Hmm… been checking the stats, and thank you so much! 159 hits! Thank you, you good, kind people. Anyways, on with the story… and oh, Charmed not mine, O.K?

Chapter 5

"PAIGE! GET PHOEBE AND ORB DOWN HERE NOW!" Piper Halliwell hollered, looking at the ceiling, "Something's happened to Wyatt." She added, somewhat lowering the decibel level of her voice.

Five seconds later, a worried Paige orbed into the Manor, with a very confused and cranky Phoebe in tow. All her crankiness dissipated however, when she learned the reason for her being summoned to the Manor at 2 a.m. in the morning.

"Chris got the memories of the original timeline?" She asked for what seemed to be the millionth time.

"Yes, Phoebe. What are you, mentally challenged?" Leo snapped in a most un- Leo like way.

All three Charmed Ones stared. In all the years that they'd known him, he had never raised his voice at anyone (discounting the little incident with Gideon, of course), let alone family.

The once whitelighter/elder/ avatar mortal had the grace to look sheepish. "Sorry," he said apologetically, "shouldn't've snapped. It's just that I'm so worried, and not just about Wyatt, either. I know Chris, he's probably blaming himself for this- and although that's ridiculous, that's just Chris."

Meanwhile, Darmuid was twirling a crystal over a map of the world (when a witch who has the power to orb goes missing, there's really no guarantee he'll remain in the city he orbed out from.)

The crystal wasn't even pulling, let alone revealing Wyatt's location. "Fuck!" He swore in frustration.

Behind him, Chris, who had been orb- levitating, fell onto the floor with a thump. Feeling Chris' glare boring into his back, he turned around and gave him a "What?" look.

"I'm trying to sense Wyatt, something for which I need to concentrate, and my baby brother yelling obscenities gets in the way of concentrating."

"Sorry." Darmuid said dejectedly, and continued to scry, once again, in vain. Under normal circumstances, he'd have snapped back at Chris with an equally- if not more- sarcastic comment.

Not today though. Having a brother who was in pain, emotional and quite possibly physical too, tends to do that to people.

Sighing, Chris got up and wound an arm around Darmuid's shoulders, "Don't be. You're worried about him, we all are.

Actually, I'm the one who should be sorry. If it weren't for me, we wouldn't even be in this position." He ended, bitterness entering his voice.

Darmuid's head jerked up at the Chris' last comment.

"Chris," he began exasperatedly, "for the last time- this is not your fault. You didn't give the vision to him, and neither did you want him to get it. If anyone's to blame," Darmuid looked up at the ceiling venomously, "it's those freakin' powers-that-be who control premonitions!

It's not your fault at all. It never was, and it never will be."

"He's right, you know." A new voice joined the conversation.

Chris and Darmuid looked up to see who the new comer was- it was Leo. A Leo who had pain etched across his features.

"Son," he continued, "you're the most blameless person in this entire situation. In fact, you've done more for Wyatt than anyone else in this family- including your mother and me."

"That's not true, dad. You're just saying it to make me feel better." Chris said self deprecatingly.

"Yes it is, Chris, yes it is. Chris, you died for him. You got stabbed by an athame," Leo told his second born son, his eyes clouding over with pain as he remembered,

"a cursed athame, no less. And even with a gaping wound in your side, all that you could think about was saving Wyatt.

Chris, even as Wyatt's father, I insisted on staying at your side, but you practically pushed me off.

You reminded me to go after Gideon, even through all the pain that you were in."

"In fact," Darmuid jumped into the conversation at this point, "you got stabbed in the first place saving Wyatt. Wyatt would've died if you hadn't jumped in between him and that athame."

Standing behind Leo, tears were falling freely down Piper's face. She hadn't been present when that version had died.

She had been told a general gist of the events, of course. Phoebe hadn't been present on the spot. Only Leo and Paige had been- both of whom had been very averse to describing the event in detail- it had been, and still was, very painful. So Piper hadn't pressed.

And in some ways, this was good, and in others, bad.

On one hand, she had been spared the pain of having to witness a son dieing such a painful death.

But on the other hand, she had never truly gotten to say how proud she was of her brave, strong, beautiful son. She had never gotten to thank him for everything that he'd done for them.

Until now. Swiftly banishing the distance between Chris and herself, she grabbed her waist and pulled her face close to his beating heart, a sound which comforted her beyond description.

"I never… got to… thank you." She choked out amidst her sobs. "I… never told you… how proud I am.

Oh God, I spent weeks hoping… wishing… you'd walk through the doors… and send us on another demon hunt."

Chris ran his fingers through his mother's hair. Each tear that fell from her eyes was a red hot poker going through his heart.

"Sssh…" he said, gently, "its O.K., mom. I'm O.K., not dead. I'm very definitely alive. Having my ribs crushed by my mother's bear hug, actually, but not dead."

Piper hiccoughed (had she not been crying her heart out, it would've been a laugh) and let go.

Paige and Phoebe, also teary eyed by now, squashed Chris into twin bear hugs as well- followed by Leo and Darmuid.

At the end of it all, Chris stood massaging his ribs. "Sheesh, you'd think you hadn't seen me in years or something."

Paige grinned mischievously and said, "Actually, we haven't seen a certain neurotic-sleepless-paranoid-secretive-moody-demon hunting version of you in 23 years."

Chris' eyebrows arched at that, and then he simpered, "I love you too, Aunt Paige."

His face becoming serious again, he went into full neurotic- Chris mode. "Right, focus, people. Wyatt's been blocking Darmuid's scrying, but I doubt he'll be able to block it with the Power of Three backing it up. Let's get to work people, we have a situation here!"

Her lips twitching, Phoebe leaned towards Piper and whispered into her ears, "Now there's a certain whitelighter we knew and loved."

Piper smiled at the comment. She agreed whole heartedly.

p.s.- I'm very sorry to all the Wyatt fans, but don't despair, he'll be there in the next chapter. I just thought that Chris deserved this, don't you agree? Tell me all! Reviews, reviews, reviews people!