A/N: So I wasn't planning to update this story any more – for those who don't know, I've been focusing on my original fiction lately – but a couple of recent reviews got me thinking about it again and this is the result. I hope it's okay… this was a hell of a tricky chapter to write and I'd love to get some feedback.

Chapter Four: Chris

Chris woke screaming.

For a moment he sat there, panting, limp strands of hair obscuring his eyes, unable to remember where he was. Then the cream walls of the room came into focus, decorated with those familiar colourful tapestries and he sagged back against a pillow that was damp with sweat. Bianca's house. He was at Bianca's house, in her spare room – the same place he'd been every night for the last several weeks.

He closed his eyes and tried to calm down. It wasn't easy. Fragments of the dream kept resurfacing – Warren Trent's tortured face, the pain of the magic ripping out of him, the glee when he'd finally given into it – no! While he was awake he could mostly block the images and sounds out, but his subconscious was free to run riot when he was asleep, taking him back, again and again, to that evening.

A gentle knock on the door heralded the entrance of a slim, unassuming woman with short blonde hair and a kind smile. Lin Everett was Bianca's mother and Chris rather liked her – well, as much as he liked any adult. That evening he'd rocked up out of the blue, drunk, stinking of fear and cigarettes, she'd taken one look at him and calmly asked Bianca to make up the spare room. There had been no questions, no censure; just the steady acceptance he'd so desperately needed.

"Nightmare?" she asked now, closing the door gently behind her.

Flushing darkly, Chris rearrange his duvet so it covered him. "I guess." Realising that sounded kind of rude, he added a muttered, "Sorry for, er, waking you up."

She dismissed his concerns with a wave of her hand. "I was awake anyhow and the girls sleep like their lives depend on it so I doubt you've troubled them." She smiled and settled on the edge of his bed, folding her dark red dressing gown neatly over her knees and straightening the tie. "Do you want to talk about it?"

"I'm okay." Chris reached for the glass of water from his bedside table, but his trembling hands betrayed him, droplets spilling onto the bed sheet. Lin took it from him without comment and waited until he had composed himself again.

"It can help," she prompted finally. "Talking, I mean."

"I don't…" Chris cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm okay."

Lin smiled slightly. "Talking makes it real, huh?"

He bowed his head and mumbled something that might have been agreement.

"Okay, well how about I talk instead?" The bed creaked as she shifted her weight. "I've been meaning to anyway, since you came to us. I didn't quite imagine the conversation to happen in the middle of the night," she added, humour tingeing her voice, "but I suppose it's as good a time as any." She paused. "Chris, I know you've been through a terrible time, but you need to know that it wasn't your fault. What happened at your school was an accident. A horrible, tragic accident, but an accident nonetheless. No one could have predicted that your new power would awaken like that, let alone you so you have to stop blaming yourself for something that you couldn't control. You have to let the guilt go before it consumes you."

She made it sound so easy, like he could just flip a switch and bam – everything would be back to normal. He'd killed people. Life would never be normal again.

"I'm not saying it will happen overnight, but acceptance is the first step towards healing. It will be a difficult path but I promise, we'll be there to help you if you'll just let us. I've been told I'm a good listener, so please, let me listen. Let me help. I can –"

"Stop talking like you know what I'm going through!" Chris flared. "You don't know anything so you can't just… you can't just sit there, spouting off all this crap about forgiving and listening –" He swung his legs around, feet hitting the carpeted floor with a satisfying thump.

Lin leaned forward. "Chris, I do understand –"

"No! No, you don't! You can't – you haven't, so you can't, okay? I feel this – this giant hole inside, eating away at me and I can't, I can't breathe it's getting so big."

He stood up suddenly, needing to move. Lin's spare bedroom was quite large, with a bay window at one end, and he went to stand in it, gulping in a lungful of the crisp, fresh air that was flowing through the open window he'd opened before he went to bed. His eyes were wet but he refused to let the tears fall. He hated to cry in front of other people – it made him look so weak and pathetic.

Behind him, Linn was quiet for several minutes, patiently waiting for him to regain his composure. When his shoulders had finally stopped shaking, she asked, "What do you know about us? What we do, I mean."

He wanted to ignore her, but the abrupt change in subject threw him and he found himself searching for an answer. "Um… you train witches?"

Lin smiled faintly. "That's part of it, true. This is the other part." She pulled up the sleeve of her dressing gown and turned over her wrist. Despite himself, Chris squinted at it. There was a red birthmark there, in the shape of... it looked like some kind of bird? Bianca had one too, he recalled distantly; Chris had meant to ask her about it, but he'd had other things on his mind lately.

"You've heard us referred to as the Phoenix witches, right?"

Chris nodded slowly. "I figured it was just... I dunno. A surname or something?"

"Well it may have been once," Lin agreed, "but not now. Now it's our clan name."

Their clan name. They were a clan? Chris had known, vaguely, that a lot of the people he'd met since coming here had been related. Bianca and Liv were sisters, Lin was their mom and Amy was their cousin. But a clan?

"How many of you are there?" he blurted.

Lin laughed. "Not hundreds, don't worry. You won't have to meet us all! Maybe... ten or so family groups spread out across America, but most of the time we all handle our own affairs."

"Oh, okay."

"The one time we do come together is for work." She watched him carefully, as if looking for something. Chris began to feel uncomfortable by the scrutiny and after a few breaths Lin sighed and dropped her gaze. "I thought Bianca might have told you, but apparently not. You see, Chris, I do understand how you're feeling right now. I understand because I've felt it too."

"You've..." The words got stuck in Chris's throat and he coughed to clear it. "... You've killed someone?"

"Yes."

Her simple admission was almost more shocking than a big revelation would have been. Lin, Bianca's mom, a middle-aged suburban housewife, had killed someone?

"Was it an accident?"

"No."

"Self-defence?" he asked, clutching at straws.

She shook her head and something painful twisted in his gut. So that made it... murder. Lin had murdered someone – just like him.

"Who was it? What was their name?"

"I can't remember. Not any of them," Lin admitted quietly. "It was – a long time ago and I… it wasn't like it was with you. But I know how it can tear you up inside. The guilt, the shame, the disgust…" Her voice trailed off and the room fell into silence, only broken by the soft ticking of the clock on the wall. "Traditionally, the Phoenix witches are assassins," Lin continued finally. "For centuries, we were hired for our talent for killing. This was the world in which I was raised."

Assassins. Chris didn't know what to make of that. It was one thing to take a life by accident, but on purpose? What did this mean?

"Has Bianca –"

"No," Lin interrupted with a decisive wave of her hand. "When Bianca was a child, I had a – someone made me consider what I would say to my children when they asked me what it felt like to kill. And I realised I couldn't lie. And that I never wanted my children to be in a position where they had to lie to their children. So, I set about changing things. I wasn't an easy journey, but I think it was the right decision."

"…Why are you telling me all this?" he asked woodenly, thoughts churning.

"I want to be honest with you, Chris," she said simply. "You've been faced with too many lies already and you don't deserve anymore. I would have told you sooner, but it's not the easiest subject to bring up."

The Phoenix witches were assassins, Bianca's mom had killed someone and they'd told him, just like that. The clues had been there, of course, in the magic they used and the powers they had, but he'd chosen to ignore it. To have it confirmed now should have sent him into a defensive fury, but the honesty disarmed him of any anger or disgust and he just felt numb.

"… Are you evil?"

Lin sighed and looked down at where her hands were clasped in her lap. "Good and evil is a very black and white way of looking at what is, largely, a grey world. But if you want it to be judged in those terms then I would say that we're neutral. Some of our clients are demons, it's true, but some are witches just like you. We offer a service, nothing more."

"A service that includes killing."

"Very rarely, nowadays I'm happy to say. Information gathering is more our line of work now – spying and reconnaissance and such."

"But you do still kill."

"When we have to, to protect ourselves or eliminate a threat. But Chris, are your family really any different?"

Angry denials rose to his lips, but he hesitated to speak them. If you looked at it in the purely black and white terms Lin had mentioned then no, his family really were no different. Whatever their reasons, they look lives.

"They vanquish demons," he argued uncertainly.

"Agreed. But demons have lives too. Can you honestly say that all the ones you've met have been hostile towards you, towards innocents? Weren't some simply trying to live their lives in peace?"

He'd never thought about it like that before. He'd been raised to believe in the whole Good versus Evil thing; that demons were evil and had to be vanquished, full stop. But demons having lives? Demons being innocent? If you looked at the Halliwells from a demon's point of view, would it be just the same as looking at demons from the Halliwells'?

"I can see this is a bit too much for this early in the morning," Lin said, patting his ankle before rising. "Why don't we leave things here for now and then if you have any more questions, we can talk tomorrow, okay?"

Chris watched as she walked towards the door. "Um, Miss Everett?" She looked back enquiringly. "Thanks for telling me the truth," he muttered, flushing.

"Of course, dear."

The conversation with Lin preyed on Chris's mind for the rest of that day. He tried to keep himself distracted, but it was a so called "free day", with no practices or magical training of any kind. Amy and Liv had gone shopping, sniping at each other with a kind of gleeful abandon and Bianca was in a meeting with her mom and a couple of aunts. It left Chris to drift around the house and training centre like an aimless ghost. He longed to go outside, but he knew that the moment he did he'd pop back onto his family's magical radar and honestly, a confrontation with them might just finish him off right now. So he settled on the sofa instead and tried to numb his mind with some trashy daytime TV.

He was onto his fifth re-run of one of those ancient Jerry Springer shows, when something in his pocket vibrated. Twisting over onto one hip, he dug out his mobile and squinted at the screen, expecting another text message. It wasn't though. It was a reminder, about Emily's birthday. He could remember her entering the date in his phone's calendar after he'd forgotten the previous year.

His friends. God, he'd totally blanked them and they didn't even have anything to do with the magical world. He should speak to them; make sure they knew he wasn't lying dead in a ditch somewhere.

He dialled Emily's number before he could change his mind. The phone rang three times before she picked up. "What?"

The distinctly unwelcoming greeting didn't faze him – it was a common Emily trait. If anything, the familiarity of her voice made him begin to smile. "Hey, Em."

"Chris?" There was a brief pause and then she sucked in a noisy breath. Chris braced himself just in time. "Where the hell have you been? You vanish, like a – a fucking genie in a cloud of smoke, then you phone me up and you're all, like, 'hey, Em' as if nothing's happened, you little bastard –"

Chris held the phone away from his ear and let her rant. When she finally came up for air, he said, "So I guess you missed me, huh?"

"Like a hole in the head," she retorted without missing a beat. "Or a wart on my foot. Or a fungus in my –"

"Yeah, yeah, picture getting loud and clear."

"Don't get pissy with me, Halliwell," she warned. "You don't get to do that, not after fucking off without a word."

Chris shifted awkwardly, an unexpected rush of guilt surging through him. In all of this, he'd never considered how his actions might affect his friends. "Yeah, um, sorry about that. Things just got… complicated. Family things."

"We figured that out quickly enough. Devon asked Captain Perfect where you were and almost got his head bitten off. The Boy Wonder's been out of it for weeks – some guy in the year below started mouthing off about what happened to Warren and ended up in the nurse's office."

The mention of his brother brought some uncomfortable memories back of the last time he'd seen him. Wyatt, writhing on the floor in agony; Melinda's accusations ringing in his ears; the fear that he'd just added another name to the list of the dead. He hadn't, he'd learned later, but it had been close. Too close. Despite everything, Chris had been sick with relief at the news. Having that on his conscience would have broken him.

"So then we tried your house, but all Devon managed to get out of – I think it was one of your aunts? – was that you'd come back to school too soon and had some kind of relapse," Emily finished. "Is that really what happened?"

So that was the party line they were all trotting out. As good as any, Chris supposed. "Yeah," he hedged. "I wasn't ready."

"Okay… so why wouldn't they let us see you, huh? It's been over a month, Chris. Over a month. I know what happened was totally shitty, but –"

"I'm not at the manor right now," he cut her off quickly. "They sent me to stay with some family – out of state. Everything back home just reminded me of – of the accident." The lie tripped too easily off his tongue. God, what was his life like if lying to his friends had become second nature?

"Uh huh." Emily still sounded a bit dubious. "So when'll you be back?"

"Not sure. I'm getting better, but it's – it's complicated." He didn't add that he wasn't sure he'd ever be coming back.

"Always is with you," she muttered.

"Keeps life interesting," Chris joked weakly.

"Mmm." He couldn't tell if that was a sound of agreement or not. "Well, least I can tell Devon you're still alive now. He'll be disappointed of course seeing as how I won the bet."

"You bet on if I was dead or not?"

"We bet on who you'd ring first," Emily corrected. "He was convinced it'd be him –" She dropped her voice to mimic their friend, " – it's a guy thing, Em, you wouldn't understand. Plus, I'm higher up in his contacts list than you are – but I knew you'd pick me," she concluded smugly, voice returning to normal. "You like me more."

Taking bets was just such an Emily and Devon thing to do that Chris started laughing, and once he'd started he couldn't stop. He couldn't remember the last time he'd laughed, or even smiled without it being forced. He should have rung his friends earlier.

They chatted for a while, sticking to safe topics, and it was only after Chris had hung up that he realised he'd forgotten to wish her a happy birthday. Slapping himself on the forehead, he quickly sent a text and then cradled his phone in his hands.

God, he missed them. He hadn't realised how much until hearing Emily's voice and the pang of homesickness that struck him was overwhelming. There'd been times when he doubted his decision to join the Phoenix over the last few weeks, but this, combined with what Lin had told him, was bringing it all flooding to the surface. Was being here really the right thing?

The door thudded against the wall behind him and he glanced over the back of the sofa to see Bianca had come into the room. Today she was wearing jeans that hugged her curves and a tight green jumper. Her glorious hair had been pulled back into a messy knot and strands hung loose around her face.

"Hey."

She sauntered across the room to join him, bracing herself on the back of the sofa. Her perfume, something light and spicy filled his nose and he drank it in.

"Who was that?"

"Emily? Friend from school. It's her birthday, so…"

"I heard."

It was difficult to tell what she was thinking and he felt compelled to explain, "Figured I should make contact – it's been ages and she was worried."

"Does she know…?"

"About magic? No. She'd never believe it anyway." He stretched out his arms along the back of the sofa. "I'm not sure if I should be here," he confessed abruptly. "Emily and Devon –"

Bianca came to perch on the end of the sofa beside him. "Don't you think it's safer that you are? Safer for all your mortal friends? Until you can completely control your gifts… do you really want to be responsible for hurting them too?"

Like he'd hurt Warren, Jake and Austin. Like he'd hurt Wyatt. God… Chris squeezed his eyes shut. How could he be so naïve? He'd come here for reasons beyond just rebelling against his family's lies and deception. He'd come here to learn how to control his magic – to stop himself from killing anyone else. A little homesickness and he'd been ready to give up and run back home with his tail between his legs, risking God knows how many people… pathetic.

"Chris, I know it's hard but you're doing the right thing. Trust me." When he didn't reply, she reached out and gripped his chin gently, tilting his face up to hers. "I helped you find out the truth about what happened and I've never lied to you, have I? Not like them. So why don't you trust me?"

He felt himself being draw into the liquid pools of her eyes. "I do trust you."

"Good." Her lips parted into a smile and he loved that he was the one who'd brought it to her face. "I'm glad, you know."

Chris frowned. "Erm, glad I trust you…?"

"That Emily's not your girlfriend or anything."

Her fingers were stroking the back of his neck now. Chris swallowed around the sudden lump in his throat. "Just a friend," he managed. "Like a sister really."

"Mmm."

"I, uh, kind of thought that position might have been… filled," Chris added daringly, not quite able to meet her intense gaze.

"Did you now."

"Was I wrong?" he asked, mouth dry.

"Not necessarily." Her fingers moved up into his hair. "I guess it depends on what you thought of Mom's big revelation." The words dragged Chris's attention abruptly away from the feeling of her touch. "Who we are, the fact that I can do this –" She held up her free hand and conjured an energy ball. "Is it a deal breaker?"

And that was it: decision time. Part of Chris begged for more time to sort everything out in his head, to really process the significance of what Lin had told him. The other part argued that the Phoenix had welcomed him as one of their own, had been upfront about their past and hadn't judged him for anything he'd done. And they had Bianca and Bianca… was Bianca.

"I think I kind of already knew," he admitted finally, "but I sort of ignored it because I had so many other things screwing up my head and… well, it just didn't seem that important. I needed help and you helped me – that should be all there is to it."

"Is it? You know, technically we're dark witches. Mom might have rung in the changes, but that's a fact that'll never change."

"You've never done anything to hurt me," Chris said slowly. "This whole Good/Evil thing… maybe everything's not as black and white as I always thought, I dunno. I've still got to work some things out."

Bianca closed her fingers around the energy ball, extinguishing it. "Fair enough. Just promise you'll keep an open mind, okay? We're not monsters, no matter what box certain people try to force us into."

"Wait –" He jumped up and caught her arm and pulled her back to him. Standing, they were almost the same height. "I know you're not a monster. I never thought – you're amazing, Bianca."

"Amazing?" She quirked an eyebrow. "I like the sound of that."

"Well… you are."

"Not so bad yourself, Halliwell."

Chris snorted. "I'm a mess."

"Maybe I like a challenge."

"Oh you'll get one, trust me."

"Then," she murmured, "the answer is 'yes'."

She kissed him and he kissed her back and everything else became insignificant.

Watching unnoticed from the open doorway behind them, Lin smiled coldly.