Chapter 9: Thanksgiving Revalations

Thanksgiving for the Halliwells was always a joyous occasion, mostly because of Piper's fabulous abilities in the kitchen. Recently the dinners had been getting even better though, and all family members agreed that Chris's added presence in the kitchen gave an interesting kick to some of their old favorites. That is, when Piper allowed him to modify her recipes.

It was 2 in the afternoon on Thanksgiving Day, and the family and their guest were gathered around Piper's dining room table. Of course, the table wouldn't have normally held all those people, but Piper had magickally altered it before Rain had arrived.

"Phyara, what is that?" Paige asked her oldest daughter, who was stretching her arms above her head before sitting down. Phyara brought her arms down quickly, causing her shirt to re-cover her stomach.

"What are you talking about, Mom?" she asked, trying to look innocent.

"That piece of metal in your bellybutton is what I'm talking about." Paige pointed at her daughter's stomach.

"Can we fight about this later?" Piper asked, bringing more food to the table.

Paige glared at Piper before turning back to her daughter. "We will not fight about it at all. I just want to know why you didn't talk to me or your father about this."

"I went to the mall with my friends yesterday, and just got the urge, but neither you or Dad answered your phones, so I got it anyways. Don't be mad, it hurts like hell. I'm already thinking about taking it out."

"It won't hurt for long," Rain told Phyara, whom she was sitting across from.

"Your's is pierced?" Phyara asked curiously.

"Yep. My belly button and tongue are both pierced. And I've got too many parts of my ears pierced to even go into."

"Different parts of the ear pierced?" Leo asked, not fully understanding.

"Yeah. You can pierce your lobes, cartilage, rook, gith, or tragus. There are probably a few other parts I'm forgetting."

Leo looked at Rain with pure confusion on his face.

"It's ok, Dad," Wyatt patted his father on the back as he walked to his seat. "I had the same reaction."

"So aren't you glad it's just her bellybutton?" Rain smiled at Paige, laughter dancing in her eyes. Rain had only just met Paige, but she could tell the woman had been quite crazy in her younger days and had a good appreciation of a sense of humor. Hell, living with Chris and Wyatt you had to.

Paige mock glared at Rain, trying not to laugh, before addressing Phyara again, "We'll discuss this further later."

"Ok, Mom," Phyara responded, looking into her lap.

"And when you're finished with her, you get to have a little chat with me," Chris added menacingly.

Phyara glared at her older cousin before rolling her eyes and choosing to ignore him.

Piper finally brought the already carved turkey to the table and took her seat. "Alright guys. Dig in," she announced. As soon as she finished speaking the family dove into the food, quickly filling their plates.

"So, why don't you tell us about yourself," Phoebe suggested to Rain.

"What do you want to know?" Rain asked back.

"I don't know. Where are you from again?"

"Missouri. The middle of nowhere Missouri."

"The middle of nowhere?" Leo asked, laughing at her description.

Rain looked at him with amusement. "You really have no idea. I'm not kidding. I lived at least half an hour away from anything besides the woods and a lake. It's a great place though. I loved growing up there. I hate cities and people in general, so it worked for me."

"What did you do growing up?" Phoebe asked her.

"Worked on our farm. I started taking dance lessons when I was 2 ½ and competing when I was 8. That was a big part of my life."

"You were a dancer?" Wyatt asked, now intrigued. "I never knew that. You don't talk about it all. Aren't you kind of clumsy to be a competition dancer?"

"Wyatt!" Piper exclaimed, smacking her son on the back of his head.

"It's ok. I'm used to his stupidity. As with most men, he was clearly born with a defective 'shut-up' filter," Rain rushed off his comment.

"A 'shut-up' filter?" Paige asked.

"Yeah. You know. That part of your subconscious that tells you when you should stop talking. He doesn't have it. But in all honesty, he is right. I am an extremely clumsy person…now."

"What's that mean? Why'd you quit?" Chris asked her.

"I injured my knee two years ago. That was all it took to take me out of the game for good, and to take away any semblance of grace and control that I had. I fall and stumble a lot because my knee gives out sometimes, or just hurts."

"Can't you just take pills to make it better? Aunt Piper takes them all the time for when her head hurts," Samantha asked innocently.

Wyatt and Chris sniggered quietly to each other, trying not to blatantly laugh at their mother. Patricia didn't have their restraint and after a moment broke out in laughter.

"That's right. Laugh it up. I hope that when you guys have kids that they are just like you. Then you'll understand. I could share stories that would make a corporate lawyer cry."

"Oooo…please share," Rain called out at Piper's mention of childhood stories.

"Please don't," Chris responded.

"I have one." Phoebe offered. "Okay, so this was when the boys were little. Chris was probably only 3 or 4. 5 at the most. We still lived in San Francisco at the time. For Chris's birthday Piper had taken her club and turned it into a giant fort of sorts. She used the tables and chairs and covered them with sheets and literally turned the entire club into a giant fort for the boys and Patience to play in. And they loved it too. It was so cute. They'd go running in and you'd hear screaming and laughing and then one of them would come running back out laughing before running back in. It was adorable."

"I'm going to hurt myself," Chris looked into his plate knowing that embarrassment was coming.

"Anyways," Phoebe continued, ignoring Chris's comment. "So it was going good for the first hour or so, but then it went down hill quickly. Wyatt and Patience came out from the fort to get a drink, leaving Chris to run around by himself. After Wyatt got his drink he went back into the sheets to find Chris again. But he couldn't find him, so he started to call out for Chris. When Chris realized that Wyatt couldn't find him, he started to panic and try to find the entrance, but he couldn't, so he just sat down and cried. Wyatt finally found Chris, but at that point he couldn't find the entrance either. Apparently Piper had turned it into too much of a maze. They sat there and cried until Piper lifted the sheet. Turns out they were sitting right next to an outer sheet, but it never occurred to them to just pull the sheet out of their way. It was so hilarious."

"Wow…I don't even know what to say. That's so cute," Rain pursed her lips and tried not to laugh.

"Why didn't he just orb out? And why couldn't Wyatt sense him?" Samantha asked curiously.

Piper quickly flicked her wrists, freezing the room, or more specifically, freezing Rain.

"Good job, Samantha," Wyatt remarked to his baby cousin.

"I'm sorry," the little girl looked sadly at her plate.

Wyatt instantly softened and comforted the girl, "It's okay sweetie. Mistakes happen."

Phoebe answered the girl's questions, "Chris was a little to panicked to orb. It didn't help that he was picking up on Wyatt's worry and Melinda's crying. He couldn't control his empathy at that point. And Wyatt was so worried about Chris that he couldn't focus on getting them out either."

"Okay Piper, unfreeze her. I've got this under control," Paige nodded to Piper. Piper flicked her wrists and Rain finished bringing the fork down from her mouth. Rain swallowed and gave the small girl a puzzling look.

Paige spoke, "The boys had very active imaginations when they were younger. They crafted this very elaborate world where they had these magickal powers and the works. It was quite amazing."

"Aww…that's so cute," Rain said in a falsetto voice, teasingly stroking Chris's arm.

"Ha, ha, ha…" Chris laughed blandly, rolling his eyes at her. Chris then looked to Wyatt and spoke; "never again may you invite her to a family function."

"Hey!" Rain exclaimed.

"It's not you. It's my family," Chris assured her.

"Hey!" several of the Halliwells spoke at once.

The table suddenly exploded, sending the Halliwells and Rain flying backwards from it.

This time Wyatt flicked his wrists and froze the demons and Rain.

"What the hell kind of demons are those?" Piper asked, pointing wildly at the demons that had blown the table up from the doorway.

"They're Slarka demons," Chris informed them, moving to stand in front of Rain's frozen form. "They were trapped in a mountain range thousands of years ago though. There's no known way of vanquishing them, so they were encased in rock."

"Okay. You've got to spend less time in front of the book," Piper shook her head. "What do we do?"

"I don't know. They won't stay frozen forever. Why don't you girls get out of here for now," Chris directed the last part at his sister and cousins. "You too Patrick," he added.

"We'll take them," Joel said, nodding for Cole to shimmer them out, which he did right as Chris called out, "Wait!"

After they had already shimmered he added, "take Rain, too. Oh well."

"Don't worry about it. I'll be fine," Chris heard a voice from behind him. He turned to see Rain looking at him with an amused expression. "You're lucky. If you told me to leave every time a demon came around, I'd probably kick your ass."

"But….but…." Chris stuttered in awe.

Wyatt came over and clapped his brother on his shoulder. "Deep breaths baby brother."

"Does that mean you were just pretending to be frozen earlier as well?" Piper asked her.

"Yes ma'am. I didn't actually plan on you knowing today, but oh well."

"So what are you then?" Paige asked, her and Phoebe flanking Piper as they stared Rain down.

"Umm…Wyatt's roommate," she said innocently.

Wyatt broke in before his aunts could say anything else, "It's okay. She's good magick. Let's worry about these demons first.

"You knew all along?" Chris asked him with a hurt expression.

"Later Chris. I vote we stick these guys in a cage," Wyatt changed the subject.

"Don't bother," Rain waved off Wyatt's idea. "It won't hold them."

"Any suggestions, then?" Paige asked.

"I'm going to go with vanquishing them."

"You can't," Chris restated. "They're unvanquishable."

"Nothing is immune to magick. It may resist it. It may be better at understanding and using it, but nothing is immune. These beasts were unvanquishable thousands of years ago, but that doesn't mean that they are unvanquishable today."

"You speak like you have a lot of experience on the subject," Piper noted before facing the demons.

"I do. And just so you know, just because you can vanquish them doesn't mean that it will be easy."

"I think we can handle it," Chris told her snidely before facing the demons. He flicked his wrists like his mother, causing one of the arms of the demon to explode, leaving it shrieking in pain.

"Good job, Skippy. You made it angry," Rain commented cockily. Chris just rolled his head and looked down at her blandly.

Wyatt held up his hand and literally froze the demons in large blocks of ice. Rain closed her eyes in concentration for a moment and held out her hands palms up. After a moment a thin book appeared in her grasp. Rain dropped to the floor Indian style with the book in her lap.

"That's an awfully small book there," Chris said cockily as he sat beside Rain and summoned the Halliwell BOS.

Rain just nodded at Chris as she flipped through her book. She didn't bother explaining that the book had been magickally altered so that she don't have to lug around a giant book all of the time. In reality her book easily contained as many entries as the Halliwell book, but she didn't feel the need to damage Chris's ego anymore.

Rain and Chris found their books respective entries at the same time, and shouted simultaneously, "Got it," and "Here it is."

"I pretty much hit it all earlier," Chris shook his head and closed the book.

"Not all of it. Apparently they kill their victims by emitting a high-pitched yell that paralyzes their victims so that they can cut out their hearts. Ewww. That's gross, and pretty unhelpful. No potion or spell for vanquishing. Guess we'll just have to improvise one." Rain shut her book and stood back up beside a now also standing Chris.

"Let's see," she thought for a moment. "Demons that were trapped in the ground,"

"Have arisen for another round," Chris added after Rain's hesitation.

"Send them to a place where they can't yell," Wyatt provided.

Rain and Chris smiled at each other before saying together, "Send these bitches straight to hell,"

"Perfect it should work if we say it all…to….gether…" Rain started to announce, but staggered off when she say the demons already bursting into flame.

"Wow," Piper looked at her sisters. "It usually doesn't work like that."

Before anyone could respond, four men shimmered into the room.

"I didn't expect you to destroy them so easily. Don't worry though. I'll find more for you. Until then, enjoy these…. appetizers," One of the demons said cruelly before shimmering out again, leaving behind the other three.

Chris got an extremely annoyed expression as he glared at the demons. "Fuck this. I'm hungry. I wanna finish eating my goddamn turkey and then enjoy my mother fucking pie. Is that too much to ask?" Chris asked as he easily sent the demons into an inferno.

Chris's eyes began to glaze over as the curse slowly began to win him over.

Fuck, he thought to himself. Not now. I thought I could control it. I was fine. Why the fuck can't I calm the fuck DOWN. Breathe Chris. Breathe. Fuck breathing. I want to blow something the fuck up.

Chris cocked his head to the side and summoned a fireball, mocking Rain with it.

"Won't be keeping any more secrets from me, now will ya?" he threatened her menacingly.

"Does he always do this?" Rain asked as she watched Chris standing there clenching and unclenching his fists.

"It's a curse that only effects him when he uses his Pyrokinesis. It causes him to go into crazy rages and shit. Usually knocking him out for a while brings him back."

"Usually," Piper said bitterly as she turned away and tried to fight back the tears. "What happens when one of these days he can't fight his way back? What happens when the curse consumes him?"

"Don't worry, Mom. That won't happen," Wyatt reassured her.

Chris just sneered at his family, extinguishing and relighting the fireball in his hand. The battle he was having with himself was clearly evident in his eyes.

"Well, he better get over this, now hadn't he," Rain grabbed Chris's arm and transported them to a secluded place in the forest somewhere.

Chris snarled upon their arrival and launched a fireball at her, which she easily dodged.

"Sorry, but this time you'll just have to get over it without being knocked out or any other drastic measures. You'll just have to learn to control yourself."

"Shut up, Bitch," Chris yelled at her, breathing heavily.

"You want to hurt me, then do it," Rain lined herself directly in front of Chris and stared him in the eyes.

Chris clenched his fist as he stared down at her. Rain looked back in his eyes defiantly. She slowly raised one hand and brushed the little bit of hair out of his face, trailing it slowly along the side of his face. She smiled as she felt him press his face into her palm as he closed his eyes.

She trailed her hand down to the back of his neck and put a little pressure there as she moved her face closer and pressed her forehead against his.

"You're in control Chris. Not some curse. You. The sorceress might have made it more difficult for you, but the bottom line is nobody can allow magick to control you except you."

"You make it sound so easy," Chris said lightly, in a very struggled voice.

"Curses don't exist. Not in the way most people think that they do. All a curse is is an instilment of negative energy; negative magick. That anger that you feel coursing through you…it's just magick that's been tainted. All you have to do is change it back. Really she did you a favor. Every time you pyro something, what you're really getting is a major power burst. You just need to control it, and realize you can make it do whatever you want. Try it. Control it."

Chris glared at Rain for a moment before closing his eyes and breathing. He felt the anger flowing through him, but standing this close to Rain, with her hands on him, he couldn't be angry. Still he felt energy flowing through him…and suddenly her words made sense. He focused harder and felt the energy…not anger, not rage, but magick…. flow freely though him.

Chris opened his eyes and smiled down at Rain.

"Feel better?" she asked. Chris waved his hand slightly and incinerated Rain's shirt and pants, leaving her in her bra and underwear.

"I am now," he said laughingly.

"Apparently you've found your control of magick, now we need to work on controlling other parts," Rain chastised him as she replaced her clothes.

"We need to talk," he said seriously.

"We will. But right now I guarantee that you're family would really like us to return."

Chris orbed them back the manor just in time to see a demon explode into icy chunks.

Chris looked at his out of breath family and asked, "What the hell's going on here?"

A/N: I know…it's been a long time. I'm sorry. Read it and enjoy. Send me reviews and tell me what you're thinking. Thanks for all those who have already reviewed.