy... the shooter... he's dead... he shot himself in the head before the police got there."

The anger seeped from the room. And when Wyatt leaned closer to his brother, Chris accepted the invitation and leaned into his arms, knowing that only Wyatt could understand what he saw and lived through, having seen it and lived through it too. And when the first tears started to fall from Chris´ deep green eyes, it didn´t matter who was right and who was wrong...


The End