O.K., the usual disclaimer, I don't own Charmed or any of its regular characters, however, I do own the characters, places, etc that I make up.

Thank you to the readers and reviewers; hope that you'll continue to be this wonderful.

Now, let's get on with the story-

Last time… looking down upon it all, Prudence Halliwell smiled.

Chapter 7

When the intense, gut wrenching after effects of the spell had finally abated, Chris found himself in his dad's (also known as the principal's) office- Paige had orbed him to Leo as soon as he had passed out.

Leo was looking at Chris, perhaps more concerned that necessary, the memory of an old grief stirring in his mind.

"Are you O.K., son? Can you tell us what happened?" Leo asked Chris gently, squeezing his son's shoulders soothingly.

"Yeah, what happened? One minute you were as right as rain, and the next, you passed out!" Paige asked, her mind was also on an incident that'd happened 16 years ago.

"I think it was a spell, dad", Chris said, and before his aunt and father could go on hyper mode, he hastily went on, "but, don't worry I could sense that it wasn't an evil spell, it wasn't intended to harm"

Leo wasn't too convinced. Anything that made his beloved son pass out was bad, as far as he was concerned. But he chose to remain silent and let his son continue-he had faith in Chris' judgment.

"I think the spell was cast by the same person who me and Aunt Paige had been trying to locate since Sunday" Chris continued, speaking to Paige now.

"What! How'd you know?" Paige questioned, surprised. Whatever reasons she had suspected for Chris' fainting fit, this very definitely wasn't it.

"I think it's a magical S.O.S." Chris said, smiling slightly at his aunt's surprise. Then his face becoming somber, his next sentence came out in nearly a whisper, "He's being abused by his mother"

"Abused? As in, how abused?" Paige asked, her social worker radar on hyper mode. "And why now, all of a sudden. Why didn't he do this earlier?"

"I don't know that Aunt Paige, maybe he didn't get the chance to do this until today. His mom has the power of premonition, maybe he couldn't do it 'cause she kept having premonitions if he tried to, and she foiled all of his attempts. Maybe, he finally found a way around it." Chris answered his aunt's questions.

"And he's being physically abused. His 'mother' beats the hell out of him, and she uses magick, to do it." The Halliwell continued, not bothering to mask the flame of anger that had erupted inside him.

To be abused by relative strangers was understandable, still very wrong, true, but to be hurt by your own mother? Ouch! That really had to hurt.

Fifteen minutes later, all three of the Charmed Ones along with Wyatt and Chris sat in the ever messy attic at the Halliwell Manor.

"Chris, are you sure that it's his mother who's doing this to him" Piper put the question before her son for the thousandth time.

Of all the sisters, this seemed to have affected her the most strongly. Her heart broke for the poor kid, and she felt that she had to help as soon as possible.

Of course, everyone present in the little get together thought so too, but Piper wanted to do it now, as in at that very moment.

"Piper, we can't just go barging in there, you know. It may cause a few fireworks, which could very easily translate to exposure. And besides, if we rush into it and then mess it up, we could get him into trouble with his mother. You don't want that to happen now, do you?" Phoebe tried to reason with her adamant older sister.

"Oh, all right. We'll make a proper plan, and then do it, y'happy?" Piper finally gave in, seeing the logic behind her sister's words.

"Good. Now what we need is a plan. Got any?" Phoebe said, putting the question to all present.

"One of us could orb there," Chris suggested, "and seeing that I'm the one the spell contacted, I think I should be the one to do it" he said in a tone that clearly conveyed that he intended to go, no matter what, and his 'suggestion' was merely a formality.

Piper didn't miss her son's tone, and she knew that it was futile to try and argue with him, so she just said, "Just be careful, peanut. Someone who willingly hurts her son is capable of hurting anyone."

Chris rolled his eyes, giving his mother his trademark look. Then, focusing his mind on his destination, he orbed out.

When Chris' orbs neared his destination, he felt as if he'd just slammed into an invisible but very solid wall, which sent him flying straight back into the attic.

"CHRIS! What the hell happened? Are you all right?" Piper shrieked, ever the over protective mother.

"Unh…" her son answered. He was seeing stars at the moment, decidedly beautiful stars at that!

"A ward, the woman's set up a ward around the house." Chris finally said, the stars having dissipated.

Both Paige and Wyatt tried to orb to the place, then. And unfailingly met with the same fate as Chris.

"So orbing's very definitely ruled out" Wyatt commented, rubbing his head which had bore the brunt of the impact.

"D'you think it's impregnable to astral projection?" Chris said, getting a sudden brainwave.

All the Halliwell witches could astral project, even though all of them didn't have it as an active power in the way Prue did (or had, in the dead Prue's case)

There were downsides of using it though. Since it wasn't an active power, it took a lot of energy, and left them exhausted. Therefore, they'd wisely reserved it for only emergencies. And this, seemed to qualify as one.

Chris sat down on the floor of the attic, concentrating on moving out of his body, without moving his physical self an inch.

In a moment, he felt it happen, and looked back to see his now unconscious body slumped on the attic floor.

Concentrating once again on the apartment, he felt his astral self leave the Manor for his target. He braced himself for a resistance, just in case his theory was proved wrong.

Instead, he found himself in a room, and directly opposite to him sat 'the blue eyed innocent', as he'd taken to calling him in his head.

"Who're you?" Gabriel asked uncertainly, trying to make his voice sound tough. In his heart though, he knew that this 16 (he guessed the age) year old stranger could only mean a reprieve for him.

"I'm Chris.", the stranger said, clearly feeling as awkward as Gabriel felt himself. "And I'm here to help you."

So, did you like it? R&R, please!