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

Author's Note: Did that last bit with Chris get you curious? I know some of you have been making guesses as to what's going on, but I'm not going to tell you what's going on yet! That would spoil all the fun. You're more than welcome to keep guessing though. Some of you are writing awesome, awesomely long reviews. They're great and they make me smile so much! They keep me motivated and encourage me so very much. I jump up and down with glee when I see a nice long review waiting for me in my mailbox. And Jess, you are NOT allowed to send leprechauns to steal all of my left shoes! I will look silly hobbling around with only one shoe, not to mention I won't be able to be part of that whole 'left shoe trend' thing.

Of course, that only matters when I'm out in public anyway… I'd prefer to be barefoot 24/7 if I could choose to do so, but ya know, all those pesky places that require shirts and shoes in this day and age…Not that I would run around shirtless! Just shoeless! OMG! The scandal!

All right I've been silly enough, time to get on with the story, I hope you enjoy. This is the longest chapter yet. I think I'm compensating for the last one being so short.

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It was an hour and a half past midnight when Piper pulled the car into the driveway of the Halliwell Manor. No one had said anything the entire ride home. Coop, Phoebe and Melinda had driven Paige and Henry back to their house in the van before heading home themselves. They had only reluctantly left Piper, Leo and Wyatt after asking at least a dozen times if there was anything they could do. Wyatt's mom had told them that if they changed their minds they could call, but really they just wanted to go home… and that Phoebe, Paige and their families should try to get some sleep.

Wyatt doubted he would be able to sleep. He was exhausted to be sure, but he couldn't see how he would be able to sleep at all knowing that his little brother was laying in Critical Care surrounded by a bunch of strangers all night.

Piper parked the car and Wyatt got out before either of his parents could say anything to him and walked into the house. He knew his mother and father exchanged worried looks with one another behind his back, but he just pulled his keys out and unlocked the door. He left it open so that they could come in after him and trudged heavily up the stairs to his room, carrying hit football jersey and pads in his left hand.

The tall, blonde youth stopped when he passed the open door into Chris's room and looked into the darkened space. They'd only gotten their own rooms at the beginning of last year. Wyatt had complained about it and about not having any privacy with his little brother constantly around. They needed space and Chris had agreed wholeheartedly. Piper had consented, and Leo had helped the two boys set up their own rooms. The separate living spaces had worked out just fine, for all of two days, before their parents had caught Wyatt sleeping in a sleeping bag on the floor in Chris's room. Then a week later, Chris was found doing the same thing in Wyatt's room.

Sighing softly, Wyatt pulled himself away from Chris's doorway and nudged open his own door with his foot. He dropped his football gear on the floor just inside the doorway and flipped on the light. There wasn't going to be any sneaking into one room or the other tonight. Wyatt did consider orbing to the hospital to check in on Chris, but thought better of it. He had no idea how to explain himself if he got caught and it was far too big a risk.

Wyatt sunk heavily onto the corner of his bed and raked his fingers through his blonde curls. He needed a shower, he knew and he needed to change, but right that moment he could find neither the energy nor the motivation to do so. The blinking light on his answering machine caught his attention.

Reaching over, Wyatt mashed the button. Another of his battles won with his mother, his own phone line. It had been a compromise. Wyatt had wanted a cell phone and Piper had refused. The bargain they eventually came to was that Wyatt would get his own phone line at the house so long as he helped pay for any charges that went over the standard monthly bills.

"You have five new messages and two old messages," the mechanical voice chimed.

"New Message. Friday, October 16. 4:23 pm. Hey, Wyatt. Good luck against Lincoln tonight! Jessie and I will be in the stands. You looked cute today at the pep rally with the silly string all over you. I'll see you after the game."

Wyatt hit the delete button on the message. He hadn't exactly seen Caitlin or Jess after the game.

"New Message. Friday, October 16. 9:15 pm. Wyatt… um… hey… it's Jess. I was just calling to see if Chris was okay and to say that if there is anything you need… um… hey, just call me, okay… I hope he's alright… Caitlin's worried sick she couldn't even dial her phone to call you… Call me… I… I'm gonna go check on her, okay… will you call me?"

"New Message. Friday, October 16. 9:55 pm. Dude, it's Jake. Just trying to find out how C-squared is. A bunch of us are at Tori's. We're all hanging out by the phone and hoping that you'll call. We'll be here all night. Tell your brother that we won. We kicked Lincoln's asses all over the field for what they did, the lousy assholes. We don't really feel like celebrating though and I'm sure you don't, but if you want to come over when you get back from the hospital you know where to find us."

"New Message. Friday, October 16. 10:15 pm. Wy. it's D.J. I just heard. Caitlin called me hysterical and Jess was in the background trying to calm her down. Did she call you? God, I hope Jess made her take a Valium or something before she let her call you. The girl is mental. I would've been at the game myself, but you know me. I'm allergic to that much school spirit. Man, I'm sorry. How is he? You probably don't feel like talking about it. Look, if you want to go to the Underworld and blow off some steam tonight, I'll go with you. I'm only a shimmer away. I'd have gone to the hospital, but your mom's still pissed at me about the Kerberos demon and that bar thing… it was worth it."

"New Message. Friday, October 16. 10:32 pm. I guess this means we're probably off for the double date at the dance tomorrow night, huh? I hope your brother is okay. I don't know what I would do if anything happened to Hayden. We're staying with Jess tonight since our parents are out of town… I… I feel like I should have gone to the hospital… I'm sorry Wy… God, I hope Chris is going to be okay. I've got my cell phone on. Call me, okay?"

"Old Messages… Thursday, Octob--" Wyatt hit the stop button and flopped face first onto the pillows of his bed. He drew a shaky breath and closed his eyes, half smothering himself in the downy pillows. He wasn't going to go to sleep, but he really didn't feel like calling anyone back. Even if anyone was still awake, he didn't want to talk to anyone right now. He figured at least Jake and the guys would still be awake and he knew D.J. wouldn't give a damn what hour of the night he called, but Wyatt wasn't about to pick up the phone. Either they would be all sympathetic or they'd try to cheer him up. He didn't want anyone to cheer him up right now, which he knew would happen if he called anyone.

He heard his parents climbing the stairs to head to their room and rolled over onto his back. With a small flick of his wrist he shut his door with Telekinesis and followed up by turning off the light in the same manner. Wyatt stared up at the ceiling of his room in the dark and sighed. The constellations in glow-in-the-dark stars that Chris had glued up there when they still shared this room greeted him. It was going to be a long night. He knew he wasn't going to sleep at all. Instead, he settled for naming each of the constellations one by one.

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Large, leafy trees continued to cover the path that Chris walked along. The silence had been so unnerving that when the first group of songbirds had burst from a bush to swoop through the air cheerfully singing, Chris had leapt nearly a foot off the ground and landed in a crouch ready for a fight. He swallowed hard and lifted a hand to his chest, trying to calm down the rapid beating of his heart as he looked to where they had alighted upon a branch. Just birds. But they were the first living thing he had seen yet.

There weren't any shadows here thanks to that strange omnipresent light that reached even through the canopy of the trees that lined the path he was on. Roses predominated the flowers that grew as if wild and untamed. There were so many things here that didn't make any sense at all. At least his clothes had finally seemed to settle themselves with a little concentration his part. Everything else was confusing enough without his clothes constantly going through queasy shifts from one outfit to the next.

He'd figured out that if he concentrated on them they would stay the same. Now he wore one of his favorite t-shirts. A tan shirt that stated simply: Johnny was a chemist's son, But Johnny is no more. What Johnny thought was H2O was H2SO4. There was a little cartoon image next to the writing of a boy holding a glass with X's for eyes. Chris had a dark brown, long sleeved cotton shirt over it and ragged jeans. The attire choice that he had affixed in his mind was in deliberate contradiction to the medieval-seeming castle garden he was walking through. It was the outfit Wyatt had affectionately dubbed Chris's "homeless nerd look".

Chris frowned, worrying where Wyatt was and what he was doing right now. "Hello?" Chris called out again, turning quickly to look behind him. That sense of being watched by eyes all around only made his already uneasy feeling worse. For what seemed like the hundredth time he wondered where he was and how he had gotten there. This wasn't anything he had ever seen in the Book of Shadows or heard of before. Chris raked his hands through his unruly brown hair and took yet another uncertain step forward. "Is anyone here?"

This time, unlike the last several, silence wasn't the only answer that Chris received. Distant, the sound of a subtle melody carried on the absent breeze. The musical notes of some instrument followed by the distant sound of someone's voice singing with it.

A Stór Mo Chroí when you're far away
From the home you will soon be leaving
It's many a time by night and by day
When your heart will be sorely grieving.

For the stranger's land may be bright and fair
Rich in its treasures golden
But you'll pine, I know, for days long, long ago
And the one that is never olden.

It was faint, the sound far off and Chris wasn't certain if he wasn't possibly imagining it. "Not like I have anything else to do," he mumbled, before following the sound and taking the turn in the path to the left towards the notes of some lilting musical instrument and the subtle sounds of song. If there was someone here… maybe… maybe he could get answers…

A Stór Mo Chroí in the stranger's land
There is plenty of wealth and wailing
Where gems adorn the great and the grand
Where the faces with hunger paling.

When the road it is tiresome and hard to tread
And the lights of their cities blind you
Oh turn a stór to Erin's shore
And the one that you leave behind you.

Chris was sure that there was someone singing now as he kept following the path after the haunting notes that carried through the stillness.

A Stór Mo Chroí when the evening mist
Over mountain and sea is falling
Oh turn a stór and then you list
And maybe you will hear me calling.

For the sound of a voice you will surely miss
Somebody speedily returning
A run, a run won't you come back soon
To the one that will always love you.

It was lilting feminine voice and one that matched with the music notes of what Chris deduced to be a stringed instrument. It wasn't a guitar, whatever it was. The singing stopped, but the melody carried on, shifting to another song. The notes of this song were sad and somber, still pulling Chris forward. Chris's next steps forward were far more cautious than they had been before. There was nothing to tell him if whoever was ahead of him was a friend or a foe and he'd convinced himself that he wasn't simply dreaming. He was sure that if he was, he would have woken up by now. The sound of the music was drawing closer. Still, music and singing meant there was someone, and friend or foe, they could still provide him with answers.

Chris stopped just at the entrance into another small clearing, keeping himself mostly hidden by the leafy foliage. There were roses of many different colors growing wildly in this section and stone benches under flowering arbors. Seated beneath one of the arbors was a young woman carefully plucking at the strings of an instrument that Chris recognized when he saw it, though had only seen a number of times he could count on one hand in person. A harp. The young woman paid Chris no mind at all. Her eyes were closed as she gently ran her fingers over the strings, humming a tune wordlessly.

The teenaged Witchlighter's brow furrowed as he took sight of her and his breath froze in his throat, afraid a sound might disturb the scene in front of him. His previous decision that he wasn't dreaming, yet again changed. It was like some fantastically painted page out of one of the Fairy Tales his mother had so often read to he and Wyatt growing up. He had to be dreaming this.

Caught somewhere between late adolescence and early adulthood, there was a gentle and regal grace about the harpist. A quiet confidence. Effortless poise. Red-gold tresses tumbled idyllically free from a loose hairstyle to frame her delicate, heart shaped face. Bound in her hair were a series of playful red ribbons. Her cream colored skin was unblemished in youthfulness. High cheekbones carried a warm blush with a sprinkle of freckles across her small upturned nose. She was a natural beauty with all the bearing of some kind of fairytale princess or queen, complete with a simple golden, filigree crown resting upon her brow.

Red velvet the color of sun kissed rubies flowed over her figure, the skirt of the grown pooled about the ground at the base of the bench she sat upon. Gold thread had been expertly woven to ring a square neckline as it dipped down across her chest in an intricate pattern of abstract design and flowing vines. The bodice of the gown had been specifically tailored for her, accentuating and enhancing womanly curves as it wrapped its soft fabric around. The sleeves puffed faintly at the shoulder, but were again tailored to fit smoothly over the slight muscling of the arms down to a pointed wrist, trimmed in a smaller version of the neckline's golden embroidery.

A golden belt of sunbursts was wrapped about her slender waist, dangling its twin lengths in the front with the pointed cut of the waist. The skirt itself was full, gathered beneath the smoothness of the bodice and let flow like a crimson waterfall over her legs to the floor. The hem of the dress's golden embroidery truly flared to life up the front, in dancing spirals and vine motifs, while it filled the back and train of the skirt with a similar design.

Her slender hands plucked another string of notes and she lifted her head to look in Chris's direction, as though sensing there was someone watching her. Her eyes were like two bottomless frosty-blue pools, large and ringed with thick, dark lashes. Chris's jaw hung agape at the sight that added a whole new level of unbelievability to this illusion.

The young woman gave a start when she realized that there was someone else there and she stood up with a wide, fearful expression shining in her eyes. As she got to her feet the harp vanished and she nearly tripped over her skirts. Chris was too awe-struck to move, rooted to the spot he was standing. So, when the girl gathered her skirts and took off running down the path away from him, he just blinked after her for several dragging seconds before he shook himself out of his daze and started after her.

"Hey, wait!" Chris shouted. It had nothing to do with teenaged hormones warring with his rational mind telling him that chasing her might not be a good idea. His concentration on keeping his clothes to one outfit was lost, but at this point he didn't care how many garments were cycled through. He'd found someone here and she might have answers.

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"You woke up early," Piper said gently from the table in the kitchen when Wyatt shuffled in. Her eldest son looked as exhausted, weary, and worried as she herself felt.

"I think to 'wake up early' requires that the person involved actually went to sleep first," Wyatt said. He shuffled over to the table and sank down heavily in a chair, covering his face with his hands, elbows resting on the surface.

"Do you want to eat something?" Piper asked, softly. She had cooked enough for a small army to sit down for breakfast, or at least the Halliwell clan on a Saturday morning. She had hoped the cooking would help her, but it hadn't. She had gotten so used to when she was cooking, Chris being right there at her side working in concert with her to get the meal ready. It just hadn't been the same without him bumping into her with that roughish little smile that told her it hadn't been an accident. Nor had it been quite the same without him sneaking ingredients for "taste tests" and making witty conversation while they worked. She would have even been happy for one of the more silent mornings with him, when her youngest son didn't feel like talking because he was trying to work out some inner-struggle himself.

"Not hungry," Wyatt's hollow voice answered.

Piper sat for a moment, watching him, then nodded, admitting softly, "Neither am I."

It wasn't long before Leo came into the kitchen to join them. Piper's husband wordlessly got himself a cup of coffee and joined his silent family, absent one member, at the table. No one touched the food that Piper had prepared, which was just as well.

The jingling sound of someone orbing in disrupted the unnatural silence and three heads turned in unison to look towards it. Piper scolded herself internally for that heartbeat of hope that it would be Chris orbing in completely unharmed, rolling his eyes at his family and grabbing a muffin with some wry remark. Completely vain hope was squashed when it turned out to be Paige and her family.

Henry staggered a bit once he resolidified, "I don't know how anyone could ever get used to that." He silenced himself again when he realized no one in the room was speaking, and looked towards Paige.

Paige sighed, and did exactly what Chris would have done in the situation considering she had been the boy's tutor. Paige grabbed one of the muffins from the basket, rolled her eyes at her family, peeled the paper from it and threw the muffin at Wyatt's head. It bounced off and landed on the table, while Wyatt looked up at his Aunt in wide-eyed bewilderment that quickly turned to annoyance. Henry Jr. and the twins, standing behind their parents, giggled.

"Would you all lighten up? I know not a single one of you got an hour of sleep last night, but you're acting like someone died! He's in the hospital, people, not the morgue!" Paige said brusquely.

That was not what Piper wanted to hear this morning, which she communicated pointedly to her sister with a hostile stare. "Yes, Paige. Thank you for pointing that observation out to me. My son is in the hospital. In the Intensive Care Unit… you didn't see him last night. Do not tell me to lighten up!"

Paige's children, not really understanding what was going on just looked at the adults, before they pulled out chairs and began to dig into the spread of breakfast foods that Piper had laid out. Wyatt flinched though at the shrill sound of his mother's voice.

"Wy, you want a muffin that hasn't bounced off the side of your head?" six-year-old Parvati offered Wyatt. Her twin sister Patricia covered her mouth to suppress another giggle and reached to fill her plate with blueberry pancakes.

Wyatt simply shook his head and covered his face again. Piper stood up, grabbing her coffee mug and walked over to the pot. Much to her annoyance, Paige followed. Henry and Henry, Jr. sat at the table with the rest. Piper could feel Leo's eyes on her, but he probably sensed the growing tension between her and her youngest sister and wisely chose to avoid adding fuel to the fire.

Paige followed Piper into the kitchen, "Do you think he would be happy seeing you all moping around here? Hell no! Get a grip on yourself Piper. I know I didn't see him last night laying in there in the ICU, but I do know what it's like to see a family member looking so helpless. Or have you forgotten about that?"

Piper chose to ignore her this time, pulling the coffee pot angrily out and starting to pour it into her cup. She hissed in pain when she managed to spill some onto her hand and the dropped the pot with a noisy and messy clatter onto the floor. "Damn it!"

The younger woman walked over, taking Piper's burnt hand in hers and cupped her other hand over it offering the soft golden glow of healing. "Don't take this out on me or on yourself, Piper. Chris doesn't need that. He's going to be okay. Why don't you go in there and sit down, try to eat something from that gourmet breakfast you made? I'll clean up this mess… and in an hour, when Phoebe and her family get here we'll all go to the hospital and see Chris."

With a resigned sigh, Piper nodded, consenting to Paige's suggestion. As she left the room to return to where Paige's children had finally convinced even Wyatt to eat a little something, she heard Paige say, "He'll be okay Piper. You know he will." She might have known it, but it didn't make her worried mothering instincts go away.

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"Hey, wait!" Chris shouted after the girl. She was running faster than he would have expected for her to, dressed the way she was. "Slow down!"

Chris was quick too and he was already gaining on her. The golden-haired girl took a sharp right turn off the path and into the trees. He was sure he could catch her now. There was no way she could navigate through the woods in that medieval gown and remain ahead of him. Then again…

"Ow!" Chris yelped as a thin branch slapped back at him. He put his hands up to protect his face and plowed after that elusive flash of red. He watched her vanish ahead of him and growled, not willing to give up. "Will you stop for a minute? I just want to talk!"

Of course she didn't stop. He could see ahead that they were coming to another clearing. The girl plunged out of the tree line and Chris followed just a few seconds later. He thought he had been right behind her. When Chris burst into the clearing, breathing heavily, she had vanished. Chris swore under his breath and stopped, trying to figure out where she had gone. "Where the hell did she---umpf!"

The young Witchlighter's feet were swept from under him and he thrust his arms out to break his fall. Even so, Chris hit the ground with a grunt, landing on his back. The girl wasted no time in straddling his chest to hold him down. Her frosty blue eyes were flashing dangerously as she held a ruby-hilted dagger to his throat.

She was no longer wearing a gown, but her choice in clothing was still something out of a Renaissance Faire. A pair of snug fitting black breeches tucked into polished knee-high black riding boots had replaced her skirts. Her upper body was now clothed in a crimson peasant blouse with golden embroidery. The girl's red-gold curls were pulled back from her face in a loose tail at the base of her neck with that thin, golden circlet still resting upon her brow. "I will not hesitate to use this if I have to," she warned, "Who are you?" The girl's voice demanded in liltingly accented tones.

Chris started to move, but fell still again when she raised a golden eyebrow and pressed her weapon a bit more firmly against his throat. Suddenly his idea to chase after her was looking like a less than bright decision. He swallowed hard and glared up at her with emerald eyes, "I could ask you the same question."

"I asked you first," the girl retorted, "And, I would say that out of the two of us, you are the one at a distinct disadvantage. Now, answer the question. Who. Are. You. Did she send you?"

"Chris," he answered, leaning his head back as she increased the blade's pressure again. He wasn't sure why he was so concerned about it. This was just a dream after all. It had to be just a dream, even if it was an eerily real one that made absolutely no sense at all. Yet, some instinct in his mind told him that wherever he was, there was a very real possibility of death from that blade. "Sent me? Who? I… no one sent me…" Chris thought about orbing out from under her and turning the tables on her and he was weighing his options of whether he would be able to do it before she slit his throat.

"If she didn't send you, how did you get here?" the girl asked distrustfully, without letting up the pressure even a hair.

"No one sent me! I don't know how I got here! I don't even know where here is!" Chris growled up at her in annoyance.

She thought for a moment and very slowly drew the dagger back from his throat but she remained on top of him, holding him down. Her frosty eyes remained trained on him though as she thrust the dagger in a hilt worn at her waist. "I don't know why, but I believe you," she said, "against my better judgment. You look harmless enough."

Chris stared up at her, muttering under his breath, "…note to self, do not let Wyatt find out you got your ass handed to you by a girl… worse, you dreamed it yourself." His hands raked his unruly brown hair away from his eyes now that she wasn't going to use that dagger on him, "Okay, so who are you supposed to be? Little Red Riding Hood? Sleeping Beauty?"

"Who are you supposed to be? You're no King Arthur in those rags." The girl crossed her arms over her chest, looking at him. She sighed, closed her eyes for a moment, and then at last offered her name, "Alwynne. So… Chris. How did you get here?"

"Would you mind getting off of me, so that I can sit up? I don't know how I got here. I hit my head playing football. One minute I was in the ambulance on my way to the hospital… the next I'm…"

"Hospital?" she interrupted him quietly. A confused look passed over Alwynne's features and in the blink of an eye nearly everything about her changed. She slid off of him and sat blinking awkwardly as though someone had pricked the bubble she lived in with a pin. Maybe Chris had. Her frosty eyes filled with an immense sadness and her medieval clothes melted into something far more modern. A pair of jeans replaced the breeches, but she still had her riding boots, and a pale blue sweater replaced the peasant blouse. She no longer looked the part of a young princess or Queen, but a lost teenaged girl who was perhaps a year or so older than Chris.

Slowly the whole scene around them changed. The idyllic garden fit for a palace turned into a stark, cold, hospital room. Chris hastily pushed himself to a sitting position, gaping as the panorama altered itself right before his eyes. Gone were the roses and flowering trees, replaced by concrete, glass, curtains… when he looked back at Alwynne she had her face buried in her hands and she was shaking.

Chris slid over to rest a hand on her shoulder, startled at the change in her. She had gone from being so commanding to almost shrinking in on herself in a heartbeat. Alwynne lifted her face to look up at him, blue eyes watery with unshed tears. He could barely hear her voice when she spoke, "She won't let me leave… she… she won't let me…"

"Who? Who won't let you leave? What's going on?" Chris asked, feeling his heartbeat begin to race.

"I can't… I can't… you need to go. You can't stay here!" she said suddenly, pulling away from him. She pushed him back. "You shouldn't be here! I… I don't know how you got here, but you need to go… you need to go now! Before she finds you here… you have to go! You have to get out of here!"

Chris gawked at her in confusion as she hastily stood up. "Before who finds me?" Chris asked, shoving himself to his feet too, "And where is here exactly? I don't know how to leave! I don't even know where I am!" He grabbed her hand when she looked like she was going to flee again and held onto it, staring at her intensely. He needed answers, he couldn't just let her run off again.

"Domhan'al'taibhream. The World of Dreams," she breathed softly. She drew her hand away. "Go Aisling siúlóir. Go before Tromlui d'iníon comes! I have to go… you're not safe with me!" Chris stared as she ran out of the hospital room and down the hallway with red-gold curls bouncing. She shouted again. "You're not safe with me!"

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Author's Note: Okay, last update for a while. :) I hope you guys can last until I get back from vacation…

"A Stór Mo Chroí" is Irish and loosely translated means "darling of my heart."

Domhan'al'taibhream translated means roughly "The World of Dreams."

Aisling siúlóir translated means roughly "Dreamwalker."

Tromlui d'iníon translated means… well… bwah hah hah… you can either look that one up yourself, or you can wait until the next few chapters when it will be explained.

Thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed. I really enjoyed writing this last bit and I'll be excited to return from my vacation to see what everyone has thought about it. Please hit that little button at the bottom and write me a nice review. I really like long ones, but even the short encouragements are wonderful! I just want to know who out there is reading my story and enjoying it!