Hey!

Two weeks aprox., not that bad for my records!

Here's a new chapter, all brand and new, and all for you.

Signalling around

There's also some tea and orange juice in the tables at the back of the room. The fic service will be serving light appetizers in no time consisting of both, sweet and sweeter food.

The fic guest highly recommends the cookies specially made by Chris, but also warns that it was Psico Chris and that he was singing a rather disturbing song slightly related to that of the 'The sound of music' movie... the fic management does not make themselves responsibles of any organic or non organic ingredient that may have accidentally or not so accidentally fallen into the bowl.

The answers to the reviews are at the bottom because the occupied to much space.

Here it goes:

Chapter 16: A new hope.

(Just so you know, it's a Star Wars reference, there's no such a thing like hope in this chapter...)

Lately:

"Victor, you don't know a shit!"

"Then tell me!"

"NO!"

"But why..."

"BECAUSE SHE IS NOT DYING!"

Words filled the room and thickened the air so for a second none of them could talk nor breath.

"What?" Victor heard the word before realising he'd said it.

Chris saw how understanding settled in the mans eyes and cursed himself.

"I mean.. will be... I mean... Oh,-"

-oOo-

Piper retrieved her agenda from the drawer and smiled at him in a knowingly way. 'I know your secret,...' her face was saying '... but I won't tell anyone'.

"Here it is." She showed him the agenda.

"Yeah... I see..." he answered, his face saying 'Note to mini-self: Don't inherit mum deduction skills'.

"Maybe I better call them from...

-oOo-

"I'm ok, dad..." he answered finally. "Just got sick..." Leo looked at him worried, but Chris didn't actually tell him about all the sweets affair. Mean or not, Wyatt's words were still going around in his head.

Dad hugged him again.
"You..."

-oOo-

"... worried me." Paige told her sister once Phoebe finally snapped out of his self induced trance.

"Sorry, I was thinking..."

"Thinking of what..."

"Of my next advice." The empath answered getting up and reciting:

Hold your fear and unleash your heart,
Get a grip, and you'll can see straight,
So even in the darkest night,
Friends from foes you'll tell apart
.

-oOo-

And now:

Eyes closed in a desperate attempt to avoid Victor's shocked face, Chris cursed his own stupidity for having slipped about mum. He'd just put his whole leg deep inside his mouth and down his throat.

Slowly he opened his eyes, trying to quickly think of a way out of the current situation. But once he looked around, it was clear that said way out was unnecessary.

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto... he thought to himself, and it was true... he wasn't in Kansas nor was he in Victor's apartment.

His mind hurried to give him a suitable answer for what had happened. He'd just changed into some other Chris for a while again and awakened somewhere else... somewhere far away from Victor.

A sharp gasp called his attention and Chris was pretty proud of his maturity when he avoided curse out loud in surprise.

He was out of Victor's apartment… and right into Mum's office in the P3.

"Oh... it's you..." The teenager mumbled at his mother who was looking at him, dumbfounded.

"Chris?" the witch asked, repeating the same stupid question that the teenager was steadily growing sick of.

"No! I'm not Chris…I'm Cinderella! Look at my not so fancy dress and the oh so horrible ash in my hair..."

Things had gone like this:
Piper had turned around for not as much as five seconds and she'd hear some... well... noises. Something like orbing, but not orbing... and when she'd look back, her nephew wasn't there anymore. Well, he was there, but he was way younger, and looking at her with a 'Oh, great, the annoying aunt is back' look on his face.

"Chris... you... er... you weren't here two seconds ago..." She finally said, feeling awkward.

"So I just woke up, didn't I?" The kid asked, trying his best to look everywhere but at his mother. His last outburst with Victor and her words a few hours before where still fresh and painful.

"Yes you did... I was talking to your older version.. the one I know, and then here you are."

Actually the conversation was kind of funny from our point of view, since Piper was also avoiding Chris's eyes (now that she'd found his hidden identity she felt even guiltier than before)... so the final effect was like some kind of early fifties silent comedy films where people kept getting hit by the dumb clown with a ladder whle trying to avoid each other.

Little note from the author: About this last part, my beta said "What?" and once I've read it again I must agree with her and, probably, with you. It doesn't makes the slightest sense at all.

Back to the story.

"Yeah, here I am..." the teenager answered.

And here, Chris found out looking at his surroundings, was the club.

How he'd got here from grandpa's flat was under his comprehension. Probably his older self had done it... with enough luck, he'd managed to duck Victor questions after his little slip before.

"Hum... are you hungry?"
Piper's question caught him off guard.

"I just had some breakfast." He answered automatically, before remembering that he was angry with her.

"You did?"

"Yeah... at gra... gra... at Victor's."

"Uh... but that was like... hours ago."

Chris shrugged, not really knowing how long had it been since his breakfast.

Piper breathed deep and made a decision; if she was going to apologize, she'd have to do it now. "So... hum... I think I should tell you, because I just told your other self... I know."

"You know what?" Chris forced himself to chill out, that could have a thousand different meanings.

"I know who you are... and why what... what I said affected you so badly."

"Oh..." What else was there to say? Hi mum! I'm sorry you're pregnant?

"And I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?"

"Yes..."

The teen looked at her, both eyebrows raised.
"Sorry for what?"

"For what I said... You shouldn't have heard that..."

"You're sorry for me hearing what you were feeling?"

"Yes... no! No, I mean the discussion!" The witch answered, slightly exasperated.

"Ah, so you're sorry for having had a discussion with me..."

"Yes!"

But that didn't look like the right answer for Chris, who instead of relaxing, snapped.
"Better to have it your way than discussing things...?"

"No! I mean that I'm sorry for yelling at you for something that had nothing to do with you."

"Great! So it has nothing to do with me?"

"Well, not nothing. If I'd know who you were, I wouldn't have yelled at you."

"So now that you know who I am it wasn't okay, but then, when I was simply the guy that came from the future to save your son... then it was okay!"

"No...that wasn't either." Now the slight exasperation was growing into fully annoyance.

"Let me get this straight... now that you know who I am, yelling at me and having a discussion with me enters into the category of 'not right'... is it?"

"Look, It has nothing to do with who you are, ok?"

"Oh! So now it doesn't matter who I am?"

"No!" Wrong answer again, she known it the moment she'd said it.

"What?"

"Well, yes, it does. But not about what I'm talking about!"

"And what are you talking ABOUT!"

"About that I'm SORRY!" Was the kid simply daft?

"Sorry for what!"

"FOR YELLING AT YOU!"

"WELL, YOU'RE YELLING AT ME AGAIN!"

"BECAUSE YOU GET ON MY NERVES!"

"SO SORRY, IT'S GENETICS!"

"WELL, GO AND COMPLAIN TO YOUR MOTHER!"

"SO NOW WE'RE BEING SARCASTIC?"

"WHAT?"

"I ASKED IF YOU WERE BEING SARCASTIC!"

"I HEARD YOU... WHY ARE WE YELLING?"

"I DON'T KNOW!"

"LET'S STOP!"

"OK!"

"YOU'RE STILL YELLING!"

"YOU TOO!"

"STOP!"

"YOU FIRST!"
"Oh, for god sake! That's what you get discussing with teenagers..."

"Oh, so sorry, miss Maturity 2017..." Chris retorted, knowing he was loosing his footing in the discussion; he wasn't sure why he was making it so difficult. Probably because hearing her apologising felt wickedly good.

"2004..." Piper corrected him. "Look, and let me finish, ok? I get why you're so upset... I get it... I'm sorry I yelled at you because it was out of line. I shouldn't have."

Chris tried to interrupt her, but the witch raised a hand and stopped him.

"And I'm also sorry for what you heard... for what I said. I know it was awful, but I was tired and stressed and worried about a thousand other things, some of which had nothing to do with it and others that did... and it just was too much." She looked at Chris, the teen was looking far from her, his eyes locked in a spot in the wall.

"You said..." he began, then stopped and blushed.

"Go on..."

"You said 'mistake'." How much that word was burning inside him. Like a little hell had take over his soul.

"That was... that was a most unfortunate word..." Piper answered, her voice sweet. "Since you know me in the future you should have known by now that when angry, I just blurt things out without thinking..."

"That's like drunks and kids... and they never lie." He answered, stubbornly.

Piper thought of a simple and plain denial, but Chris wouldn't buy it and he deserved better.
"Well... neither did I... not exactly."

A shadow covered the kids face, for Chris had been waiting for that simple and plain denial which he could at least have pretended to believe.

Piper read the sadness in the young face and hurried to explain herself.
"I just chose the wrong words... I didn't mean that my child is a mistake... just that I didn't expect for it to happen. Maybe I should have said unexpected…?"

"Maybe."

"The thing is, Leo and I aren't together anymore... which... by the way you reacted isn't how it goes in your time..."

"That depends on how you look at it..." He answered before his instincts kicked his commons sense awake.

"What?"

"Nothing... no, you're not divorced... neither was he an elder at this moment."

"Well, but in this time we are... and he is..." Her voice trailed off, forcing Chris to look up. Her face was suddenly creased with lines of sorrow and hurt.

That startled him, his mother had never seemed so vulnerable. Or at least he'd never seen her like that.
Worried about a thousand other things... even when his mother had been worried about a thousand things he'd never seen in her face hold even a shadow of a doubt.

No doubts, no sorrows.

"Things are different..." Piper finished, her face aging with grief. Ironically, now she looked far more like his mother. Just his mother would never look that defeated.

At least not in front of Wyatt or me. Said someone deep inside of him... that someone, he noticed, happened to be himself.

Piper looked at him and Chris averted his eyes, lost in thoughts, in memories of his past.

"You seem tired..." The young half witch mumbled.

"I'm tired..." She agreed.

"You weren't, at the manor."

"I was..." The witch confessed looking at him with surprise, Chris's voice had sound almost childish, almost like a pout. "...but there's no good in worrying my sisters or Leo. I can put myself together. I'm the oldest, worrying is my job, not theirs..."

And she smiled a brave smile he'd grown to know and love, a brave smile that said that everything was going to be okay, that she knew how to solve everything.

A smile, he realised, that was a lie painted on her face to reassure those who were around her.

And he understood.
He understood her smiles for the last times in his own present, in his memories of how the Halliwells live will be in fourteens years from now.

Those were memories full of smiles, perfect copies of that one.
Smiles that, he could now see, weren't meant for her but for him. An easy falsehood to ease his worries and to keep hers hidden.

Hollow smiles.

"You've been lying..." He muttered under his breath.

Put on a brave face, because that's what mothers do, isn't it?

Breathe deep and smile because you don't want your kids to worry.

And keep lying, don't let them know the truth that's eating you inside.

And he'd believed her, because he'd wanted to believe that everything was okay, that she'd make it through.

Lies.
Liar.

Someone should have been there right there, in that very moment. Someone should have grabbed Chris hand and caressed his cheek.
Because it's not usual to be able to pinpoint that exact moment. The second in your live when childhood innocence is lost and leaves a hollow void that live fills with experience and will. Because such is the wisdom of nature that never closes a door without opening a window.
But it was lost nevertheless, and nothing was left there but pain and hurt.

"Lying about what?" She asked, clueless.

You liar! You'll die.
You won't get any better, just smiles and bravados and lies.
And death. Cold death.

Chris wasn't angry anymore, and he wasn't going to cry either. He was looking at Piper, that young Piper with so much she had to endure and live, knowing that he wouldn't say anything. He would keep his older self's secrets and go through this like she'd taught him to do.

Chris smiled, a smile where Piper saw traces of her future neurotic whitelighter she hadn't seen before.

"Nothing... about nothing."

And the hole began to fill, now, with determination.
"Look... let's drop this nonsense, ok?" he insisted. "You said what you said..."

"But I didn't mean what it sounded like."

Did she? Did he even care?
Yes, he cared... but he also understood. She was scared, she reacted suddenly. He could understand that.

"It's okay, Piper..." No mom, not mom now.

The witch was looking at him suspiciously, wondering if this calmness was a prelude of a new outburst, but Chris looked of nothing but cool, a hint of sadness maybe. Piper didn't know what to do with that, what was she supposed to do with that.

She wished Paige was here, then maybe Chris would have felt better. Been more at ease.
"We should go to the manor, Chris. Or the others will worry... we've been looking for you for a while..."

A new bigger smile was put on, closer to the ones of their oldest version than to those she'd seen in the kid earlier.

"Sure... let's go to the manor. After all, we still have a demon to vanquish."

-oOo-

Far away and deep down under the ground, although it was more of a metaphorical ground that the ground per se we walk on every day... let's say, deep inside that dimension called the Underground, a couple of Halliwell had had a surprise too.
But it was a really pleasant surprise.

"Aren't we lucky? I think we are lucky..."

"And why do you think such a thing, Phoebe?"

"Because we had four options... and we got the cutest one!" The empath answered, her eyes transfixed on the youngest Chris, who was looking around with a mix of confusion, and a tiny bit of fear, but mostly curious.

"What are we doing in the underworld, aunt Paige?" the kid asked at the only one of the two adults that wasn't acting as if he was some kind of overgrown puppet.

Last thing he remembered, he was throwing up…
Last thing he remembered, he was spending the morning alone with dad.

That was it, a shapeshifter. Ok, maybe that was a wrong assumption, the man had been his dad, and he was pretty sure about that. But then... What was he doing there?

His aunts looked at him, one of those looks he knew so well because it always meant something bad.

"Well... look... hum..." Phoebe, being the deep smart sensitive one, should have thought of something better to say. "Has anyone... er... updated you about what's happening?"

Chris thought about it.
"I've been kidnapped by a demon?"

"No."

"Wyatt's been kidnapped by a demon?"

"No".

"Mum's been kidnapped by a demon?"

"No."

"You've been kidnapped by a demon?"
"No one have been kidnapped by a demon, Chris."

"Oh... then I'm lost... what are we doing here?"

"Hum... you see... as much as we may look like your aunts right now..."

The kid took a few steps backwards, ready to run.
"Are you shapeshifters? Because I think that my mum was a shapeshifter earlier, and dad has been acting pretty weird..."

"We're not shapeshifters!" Paige exclaimed before the kid could began to run. "Look!"

And the witch orbed behind him.

"See? No shapeshifter can do that."

"Then...?"

"Then, as I was saying..." Phoebe walked to him. "We may look as your aunts, but the truth is that we're not exactly your aunts..."

"Alternate dimension?"

"Nope..."

"Dream?"

"No."

"Book?"

"Nooo..."

"Movie?"

"NO! You're in the past..."

"In the past what?"

"In the past! You know, before the present..."

Kid Chris blinked a couple times.

"Oh... " And as there wasn't a better word for it, and he'd always been a fast learner, added. "Shit."

"Watch your mouth, young man!" Paige chastised him.

"Sorry... what I meant was that, hum.. my mum is going to be really, really upset when she finds out..." Chris pondered that thought for a moment. But what was done was done, so he decided not to worry about his mother until he had to face her. "Uh... how far into the past I am?"

"Like seven years or so... we think... Your mum has just got pregnant..." Phoebe thought about that and added. "You know... pregnant by your dad... hum... she's going to have a baby... er... you know..."

"My mum and my dad had sex and now she is going to have a baby... yes aunt Phoebe, Wyatt told me all I wanted to know about it..."

And for those of you who are thinking: C'mon, he is just seven, how is he going to talk so directly about it...
Well, my brother explained to me the word 'fuck' (joder in spanish) and all it's applications when I was around five and he more or less Chris' age. Brothers are like that; they love to keep you informed with such useful things.

"So Wyatt is around in this reality... " Silly question; he'd seen him... well, his baby self, when mum had tried to... er... "What happened with mum?"

"She was possessed." Phoebe explained, happy to change the subject.

"Oh... I see. Is she alright now?"

"Yes, she's alright... in fact, she was looking for you so I think we better go... I mean, we're in the underworld... that just seems like a horrible idea."

Both, Paige and Chris nodded. Although the younger sister raised a hand, claiming their attention.
"But before we leave, there's something that you must know, Chris..."

"Grandpa's been kidnapped by a demon?"

"No! What happens with you and kidnappings?"

"Dunno... mum is always worried some demon is going to kidnap us..."

"Well, whatever... the thing is that Piper doesn't know you're his son... and you can't tell her."

"Why?"

"Because you'd be upset if you find out you've told her."

Chris was a smart kid, but that was a little too much for him.
"What?"

"Way to go sister..." Paige chided the middle Charmed sister before kneeling down in front of Chris. "Chris, honey, you surely have seen weird things in the manor, haven't you? I mean, growing up there and such."

"Uh... yes..."

"Like..."

"Like when you grew green hair all around your face and claimed to be a... uh... a willow."

Phoebe snorted and Paige glared at her.
"Well, this is just something like that... only different."

Chris' blank stare told her she wasn't having much success either. So she decided to go straight to the point.

"It's like this, Chris... You came to the past knowing what you were doing, more or less, because you wanted to help us doing something. But you didn't tell us who you were and since you weren't even born, we didn't know you. Ok?"

Chris nodded, more to keep her talking than to agree.

"And the thing is that you didn't wanted us to know, but then there was an accident..." Paige glared again at her older sister again when Phoebe had a sudden fit of coughs. "...an accident and then you just... kind of shrunk..."

"Shrunk?"

"You got younger... twenty four hours or so ago, you were like twenty two years old. And now you keep changing to older and younger until we find a way to get you back to your proper age. Did you understand that?"

"Ah... no... well, maybe enough... that's why I keep waking up in weird places?" He wondered. Things were making a little more sense. A little.

"Yes. The thing is that right now your mom doesn't know who you are and you can't tell her."

"Because of future consequences?"

"Were you born saying those words?"

"Uh?"

His youngest aunt waved it off with a shrug.
"Nothing... so it's okay?"

"Yes, okay... I can't call mum "mum" in front of her."

"Neither you can call Leo dad, or us aunts, ok?"

"Ok..." Chris gave her thumbs up.

Phoebe clasped her hands and grabbed both, her nephew and her sister.
"You know?" She said as Paige began to orb them. "I'm getting used to finding grown up relatives."

Victor looked at his grandson, his all grown up grandson.

The weird thing was that he was more shocked by the fact that he wasn't as shocked as he should have been considering his grandson had disappeared.

Not to mention, he disappeared right after almost telling him that his daughter was... would be... was going to be... well, would die (or at least would be dying in the future... and this thought had sense somehow!) and he had been replaced by... well, by the cocky young man that had redecorated his apartment a day or so ago. Who was, indeed, no one other than his grandson, only older.

Yep, it made perfect sense.

"Hi..." Sure there were far more fitting greetings, but he wasn't about to think of one.

"Hi..." The young man answered, looking around. "This is weird."

"You tell me, Mr. Let's-cover-the-walls-with-blood?"

"Uh... about that..."

"Yes, yes, yes... you were protecting Wyatt blah blah blah blah... Just don't worry too much..."

Chris reluctantly accepted his words. That is, he nodded but didn't look very comfortable with the situation.
"Hum... I know you don't like all these magical things but... what am I doing here?"

"You just... appeared here..." How much did the young man know of what had been happening?

Victor had the feeling that he didn't know much.

"Did I? Last I remember, I was with Piper."

"Great, last I remember I was about to drink something... Now it will be something a little stronger than what I usually drink at such hours in the morning, but I'm sure you will forgive this old man due to everything that's been going on lately."

"Suit yourself... hum... about me appearing here... did I orb?"

"Blue balls and dingling? Nope." Victor grabbed a glass and some ice cubes and was ready to grab a bottle from the cabinet when there was indeed blue balls and dingling; Wyatt appeared out of nowhere, right into Chris arms.

"One day I won't catch and you will fall..." Chris complained, getting a better grip of the toddler who was cheering.

Victor swore, his voice low, and dropped the ice cubes in the sink.

"Okay, young man, as I'm not going to have anything a little spirited to drink right now, and I'm too tired to play dumb let's make this straight. I know you're Chris Perry from the future, my daughters whitelighter, AND I know you're also my grandson, Piper's son and therefore Wyatt's brother." The older man looked at him again. "Plus I do really like your sweater..."

Chris looked at the old and used blue cloth.
"It was yours."

"I know."

"You gave it to me long ago."

"I thought so."

"Just out of curiosity... is there anyone in the whole city that doesn't know?" He wasn't really going to freak out; after all, it was Victor.

"No idea... probably... your mum doesn't..."

That reminded Chris of something.
"Nope, she doesn't... she thinks I'm Paige's son..."

"Come again?"

"Paige's son."

And Victor burst into laugher.

There's not a better way to put it. He began to laugh the moment Chris had said those words and kept laughing through his complains.

"C'mon, Victor... it's not funny!"
"Hey!"
Laughter.
"Victor!"
"C'mon, grandpa, stop laughing... it's very serious..."
More laughter.
"Please!"
"Grandpaaaaa!"

Practically five minutes later, the old man managed to calm down a little.
"Sorry, it's just that... well..."

Chris snorted.
"Ok, it's kind of funny... but I can't believe my mum thinks she's my aunt..."

It wasn't Victor's fault, really... it's just that Wyatt had snorted. Or at least it had sounded like a snort. And the laughter re-started again.

"Hello! Standing here!" Chris pouted, actually pouted, far more honest than any pout his teen version could manage.

Victor's laughter grew louder, and so did Wyatt's who wasn't sure of what was going on but liked that sound far better than all the yells he'd heard lately. He liked also the feeling, like tickling or raspberries without someone touching him.

Plus the weird guy that had once vowed him he would never, ever, change his diapers was changing. He liked that sound too; Wyatt could sense it. He felt it in the way he grabbed him, in the way his breath soothed and his heart sang. In the way the guy's grey feelings turned green and yellow.

The toddler managed to grab the man's face and smiled when he looked down.

Chris smiled back.
Chris... that was his name.
Mum was mum, and dad was dad.
And he was Chris. It was important, it felt important but Wyatt, being barely one year old couldn't know why.

However the smile grew and soon he was laughing too.

After all, Chris thought, it WAS funny.

-oOo-

The manor was empty.

Empty and calm up until Phoebe, Paige, and kid Chris orbed in.

Then it wasn't empty, obviously, and as Paige found pretty soon, Phoebe and the young Chris in the same room scared away all shades of quietness.

"Ow! C'mon, you're a kid, you shouldn't be all that tied up!" Phoebe was complaining towards the kid, who was covering his ears.
"Lalalalala! Lalalalalalalalalaaaaaaa! I''m not listening."

"Pleaaaase! Just a little hint! Am I going to marry Jason?"
"Lalalalalalalala!"

"Will I have kids?"
"Laaaaaaaaa lalalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Will I be rich?"
"Not listeniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Lalalalaaaaaa lalalalaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Children, be quiet!" Paige yelled, backing away from them. She went into the kitchen, looking for a calm place while dialling a number in her cell. "I'm trying to call Piper but she's not answering her phone!"

"Mum never does... she aaaaaalways forgets to charge her phone." Chris explained with a grin, his hands still on his ears.

"Oh... I thought she would grow out of that..." The younger Charmed protested with a sigh.

"She won't." The kid shook his head, approaching her.

"You can hear her!" Phoebe interrupted them. "So you can hear me, pleeeease...? Ok, just answer with yes or no! Am I gonna marry Jason?"
"Lalalala!"

"Was that a yes?"
"Lalalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaalalalalaaaaaaaaaa lalalal alalalaaaaaaaaaa!"

"Oh, you little..."

"What the hell is going on here?" The shout came from the kitchen door, making everyone jump and turn around with a start. They found Piper, glaring at them through the door gap. "Why are you yelling, Pheebs? We could hear you from the attic... it sounded like..." But nobody ever found out what it sounded like because Piper stopped dead in the middle of her sentence.

"We?" The empath asked following her sister eyes to kid Chris who, in order of being subtle, was fighting with all his will to stop the grin that threatened to cross his face.

"Yeah, me and..." The older Halliwell herself and then at Chris."...him. How did you...? Did you orb?"

Chris was actually trying to breath without setting free a laugh that would probably not stop easily, so he simply managed to shake his head.

Blue balls and dinglings filled the air.

"Leo!" Piper exclaimed, happy to find her husband, wondering if she should share Chris' secret identity with him.

"Where's Leo?" Grown up Chris' form appeared in the middle of the kitchen. "Look, girls, this is weird. I just appeared in Piper's and Phoebe's father's flat for no apparent reason."

The young man from the future looked at his current charges as a whitelighter who, in turn, looked back with bewilderment.
"Hum... girls? Uh... I thought we where past all this 'get out of the house' issues..."

The sisters were still looking at him and something under Chris's current line of vision moved.
The half witch looked down.

"What are you doing with this kid? Who is this kid anyway?" The half-whitelighter turned to face Paige, annoyed. "Is this one of your temp job things, again?"

The silence grew deeper as no one knew what to answer. Kid Chris, who was a sugar addict, but not stupid, decided that, by now, the best thing he could do was to play dumb and smile.

"Hey! Care to explain?" Chris was getting nervous, in his experience, the longer before an answer, the worse the answer would be.

The silence grew so thick you could have cut it with a knife.

Slowly, because even when you're a witch and you've seen lots of weird things there are some situations slightly harder to cope with, Chris's brain started processing information. He faced the kid.
"Do I know you?"

Paige snorted.

The kitchen door opened again.
"Hello? What is taking you so lo-" teen Chris looked around the kitchen until he locked sights with Chris, who was beginning to remember those faces from old photographs. "-o-o-o-ong... this is just so very bad..."

"Very, very bad..." Kid Chris agreed.

"On the other hand I shall remember to cut my hair more often in the future... that look is far too last century!." The teenager added with a grimace.

Kid Chris nodded.

Adult Chris, whose mind was desperate hanging on the edges of sanity, looked at both younger versions of himself and turned to the sisters.

"Wh--- wh--- what---?" There were no enough words in his vocabulary to express himself. Although, in fact, "Wh-wh-wh-what?" resumed pretty much what the half witch was thinking.

"Uh... oh..." kid Chris agreed, again.

"Just when you thought that the day couldn't get weirder..." Paige managed to mumble.

Well... what to say now? I mean, ok, my English vocabulary is not thaaaat bad, although I recognize that it could be wider... well, hey! I'm not even English... so I've just searched for the correct word to describe the last scene.

Definitely not possible.

Ok, yes... they were surprised... but that just seems petty.

Surprised is when you discover that your boyfriend is gay. Not that I mind a boy being gay, but if that boy happens to be my boyfriend... well, that would surprise me to say the least.

So what is left? Bewildered?

I don't know... I've just always thought that it was more in the lines of discovering that you have a siamese sister or brother that was brought up by chimpanzees in the middle of the jungle.
Clearly, not enough.

Astonished?
C'mon... astonished is what you're when you find an alien in the dog house.

There's also other ways to put it... surely there's other ways, but as I said, my vocabulary isn't that extensive and I'm not really in the mood to look for a synonymous dictionary right now. Meaning that I can't find one googling for spanish-english translators...

Plus, the truth is that adult Chris, in all his experience and long bus rides playing crosswords, just managed to finally master the perfect reaction.

"What the hell?"

Let me replay it.
"Wh--- what the hell?"

Piper looked from the youngest version to the oldest.
"I thought... I thought... well, there was just one... HE... well, HE is THEY now?"

"Wh--- what the hell?"

"Clearly that's not the case anymore." Paige answered at her sister, ignoring Chris' close to hysterical reaction.
"But... how is it possible?" Phoebe asked, looking too at her nephew... nephews... whatever...
"Magic?" guessed the younger Chris.
"Welcome to the Halliwell manor..." Teen Chris mumbled. "Where wonderment and excitement never ends."

"Wh--- what the hell?"

"Chris, honey..." Paige grabbed the young man by the arm and dragged him to a chair where he more dropped than sat. "Maybe we should talk, don't you think?"

Adult Chris glared at her, then glared at Phoebe, and finally glared at Piper.
"Can this be explained in less than ten words?" He asked.

Paige shook her head.
"I barely think that this could be explained in a way where you don't kill us later."

"Instead of killing you now?"

Kid Chris grasped both hands in his mouth, as if trying to block his older self 's words. Middle Chris simply grimaced and glanced sideways at his mother... she'd told him she knew who he was, was she going to get mad at him, then? But the witch didn't look distressed at all.

Old Chris went on, signalling his other selves.
"Are this two for real?"

"Uh... yes... they are..."

He, the older version, kneeled down until he was face to face with his kid self, who was having a new fit of laughter.
"They look real."

"Well, we are real." Teen Chris argued, forcing adult Chris to stand up and look at him now. He even rose a hand and touched his other self's hair.

"Hum..." Adult Chris proceeded to pinch the other ones chick with a finger. "Hum..."

"Hey!" Teen Chris took a step backwards. "Look but don't touch."

The adult half whitelighter relented and backed up a little, turning again to the sisters.
"Now, and very slowly, can you please explain what's happening?"

"The truth is..." Piper looked at her "nephew". "...that it all began when you took Wyatt away yesterday..."

Phoebe had a fit of coughs.
"More or less..." The older witch added. "... we wrote this spell..."

"Spell?"

"... so we could... hum... this is hard to explain..."

"Did you say spell?"

"Yes, yes! Spell. We wrote a spell so we could learn where was Wyatt..."

A fresh fit of coughs.

"Among other things." The oldest Halliwell added in a lower voice... unfortunately, not low enough for the adult half witch from the future heard it.

Chris walked to one of the kitchen cabinet and grabbed the aspirins. He served himself a glass of water and dropped a tablet in it. He was moving carefully, trying with all his might to stop himself from getting too upset. For a few seconds the only noise to be heard was the one of the tablet dissolving.

"Other things? Other things like aaaaall those secrets I've been keeping from you?" suddenly he wasn0tthat interested about those midgets with his face and far more interested in that spell.

"Perhaps, but the things is..." Piper, on the other, was willing to bite her hand off just to avoid talking about the spell.

Chirs, of course, was not going to drop the subject.
"So I go through hell to keep certain information hidden in order - IN ORDER - to protect the future, YOUR FUTURE TOO, and you go and cast a spell on me? A spell that brings this two... Mini and Tiny me versions out of only gods know where and into our world?"

"In fact, we're you." theteenager thought he had to emphasize that point, just so his oldest version wouldn't overlook it. He earned a murderous glare from the his adult self.

I can't handle this. Chris was thinking. It's been a long day. Hell, it's been a long year... I'm not... I'm just not in the mood for that.

He was tired, he'd barely eaten, the food he'd had at P3 was the first he'd eaten in three days; the same amount of time he hadn't sleep. Someone casting a spell on him was just a little too much to take in.

"Oh, c'mon! We were trying to protect Wyatt..." Piper complained a little too harsh, Chris may be family now, but Wyatt was still her son.

"So was I."

"If you were a little less guarded about everything it wouldn't have been necessary." The witch insisted. "And we wouldn't have this mess."

The middle Charmed one rolled her eyes. "Here we go again" She whispered to her younger sister who sighed, oblivious to teen Chris who was glaring at them.

Meanwhile, things where boiling up in the discussion.

"How is it that it's aaaaalways my fault when YOU cast the damn spell?"

"Because you forced us!"

Paige, Phoebe and both other versions of Chris managed to get the farthest away possible from both Piper and adult Chris.
"I forced you? You could have trusted me!"

"In what basis? Your lying to us? Your hiding that you were a half witch? Your killing a Valkiry? Your splitting Leo and I up?"

Chris looked as if he was about to answer something harsh enough to make Piper blow him up, but thought better of it for he simply looked at her with a mix of infuriation and... well, and more aggravation, slightly mixed with weariness.
"I... I simply don't need this now..." The young man drank the aspirin in one single swallow, dropped the glass in the sink and stormed outside the kitchen.

"Chris wait!" Paige started to follow him, but teen Chris stopped her.

"He'll want to be alone with himself for a while..." The young boy told her, and with a witty grin added. "That's why I'll go with him while you talk to miss Diplomacy here..."

The teenager left the kitchen after himself.

Phoebe didn't allow the silence to settle again because she was getting fed up with its use for the emotional narration in this story.

"Congratulations, sister... you may want to try and upset the kid Chris too... just so you have perfect record." She blurted at Piper, signalling at kid Chris.

"Well, what did you wanted me to do? Lie to him?"

"What about being a little more... hum... suave about the way you talk to him? I mean it's the second time in a row..."

The older Halliwell sighed, her sister was right. It was just that... well...
"I don't know, he just keeps getting on my nerves... and he's not better than me!" The witch added. "I mean, he keeps taking everything I say the wrong way... it's like we were talking in different languages. I just hope things won't go this way when the time comes..."

Again, Phoebe stopped any kind of silence-based prose.
"When... hum...the time to comes?"

Piper looked at her middle sister and then at Paige, who was next to the kitchen door, pretending not to try to see if something was happening in the parlour or the dinning room. She completely overlooked kid Chris who took advantage of the situation by eavesdropping.
"If I tell you something about Chris... will you be able to keep your mouth shut for once?" The witch was whispering.

No, thought the empath. "Yes", She said in the same low tone.

"It's... well, it's huge, but you can't tell Paige, ok?"

She knows! Phoebe felt the weight of responsibility dropping off her shoulders.

"Why can't I tell Paige?" Usually it was her who was kept in the dark about secrets, for obvious reasons.

"Because it shouldn't be us the ones to tell her... Chris should."

Uh?

"Tell her what?"

"That she's his mother."

--oOo—

He found his adult self sitting on the bottom of the stairs.

He use to, still did, sit there when he was distressed, usually because of Leo, or after an argument, usually about Leo.

He'd leave the kitchen in a rush and would close the door so hard the manor would tremble, hot tears in his eyes and his hands shaking of suppressed rage. His head would hurt from trying to sooth himself, so to stop his powers from causing havoc. And he would sit there, far enough to make sure he made the point of wanting to be alone, yet close enough for his mum to find him if she decided to follow.

Those times he'd actually wanted to be alone, he'd orb somewhere out the city and wait in silence until Wyatt would orb next to him and get him back.

Lately, at least in his present, most of the times he'd been doing the second and, truth to be told, the fighting hadn't been with Leo. It hadn't even been ant fighting. Just the hopelessness hanging in the air.

No, no fights about dad... he'd been home for quite a while now. Maybe not all the time, but at least he'd seen him around most of the day.
Curiously, that would distress him enough to make him orb away for a while. He hated seeing him sitting next to mum. Speechless.

Chris forced himself to snap out of his unwelcome thoughts and stare at his older self who looked drowned. Adult Chris was sitting, with his eyes shut and his body leaning against the wall. Had he not known the man like he did, which was more than a casual observer may think but less than teen Chris himself thought, he'd thought he was asleep.

His adult version's quietness was disturbing him, and Chris would have broke the ice somehow if a guffaw hadn't done it for him first.

Aunt Phoebe was laughing her head off in the kitchen and Piper wasn't happy with it.

"She thinks I'm her nephew." Adult Chris said with a humourless grin.

"Well... we're her nephew..."

The young man looked at his younger self and nodded.
"Yeah... we... I forgot. It's..."

"It's weird... I know. Man, I hate spells that backfires like this..."

Adult Chris looked at him with contempt.
"Like when Wyatt and I... that is, we, crossed our personalities with those strays dogs?"

"Stray cats... those where stray cats." The teenager corrected him and at his thoughtful expression added. "Did I pass the little test? Or do you want me to go and tell mum about when we met the neighbour and got an erection?"

The oldest half witch blushed so hard he thought his nose would bleed but was surprised when he didn't felt the pang of pain he'd thought he would feel.

"That was awkward." Teen Chris remembered, blushing a little too.

"Yes." He conceded, and then, for it was better for him to know, added. "But not worse than Piper, 'cause I was talking about her, thinking that we're her nephew."

-oOo-

In the kitchen, Piper had finally managed to calm Phoebe, the family heard a sudden burst of laughs coming from the dinner room.

"It seems that Chris has managed to sooth... er... Chris." Paige said, relieved, heading back.

"Wait, Paige... come here, you have to hear this!" Exclaimed the empath, ignoring her sister attempts to quiet her.

"What?" The younger Charmed walked over to her sisters. Piper was trying to kill the middle witch with her eyes, talking fast and low, with a lot of hushing, to a Phoebe who was leaning with kid Chris, both laughing to tears.

-oOo-

"You should stop laughing..." Adult Chris suggested when his younger version managed to get calm enough to take slow breaths, his face red and tears in his eyes.

"Yeah, yeah... sorry. It's just that... she said earlier that she knew my secret and I thought... well, that she knew she was my mother."

"Our mother... and keep it quiet." Chris whispered, urging him to do so.

"Yes, our mother, sorry." Teen Chris agreed, whispering too. "And talking about her... why don't you tell them who you are? I mean... I shouldn't tell you, but dad and the aunts already know..."

"They told me... but mum doesn't."

The discussion was momentarily interrupted by Paige's laughs that, hastily followed by Phoebe's and kid Chris' ones. They kept quiet until the laughs were finished.

"Tell her." Chris went on as if nothing had interrupted them.

"No way."

"Why?"

"How old are you?" Adult Chris asked, apparently changing of subject.

Young Chris frowned at the sudden question, suspicious of what it meant.
"I'm going to be fourteen in a month or so..."

"Then I can't tell you either."

"Yes you can."

"No... really, I know what's being you at your age in this very moment, and you don't want to know."

"If you do so you should know better than to patronize me."

"I'm not patronizing you..."

"Yes you are... plus I know what it's like being me right now and right here... and I think that you will regret if you don't tell her. Plus, it would had been easier, wouldn't it of?"

Chris snorted.
"Are you kidding me? They would have never believed me."

"But now they will... that's why they cast this spell."

"They cast this spell to find proof so to bust me to hell."

"Yes, and they found that you were right, which is a unique situation because now they won't doubt you anymore and you may find their help useful in doing whatever you've come here to do. And talking about that, where's Wyatt?"

"He is with Victor."

"Good... nice job with the blocking spell... how did you do it so that even mum couldn't find him?"

"In ways I hope you will never learn in this time line."

The teenager measured that answer and everything it meant.
"Why are you here?" he asked.

His older self snorted again and Chris began to understand why his mother hated him doing that.
"I believe that you already know that answer."

"I do." The teenager agreed. "Although I hoped that you'd come for mum."

"I would..."

"I know, but it would be pointless, would it? I mean, if dad couldn't heal her it's because she's not supposed to be healed."

The adult Chris looked at his young version with a mix of sadness and surprise.
"I didn't get to that conclusion until I was fourteen... my younger version is smarter than me? Lame."

"Don't beat yourself that much... I've been talking with Piper for a while, I've learnt a couple of things."

Another snort came from adult Chris, however this one actually had some happiness in it.
"Yeah... I've learnt a couple of things about them too..."

"Like?"

There was and embarrassed silence.

"Aunt Paige and Aunt Phoebe hit on me..." He had to explain this, it had been eating him inside for months and who better to tell than yourself?

A new and even more embarrassed silence.

"Hit like... flirted? Like... trying to make out? With you? That is, with me?" Teen Chris's face was one of absolute horror. "I knew that being so handsome would have it's drawbacks..."

"The truth is that they weren't really them... " Explained the older Chris. "...three blonds were pretending to be them and had fooled all of us..."

"Hey, mum explained it to us no to so long ago... those were really lame witches, weren't they?"

"Well, the thing is that I barely remembered mum telling me that story, so for some time I really thought they were our aunts."

Young Chris grimaced.
"Oh man... what's worse than that?"

"To break the charm, I had to kiss the one that was pretending to be Phoebe..."

"You kissed aunt Phoebe? That's... there's no words in the world to say how gross is that. She is your aunt... and she is old!"

"I knew it wasn't her!"

"But you still remembered her as your aunt... oh! I'm having mental pictuuuuures!"

"Hush!" Adult Chris begged his younger version to lower his voice; really, the last he needed now was Phoebe ever knowing that happened.

"Sorry, sorry... aaargh, my head... I will grow up with traumatized because of you."

"No, you will grow up to be me, and I have no traumas."

"I've known you for less than ten minutes and I can already say that that's a lie."

"I don't remember being such a wise ass at your age..." Adult Chris complained, sighing.

"That's because I'm not a wise ass and you should tell your mother the truth."

"Now you're giving me advice? How weird is that?"

"Just think of me like your good conscience... I can try to sit in your shoulder if you want, but I think you'll get hurt."

Adult Chris saw his younger version draw the cocky smile Bianca had once swore would get him killed someday. He couldn't help but to think that she was wrong, that smile was charming.
"Very funny, you're very funny..." He retorted to keep the conversation going and his mind far from Bianca.

"No, what's funny is mum believing that we're aunt Paige's son..." Answered the teenager half witch with a grin that was mirrored by his adult self. "Man, she can be so thick sometimes... like when she grounded Wyatt and I for a month without orbing because we'd gone to the underworld and so we wrote that spell so we could actually move around without orbing."

"She knew..." Chris felt himself obliged to explain. "She learnt of it a week before the grounding was done and said nothing because dad had just said that he wouldn't make it for Christmas and I was already pissed as it was..."

"Yep! That's true, dad didn't made it that Christmas... not that he came to the last one."

"But he did the next one." Chris interrupted his other self before the teen could begin listing all the times Leo had bailed on them. "And the next one..."

"What? Is he going to change into super dad now?"

"I don't..." Chris shook his head. "I don't really want to talk about this, ok?"

Teen Chris raised both hands in surrender, slightly confused because pissing about Leo was like his favourite pastime.

Adult Chris remembered that so, to ease his mind of new questions, he finished his explanation.
"Plus I kind of remember that later, in the middle of an incident with a demon that affected our whitelighter powers, the spell backfired on us and send me and Wyatt to Cambodia. "

The teenager face lit up.

"So I will go to Cambodia? Man that's cool!"

Chris, adult Chris that is, couldn't help but to laugh remembering the weird obsession he'd got of visiting Cambodia just because of some class they had in school about the place.

He'd even planned on taking mum there once she was feeling better.

That, obviously, never happened, and he all but forgot about the place until they landed there due to a modification Wyatt had made to the spell without his asset.

That had been fun in a way, Wyatt had managed to calm him down before he'd killed his older brother. Then they'd spend the day in Phnom Phen before the effect of the demon disappeared and the twice blessed orbed them back to the manor. There they found Leo and Victor on the verge of killing each other, a difference that was hastily settled in order to better yell at them until their ears were numb before they even had the chance to explain them why their orbing hadn't worked in the whole day.

Now, with some years between him and that adventure, Chris wondered if Wyatt hadn't set up all the incident just so they could go to Cambodia without Leo having a fit, as a extreme measure to cheer him up that had worked pretty well.

Wyatt had taken care of him, in a way, after the event had happened. Victor had been his shoulder and, in a sense, Leo had been a pillar that tried to keep them all together, and failed. But Wyatt had been the one that took him from the ground and helped him stand up, grabbed his hand and walked with him all the way out of the pain right until the moment when the way disappeared under his feet and the hand grabbing his became a bough.

Again, that was a place he did not wanted to go.
"You should tell mum what's all about..." Spoke a softer voice.

Both, teen and adult Chris jumped out of their skulls and back before turning to see thier even younger version, who'd managed to walk from the kitchen to the stairs without them noticing him.

"... we're sneaky, aren't we?" The middle Chris asked to no one.

"Sorry... they're talking... well, mum is talking while the aunts are laughing. Mum thinks we're aunt Paige's son..." Little Chris explained. "And I think you should tell her who we are."

"Yeah... we think it." Teen Chris agreed. "We won't be able to keep our secret forever, don't you think? She's bound to find out."

"I've been able to keep this as a secret for the past months..." Adult Chris argued.

Little Chris nodded.
"Yes, but now aunt Phoebe knows, and she will tell mum our secret sooner or later because she is pretty much like us."

"We can keep a secret!" The oldest Chris complained.

"We may learn to in the years to come, but I can say that we can't keep any right now." His teenage version retorted.

Kid Chris nodded in a knowing way and continued.
"Plus aunt Phoebe cann't... and if she did not tell mum... well... Aunt Paige and Daddy knows..."

"Daddy?" Said both older boys at once with a disgusted face.

"Dad... dad knows..."

"Even Victor does... " Continued the teenager. "...It's like a public secret... you won't be able to protect her from the truth forever."

But the adult Chris kept shaking his head. They didn't know, they didn't understand.
"There's a wall between us right now... something that keeps me from getting too involved, if I break that wall, if I cross the line and tell her... I can't allow myself to get too much involved with them. I must remain objective. This must not get personal..."

"Chris... we're their son and nephew, we're his brother... you just can't stop this from getting too personal."

"I was doing perfectly fine, thanks!"

"Oh, please... who do you wanna fool?" The teenager ignored his older one's glares. "If you wanted to avoid this mission, or however you call it, from getting too personal why didn't you send someone else to do it? Why did you come yourself?"

Discussing with yourself is always a bad idea for your others always know both the answers and the questions beforehand... this was one of those things you could empirically learn when you're raised in a magical family.

"Because they're my family... it had to be me..." Adult Chris half explained/half confessed.

"Because it's already something personal." The middle Chris cut him off. "You couldn't help getting involved in this, in their lives... it's your life too."

The older version of this temporal jigsaw puzzle that's giving me a headache, looked at his younger versions, still shaking his head.

"I know what you two mean... I know why you think that she should know who we are because all those ideas had crossed my mind in the past months more than once... but I can't allow it, I can't let it happen, there's so many risks..."

"The only risk is you're afraid of is facing her after all you're done, mister-let's-break-up-my-parents-marriage!" Teen Chris face had changed from compassion to annoyance. "You fear her reaction, not how the future may change... you're afraid she will push you back..."

"That's not..."

"Don't give me bullshit!"

Kid Chris clasped both hand in his mouth, as if the words had originally been said by himself and not by his older version... that was in fact himself like six years in his future... that was confusing.

"Sorry?" Adult Chris asked, startled by the outburst.

"We both... the three of us know that that's what you're afraid of, so don't play dumb now."

And I know you're afraid of it and of how much it will hurt if she can't cope with it, if she doesn't accepts you. And believe me, it will hurt like hell.

But the teenager did not add that part because the less his older self knew about it, the better. After all he'd just learnt how to pretend.

And he was pretty sure that she hadn't really meant those words. She was tired; he'd never seen her tired before.

Anyway, adult Chris wasn't up for it.

"Now you know me that much?" he asked, sarcasm dripping from every word "You're still in the My-testosterone-gets-the better-of-me phase, wait till you actually have to shave before starting picking on Phoebe's job..."

"Sure, because you've managed to grow such a beard."

"Hey...!"

Kid Chris interrupted both older versions thoughts before the discussion could continue through it's 'oh so helpful' path.

"I don't understand why you don't want mum to know who we are..." he said, casually stepping between his older, yet less mature, selves. "If you'd tell her, she'd help us do what we're here to do..."

"You don't know what we're here to do..." Teen Chris spat, eager to return to his argument, ignoring the kid that, even being himself, was only seven or six thus oblivious of what was really happening.

"Yes he does." Adult Chris cut him now. "I think he does."

The young half witch licked his lips before answering.
"Yes, I know."

Of course you know... we all know, don't we? The oldest Chris thought.

If I was to see myself at two, I'd probably know. And if I was to meet myself at eighteen... that's a good question?

Would I know if I was eighteen?

Most likely I'd be just too worked up killing something or someone to even realise the possibilities of being in the past. But I don't want to think about this either... SIGHS!

There's so many things in my past that I don't want to think about that I should have lobotomy to be able to afford a melancholy moment.

Laughs in the kitchen rose again, so Piper had probably said something again about Chris and Paige. That broke the awkward moment.

"But we were talking about telling mum who we are..." Kid Chris resumed.

"I already told you that I can't..." Adult Chris repeated, again.

"But you miss her." The kid interrupted him with the truth. "I miss her and I've only been around for some hours."

"It doesn't matter."

"Yes it does, because she will know about us and I don't want to get caught in the middle of another lie... she hates it when we lie... she gets mad and then we're grounded."

Both older selves barely managed to conceal a laugh after that.

This Piper wouldn't ground them... well, she probably wouldn't. It was almost for sure that this Piper wouldn't...
Oh, crap!

"She's not going to ground us..." The adult Chris said, trying to ease both himselves, he and the kid. And whoever else got a stronger headache after this affirmation, please raise your hand.

"Yes she is." The youngest Chris insisted.

Oh, yes, she is, thought both older Chris. For life.

"You're completely loosing the point of the discussion here..." The oldest one, who'd lost said point too, tried to resume it again. To make them see his ways. "She doesn't needs to know, it's unnecessary and a risk..."

"She can help you." The kid disagreed.

"She can't."

"Yes, she can."

"No, she can't."

"Yes."

"No."

"She can and he is right!" The kid pointed at his teenager version, who was amusedly looking at his smaller version acting with what Wyatt always called the Chris-way-to-deal-with-arguments. That is, being stubborn enough to make the rock move out of your way.

If anything, he was happy he'd grown out of petty discussions, at least through puberty.

And back to the argument, the problem was that his older version was acting in the same way, so it was a fight of wills where both fighters had the exact same amount of... well... wills. And where one had experience and years of... let's call it wisdom, the other had... well, a hidden weapon every child gets from birth and looses over the age of seven or eight.

A grin sprawled across the kid's face while he faked a dramatic sigh.

"Well, I did not wanted to resort to this, but..." he said, and it was a lie so clear that the teenager felt disappointed when his nose didn't grew two feet length. With a lopsided grin he recognized as their own trademark the half witch bawled at the top of his lungs. "UUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! UUUUAAAAAAH! UUUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! UUUAAAAAAAAAH!..."

Both Chris' saw the mock in the kid's watery eyes while big and round tears began falling through his face. Such mock disappeared the moment the sisters arrived the kitchen.

"Fooled by my own old secret weapon..." Chris mumbled. "...so not cool"

The 16 th chapter... thank you all so much for your patience.

Please understand that among other things, the chapters are very long and both, my beta and I have other obligations in life.

In fact I would usually say that I would trade said obligations for the fic at anytime... but that would be a lie.

I'm working in my last year project for the univerisity, and it's very important, and difficult, yet it's amazing and I'm learning how much do I like some parts of my career... the drawback is that I don't have all the time I should to write and check and re-check.

That said, I leave you here and go to sleep because it's past 2 o'clock in the morning and I have to get upt pretty early tomorrow

I hope you liked this chater (my beta says she did) and I beg you to have again a little patience. You're the best!

And As Always, you're the bestest non existant word! ever.

On the other hand,... I wan't to thank too my reviewers.

THAAAANKS!

I had so many reviews and they were so long TT I would have cried, but the cookies psico Chris had make were keeping me happy and smiling (later I found that it was because psico Chris had put some of his hapy pills in the receipt )

You're wonderful, really!

Nightowl123: I'm still thinking of adding the octogenarian one... thx

Kilikapele: First, don't worry, I love rambling.

I'm glad the update caused such a rush of emotions here's another one.

Hahaha! And not, you did not confused me, but I'm glad I confused you (or I'll be if at then end of the fic, confusion disappears)

Thanks for the appreciation, in fact, it make it harder to do, because sometimes I knew how I wanted the next part to start but I had to think of a way to finish the current, or viceversa.

I've not mentioned they actual age, but for Teen Chris, who's nearly 14 but not yet (a couple of weeks left that's mean, I know.). For what we know, kid Chris is around six or seven; Psico Chris is more or less in his eighteens; and adult Chris around 22. There's no real reason for me not to tell their age, it's just that the question have never arised in the fic and everytime I tried to put it, it sounded weird.

About half whitelighters childs... who knows... maybe the whitelighter gene it's the strongets, therefore the son of a halfwhitelighter wuld be a halfwhitelighter too... Piper doesn't knows that much about it... I mean, Paige's the first halfwhitelighter ever that we know and she's kidless for now.

And about kid Chris and memories... there's the begining of a fic placed some years in the future... maybe I will write it once this one is finished, but it dwells somehow with that... or at least that's mentioned in it, not the central point.

You can get a live, but please, promise me that you will remember to read and review my story! pleaaaase!

Terra fea: Of course I remembered your low cal cookie (I had to check the web to get what it meant XD), and you can have some more.

The story is set from their points of view, so I'm sorry but until they don't fins what's happening, we won't know either. There's no fun in answering the questions right away... and I'm an evil person whoe gets fun out of other people curiosity... ok, and I have to get a live too TT

And about the groups thinking that they have the one and only Chris... as I said, it0s from their point of viewñ... so for now, they do. May I stress the words: FOR NOW... hum... I just remembered that I'm gona place this atthe bottom of the fic, so you already know that answer.

Thanks!

Ritagarcia: thanks, i'm glad you're liking this story. And I don't think Piper's that stupid, I do really believe that I would explore a whole world of possibilities before even thinking of the remote posibility of Chris being my son... plus the worst deductions skills I've ever seen in a human person.

Wonder: Thanks! I'm glad the confusion settled down.

Themagicbringer: 3 Chrises in fact I know t was confusing, it's part of the fun.

Bunn2007: Thanks! The transitions where a little hard to do, but I just thought it was a good way to show that everything was happening at the same time and... well, it was fun!

Ok, they're 4 Chris' that's true and about their ages changing... we know that before, when there was apparently just one Chris, his age kept changing whenever a sister casted a spell... Now there's four Chris' and... hum... the thing is I don't know how to properly explain this without actually saying too much about what's going to happen, so I will drop it here and swear to you that things will be explained eventually and that I promise to not leave a single question in the air. Thanks for the review, I'm glad you ike the story.

Icantthinkofanick: Hola! Updatee al fin! Thanks, I'm so flattered that my head is growing so big I'm affecting world ocean tides does that sentence makes sense?

I'm glad you liked the sugary scenes... I try to avoid as much as possible overly deep blue scenes, so I put the sugary wherever i can to compensate But no more Leo / Chris scenes for a while, sorry. Instead of that, a cookie O

This've been a long chapter, so I hope you'll forgive my tardiness in updating, althought I did it far more earlier than last times

XD I said so, but I loved your last update with the Diary story... and the cliffy was sooo mean!

Thaaaanks!

Septdeneuf: I'm glad you sorted out the confusion, I knew it was a risk... but it was just too tempting to do the chapter that way

Reading my fic at school? Man, now I'm flattered!

And I'm sorry, it's true that nothing was really happening but it was just an impass, a way to settle a few things I had in mind... On the other hand, here's you comment... they've met... at first I wanted Chris to react badly, but then the story worked herself to the point and I thought that at that very moment Chris would be simply too much tired to have a rant.

Christine Marquez: Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks! Here's the update!

StargatAngel101: So much things I love in a single nick... or not, but it looks like... ignore me I'm glad you're liking it, and I'm glad the confusion is getting better, I'll explain everything.. just in it's due time.

Mic1211: Thanks!

Yessss! Shame on me! I don't know why I was so convinced of fetus being female... it's just been ages since I last had a look at my biology notes and I was so sure.. then my beta asked me if it was true and I did a small research and had to tell her that it wasn't TT My bad.

Anyway I liked it, so i let it there... I'm man and lazy,

StonyAngel: Rugrats? Well, thanks! And Piper will come into sense... I swear it.

Lark: THAAAAAAAAANKS! It flatters me!

Martina G: I'm glad you're liking the story, even with the confusion. And I know you said it for the best, but I'm very grateful to my beta for spending her time re-reading the fic and there's no way I would do such a thing as to fire her... mainly because she's doing it of her own free will as a favour to me and to all those who read the story. Please, keep in mind that even if I post it spacied the chapters are usually pretty long and as I already said there's just a finite amount of time we can destinate to the fic.

Rhia: Enthralling... that's a new word! And a very sweet one to describe the fic, I'm glad you're liking it. About the chpater title... XD thanks for telling me, I'll do my best to 'piss people OFF' from now on, but I've kind of grown attached to that chapter title U