I disclaim, you disclaim, he disclaims... Charmed is not mine, and all the characters I'm using in this fic aren't either.
First of all, I'd like to ask you for a big ovation for my lovely Beta-reader As Always. She've helped me with the fic, so it was more... enlgish and less bulgarian... and not only that, but she've helped me ordering the chaos that the chapter was. Mmm... do I forget something... oh, yes... Thanks!!!!
Now... about my reviewrs... you're my aire, I couldn't be doing this without you.
Shina: Yep, they're going to cast a spell... a truth spell... sighs.. just if they learned how often those kindof spells doesn't work well.
Heather: That thing about the story overshadowing the language have really touched me... thanks, it was so sweet. I'll try ro keep updating more or less regualry, I swear.
Jennie: I finnally found a beta-reader, lucky me. And about dashes... my fault. That's what we use in speeches, so I just didn't thought of checking if in english it was different... in fact it's pretty weird to read it with (') U And I'm trying to arrange the long pieces of dialog thing... I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I just try to avoid as mush as possible go on with he said, she said, Phoebe said, Leo said and use diferent verbs. Thanks again for your critics, it's the best way to learn. I hope that from now the fic is easier to read.
Karen: thanks for offering, but I've already find a beta. Anyway you were very kind, so please enjoy the fic.
Brit: erm... be patient about that, there's a whole story to develop telling them who's Chris would spoil the beans too fast (did I got the 'spoil the beans' correctly?)
It was midnight.
And it was high.
And it was cold.
And he wasn't crying.
Well, some of that wasn't true, at least not 100 true.
Even in the Golden Gate's highest tower, it didn't seem so high. He had orbed higher once when he was a kid and Wyatt had been trying to teach him how to orb. But the rest was true... well, maybe it wasn't 12 o'clock, but it was certainly cold up there and he wasn't crying.
Tears were useless and a sign of weakness that he had more than learned not to show to the world. More than that, tears would take away the pain, that's what his mother had told him years ago, that tears where like his father healing power but with the pain of the heart... and Chris didn't wanted to heal his pain. After all, pain and sorrow were what had held him until now. Hope was what inspired him, what pictured that perfect and shiny future in his head. Hope was what created his Itaca, but sorrow and grief were what gave him the strength to go on and never give up.
With a deep sigh the half whitelighter shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He had to worry about some things far more important than Piper being angry with him. For example, how was he supposed to go back to the house now? With that big ban on him entering the house, protecting Wyatt was going to be a hell of a job.
'C'mon man... you can be mourning here for the eternity, you have to get up and start looking for something useful to do... '
That was right, some work would distract him. Maybe he could find some new enemies in the underwolrd, some twisted plot to uncover, something very dangerous that would have his mind occupied and his feelings in tight check.
The half whitelighter orbed to the underworld were it wasn't midnight, for there was no moon to rise; it wasn't high since it was the UNDER-world; It was much warmer; and he wasn't allowed to mourn.
He needed to keep head clear and ready.
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-The sun is rising and it's a beautiful morning in San Francisco, or at last that's what we suppose it's like above the clouds... Meanwhile, the city awakes covered in stormy clouds and falling rain. If you have drive somewhere this morning please take care because the Meteorological Center of San Francisco have just announced the possibilities of the storm growing into an little and annoying typhoon. The authorities has claimed that there's nothing to worry about, but also say that SF citizens should stay at home at least, until the weather gets a little better...
Leo turned off the radio and served some coffee to the sisters that were seated in the kitchen table. It had been a looong night for each and everyone of them. The Charmed Ones had been working on the spell for hours while he been doing the not-so-elderly job of cleaning up the mess in the attic.
"So... how's the spell going...? " He asked as cheerfully as he could manage. Whatever he had to do he would since it allowed him to spend a few hours near Wyatt and Piper... Even if his ex-wife had been behaving absentmindedly half the night and plainly ignoring him the other half.
"Written and ready to be cast the moment Chris sets a foot in this house. " Paige looked at him groggily.
"That's if we're awake when he does... shit!" complained Phoebe "It's the last time I try to figure out a truth spell. I mean, for all Leo knows about it, you have to know the victims by heart to write it correctly... but if we knew anything about Chris we wouldn't be casting it...If at least we could use the one in the book... " the witch glared at the Book of Shadows "But no!, it couldn't be so easy, could it? We couldn't have a normal magical heritage... the Charmed One's center of knowledge had to declare itself in strike"
-Yeah... not fair Pheebs... anyway I'm going to see if Wyatt is awake before he gets hungry.
Paige looked at Piper leaving the room and waited until she was sure that the witch couldn't hear her, then she turned to Leo.
"Okay Elder boy, what the hell has happened?" She asked.
"Sorry?"
"Not sorry us, Leo... there's something going on between Piper and you. She's been acting funny for somedays... and whatever Chris told her that got her mad, they were discussing about you."
The elder looked at his sisters-in-law... in fact more sisters than anything else... and kind of... blushed deeply.
"Oh, c'mon... you didn't screwed, did you" - asked Phoebe in disbelief.
Leo's face turned even redder.
"That's none of your..." he started.
"You'll better not say it doesn't concerns us... " snapped Paige. "What the hell were you two thinking? "
"Look! I don't know, ok? We were having some tea and chatting about Wyatt and suddenly... well... Okay, I don't wanna explain the rest... but it happened, and it shouldn't..."
"What do you mean it shouldn't?" The youngest Halliwell cut him off, angrily.
Leo closed his eyes and breathed deeply before answering.
"You see, as an elder..."
"Cut the elder's crap... " Paige got up and faced his ex-brother in law. "You were Piper's husband before becoming an elder, and you're definitely old enough to control your hormones and not come here and do whatever you want with my sister and then say that it's some kind of big mistake!!!"
"Paige, chill out a little, will you? " Phoebe had got up also and was tossing her sister away from the elder.
"Anyway he was lying there, he's not sorry that it happened, he feels awful because Piper is avoiding him... isn't that true?"
Leo nodded, without ever averting his eyes from the floor. He didn't know what had happened to them that night except that he had awoke the next morning and Piper hadn't been there with him.
"The thing is..." said the elder finally "she regrets what happened and she is right. She wants a life that I can't give her... and that stupid moment of lust has changed nothing. We're not together anymore... that's it."
"But you love her. And she loves you. "stated Phoebe. "And this isn't only sister talking, but the empath too"
"I'm afraid that's not enough."
I'm afraid that's not enough.
From behind the kitchen door, Chris eavesdropped, listening as his aunts talked to his father and smiled bitterly. That wasn't something he'd wanted to hear.
'Curiosity killed the cat, but the satisfaction brought him back' he thought, remembering an old saying that his brother used to tell him. Shamefully there was little satisfaction there, just the obvious because the plan had worked... but he already knew that. His future family started to move in the kitchen and that snapped him into reality, he had some serious work to do.
In Piper's room, the witch was cuddling her son carefully, whispering some old song her mother used to sing her when the Halliwell sisters were still kids and she was alive.
And Prue too was alive.
Suddenly, she felt overwhelmed with the need of talking to her older sister. It wasn't fair, after all. Prue was supposed to be there for her, to help and advice. She'd never wanted to be the oldest, who was she supposed to talk to now?
She did had her sisters, and they would be willing to help her... for gods' sake, Phoebe's job was to advise people. But what she wanted now was an older shoulder to lean on, someone wiser, someone who had all the answers. Someone like her mother, or Prue... someone like Leo.
In her lap, Wyatt stirred, getting her back into reality. The kid would awake soon and would be hungry, so, careful not to disturb him, Piper put him again in the cradle and went down to the kitchen for a bottle.
As she was still deep down in her own problems, the witch didn't saw the silhouette that entered the room just after she had left it.
The moment Piper entered the kitchen everything went quiet. Phoebe and Paige started to have staring contests with the coffee cups, and Leo was no place to be seen.
"You were talking about me, weren't you? " she asked, earning a guilty look in her sisters face.
"No we weren't. "Paige lied horribly.
"You know, I'm not an empath and I can tell that you're lying to me... what's it?"
But whatever it was no one told ever Piper because at that moment the Baby-talkie that Piper had attached to the kitchen long ago came to life and the Charmed heard Wyatt's soft cries of awakening.
"Ok... I'll forget it if Paige takes me up there, I'm just too sleepy to walk upstairs." Piper yawned.
Both sisters orbed next to Piper's bed half a second later just to find that Wyatt was not alone.
"Chris! What are you doing here? " asked Paige in disbelief. What happened to that boy? Did he want to die?
It was a miracle that Piper hadn't blown him up the moment they had entered the room. And speak of the devil...
"Chris, can you please put Wyatt down in the cuddle?"
Okay, that wasn't the outburst that Paige had feared. She turned to her sister who wasn't angry but scared. Scared to death by Chris holding her baby.
"Chill, Piper. I'm not going to harm him."
"Then put it back to his bed, please..."
Chris looked around the room for a second and then faced the sisters again. "I can't, I'm really sorry Piper, but he's in danger..."
"Then give him to me, I'll protect him." Piper pleaded.
"I'm not so sure about it... "
"What are you talking about Chris?" Paige left her sister side and advanced to the whitelighter. " C'mon, give me Wyatt."
"I'm sorry Paige, I can't... " Chris took a step backwards, looking hastly to the door. " It's for the best, I swear it."
"You won't leave with Wyatt, Chris." Piper gestured towards them and smashed the window. "Next time I'm going to hit you..."
"And what of Wyatt?"
"He can protect himself."-
"Yes... but he isn't, is he? C'mon, he's trusting me, take a little confidence in him and trust me you too."
"For lords sake Chris, you're kidnapping him... what kind of confidence do you expect us to show?"
Chris shrugged and turned to Piper.
"I'm really... " he started, but Piper was already waving her hands and if Wyatt hadn't lift the shield he would have been dead. "Hey, thanks for that, man..." Chris said to Wyatt.
And, once again, the whitelighter orbed out of the manor.
I have to say that I'm very proud of how this is going... what do you think?
Oh... my Beta Reader asked me about what was Itaca (it's in the begining of the chapter). Itaca was an ancient island in the Roman and Greacian mythology. It's were lived Ulysses (who's grecian name was Odysseus) a roman king that went to the Trojan war. Whe Ulysses tryed to come back home from the war, the gods cursed his boat and the travel that should have lasted only 2 months more or less, lasted for 10 years full of adventures and dangers until he finally reached his home and came back to Penelope (his wife).
Actually, the word 'Itaca' it's used as a metaphor to talk about something you want to achieve. Not the physical end of the travel, but an utopia... something that's worth fighting for. As I told As Always, sorry for the mythology class, but I love it U
