The Charmed Ones were worried. They knew that someone was getting in the house and using the 'Book of Shadows'. Over the last few years the book had become temperamental; it didn't let anyone outside of the family touch it even if they were good witches and sometimes the family members got a shock as well.

After the attack on the manor that cost them Chris, Piper had also become high strung and obsessive. She created wards for the whole house that let no one shimmer, flame or in any way magically appear in the house. It didn't even let whitelighters orb in. She had to adjust the wards to let Wyatt, Paige and Henry (who was the only child of Paige's to have the trait) through the wards so they could orb in and out. However, for the last eighteen years it let no one in much to the annoyance of the Elders who constantly told Piper to drop the wards.

Magical beings couldn't even enter the house physically before someone who lived in the house invited them in. On this Piper had looked into the magical spells that kept vampires out of residences and adjusted them to keep everyone with magic out except family and they had to be invited in. A bit obsessive, but the family let her have her way; she had never really recovered from losing her youngest son.

So when they found out that someone was coming in and using the book they were very worried. Their worry doubled after they were left a threatening athame as a sign that the person or demon could come and go as it pleased. Then a taunting protection amulet was left behind just telling them they couldn't protect themselves.

They wondered if they should leave someone in the house to always keep a watch but they never let magic rule their lives so they tried to go on with their lives but were always on edge. When freshly picked granny smith apples followed by a plate of cookies had been left behind they were confused, what exactly was the message behind these? Always watch what you ate? Everyone was jumpy.

Paige was after a demon that was bothering one of her charges, she orbed into the attic intent at looking at the book and leaving. What she came face to face shocked her to her very being. Standing before the book was someone she had not seen in twenty years and never thought would see again. Chris was standing a step away from the book and obviously telekinetically flipping though its pages like he used to do all those years ago. For a moment their eyes met and she saw the surprise he had in his before he actually disappeared into thin air before she could say anything, she was frozen in place.

When she came to her senses the demon she was tracking was forgotten as she fanatically orbed to her sisters and brother-in-law and grabbed them without saying anything and brought them back to the house.

"Paige! What the heck do you think you are doing?" asked Piper, she had been in her restaurant. "What if someone had seen you? Have you lost all sense?"

Phoebe was gearing up to join in the conversation also but Paige didn't care, "I know who is using the book!" she blurted out excited before anyone could say anything else.

Everyone just froze in place not knowing what to say.

"Who?" asked Phoebe they had all been very worried for the last few weeks about who was getting into the manor. Paige's half excited and half anxious look did not help calm their nerves.

"Chris," said Paige partly afraid and thrilled but actually bouncing in place.

You could hear a pin drop in the attic.

"Chris?" said Leo in a very quiet voice, how was it possible?

"It's not possible!" that was Piper.

"I know what I saw! He was standing just in front of the book like he used to do twenty years ago! But obviously from this time, he just looked like he used too."

"Where'd he go?" asked Phoebe actually looking around expecting to find her missing nephew to pop up from somewhere.

"He was standing there one minute and when he saw me, I don't know who was more shocked, me or him, and he just disappeared into thin air."

"People do not disappear into thin air," said Piper.

"I know what I saw!" said Paige, "and if you think about it, it all makes sense. He can get in the house obviously because he is family and he uses the book for the same reason and everything he leaves in the house makes sense too."

"Why wouldn't he just tell us he is alive?" Leo wanted to know, it wasn't that he didn't believe her but if his son was alive why was he staying away from his own family?

"I don't think he knows who we are," said Paige who had already had to time to reflect on the situation. "Just think about it, he disappeared when he was four, what is the likelihood of him remembering us?"

"Makes sense," said Phoebe buying into the idea, "but what of the threatening things he has been leaving behind?"

"I don't they were meant to be," said Paige. "First he left behind a athame, ok not so nice and we didn't like it. But then it was a protection amulet and when we didn't like that it was apples and then cookies, think about it."

Phoebe went on where she had left off, "he was saying thank you and we took them to mean he was threatening us!"

"YES!" agreed Paige.

"It's not possible," said Piper in a quiet voice. She could not believe that her son might be alive, he would be nineteen years, seven months and eleven days old today (she had been counting). She had not been able to hold him, help him for the last sixteen years. What had happened to him? Who held him when he hurt? Or dried his tears? She had to sit down.

Paige and Phoebe helped their sister to the couch in the attic; it was a shock to all of them to find out that their dead nephew alive.

"How do we find him?" asked Piper in a quiet voice.

At that her sisters took charge and tired everything they could think of from summoning magic to the call of a lost witch. After awhile they called in reinforcements from the Twice Blessed who was 21, Phoebe's oldest; Prue who was 17 and would be the next oldest Charmed One and Paige's son Henry who was 16 and was shaping up to be a powerful whitelighter. The rest of the family could wait to be told after they found Chris. They tried everything but nothing panned out.

"We tried all these things 15 years ago, if they had worked they would have worked back then," said Phoebe after six hours of spells and potions.

"Maybe we are looking at this the wrong way," said Henry, he was a quiet but a strong boy. He was also the second boy in a family of mainly females. He had two younger sisters who were known as, and would someday be, the prophesy twins. His three cousins on his Aunt Phoebe's side were the next Charmed Ones and then there was Melinda his Aunt Piper's daughter. Six of the eight in the next generation were females.

When he had everyone's attention he continued, "all of this time we have been looking for Chris, and we have never found him, something or someone is hiding him. Perhaps we should be looking for the person who was using the book."

"We haven't been able to find the person who was using the book either or else we would have caught him in the last few weeks," said Wyatt.

"I know," smiled Henry. "However, Chris has been using the book and I doubt that he came looking for it. It was probably the book that called out to him and he answered with or without the knowledge that it was the Book of Shadows."

It was Prue who had picked up the train of thought, "and even if he had noticed that it was the famous Book of Shadows; he doesn't remember us."

"Anyone would have to be a lunatic to inform the Charmed Ones that they had access to their book!" finished Phoebe, pleased with herself that she could keep up with the younger generation.

"So I was thinking along the lines of sending him a message?" suggested Henry.

"Yes!" said Prue, "we could send the message though the book's magic which obliviously has contact with Chris, so we can trick whatever magic that is hiding Chris into getting our message to him that we want to talk to him."

Suddenly everyone was excited and after some discussion they decided not to put the fact they were his family in the note just in case he didn't know. They didn't want him to find out that way. They just told him that they were the Charmed Ones and that he had been using the 'Book of Shadows' and that they wished to speak to him. They gave him a specific time to show up to talk the next day and sat back to wait.

Who and what came was not what they expected.

XXXXXXXX

"Where is he?" asked Penny, Phoebe's younger daughter who was twelve, she had never met her cousin but knew all about him and had begged to be part of this when she had found out.

Suddenly the air changed and they knew someone was coming in, earlier in the day Piper had adjusted the wards to let people in; they knew Chris could get in but they didn't want to appear threatening. When a monk appeared in their living room they were disappointed.

"You are not Chris!" accused the twice blessed.

Bruno regarded the Charmed Ones and some of their next generation. He wanted to ring Theo's neck for getting himself into this mess but he was willing to be vanquished after six centuries to protect the boy he had come to love and he would do anything for the boy.

He bowed to them, "I do not who this Chris person is but I bring you the apologies on the behalf the Catar Monastery as the boy who has been using your book is one of our students. Your book will not be disturbed again."

"We want to talk to the person who has been using the book!" said Paige.

"I am afraid that is not possible, know that he will not be disturbing your book or your house again and that we will deal with the situation and we are willing to make amends to make up for the inconvenience that this might have caused you," with that a book appeared on the table, they didn't know what it was but it looked old and powerful as they felt the power hum from it. Bruno bowed again getting ready to leave, he did not want to stay more than necessary.

"Wait!" said a desperate cry from behind him and he turned around to see the legendary elder sister of the Charmed Ones, Piper Halliwell.

"What's his name?" she asked and Bruno heard such a longing in her voice that he answered, there was no harm in them knowing the boy's name.

"Theodoric" and after a pause he added, "Derek to some and Theo to others"

"Is there any possible way that you will allow us to meet him," asked an elder man who he assumed was the husband, ex-elder and ex-whitelighter if the rumors were correct. Bruno turned to face him, he seemed to remind him of someone but Bruno couldn't put his finger on it.

"Why?" he could not help but ask.

"That is for us to know and you not to care!" that was once again the Twice Blessed.

"Then no," said Bruno, he was not letting Theo get close to this guy, "and a good day," he finished bowing again and was starting to call on his own brand of magic to get him out of the house.

"He's my son!" That stopped him in his tracks and turned around to face the eldest sister once again.

"Pardon me?"

"The boy, Theodoric you called him, he's my son," said Piper close to tears, she was not willing to lose her son once again and not when she was so close to finding him.

"That is not possible," said Bruno.

"Our son," that was the elder man again, "Christopher Perry Halliwell disappeared from our house almost sixteen years ago when he was four. We believed him to be dead until just a few days ago when Paige saw him looking though the book."

Bruno frowned; maybe losing a son had made the whole family delusional. He turned to the younger sister, "You saw the boy for what? Less than five seconds? A boy you have not seen since he was four and suddenly the whole family thinks he is the long lost dead son?"

"We can explain," said Phoebe who had been quiet till then. Bruno turned to her, folded his arms and all thoughts of coming in, delivering an apology and leaving left his mind. He was actually interested to see what they came up with to explain their bizarre behavior.

"Please do," he said gesturing with his hand before refolding it and standing there waiting for an explanation.

"Now we know that it is not possible to suddenly see a nineteen year old boy and know that it's your four year old nephew," she said, Bruno inclined his head, this much they had already established. "We know the boy is Chris because we had already met him before he was born," she said like it explained everything.

Bruno just looked at them, the younger sister picked up the tale, "About twenty years ago Chris travelled to the past to alter the follow of time in order to save the world and that is how I knew who he was." Time travel? Alter time? Save the world? That actually sounded something crazy enough that Theo could do and pull off. "Now we know he travelled from a different time line but that doesn't change the fact the person I saw yesterday was my nephew."

Bruno was curious so he asked, "just a few years ago we looked high and low for the boy's family when we found out that he had whitelighter blood, how come our search did not bring us to your door?" He knew Salek had used many sources searching just four years ago.

"We don't know," that was the eldest again, and now that Bruno knew he could see the strong family resemblance. Theo looked like his mother. "But I know I want my son," she said quietly close to tears however he could detect determination in her tone. They were not going to give up without a fight.

"Please," said the elder man who Bruno assumed was Theo's father. The eyes should have been a giveaway and Bruno now knew why the guy seemed familiar.

After thinking about it a minute Bruno came to a decision, "the last choice would not be mine to make," he saw that the Charmed Ones were getting ready to argue, he did not give them the choice to make a comment. "I will pass this startling information onto Theo's guardian who will decide what to do with it." He held up a hand to forestall any arguments. "We will not deny the child his family if your claim turns out to be true, however we will not jump into this blind with both parties getting hurt if what you say is not true."

He turned to Piper, "I could never know the agony you must feel at losing a child and being so close to claiming him back however my concern and alliance is to Theo first. I will pass the information and the last decision will be his to make. A few more days of caution might be the difference between everyone getting hurt." With that he bowed to all of the Charmed Ones. "You should expect to be contacted by a man named Salek." With that he left to deliver the startling information that their charge was not only a whitelighter but the son of a Charmed One as well.

Edited: August 24th, 2010.

You didn't think I was going to give up Chris that easily did you? Thx for those that reviewed and let me know what you thought!