Everyone: Hi. I've edited this because I was told it didn't make any sense. It should now. I've made some adjustments so in the chapter after this one I'm going to give a reason. That'll be the most I'll explain it in this part…it'll all come together in the third part and epilogue. If it doesn't then I will have to go dumpster diving and find the sequel I tossed. lol. Thank-you for working with me I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. Please R&R to help me get this right. Now back to your regularly scheduled program:
ilovedrew88: I'm glad you liked the vanquish. I forget where I got the inspiration, but I just remember it being pretty cool. I think it would've been sad if Chris and Leo hadn't made up by the time that Big Bad World aired.
Christine Marquez: I'm sorry you missed it! I hate when that happens. Actually, I die a little inside every time I miss an episode. lol. Just kidding. Usually TNT reruns Sunday night's episodes on Tuesday at 10 eastern.
Chap 17
Part 2:
Rise from Above
"I forgot what a pain it was to set the table for so many people!" Kat whined.
Chris threw her a look. "Here for only three months and you're already complaining!"
"Jeez, I was just kidding! What crawled up your ass and died today?"
"You."
"Now, now, you two," Piper, clearly amused, shook a scolding finger at them.
"Mom, are you sure you want to be on your feet this much? I mean, you're almost due."
"Chris, you've been saying that for the past month! Next time, I'm grounding you, and I am absolutely serious." Piper slammed the mashed potatoes on to a hot plate.
"Don't mind him; he's just making sure that he doesn't get anymore screwed up." Cole and Phoebe entered laughing and holding hands. Kat did a double take. "Well, speaking of screwed up."
"Hello, nephew!" Phoebe patted Piper's stomach.
"One more time and I will blow your hand off," Piper threatened.
"Hi Aunt Phoebe!" Chris brightened. "Why are you two so happy?" He pointed at her and Cole.
"Yeah, are you guys drunk?" Kat asked mostly serious.
"Did you finally get laid?" Piper asked bluntly.
"No, we're not drunk," Cole answered Kat evading the truth.
Phoebe, more forth-comingly than Cole, added, "And Piper? Yes." Kat shuddered. Phoebe turned to her, "Is it really that hard to believe that we're happy?" Phoebe said to Kat.
"First of all, ewww you're my parents. 2nd….I love you," she dodged.
"Not an answer."
"I'm home!" Paige announced.
Leo orbed in next her. "Hey, honey," He kissed Piper lovingly, "And little Chris."
"If you even think of touching my stomach your orbs are grass, mister."
Leo smiled. "Fine, I'll just say hi to him when he's 23 yrs older."
"Don't bother," Chris grumbled. He looked away from his parents. Even though Piper was threatening Leo, he could tell that they were both happy. He couldn't stand watching them without feeling like an outsider.
Seeing potential fireworks, Kat announced, a little too enthusiastically, "It's time to eat!"
Paige took the hint. "Do we not feed you enough?" She joked also trying to lighten the mood.
"Never!"
Sometimes things in the manor seemed too perfect that it was hard to believe and most of the time it was. The playful banter did its in job hiding the underlying issues, but things were getting better. There were only two problems: Phoebe and Cole, and Chris and Leo.
Phoebe and Cole were on again off again every week or so. Only once had things escalated so far that Kat intervened. Sure, she got pissed here and there, freezing her parents in the process. Usually she would do it only during loud arguments, but they were so bad that everybody was at their breaking points. Kat planted a premonition strong enough for both of them to see.
They saw their life when the world was peaceful and everybody was happy and alive. The three of them were on a picnic. Kat must've been two because Phoebe was pregnant again. They were all laughing and having fun. Cole was putting something messy on Kat's nose while she was trying to fight him off. Phoebe didn't help by grabbing the toddler and blowing a raspberry on her stomach.
Kat hoped that maybe seeing their happiness in the future they would find it important enough to work things out in the present. Since, they had started talking more making their on agains progressively longer.
Leo was back as their whitelighter again. After a lot of arm twisting he and Paige convinced the Elders to keep the school open. As a result, they were running it. If they were needed, they could always be called. They were always home for dinner and Leo was always there for Piper's doctor appointments. Leo was back in all senses of the word.
Nevertheless, Chris wasn't letting him get close, nor was he forgiving him for the future. There was even an incident with a spider demon three months ago. The spider demon had scratched Chris, who was protecting Piper from being attacked. He wouldn't let Leo heal him, causing him to become a Spider demon. Not before long, Chris had Leo trapped in a cave planning to feast on him for the next hundred years. Leo, having other thoughts, provoked Chris into beating him to a bloody pulp. Then Piper had the brilliant idea of drinking the antidote herself, thus preventing Chris from the tiresome task of trying to kill a dead person. Yeah, things were going just fine.
Chap. 18
"So tell me one thing about your day," Cole asked as he stabbed a piece of chicken with a serving fork.
"Dad!" Kat whined. "Chris, potatoes," she pointed at them and made a 'gimme gimme' motion with her hands. Cole hadn't relented so Kat gave Chris a pleading look for help, "What did we do today?"
"You helped at the club," Piper answered.
"Yes, I helped at the club. So there," she said in a mock defiance.
"How 'bout you, Chris? Help your mom today?"
"Yeah, I picked out the color for my room." He looked around. At first, he thought it was odd that no one else thought it was odd. Then, he realized, "My room as a baby."
"That must be so weird," Phoebe shook her head.
"Have you picked a color, yet?"
He nodded, "Green."
"I'll help you paint," Leo offered.
"No thanks," Chris replied coolly. Ever since their history had become known, Leo was trying to make up for it, but he just wasn't ready to let go. Leo was the worst father ever to him. He wasn't ever there. Whenever Leo was on earth, he was yelling at him or praising Wyatt. That even grew less and less frequent after Piper died. Chris couldn't forgive him for never being there when he needed him most.
He couldn't deal eating dinner with the happy family right now. He pushed away his plate. He'd barely eaten anything, but he wasn't hungry. He was just tired, tired of everything. "I'm done."
"Chris, we just sat down and your plate still has food on it," Piper said in a tone of motherly concern.
"Mom, I'm a big boy now. I can reheat this when I get hungry. I'm just going to go to my room."
His room was now located in the basement because when it came to magic Kat could do anything. She explained the concept of power exercising. It helped her to control her powers and not have them control her, thus, saving the world from having to deal with yet another mentally unstable Halliwell.
Redoing the manor's basement was an exercise that benefited them all, she justified. The house was too small for all of them to live in and they had to live together. If she redid the basement Chris, Cole, and Kat would be able to move in to their own rooms. Kat told Piper, out of her parents' earshot, that Chris and Wyatt would eventually take Phoebe's room when she moved into Cole's room. For now though, Adult Chris made do with the future guest bedroom.
Leo started to get up and move toward the steps. Without looking up, Kat gave a precognitive warning and grabbed another dish as if the whole situation was normal. He stopped in his tacks, "What?"
"Don't," Kat restated. He gave her an astonished look. "If you go down stairs you'll only make thing worse. Let him come to you."
Impatiently, the doorbell rang several times. "Who would be here at this hour?"
"Phoebe, it's only 7:30," Paige answered.
"I'll get it," Kat threw her napkin on the chair.
Chap. 19
A few weeks prior, there was a terrible accident involving four underage drunken boys. A club let them in and served them illegally. The press thought that it needed urgent attention. All the media attraction forced the police to pull every cop and inspector off their cases to do random searches of local bars.
Andy Trudeau was sick of the madness and the idiots who served drinks illegally. He would be more than happy to bust them. Flipping his badge open, he identified himself and his partner as, "Inspector Trudeau and Inspector Morris."
Morris was acting very strange around him, Andy thought. It'd been a week or so since Andy found out about the secret Prue and her sisters kept. Morris still didn't know and Andy wasn't going to tell him anytime soon. He was probably mad because there was an IA agent after Andy and Morris could get caught in the middle of it all. Later he would need to talk strategy with Prue.
Right now, however, he was waiting for the punk bartender at a new club, P3, to answer him. "Hey! We're looking for the owner."
Daryl Morris whispered to Andy, "I told you this club is clean. Chris is just busy and can't hear you over the music."
"Chris? You know all the bartenders by name?"
Daryl rolled his eyes. He didn't know what to make of it, his dead partner was back from the grave, but he was acting as if he had never died. He planned to talk to the girls as soon as possible, but Trudeau, or whoever this was, wasn't giving him the chance. Maybe he could talk to Chris.
Chris was ignoring his uncle. Weird, he thought, wasn't he supposed to be dead? Of course, in the Halliwell family nobody stayed dead long, even if they were only related by marriage. What was even weirder, though, was that the family would send Andy after him. They didn't know that in the future he was one of the handful of dead family members that he was allowed to see. Plus, how would they find out? Kat wasn't stupid enough to tell them. Maybe…
"Chris!" Daryl shouted cutting off his thoughts.
He sighed; knowing he couldn't ignore them any longer. "What? He answered sourly.
"We're here to make sure you're not selling illegally to minors," Andy said with a cocky tone.
Confused, Chris asked, "Are you serious?"
"Oh, he's serious," Daryl, said sarcastically.
"How old are you?" Andy asked.
"That depends."
"Well, let's see your I.D. maybe that'll tell us."
Chris shared a curious look with Daryl, who just shrugged. "It's in the back. Come with me." Once they were out of the public eye, Chris told Daryl that he'd be back and to wait for him. Before Andy could protest, Chris grabbed his arm and orbed out.
Chap. 20
Prue pounded the front door. She had forgotten her keys and the hide a key was missing. Why her sisters weren't answering? She thought frustrated. She tried the doorbell again because last she checked it worked.
"Jeez! I'm coming!" An unfamiliar voice yelled.
Prue wondered who was over. She didn't think much had changed since yesterday. However, yesterday was a little hectic maybe she missed something. In the chaos of it all, Phoebe turned into a banshee and she, herself, had turned into a dog. And met a really cute guy too, she mentally added.
The manor door opened, closing Prue's thoughts. For a moment, they stood at the front door staring at each other. "Who are you?"
Kat didn't answer, but her thoughts raced. Aunt Prue's back! She thought relieved. She wanted to smile and give her a big hug, but she couldn't. For one of the very rare moments of her life, Kat was speechless. She had never seen her Aunt Prue corporeal.
"Who are you?" Prue repeated. "What are you doing in my house? When the girl didn't respond, Prue got worried. Maybe she was a mute demon that was holding Piper and Phoebe captive. Stranger things had happened. She lifted her hand ready to strike.
Reflexively, Kat raised her shield. It was a very cool twist of Wyatt's and, in her opinion, much better than his was too. Trying not to panic, she yelled for reinforcements, "Mom! Dad!"
"Who are you?" Prue asked again, only more bewildered.
Cole and Phoebe came running in at their daughter's call. "Oh my G-d!" Phoebe cried, stunned. "Prue?"
"Aren't you dead," Cole stated nonchalantly.
"What are you talking about? Of course, I'm not dead!" Prue shot back. She never liked Cole. He was and always will be a jerk and a demon. "I thought she was finally over you after that whole 'killing a witch' incident! Did being a banshee teach you anything, Phoebe?"
"You can't be Prue. Prue died three years ago," Phoebe stated the obvious. "Kat get over here," she ordered backing away.
"Phoebe! Look at me! I'm here and I'm alive! And what did you do to your hair?"
In the kitchen, Piper with Wyatt, Leo, and Paige, heard the commotion going on in the foyer and walked out to see what it was.
"Prue!" Piper exclaimed in surprise.
"Prue? As in our dead older sister, Prue?" Paige asked, cocking her head to the side.
She became panicked and frustrated. "I'm not dead! A demon must be playing with your heads. It's not like that hasn't happened before." She looked to Piper for support. Piper, being the middle child, usually would be willing to agree to the possibility. Then she realized, "Piper, when did you get pregnant and who's the toddler? And who are you?" she asked Paige.
"That's not Prue," Phoebe insisted.
"Well, try to get a read!" Piper suggested.
Phoebe shook her head, "Just a lot of fear and confusion."
Kat was still standing in front of Prue. She didn't think she was a demon; they weren't that bold or stupid to impersonate Prue. Therefore, she reasoned, "There was a "killing a witch' incident followed by the whole "banshee" thing. In addition, the last time she was alive Aunt Piper and Uncle Leo were newlyweds and Mom had long blonde hair. Let's be serious now. How would any random shape-shifter know that?" She turned to Prue, "If I could have your hand for a quick premonition, I could prove who you are, Aunt Prue."
She looked around. The girl, Kat who seemed to resemble Phoebe and Cole looked older than three that meant she'd have to have been dead a lot longer. However, she certainly didn't remember Piper ever being pregnant or the other person, who called herself a sister. Maybe time had gone by, or maybe it was a trap.
Prue took a chance and gave her hand to the girl. Kat shrugged, "Yeah, it's her."
"I'll go check with the Elders," Leo said beginning to orb.
