"What...what are you talking about?" Chris asked, his eyes wide in shock. Piper stepped closer to him.
"I asked for the truth, Chris. I know it, I can feel it. You're my son, Cole's son, aren't you?"
"What? No, that's..." Chris stepped back, looking away from her.
"Chris, please, just tell me the truth. I already know, okay. I know it for certain." Chris shook his head, and looked back at her.
"Who told you?" Piper smiled softly and touched her stomach again.
"I think you did." Chris backed further away from her.
"I should...I need to go...I still haven't found out anything..."
"Chris, we need to talk about this." She tried to reach out for him, but he stepped out of her reach.
"No, I mean I really don't have time for this, Piper. I need to go back and see if I can find anything." He orbed out before she could reply.
"Piper, what are you doing?" Cole frowned when he walked into the kitchen.
"Cooking, what's it look like?" Cole walked around the counter to stand beside her.
"What's wrong?" Piper scoffed, but Cole could see that she was close to tears.
"What's wrong? Nothing's wrong. Everything's great. I'm pregnant and we're okay now..."
"I know that. I also know that you don't do this unless something's wrong."
"Nothing's wrong." She repeated, going over to take something out of the oven. "Just because Chris orbed out of here and he hasn't answered my call since. He's got a lot to deal with." Cole frowned again.
"You're worried about the kid?"
"I'm worried about our kid. Our son, he just orbed away and I can't get him back here." She turned to him. "Do you think you could go find him? I mean, he shouldn't be alone right now." Cole put his hands on her shoulders, bending down a little so he could look her in the eyes.
"Piper, what are you talking about?"
"Chris...he's our son, Cole." Cole's eyes widened.
"What?" Piper nodded, and felt the urge to cry again.
"He's our son. I felt it. I asked him and he confirmed it, but I really didn't need the confirmation, because I just knew." It took a few seconds before Cole could get more words out.
"You're sure about this?" Piper nodded again.
"Paige saw him vanquish a demon with a fireball, and I've had this weird feeling about him...ever since I found out I was pregnant. Then I started thinking about it. His eyes, they're yours, and he reminds me so much of Prue when I did think about it. I don't know how he can orb...but it's the truth. He's ours, I felt it, and I saw it when I looked at him." Cole stood frozen for several seconds before he snapped out of it, pulling Piper to him. She pushed away after a moment, though.
"You have to go find him. He's all alone, he needs someone there. He's been alone. Please go find him, Cole. See if he's alright." Cole ran a hand down her hair.
"And you? Are you okay?" Piper took a deep breath, and nodded.
"I'll be okay. Please, Cole. Go find him." Cole hesitated again, not liking leaving her alone like this but she was looking desperate.
"Alright, I'll find him. Maybe you should find your sisters." He waited until she nodded, kissed her briefly and shimmered out.
"I think there's a way we can test it, you know see for sure if Chris is a demon or not." Paige said to Phoebe. She'd told Phoebe everything she'd seen. Phoebe shook her head.
"I think I'm going to agree with Piper on this one. I just don't see how Chris could possibly be a demon." Paige rolled her eyes.
"I know, okay. I jumped to conclusions without thinking about it. I was..."
"Angry, I know. We said we'd stop it from happening, Paige, and we will. Hey, maybe Chris is part demon or something. You know, like Cole."
"He is." Paige and Phoebe both looked up to see Piper walking into the attic. She stopped in front of them. "There's something I need to tell you."
"You're hard to find." Cole said after he'd shimmered on top of the bridge to find Chris standing up there. Chris glanced over at him.
"Piper told you her new theory."
"She did." Cole studied the kid. Now that Piper had told him, he could see it. The boy certainly did look like Piper.
"You don't seem too shocked by it." Cole shrugged, crossing his arms.
"Oh, no, I was for a few minutes." Chris raised an eyebrow, amusement flashing briefly in his eyes despite what was going on.
"A few minutes." He repeated and Cole shrugged again.
"Since I've been with Piper she's managed to surprise me a few times." They were both silent for a minute. "She's worried about you." Cole said finally.
"She shouldn't be, I'm fine." Chris suddenly wanted to orb out again, before this discussion even got started but he didn't. He figured he might if it were anyone else.
"Sure you are." Cole said. "So..." Chris tensed slightly, ready for him to start asking questions that he wasn't prepared to answer. "How exactly can you orb? I'm definitely no whitelighter."
"A spell." Chris said, slightly relieved that this was the first question Cole asked, one of the easier ones he could answer. "It masks the shimmering." Cole frowned.
"Enough to fool the elders, the girls?" Chris hesitated, and nodded.
"It was a power of three spell." He said quietly. When he met Cole's eyes, he could see the questions that brought up. Thankfully, Cole didn't voice them.
"What are your powers anyway?" He asked instead. Chris smiled a little.
"Well, I got some from you, of course. Like shimmering and fireballs. And I sort of inherited Prue's powers too."
"Telekinesis? Astral projection?" Chris nodded.
"Yeah, not that I need the astral projection when I got shimmering from you." Cole frowned.
"But you never use it." Cole pointed out. Chris shrugged.
"Like I said, the spell to mask it was a power of three spell. I can't break it without the power of three."
"Huh." Cole didn't ask how or why the spell had been cast.
"So...is it weird, being back here, I mean?" Chris stared at him.
"Would it be weird for you to go back in time to before you were born? To before you were even conceived?" Cole smiled.
"I don't know. It takes a lot to surprise me." Chris smiled back a him.
"Yeah, I know."
"Chris is your son." Paige repeated. Piper looked from Phoebe to Paige nervously.
"Yes." They were both silent, staring at her for a minute.
"And you're sure about this?" Piper nodded.
"I'm sure. I...felt it, and when I asked, he confirmed it. He's my son." Paige and Phoebe exchanged a glace, both shocked.
"Well, I guess it's a good thing that I didn't try and vanquish him." Paige said finally.
Chris spent the next hour sitting on top of the bridge next to Cole, talking. They didn't talk about anything too important. Cole didn't ask any questions that Chris wasn't prepared to answer.
Chris knew that Cole was doing it on purpose. He was purposefully steering clear of anything painful. He was purposefully making it seem like the fact that Chris was his son was something he'd known all along and that it was no shock.
He didn't press Chris for answers, somehow sensing that Chris couldn't answer those questions yet. He didn't press the father son issue, something that Chris was eternally grateful for. He just couldn't think about it now, not so soon after finding out what had happened to the man in the future.
Chris wasn't sure how he did it, but Cole had always seemed to know what he needed. He always seemed to know when Chris was at the breaking point, and how to pull him back from it.
When he finally left the bridge, he had started thinking about the orbing. He wondered if Piper, Paige, and Phoebe had enough power to break the spell that masked his shimmering. They weren't the ones who had cast it after all.
"I finally figured it out." Chris said, shimmering into the room where his family was waiting.
"Figured out what?" Ruby asked, standing up and exchanging a glance with Mel.
"How the demons keep finding us." He looked around the room. "Where is everyone else?"
"Dad, Paige, and Kyle went to find another place we could stay." Mel said. She glanced over at Jack, who was asleep on the only bed in the rundown place they had been hiding out in for a little while. Chris nodded.
"We might not need it. We should be able to get the manor back soon."
"How?" Ruby asked. "The demons always seem to be a step ahead of us; they always seem to know what we're going to do before we even do it. And then there's the fact that they always seem to know where we are."
"I think I figured out why that is." Chris said, holding up a piece of paper.
"What's that?" Ruby asked, taking it from him. "A spell?" Chris nodded.
"I think they're tracking our shimmer." Chris glanced at Mel. "I don't know how they're doing it, but this spell should work. It should mask the powers we got from Dad so that they can't. Nobody would even be able to tell." Mel frowned.
"But how would we make up for it?" Chris smiled at her.
"This spell will make it seam like we're like Ruby and Jack. Half whitelighter instead of half demon, you know?" Ruby frowned as well.
"Are you sure it'll work?" Chris nodded.
"If we say it together. Look, together we are the most powerful magical force in the world. It should work. Hell, I'd be willing to bet that it would fool the elders."
"He hates me." Piper said when Chris orbed out. It had been weeks since she had figured out who Chris was, and he had been avoiding her and her sisters ever since.
"He doesn't hate you." Cole said, wrapping his arms around her.
"Oh, yeah. He tell you that?" She asked, irritation in her voice. She knew it wasn't fair to be irritated with him, but she couldn't help but to be worried. Why would Chris find it so hard to talk to her when he didn't seem to have a problem talking to Cole?
"Piper, I told you that I've talked to him a little bit but he hasn't really said much about his future." Piper sighed.
"I know, I'm sorry. I just...I'm worried." He smiled a little.
"I know, but I'm sure you're a great mother. The kids going through a lot right now just give him some time."
"Piper, are you sure this is a good idea?" Phoebe asked, following her sister out into the hall.
"Why not?"
"Well, I'm just remembering what happened when I went to the hospital during my pregnancy."
"That was different." Piper said, putting on her coat.
"Maybe so." Phoebe put on hers as well. "But we both know that Chris is going to be one powerful baby. Who knows what could happen?"
"Well, if something does go wrong, I'll just freeze the room, and we'll figure out something. I think it'd be good to see a doctor, though. Just to make sure everything's going alright."
"I think you'd know everything's alright," Phoebe followed her out the door. "You've seen you're son as a twenty two year old."
"You went down to the underworld when you were twelve?" Cole asked incredulously. It was one of the few bits of information about Chris' childhood that the kid had let slip.
"Yeah, but Mel busted me..." He trailed off, his smile fading at the thought of her. Cole frowned.
"Mel?" He heard the name a few times since he'd been talking to Chris, and he had a pretty good idea of who she was, but Chris hadn't confirmed anything. In fact, he didn't seem to like talking about her at all.
Now, Chris hesitated, looking at his father. Mel was a subject that he didn't like to get into. He didn't want to remember what had happened to her, much less talk about it, but it wasn't like Cole and Piper wouldn't find out soon. In fact, he was pretty sure that Piper would find out as soon as she went to the hospital.
"Melinda." He said after a moment. "She's...she's my sister." He took a breath. "My twin sister." Cole stared at him for a moment, his eyes wide.
"Your twin sister." He repeated. "You have a twin sister. Piper's having twins." Chris nodded.
"Surprised?" He asked, smiling a little at his father. Cole ran a hand across his face and let out a small laugh.
"Uh, yeah." He said slowly. Cole frowned in thought. He hadn't been asking about the future for two reasons. One was that he didn't think Chris was ready to talk about it, and he didn't want to push Chris about it. The other was that he was slightly afraid of what Chris would tell him.
He'd already imagined several things that could have happened to Piper in Chris' future. He tried not to think about it, but Chris refused to talk to Piper now, and Cole could practically read it in his eyes.
Now, he was imagining something else. Twins, Piper was having twins. She was having a little girl, too. He felt a momentary swelling of happiness about this. A little girl as well as a little boy.
After what had happened between him and Phoebe, he'd never imagined he'd gain a family again, especially not this family. In the two years he'd spent with Phoebe, he'd never imagined that he could love anybody else.
But now...now he was with Piper, the last person he'd expected to ever fall for, and she was having twins. He didn't think that it could get any better than that.
And then he took a look at Chris, at his twenty two year old son from the future. There was pain in Chris' eyes when he'd told Cole about his sister. The same pain Cole had seen when he'd talked about Piper.
Chris settled down after Cole had left, but didn't sleep. He couldn't. He knew that Cole suspected something had happened to Piper and Mel in the future. It probably wasn't that hard to figure out.
He couldn't tell Cole what happened. They could never know what happened to Mel, and he didn't want to see the look on Cole's face when he found out how Piper died. When he closed his eyes, he got an image of his father after Piper and Mel had died.
Cole and Piper would hate him; they would have every right to hate him. What happened to Mel had been his fault, he was the reason she was dead. He knew that for a fact. He didn't deserve them, Piper or Cole, not after what he did.
Piper paced in her bedroom, nervous once again. The doctor's appointment had gone fine, except she'd gotten one big surprise. Now she didn't know how she was going to tell Cole.
He'd be happy, hopefully. Chris hadn't told her anything about this, though. Then again, it would be kind of hard to tell her anything since he was still avoiding her.
"Hey." Piper turned abruptly to see Cole standing in the doorway.
"Hi." She said, smiling at him. He walked over to her.
"Something wrong?"
"No. Well, at least hopefully not."
"What do you mean?" She sat down on the bed and sighed.
"Well, there's something I have to tell you..." He nodded, kneeling down in front of her.
"Actually, there's something I needed to ask you."
"Okay, well, this is pretty big news, you know." She frowned at him. He was smiling at her now. She sighed. "You already know, don't you?" His smile widened.
"Chris may have said something."
"Great." She didn't exactly need any more reminders that Chris refused to talk to her. She looked at him. "Well, are you happy?"
"Of course I'm happy." Her smile returned.
"So, what was it you wanted to ask me?" He pulled something out of his pocket, hiding it from her for the moment.
"Well, you know I've been talking to Chris some, and I think that he made me realize a few things."
"Like what?" Her eyes widened when she saw what he was holding.
"You know, not to long ago I didn't figure I'd ever have anything like this. After everything that happened...The Source and the marriage from hell..."
"You aren't going to start talking about Phoebe are you? Because I gotta tell you..." He shook his head.
"I'm happy. Happier than I've ever been, and I don't deserve it, but I love you and I want to be with you and both our kids. Look, I'm not great at this kind of thing. I'm good at the kissing and the...other things that come with it..."
"No, you do okay." He leaned closer to her, opening the tiny box.
"Marry me?" She stared down at the ring before looking into his eyes, her own filling with tears. "Is that a yes? No? Maybe?" She put her hands on his cheeks, bringing him close for a kiss.
"It's a yes. Of course I'll marry you." His smile widened further and he kissed her again before putting the ring on her finger and hugging her tightly.
"I won't ever let anything happen to you, I promise." He whispered fiercely. He intended to keep the promise. Whatever happened to Piper and their daughter in Chris' future, it wouldn't happen again. He wouldn't let it happen.