Neurotic


Summary: "My name's not Chris Perry," Chris said, as if it was the hardest thing he'd ever had to say. "It's Christopher." He paused, almost reluctantly. "Christopher Halliwell."

Disclaimer: Charmed and Chris don't belong to me, doo dah, doo dah, I'm not making any money from this, oh, dah doo dah day.


Chapter The Ninth


"You're my son." Piper stared at the new arrival, stunned.

Paul made a great show of lifting on elegant if angular arm and inspecting his fingernails dryly. "Yes. But don't worry- I didn't come here for any tearful family reunions."

Piper's face was a mirror of confusion. "What do you mean? Why are you here?"

Paul smiled easily, and it had a hint of felinity in it. "To give Christopher here a message."

Piper looked over to where Chris stood, almost shaking and a lot paler than before, and turned back to see Paul taking off a black rucksack. He threw it casually onto the table, where it fell with a thud.

"Oh, by-the-way, I'm sorry about the destruction upstairs." Paul was still smiling that easy smile, but it had more of a sense of uneasiness for his almost-captive audience. "Can't risk that Wyatt hasn't sent two messengers to deliver these messages, now can I?"

"Wyatt sent you?" Piper asked hesitantly, taking a half-step forwards, her brown eyes searching his face.

"Wyatt sends everybody," Paul returned smoothly. "Well, then, I expect to see you all again sometimes. That's only two messages I've sent, and I haven't even got to the fun ones yet. Oh, and Christopher-" Chris' head jerked up, his cheeks burning a little, at the sound of his name. "-be a dear and do open that up yourself. I know how very fond you are of everyone around that table, and I wouldn't want the surprise really ruined- If you catch my drift." He stepped backwards, still smiling that cold, cold smile. "I must be off. Can't spend all my time here languishing in the presence of such careless witches and such a traitor," and here he stared coolly at Chris "more's the pity."

Before they could say anything else, Paul gestured with his left hand and disappeared in a shower of blue and silver orb lights.

"Careless witches?" Piper questioned the empty space left behind quietly as she very dazedly sat down, before turning back to Chris, who was looking at the bag. Looking at the bag as if it might explode.

"At least you don't have to worry about thinking of a name for this baby," Phoebe offered helpfully, looking a little shell-shocked.

"Yes, you do," Chris said, but as if he was very distracted and not really paying attention to the conversation. His eyes were still riveted to the bag. "Paul's your third son."

"My- third-" Piper's face turned a curious shade of green before she remembered to breathe again, and she stared up at Chris accusingly. "My third child?"

"Hmm?" Chris said, before looking upwards at her and instantly colouring. "Oh, shit," he said, eloquently. He looked at her, looking more wretched than even the day before. "I don't suppose you could forget I said that," he said, hopefully.

"Nu-uh, mister," Piper said accusingly. "I'm going to be having serious words with you some time."

"But not now?" Paige demanded. "Why not now?"

Piper ignored her youngest sister, focussing her energies on maintaining a scowl. Chris, his cheeks still dark, resumed his tentative stare at the bag. "Well, I've got one thing to say about the method of packaging," Chris said, as if trying to make a joke, but the girls couldn't see anything funny. Looking up at their baffled expressions, he shrugged slightly. "It's my old school rucksack," he explained.

"What, so Wyatt's got my, um, third nephew to come back in time to give you your homework to do?" Paige asked scathingly, in disbelief.

Chris gave her a just as withering stare in return. "That's assuming Phoebe doesn't have any boys," he said flippantly, as Phoebe's eyes grew round and he just smiled at her brightly. "But what, do I look like I should be in high school?"

"Well, no," Paige admitted grudgingly. "But I've never been good with ages."

A little disgruntled, but clearly still shaken by Paul's unexpected arrival, he turned back to the bag. Gingerly picking it up, he stepped away from the table and into the hallway. "Just in case it explodes," he explained as he put up one hand indicating for them to stay back. Carefully, he unbuckled the strap, and pulled the flap open.

Chris' face instantly drained of all colour, and he almost dropped the bag, stopping it from falling by quickly grabbing at the strap. He clamped a hand to his mouth, and carefully put the bag down on the floor before turning and flinging the front door open. He staggered down a couple of steps before throwing up in the bushes, violently.

"Guess my sandwiches really did disagree with him," Victor said, in a stunned daze. The bravest of them all, Paige stepped forwards and walked towards the bag Chris had placed on the floor. Edging a look at the others, she bent down and peered inside.

Instantly her face went pale too, but she grimaced instead of needing to throw up and quickly resealed the bag before picking it up gently as if cradling it. Carefully, she placed it on one of the side tables, and edged a few glances towards it as Chris sheepishly came back in.

"I'm sorry," Chris said, with a half-laugh of what they all recognised as a shaky, nervous laugh rather than amusement. "All I seem to be doing around here recently is messing up and throwing up."

"You can use the sink in the kitchen," Piper said softly to the clearly strung young man. He nodded his thanks, and headed out to the sunny room. They all turned curiously to Paige, who was still grimacing. "What was it?"

"It's…" Paige lowered her voice to that of a whisper. "Bianca. Or, I assume, what's left of her."

"Oh god!" Phoebe exclaimed, clamping a hand to her mouth in horror as she stared open mouthed at the bag.

"That's sick," Piper whispered, unconsciously edging her chair away from the table with the bag on it.

"Uh," Victor said, looking between the girls worriedly, grimacing too just from their words, "who's Bianca?"

"What, did Christopher not tell you that?" Paige said, before shifting a little. "Sorry. Um. Force of habit."

"She was my fiancée," came Chris' quiet voice as he came back in from the kitchen, his eyes downcast, almost as if he was trying to read something that they couldn't see.

Victor looked at Chris wordlessly, finally settling on patting him on the shoulder. "God, what a horrible way to find out that someone's dead…"

"I knew she was dead," Chris said quickly, but with an anguished look on his face. "Can we not talk about this, please?" His question was rushed, quiet and heartily understood.

"Do you mind talking about Paul?" Piper questioned. She paused. "Paul. I guess I finally did crack and give a P name."

"If you didn't to your second child," Phoebe said, sharing a shrug with Piper.

"I can't say too much," Chris said quickly, his face looking a lot gaunter than it had when he'd arrived. "But if there's something that can help that won't spoil the future, sure."

"Is it Leo's?" Piper asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"You're very good at opening with questions that I can't answer," Chris said, a little disgruntled.

"Do you- did you know him? Paul, I mean." Paige asked curiously.

"Yes," Chris said, nodding. "At least I thought I did. But I betrayed him, and Wyatt, and what they stood for. What they thought I should believe in, too."

"Which was-" Phoebe prompted.

"That there is no such thing as good or evil. There are only those with power, and those without." Chris smiled grimly, his mouth pressed together tightly for a moment. "And, of course, those without power aren't worth anything."

"But that's-" Phoebe spluttered a little. "That's basically the credo of evil," she said, a little outraged. "You can't say something doesn't exist, and then blatantly steal from it!"

"Yeah, you can," Paige said. "If you're the evil overlord of the entire planet."

Chris looked at her thankfully. "Exactly," he said.

"Those without power?" Piper questioned briefly.

"Also known as, everyone with less power than him," Chris said grimly. "A.K.A. pretty much everyone."

"Pretty much," Phoebe picked up on. "Then there's someone more powerful than him."

Somewhere deep within Chris' eyes, a door slammed closed. "I think we're edging into dangerous territory," he said.

"You see, that's just what I don't get!" Piper said, suddenly feeling horribly frustrated. "You say you came back to change this horrible future – which, by my apparently third child's 'message'-" this word was laced with more sarcasm than even Chris would use "- I'm starting to believe is actually as bad as you say. But you refuse to change the future! If we knew what the future was, then maybe we could help figure out a way to stop it from happening!"

Chris looked at her, a lost look in his eyes. "Do you sincerely want to do destroy the future for once and for all? Do you?" His voice was harsh as he crossed the floor, staring at baby Wyatt with an unreadable emotion on his face. He turned, and glared at them. "What do you want me to say? That we lost all of you? We lost the power of three? Even with your three children, Piper, it was gone? Because Wyatt was subverted to evil? Because even though you vanquished over a thousand demons, it was the one no one ever knew about that got you? That got him?"

Chris paused briefly to gulp in air. "What do you want to know? That Wyatt tortured your other two children? Left them scarred, hiding all their lives, alone? Because you weren't there. You weren't there."

"Chris-" Phoebe started, her voice soft, her large brown eyes wide with an open sympathy.

"Don't Chris me." Chris stared at them. "You stand there, still really judging me, not trusting me. I don't know why I should trust you the smallest bit because of what you did to those children!"

"Death isn't something that can be fended off so easily," Piper said, her voice trembling even as she tried to keep it level. "And I would never abandon Wyatt - or-" her voice cracked, "any of my children without a damned good fight."

Chris dropped his head, and he stared at the ground. Eventually he spoke. "I-I know. It's just. You had to stand by and watch Phoebe turn evil. And know your sister Prue was never coming back. You've suffered too. But at least- You had hope. Hope's a very rare commodity in my future." He smiled once, fiercely, through the threatening tears that did not fall. "And I've said even too much."

"Perhaps telling us will help us avoid the unpleasant bits," Paige suggested.

"Ever the optimist until the end," Chris said, looking at her as if she was made of glass. Paige swallowed at the despair and finality in his voice. He shrugged, letting his tense posture relax. "Look- I-" He hung his head slowly. "I shouldn't have said that- And now Paul's here, and I can't even understand why." The last part was flung out so broken, so heartfelt, that Piper stepped forwards of her own volition.

"Hey," she said gently, and Chris raised his gaze to meet hers. She reached forwards, squeezing his hand. "I do trust you." A wry look crossed her face. "Very often I don't want to believe you. It's hard to accept that I'm going to be such a terrible mom…"

"No!" Chris' adamant refusal was sharp, and surprised Piper. "No. This isn't your fault. No one saw it the first time round. And from- from what I saw of your family, before- before it all went crap- your three boys loved you. Loved you so much."

Now Piper was the one holding back tears. She took both of his hands in hers. "Thank you."

He just smiled back, and fell backwards, letting her hands fall away with a regret they would never know, never would be able to know. "I'm going to check the Book, see if there's any way of keeping Paul away from the house." He paused uncertainly. "That's it you want him keeping away."

"Yeah, we do," Paige said gruffly, touched by the raw honesty that had been displayed, even as Chris had lost his temper slightly. "Um, do you want me to take care of-" Paige floundered for the right word, and instead jerked her head towards the bag.

Chris looked at the bag softly, and for a moment he was lost. Then he pulled himself back to reality. "Please," he said, with heartbreaking intensity before turning and running up the stairs.

There was silence as Victor and the girls looked at each other. Piper distracted herself with trying to keep Wyatt occupied.

"Do you think Paul was the son the fortune teller meant?" Paige said, her voice and face tight with emotion. "From what Chris said, he's been hurt already… And if he puts any of us in danger from these messages…" She trailed off, flickering glances between her sisters and her nephew.

"Then we have to do what we have to do," Piper said quietly, raising her chin determinedly as they looked at her. "We have to stop Wyatt from being turned no matter what." Her fists clenched in her lap, and it was then that they noticed that she was crying, had been crying since Chris had let go of her hands. Sounding more lost than she ever had, Piper shook her head furiously, distraught at what would happen to her children if they failed. "No matter what!"