"Tell me what happened." Cole said quietly after a few minutes. He sat down on the couch in Piper's office next to Chris. Chris pulled his knees up, and stared down, not meeting Cole's eyes.
"It started when we were kids," he said quietly. "We were still living at the manor. After what happened to Phoebe, I guess Mom and Aunt Paige thought it was the safest place. I think we were about...six or seven when Mel started having the nightmares."
"Nightmares?" Chris nodded, still looking down.
"She refused to tell us what they were about at first. She used to sleep in Ruby's bed because of them. They didn't stop, just got worse, but she got better at hiding them. She used to tell you and Mom that they were about demons or something. She never told you guys what she was really dreaming about."
"What were they about?" Chris hesitated a moment. He'd never told Cole about this. By the time that he and Ruby had decided to tell him, it was too late. After Mel and Ruby died, he just couldn't bring himself to tell Cole the truth about it. He didn't want Cole blaming himself more than he already had.
"Chris?" He looked up at Cole and gave a sigh.
"They were about you." He said finally. "They weren't really just nightmares. We found out for certain before she died...they were memories." He glanced briefly up, meeting Cole's eyes for just a second.
"Of what?" His voice was even.
"Of before you and Mom got together...mostly from before you and Phoebe met...and some of just after you and her got married." When he looked up again, Cole was staring out again. His expression was blank, but Chris had grown up with the man, and he could see the guilt, the pain in his eyes. Chris wondered if he was remembering his time as the Source.
"We didn't tell you," Chris went on, knowing that Cole was thinking that what happened to Mel was his fault. Chris couldn't let him think that. He hated the thought of telling the rest, but at least Cole would know it wasn't his fault. "Mel was horrified at the thought of telling you. She inherited Aunt Phoebe's powers as well as yours, you know? I think it was the empathy. Even when she was a child she knew what the knowledge would do to you."
"That is not a good enough reason." Chris gave a small smile at the tone of his voice, but it didn't last long.
"We were kids, and she convinced us not to tell you and Mom. She was convinced that they would stop, and they did."
"They stopped? When?" Chris hesitated again.
"When we were a little older."
"But that's not the end, is it?" Chris looked down again and shook his head.
"A few years after...after Mom..." Chris clenched his fist. He saw the emotion in Cole's eyes and didn't finish the thought. "She was doing alright. Heading to College and she even met a guy. She was planning on getting married when there was an attack. The demons...they attacked while she and her fiancé were out together. We don't even think they were after her..."
"She watched him die?" Cole ran a hand over his face.
"It was after that when the dreams started again. They were worse than before and not just about you anymore. I think some demon found a way to manipulate her premonition power. It was driving her crazy, and I didn't see what she was truly dreaming about until it was too late. I think...I think Ruby told Aunt Paige about the dreams Mel had been having about you, though. That's why Paige always blamed you for what happened. She thought it was the reason that Mel did it." "Did what?" Cole's voice was barely controlled now and Chris closed his eyes. He couldn't look into his father's eyes while he told him the rest.
"She wasn't just dreaming about you anymore. She was dreaming about Ruby. I think maybe Jack too, but I'm not sure. For so long, she'd been dreaming about them hurting me, hurting you. They felt like premonitions to her. Ruby and Jack, they were both strong. Kyle was a whitelighter after all, but neither of them were anywhere near as strong as Mel was." He opened his eyes finally but he still couldn't meet Cole's gaze.
"She attacked them?" Chris nodded, and he closed his eyes again briefly against the images.
"They didn't stand a chance. She was completely unstable at that point. If she had been more of herself, she would have known they were good. She had Phoebe's empathy power but that power turned out to hurt her even worse than it helped in the end. It nearly drove her over the edge after what happened to Mom. She was grieving and then she could feel it in you, me, Paige, Ruby, Jack, Kyle...when she attacked them, she was already to far gone to listen to that power. In fact she pretty much hated it..."
"You stopped her." Cole stated. Chris flinched and his fists clenched again. He felt the tears coming as the images that he'd been blocking out for so long now came back to him.
"I didn't mean to kill her." He trembled a little bit. "I didn't, I swear. I only meant to stop her. I didn't know they were already dead. I hit too hard. I killed her. I killed my sister." There was silence from the other side of the couch. Chris did not look up.
He'd never talked about it, never said it out loud. He hadn't meant to say anything. If it were anyone else besides Cole, he wouldn't have either. This wasn't the same guy, wasn't his father yet. He'd gotten by with that thought but really he was just fooling himself.
Chris stared down at his hands. He hated his powers more than ever at the moment. Hated that he was strong enough to do that. To kill his own sister. He had thought, more than once, that it would have been better if he wasn't as strong, if maybe it would have been better if he'd died along with them.
The pain that he'd never truly allowed himself to feel welled up in him until it was almost unbearable. His memories tortured him with visions of their faces. Ruby and Jack lying broken on the floor. Mel, staring up at the ceiling without seeing it. Kyle, Paige, and his father's horrified faces when they'd come into the room, too late to do anything for any of them.
His eyes were closed and he was lost in the memory, in the pain but he did feel it when Cole put his arms around him, pulling him closer.
He almost recoiled from the embrace. He didn't deserve it. He'd been preparing himself for the hate, for the disgust. Still, even though he knew he didn't deserve it, he couldn't force himself to pull away.
Instead, he clung to his father, one hand fisting in his shirt. He knew that it wouldn't last. Maybe the words hadn't sunk in yet. He knew what would happen when they did. There was no denying what he'd done, not anymore.
Cole sat still, stunned for a moment at the revelations. Even though he had been expecting something bad, something horrible, he still hadn't been expecting something like this. It was a horrifying thought, that he'd been the one to drive his own daughter over the edge.
What Chris had had to do, what the kid had endured was unimaginable and now he thought that Cole would hate him. Looking over, he pushed his own horror to the back of his mind before pulling Chris closer. The boy clung to him and Cole let him.
"I don't hate you, Chris." He said softly. How could he? How could Chris think that he would? Chris buried his head in Cole's shirt.
"I could never hate you." Cole said, just as soft, but firm. Despite his own horror at what would happen in the future, he felt the need to comfort Chris overwhelm that. None of this was Chris' fault no matter what the kid thought, no matter how guilty he felt.
Cole knew a thing or two about guilt. He had so much blood on his hands. Among his many sins he had even tried to kill Piper a few times. He'd accepted the fact that no matter how much he helped the girls now, no matter how many people he helped them save that it would never outweigh the damage he had caused.
That was how he moved on from it. He was never one to dwell on the past or the future for that matter. He'd killed a lot of people, and true he did feel guilt for that, but he didn't mope about it. He knew that they would get their justice one day, when he was finally vanquished for good. No matter what Piper thought, he knew where he was headed after he left this life for the final time. He had made peace with that fact.
But Chris...he did not deserve this pain. The kid was so...good. He pulled the boy closer to him. He would take this pain too, this horror and deal with it. Chris was more important than anything he felt. So, he pushed everything he felt to the back of his mind and held Chris tightly until the kid fell asleep.
Piper stopped short in the doorway of her room and stared. Standing at the foot of her bed was Cole who was looking down at Chris. Chris was fast asleep in the bed. Piper walked up and reached out to put a hand on Cole's arm. He jerked at the contact and glanced briefly over at her before turning and walking out of the room.
"Cole?" She frowned in concern as he leaned against the wall in the hallway and slowly sank down until he was sitting. When he looked up at her, she froze for a moment. He looked afraid. No, he looked terrified. She had never seen such fear in his blue eyes before and her heart sped up.
"What happened?" She asked, kneeling in front of him. For a moment, he didn't move and then he reached for her, pulling her into an almost desperate hug.
"I love you," his voice was quiet, but fierce.
"I love you too," she pulled back and put a hand on his cheek. "Cole, please tell me what's wrong." Cole closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them, the fear was gone, replaced by a fierce determination that she had seen in his eyes before. Reaching out, he put a hand to her stomach.
"You're the only thing that matters. The only one's that matter," he pulled her into another hug and Piper returned it.
"You matter." She said softly, placing a hand on the back of his neck. She was terrified now. Chris must have told him something truly horrible to get a reaction like this.
"I'll keep you safe," Cole didn't seem to hear her, "no matter what." Piper closed her eyes and fought off tears.
"We'll keep each other safe." She said softly. No matter what Cole thought, he was just as important as she was.