Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed, or any of its characters… I just wish I did.

Author's Note: Sorry for the delay. I know I told some of you I would have this up the other day, but I ran into a couple of problems with that. Anyway… here is the next chapter! Thanks to all of my readers, I've put my replies at the bottom in the closing remarks. Just a note from the last chapter: ETA stands for "Estimated Time of Arrival" in case anyone needed a translation. I'm going to be using some medical terms and abbreviations in this chapter too - rather than listing out all the meanings at the bottom… if you all want clarifications, feel free to ask about 'em in your reviews or send me a private message, I'll try to answer quickly. I hope it's not boring. ;) Sorry again for the delay, I hope it was worth your wait.

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"See, aren't you glad that we didn't wait 'til Halftime?" Paige asked Phoebe as they started walking back towards the stands with their purchases, "Look at the line now." The Halftime buzzer would be sounding any second now, and the line for the concession stand had more than doubled since they had first gotten there. There were still people headed for the concession stand and the Homecoming Court (those that weren't on the field playing, like Wyatt) were lining up at the fence for the Halftime ceremony.

"Of course," Phoebe said. Paige could tell that her older sister was only partially paying attention to her. She was paying more attention to her young teenaged daughter and every boy that Melinda so much as flashed a smile at. Mel held up a finger to her mother and aunt to stop to chat with a couple of her friends for a moment and Phoebe and Paige paused several steps ahead of her.

"Okay, Mom, ease up on her," Paige said, elbowing Phoebe, "a little harmless flirting isn't going to hurt anything. You're going to give the poor girl a complex if you keep that up. She's fine."

Phoebe wrinkled her nose at Paige, but she did try to ease up on her overprotective mother mode. "In a few years, you'll be going through this with the twins you know."

"Yes, and you've still got two more girls to go through it with too, after Mel," Paige reminded her with a smile, "I think I'm more worried about the little Casanova that Henry Jr. is turning into. I'll be chasing the girls away in droves. Do you know what happened the other night? One of the little girls from his class called to see if he could go to the movies with her. He's nine Phoebe! Nine! If I had brought him with us to the game, he'd have a harem of sixteen year olds wrapped around his little finger."

Paige and Henry had adopted their little heartbreaker of a son when he was just a baby. As it turned out, much to Henry and Paige's amazement, their new little boy's mother had apparently been a witch. He fit right into their family and Paige's concerns about raising a "normal" baby in a magical family were removed. Yet again Paige's knack for having magical reasons for everything in her life had worked out. Even if sometimes she thought poor Henry felt outnumbered by being the only truly "normal" person in the family. True, Leo was mortal now, but the man had been an angel!

"Aww, that's so cute!" Phoebe teased, "Young love…"

"You didn't think it was so cute when we were talking about Mel," Paige was rather satisfied that that remark shut Phoebe up quickly.

"Point taken."

"Thought so."

"Hey, Mel!" Phoebe called, "Come on, sweetie, let's get back to our seats before the half-time show starts, you want to see if your cousin Wyatt gets crowned Homecoming King?"

Melinda rolled her eyes, said some parting remark to her friends that neither Paige nor Phoebe could hear, and then the dark-haired girl trotted over to them. "Of course he's going to be Homecoming King, Mom," Melinda said with a 'duh' expression. Following after them, she continued. Her voice was just dripping with sarcasm, "It's a popularity contest, which will be no contest. He's like Mr. Popular, Captain America, Student Body President, Star Athlete…ugh, even my friends at the middle school like him and talk about him constantly. Bethany asked me just now if he had a girlfriend. Like I care if Wyatt has a girlfriend. He's had what? Four already this year? Who could keep up anyway? It's enough to make me want to gag myself. Sometimes I wait for a little sparkle to flash on his teeth when he smiles. How does Chris live with all of that nauseating perfection?"

Paige couldn't help herself she burst out laughing. She cut off abruptly from the look that Phoebe directed at her that said not to encourage her. Paige rolled her eyes, she at least, was proud of the budding sarcasm. If you couldn't make fun of your own family, who could you make fun of?

"Chris is a bad influence on you," Phoebe said to her daughter, "…and so is your Aunt Paige."

There was a loud cheer from the stands as they continued back towards the bleachers and Paige tried to stand on her tiptoes to see above the heads of all the people standing at the fence to see out onto the field. Chris must have made another great pass and someone was making a touchdown. She looked towards the scoreboard and the counting down time clock.

"Touchdown!" the squeaky voice of the teenaged announcer up in the booth shouted, to applause before the buzzer rang signaling the end of the half. CRACK! Paige blinked, still trying to see over the heads of people blocking her view from the field at the sound of an impact out on the field.

"Well, that didn't sound good," Paige remarked. The folks standing along the fence sucked in gasps, 'ooohs' and the cheering in the stands went rather silent. Those that had been on their feet to cheer for the touchdown up there were sinking back into their seats in shock. Paige glanced at Phoebe just in time to thrust her drink and bag of popcorn at Melinda before catching the Empath on her way down. "Phoebe?"

"Mom?" Melinda asked, sounding worried.

"…not so subtle reminder of the effects of crowds," Paige's older sister said with a hand on her forehead. Phoebe steadied herself and gave Paige a weak smile, "I'm fine, and it's under control again. What the hell just happened?"

One of the men standing at the fence turned to look at them, "Quarterback just got sacked. It was pretty ugly. Don't think he's getting up from that one. I hope they throw that kid from the other team out of the game; unnecessary roughness and the play was o… ouch…" something on the field had his attention again. Whatever it was had the teenagers at the fence murmuring back and fourth to each other and crowding to try to see.

The quarterback? Paige thought with a massive flash of worry. If that 'crack' they'd heard had been the sound of someone hitting Chris… She let go of her sister's arm quickly, leaving Melinda in charge of Phoebe. The man at the fence had said that he didn't think Chris was going to be getting up from that hit. From the sound of it, Paige was instantly fretting over the same thing. As much as she would love to think her neurotic little nephew was indestructible, he was half the size of most of the other boys out on that field and she knew for a fact that Chris wasn't indestructible.

There were 'oohs' and continuous murmurs of conversation rippling through the crowd now, but in a hushed manner that contrasted grandly to the crowd's earlier excitement. Paige moved over to the fence and elbowed aside a few of the teenagers pressed against it in order to get a look. She heard something about 'Wyatt giving the creep what he deserved' from one of them as she craned her neck towards the field. Chris was laying motionless and… Oh, no… helmet-less on his side. And Wyatt was on top of a boy from the other team whom Paige could only assume had been responsible for tackling Chris. Flags were going everywhere. The refs and coaches were running out.

Paige pushed off from the fence, grabbed both Phoebe and Mel, and moved in a rush, "Come on."

Paige caught Wyatt's name in there a couple of times, and she left Phoebe to elbow aside a couple of them to see for herself. Chris was lying motionless on the field and Wyatt was on top of a boy whom Paige could only assume had tackled Chris. The refs and the coaches were running out.She pushed off from the fence, grabbed both Phoebe and Mel, "Come on."

"Hey!" Melinda yelped when she dropped the drink she was holding. Paige didn't get her a chance to do anything about it. She was trying to get through the stunned crowd. Her mind was reeling, but she needed to get to Piper and Leo and the rest of their family.

More shocked words were coming from people in the crowd as they passed. A lot of the comments were coming from teenagers with red and white face paint, crazy wigs, and outrageous homecoming getups. She figured some of them at least were friends of Chris and Wyatt, but it was hard to recognize anyone that she had seen around the Manor with the boys. Even if she did, she was more concerned about reaching her sister. Apparently the ambulance had pulled onto the field and Piper and Leo had gone out there from what Paige gathered amidst the flying gossip.

Paige's heart was racing and to her growing frustration it was taking them forever to get through the crowd. She heard the ambulance's siren start up and fade off as it drove away. By the time they made it back to where they could climb into the section of the stands they had been sitting in, Henry was on his way down. Paige dreaded what he had to say when her husband reached her and she was right to do so.

"Thank God. I thought I was going to have to fight through all this madness to try to find you guys. They're taking Chris to the hospital, strapped him to a backboard… I don't know how bad it is. Just that it looked pretty bad. Wyatt climbed in the ambulance to ride with him and Piper and Leo already headed out towards the parking lot for their car," Henry said, wrapping an arm around his wife. He didn't need to ask if she and Phoebe wanted to go too. "Coop went to go get the van started and to call Billie to tell her she's probably going to need to stay with the kids later than we told her."

Melinda looked pale, worried, and she was holding her mother's arm. "I guess this means watching the halftime show is out," she said to the adults, barely audible.

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There were people waiting at the emergency entrance into the hospital when the ambulance pulled up and the doors were open. They whisked the stretcher Chris was on out of the ambulance so quickly and were shouting things back and forth in such a blur that Wyatt tried to keep up with. The blonde teen was stricken as he jogged after them, he'd tried to hold onto Chris's hand, but now he just settled for keeping his younger brother within eyesight.

Wyatt wished Chris would open his eyes and start talking again. He looked paler than he had before. One of the E.R. doctors put himself between Wyatt and his line of vision with his brother, and he just wasn't having that. Wyatt sped up, his cleats smacking against the tiled floor as he followed them through the automatic doors and into the medical facility. He couldn't tell if his brother's breaths were still misting the mask over his face or not. Cathy was relaying what had happened in the ambulance to the doctors in terms that Wyatt didn't know, but knew that whatever it was it didn't sound good.

"Fifteen year old male, football injury. TBC. RBS. Hypotensive… BP 90 over 57… possible EDH... POPTA…" the letters and numbers being shouted out by Cathy just continued to cause a deepening sense of dread in Wyatt as he raced after.

"Trauma Two," someone directed.

"What does that mean? Is he going to be okay?" Wyatt asked. No one answered him. They just wheeled Chris into a room and started moving in some crazily choreographed dance. Someone shouted for them to get rid of the uniform and pads so they could see what they were working with. A pair of scissors and the sound of tearing uniform had Wyatt again turning his lower lip into a makeshift meal. Wyatt stood back to give them room, but moved every time someone blocked his view of Chris. His heart was racing in his disquiet, he wished someone would say something that he understood so he could get an idea of what was wrong.

They just kept talking in medical jargon, shouting things and sending people running from the room, or around the room. Everyone was ignoring him like he was invisible. Wyatt felt like he was in a daze. Finally some words that made sense.

"Where are the parents?"

"On the way."

"Deb, we're gonna need to intubate, get me some O-neg, and tell Radiology we're going to be giving them a house call for a CT stat."

"Who's the kid?"

"Big brother."

"What's going on?" Wyatt asked again, voice cracking. He couldn't keep track of who was saying what, they were all talking so rapidly. Intubate, what did that mean? God, it was like they were talking in a foreign language again, it was making him dizzy. Part of that, he knew, had to do with the tube he just watched them shove down Chris's throat that was attached to a ventilator. Wyatt swallowed hard and put a hand on the wall to steady himself.

"Can we lose the Velcro?"

"I've got him," one of the nurses said, splitting away from the team taking care of Chris. She gently took one of Wyatt's muscular arms and started to lead him out of the room, "Come on sweetie, lets go out to the waiting room to see if your parents ar--"

"I'm not leaving him, I told him I wasn't going to leave him," Wyatt said, trying to pull his arm away. For being such a short woman, she was surprisingly strong and she held on.

"You can't stay in here sweetie."

Wyatt ground his teeth together; wishing people would quit calling him 'sweetie'. He shook his head, calling out desperately, "Chris!" The nurse was already dragging him out of the room. The doors swung shut behind them and some shout from inside the room had the nurse running back inside, abandoning Wyatt. Wyatt looked through the windows into the room, paralyzed and unable to breathe.

Until someone else took his arm and started leading him down the hall, Wyatt wouldn't have moved. They didn't say anything, just patted his arm and led him out to a waiting room where his father sat. The nurse slipped back out, as Wyatt broke through his paralysis to rush over to Leo, burying his face in his father's shoulder. Leo pulled him down onto the couch and rubbed the back of Wyatt's head, trying to give him some comfort. "Your mom's filling out paperwork or arguing with the nurses, they wouldn't let us go back."

"…they were shouting all this stuff…" Wyatt mumbled into his father's shoulder, feeling so helplessly lost, "…he… he woke up in the ambulance… seemed okay… and… he's… he's got to be okay Dad… he's…" Wyatt had no idea what he would do if Chris wasn't okay, "…I didn't want to leave him… what if… what if he wakes up again… I told him… I wouldn't… I…."

"Shh…" Leo soothed, holding back his own fears and worries to be strong for his oldest son. "He'll be okay Wyatt… he'll be okay." Wyatt wasn't sure whom his father was trying to convince more, his son or himself.

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Three hours later there were more worried and nervous faces in the waiting room, including that of the patient's worried mother Piper Halliwell. She sat on the edge of her seat, chocolate brown eyes affixed on the door. Every nurse or doctor that walked by risked having Piper pounce upon him or her for some news of her baby. Leo rested a hand on Piper's arm and the shot him a venomous look. If one more person told her to calm down - family member or not, she swore she would blow them up and consequences be damned. Leo wisely kept his mouth shut and lowered his hand to return it to the cup of coffee he was holding that had long since gone cold.

It had been almost eight o'clock when they had gotten here, it was nearly eleven now and they hadn't heard much of anything in those three painfully slow hours, except that they had taken Chris to the Operating Room. Piper drew a slow breath that did nothing for her frayed nerves and surveyed her family. Melinda had her head resting on her father's lap while Coop stroked her hair. She had fallen asleep not long ago. Piper envied the girl for that, she knew she wasn't going to get even a second of rest until she knew that Chris was going to be okay. Paige and Phoebe were sitting together, holding one another's hands and looking at the door with similar amounts of anxiousness to their elder sister. Henry had just stepped out to call the babysitter again.

Wyatt. Piper's eyes lingered on her eldest son and her expression softened. When she had come into the waiting room, he'd been crying on Leo's shoulder. He looked so lost as he paced back and forth across the waiting room. His football jersey and pads had been pulled off and discarded in a seat that he had refused to sit in, leaving him in his white undershirt. There were tracks in the dirt on his cheeks from his tears and Piper could practically see the wheels of blame running in his golden-haired head. That was something he had inherited from her, that self-incrimination should anything happen to a family member. He held himself personally responsible for anything that happened to his younger brother.

She did the same thing. Chris had done the same thing last year when the roles had been reversed and Wyatt had wrecked the car. They hadn't been kept waiting nearly as long… and Wyatt hadn't needed surgery. Surgery… why wasn't anyone telling them anything! Piper was feeling that familiar self-incrimination right now, knowing her baby boy was somewhere in this hospital with a bunch of strangers. She didn't know if he was conscious or not, but he was alone and without a single member of his family there at his side. It made her feel ill. Piper closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. Leo rested his hand on her back and rubbed slow circles there.

"Mrs. Halliwell, Mr. Wyatt?" a male voice asked from the doorway.

Piper's eyes shot open and she leapt to her feet, locking her stare upon the doctor standing in the doorway. Leo rose to his feet too, keeping one hand on Piper in support. The man looked too young to be a doctor, but there was a knowledgeable air about him and a calm that Piper found irritating. She couldn't understand how anyone could be calm about this.

"I'm Doctor Hathaway. Your son is out of surgery and is in Recovery right now," the young man informed them, "We've got him on a ventilator and we're monitoring his vitals. I'm sorry you were kept waiting so long, I'd like to go over everything with you."

"Is he going to be okay?" Wyatt asked before any of the other family members could say anything.

"He should come out of this alright," Dr. Hathaway answered, "but he's not out of the woods yet."

"What's wrong with him?" Piper demanded bluntly, "Why did he have to have surgery?"

"Why don't you have a seat again," the doctor suggested, gesturing them to sit down. He pulled a chair over and sat in front of them. His clipboard rested on his lap. "We'll start with the less serious and work our way up from there. Your son has multiple fractures due to a blunt force impact. His right clavicle and humerus, minor fracture of the left tibia, four cracked ribs on his right side," he was reading off from the clipboard, "He suffered a level three concussion…" the man hesitated for a moment that caused Piper's heart to skip a beat in the uncomfortable silence, "…there was a concern about a skull fracture or a possible neck or spinal cord injury as well but the CT didn't show anything along those lines. Even so, it could have been missed, so we're not ruling it out entirely. The biggest concern, and the reason for the immediate emergency surgery was an epidural hematoma--"

Every word was like a dagger digging deeper into Piper and she was glad that she had taken the suggestion to sit down without argument. That's it; he's never playing sports again… Her hand tightened around Leo's and she felt both of her sisters resting their hands on her where they could reach. "Excuse me a what?" Piper asked. Leo looked like he was following everything that was being said, having been a doctor himself, but Piper was neither a doctor nor had she had any medical training. Whatever it meant to Leo, the loss of color from his face had told Piper it wasn't good. "Speak English. Not everyone here has had medical training," the words came out harshly and Piper didn't even care that her tone sounded so hostile.

Dr. Hathaway took a deep breath, "There was a buildup of blood between the brain and the skull because of the trauma. It's a potentially deadly condition because of the possibility of increased pressure in the brain, but we caught it in plenty of time to do something about it… we had to call in a neurosurg--"

Piper stopped hearing the words after that, burying her face in her hands. My baby, my poor baby. She couldn't stop the sob that rose up and constricted her throat and when Leo wrapped his arms around her she just leaned against him. The doctor was still talking and explaining what had been done about it. "…when can we see him?"

The doctor sat stupidly for a moment, his mouth hanging open in mid sentence at the quietly asked question from the mother. He closed his mouth and composed himself, "Once a bed is ready in the ICU, he'll be admitted and moved up there to be kept for observation. Visiting hours are over, but I'm sure an exception can be made for you to be able to see him for a few moments, but only for two of you. I'll have a nurse come in shortly and show you all to the ICU waiting room upstairs."

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Author's Note: I tried to leave this one at less of a cliffhanger than the last. It's a difficult habit to break! At least you all know Chris's status now and he's in competent hands. I have Final Exams this week, so I probably won't be updating again for a bit. Next week I'm on vacation, going snowboarding, and won't have access to a computer. Then it's Christmas… so it'll be a while before the next update. Hope you guys can last that long! I'll be writing stuff on notebook paper so that I can type it up and post it when I do get access to a computer again. Since I can't think of anything else to say right now, I'll just get to the thanks for the reviews from the last chapter:

persephone25: Thank you! Don't worry, Chris will be all right eventually. Everything happens for a reason.

petites sorcieres: Sorry for frustrating you:) Take deep breaths, it'll be okay, promise!

JPFAN: I'm glad you like the brotherly angsty moments. I like them too and I like writing them. Wyatt is a good big brother.

charmedtomeetyou: I'll update as soon as I'm able. I've got to work on my other story before I can update this one again. I want to get one more update out before I go on vacation next weekend.

Embry: Thank you for reading!

brilliantbrunette494: Protective Wyatt is great, isn't he? It makes me so happy that you love the story!

Sandy Murray: Thank you for the review!

Shanabear: Thanks!

Hellgirl77: Heehee, everyone keeps saying that they can't wait to see what happens next, I must be doing something right! Thank you for the review.

Zeria: I love your reviews! Thank you. I'm glad you were able to imagine everything perfectly in the last chapter. I was a little worried about that. :) Wyatt and Chris have a nice quirky relationship. There'll be more interaction between them in future chapters.

Amantine: I'm trying to control myself. It's just a challenge not to stop things when they come to one of those 'on the edge of your seat' endings. Torture isn't one of my hobbies… okay, well, not really, I do enjoy torturing characters in my stories. But I don't mean to torture my readers! Thank you for the review. I hope this chapter answered a little bit more of your question as to what's going to happen to Chris. Poor guy. And you don't need to apologize for your questions! They're great, they motivate me and help me get more into the story even! So if you have questions, feel free to ask them and I'll do my best to explain.

JessieBee185: Heehee. Can I just say how awesome I think you are and how much your reviews mean to me? It makes me smile. Yep. All the cousins are girls (Except H.J. who is adopted), Melinda is a cousin rather than some imaginary daughter of Piper's… that's just the way it is and will be in all my stories. :) I like writing character angst as much as I enjoy reading it… and I like to throw in the little sarcastic, quirky, and humorous moments/comments to keep it from being too serious, like the conversation between the boys. I hope this chapter didn't disappoint you!

Heartwitch: Thank you for the review… lol… yeah, if I were in Wyatt's shoes and someone did that to one of my younger siblings? The jerk would be toast.

Skya Hypnosis: Aww! Your review made me blush. Thank you so much!