Disclaimer: I own nothing here. Charmed and the character portrayed here are the property of CW and I'm not making any money off of them.

Note: This the first in what I hope will be several stories of other ways Chris' identity could've been revealed. This story takes place sometime after 'Legend of Sleepy Halliwell'. Phoebe knows about Chris, but no one else does.

Chris loved his mother and aunts, even though they didn't know who he was and treated him with suspicion and disdain most of the time, but there were times he wanted to strangle them. Today was one of those times.

He was already having a bad day to start with, he woke with the worst skull-splitting headache he could remember having in a long time. Even worse, he couldn't really take anything normal for it, since conventional medications tended to make his powers go haywire. His mother had had a whole list of potions that could cure just about any ill, without affecting his or Wyatt's powers, the problem was that to get any of those cures, he had to go to the Manor and fix them himself.

Normally, this wouldn't have been a problem because the Charmed Ones would all be at work and he could do whatever he needed to do in peace. Except that Lady Luck was being a bitch today; the Charmed Ones and Leo were home and all four were in a bad mood.

Chris wasn't quite sure what the problem was, but from the little he'd gleaned, the band Piper had booked for tonight had canceled at the last minute and she was having trouble finding a replacement, Paige was aggravated because of her latest temp job, and Phoebe was angry because Piper and Paige's combined anger and frustration was overriding the Empath Blocking Potion, making it hard for her to block them out and she was under a deadline for her next article; he still hadn't worked out just what Leo's deal was, though. All Chris was sure of was that their yelling and bickering was making it hard for him to concentrate on his mother's Migraine potion. Still, as long he didn't try to make sense of the argument, he could concentrate on his potion.

Then, Lady Lucky laughed at him, the argument moved into the kitchen and now he was faced with three pissed off Charmed Ones and one pissed off Elder and nowhere to run.

"Chris?! What the hell are you doing?!" Piper shrieked, turning furious eyes to the young Whitelighter at the stove.

Normally, Chris would've either ignored her or given as short an answer as he could get away with, but the combination of pain from his head and aggravation from being interrupted turned off his 'crap you never say to your mother' filter.

"What the hell does it look like I'm doing, Mom?! I'm trying to make a potion! You know, witch stuff?! Now would you all kindly shut the hell up and leave me alone?!" As he shouted, the cauldron flew off the stove and slammed against the wall near Leo's head, splattering the contents all over the place.

"Dammit!" Chris growled, burying his head in his hands and causing a couple of lightbulbs to shatter.

Everyone stared at him in shock, but before anyone else could speak, Phoebe intervened.

"Okay, I'm guessing that you're the source of the horrible headache I've been feeling for the past half hour." She gently shoved past her sisters and ex- brother-in-law to Chris' side and took a good look at the young man's pale, drawn face.

"Oh, you poor thing, no wonder you're cranky. Come on, let's get you upstairs, you can lay down in my room." She took his arm and dragged him out of the kitchen, over his feeble protests, leaving Paige, Piper and Leo standing in shocked silence.

"Okay, let's get you comfortable," Phoebe murmured, as she gently pushed Chris onto her bed. She knelt down and removed his battered running shoes.

"Sorry about that, Phoebe," Chris whispered.

"It's okay, Chris, you couldn't help it. We weren't doing you any favors, either. What was that potion you were trying to make? Was it to help your head?"

Chris made a sound of acknowledgement, "Yeah, Mom used to have this whole list of potions to cure things. Mortal medications tend to make my powers go haywire."

Phoebe nodded, "Can you remember the recipe enough to tell me, so we make it for you?"

Under normal circumstances, Chris would've refused, citing 'future consequences', but his head was pounding too badly for him to refuse any help.

Phoebe wrote down what he told her and read them back, before helping him lay down. She covered him with a blanket, knowing from experience that he'd get cold as the migraine worked its way out of his system. After making sure that Chris was comfortable, she quietly slipped out of the room.

After Phoebe and Chris had disappeared upstairs, Piper, Paige, and Leo shook themselves out of their shock.

"He called me 'Mom'," Piper whispered, feeling like she was going to faint.

"I wouldn't read too much into it, Piper," Leo said, trying to be reassuring. "If Chris was in enough pain to lose control of his powers like that, he probably didn't realize what he was saying."

Paige sighed, "Well, whatever he meant, we need to clean this up, since we don't know what was in that potion."

The three of them cleaned up the splattered potion and shattered light bulbs, and carried the cauldron into the kitchen when Phoebe came back downstairs.

"How is he?" Piper asked, her maternal instincts kicking in.

"He's resting right now," Phoebe said. "I've got the recipe for the potion he was making so we can make it again."

"What is it?" Leo asked, suspiciously.

Phoebe sighed, "Apparently his mother had come up with a potion to help with migraines because regular medication messes with his powers."

Leo nodded, "That makes sense. Anything very strong would definitely make his powers unstable." After the display they'd just seen, anything that would make Chris' powers more unstable was definitely something to avoid.

Phoebe handed Piper the recipe, "Here. You're the potion expert, I'm not sure I want to try it on my own."

"Wow. Chris's mom certainly knew her stuff," Paige said, reading the recipe over Piper's shoulder. "That would definitely ease pain and knock you out for a little bit."

"I wonder why it's written this way," Piper said, she'd never seen a recipe written like this before; it reminded her of Grams' spell to get rid of the Woogeyman.

Leo glanced at it, "Probably to make it easy to remember if the person making the potion was having trouble concentrating. Like if they had a migraine."

"Let's get to work, then," Piper said.

The potion was ridiculously easy to brew. The rhyme also told them what order to add the ingredients in and the potion came together in a snap.

"Okay," Phoebe said as the last of the potion was poured into the small potion bottle. "I'll take this upstairs and…"

"No!" Piper exclaimed, snatching up the bottle. At everyone's look, "I'll take it up to him. Make sure we brewed this correctly."

"Piper," Leo said, knowing why she was suddenly volunteering.

Piper ignored him, "I'll take it up to him. I want to." With that, she marched up the stairs.

Phoebe's room was dark, but Piper could see Chris curled up under the covers. He looked very young and vulnerable, very different from the neurotic, jaded Whitelighter she saw every day.

She knelt down and gently shook his shoulder, "Chris?"

Chris stirred and opened his eyes, "Mom?" The hope in his voice pulled at her heart and made her want to cry.

Piper smiled, "Yeah, sweetie, it's me. I've got your medicine." She knew Leo wouldn't approve, but it surely wouldn't hurt to give the young Whitelighter some comfort when he was so ill.

She helped him sit up and drink the potion, rubbing his back, like she would do with Wyatt.

Chris laid his head on her shoulder, "I miss you so much, Mom."

Piper bit her lip, "I miss you too, sweetie. Pretty soon, you'll figure out what's after Wyatt and then you'll be home."

"Won't be the same," Chris mumbled. "You won't be there. Ev'n if I save Wyatt, you'll still be gone, just like Bianca."

Piper's heart stopped, a million questions running through her mind, but she forced them back, "You don't know that. If you can do this, everything will change and I'll be there, waiting on you."

This seemed to comfort Chris and he was quiet. When Piper was sure he was asleep, she eased him back down onto the bed and made sure he was covered with the blanket before slipping out of the room.

Everyone was waiting when Piper came downstairs, "Did you give it to him," Phoebe asked.

Piper nodded, "Yeah, he's asleep now." She ran a hand through her hair, "He called me 'Mom' again."

Leo sighed, "Piper,"

"I don't think he called me that because he was sick. He said it to me twice and told me that saving Wyatt wouldn't change anything because I was gone, just like Bianca."

Leo wasn't convinced, but Paige nodded.

"It makes sense. Chris knows us, knows the house. Remember what he said after he got the Stillman Sisters to turn on each other? 'In all my life, I've never seen you take the bait the way they did.'? He'd only been our Whitelighter two months then."

"That doesn't mean anything," Leo argued, trying to ignore what his own gut was saying, "Maybe he's your Whitelighter in the future."

Phoebe bit her lip, she wanted to tell them what she'd learned in her vision quest, but she wasn't sure Chris would appreciate his secret being revealed this way.

Suddenly, she realized that her sisters and Leo were looking at her suspiciously.

"Phoebe? Why do I get the feeling you know something about this?" Piper asked, watching her younger sister's face.

Phoebe gulped, trying to figure out how to get out of this without spilling Chris' secret. However, Leo could read her like a book.

"He is our son, isn't he?" Leo said with growing horror.

Phoebe gulped and nodded, "Yeah, he is. I only found out because of that vision quest I went on."

Piper collapsed on the sofa, "Oh my God, I threw my own son out of the house and told him I didn't want to see him again." Suddenly, every little dig and mean thing she'd said to Chris flooded back. "He must hate me so much."

"Sweetie, you didn't know, Chris doesn't hate you. From what little he's told me about his life, he adores you. YOU were the one who came up with the potion for his headaches and a way for him remember it."

"Actually, Piper may have developed the recipe, but the rhyme sounds like your work, Phoebs," Paige said, softly.

"Well, whoever did it, it's obvious that it was with him in mind," Phoebe said.

"So, what do we do now?" Leo asked, still trying to come to terms with the fact that the man he despised and had been trying to get rid of was his own son. Suddenly, he realized that all the things about Chris that annoyed or infuriated him were things about himself or Piper that he didn't like.

Piper sighed, "We need to let him recover. If he doesn't remember telling us, then we might scare him by confronting him and he's skittish enough as it is."

They'd wait until Chris felt well enough to talk and then they were going to get everything out into the open; no more lies or secrets. Then they were going to work together to save Wyatt from the future Chris came from; only this time they were going to do it together, as a family.

The End