Title: Hungry

Author: Juanita Dark

Rating: PG

Spoilers: S6, 'The Legend Of Sleepy Halliwell'

Summary: When pizza becomes a problem.

Disclaimer: Not mine Kern, Burge, Spelling, and Co.'s

Author's Notes: Future!fic. This was meant to be an answer to the 100-word Food challenge then it became longer and morphed into the F.E.A.R. challenge, then The X-Files Title challenge - until it became too long and off-track to categorise.

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Hungry

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Food easily aroused reactive emotions in him. He had already had several memorable episodes where telekinetically bending his fork at the dinner table had gotten the better of him. It wasn't their fault, he kept reminding himself - not their fault that mom was a better cook.

It was their fault, however, that they'd never paid attention to her cooking long enough to make their own attempts remotely edible - and that they then kept trying. The last few weeks had seen Phoebe, in particular, bent on the mantra of 'try, try and try again'

If he concentrated he could hear his aunts in the kitchen every so often making out Phoebe's whisper reaching a shrillish level of panic.

PJ, as usual, ignored them both - her mother's efforts a cooking becoming a long-standing point of embarrassment - but Wyatt smirked at him from across the table:

"Only a matter of time before we hear the magic words."

To which, as if on cue, Paige re-entered the dining room, hands open and empty, by way of apology:

"Okay, who's up for pizza and ice-cream?"

Chris didn't answer but looked down desperate to cover his anger, kicking sideways under the table, knocking the wood of the table leg.

On his opposite, Wyatt rose smugly because he'd anticipated correctly, and offered:

"I'll dial it."

"And I'll order," PJ finally piped in, as she rose to follow her cousin, hands in the pockets of her dungarees. Their interchange of "no, you won't", "yes, I will" rippling off the walls and into the parlour behind them.

Chris, left alone at the table, considered his options, still unwilling to meet his aunt's eyes but hearing her voice:

"Nothing special you want to order, huh?"

He imagined the corners of her lips turned upwards in a smile but her expression remaining quizzical, probing.

After a beat, Chris finally looked up at her. She was just as he'd pictured her.

He wanted to say something... something about what he was feeling and how it all got mixed up in the memory of his mother in the kitchen and that smell - that special baking cookies smell - and her dark eyes kind but aware and understanding his pain when he came in from school and, first thing, kicked his rucksack, full of books, under the table. But really, there were no words for that, just some undefined glass fibre sensation that cut when he put his hand out to define it. A fading memory he was horrified to realise that he would eventually forget and have to search for in her compassionate glances from photographs.

Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore. He couldn't feed this... thing. He didn't know what it was.

Swiftly, he kicked away from the table and followed the others down the hall without answering, or even stopping to answer.

Paige pursed her lips.

"He's angry," Phoebe's voice stated softly beside her, the immediacy startling her out of her thoughts.

Flushed, Paige touched a hand to her chest and found her heart pounding: "I think it's time we announced the sneaking up on people in this house."

The shadows around Phoebe's eyes were grave but tempered by a tenderness of considering others thoughts while absorbing their feelings. She had learned over the years not to be so obtrusive with her power, especially around her nephews, and later her daughter. The discipline often gave her strange moments of reticence but at that moment she continued:

"They're all angry."

Paige considered this for a moment: "All of them? Wyatt seems okay."

"Well," Phoebe squinted trying to nail the feeling. "He's not angry at me, though the other two... I'm picking up some resentment."

"Are you sure it's not coming from me?"

"You? Why you?"

Paige sat down on the nearest chair, as casually as she could.

"Well, one, that power is never going to be comfortable to live around and, two, this is crazy, we can't replace Piper, we can't hope to replace Piper and we most definitely can't cook like Piper. To save our lives."

Phoebe laid a comforting hand on Paige's shoulder as she went on.

"When I was adopted, I at least didn't have any memory of who my real parents were. There was nothing to miss but... they knew their mom, we knew their mom, she was our sister and... it's like there's this great sucking void we're trying to fill, and it's a star-shaped hole and we're squares and we can't ever possibly expect fill it. We shouldn't even be trying."

Phoebe pulled up a chair and sat, elbows on the table, hands under her chin:

"We're trying too hard," then pausing, added: "No, I'm trying too hard." Her shoulders sagged and she seemed to shrink. Sighing she placed a hand over her eyes. "Sorry to drag you all into this, it's just PJ seems really... distant lately and I think I... overcompensated."

"Phoebe, you know you're never going to be the soccer mom type," Paige noted dryly.

"I know, but I... it seems like one day we were doing fine and the next day I don't know what happened, she just..."

"Had her own problems and wanted to keep them to herself."

"Yes," Phoebe admitted reluctantly.

"Remind you of anyone?"

"Please, I was not like that. I was never..." Paige looked Phoebe directly in the eye and watched her sister crumble and relent. "...Like that exactly."

Abruptly, Phoebe shot out of her seat as if remembering something: "Oh my God, she's turning into me!"

Paige tilted her head closed her eyes for a second and then said, without raising her voice, "Okay, sit!"

It was so irresistible a command that Phoebe sat down immediately.

"Are you breathing?"

Phoebe answered: "Yes."

"Good. Deep breaths."

"Yep."

"Feel better now?"

"Totally. Well, as much as I can."

"Good. Firstly, no wonder she's distant, as you already said you're trying too hard. Let her come to you. You already know what she's feeling. If you feel, that she feels, that she's over her head you'll know. So, no need to worry there. Secondly, Chris - why's he angry?"

"I'm trying too hard, I guess with the cooking. And he misses his mom. They both miss their mom. I miss their mom."

"We all do."

"But there's all this pain and we can't, I can't, take it away."

"Nobody's asking you to. I think what we all need is time."

Phoebe took another deep breath. "Time, right. Time. You know, you're starting to sound like Leo."

Paige smiled and then laughed lightly making Phoebe wonder what the joke was.

"What?"

"She once said I was 'like her husband only with boobs'."

Phoebe smiled to herself, "Yep, sounds like Piper."

A piercing squeal ripped them from their nostalgia as PJ, wailing, came thundering back into the dining room, her pigtails flapping against her shoulders.

"Mom! Wyatt orbed to Italy!"

"Italy? Has he come back yet?" Phoebe asked already on top of the situation.

"Did he take Chris with him?" It was Paige's turn.

PJ shook her head sending her pigtails whirring, as Chris walked in behind them.

"He said he was going out for some real food," he admitted.

"Well," said Phoebe, slightly insulted despite herself. "Sounds to me like someone's done this before."

Chris looked down at the floor: "He said I'd slow him down this time."

Seeing him flinch, Phoebe walked over to him, putting her arms around him gently: "And if I could have orbed at your age I would have done it all the time. I think he just said that so he could go some place on his own."

"And show off," PJ rolled her eyes contemptuously.

"Think you could show us where he might have gone?" Phoebe invited, feeling Chris' emotions roll then lift.

"I think so," he decided philosophically. "There's this place he likes to go to."

"Then we'll all go." Paige shrugged, making it seem more nonchalant than Phoebe sensed she was feeling. "Take my hand, and you lead."

"I can do that?" Chris asked.

"Hold my hand and you can definitely do that." Paige agreed.

"Okay then," Phoebe glanced nervously at Paige while taking Chris and PJ by the hand.

"Will I need a coat?" PJ asked as Paige joined them.

"I'll tell you what," said Paige. "If you need a coat I'll buy you one when you get there. Both of you."

"What about Wyatt?" Chris asked.

"I think he's hot-headed enough not to need one, don't you?" Phoebe replied, taking Chris' hand and nodding.

Slowly a smile began to emerge on Chris' face as he squeezed his aunt's hand radiating his power outward and then upward, carrying them all.

-fin-