Hi people, it´s me again. And I came with a new chappy in my suitcase, all new and still hot. Fresh out of the press. Hope you enjoy it as much as the last ones.
Chapter 8, not bad for something that was originally planned as a one-shot, right?
LostWitch5 : See how well it works? Spent half my precious weekend writing cause I was so inspired. Thanks!
M.J.L.S. : You are soooo welcome!
xXx MissHaunted xXx: Thanks a lot for the compliments and yes I did get what you were trying to say, even though I´m not sure what that says about my mind, hu? So where´s my cookie?
And to all you lovely reviewer-people out there, you are the ones that keep me working , so thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks a looooooooooooooot to all of you!
And here my latest masterpiece!
Just kidding ... or maybe not. (uncontrollable giggle)
Understanding and accepting
About an hour later Leo returned from up there´. He orbed straight into Pipers´ bedroom where he found her and Chris asleep.
Chris...
The whitelighter from the future which he so often had disliked, insulted, mistrusted and for crying out loud on so many occasions even threatened...
He was his son... his child... a child which evolved from his and Pipers´ love... a child he was supposed to protect from harm... a child he was supposed to create a home for, where it could feel safe and warm... a child he was supposed to love unconditionally!
The child Piper was carrying.
Even though Chris had done everything to keep this fact a secret, shouldn´t he have known? Shouldn´t he have sensed it? Shouldn´t he have felt his sons pain when his own family had kicked him out of his own house? The house which he´d grown up in?
So many times he had doubted Chris´ motives. Where everything Chris had ever intended to do was actually saving his family. Was keeping Wyatt save... And Leo was aware that he himself would do almost anything when the people he loved were in danger, especially his son. Regardless of morals or consequences.
And Leo had no idea how bad the world Chris came from really was. He had indicated it on a few occasions, but he never really spoke about it which was one of the reasons for the doubts about Wyatts´ turning to never really disappear. Until now... He just couldn´t imagine the innocent toddler he knew to become the cruel, merciless and power-hungry source of all evil. A killer.
But that´s what he was in the future. And Chris had to watch it. Probably had to see him change bit by bit over the years, or maybe it was one event that triggered it and it Chris world had fallen apart in one day. Or maybe it was something in between. Leo didn´t know. And he couldn´t care about this right know. First he had to make sure Chris was fine, then they´d work on finding the thing that would get to Wyatt together as what they were supposed to be... a family.
Leo was actually able to get a little information on the demon Chris had vanquished but it was nothing urgent so he decided to let Piper sleep. After all she was pregnant and had had enough stress for an entire month within a single night. She needed to rest.
So he moved towards the bed and got down on the floor next to Chris. He took his hand into his own and simply watched his sons chest slowly but consistently rise and sink.
He found it amazing how fast he had forgotten all prejudices and the grudge he held against Chris and fully accepted him as his son. Now Leo only wanted to protect him and keep him safe from any harm.
Chris now was his son... his child... his responsibility.
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A few hours later the light started flooding the room, giving it a golden glow. Phoebe and Paige were already up and currently busied themselves with getting dressed.
When Piper woke up she felt relaxed and happy. A smile crept across her face as she put her left had on her rounded belly and started caressing it. Then she realized that her right hand was holding someone else´s and all of a sudden all the events of the past night started rushing back into her mind.
She got scared but when she opened her eyes and found Chris still lying next to her in the same position as hours before she calmed down. When she checked on his breathing and his temperature and found it to be normal she leaned back into the cushions and resumed admiring her beautiful son while caressing his hand with her thumb.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed Leo by Chris´other side sitting on the floor with his head resting on the bed and his eyes closed. She saw that he was holding Chris´ other hand. Piper smiled widely knowing that this could only mean that Leo got over the shock and finally accepted Chris as his son.
But that smile was quickly wiped of her face when Chris suddenly, out of the blue, jerked up into a sitting position. While doing so he drew in a sharp breath as if he would have been under water for too long and had finally reached the surface. He seemed completely panicked.
"Leo!", Piper screamed seeing that Chris now started hyperventilating and couldn´t get it under control.
But she didn´t need to wake Leo. The tight and almost painful squeeze of Chris hand had done the job. He looked at Piper with a worried expression as he quickly got up and sat down next to Chris on the bed. Phoebe and Paige, alerted by Pipers scream, came running into the room. They were shocked by their nephews condition but left it to Leo to try and calm Chris down.
Leo grabbed Chris head gently with both hands, forcing his son to look at him with his tear-filled green eyes. He spoke to him soothingly.
"Hey, hey, hey...Chris look at me. You gotta calm down buddy, ok?... You´ve got to breath... Come on, lets do it together... Just follow my lead ok?...In... and out... and again in... and out... in ... and out. That´s it Chris, you got it. In... and out..."
Leo saw that Chris breathing got less rigid and less labored. It started to even out and his son seemed to relax. He took Chris by the shoulders and pulled him against his chest, resting the boy´s head against his shoulder.
Tears now freely ran down Chris face and he started sobbing uncontrollably. Leo, who felt his body shaking started rocking him back and forth.
"Hey buddy, it´s all right. Everything is fine. You are safe... Mommy and Daddy are here and your aunts too. We´re all here and we won´t go away. I promise you that... You are not alone and we all love you...Just let go, let it all out..."
When Piper saw her son´s haunted eyes she finally snapped out of her trance. He looked so tortured, lost and completely broken that it tore her heart apart. She moved towards him and caressed his head while she murmured comforting words into her sobbing son´s ears.
Still standing near the door Phoebe and Paige had been watching and holding each others hands for a while, when suddenly Phoebe tumbled backwards trying to find her balance or something to hold onto. Paige saw that and knowing her sister she also knew the cause. She quickly moved besides Phoebe and led her out of the room.
On the bed Chris had calmed down and was slowly falling back to sleep completely exhausted by the seizure he´d just had. Leo and Piper helped him down to the pillow and tucked him back into the bed where he passed out almost immediately. Then they got up and moved over to the door so that they could speak without interrupting his sleep.
"Listen Leo, I´ll go downstairs for a minute. I gotta call my father."
"Why him?"
"I called him a while ago to spend some time with Chris and find out why he was avoiding me. They bonded quite well and dad found out and told me that apparently I died in Chris future. I know he knows more but just like our son he wouldn´t tell me. But now he´ll have to."
Leo nodded, " Ok, you go call your dad and I´ll stay here with Chris.
Piper nodded and threw a worried look towards her son. Leo put a hand on her shoulder.
"Don´t worry. I won´t let anything happen to him."
Piper looked into his eyes and said, "I know Leo, I know. I... I´m just scared."
She closed her eyes to control the fear rushing though her her body and sighed deeply. She got herself together and changed the topic.
"Maybe we should get him some more comfortable clothes. I´ll get Paige to orb to P3 and see if he´s got something there. I reckon he´d rather wear that than your way too big ones."
They exchanged one last understanding look and then Piper reluctantly left the room. Leo moved back to Chris and got back to his place on the floor. Chris had pulled his legs close to his body and was now in a fetal position facing his father.
Leo started caressing his pale face and pushed some hair out of his face. Suddenly alarmed he felt that Chris forehead was a lot warmer than it should be. He hoped that it was just a leftover from the seizure and that Chris wasn´t developing a fever. It could be fatal in his current state of health...
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When Piper entered the living room she found Phoebe sitting on the couch and Paige standing next to her handing her a glass of water. When she came closer she saw that Phoebe was a little pale and had to hold on to her glass with both hands which were shaking that much that she would have spilled the water otherwise.
"Are you ok? What happened?", Piper asked her younger sister.
Paige, seeing that Phoebe was too upset, answered for her. "She´s still a little shaky. She got a read off of Chris when we were up in his room and it almost knocked her out. I had to get to get her all the way down here for it to subside."
"Ok, ahm Paige... could you please orb over to P3 and see if Chris has got any comfortable clothes there? You know, like pyjamas or something. He´s still wearing his jeans and his t-shirt is a little dirty. And could you then please orb Wyatt to magic school´s daycare? There´s too much tension in this house than can be good for him. He likes it there and Chris needs my full attention right now. He obviously had to do without it for far too long. I´ll take care of Phoebe."
"Yes sure. I´ll orb straight back to Leo and help him with it. Than I´ll give Wyatt a kiss from you." , she replied while she squeezed Piper´s arm reassuringly.
"Thank you Paige.", she said to the already disappearing blue-white orbs. Then she turned to her other sister and sat down next to her. She took her hand in hers.
"Phoebe, what did you feel?"
Phoebe finally had herself back in control but nevertheless struggled to put all into words.
"Oh god Piper, I don´t know where to start... There was so much... There was pain, loads of it... It seemed like killing this demon triggered something inside him that ripped away every emotional wall he ever built and struggled so hard to keep up. Every bit of hurt, disappointment, fear, betrayal, despair and so on he´s ever bottled up has broken free and is simply burying him underneath, and it´s ripping him apart..."
Seeing what effect her words had on her sister Phoebe forced herself to calm down and stop rambling.
"He´s not only physically but also emotionally exhausted. He´s avoided dealing with everything for far too long and now it starts taking it´s toll. What happened last night was simply the last straw. This and his physical exhaustion probably caused a complete mental breakdown. But we´re here to help him through it. But he´ll have to learn dealing with his feelings otherwise it´ll only get worse every time he fails to keep his guards up."
Piper had tears in her eyes and couln´t believe how much her little boy had to suffer. How much the little baby version of him inside her would have to go through if they could´t prevent Wyatts turning.
"Worse than this?... No... No this is not going to happen. I won´t allow it.", With that she got up reaching for the phone on the couch table. Piper started pacing back and forth while dialing numbers.
Phoebe frowned at her sister. "Who are you calling?"
"Dad. I know he knows more about my death but he won´t tell me cause Chris asked him not to. But now I wont die, at least not by the hands of this demons so he can tell me everything."
Phoebe nodded and Piper put the phone to her ear.
"Dad? It´s me, Piper."
"Oh hi honey. Nice of you to call. How are you? "
"I´m fine dad and the baby´s too. But Chris is not."
Victor heard the tension in his daughters voice and instantly started to worry. "What is it? What´s wrong with him?"
Piper explained everything that had happened the night before and this morning.
"Oh my god! How is he now? Do you want me to come over? Leo or Paige could orb me..."
"No dad. He´s asleep anyway. For now I only need you to tell me everything Chris said about, you know, the event for us to be able to help him. But when he´s better you should come because I´m sure he´ll have a few things he´ll need to get of his chest. And obviously it´s easier for my son to talk to his grandfather then to his mother." Piper couldn´t avoid sounding a bit bitter at that.
"Hey Piper, don´t be like that. He has a reason for it... Listen, I want you to stay calm when I tell you that. It´s not good for baby – Chris if you freak out... The only other thing Chris told me about the future is his age when it happened."
"How old was he?" Phoebe who only heard her sisters part of the conversation got all ears at the question as it could answer a lot of questions.
"Oh my god... Yes thank you... Don´t worry I know how secretive he is about the future... Yes I´ll call you as soon as he´s ready to see you... Ok, I´ll call you regularly... Yes bye dad, I love you too."
"What did he say?", Phoebe asked her sister who absentmindedly lowered the phone.
"He... He said... the only other thing Chris said was ... that he was fourteen when it happened."
"Oh my god Piper!"
Piper started sobbing. "I know Phoebe. I left my children at the most vulnerable age. If Chris was fourteen than Wyatt was sixteen. A time where they needed their mothers guidance most to find their way from childhood to adulthood, to find their place in life. They were too young to deal with it properly but too old to ever really be able to forget it. We know what loosing a parent is like. Imagine being fourteen!... No wonder he started bottling everything up..."
Phoebe got up and slung her arms around her older sister. "Piper calm down! Non of this is your fault! You didn´t choose to leave them. That bloody demon ripped you out of their lives! And Chris already avenged and prevented that. It will not happen anymore, do you here me? We will not let anything happen to any of us!"
Piper still sniffled but had calmed down. "You are right. We won´t. And I won´t do Chris a favor if I hurt baby-him because my emotions are not in check."
"That´s right. And not eating won´t help him either. So why don´t we go to the kitchen and prepare something for breakfast."
That sent a suspicious smile across Pipers face and she wiped her tears away before she replied, "You just don´t want to do it yourself!"
But Phoebe put an innocent look on," I don´t know what you mean", and led her sister out of the room.
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About twenty minutes later Piper left the kitchen with a plate filled with a sandwich on it and made her way up the stairs to her bedroom. When she entered she found a freshly dressed Chris in her bed still sleeping, Leo sitting beside him and Paige with her hand resting on her brother in law´s shoulder.
"Hey, you two. How is he?"
Paige and Leo turned around and Leo answered. "Good so far, but I´m afraid his emotional outburst this morning has caused him to develop a fever."
"Can´t you heal it?", Piper asked him worried.
"Unfortunately not. It´s rather stress – induced and that´s something I can´t heal. Trust me, if I could...", he said with guilt evident in his voice.
"Hey Leo, I know you would do anything to help him. This is not your fault. It´s non of ours. It´s happened to him already, probably a long time ago... ", when he was 14 and I left him, to be precise, she thought, "... and the only thing we can do now is be there for him and show him that we love him.
Why don´t you two join Phoebe in the kitchen and update each other about what we all found out, because I´m not sure I can say it again. I´ve prepared some sandwiches for you and those...", indicating at the plate in her hand, " ... are for Chris when he wakes up."
When Piper saw Leo´s reluctance to leave she added softly, "Go Leo. You need to eat something to stay strong, for Chris and Wyatt. And for this family. No matter what you´re still a part of it and always will be and we all need each other right know. Baby - Chris is due in a few months and Big - Chris let it slip a few days ago that whatever turned Wyatt happened before he was born, so we are running out of time here. We can´t risk anyone else of us to break down."
Paige smiled at him reassuringly and grabbed Leos elbow. "Come on, let´s go. You look like you could need a good cup of coffee and one of Pipers veerrryyy nutritious sandwiches. Not very much longer and you´ll look like your actual age! And we all don´t want that to happen, now do we...", she said leading Leo out of the room and created a little but honest smile on his lips.
She nodded over her shoulder at Piper before they disappeared into the corridor towards the stairs.
Piper took Leo´s former place by Chris side and looked at her sleeping son. A few minutes later he started stirring and slowly opened his eyes. Piper bent down and placed a soft kiss on his forehead. She jerked a little when she felt his warm skin and that he was really developing something.
She asked, "Hey baby, how are you?"
He just smiled weakly at her as an answer probably still too weak to speak. But then he croaked out, "How did he react?"
Even though he didn´t say it Piper knew he was talking about Leo and how he took the news about Chris being his son.
"Well, he was shocked a little at first. But now he´s over it and loves you just as much as I do. He actually spent the whole night by your side and just left too minutes ago to grab a bite.", When she remembered Leo´s first reaction she couldn´t help grinning.
"What´s so funny about that?"
"Oh, you know, there was a tiny misunderstanding and for a minute Leo was a little slow off the mark and thought you were your own father. Mini- you was obviously as disgusted as your aunts and I and threw a book at him."
Chris wanted to say something but the pure image of his father´s face at that moment made him chuckle. When he immediately winced Piper cupped his face with her hand.
"Chris? What´s wrong? Does it hurt anywhere?"
She felt like in a deja – vu and really hoped that he would answer this time. What she didn´t expect was the frail and vulnerable voice of a child which he answered with.
"Mom, my back hurts. Can you do something, please?"
Piper got even more worried but tried not to show it when she spoke soothingly, "Sure baby, just turn over on your stomach and I will have a look at it."
Piper frowned when she saw how much pain and effort it took him to slowly do as she asked him to. Then she pulled up the back of his shirt and almost got a heart attack when she found the same dark bruises on his back that she saw on his chest yesterday. The bruises that had almost caused his death.
Chris didn´t even flinch when Piper yelled for his father. He was too out of it again.
"LEO !"
By the way, my "Keep reviewing and I keep writing" policy is still kind of on so you know what that means... Review, review and please don´t forget to review! Puhleaze?