Disclaimer: If I owned Charmed, I wouldn't be writing a disclaimer. But it's here, so I don't.

Summary: Paige has a cold. Unfortunately, her sneezes tend to have bad consequences. Slightly AU with a dash of Chris revelation thrown in.

Chapter 7

Wyatt's insistent crying in the back room told Piper and Chris, both hard at work, that he was awake and cranky. Really, Chris couldn't blame him. The band Piper had hired was not one of her better choices. Way too pop cliché for his tastes, though he supposed the strong beats were good to dance to.

"Take him home, Piper." He told his mother. As expected, she frowned at the address, but Chris only jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at the barperson checking on the cash in the register behind them. As her face cleared in realisation, she answered.

"You can take him, Chris. Go check on Paige, but keep Wyatt away from her." She frowned thoughtfully. "Actually, keep yourself away from her as well. I don't need either of you sneezing and orbing as well."

"You don't need to worry." Chris grinned. "Wyatt hardly ever gets sick, and I've never had the sneezing and orbing problem. That would be –" he cut himself off quickly. He sighed at her ruefully.

"How come I always seem to reveal more information about the future around you than anyone else?"

"Because I'm your mother and you can't keep secrets from me." Piper said smugly. Chris raised an eyebrow.

"Does the fact that you only found out that you're my mother today, and not from me even though I've been here for months, mean anything to you?"

"Nope." Piper said cheerfully. She headed towards the source of the crying, picking up her older son and shushing him.

"Here you go!" she told Chris, depositing Wyatt in his arms. Chris absently jogged him up and down, making popping sounds, as Piper dug her keys out of her handbag and handed them over to her other son.

"How do you know about the popcorn machine?" she asked curiously.

"Lottie loves it." He said absent-mindedly, trying to get a grip on Wyatt as he squirmed and giggled.

"Lottie? Who's Lottie?" Piper asked excitedly. Chris realised what he had said and cursed himself.

"This is not fair, mom. You can't just keep trying to pry information out of me! It's not cool!" he protested.

"Hey, it's not my fault that you've suddenly started to leak information about the future." Piper smirked. "Now tell me who Lottie is." Chris sighed.

"If I tell you, will you leave me alone about the future information?"

"No." Piper said truthfully.

"Then why should I tell you? You could decide to do something to change my future. You could erase Lottie, if you know about her."

"Don't be ridiculous, Chris. Why would I erase a child?"

"Don't yell, ok?" Chris pleaded. "Lottieisyourgranddaughter." He blurted out, hoping if he blurred the words together Piper might not understand. No such luck.

"What!" she exlaimed, deciphering quickly. "You have a daughter!"

"No! No, Lottie's not mine." Chris informed her. "She's Wyatt's."

"How old is she?" Piper demanded, eyes shining. "What's she like?"

"Very cute." Chris admitted. "My goddaughter. Blonde hair, brown eyes, like you."

"What about a P name?" Piper asked quizzically. "And how old is she?" she repeated.

"She's Charlotte Piper Halliwell. Charlotte after Melinda Warren's mother." He frowned when he remembered Charlotte's mother's fate. Wyatt's girlfriend had run off, leaving him with the newborn baby. Wyatt had been furious. After bringing Charlotte to a 15 year oldChris, who couldn't refuse a baby, even if it was the Source of all Evil's, Wyatt had hunted his girlfriend Melissa down and killed her in cold blood. They had both been 17 at the time.

"How old is she, Chris?" Piper asked again, suspecting there was something he wasn't telling her.

"She's seven." He said finally. Piper quickly worked out how old Wyatt must have been when she was born.

"17!" she thundered. Chris hissed at her to be quiet, but he ignored her. "He was 17!"

"Mom, keep your voice down!" he said, quickly ushering her up the stairs and out the door of the club. Once outside, she ripped into him.

"My son got a girl pregnant when he was 17 years old!" she yelled.

"It was an accident, and it was only the one time, mom." Chris beseeched her. "Don't think he made a habit of it."

'No, he just went around killing people instead.' Chris thought wryly. 'Like that's so much better.'

"It doesn't matter! I'm going to kill him!" she shouted angrily. Chris unconsciously shielded his currently younger brother from their mother's wrath.

"Ok, me and Wyatt are going to go now." He said quickly, before orbing home, leaving a raging Piper standing outside her club.

'Well that went well.' He thought to himself. He made a mental note to make sure that Piper didn't do anything to stop Charlotte being conceived. Even if Wyatt had been a little young to have children, Charlotte was gorgeous, and he wouldn't let his mother stop her from coming to be. In some distant corner of his mind, he knew Piper wouldn't do anything rash. But wow, she had been so angry…

"Aunt Paige?" he called upstairs, orbing up and heading for Wyatt's room. He put his brother into his crib, knowing the only reason he had woken up in the first place was because of the loud band.

"Aunt Paige?" he called again, aiming for her room as he left the one his brother shared with their mother. He wanted to make sure she was still in the house. Not hearing an answer, though, his heart sank.

'Oh no. She's gone again.' He thought. His idea was confirmed as he opened the door to her empty room. He went into the bathroom just in case. He found that empty as well. His eyes fell on her tracksuit lying on the floor.

"Crap." He swore out loud. "This is not good."

"Hello?" a voice called from downstairs, and his hopes rose. Maybe she wasn't gone after all?

"Piper? Paige? Chris?" the voice called again. "I'm home!" Chris quickly ran to the stairs and leaned over the banister.

'Phoebe.' He sighed to himself.

"Phoebe, I need you to mind Wyatt, ok?" he said quickly, racing down the stairs and handing her the baby monitor.

"Oh, ok, hello." Phoebe said, looking surprised as the monitor was thrust into her hands. "Why am I minding Wyatt?" she asked, as he sprinted up the stairs. He leaned back over the banister to tell her.

"I need to go find Paige. She sneezed."

"Oh." Phoebe said, as if that explained everything. After a millisecond, she realised it didn't. "What?" she asked, following him up the stairs.

"Chris, come back here!" she cried, following towards the attic as her Whitelighter darted up the stairs in front of her.

"Can't Phoebe, sorry!" his voice floated back. She huffed, and checked on Wyatt quickly before going up to the attic herself. She saw Chris flicking through the Book of Shadows, looking for the page his mother had been on earlier. He found it and looked at it intently, before nodding to himself and moving towards the potions ingredients.

"Chris, where are you going?" she asked him.

"I told you, to find Paige. She sneezed." He muttered. "Rosemary, yarrow root, cypress…" he tossed ingredients into a cauldron as he talked about them.

"And where is Paige gone?" Phoebe asked patiently.

"Umm, you remember when Cole created an alternate universe, and Paige sneezed her way into it?" Chris responded, still making the potion.

"Yes." Phoebe responded warily.

"Yeah, she's done it again. This is the second time today, in fact." He checked the Book to make sure he hadn't missed anything.

"Chris, what do you mean?" Phoebe asked exasperatedly, clearly not following.

"I don't have time. Ask Piper, she'll tell you."

"Where is Piper?"

"At the club, setting up for the evening." He answered, looking around for something.

"Uh-huh. And why isn't she going to get Paige?"

"Because she doesn't know Paige is missing." Chris said, lifting up the cauldron, then replacing it.

"And why haven't you told her that Paige is missing?" Phoebe quizzed.

"Because she's mad at me." Chris replied.

"Understandable. I'm mad at you right now. You're being annoying!"

"That's because I'm in a hurry. Have you seen an athame?" he enquired. Phoebe went to look in the weapons trunk as she asked,

"So why don't I go find Paige?"

"Because I don't want Piper to see me for a while."

"Why?" she asked, handing the athame over.

"Thanks. Weren't you listening? Mom's kinda mad at me at the moment."

"Right. And you haven't said why. … Wait. Did you just say 'mom'?" Chris groaned.

"Why is this happening to me? Today is not a good day." He said, as Phoebe looked at him, gobsmacked.

"Ask Piper." He instructed her. "She has all the answers." Phoebe recovered from her shock long enough to glare at him.

"Hey, that's my tagline!" she griped.

"Powers of the witches rise,

Course unseen across the skies,

Come to me, I call you near,

Come to me and settle here."

He pricked his finger quickly with the athame and squeezed out a few drops of blood.

"Blood to blood, I wish to be,

Blood to blood, bring me to thee."

Chris vanished in a swirl of gold lights, the same way Piper had earlier during the day.

AnimeAlexis: I am on a roll with this story! How do you like it? Is it coming along ok? If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them! Review please!