Chapter 11: The Wrong Angle

The phrase "my parents" hung in the air like a sheet tossed to the wind. Everyone was speechless, including Chris himself.

He sank into the corner chair, cradling his head in his hands, his bangs hanging limply over his face. In the instant Piper had channelled the harsher version of his mother, Chris had forgotten about secrecy. When his mother busted him for some wrongdoing, she grilled him until he confessed to it. More often than not, he did. Only this time the consequences were much worse.

As Leo watched Chris and Piper, he reproached himself for not defending Chris better. Logically, he knew it wouldn't have mattered in the long run—he could have put Piper off for a day at most before they wound up in the same predicament again. He wanted to tell Chris that he didn't have to be afraid. But he couldn't risk making a groundless promise when Piper had yet to respond in the positive or negative.

When she did speak, her speech came out stilted as she tried to piece together her scattered thoughts. "Your parents? Leo and I aren't… but that must mean… you're my son?"

Chris' jaw went stiff, rendering him mute. He couldn't lie through his teeth, not in his current state, but nor did he have the will to confirm it. Leo, bless him or curse him, took the matter out of his hands. If the knowledge was going to be out in the open, Leo intended to tackle it head on. "Yes, Chris is our son."

Piper froze as multiple realizations pounded into her, and she feared she would go mad from the impact. She was going to have another child with Leo. That child was Chris. Chris? The man she forgave for lying to them and endangering Wyatt? The man she bickered with on a regular basis? There must be a mistake. She and Leo were separated; she wouldn't have more kids after Wyatt. But Chris was half-Whitelighter. Aside from her and Leo, no other unions between witch and Whitelighter existed, unless the future differed in that regard. And the most reckless of people wouldn't sabotage their birth and allow their parents break up, like Chris had.

The contradictions threw her mental processes into overload, but one thought emerged intact. It can't be. That can't be right.

The others gasped, and Piper's hand reached to her throat. She'd said it aloud as well.

Chris' recoiled as if she'd kicked him in the face, and he raised his eyes to meet hers. Leo took one look at Chris and rounded on Piper, but a warning hand gripped his shoulder. Chris had pulled himself up from his chair, and the message boomed loud and clear from his gaze. Don't.

By the time Chris turned to Piper, his expression was hard. Then, without another sound, he spun on his heel and walked around the corner into the dining room.

"Chris!" Leo followed him into the dining room, but he was already gone—probably orbed out. His heart thudding, Leo shut his eyes to sense for Chris, but found no signal, no orb trail. "Chris!" he roared.

Then he would need Piper's aid even though she was the reason for Chris' disappearance. Leo returned to the sunroom and found her as he had left her—mute and petrified. He could sympathize; he'd down that road himself not that long ago. Knowing Piper, guilt would rule her above everything else, but at least her past actions were nowhere near as horrific as his; she hadn't assaulted Chris at Valhalla, hadn't threatened to recycle his soul.

But when Leo recalled Chris' hurt look, his sympathy hardened into anger.

"What is wrong with you, Piper?"

His anger jolted her back to life, but not enough to snap her out of her daze. "Is he really our son?" she asked.

"Yes." He was more worried about Chris, and it drove him to lash out. "How could you say that to him? Do you hate him that much?"

"I don't hate him! I never hated him." No matter frustrating Chris had been, she'd never felt any hatred towards him. The truth about him had practically been beaten her over the head and she had still ignored it—in front of Chris, no less. She was so blind. Who else but family would leave behind everything they knew to fight for them in the past?

"Tell it to him, not me," said Leo tersely. "Assuming we can find him."

"Of course we can. He wouldn't leave us," she said, and started for the next room.

Leo snatched her arm. "Piper, he's not here and I can't sense him. Don't you get it? He's gone."

Piper stopped in her tracks. They really were in trouble if Leo, an Elder, couldn't sense him, but something else felt off too. Like a delayed reaction, she zeroed in on the ease in which Leo had connected the dots before her. He wasn't riled up like she was. His lack of reaction to Chris' slip-up—his ability to verify it—didn't add up, unless he knew beforehand.

That was the big secret, the reason for Leo's change of heart with Chris.

"How long?" she demanded.

"What?"

"How long have you known about Chris?"

Leo scuffed his toe on the carpet. "Since the demon attack."

It was Piper's turn to get angry. "But that was days ago! You've known for that long and didn't tell me?"

"I couldn't betray Chris' trust," said Leo, leaving out his more selfish motive.

Piper, however, leaped to a different conclusion. "So he trusted you over me."

"That's not it. Chris didn't tell me who he was on his own free will; I found out by accident. If it were up to him, none of us would ever know."

"But we're his parents. We should have recognized him," she insisted.

She remembered when she and her sisters had accidentally travelled back in time to the seventies and run into their mother. It had been so hard to keep their distance from her, and in the end, they'd caved in and revealed themselves. Chris had gone for months without revealing his identity. At the bare minimum she should have felt a connection with him. "I thought he looked a lot like you," Dan had said. A complete outsider had seen Chris' resemblance to her.

"Chris made sure we didn't. I think he was afraid we'd reject him if we knew."

His reasoning struck a deep chord in her. Even unintentionally, she had fulfilled his deepest fears. She, Phoebe and Paige had never taken him seriously. She'd thrown him out of the house, and her last words to him just now had been the last straw.

"What have I done?" whispered Piper, and Leo crossed the space between them to hold her in his arms. Sobs wracked her body as she rested her head against his chest, seeking comfort in his embrace.

Leo's anger ebbed in the wake of her tears, and he tightened his arms around her, blinking back tears of his own. Minutes later, Piper wiggled free to wipe her eyes, which had become red and puffy.

"He'll never forgive me, not after what I said to him," she sniffed.

Leo took her by the shoulders. "Look at me, Piper," he said softly. "He will, because he loves you. Just be there for him. Show him you care and everything will work out. Besides, I'm the parent who screws up in the future."

Piper was confused. Leo was a loving father to Wyatt. Wouldn't the same apply to Chris?

"It's a long story," he said, picking up on the unspoken question. "Right now, our priority is Chris."

"We need something of his to scry with," she said, nodding.

They had nothing to work with in the manor. The potion bottles and ingredients he'd touched were too generic to work, and it pained them to realize that Chris had so few personal belongings. Yet more evidence of their failure to integrate him into the family, even as a friend.

"I'll see if there's anything we can use at the club," said Leo.

The sunroom transitioned to darkened walls and rowdy music of P3 as Leo orbed inside the nightclub's office. Though he suspected Chris wouldn't be there, he couldn't help feeling dejected when he found the office empty. His eyes roved over the clutter, including, strangely, one of Wyatt's toy blocks on Chris' desk. None of the objects provided any scrying value, so he inspected the couch. There wasn't much near the couch either except for a cardboard box full of clothes. Leo pulled out a button-down shirt—it was the best he would get.

When he orbed back to the attic, Piper was there flattening out a city map on the table. He handed the shirt to her and tapped his foot impatiently as she swung the crystal over the map.

Noticing his agitation, she said, "You know, it might be a good idea to do a search by orb as well."

"You're right," breathed Leo, grateful for the suggestion, and he kissed her on the cheek. Piper touched the side of her face where his lips made contact, goggling at him as he orbed out.

Leo reappeared at the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, didn't find Chris there, then orbed to a place that would appall his fellow Elders: the Underworld. He crept through the tunnels, ducking into an alcove when a gang of lower level demons passed through. He repeated the process several more times in other caverns, but when it became obvious that Chris wasn't in the Underworld either, Leo retreated to the surface and continued his search there.

Chris was a lot closer than Piper and Leo suspected, initially reappearing in the manor's side yard, slumped against the red wall, impaled on the blade that was Piper's rejection.

He'd expected her to hate him and throw him out of the house for good. That scenario was troubling enough, but outright denial? He must have blundered badly for her to be disgusted that he was related to her. What a reversal it was that Leo, the absentee father, should welcome him more than Piper. Wyatt had once proclaimed that he didn't need him. It looked like Piper didn't need—or want—him either.

He pushed himself off the wall and trudged out onto the street. The manor faded out of sight the further he walked down Prescott Street under the glare of streetlamps and passing cars. Walking here brought back a lot of memories—after the Event, he'd taken to roaming the neighbourhood at night to steer clear of his relatives and grieve alone. Then, a year and a half later, he'd run down the same street a final time to flee his own brother, the self-proclaimed ruler of the world.

Chris slowed his pace at the boundary that divided the older houses from the modern ones, and he took his engagement ring out of his pocket and turned it over in his palm. Bianca couldn't be even with be him even in spirit because she had died in the future. Her love had been his last bastion of hope in a world where he didn't belong—where the Charmed Ones were alive, but they weren't yet the women he'd grown up with. If Bianca were in his position, Chris had an inkling of what she would do.

Fix it.

He'd given Piper the knowledge of who he was; he could steal it back. Leo was going to be a problem because he probably wouldn't agree with to that. So he'd have to deal with him too. He turned the plan over in his head with distaste, but if he pushed aside his emotions and treated this like any other unsavoury deal in the Underworld, he could do it.

After a fruitless search all over the city, Leo checked in with Piper.

"Any luck?" he asked her wearily.

Piper gathered up the crystal in her fingers and rested her aching arm on the table's edge, feeling as tired as he did. "None whatsoever."

Leo threw his arms up in despair. "This is taking too long."

"He'll turn up somewhere," said Piper, with more confidence than she felt. "He's upset with us, but he wouldn't abandon Wyatt."

Leo would have offered up his Elder powers if it meant having Chris back. Most of his abilities were useless for tracking missing people, but Piper had other tools at her disposal, like the Book of Shadows. It lay open to the spell to summon a lost witch. It was a last resort; they preferred not to retrieve Chris by force, but they were running out of options. First, they would give scrying and sensing one more try.

A blip on Leo's radar pointed to a presence two floors below them.

The crystal landed where the Halliwell manor was on the map.

"Found him!" said Leo and Piper together.

They looked at each other, relieved, then raced down to the main floor, taking it for granted that Chris would be there.

But the hall was deserted when they got there. Leo frantically scanned the section that branched into the kitchen, missing the long shadow weaving behind him. Piper was distracted by a rustling noise and rotated her body in time to spot a glass object curving through the air towards them.

Piper yelled and flicked her wrists to blow up the object before it could shatter at their feet. A male voice swore. Startled, Leo whipped around to see what was going on, but his relief at seeing Chris standing by the living room entrance was short-lived. Chris regarded them with such a fierce look that feelings of dread swooped through Piper and Leo. It was the face demons saw before their demise at Chris Halliwell's hand.

"Chris, it's us!" barked Leo.

He didn't seem to care who they were as he brandished a duplicate glass object in his other hand.

Piper could see the item in his hand, but hoped she was wrong and that it was a trick of the light. "What is that?" she said softly.

Chris looked at the vial in his grasp. Silence, and then…

"Memory potion."