It's been an awful delay and I'm sorry, nevertheless I think I can solve that...

Waving the my hand in a very jedi like movement and reciting...

For the time have long been lost,

That this fic should have been post,

Please forgive me the delay,

And send the shame far away.

Now forget, lets make a pact,

Make your mind erase the fact,

That it's been far out of date,

Since I promised an update.

So my shame I can now heal,

I'll tell you I'm sorry and I will

Try to update the next one soon,

A fact as right as the moon.

Now you all are very convinced that there's not been such a delay and you still like me and my cookies... (desperate mad grimace while grabbing a sharpened pencil).

Thanks for you patience and our lovely reviews!!

Jennie: Well, he is back to normality again... at least for now. And don't worry for the reviews as far as people reads the fic ad like it I'm happy (reviews are good just for my ego and it's already big enough and growing). I'm glad you liked the chapter .

Kilikapele: XD thank you very much. I love when people tells me that they were waiting for the update (TT although it makes me feel guilty when I can update sooner).

Queen of the Elven City: Cracking like someone jumping trashing around a room. Let's say a falling flower pot or something like that. Thanks

IcantthinkofaFnick: Hi!! I'm trying to express what I think Chris must feel, the whole I'm living Leo now but I should be hating him, so I'm pretty confused... I'm happy you like the result. And yep, I'm still reading your storys although I have to find time and read the one after Time spend in Darkness, the rest are all checked and loved. I wish I could write the dialogs you write U

Buffgirl: Thanks!!

Egokreep: I'm sorry you didn't finished the story, I'm trying to go on explaining things when it's the right time.

Gossy707: XDD thaaanks!! Yep, as I always say Poor Chris is the main idea. Although I think that I'll feel sorry for Leo too in some chapters... The big problem is that I like all the Chris' so I'd like to keep writing with all of them. Sighs... U

Christine Marquez: Thanks!

terra fea: Here's the update and your cookie (a big one).

allaboutelephants22: I've passed you kiss to kid Chris, he liked it although was a little confsed because I just passed it alter ranking for a while about why he shouldn0t be stealing cookies... Sorry for the delay and thanks for the review

Sweet-Charmed-Angle: Thanks.

And here we go with the chapter... it's not a very dinamic one, but I wanted to explain certain thinks.

---OOO---

"Wyatt, here!" Leo shouted as Chris jumped to grab him. The kid orbed to the elder who tried to reason with Chris. "Listen to me, we..."

But Chris had no time for that.

"Leo, you don't understand! He's in danger, and you can't..."

"Yes, we can, look-"

Chris shook his head, angrily.

"No! Look, I knew this would happen... but you can't protect him
because there's a d..."

"We know..."

"No you don't, this demon..."

"We know about the SoulShadow!!" Leo yelled, finally.

Chris stopped in his tracks. "You do?"

"Yes we do, and we're working on it."

The half whitelighter gaped at him. "You're working on it?"

"Yes"

"Oh..."

Chris looked slightly crestfallen; he had been all prepared for a fight to make them understand. He'd planned a thousand ways to explain it, replayed the conversation in his head again and again, thinking how to reply to their arguments. Building himself up for a long fight. And now they already knew?

That was not cool.

And he was not thinking straight.

"Chris, are you...?" Leo began, but Chris couldn't hear the end of it for his vision started to spin slowly and his knees collapsed.

Darkness began to wrap it's fingers around his mind and Chris felt himself fall to the floor. It was a long fall, as if played in slow motion, until something grabbed him by the waist and pulled him up.

The next thing the half white lighter was aware of was that he was lying in the bed.

"Shhh..." Someone whispered next to him. "You can hold on, okay? Hold on. I'm here. You can hold on, okay? I'm going to heal, but you have to stay awake"

Chris blinked, confused. Stay awake? Why?

Because you're drifting into unconsciousness and he is healing you... you'd have a fight earlier, remember? And I don't remember you having too much sleep lately. The future witch grunted at his mind lecturing him. By the way, you'd have a fight with Leo, and It sounds like he is the one healing you.

It sounded like Leo's voice.

It was Leo's voice.

It was Leo.

Then why wasn't he knocking the sense out of him instead of whispering those freaking comforting words?

Oh, god... he was going to die.

That's why the elder was being nice, because he was going to die.

A warm feeling crossed his body and the shadows retreated.

Maybe not dead. Maybe not yet.

Not until Wyatt was safe.

"Wyatt..." he whispered, the pain had released him but he still felt weak.

"He is here... he is okay... just don't worry."

Don't worry? Easy to say.

"You're not going to kill me, then?"

"No, probably not..." Leo answered, then added to himself: But the day you're old enough someone is going to get grounded for a loooong time for kidnapping your brother.

The elder smirked.

"Sorry..." Chris scolded himself for that, but his mouth wasn't acting according to his brain. The second wanted to make some witty remark to scold Leo away ( the man was too much close for his taste ), but the former insisted on lame words and stupid questions.

"Just don't worry and try to relax..." the elder said.

Again.

Don't worry? Don't worry? He'd kidnapped Wyatt!!

For crying out loud, the man had been for months turning his life into hell for the Valkryeis issue (he was surrounded with beautiful, half naked women and yet had the guts to complain), but Chris kidnaps his offspring and it's a big 'Don't worry'?

His family was absolutely demented... and he was losing it again.

He was feeling so tired... he just wanted a hot bath and a comfy bed. Not an option right now, though.

Slowly, Chris managed to focus come back again to reality.

Leo was saying something and he asked the elder to repeat it.

"I was saying that you had your reasons to take Wyatt away, and that... well... you see.. maybe I shouldn't have..."

Chris head snapped up. His father was trying to apologize? To him?

Wow.

He'd always had the feeling that it would take a genie's wish to have Leo apologizing to him without a letter.

"... and I suppose that you were right not telling us... because we wouldn't have listened... not with everything what's happened lately..."

Chris sighed, the man was finding it hard to say the words, was he?

"... but nevertheless what happened before, when I found you... well, you see, I was worried and... er..."

Well, definitely, Leo was apologizing. Or proposing commitment. Which would turn this in the most awkward moment in his life. Even worse than that with the killer Teddy Bears.

"... so all in all, I wanted to say you that... well..."

Chris raised head again, now was it... he was going to say it.

The elder took a deep breath." ... look, I'm so..."

He shut up when the door swung open.

"What happened??!!??" Phoebe rushed into the room to find Chris in the bed, glaring daggers at her, and Leo sitting next to him. "We heard a crack and... Is this Chris?"

"No, I'm Snowhite..." he answered, pushing himself up straight. "And I'd like to know what the hell am I doing here, because the last time I checked I was in a freaking hut in the middle of a freaking forest surrounded by seven dwarves!"

Phoebe raised her arms in surrender.

"Chill, boy... There's no need to get mad... " She gave a second thought to the statement and added. "Not yet at least..."

Chris looked at her with a grimace, she didn't looked ready to kill him either.

"What are you talking about, Phoebe? And try to explain it in short words, cause my head is still spinning."

"Short? Okay, lets say it in short words... No Time For It Now. She now. You later."

"She?"

"Piper..."

Oh... oh oh oh... she was going to skin him very slowly and then boil the rests.

"What happens with her?"

"She's kind of... possessed by the demon... if you know what I mean..."

Chris nodded.
"Yeah, I know what you mean. You see, the SoulShadow gets into a human body and kind of controls it's mind without the guest being aware of..."

The empath rolled her eyes.
"Yes yes yes... we've read it in the book... it have her brain bugged and influences her and bla bla bla... is it?" she said with a smug face. "We can read the book too, you know?"

"Indeed, you can." he answered with a grin "Who'd thought so..."

Phoebe scowled at him but said nothing for a part of her brain was screaming at her something in the lines of Ooooh!! He's sooo cute when he's being witty, You have such a handsome and cute nephew... Oh My God, you didn't hit on him, Did You? Did you?... Oh, I'm a perverted...

"Nevertheless, she's acting weird..."
Leo's words returned her to reality.

"Well, she's more or less possessed, you know?" remarked Chris, raising an eyebrow. "I suspect she won't be making cookies."

"I didn't mean that..." protested the elder.

"I know, I know... " Relented Chris. "But the SoulShadow does change people, and it's worse than a common demon because normal empath can't sense it, and if you're not looking accurate or if it isn't in a rush for something, it can have you fooled for weeks..." Chris eyes darkened, half lost in a memory. "... and people don't even know they had something inside once it leaves the guest. It's so easy to blame a weird behavior on a bad day that you'll never know what happens..."

"It looks like if you've studied this demon for a long time... did you know that this was going to happen?"

And there was again suspect in Leo's voice.

"No, I didn't. I was following a lead in the underground... and I heard a rumor that there was a SoulShadow plotting against the Charmed Ones."

"And how come that you know so much about it?" insisted the elder.

Chris sighed, too tired to start an argument with them right now, or even to lie.

"Because it attacked, in the future..." it wasn't as if he was putting the future in danger, after all none of them were alive when it happened.

"It attacked the Charmed Ones?" asked Leo.

Chris smirked humorlessly.

"No, it attacked me and some... let's says friends..."

Phoebe sat next to him.

"So you have friends in the future? Who'd thought so..."

"Had." Said the young man.

"What?" asked the witch, not fully understanding him.

"I had friends in the future." He said, his voice was rough.

The silence that followed that statement would have beaten all the last ones in thickness and awkwardness.

"Sorry,... I didn't... I didn't meant to..."

Chris shook his head.
"Don't worry about that, ok? You didn't know..." and I shouldn't have told.

"Was it Wyatt?"

"Sorry?" Chris turned to Leo, startled. The elder had asked the question with
an emotionless voice but his eyes were burning.

"Did Wyatt... have something to o with your friends... death? Where they opposing him or something like that? A resistance?"

The thought of a real resistance against Wyatt nearly made Chris laugh, but the young man stopped himself. It was not funny at all.

"I can't tell you." He didn't wanted to talk about this, not now, not never.

"Because of future consequences?" asked the angel. "Or because you don't want us to know what he's capable of?"

That hurt. That hurt a lot. Basically because it was true.

"You don't have to know that." He spat.

"I'm his father, I deserve to know..."

"You don't deserve a shit, Leo..." Chris said, cutting him off so harshly that Phoebe winced. "Seventy two hours ago you didn't even know about this, and the truth is that you should've never known."

"Why?"

Chris hesitated.
Because that won't happen, because I'm here to stop it, to give us an opportunity. I want the future to be brand and new, I'm sick of people dying. I wanna see my cousins growing up and I want to complain about high school and homework. I want to have dreams.

I'm fed up with being afraid, and I'm fed up of seeing people living in fear. Fear of some megalomaniac freak of power that happened to be the center of my live. My fucking hero.

I'm sick of wake up at dawn and ask myself who'll die today. Who will he kill?

And I'm sick of knowing it won't be me.

And once I've created this shining future, mine won't exist anywhere but in my mind and if one day I can forget, even if it is for just one second, then maybe I could play at ignoring it even happened.

"Because it would've been better that way." Chris said, his voice more harsh than what he'd liked.

He will find a way to make them forget. He will. After all, he'd found a way to be conceived, hadn't he?

Phoebe felt that Chris was not ready to talk about that, and they really had no time anyway, but Leo seemed unaware of that, so she interrupted the conversation before it went on.

"What you said about the demon..." she asked, elbowing the elder to shut him up. " about it changing people moods and all that stuff. I'm not sure that's the case with Piper..."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for an instance what she did, when possessed.. I don't thing real Piper would have done it, not even with a thousand SoulShadows messing in his emotions."

The half whitelighter frowned.

"What did she do?"

The elder Looked at her (Look-at-what-you've-done-now!!) and the empath hesitated, that was clearly not the moment to discuss their little magical skid.

"She... she put Wyatt in danger... on purpose..."

"What? Really?" Chris face darkened with worry. "Holy shit!"

"No good?" she asked.

The young man didn't answered but covered his face with his hands and kept cursing.

And that was weird, thought Phoebe, because teen Chris would have shrugged. After all, the day something beats Piper Halliwell the sky will turn pink and the rain will pour upside down.

On the other hand, their Chris had never been all that confident in the Charmed Ones skills.

"Er... Chris?" Leo crossed sights with the empath, both where thinking in the same lines. "What happens?"

The half witch sighed deeply, regaining some control.

"She's possessed." He stated.

"Well, yeah we know that, but..."

"No, no no no no... you don't understand. The SoulShadow has fully possessed her. Not just bugged her brain, but now it have full control over her actions, she's not even conscious now... it's more like a typical possession." The young witch cursed with some very intense words. "That's stupid because after some minutes in a full possession the demon loses contact with the guest and it's memories or general behaviours, so there's really no way to keep faking be someone else. And it should now that if you were aware of someone in the family being possessed, it wouldn't have a chance to get near Wyatt..."

"Then why-?"

Chris answered before Leo had finished the question.
"Because then it would have access to all her powers without the restrictions of her will, but that would mean giving away it's cover. I thought it wouldn't do something that stupid, in my time it was more...
subtle..."

There was another sight-crossing.

"She... It may have... need them... " said Phoebe.

"Why?" asked Chris, suspiciously.

Sight-crossing.
To keep away the demon she'd submitted ordered to kill you.
That was not the best way to avoid certain subjects.

Hesitation.

"A demon attacked." Leo half lied at least.

Chris nodded, it didn't made much sense, but he was really tired so if Leo had said a giant turtle carrying four pink bespectacled elephants had entered the room dancing can-can he'd believed him.

On the other hand...

"But even with Piper's powers there's no way it can hurt or even touch Wyatt. " He cursed his own treacherous mind, unable to drop a subject. "He would know and he would protect himself... probably..."

"Probably?" Phoebe raised an eyebrow.

"Well, I wasn't sure... that's why I had to take him away."

The empath melted a little at Chris's hopeless voice. And he was actually pouting. His nephew was cuuuute... Focus, she had to focus. Right now.

"Whatever... we have to free her right now!" the young man massaged his temples, exasperated.

"That was the plan, Chris. We were working on it before you... regained your consciousness." She tried to calm him, then noticed his suddenly paleness and froze. "What happens? Is she in danger?"

"No!... Yes... Er... " The half witch cursed again and got up in a rush. "She is in danger... She..."

And then, without finishing the explanation started pacing, muttering to himself something on the lines of "shitshitshitshitshitshit".

Leo looked at Phoebe who shrugged.

"Chris, you're not making any sense at all." The empath stated.

The half whitelighter stopped with a decision and turned to Leo.

"She's not going to get hurt, probably, for the demon needs her... but the stress of carrying a fully possession... you must understand, she will not give up her mind, she will fight for it even if she's not fully aware of what happens around."

"And that's bad because...?" asked the elder. Of course Piper will be fighting the demon.

"Because... the stress... her body, something in her body may... give up..."

"She is in danger of a heart attack?" Leo's eyes grew wide.

Some tiny subconscious part of Chris stomped it's metaphorical head into a metaphorical wall of his subconscious. As a result, his real head started to hurt.

"What? No..." Chris took a deep breath. "She may not be in danger Leo,
but... someone... inside her is."

Phoebe gasped next to him and cursed mildly. Leo simply frowned.

"Well, of course... but I don't understand how does it matters..."

Chris froze. "I beg your pardon? Of course it matters!"

"No, I mean... if the demon inside Piper is in danger what should we care...?"

The subconscious tiny part of Chris drew a sledgehammer and proceeded to hit it's tiny head.

The elder must had felt something in the young man stunned face and mentally replayed the last minute of conversation.

He tried to sit down, then realized that he was already sitting on the bed and tried to get up, both movements melted in at the same time in the elder overloaded mind and Leo found himself landing in the floor with a muffled thud.

"Piper is pregnant." It wasn't a question.
Piper was pregnant.
Of him? Well, sure it was his son. It had to be Chris and the kid was half whitelighter.

Unless she'd known another angel in the last months.

Or maybe an elder.
Oh man, he knew that Gideon suddenly interest in his family wasn't for free. Oh, the moment he'd finished with all this he would go to the magic school and...

Chris subconscious tiny part orbed from it's own head to Leo's and slammed the sledgehammer into the elder's subconscious tiny part metaphorical head.

The elder focused.

Phoebe saw Leo's face came back to reality and felt slightly bad for him. But just slightly. Her sister was going to have a new baby.
Chris!!
Did she know that already?

How was she supposed to tell her who Chris was?

The half whitelighter, by the way, had turned his back to them and was slowly counting to one hundred. That was all the time he was going to give them to get used to the news of a newcomer.

After all, Phoebe would accept it in half that time, and Leo never really got over it in his time, so there was no sense in giving them more time.

...97...98...99...

"And one-hundred..." he turned again "ok, guys, I know you're all surprised and that but..." his voice trailed off as he saw the big smile in Leo's face. "But... but... but we have to... find Piper
and... er... free her of the demon..." Focus focus focus damn it, focus! " because... because of the..."

"Baby?" the elder finished for him still smiling.

"Yes... the baby..."

"My daughter..."

"Or your son!!"

"Yes, of course, or my son..." for one second Leo was highly tempted to taunt Chris with names, but this was not the moment. "Any ideas of how we're supposed to do that?"

The half witch blinked again at the elder's smile, lost in thoughts.

"But you love her. And she loves you." had said Phoebe.
"I'm afraid that's not enough."

And that had been a good answer. The kind of answer that Chris was willing to accept. The reaction he'd always thought that would fit.

But Leo had that smile. Even worried for Piper, he was smiling.
Chris tried to focus again, he'd deal with Leo and all the baby stuff later.

On a second thought, he'd rather not deal with it ever.

"Yes... yes... there's ways to fight it, of course..." Chris said finally, packing everything else in the bottom of his mind.. "There's a power of three spell, that we can't do since she won't be willing to cast it... but there's a potion too... and this..." he extracted a little box of his pocket and held it up to show them.

"What is it?" asked Phoebe inspecting it. "There's some symbols engraved..."

"It's a box, a magical box..." Chris explained. "I bought it just a little while ago, that's why I left the safe area..."

"Safe area?" Phoebe wanted to know.

"Where you couldn't find me."

"And where..."

"Not now, Phoebe, please..."
Se agreed with a nod.

Leo, who hadn't mentioned a thing about the safe area, approached half witch and took the box carefully.
"It's very old." He stated. "And the engraving seems to be some kind of babilonic. It's a soul box, is it? You plan to put the demon in a soul box... that's clever."

Chris glared at his father. It was his plan, so he'd liked to explain it by himself, thank you very much.
"Yes... and it's expensive too, so if you don't mind..." he snapped, snatching the thing back. "Now, the main plan was to..."

"Where did you get the money to pay it?" Phoebe cut him off.

"Wh... What?"

"Yeah, if it's expensive how did you paid it?" agreed Leo.

"I sold something..."

"What?"

"Something... something I... Oh, screw it the both of you!!!. Can you please please please focus?? I mean, Piper is lost and pregnant and you two keep interrupting me every two words with silly things!! Now, we have to find Piper..."

Leo opened his mouth to say something but Chris raised a threatening finger and continued.

"... cast a spell to force the demon to leave her body... now it would be tricky for the moment the SoulShadow leaves a body, it jumps nearly immediately into another, so we have to throw the potion pretty fast. It will confuse him long enough to give the Charmed Ones time to cast
a second spell that will draw it to the box."

He stopped to breath and added. "Is that clear?"

"Crystal." Said Phoebe and mentally added. He is cute... but have a hell of a character... just like Piper, which would be lovely if not for the fact that he is having all this character directed at me... now it's merely annoying and turns him into a little neurotic jerk under stress... just like his mother.

Leo tried to say something but Chris is cut him off. Again.

"No way, Leo... whatever it is, I don't care, ok? I'm so not going to stand you playing the all knowingly and all superior elder. This is urgent and I really couldn't care less on how much you don't trust me, ok? Save it for later, because this demon can't be contained by no kind of force field or stones or whatever so if Piper comes back and we're not ready I'm not sure of what will happen."

Leo glared at him, feeling for first time a rush of annoyance at his son (instead of a rush of annoyance at Chris the half whitelighter of the future).

"What I was going to say, you obnoxious smart ass, is that Piper is already here. She's in the attic contained by the stones... which is not working, for what you've said."

Chris paled, whirled around and ran upstairs.

That left Leo, Phoebe and Wyatt in the bedroom.

"So much for the almighty cold headed boy..." muttered the elder. Then turned to the witch. "Do you want me orbing you upstairs."

The empath cocked her head, doubtfully.

"Are you sure? This demon could infect me... shouldn't I stay here?"

"Well, Phoebe, no offence meant but for what I know you could be the aforesaid demon, so I''m not leaving you alone with Wyatt."

She sighed.

"You have a point there."

And the two of them orbed back to the attic.


Done... for now. I hop you liked it.