It's been awhile. I'm not obsessed with Charmed like I was a few years ago, but re-reading some old stories has revived my interest a little.

About this one-shot: I started it a long time ago. I found it on my hard drive recently and thought it was a waste to leave it unfinished since I had three-quarters of it completed. Even though this idea has probably been done a million times since then, I still wanted to post my own take on it. I'm not fond of Witchstock either, but the episode seemed like the right place to set this story.

It Runs in the Family

Three o'clock in the morning was the worst hour for him to be alone. With Leo Up There, Piper, Wyatt and most of the city asleep, and Phoebe and Paige not in the manor at all, there was no one to distract Chris from his darkest thoughts. His last memory of Bianca burned more vividly than ever as if branded on his soul. He'd seen the life fade from her eyes as he'd turned his back on her for the Book of Shadows, then the portal to the past. She would not follow him again. Her impalement had been fatal. She was dead—dead at the hands of his own brother.

He hated him. He wanted to kill the bastard. He didn't deserve to be saved. He gave him every chance to renounce his evil ways, but turning, then slaughtering, the love of his life was the final straw.

Chris had strolled to Wyatt's room with cold purpose until he saw the toddler—harmless, good and innocent— in his playpen, and his murderous urges receded. Leaning against the doorframe, he realized he couldn't kill the child, but he couldn't promise the same leniency for his older self. "If I can't save you, I swear to god I'll stop you," Chris had vowed.

The sisters and Leo didn't care. They shot the odd pitying glance his way when they thought he wasn't looking, but that was the extent of their sympathy. They weren't sorry about Bianca herself because they only knew her as a cold-blooded assassin.

He figured that if he couldn't sleep, he might as well do something useful. He orbed to the attic, a place that should have invoked his nostalgia. Instead, it served as a painful reminder of the home and family he'd lost, and the consequences if he failed his mission.

With a flick of his hand, the light switched on. His eyes drifted to the spot where Bianca had died and if he stared long enough, he could almost see her lifeless body sprawled on the floor again. With a shiver, he squeezed his eyes shut and turned away before the thought went any further.

Piper had left the candles on the floor from earlier when they'd called Grams after her go-go boots had accidentally transported Paige to the nineteen sixties. Naturally, Piper and Phoebe had gone too once they found out what happened. Chris and Leo had taken on an unstoppable slime demon during their absence, and only the sisters' timely return to the present had prevented it from killing them all.

Chris sidestepped the candles for the Book of Shadows on the podium. He barely touched the book when the leather-bound cover and half the pages flipped open on their own. Chris stumbled back, fearing for a wild second that the book was attacking him, but then the pages stopped at the spell to summon the dead. He blinked. What was going on? The book came alive for family members only and as far as everyone knew, he wasn't a Halliwell. He was a random Whitelighter, recently revealed witch, from the future. He had no use for the spell. The people he would have summoned off the top of his head were alive and well in this time period.

He slammed the book closed.

A second later, the Book of Shadows flew open again to the summoning spell.

Chris cocked an eyebrow at the ceiling. Okay, he could take a hint. Somebody out there was eager to talk to him.

He arranged the candles in a circle and lit them one by one with a lighter from a nearby shelf. At the podium, he kept his eyes glued to the page while reciting the spell, but looked up when he reached the last two lines. "…Come to me, I summon thee. Cross now the great divide."

White orbs swirled in the circle, spinning faster and faster until they coalesced into one large light. The light faded to reveal a woman in its place. Her dark hair flowed past her shoulders, and her green eyes and mouth were stretched in a warm smile. When she walked out of the circle, her ghostly form turned solid so that she appeared indistinguishable from a live person.

"Prue?" gasped Chris. Belatedly, he remembered that he was supposed to play the total stranger like he had with Grams, and rectified his mistake. "Prue Halliwell?"

"Aunt Prue?"

Chris was unable to squelch the disappointment from his voice, and the fourteen year old saw from Wyatt's downcast look that he wasn't alone in his feeling. The rain beating against the attic roof didn't cover the uncomfortable silence as he double-checked the notepad he'd used to scrawl down the summoning spell. As far as he could tell, they'd done everything correctly.

"Hi Chris, Wyatt," said Aunt Prue, her expression as sombre as theirs. Because she didn't stray from her position inside the circle, she stayed transparent.

"Hi." Chris nudged his brother in the ribs, but Wyatt was too lost in his gloom to pay him heed. He faced her to apologize for Wyatt's behaviour. "Sorry, it's not that we aren't happy to see you, but we were sort of expecting someone else."

"You were hoping for your mom and you got me instead."

"Uh…" The brothers exchanged nervous looks. They shifted on the spot, reluctant to offend her.

"It's okay, I understand," she said. "There's no need to explain yourselves."

With the initial awkwardness out of the way, Chris cut to the heart of the matter. "You've seen Mom, right?" She nodded. "How is she?"

Prue's mouth stretched into a grim line. She had been with Piper right before answering their call. Her own death had been hard, but having one of her sisters join her, and so early too, was worse. "Other than mild shock, she's doing as well as can be given the circumstances."

Against his will, Chris' mind veered off to the cause of those circumstances. Him and his mother home alone, Wyatt Up There with his father to train with Excalibur—it had started as a typical day, but it hadn't ended like one. Demons often attacked the manor, but this one had been different—lethal, agile, and unaffected by Chris' telekinesis. At this realization, his mother had shouted at him twice to orb out. He should have listened. He should have left to get help. Anything would have been more useful than disobeying her.

Everyone had assured him otherwise, but he knew the truth: his presence had fuelled her instinct to protect him, distracting her from the enemy at hand. Why else had the demon been able to hurl an athame at her? A throw so strong that the blade had punched through her heart and exited her back.

Chris began to tremble as disjointed images of the aftermath flooded his mind. Blinded by tears, he'd screamed for Wyatt and Dad as he cradled her bloody body in his arms. Even now his throat still ached, and he almost didn't want it to heal because it was the one reminder that he wasn't dreaming. It didn't matter that they'd orbed down quickly, or that they'd taken turns trying to produce the familiar golden glow from their hands. They couldn't heal the dead.

Wyatt saw the pain twisting on Chris' face and put a comforting arm around his shoulder. He didn't blame Chris for their mother's death even though Chris himself did. In a bid to redirect his attention, Wyatt voiced the question gnawing at the both of them.

"Can we see her?"

Their aunt looked miserable at having to answer. "I'm so sorry, boys. You can't. The Elders said you wouldn't be able to move on if you saw her too soon. It would distract you from your destinies as the sons of a Charmed One."

His grief temporarily forgotten, Chris cried, "What does that have to do with anything?"

But his outrage was nothing compared to his brother's. Wyatt's face flushed an ugly shade of red as blue orbs engulfed the table behind him. The table orbed across the room and smashed into the wall, the legs snapping off upon impact.

"'Distract us from our destinies'? What kind of reason is that? Damn them!" roared Wyatt. He flexed his hands, ready to smash another object with his powers—this time on purpose.

Aunt Prue held her palms up. "Believe me, Wyatt, I don't like it any more than you do. Your mom and aunts went through the same thing when I died, and it sucked back then too. The good news is your mom figured this would happen and asked me to give you a message from her."

Although some of the tension slackened from Wyatt's shoulders, the red didn't leave his cheeks. Chris wasn't worried, so long as he let her speak.

"She says that she's sorry for leaving you two, and she loves you so much. She also hopes the Elders will let you summon her soon. Until then, she'll be watching over you."

Chris could picture his mother speaking the message so clearly that the grief threatened to overwhelm him again. Clenching his fists, he fought to concentrate on a more positive emotion, like his gratitude towards Aunt Prue. Without her, his mother wouldn't have been able to communicate with them at all.

"How long do we have to wait? A month?" asked Chris.

Wyatt snorted. "Don't count on it, Chris. This is the Elders we're talking about. We've wasted our lives doing their dirty work and all those hypocrites can do is sit on their asses, making up stupid rules about why we can't see our own mother. They'll let us see her in ten years if we're lucky!" His voice grew louder with each sentence and by the end he was yelling.

"Wyatt..."

"No, he's right," Chris interjected.

Emboldened by his support, Wyatt said to Aunt Prue, "You can tell them we're done with their rules."

The room went dead as she blinked at him in surprise. No one in the Halliwell family cared much for the Elders except their dad, obviously, since he was one of them. Yet, Chris didn't think he had the guts to sever ties with the Elders altogether. The consequences of such a drastic move were unthinkable. Wyatt was just speaking out of anger. Wasn't he?

The former Charmed One wagged a finger at him. "Is that any way to greet your aunt?"

Chris dug his nails into the sides of the podium in an effort to support himself. His aunt? She wouldn't refer to herself that way unless she knew her relation to him, which meant she knew his true identity. Impossible. He'd taken every precaution to keep anyone from guessing his identity. Had she developed psychic powers in the afterlife?

"How did you know...?"

"… that you're Piper and Leo's son? I didn't. Well, not right away. It was the small things that added up. You're familiar with the house, you resemble Piper and," she said wryly, "you have my powers. After Grams returned from that hippie business, she told me about you. She said you were, and I quote, 'saucy and stubborn, but brave'—which basically confirmed my suspicions. Who else would go back in time to do what you're doing? I'm surprised my sisters haven't figured you out yet."

Chris' senses were crushed by an overwhelming desire to pull the plug on the summoning spell and flee the house, but his legs wouldn't budge.

"Easy, Chris. I'm not going to tell anyone. Grams doesn't know and neither does my mother—I mean, your grandmother. Your secret is safe with me."

He relaxed his grip somewhat on the podium. He knew from past experience that Prue stuck to her promises. It didn't mean he was comfortable with her knowing his secret, though.

"You're early," said Chris slowly. "Mom didn't summon you until after I was born."

"That long?" Shock, then wistfulness, flitted through Prue's eyes. "Actually, my sisters could have summoned me after they defeated the Titans."

Chris frowned. He supposed it was partly his fault that the sisters were ignorant about their recent privilege. Between the demon hunts and their hectic normal lives, they'd had little time and energy to spare on the deceased.

"Then why'd you come to me?" he asked.

"Simple," said Prue. "I'm here to help you."

"I need your help," said Chris hoarsely. He paced back and forth in front of his aunt, wringing his hands.

Prue stared at him, horrified by her nephew's haggard appearance. He didn't look like he'd slept or eaten properly in awhile—the dark bags under his eyes were accentuated by the ashen boniness of his face. In the last two years, Piper's death had taken its toll on everyone, especially on the boys, but Prue sensed there was more going on.

"Chris, what's wrong?"

"It's Wyatt," croaked Chris. "He's been acting strange lately and staying out late every night. He wouldn't tell me why, so I followed him yesterday and saw him…"

"Saw him do what?" she softly encouraged.

"I saw him kill a witch. He… he used his powers to strangle her," he whispered. Prue gasped, but Chris wasn't done. "That's not all. He went to the Underworld after and spoke to a bunch of demons like they were his friends. I almost got caught, but I orbed out before they knew it was me."

After a moment of stunned silence, she said, "Have you told your father about this?" Despite putting his Elder duties over the boys too often for her liking, Leo was better equipped to handle the situation. It struck her as strange that Chris should come running to her, a spirit, over him.

Chris shook his head as though reliving a painful memory and said, "Yeah, but he didn't believe me."

Prue's nostrils flared and her voice rose to a yell. "He what?"

"Well, what else is new? He never listens to me. As far as he's concerned, I'm acting out to get his attention." His entire frame sagged, the bitterness deflating out of him almost as quickly as it had flared up. "I'm scared, Aunt Prue. There's no one else I can talk to now that Grandpa is gone."

"Gone" was better than saying his grandfather was bedridden at the hospital with lung cancer. His grandfather had always been there for him—his place was like a second home to Chris, especially after the Event. He was the first person he would have turned to, but Chris couldn't bring himself to burden him with his problems, not when he was so sick. The doctor's prognosis wasn't good, a fact that Chris couldn't bear to think about.

"That's not true," argued Prue, reining in her own sadness about her father's cancerous state. "What about my sisters?"

"I never see them anymore," mumbled Chris. "It's not their fault. I mean, they have their own problems to deal with."

Prue had never seen Chris look so defeated. God, what was happening to their family? They were drifting apart when he needed them most. She wanted nothing more than to hug him and assure him everything was fine, but that would have been a lie. So she took him by the shoulders and looked him in the eye. "Chris? Please listen to me. This is important. Go to your aunts and tell them what you told me."

"I don't know," he said, peering down at his feet.

Prue gently lifted his chin up and continued, "I realize you're not as close to them as before, but they're your family. Tell them what's going on and get them speak to your father. There's something wrong with Wyatt and Leo needs to know about it. If that doesn't work, summon me, but only as a last resort."

Finally, Chris nodded and promised to call them within the hour. Relieved, Prue wished him good luck and returned to the spirit realm. When she didn't hear from him, she assumed that her sisters and Chris had managed to knock some sense into Leo and resolve the situation with Wyatt.

She couldn't have been more mistaken. Death seemed determined to collect all of the Charmed Ones—weeks later, Phoebe and Paige were killed in a demonic ambush. With all of them dead, Wyatt was free to do what he pleased. It was then that they realized how far gone he truly was, how useless their interventions had been. They were helpless to stop him from declaring himself supreme ruler over mortals and witches alike, and setting loose his legion of demons.

They couldn't find Chris either on the rare occasions they got a glimpse of a world shot to hell. He never contacted them and it wasn't a stretch to assume that it was because the materials needed for the summoning spell were scarce. As long as he didn't join them in the spirit realm, Prue held out hope that her nephew was safe, wherever he was.

Prue's offer to help left Chris confused. "You know which demon gets to Wyatt?"

"No, I mean I'm here to help you," she said, gesturing at him for emphasis. She strode closer to stand on the opposite side of the podium. "I didn't call my sisters because they're more or less okay for the moment. It's you I'm concerned about."

Understanding crashed down on him and sank to the bottom of his stomach like an iron weight. He wasn't sure how much she knew about him, but any amount would entail dredging up subjects he preferred to avoid. He adopted the blandest expression he could muster and stuck his hands in his pockets. "I'm fine," he said.

Her tone was disbelieving. "Are you?"

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"You lost someone you love. That's not something you get over in a couple of weeks."

So she'd heard about Bianca. Pain staked through his chest at the mere thought of her. It was the last thing Chris wished to talk about, and he felt a flicker of anger. This wasn't the Aunt Prue he was familiar with. He was a total stranger to her, and it seemed presumptuous of her to think otherwise just because she deduced her relation to him.

"As I told the others, Bianca's not a threat anymore. End of story."

"I'm not talking about her as a threat. She was important to you, and that's what matters," she persisted. "Look, I don't claim to know what happened, but I know how difficult it's been for you."

Chris dropped his eyes to the floor and balled his hands into fists on top of the Book of Shadows. He could feel his anger slashing its way to the surface, but he couldn't tell if it was directed at Prue, Wyatt, or something else.

"You have every right to feel devastated and shutting it out won't help. Maybe if you talked to somebody—"

"She's dead because of me, all right?" snapped Chris. Two weeks worth of suppressed grief and rage threatened to consume him as he stormed away from the podium. He brought his palm to his face, shielding the suspicious moisture that shone in his eyes. "She tried to save me and got caught in the crossfire."

It was the first time he'd acknowledged that fact to himself. As much as he blamed Wyatt, he also blamed himself. If he'd reached the floorboard sooner, Bianca wouldn't have needed to hold Wyatt. He wouldn't have struck her, and she might still be alive and they could have escaped to the past together.

When he didn't get a response, he turned around. "Prue?"

Seeing her mournful face, he immediately regretted his outburst. She was simply trying to help, and he thanked her by lashing out at her. Chris quickly wiped his unshed tears away with the back of his hand, hoping it looked like he was just rubbing his eyes from exhaustion. He took a deep breath to calm himself. Before he could apologize, Prue walked over to him and spoke.

"Chris, I understand how you feel. More than you think." At his curious stare, her face clouded over as she elaborated, "Andy died doing the same thing for me."

His insides squirmed with guilt. He didn't know who Andy was, but he must have been to Prue what Bianca was to him, and talking about him was clearly painful for her. "I'm sorry, I had no idea."

"I wanted to give up being a witch," she confessed, and Chris tilted his head in surprise. Of course, Prue was as human as any other witch, but it was still odd to hear her admit to a moment of weakness. "But my sisters helped me see that it wasn't my fault, and giving up magic would mean losing a part of myself. What I'm trying to say is that you can't beat myself up over what happened."

"Why not?" he demanded, throwing his hands up. Family, friends and grief counsellors—they'd all told him that he wasn't responsible for his mother's death. Yet, no one ever bothered to explain how, and it seemed like he was going through that exercise again with Bianca.

"Because you never asked anything of her. She chose to risk her life for you because she cared about you. Wouldn't you do the same for her?"

"Yeah" said Chris quietly, remembering how he'd been prepared to fight Wyatt with his bare fists if he hadn't been able to get his powers back.

"I doubt you could have stopped her any more than I could have stopped Andy." Prue closed her eyes and sighed. "I tried to get him to stay away and he came anyway."

"Have you seen him since you…?" Chris couldn't bring himself to finish, but she understood what he meant.

"A few times," she replied, and a smile crossed her lips. "He guides people now."

Chris gave a pained smile of his own as he thought of his and Bianca's final moments together.

Haven't we been here before?

Maybe we will again.

Maybe, if he succeeded in changing the future. He wasn't sure how good his odds were, but the slightest possibility of seeing Bianca and everyone else he'd lost over the years was enough to replant a seed of hope inside of him.

He took several steps back before sinking onto the couch behind him, his hands resting on his lap. Prue sat next to him and placed a comforting hand on his forearm.

"You don't have to go through this by yourself, Chris."

"It's fine." Chris shrugged. "I've been doing things on my own for a long time. I'm used to it."

"It doesn't have to be that way. What about your family here in the present?"

Her words were oddly reminiscent of his conversation six years ago with her future counterpart. He had acted on her advice right away, but time travel and secret identities hadn't been factors back then. "In case you haven't noticed, they don't exactly trust me," he said darkly.

"Can you really blame them?"

Her question piqued Chris' curiosity about something he never considered asking her until then. "If it were you, would you trust me?"

"Honestly?" said Prue, and Chris nodded his permission for her to be as blunt as she pleased. "It's hard for me to say. Your intentions are good, but I'm not sure if all the secrets are helping your cause."

As much as it hurt, he appreciated her truthfulness. He turned his gaze from her face to his knees and said, "I see."

"I do think they've been too hard on you, secretive or not," she added, which made him feel somewhat better.

"Even if I wanted to tell them, I can't. It could change the future in worse ways." He gave her a pointed look. "I thought you, of all people, would get that."

From the stories he heard as a kid, Prue had time traveled on multiple occasions with her sisters. She had always been careful not to tamper with anything, unless it pertained to why she was there. Why should anyone else be exempt from the rules?

Prue crossed her arms and leaned back in her seat. "Normally I would, but this is different. The future must have gone to hell if you came back this far to change things."

Images of adult Wyatt dressed in all black, the manor-turned-museum and ruined cityscape of San Francisco flashed through Chris' mind. "It's pretty bad," he admitted.

"Which means you can't play it safe if you want to get the job done. That includes breaking a few rules and taking drastic measures."

Like binding Wyatt's powers. He'd toyed with the idea ever since his forced trip to the future. He'd never brought it up to the sisters because they would claw him apart before they agreed to do such a thing, even if it was for the greater good. Talking to Prue, however, made him re-evaluate his priorities. Maybe he ought to give it a try and take "drastic measures" if they didn't listen to him.

He didn't share those thoughts with his aunt, though. For the first time since he came to the attic, the tiniest hint of a genuine grin graced Chris' lips as he replied, "I wonder if you'd say that if you knew half the things I've done so far. I bet you wouldn't like it."

"I already don't like it." Prue grinned back. "But I get your reasons. Whatever it takes to protect Wyatt, right?"

Chris opened his mouth to correct her—that he was doing it to stop Wyatt from turning evil, not just protect him. Luckily, he caught himself at the last second and instead coughed out, "Right."

Prue touched his forearm once more and gave it a gentle squeeze. As much as she hated encouraging her nephew to commit morally questionable acts, she would be lying if she said she wouldn't do the same in his place. She recalled the time she had stabbed Piper to eject an alchemist spirit possessing her. She had been lucky that she and Phoebe were able to trick the spirit into bringing Piper back to life, because if it had gone wrong, she might very well have murdered her own sister. She prayed that Chris would never be put in that position.

Chris' jaw cracked as he yawned suddenly. Prue glanced at the clock on the wall and leaped up from the couch in surprise. "Chris, it's almost four o'clock in the morning. You should get some sleep."

He let out a tired laugh after checking the clock himself. "Yeah, I guess I should."

He got up and started towards the candles when Prue moved to stand in front of him. "And you should tell them who you are."

Chris stiffened and said nothing.

"Think about it, at least," she said.

After a pause, Chris sighed his grudging agreement, "Fine."

"Really think about it. Don't be stubborn like your mom and pretend that you will."

"My mom?" he echoed. "She's the one who said I reminded her of you, including the part about being stubborn. "

"Hmm, flattery won't get you anywhere this time, mister," said Prue, half-scolding, but secretly she was honoured that future Piper would compare one of her sons to her.

They went over to the candles together, and she enveloped him in a hug. "Take care of yourself, Chris."

Chris found himself returning her embrace, holding longer than he intended. It had been so long since a family member had expressed that kind warmth towards him that he stalled a few more seconds to revel in it. "You too, and thanks for everything."

They broke apart and Prue re-entered the circle, where she turned transparent again. Just when she was about to sever her link to the mortal world, Chris said, "Oh, Aunt Prue? I'll put in a good word for you with your sisters."

At this, she gave him one last smile before disappearing in a flurry of white lights. As the summoning spell wore off, a breeze rustled the curtains. Then, the attic was silent. Chris bent down to pick up the candles and placed them in their usual spot on the shelves. Lost in thought, he let his hand linger on the last candle.

Nothing had changed. Bianca wasn't coming back. The future was the same dark place as when he'd left it, and the sisters and Leo didn't trust him. In spite of all that, Chris felt lighter knowing that there was one family member out there who supported him.

The End