Disclaimer: Grrr.

Just a little warning: I'm evil. ((But I am trying to get that element of humor back. Too much angst drags me down, and this iscoming from a goth, mind you.)) ((PS: Gothic hippie. I'm a gothic hippie... (don't ask)))

"I guess I'll start with why you gave him up to the Elders when he was born…" Prue said before taking a moment to gather what she was going to say. The two stared into the night, occasionally letting their eyes move to their family members sitting on the rooftops. Then Prue began, "There was a prophecy made by the same seer who said Wyatt would be twice blessed. It was about two magical twins, one boy, one girl, born into the same family as Wyatt. Obviously Chris and Jess. Those two twins were supposed to be as powerful as Wyatt when they were together… but they were supposed to more easily swayable to good or evil, even after they'd chosen a side, if they were together. For that reason, demons were coming after them left, right, and center. You, Phoebe, Paige, Leo, and even a little Wyatt couldn't stop them forever, and so you put a little trust in the Elders…"

She paused, seemingly not liking the next part. But she forced herself to say it anyway. "Just Chris… since they were only turn-able when they were together… but they were still damn powerful beings even when they were apart. Because of that, Chris and Jess kept in touch without even realizing it ever since they were babies, and one day, five years later, they found a way back to each other. There was a group of Elders that had never liked them anyway, and when Chris came back to Earth, they completely flipped. I think… I think they put a spell on you to help them bind Chris' powers and… and you tried to drown him, not even risking drowning both in case they reunited in death.

"Obviously, it didn't work. An Elder named Charity saved him and replaced his whitelighter with me," she smiled a twisted smile at that, but her face turned grave again, and she looked out over the lake, away from Piper. "He was terrified, I remember. He had never come across people he was supposed to be able to love who would try to kill him. He was afraid of me especially, since I was family. He stayed back Up There for a while until Charity had dealt with the possibility of someone on our side trying to kill him again. But they couldn't keep him up there anymore, now that Wyatt knew he had a baby brother to protect, and there was no way to keep the twins apart since they'd finally found each other. But… when he came back… you and Leo… that was when you started to change. It was barely noticeable at first-- the absent-minded comments and putdowns, the forgetfulness when it came to remembering there was another kid in the house… then it started to get worse until you were constantly degrading him… and then you starting hitting him… and neglecting him.

"At first, I was the only one to notice. I talked to you about it, and you acted as though you had done nothing wrong. You acted like he deserved it. That wasn't you, I knew, so I looked for any spells that might be on you. I found none. I tried to reverse anything that might have changed in you. It didn't work either. I tried everything for over a year before finally accepting that it was something out of my control…"

"You mean… it was all me?" whispered Piper, feeling like she had been physically slapped across the face. There had still been something in her hoping, praying, she had been under some kind of outside influence… But she knew her sister. Prue really would have tried everything before giving in, because she was definitely not lazy, and she had never been one to easily call it quits. She also hated being proved wrong…

Prue shrugged helplessly. "I want to say no, sweetie, but I never found anything pointing towards demons, warlocks, or anything! I used sure-guarantee spells, I made up good ones of my own, I tried potions, charms, everything, but nothing would change." She seemed to want to rant longer, but stopped herself. With another sigh, she turned back away and continued her story.

"So about the time I was giving up, you were getting so bad he was terrified to be in the same room with you. Then that's when Damien showed up on our doorstep, so to speak. You see… he came from an alternate reality where the world was being torn apart by war. The Piper from that world was the only Charmed One left, and instead of Chris and Jess being born in that world, there was Damien. Your alternate reality self came through a portal with him, severely wounded. She died not too long afterwards and you, Phoebe, and Paige would never send a little seven year old boy back to a war beaten world, so you and Leo adopted him."

She halted, but this time a smile pulling at her features. Piper gave her a look that said, 'What can possibly be funny about this?' and Prue laughed silently. "Damien… barely a year older than Chris and Jess, a year younger than Wyatt… and completely evil from day one. He loved you, Paige, and Wyatt immediately, but absolutely hated me, Phoebe, and--wait for it-- Chris. I don't really know how he felt about Jessie, though. They could have some pretty explosive fights, but I think he liked having such a firecracker for a little sister, deep down. He was pretty torn up when she died, too…

"But anyway, I don't like talking about Damien. He was just plain evil towards my beautiful charge," she continued, making Piper smile slightly at the way she said it. "And he still is, really, though Chris isn't as afraid to fight back as he used to be. But anyway… Two years after you tried to drown Chris, things were bad. Really bad. Wyatt and Jessie never actually saw it, but if you or Leo so much as came in the room they would sit around him casually, I remember, and keep talking. They knew it was happening and they tried to protect their brother as much as they could. Wyatt was gone a lot more than Jess, though, so he didn't really have a chance to take more drastic measures like she did. You see… Jess started using her powers to keep her brother safe-- her shield, mainly. She had a bit of telekinesis she could sort of absorb from Chris and use, too… and it started to piss you and Leo off. You started hitting her when she did it, and then it got to the point where you just treated her like Chris…" her voice trailed off and she seemed to want to just stare into space and not finish it. But… Piper was remembering something that probably happened around this time, and she really had to know.

"Um… Prue… what happened when… Why did we… we never… sexually abused him, did we?" her question came out finally in less than a whisper.

Prue glanced at her before turning back to the lake. "Only that once, and only because there was a demon going around that made everyone act more… harshly. You both regretted doing it afterwards 'cause it… it really…" she stopped, catching her breath. "You never meant to hurt him like that, no matter how much you hated him. Of course, when you were really pissed, you would use it as a threat, but you never would have carried it out. You never needed to, anyway…" her voice faded again. They looked to the rooftops where Victor and Chris sat and were somehow surprised to find Chris laughing.

So was Victor, apparently, because he threw him hands up into the air, shouting, "YES! YES, I GOT HIM TO LAUGH! OH, YEAH!" Then he proceeded to stand up on the shingled floor and do a jig, shaking his rear end quite a bit, causing Chris to laugh even harder in the way that makes your face turn red and tears come down your cheeks.

Prue chuckled and shook her head at the irony. Once the daughters got bored of their father's rug cutting, Prue took a moment and continued. "Okay… so he would be about eight right now. This is where schizophrenic shock starts coming into use, on both him and Jess. Since magic can't help them after three years… they turn to humans. Since Paige had taken up her social working again by then, they went to her office to talk to her instead of going to school. Neither she, nor Phoebe knew what was going on, really, so of course Paige didn't believe them. She scolded them for lying about something so serious and called you to pick them up… but, from what Paige told me, you never got the chance. Jess took Chris' hand and orbed out to somewhere. I was with another charge at the time… but that was the day Jessie killed herself. I don't know how, and I don't know why then, of all times. But she did… and you found them… and you… you blamed Chris' and of course you… took it out on him…"

Prue's voice was shaking at that and she had to look away again, if only for a moment. Then she continued. "After the funeral, Paige realized they were telling the truth, Phoebe found out when she confronted you about it… Chris was sent to foster home after foster home but none of them worked. Paige even tried to adopt him and take him to her own place across town, but that's when things started getting rocky between them. Personally, I think she said something that was insensitive and it hurt him, but knowing Paige, she was too proud to take it back because she probably meant it. And besides that… there was something else, but he won't tell me and neither will Paige." At Piper's look, she hastened to add, "Don't worry, they love each other to death, it's just… they don't really know how to act around each other."

When Piper continued to give her the look, Prue rolled her eyes and simply continued telling the story. "Okay, so Damien's getting Chris in trouble every chance he gets, Wyatt is getting him out of trouble every chance he gets, Chris is a complete wreck and doesn't give a damn what happens to him since his twin is gone… then he meets Paris and they click almost instantly. Phoebe and Paige can't do anything for him, and then Daryl is dragged into the whole mess because Chris has developed a habit of breaking and blowing up things, like cars and empty buildings and such. Daryl doesn't know that Chris is abused, so every time he arrests him, he brings him home and tells Piper, hence more problems. So… Paris and Wyatt are holding onto him and keeping him from going insane until he sinks into a depression. In this depression, he makes a comment around Daryl about his life and Daryl loves you and Leo so much he thinks Chris is just insane so Chris goes through some physiological tests which ends up getting him into a mental institution. That lasted about four mouths, then he was released into a military academy for his acting out issues… okay, that was when he was thirteen, he went to the nuthouse when he was twelve… And right about now he's taking his frustration out in the form of music and his band C4 starts up," Prue kept on rambling a hundred miles per hour. "He was happy outside of the manor, had friends and people who cared… That lasted for about another year before I think you and Leo decided he was getting too relaxed and the abuse started getting worse again… and, uh… I don't know why, but I get the feeling there was demonic influence because no matter how much you guys hurt him, he would never do this, but… he killed you, and it took Leo almost a year to come back. So…" her voice trailed off. She watched Victor and her nephew for a while, and Piper didn't want to press her. She had been speaking so quickly to shorten the summary up even more, but now she seemed to want to add something.

After a while, Prue sighed. "Okay, there's some stuff I left out because it wasn't really relevant until now… You see, you never told Dad that Chris was back. You told him that you'd given him up at birth, and never said anything about him returning… and Dad never found out because every time he came over-- which started to become often since he moved closer to us-- you or Leo would lock Chris up in the cellar beneath the basement. So… Paige, Phoebe, and Wyatt had gone out with Dad to a concert or something when… when it happened. They came back to find Chris in the middle of the wreckage, in total shock… and Piper's body. Paige, Phoebe, and Wyatt sort of exploded on him… wouldn't have anything to do with him... so once Dad found out who he was, and what had been happening… he took him in. But it wasn't five minutes later that the Elders found out and summoned him… After Jess's death, they had given him two charges to watch out for to try to cheer him up… but now they cast him down from grace with two curses… One was that I couldn't heal him when he was hurt… the other was that… whenever he slept, he would remember. Everything. They hated him that much…

"So when he was over at Dad's, he wouldn't, or couldn't, speak or eat… and he didn't sleep. That pissed the Elders off more, so they added a little clause that said he had to sleep at least once a week. Anyway, none of Dad and his wife taking him in was known (or official even), so the public thought he was dead or gone, and about a week later he was. He called me for the first time in those two weeks only to say that he had to disappear for a while, and he and Paris were gone. They were pronounced dead after seven months because the war was just about starting and people went missing a hell of a lot more often and always turned up dead."

Piper nodded, remembering seeing her son in that Arctic like place. It all made so much more sense now, what had upset the magical community, why he had had to disappear… But he actually had seemed happy there. Content. Why did he ever leave and come back to the US, where war was tearing apart the country and world, where he was paying for others' lives? Why weren't Paige and Phoebe doing that? They were older, they could take it.

"Why did he ever come back?" her voice asked, sounding strange to her own ears.

Prue took a deep breath and held it for a moment before letting it out slowly. "Piper… the part after that is all guesswork for me. I think… I'm pretty sure he felt what was happening on some level because he had such a strong bond with… with the one doing all the evil. Once he had learned what he needed… I think he decided he was ready to help save the world. He just kind of went about it the wrong way, if he did what I think he did."

"And what do you think he did?" asked Piper, barely listening anymore. Her eyes had fallen on her son… the boy they were talking about that was sitting on the roof of a college castle and talking to the man he'd been silent around his entire stay with. They seemed to get along just fine, now. They weren't laughing, anymore, though. Just talking.

Prue's eyes wandered there, too. "I think he went straight to the Source to get him to stop. And I think the Source was still quite mad at him, but not enough to kill him, so he kept him there. I think Chris didn't like being locked up again, so he left to try a different tactic when the Source wasn't watching. I know for a fact he was the one who left the feathers--"

But suddenly her voice was cut off by something like a yelp of surprise coming from the place on the roof where their father and Chris were. The two whirled around to see Victor sitting alone, looking completely dumbfounded. Prue looked back to Piper, who raised her eyebrows in contemplation. They turned back and Prue called out, "Hey, Dad! What happened?"

Victor looked mildly surprised to see Prue there, but shouted back, all the same. "I don't know! We were just talking and he fell through the roof without leaving a hole or anything!"

Prue and Piper both had to suppress a laugh at this. Prue shook her head and turned back to her dad. "What did you do? That power is triggered by surprise."

Victor looked even more confused. "Falling through roofs is a power?" he said more to himself than anyone else. "Um… We were just talking about… stuff." He jumped abruptly, though, as flames appeared next to him. The fire morphed quickly into Chris, who flopped down, soaking wet.

"Sorry," the boy apologized tiredly, adjusting the sunglasses. "Just don't call me Christopher again."

"Why are you so wet?" demanded Victor, but not unkindly. He just looked lost.

Chris shot him a confused look. "What are you--? Oh! Underground spring below here," came the 'obvious' reply.

Victor continued to look at him, baffled. "You fell through all five stories and then some?"

Chris nodded absently. "Eh. Happens."

Prue gave Piper a look before taking her hand and orbing them in front of Victor and Chris. The latter didn't look remotely surprised to see them. Without a word, Prue took her charge's hand and pulled him easily to his feet, despite his noises of objection. "We're going to go work on your powers like we were supposed to do last night," she said brightly. "I think it's the final straw when you fall through an entire college beginning at the roof. And you've got no idea how to work the memory projections."

Chris looked affronted. "I do so!"

"Only when it concerns a few weeks ago," Prue returned, rolling her eyes. "I want you to be able to go back years easily."

Chris gave her a look from behind the shades. "Why would I want to remember years ago?" he deadpanned. Prue shot him a look in retaliation. She said something about that being beside the point. He retorted that that was the point.

It was Piper's turn to roll her eyes. She tuned out of her sister and son's argument and looked to her dad. "So, how are you today?"

He managed a tight smile. "Peachy."

Five minutes later the two were still going at it until Victor finally broke in, frustrated. "Jeez! You two are too alike for your own good! Neither of you is ever going to win this argument! Now Chris, just go with Prue and practice whatever power she want you to. She's only got your best interests at heart," he added, cutting Chris off before he could protest. "And Prue, go easy on him. He's had a rough day. Now off with you two!"

Chris glowered darkly at Prue, crossing his arms. "I hate you."

Prue beamed and threw an arm over his shoulder. "But I love you," she returned, laughing when he ducked out from under the one-armed embrace.

With that settled, the four scaled down the roof (since Chris refused to use any magic that wasn't in question, just to be difficult) and made it onto the balcony and into the college corridors. They bade goodnight to Victor, who was residing in the dormitory next to the future Phoebe's, and continued walking through the unlit hallways. Piper had no idea where they were heading, but she knew Prue didn't mind her coming to watch them practice, and as frustrated as Chris was with Prue, he wouldn't care if she didn't. They didn't get very far, however, before they heard raised voices wafting through the otherwise silent wing.

The three exchanged looks before Prue said, "That sounds like Paris…"

With a mutual understanding, they quickened their pace and within no time at all came face to face with the girl in question, who was looking furious and upset at the same time. Bianca was apparently trying to talk to her, but was looking pretty much 'eaten' and they could see Andre, Joden, and Duncan hurrying up the stairs to see what was the matter, too. "Chris!" Paris all but yelled, turning her attention away from a scandalized Bianca, then demanded, "What are you still doing out?"

"Oh-- I was just--" Chris managed, looking taken aback and somewhat frightened.

"Never mind," she cut him off angrily. "Get to bed, both of you!" she added furiously at Bianca.

"Yes, ma'am," Chris all but squeaked and he and Bianca headed off down the nearest corridor.

Prue and Piper's mouths fell open in shock.

"Paris, what--?" began Prue, wholly surprised by this show of anger from such a calm girl. Paris, however, cut her off with a sharp wave of a hand and stomped off, pushing past the remaining FU1 members, who were gathered on the stairwell, shocked.

For a moment, all Prue, Piper, Andre, Duncan, and Joden could do was gawk in her wake. None of them had ever seen her lose her temper. None of them had even realized it could be done. After another moment of silence, however, Joden broke it. "I'll go talk to her," he said softly and made his way back down the stairs after his girlfriend.

"Um…" said Andre, looking extremely wrong footed. "I don't think leaving Chris and Bianca alone is a good thing… I get the idea they might blow this place up if they get mad enough."

That snapped them back to the moment. Prue looked absolutely horrified at the thought, and the four sprinted off down the hall. They could already hear shouting, and it hadn't been more than two minutes since they'd all met up.

"Oh, you're so full of yourself!" Chris was yelling. "Like you had anything to do with that--!"

"I'm full of myself?" Bianca cut him off. "You're the one who reset time for one person! One person! What about the others, huh? Why didn't you reset time last night and stop Archwood from sending all those people through Bypass 34? Is your one friend worth more than all 300 of their lives--?"

"You have no idea what you're even talking about, Bianca! Like I had any choice in all that! Things just happen when it comes to magic! You should know that by n--!"

"I should know that? Gawd, you are so demented!"

"I may be demented but at least I'm not a coldhearted bitch like you!"

"What! Coldhearted? Me? Were you even listening?" Bianca screamed furiously as Prue, Piper, Andre, and Duncan rounded the corner. The two teens were yelling at each other in the middle of a hallway, both looking like homicide was not far off. They were standing dangerously close to each other.

"Why would I listen to anything you say?" Chris shot back angrily. "I hate you!"

"Well, not as much as I hate you!" Bianca yelled.

"THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" Chris shouted, somewhere near at the top of his lungs.

"OH, SHUT UP, YOU ASS HOLE AND JUST KISS ME ALREADY!" Bianca screamed.

"MAKE ME, DUMB ASS!" Chris yelled back, and without further warning, the two seemed to be locked together by their lips; their arms were entwined around the other. The ones watching felt their jaws drop in astonishment, and their expressions didn't change even when the two teens, still making out passionately, fell to the ground, where each then proceeded to try to force the other on the bottom of their two-person stack without breaking contact with their lips.

Piper vaguely began to wonder how long they could keep that up without having to resurface for air when they suddenly broke apart, each looking just as furious with the other as they had moments before.

"Jeez," Bianca spat, getting to her feet heatedly. "I've had better kisses with five-year-olds."

Chris scoffed. "What the hell were you doing tonguing five-year-olds? Pervert, much?"

"Go screw yourself!"

"Oh, I know you want me to," came the smart mouthed retort, perfectly collected, now.

Bianca gave an exclamation of anger and exasperation. "You see? There you go again with that egocentric, pigheaded arrogance of yours!"

"Or maybe I'm just empathing it from you. Ever thought of that?" Again, the reply was calm, but this time with a twinge of weariness.

Bianca opened her mouth for another comeback but stopped short. She gave him the once-over and frowned. "You really are tired, aren't you?"

Chris opened his mouth but he, too, stopped short. He looked away briefly and seemed to be trying to regulate his breathing. At length, his voice replied hesitantly, "I… yeah. I guess I am…" His eyes flashed back up to meet hers from behind the sunglasses for less than a moment before shifting away again. There was silence as Bianca's eyes moved over him with an unprecedented expression within their depths. It was something like sympathy… Something like sadness and unsought understanding.

"…I gotta go," Chris said softly, not wanting to be the object of such a gaze, and he moved through and past his assembled team and family (who were still so shocked they couldn't move) with a quiet, "Excuse me." and nothing more.

Then he was gone, and the ones left in his wake began to stir as if from a dream. Their eyes turned to Bianca, who still hadn't moved, or spoken.

Before they could demand anything from her (verification of sanity, perhaps), the girl shimmered away.

A/N: Heya, people! Ok, since this is so far away from my original plan, now, I need another poll. How many people want Chris to meet the Piper and/or Leo from the past without their disguises in place? PS, I took out the chapter about Damien, so that's why it may look like I haven't updated.