The Snow Gardens

by That Girl Six

Three weeks after Chris's death, the family is in pieces trying to find their way back to one another in all the wrong ways. As each deal with their grief, the future, past, and present all come into question while they try to save their broken family.

4. A Love Without End, Amen

Chapter Four
Daddies Don't Love Their Children Only
Every Now and Then

I.

I do believe in spooks.

Christopher was cold, terribly cold. The wind was colder. The rain was even colder. Together they were hard and angry, whipping around him and whispering taunts in his ears. He tried like hell not to listen, but the howl was just too loud. And it was right. Maybe he was overreacting just a tinge, but he was pretty sure that it was telling him all about how he had failed. He had, after all. He had failed, and now there were more ghosts in the air, all of them warning him that the deathly cold would be much more permanent if he didn't turn back now.

I do believe in spooks.

He closed his eyes against the chill until he could clear the darkness from his mind. He just had to tell himself that everything was going to work out, right? If he did his job the way he was supposed to, there would no longer be anything for him or anyone in the family to be afraid of, ever again. He had to believe that. There was a family in the future counting on him to believe that. The new generation of Halliwells needed him to believe that. He had made promises that he would fix it all, and Christopher, even with all of his doubts and insecurities, had no intention of letting any single one of them down.

I do, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks.

He would fulfill those promises, whatever it took. That didn't mean, however, that he wasn't allowed to have at least a minute or two for himself to doubt and fear like everyone else. If he thought about it for too long, he knew he wouldn't come back from it, but if he gave himself a quick minute . . . two minutes . . . okay, five minutes to worry, it wasn't going to hurt anyone. They wouldn't ever have to know. Besides, he needed to have the anxiety attack now, before they rejoined him there on the bridge top. He needed time to freak out alone so that he wouldn't do it in front of them. He knew they needed him to be calm, to have answers, to know what to do next. The family, especially the kids of the family, had always looked to him for grounding that he somehow seemed to be able to provide. He didn't know why or how, and although it did at times annoy him, he came to accept that it didn't matter why. All that mattered was that they needed it. He knew his father was going to need it when they arrived. With the baby on the way and already worried about his mother, she was going to need his calm more than ever for the both of them. So to freak out now, to be afraid and doubtful now was his only option.

Truth be told, Christopher didn't want to control himself at all. He wanted a full-on, nothing held back, freak out panic. He wanted more than anything to let go, be a normal human being, and be afraid of all of the unknowns. He wanted to scream and throw a fit, if that could in any way make it better. Right now, a lot needed making better.

I'd turn back if I were you.

So far, nothing had gone the way that it was supposed to. His brilliant plan had been a spectacular failure. He hadn't gone back as far in the timeline as he had planned. In fact, he had missed the day by at least nine months. His father knew he was coming and when, which pretty much blew the cover he'd been planning to use to get close to the sisters and Wyatt. Granted, taking Leo's potion back instead of the spell as he had been ordered had looked at the time to be the only way to keep everyone alive, but that still didn't make it any easier to accept. He wasn't When he needed, to be and he was stuck there until they could resolve the situation. Of course, he didn't even know for certain what the situation was. He had had to leave them in the future, subject to the gods only knew what. As much as he would like to believe otherwise, Wyatt could have done anything to them, and he would have no way of knowing whatsoever.

Damn it. Why couldn't somebody else's brother be the ruler of all Evil?

He knew that that was the real cause of his chill, more than anything else. It wasn't the dark November night or the altitude of his perch above the cars on the bridge. It was The Unknown. The not knowing if they were going to meet him now, later, or ever was gnawing away through his bones, and it was next to unbearable. He wouldn't have to worry about it at all if he had just waited. If he had argued a little more forcefully with his father, if he had tried harder to find another way so that the three of them had left together, he wouldn't be needing to panic at all. But he had left them, and damn it all, he was going to panic.

"Where are you," Christopher muttered into the wailing cold. "Don't do this to me. Where the hell are you?"

It had been too long. There was no . . . It had been too damned long. Something had gone wrong, and they couldn't get back. Wyatt — Wyatt had done something to keep them from following him. That had to be it. He had to go back. It was the only way to save them. He couldn't risk Wyatt hurting their father. But if he did, if he went back to his life in the future, he wouldn't be able to come back to the past a second time. Wyatt would be expecting it and wouldn't take the chance of letting his brother out of his sight. If he went back to the future, that was it; all of this would have been for nothing. If he went back, he couldn't even be sure of what he would be going back to. They could both very well be dead. Damn it! Why had he listened to his father? Hadn't he even told Leo that he didn't need a father? It was so stupid. He never should have given in to sentimentality and taken the man's advice. He had a plan. He should have stayed with the plan. Why hadn't he seen this coming? He should have seen this coming. It was his plan. He was supposed to protect them, protect her. Why did he leave? Where were they? How much longer was he supposed to sit and wait for an answer to even one of his questions?

I'd turn back if I were you.

Christopher didn't want to wait any longer. He was far too nervous. His feet were twitching, wanting to orb right back to the house. His father had come to the future using a potion so the sisters had to have written the recipe down somewhere, and if his mother was still the creature of habit that she had always been in his lifetime, then he was pretty sure he knew where the recipe and ingredients for another potion would be. He could make more, as soon as he knew that the attic would be clear. He couldn't sit there and wait, though, not like this. If they didn't orb in in the next five minutes, he would go back. He'd been waiting and pacing and freaking out and cold for long enough. Five more minutes was going to be overkill, but it was necessary. Five minutes was more than enough time.

Five minutes was more than enough time for a lot of things.

Five minutes had been enough time for Darklighters to take his father away from him when he had only been six years old. Five minutes had been enough time for his mother to be gutted by a demon while he and Wyatt were distracted, leaving the family ill-prepared and defenseless and grieving. It had only taken five minutes for the doctors to tell Victor that he was about to leave his grandchildren alone in the world with no one but Christopher left to look after them. It had taken Christopher five minutes to regain his breath after punching his Whitelighter out two days ago because he hadn't had anywhere else to direct his grief when his grandfather had shuddered his final breaths. Five minutes was, in fact, more than enough time for the world to collapse until time wouldn't matter at all.

Still, at least adding up all of the things in his mind that had taken up five minutes to accomplish in his lifetime had sucked up probably a good thirty seconds of his time. Four minutes and thirty seconds to go . . .

It had taken him five minutes to realize that, as he climbed up out of the caves that day, that his cousin Sam or his best friend Ben wouldn't be following him up after the battle with the demon. They had all grown so accustomed to not saying anything after a kill, because they never wanted to take anything lightly, even the death of a demon. Wyatt might take those things in stride, but they wouldn't. So it hadn't even occurred to him, as he dragged himself up the path, too tired to orb out, that he was doing it alone. It was then that he spent the last five minutes on the way out thinking about how he was going to tell his grandfather that Paige's last child was now gone as well . . . Four minutes and seven seconds to go . . .

It had taken him five minutes to figure out that Patsy, his cousin, wasn't just pretending when he found her lying on the ground next to the dead demon in their backyard. She had been the first of the kids to die at the hands of their magical, demon-saturated world. She wasn't even close to being the last. It had taken him five minutes of just sitting on the ground next to her to be able to find the strength of voice to call for help. It had taken his mother another five minutes to pull him away. She had been only four years old . . . Three minutes and fifty-two seconds to go . . .

It would probably take him five minutes to figure out that this entire list would be a lot easier to tolerate if he were to focus on the good things in his life that had taken five minutes instead of the bad things, but then, it would probably take five minutes just to find one of the good things . . . There went eight seconds. Three minutes and forty-four seconds to go.

It was just as Christopher had given up caring about the time at all that bluish orbs invaded the space next to him, rescuing him from the panic of passing seconds. The orbs stuttered for a moment before finally taking his father's strong, all-too-long absent form. For a moment, Christopher was so overwhelmed with relief at seeing the orbs that he wanted nothing more than to hug his daddy. Then his stomach lurched, and he remembered that he hadn't had a daddy in a very long time. He needed someone he could depend on to do as he asked until he figured out how to get them out of this mess. Leo, missing father or not, had made him worry too much to be depended on just yet. It was suddenly all Christopher could do to keep from slugging his father for making him worry like that. He settled instead for a very angry glare at the forming angel.

Leo didn't seem to notice the look at all. He was tense with fear, a kind of fatherly fear that Christopher could have in no way understood and (from the angered, pinched look on his boy's face) clearly didn't. With urgent, fatherly necessity, Leo asked before he was even fully formed, "Christopher? Are you all right?"

"What took you so long," Christopher blurted at the same time over his father's words, oblivious to the angel's concern in his own angered relief.

Without seeing his son's concern, Leo pressed the boy for the answer to his own question. "Are you hurt? Your mother said she saw blood and — " Upon examining the boy's hands and shirt, he saw the same evidence and panicked. He had to push down the bitterness in the back of his throat that accompanied the memories of the last time he'd seen his son covered in blood and what the final result had been. His hands were already glowing as he reached for Christopher — It's the same side as before, the exact same spot — and tried to heal his boy. "Christopher, you're bleeding."

"It's not mine. It's — " Christopher began distractedly but caught himself before he could reveal any information that he'd told himself over and over that he couldn't reveal. Shoving Leo's hands away, his head whipped around either side of his father. When he didn't see what he was looking for, he turned uncomprehendingly to his father. "W-where is she?"

Reaching again for the blood stains — oh man, there's so much blood — Leo pleaded, "Chris, c'mon, you can't — "

Christopher held his father's wrist firmly this time, trying to draw the man's attention away from the blood — oh god, she had so much blood — and back to what he considered to be the problem at hand. "Leo, where is she?"

"Are you sure you aren't hurt," Leo asked, wanting a definitive answer to his question before he let any of this go any further. He knew that Christopher could not in any way understand what was going through his head, but that didn't make the answer any less important. Even if there wasn't all of the excess concern of what had happened to his son nine days ago, it was still important to know if Chris was in any way injured. He was still a parent, after all. Damn, his child was beyond obdurate. That absolutely came from his mother's side of the family. Not above borrowing Piper's stubbornness for moment, Leo firmly begged his son, "Chris, I know you have questions, but I can't answer them until I know that you're okay, so just tell me if you're all right. Please."

"Damn it, Leo, where is she?" Ignoring his father, Christopher looked around some more for any sign of the girl who had always been at his side, from the days when they were just little kids getting yelled at for all of the sand in their shoes at the end of a summer's day. He couldn't do this without her. If his father should be concerned about any of them being hurt, his worry should be reserved for her. She was the one who had been bleeding. It was her blood on his hands. Why couldn't Leo see that? Then, somehow, the meaning of his father's stalling clicked in the back of Christopher's head. Enraged and almost disgusted by the implication, Christopher stepped back from his father with his mouth agape.

While his son was trying to find his words, Leo had to try to make his own mind put something, anything together that resembled a thought. Christopher was still referring to her as Her and She. He didn't even have a name to go with her face, or with the blood and the arrow and the terrified look in her eyes as she had looked away from him to cast the spell to send him home. How was he supposed to explain everything that happened without even knowing who she was? Somehow, only knowing that she was family wasn't enough. It was certainly enough for his son, though, who had finally made his mouth form words and Leo wasn't all that sure that he was going to like them once he heard what his son had to say.

"You left her. You left her behind," Christopher said to himself, the implication dawning now on his voice as well as his mind. The more he said it, the angrier he got until he was almost yelling. His teeth shredded the words as they attacked his father. "You left her? Are you insane? Did you miss the arrow that had her bolted into the wall? How did you not see that Wyatt is a psychotic egomaniac? I know I said he wouldn't kill her, but come on! Did you really think that you could leave her there and that he would just let her go? He's going to torture her, Dad! He's going to make her suffer for betraying him." Christopher started to advance on his father, angrily jabbing his pointed finger into the angel's chest until it turned into a fist. "You promised me she would be okay. You told me you'd keep her safe. You promised me!"

As Christopher left the fingers of one hand digging into his father's chest, with the other hand he reared back to clock the man. Having seen the other adult version of his son boil over in anger on several occasions, Leo was much more prepared for the motion this time. The father easily caught both of his son's wrists in his bigger, stronger hands. Ignoring the grimace of anger on his boy's face, Leo soothingly told him, "She'll be okay, Chris. We'll find a way to help her. We will. I promise. So let's get out of the rain and go home. We can straighten all of this out there instead."

"Screw you, Leo. With bells on," Christopher growled as he struggled to pull away from his father. The way the angel was talking to him so calmly was only making him more upset. He didn't want to be calm. He wanted to be angry. He should be angry. Damn it. He knew he should have stayed with the plan and not let Leo interfere. He knew it. How in the hell was he supposed to get anything accomplished if he kept letting sentimentality take even the slightest control over his thoughts? He needed to be in charge and get things done. He'd already slipped too many times in their plan. Now she was stuck helplessly in the future, alone with Wyatt, and he was back in the past with his options quickly fading from him. Damn it. Damn Leo. Just . . . Urgh! The urge to slug his father overtook him again, but Leo held fast to his wrists. Christopher struggled against his father's grip, snarling, "Let me go. I'm not going anywhere with you. I've had enough promises from you for one day."

Still trying to take some semblance of a control over the situation, Leo gently started talking to his son as if he were talking to a five-year-old with a skinned knee. "Chris, listen to me. She was okay when I left her. She was still bleeding, but she was still standing. She was still talking." When his son huffed at him with a 'You're nuts if you think that that's okay'kind of tone, Leo opened his eyes a little wider for emphasis. Since calm wasn't working, Leo put his words back in a grownup tense and said pointedly, "If Wyatt was going to kill her, he would have done it in front of me so that I could tell you that he'd killed her. If he wanted to hurt her or hurt you, he would have made sure that you knew about it, but he didn't. I honestly don't think he's going to let her die. He's probably healed her by now. Everything he said tells me that she's going to be okay. He said he was taking her with him, wherever it is that he was going to be going to."

The news that she had been taken away from the manor didn't help Christopher at all as he knew Leo had hoped it would. It only served to make him more nervous. The deathly chill that he'd been fighting since he'd arrived on the top of the bridge finally overpowered him, shaking away any sense of control he had left. It was definitely time to panic. It was over before it had even begun now. It had all been for nothing. All of the planning and danger and fear had been for absolutely nothing. Christopher took advantage of his father's false sense that there had been any comfort to his words and wrenched his fists away from his father's earnest grip. That look on Leo's face only made it worse. The anger in him was punctuated by a black despair as Christopher furiously pointed out "You don't get it, Leo. It doesn't matter if he let her live or not. In our house or his, she's alone with him. She's alone with that thing that used to be my brother and against that, she might as well be dead. She's defenseless."

"I don't understand."

Unable to look at Leo — seeing his father alive was only making it harder for Christopher to see through his clouded judgement to make up his mind what to do next — he started pacing along the edge of the beam. He kept his eyes focused on a single cloud up in the sky where it was darkly hiding the star that he'd picked out as a child and created an entire story for that only he knew. It didn't make him feel any better, but at least it meant he had something else to look at. Maybe if he looked hard enough, he might be able to even see through the cloud to his star. He could hope. As he made a third go 'round, he explained, "Look, Leo, I . . . S-she isn't ready to take care of herself, especially not with the baby on the way. She can't. That's why she was coming with me instead of staying behind with Charlie. We knew that coming here to the past was dangerous, but staying there would be even dodgier for her. They weren't going to be safe if I left her there."

Confused, Leo argued, "But she has powers. I saw her freeze the room and recite a spell. She didn't look — "

"She is helpless, almost completely helpless," Christopher reiterated. His pace quickened as he grew more frustrated, annoyed with his father's inability to hear him. Instead of trying to figure out how to help his family, he was stuck explaining things to his father that he really didn't know if he should be explaining in the first place. Still, he focused on where he knew his imagined star to be and tried to keep a level head long enough to explain. "There's just . . . There is so much that I can't tell you. If you know too much . . . Grams has warned us every single time we've talked to her about this that we have to be careful about telling you anything that happens in your future. I've already told you so much more than I should have. You just — you have to take my word for it that she isn't ready to be on her own. Don't get me wrong. She's a Halliwell through and through, no question. There are circumstances that . . . She only just got her powers. She's as new to her powers as the sisters were when they first got theirs back when Phoebe moved home, but she doesn't have two sisters with her to help her out. The eight of us kids, our powers are different. Ours aren't tied to each other like theirs were. She's on her own now. She's got no back up if anything goes wrong, and her control of her power is spotty at best. She's definitely never been up against someone as powerful as Wyatt before. She won't be able to take care of herself or that baby."

"Why hasn't she had her powers? Your mother and I both agreed that we weren't ever going to bind your powers, and I know that Paige and Phoebe feel the same way about the kids that they want to have. Even with everything that's happened in our lives, magic is still a gift. Not a one of the girls would ever bind your powers. What happened?"

With an almost fond irritation, Christopher told his father, "She bound them herself, when she was eight. Wyatt and I both got hurt trying to protect her and all of the smaller cousins from a demon. Wyatt almost died. Samuel was able to heal us right away, but it scared her enough that she thought that if she didn't have her powers any more, she couldn't get people hurt. She made the binding potion and drank it before anyone even knew what she was doing." Despite himself, Christopher chuckled at the memory of the gesture and the chaos that had both preceded and followed it. "She is such a brat." He looked at his father for the first time without anger, sighed himself in for the long haul, and went on to finish the story he knew he shouldn't have told. At the moment he didn't care about the rules. His father deserved to at least understand what had happened. It was the least he could do. After all, as angry as he was at the situation, Leo couldn't have known that. He had to give the man that much. So lovingly he went on. "The sisters were furious with her, but they didn't make her unbind them. When she turns on the waterworks, you can forget about it. She can get anyone to agree to anything when she looks at you like that."

"I got that impression, yeah," said Leo, slowly crossing the beam to stand next to his son, who had stopped pacing long enough to stare off into the night. He jammed his hands into his back pockets and pursed his lips together (just short of a smile) before urging, "Go on."

Christopher glanced strangely at his father, the events of the last few hours finally coming together for him in his head now that his blood wasn't pounding in his ears. "Exactly how long were you up there in the attic watching us?"

Surprised at the sudden change of topic, Leo started. Confused, he said, "It wasn't too long before the two of you came up that I got there, so I saw that entire conversation. Why?"

"You said that you had an impression of her. It's just that, well, y-you must have heard a lot."

"Nothing that's going to change the course of the future, if that's what you're thinking."

"No, but . . . " Christopher stopped for a second, mentally replaying everything that was done and said before his father had been visible to them. It had all been benign, hadn't it? He had to be sure, though. Carefully he asked, "What did you think of her?"

Leo answered his son with a rather vague (from Christopher's vantage point), "I'm glad you aren't alone."

Chuckling lightly, Christopher mused, "Yeah, I think you'd like her. She's a pretty bright kid when she isn't, you know, shtupping our Whitelighter. You caught that part, right — her and Charlie?" As casual as the comment was, the thought of Charlie jarred Christopher back to the topic at hand, the image of his friend impaled with a black Darklighter arrow a little more than he could handle at the moment. Charlie was a part of that family waiting in the future for him to make everything better, and he wasn't helping Charlie or anyone else by sitting here picking on his family. Swallowing hard and running a bloody hand through his hair in frustration, Christopher asked miserably, "What in the hell were you doing there, Dad? Why?"

"Chris, I — "

"It's 'Christopher', and you promised me an explanation," Christopher snippily interrupted before his father could come up with an excuse not to fulfill that promise. He had to grip the back of his neck where his hand had settled to keep from being too quick to anger in his fearful frustration. The pressure reminded him of something that he remembered his father had always told him and Wyatt when they were little and fighting over a toy or something. You'll get more flies with honey than vinegar, Boys. Don't ever forget that. If ever there was a night when he wished he wasn't half-Whitelighter . . . Damned pacifist genes . . . Christopher squeezed just a little harder to keep himself from swearing as he said with tight teeth, "I need that explanation, Leo. Now. Please, but now."

Pointedly, Leo stared down at his son, asking once again for calm. "And I'm going to give it to you. Take a breath, Christopher — Son — please. You need to give me a minute. You've had nineteen years to deal with the fact that I am dead to you. I've had nine days to deal with you being dead to me. So it would be nice if you'd cut me a little break here, okay?"

The things his father had said to him when they were in his attic had been so cryptic and random that Christopher had hardly paid them any real attention. He had been so focused on getting back to the past to save Wyatt and the rest of the family that anything Leo had said had pretty much gone in one ear and out the other. Now that he was here and looking at his father, waiting for an explanation, snippets of the argument between his father and grandmother were coming back to him. They didn't make a damn bit of sense, but they had both been fighting so strongly, it had to have been important. He suddenly wished he had been paying them a little more attention. Confused, all he could say was "What the hell are you talking about?"

Knowing that he was about to give up his only leverage in the conversation, Leo held its knowledge over his son's head one last time. "Tell me first that you're okay. That's a lot of blood, Christopher, and if any of it is — "

"Leo — "

The angel raised his hands and pushed the air down under them, hoping the suggestive calming gesture would quash his boy's impatient streak for a few minutes. "It's 'Dad', and what I have to tell you is going to take a while." Leo's hands opened peacefully again, as if he were negotiating something much more important than getting a simple 'Yes' or 'No' from his kid. Soothingly he said, "So if you're in any way hurt, you need to let me heal you before it gets worse. I know you don't understand right now, but it's a perfectly reasonable question if you're me right now."

"I'm fine, Leo. Really. I have a headache. That's it."

The angel looked his son up and down until his eyes immediately targeted a line of blood across Christopher's bicep that looked different from everything else. "Really," he asked pointedly. "Then what's that?"

Christopher strained his arm around, hissing under his breath with the sting of feeling the cut for the first time. He looked at it, startled at the redness that he had yet to feel. "Huh. That? That is nothing more than a scratch. I've had a lot worse, believe me. Don't worry about it."

"I'm your father, Christopher. I'm going to worry about it."

"Leo, please? I'm not going to let you heal this up until you tell me what's going on, so you better get talking."

Unable to hold his exasperation back any longer, Leo flung his arms in the air and burst out, "Would you listen to yourself? I am trying to help you, Christopher! I'm your father. I see you in pain and needing all the help you can get, but all you want to do is fight with me. Why can't you just accept that I am trying to do what is best for you? I swear, you are so much like your mother, it's just . . . "

"That's funny, because Mom and Grandpa always told me I got my argumentative streak from you."

"Would you stop? We're going around in circles here. We have done nothing but go over the same damned things since we were in the attic. Turn after turn, we're still in the same damned place. If you would just wait and quit arguing with me, we could stop this and figure out what to do next."

"Why am I the one who needs to stop? Can't you just let whatever this is that's got you so wound up go so that I can do what I came here to do? Why do I have to be the one to — "

Before he even realized he was doing it, Leo interrupted angrily, "One thing, Christopher. Can you just leave one thing unargued? Please? Just one. That's all I'm asking. This one time, give me an inch and maybe we'll actually manage to make it through this as a family instead of doing things the way you've been going for the last godforsaken year and half. All you ever had to do was give us a chance to help instead of being so damned stubborn at every turn. If you had, maybe the rest of us would have at least a little peace right now instead of . . . " Falling apart, he finished in his head. That was what they were doing, right? He was starting to wonder if he was the only one who was dealing with any of this at all. The 'Wait and See' plan that Piper had and Phoebe's need to dash off to anywhere but home at every turn were just two signs that he was the only one thinking about any of this clearly. Having Christopher there wasn't going to help them there, but there wasn't anything that could be done about that now, except to use the situation to their advantage so that he could straighten his family out again. Then maybe they could all move on at least a little, here and in the future. That would mean that Christopher would actually have to listen to him, though, and if past and future experience told him anything, it was that his son wasn't going to listen to a damned thing that his father had to say. Before he realized he was snapping, Leo finished his thought out loud. "But that point is kind of moot, isn't it? It's not like I can save you. I never could."

"I don't need you to save me."

Leo snapped, "Really? You think so? Why don't you say that to your aunt and see what she has to say about that?"

"Huh?"

Desperate for any sort of agreement, Leo pleaded, "Ten minutes, Christopher. Hear me out for ten minutes. That's all. If, after everything I have to tell you, you still think that you can do all of this on your own and that you don't need anyone's help, I'll let you go without another word, provided you at least let your mother know that you're all right. But you have to listen to me, really listen to me, and you have to give me a fair chance to explain. I'll answer all of your questions, but you have to give me those ten minutes."

Almost for the sake of starting another circle around the argument, Christopher tested his father. "Five. I'll give you five."

Leo sighed heavily, knowing that he wasn't going to win any arguments with this or any other version of his son. An almost amused smile of relief filled the darkness, the only thing standing between him and the things that he'd been trying futilely to avoid feeling in the last few hours. His mind and heart worked furiously, trying to come up with any way that he could say what he needed to say that would give his son any impression whatsoever of what he was thinking at the moment, of what his family was going through, but to be able to say it without scaring Christopher any more than he already was. Now that they were back in the past and Christopher was at least on a level of safe, Leo slid down the brace of the bridge to sit, legs straight out in front of him. He leaned his head against the metal, hoping that the cold steel would cool off his temper as he was about to relive some of the most painful days of his life. He looked up at Christopher and waited for his son to follow suit. It took a moment, but it seemed to finally catch on with the boy that he needed to settle in for a while or he wasn't going to be getting any answers at all.

He wished he knew how to talk to his boy. He was tired of arguing with him. The fact was, until the last few months before Chris had died, they had done nothing but argue. They didn't know how to talk. They knew how to fight each other every single step of the way, whatever way it was that they were going. Fighting was certainly easier, but nothing was going to get accomplished if they didn't figure out a way to work together — fast.

It would have been nice if he'd had an entire lifetime of raising Christopher to know how to do this, but his boy was right: he wasn't a boy and hadn't had a father in many years. To suddenly have someone in his life telling him how to run an operation or in what order to do it had to be frustrating for Christopher. He knew that. What Christopher wasn't getting was that, lifetime or not, Leo was his father and, as a father, his first duty was to help his son. Leo hadn't had a lifetime of fathering lessons from his father as he should have, but that was the only lesson that Leo could clearly remember from Chris Wyatt. His father had been the kind of guy who taught by example, and the best example he ever left for his son to follow was that there was nothing in the world so important that a man's son didn't come first and foremost in any and all things.

Since becoming a father, Leo had wondered many times if the way he was doing things was the way that his father would have handled things. Granted, his father hadn't had to deal with the extra complication of raising a magical child, but when it came to all things fatherly, Dr. Wyatt had been the best father on the block. Leo knew he could only hope to be half the father that his dad was. Knowing that he'd failed in that mission the first time around with Chris, Leo had promised himself that he was going to work at it that much harder to be the kind of father that his boys needed and deserved. He just wished that his own father was there to tell him how to do it.

Everything always went back to and started with his dad. What other way could it be?

Leo stared off into the sky, not knowing that he was holding on to the same cloud and hidden star as the boy sitting next to him, who was once again starting to show his impatience. Focusing on that cloud, Leo finally let himself talk, knowing now how to tell the story of the worst betrayal of his entire existence. "What do you know about me, Christopher?"

"Is this a trick question?"

"No, I'm completely serious. What do you know about me?"

Christopher rolled his eyes. He knew that Leo probably had a point in there somewhere, but it was still irritating to be playing this little game at the moment. Clearly annoyed, Christopher answered shortly, "I know you were Mom's Whitelighter and that you became an Elder after Wyatt was born. I know you came back home after you found out that another Elder tried to kill Wyatt. I know you don't trust the Elders with anything anymore. I know you weren't too upset about leaving Up There to be with us and be a dad." Christopher's words slowed down, taking on a much more nostalgic tone as he went on, describing his father the way that he would have described him to a complete stranger. "The only thing I clearly remember you ever telling me was that you were never happier in your entire life than when you were playing catch with me and Wyatt in the back yard. You said that, as far as you were concerned, the best thing you were going to do with your life was be a dad, not a father. None of us ever doubted that your family came first."

Pleased that, despite the rocky, vague conversations that they'd been having in the last few hours, Christopher could actually talk about him in a good light, Leo prodded, "Anything else?"

"What do you mean?"

"What do you know about me before that? What do you know about me before your mom and you and your brother?"

The boy shrugged and stuttered for a moment, fishing around in his memory for any other tidbits that he could find. He randomly blurted, "Uh, you, uh — You were studying to be a doctor when Pearl Harbor happened. You joined up the next day with your two best friends. You died at Guadalcanal and became a Whitelighter. I don't know. I have no idea what you're looking for here. Why are you asking me this?"

Simply, almost detachedly, Leo began to explain, "I am an old man, Christopher. I know I don't look it, but I am. If I hadn't died, I would probably be a grandfather, if not a great-grandfather right now. Your mother and I, we try to forget it. I try to forget it, but there are days that remind me that I really am a lot older than I should be. We don't talk about it, but it's there. I read the obituaries of friends who I knew sixty years ago. The woman I was married to, my wife Lillian, she died last year. My kid brother, Vernon, he died not too long ago, too. They were both eighty-four. Friends, cousins, people who were my life are all dying now, but here I am, still living and having the life that I never thought I was going to have after the war. Even if I had lived a full life, if I hadn't died, I would be dying now. Any life I would have had should be ending now, not just starting like it has since I found your mom. I'm not young anymore, but there are things that I remember clear as day, as if they had happened just yesterday. I do."

Leo shifted his weight a little, settling into the memory as he spoke, as if he could actually see it all being played out in front of him. "When I was a kid, I knew two things in my life were absolutely certain — that I wanted to be a centerfielder for the Yankees and that everything would be okay as long as I could have a good catch with my father. I loved my dad. You were named after him, by the way. I don't know if you knew that. He was a great man, my father. I thought he was the smartest guy in the world. I could talk to him about anything, no matter how bad it was. The only condition he put on the conversations was that it had to be done at the baseball field down the street, rain or shine. We, uh, we had been lucky that he was such a prominent doctor. When the Depression hit, it didn't take us as hard as some people. So my father, he, uh . . . Dad spent a lot of those years helping the people who couldn't afford help otherwise. I like to think that you got your drive to help people from him. Your grandfather was an incredibly generous man, and I was very proud to be his son.

It was during one of our catches — it wasn't too long after my twelfth birthday — that a man appeared on the third base line, looking for help. He looked horribly sick. He could hardly breathe, but he managed to tell my dad that some crazy person had actually shot him with a bow and arrow. We didn't ask any more questions. We just carried him home and took care of him in the kitchen. I'll never forget that day. I was so scared. I thought the guy was going to die right there in front of us. But my dad, he took my hands in his. He kissed the palms of each of them and said, 'Do you know why I love these hands? They're special. Some day, you'll forget all about baseball and do something really remarkable with these hands. That's why we have these catches everyday — so that I can see these hands do something that no one else is going to get to see. But today, I need you to do something else with them for me. You have special hands, Leo. They're going to get him through this. You'll see. Just use your hands. That will be enough.' I didn't need anything else. I was still so scared, but I held the man the way my father told me to while he cut the arrow from the man's shoulder. A few days later, the stranger said he was well enough to return home, but he called me into the room we'd put him in first. He handed me my baseball. I'd dropped it when we were carrying him home. I thought it was gone, but he found it and cleaned it up for me so that it looked almost brand new. When he gave it to me, he told me, 'Your father is right. Some day, you will do amazing things for people, but you aren't ready to do that right now. Don't give up on your baseball just yet, Leo. Enjoy it while you're still young. Then some day, when you least expect it, you'll know that it's time to put those hands to a higher calling.' I had no idea what that meant, but the way he smiled at me, I knew he was right. He left that day after thanking my father for all that he'd done and wished us blessed lives."

Christopher stared out into the sky, trying really hard to hide the hurt on his face. He was completely torn. Here he was, sitting on the bridge with his dad, getting to have a talk just like the one Leo was talking about, the kind of talk he had missed so very much in his life. It was right here, the one thing he always wished for whenever he wished on stars. He was sitting and talking with his dad for the first time since he was a child. But at the same time, there were so many more important things that he needed to be doing. As much as he really was enjoying hearing a story about his grandfather, he couldn't do this. He knew he couldn't get attached. He wasn't going to make up for a lifetime of being fatherless in one night. So instead, he tried to keep the hurt out of his voice as he tried to steer things back in the direction he felt they needed to be going. Overcompensating, he snapped, "Really, Leo, that's a sweet story, but what does that have to do with anything that's going on right now?"

Ignoring the question, Leo went on telling the story that he hadn't been able to tell anyone else in the family yet. "I hadn't thought about the man much after that. There had been a lot of sick or injured people in our house over the years. My mother took in a lot of boarders and people during that time, too, so there were always people coming and going. Their faces all seemed to mesh together by the time I left home. It wasn't until I was in college that I . . . I hadn't picked up that particular baseball in years. But somehow, it was right there, on top of a pile of old clothes in a trunk when I went into it. I don't even know why I went into that trunk, but something told me to. And there it was . . . I called my dad and we met at the baseball field. I brought that ball with me. We tossed the ball around for hours, talking about everything. It was the last catch I ever had with my dad. I started medical school not long after that, married Lillian, and then the war . . . But that day, finding that baseball . . . I thought about him and what they had both said to me. I just knew that they were right — not that I would do great things, but that I could do things with my hands."

Leo took a breath and pulled his eyes away from his cloud-covered star, looking down at his hands. A crooked, nostalgic grin appeared in the glow as his hands tingled. He twittered his fingers, watching the motion and the way the power surged around them, waiting to be used to heal something, anything. Seeing that Christopher was in no way making a move to change the subject, Leo's hand reached over and healed his boy's wounded arm. They both watched his hand as it worked its magic. Softly, Leo said, "I had no idea this was what he'd meant all those years before."

Christopher looked curiously between his father and his arm. "What do you mean?"

Absently, Leo nodded toward Christopher's arm. "You might want to rotate that a few times while we're sitting here. It'll stiffen up on you if you don't."

"Leo, I — "

The angel took a turn to roll his eyes and grumbled, "I know, I know — you don't need a father. You've made that perfectly clear. But as a doctor, I'm telling you to rotate that thing. Take it from experience. That'll hurt like hell tomorrow if you don't use it tonight." He waited a moment for Christopher to come up with some sort of sarcastic remark or to fight him again for control of the conversation, but when the boy just sat there, rubbing his arm and staring at him, waiting patiently for his father to continue, Leo allowed himself to go back into the story he didn't know how to tell. Softly he marveled, "As a doctor . . . Man. I don't think I've said those words in sixty years. Sometimes I forget that I was a doctor at all . . . It was hard at first, being dead. There were a lot of things that Gideon could teach me about being a Whitelighter and what that meant. He could tell me anything about any of my charges and how to handle those situations. What he couldn't tell me was how to deal with the fact that the life that I had built for twenty-odd years didn't exist anymore. I wasn't a doctor anymore. I wasn't a husband or a soldier or any of those things that I had defined myself by for so long. I wasn't a son anymore. I wasn't anything anymore. It . . . It wasn't until I talked to Cecil — he was another Elder — that he suggested that I actually go ahead and say 'Goodbye' to my life. So I visited my wife and my parents and my brother. I told them to move on with their lives and that they didn't need to worry about me. After that, I left all of it behind. I left being a doctor behind. I left being anything but a Whitelighter behind. There were a few minor periods when I'd let myself be human for a few weeks or something, but after that . . . It wasn't until I met your mother that I even attempted to have a normal semblance of a life. I'm sure you know that never came easy for either of us . . . I know now. They were right."

"Who was right about what?"

"The Elders, they were right. I wasn't meant to have the life I've had since your mom. I love her, Christopher. Whatever we've gone through, I still and always will love her more than I ever thought I could love another person. And then your brother came along and now you . . . I didn't know I was capable of so much love. I didn't. You brought something to my life that I didn't know I could ever have again. As much as I love my family, though, as overwhelming a feeling it is, it wasn't meant to be. You and your brother, you weren't part of the grand design."

"Gee, thanks," Christopher dripped sarcastically as he (as per doctor's orders) swung his arm around in progressively bigger circles. "I feel that overwhelming love overwhelming me right now."

"You know I don't mean it like that. You will never be anything short of a miracle to me. There are plenty of people, though, on both sides, who don't see you or your brother that way. To be the children of both a Charmed One and a Whitelighter was something that no one . . . People were afraid. They were afraid of Wyatt, of what he'll some day become."

Christopher glanced down at the blood on his hands and on his shirt with a dark glare. Angrily, he retorted, "I can't imagine why."

"Christopher — "

"No, Leo, really," Christopher burst. "I mean, you've seen what he's going to be when we're older. You've seen the things that he's capable of doing against his own family, nevermind an Innocent. I'm guessing he probably has become exactly what the Elders thought he would."

Before he could stop himself, Leo blurted, "Well, of course he did. They're the ones who did it to him."

The boy looked at his father like he'd fallen and hit his head on something really hard and brick-like. "Huh?"

Leo stared hard into the sky, willing the anger and fear in him to snake back down in the pit of his stomach just a while longer. He wasn't going to get through the conversation if he didn't. So he took a few deep breaths and let the chill of the wind cool him off, letting business replace nostalgia. "Christopher, what do you know about Gideon?"

"I know that he was an Elder. I know he ran the magic school before I was born. I know that you guys found out somehow that he was trying to turn Wyatt evil. No one would tell me anything else about him. People don't really say his name in our house, not even Grandpa."

The angel didn't hold any of his hatred back as he spat, "Well, we have good reason . . . "

Not quite sure how to react to such an uncharacteristically violent reaction from his father, Christopher went for the joke and gave his father a crooked smile, nodding toward the rusty stain that was still slowly darkening around his bicep. "Leo, quit stalling and get to the point, would you? If I'd held out any longer, I'd be bleeding to death here."

Immediately Leo's eyes flew open, angry and dangerous. "Don't you say that. Don't you dare say that!"

Defensively, Christopher chuckled, "Hey, Leo, I'm kidding."

"It's not funny! If you had even the slightest idea of what this family has . . . " Seeing Christopher's expression change from slightly amused to gearing back up for a fight, Leo ran a hand through his hair in frustration. How was he supposed to get through to his boy without adding all of the complication of things that he didn't have that much time to explain? More than a little perturbed with the direction that the entire evening had been taking, Leo grumbled, "This isn't getting us anywhere. None of this is going anywhere at all. We — " Suddenly, Leo seemed to hear his words as he was saying them and realized that Christopher wasn't the only one holding up the operation. He calmed down enough to get back on track and asked, "Tell me: you talked about getting the girls' Whitelighter out of the way. What do you know about him?"

Christopher rolled his eyes in irritation. He was getting really tired of this game of "Tell Me What You Know". He was actually starting to get a little suspicious. If this man with him was really Leo, he shouldn't need to be asking these questions. He should already know the answers. He really hoped that this was going somewhere, anywhere, and going there fast. Grudgingly, he played the next round with a bite in his words, just to make sure his father knew that his patience was running low. "His name was Chris Perry. He became their Whitelighter after you became an Elder. He only stuck around for a little less than two years, and then he left. You hated him and tried several times to have him sent away, including calling several councils of the other Elders to have his soul recycled and sent back to Earth. Once he took off, no one has heard from him since. I've asked around about him, to see if he could tell me anything about what was going on around this time, but I can't go to the Elders, and the other Whitelighters I've been able to find have no idea where he is or what he's doing. I know that the sisters liked him. They didn't really talk about him much, but when they did, they seemed to think he did a pretty good job. They didn't like the guy who came after him, though. Are we done playing 'Twenty Questions' now?"

"You know his name?"

"Well, yeah. He was their Whitelighter."

"And it has never occurred to you that you have the same name as him?"

Condescendingly, Christopher chuckled at his father. "'Chris' is kind of a popular name. Besides, like you said, I knew it was Grandpa Wyatt's name. What else was I supposed to read into it?"

"Nothing, I guess," said Leo.

Starting to get impatient again, Christopher tried to force this little game along. "Leo — "

"Look, I — The sisters' Whitelighter, Chris, he was a good guy. I didn't think so at first, I admit. I blamed him for things that . . . Well, he did them, but he did them for the right reasons. At least, he thought they were the right reasons. He thought he was taking care of the family by doing them. He just didn't realize that there were going to be consequences to his actions. I don't know if he would have done them if he had known what it was going to do."

"'Things'? 'Consequences'? Can you be any more vague?"

"Fine," Leo huffed. Yeah, his kid was definitely impatient and pushy. Wonder which side of the family he gets that from . . . One track mind . . . "Chris is the reason that your mother and I split up. He's the reason that I became an Elder. When he first showed up, he manipulated things so that I would be Up There while he would be down here with the sisters during a crisis. He did it in a way to make me look like the good guy, so it's what led to me becoming an Elder. With me out of the way, he was rewarded for all he'd done to help by becoming their Whitelighter. He hoodwinked us all. It took us almost a year to find out just who he was, and even then . . . I know now that he always had a good reason to do the things he did, but still, half the time, he caused more trouble than he solved. He's also the reason that we knew that something was trying to turn your brother. He's the reason that Paige is alive, too. She was supposed to die the day that he showed up. In his timeline, she had."

"'In his timeline'? You make it sound like he — "

"— Was doing the exact same thing you're doing right now," Leo finished, feeling for the first time like he was the one who knew more than Christopher and could really start to take control of the situation. "Sounds like he might have had the exact same thoughts you've been having? That's because he's you, Christopher. You've been back from the future before."

"I think I would remember if I had been here before," Christopher countered, even though he clearly looked shaken. This was starting to sound a little crazy, even for him. "I haven't."

"I'm starting to think that he wasn't exactly you, but another version of you, sure. And yes, he was here. He was here right up until the day you were born. If I hadn't been such a damned trusting fool, he might still be here."

Christopher shrugged. "Well, you said he'd manipulated all of you. He wouldn't have been able to do that if you trusted him. It's not your fault that he got the best of all of you. I'm sure — "

"Not you, Chris — him," Leo said, shaking his head violently. He started rambling, not really even paying attention to what he was saying, he was so angry. "He's always been there. He's been watching me. When I became a Whitelighter, they let me look back at my past lives, mostly for perspective. He was there, even then. I never saw him, but he was there, for centuries. In the last one, he came directly to me. He was there, talking to me. He told me he'd be there. He told me he was going to show me. He said I'd do great things. Then, when it finally happened, he was there, every step of the way, showing me how to do all of those things he told me I was meant to do. He's been there. When I needed somewhere safe to go, he was always the one. I didn't have nearly the same kind of relationship with the others. It wasn't even remotely close. Of anyone in the entire world, he was the only person I've ever trusted like that who wasn't my father or your mother. But he was . . . I trusted him with my family. I trusted him with you!"

"'He' who, Leo?"

"You really haven't heard a word I've said, have you," Leo snapped, turning his angry, overbright eyes on his son. "Gideon, Christopher. If it weren't for Gideon, you — Chris would still be here. The future would be safe ,and you wouldn't have had to come back here again. Everything you did the first time would have been a success. You would have saved your brother and the future. The day you were born, you would have been able to go back to that future. All of the work you did, it would have made all of the difference."

Christopher interrupted his father, still far too impatient to figure out how to deal with his own situation instead of this one that had been created before he'd arrived. "I don't understand what this actually has to do with me. You heard Grams. Dad, I'm not him. I didn't do any of those things."

"I haven't made it to the point yet, Christopher. Give me a minute."

Impatiently, Christopher snapped, "I gave you five. I don't have another minute, Leo. I have to — "

"You will give me a minute, Christopher," Leo ordered.

"Look, I get that you guys had a bad day the day I was born. I kinda figured that out years ago. I've heard the story of how Wyatt was born so many times I could scream, but I've never been able to get anyone in the family to tell me about the day I was born. Everyone just kind of turns green and walks away without telling me anything. That's fine. I get it that no one wants me to know about that day for whatever reason. But that doesn't have anything to do with why I'm here, which is to save Wyatt from turning evil, nothing more. So I don't see the point in rehashing all of this stuff if it doesn't matter."

Leo exhaled hotly, as if he had been holding his breath for the last ten days. Then again, it felt as if he had. He hadn't felt that way in many, many years. But then, he was a father now. He had made the choice to be nearly human again, and that meant having all of those human emotions and complications to go with it. He just didn't remember love hurting this much. It actually hurt to draw the breath to tell his child that, in some ways, he may very well be part of the reason that he had this mission of his in the first place. The thought of it alone made his blood boil. Snapping without meaning to, he said, "Actually, Christopher, it might have everything to do with why your brother grew up to be the person he is. The day you were born, we almost lost Phoebe, your mom, and your brother. In the end, the only one we lost . . . Christopher, the things that happened that no one wants to tell you about have everything to do with why Wyatt is the way he is. The day you were born, Wyatt saw you murdered right in front of him. Whether you knew about it or not, the day you were born and who you are — or were — has everything to do with why you're here now."

Christopher had no problem giving his father the same look as before, the one that wondered if he'd fallen and hit his head on something incredibly hard. "That's not possible."

"The day you were born, you were guarding your brother when Gideon attacked the two of you up in the attic. Gideon stabbed you, right in front of Wyatt. He waited until I was able to get to the two of you before he orbed away, making us both watch while he took your brother from us. You died, Chris. That wound was fatal because of the magic that cursed the blade, so the only one who could stop it was Gideon. You died in my arms, and there wasn't anything I could do about it. God, it was just nine days ago for me. Do you get that? Nine days ago, I held you while you died. I am not going to go through that again. Damn it, Christopher. I will not watch you die again. I can't, and I won't let you put Paige through that again, either. I love your mother's sister like she was my own sister. This is damned near killing her. I won't put a single one of us through that again. So you are going to listen to me, and you're going to pay attention instead of thinking that you know everything that you're doing because it seems to me that you don't have any more idea of what's going on or what to do than the other you did."

Definitely spooked, Christopher pulled away from his father again slightly. This had stopped being funny for him a long time ago, but it felt like he was just falling further and further down the proverbial rabbit hole and he wasn't getting anywhere near the bottom. This was crazy. All of it, it was crazy. Christopher shook his head at the angel next to him, angry and scared at the same time. "No. It didn't happen. It didn't. Wyatt — "

Leo reached over and snatched at the bright red stain on Christopher's white dress shirt. Christopher tried to pull away, but Leo held onto that patch of red as hard as he could, bunching up a piece of it so that all that could be seen through his fingers was red. It was still wet enough that it stained his hand as it seeped away from the fabric. Darkly, he told his suddenly frightened boy, "Right here, Chris. This red? This blood? Nine days ago, right here in this exact same spot on your body, there was even more blood, but that time, it wasn't from anyone else. It was yours. It was yours and it was awful. There was no stopping it. The only thing that stopped the blood from spreading was when you finally died and disappeared."

"No." Christopher shook his head, knowing for sure now that his father was somehow possessed or insane or in some way damaged. That was the only possible explanation because his father was gibbering absolute nonsense. "That's not . . . It's not possible."

"Really? Why not?"

"Because someone would have told me," argued Christopher forcefully, almost like he was a child trying to blame a younger sibling for something he knew he should be getting in trouble for. "They would."

Thinking back to everything he'd heard when they were up in the attic, Leo countered with just as much energy, "It sounds to me like someone already did."

Christopher's voice was both angry and surprised as the realization that his father was right dawned on him. "That's why Grams and Grandpa didn't want us to go? They thought I was going to die if I came back here."

"Yeah."

"Wow," Christopher breathed, much more gently than his accusations had been. Surprisingly not angry, but quite evenly, Christopher stared up into the sky at his hidden star without meeting his father's waiting gaze. Carefully he asked, "Still, how do I know that you're telling the truth? How do I know that this isn't something Wyatt conjured to distract me? It's entirely possible, you know. This story of yours is pretty crazy. I can't believe that Grandpa would keep a secret like this from me, even if he knew it could hurt me. He wouldn't."

Equitably, Leo asked, "What can I say to let you know that this is the truth? I'd tell you to ask me something that only you and I would know, but the way that time and the future and things keep changing, I don't know that it would do you any good."

"When Wyatt was born, he went without a name for over a week," Christopher started thoughtfully after a moment to consider his question. It couldn't hurt to try, right? "What did Phoebe want to call him?"

Leo rolled his eyes at the memory of the week they had struggled to come up with a name for the first of the new Halliwell generation. It had been a horrible week for all of them, least of all Wyatt, who spent his days and nights being called all sorts of names that in no way made any sense. Phoebe's suggestions had been the worst. "Potter," Leo groaned. "She was in love with those Harry Potter books and none of us could find a 'P' name that we liked. Do I pass?"

While Leo waited, Christopher took a moment, not really caring if his father was okay with it or not. He needed a second to digest all of this, and not just what had happened to him in his last three days. Leo was telling the truth. His father was telling him the truth, that he had died in pain in his father's arms. He was dead. All this time that they had been planning, all this time that he'd spent preparing himself to deal with seeing his dead mother, dead aunts, and dead father again, not once in all of that had it ever occurred to him that he would need to consider that it might be hard for them to see him. Why should it have? There was no reason why they should have even known him. He should have been a stranger. Instead, they all knew exactly who he was and even why he was coming back to the past. It just didn't make any sense. How did he not know about any of this at all? Still a little disoriented, he asked, "How — why didn't anyone ever tell me? Why didn't I know that I had come back from the future before?"

"You asked us not to tell you — in a letter. We only just found it today. You left it in The Book of Shadows for us to find after you'd gone. You — He — the other future Chris, he was supposed to go back to the future the day you were born. Instead . . . How were we supposed to tell you? Besides, you said that you didn't want it hanging over your head. If the future turned out okay, as it should have since we thought we'd fixed everything, it never would have been necessary for you to even know that you had come back in time. You wouldn't need to know that you had done it because your brother was the ruler of all evil. You didn't want us to tell you so that you wouldn't see Wyatt any differently. You didn't want Wyatt to know about it either. You were trying to protect him. When you-he wrote that letter, he was so happy. We thought the future was safe. We had no idea about Gideon or anything else. I obviously haven't been there to the future yet, but we probably decided not to tell you because that's what you asked. Maybe we didn't say anything a little out of fear, too, that things weren't going to turn out okay. You . . . He worked so hard to save the future. It hurts to know that it was all for nothing."

"Can I see the letter? Would that be okay?"

The father didn't do a very good job trying to conceal his excitement at the son's seeming release of his fear. Too hopefully, Leo asked, "You trust me? You'll come home with me?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"You always have a choice. Would I like it if you were to trust me? Certainly, but I'm not expecting you to, not right away. I can't imagine the things that you've been through in your life, just as you can't know all of the things that have happened in mine. If it's hard for you to trust me, especially since I haven't been in your life now for so long, I understand that. I really do. I do hope that you'll be able to trust me anyway. Whatever happens in the future, I'm your father, Christopher. There is nothing in this world or any other that I wouldn't do for you. I love you, Son. Nothing could ever change that. Nothing. That's part of being a parent — unconditional love. It doesn't work that way for kids. I get that. I have to earn your love and your trust. I hope that the last few hours are at least a start. I came to the future for you, to make sure that you were okay. I wanted to check on your brother, too, but I needed most especially to know that you were okay. I hope that someday you will see that."

"I do, Dad. I do. At least, I think I do."

"That's all I ask." Leo grinned back at Christopher, finally feeling at least a little at peace with who this boy was and that they could maybe find a way to work together so that no one in the family would have to come back to the past like this, ever again. Holding his hand up and catching a few drops of the rain that he had been trying to ignore, Leo indicated the rain and asked, "Can we go home then?"

The panic that had diminished in Christopher's eyes came back, bright and far too obvious. Not knowing how to react, he stammered, "Home? I-I hadn't thought . . . We were going to stay in a hotel or something until we figured things out and got adjusted to being back here and . . . well, you know . . . being around all of you again."

"A hotel? How were you going to pay for that?"

"We saved up a lot of cash."

Leo eyed his son suspiciously. Christopher was being far too evasive about the source of his wealth for it to have come from completely legal, up and up means. "You're telling me that money is not going to change in twenty-five years, not at all?"

Sheepishly, Christopher shrugged at his father. "Not exactly."

"Then what exactly?"

"I sort of o-orbed into the, uh, old Federal Reserve, where they keep the old bills that they haven't destroyed yet. So all of the money that was in circulation now is still being held in my time, waiting to be destroyed."

"So you stole it," Leo assumed, sternly crossing his arms over his chest.

Christopher looked at his father like he was off his nut by about a mile and a half. Steal the money? Please. Just because his father wasn't around didn't mean that he hadn't been raised by good, honest people. What kind of family did his father think he had married into, anyway? Christopher waved the man off, saying, "Nah. We left the equivalent of it in the reserve so that it's there if we don't make it back. They didn't lose any money. It was an equal exchange, I swear, calculated for inflation and all."

Pleased with his son's honesty, Leo asked, "How much did you bring back with you?"

"More than you make in a year," Christopher smirked, until he realized that he had come through the portal empty-handed. "At least, I was going to. I think I left the backpack in the attic in the future."

"Stay with us," Leo offered after rolling his eyes at the boy's comment. "It'll be a lot more comfortable than a hotel, anyway. I don't know which one is your room, but we can probably find some sort of arrangement for you."

Even though he knew it sounded a little ridiculous for him to be the one saying it, Christopher argued, "I don't want to put you out. You have a new baby in the house."

"I want you there. Please? As soon as they know that you're you, they'll all want you there, too. I swear, we want you there. You might have to give the rest of them a few minutes, but when they finally get things settled in their minds, they'll all be thrilled to have you."

Still leery, Christopher questioned his father's assessment of the situation. "Well, shouldn't they be anyway? Shouldn't you be? The thing I don't get is, if all of this happened and you're all so worried because this other Me died, why wouldn't they be happy to see me? You definitely didn't look happy to see me when we were back in the attic after we found out you were there. You don't look any happier to see me now that you've had time to get used to it. I mean, you do now, but this whole time we've been talking, it's like you've been trying to make sure that I'm not evil or something. I'm not a ghost, Dad. I'm me."

"I know you are, Christopher, but that's because I've had time with you."

"Well, yeah. You told me to stay away from all of them, but especially Paige. They haven't had the time or the chance to talk to me. Why is that, by the way? Why specifically Paige? Wouldn't she be happy to see me?"

"Paige is going to be different than your mom or Phoebe. She was there with you when you died. I don't know exactly what happened between the time that she left the hospital to come be with you and when I got there, but something pretty drastic happened. I know that much. I know that when I was finally able to get back to you, she had been forced out of the room, and there was a SWAT team in there with you. Darryl came out and told us that . . . All I know is that she was with you and something happened that she hasn't been able to put into words yet. I think that, of all of us, she's going to have the hardest time seeing you. That's all."

"A SWAT team," Christopher asked. "They sent an entire SWAT team after me?"

"Yeah, well, I orbed you out of jail for stealing a car, but those charges were dropped. Then you — well, an evil double of you — also assaulted a police officer and had an outstanding warrant out for your arrest. Since the world was all topsy-turvy, it didn't . . . There's a detective who's been investigating all of us and Darryl. This detective who is out to get the family, she can't be accused of taking anything lightly. I'll put it that way. To her, an assault team must not have seemed all that unreasonable to use to attack a mortally wounded twenty-three year old kid, I guess."

The final threads of understanding tightened around Christopher's throat as he asked, "Paige was with me?"

"She was supposed to be, but when I got there, she was out of the room. I don't know why she was in the hallway or how she got there, but she won't be telling any of us any time soon, I don't think. She's pretty messed up. A stranger would never know the difference because she just seems incredibly happy that you've been born and that everyone is safe, but she keeps getting happier and happier and won't talk about anything that happened. She wouldn't see Darryl this afternoon at all."

"Darryl? Who's Darryl? You keep talking about him like I should know him, but I have no idea who you're talking about."

Bitterly, Leo said, "Darryl Morris is an old family friend. His partner was Andy Trudeau, your aunt Prue's boyfriend who was killed by a demon not quite a year after the girls found out that they were witches. After Andy died, Darryl stuck around and tried to protect the sisters from the police whenever they needed help keeping their secret. Something happened not too long ago, though, that spooked Darryl enough into thinking that it's too risky for him to be helping us out any more. He was a good friend to the family and we all loved him like he was one of our own, but it was too much. After he led that SWAT team, that was pretty much it for Paige and me. He called and asked to see us, as a family, but Paige wouldn't go. I don't blame her. I didn't want to, either. It was while Piper and Phoebe went to meet him that I came after you this evening. I will always be grateful to Darryl for some of the things that he has protected the girls from over the years, but now, I don't really care if I ever see him again."

"That would explain why I don't know him, then," Christopher mused. "I've never even heard of the guy."

"Well, a lot of things didn't go the way they were supposed to that day," said Leo sadly. He turned his face away from Christopher, willing himself not to shed the tears that he knew were boiling around the rims of his eyes again. Softly, he sighed to himself. "So many things . . . "

"I guess not."

Collecting his thoughts, Leo explained, "That's why I didn't think it would be very easy for your mother or aunts to see you today. Just before you-he and I walked through a portal that we thought we were taking to get him home to the future, I saw that look on your mother's face. I knew that look. It was the same look that my mother had worn on her face when she and Dad took me to the train station for the last time. They were putting me on a train that would take me to a ship that would take me to the other side of the world. She knew, somehow, that it was the last time she was going to be seeing me like that. She knew I wasn't coming home. She knew she was giving up a child. That's what your mother was essentially doing that day. She knew that she was telling you for the last time for at least twenty-three years that she loved you. She was saying 'Goodbye' for the last time for many, many years to come. It was breaking her heart. Then when everything else happened . . . So many things went wrong that day that we can't take back now. It broke your mother's heart to see you off. She knows that he is dead and that's killing her. To see you now, without any explanation, I was afraid it would destroy her. For us to go to her, together, and explain things the best that we can, that's the only way I could foresee doing this. Once we've talked to her, she'll be fine. She'll be more than thrilled to see you. It'll break her heart to have you leave again, but for now, she will be happy to have you."

"I'm sorry I caused so much trouble, Dad. I never would have intentionally hurt any of you. You have to know that."

"We do, and you didn't cause trouble, Christopher. Circumstances just . . . Things were out of all of our hands for a while. This family is starting to take our lives back, though, piece by piece. One day, we'll be whole again. It might take a while, but we'll make it. We always do."

Christopher allowed a little smirk to color the corner of his mouth, indicating a little inside, future-type secret. "Yeah, we do."

They both sighed, hopefully, and then Leo extended his offer one more time. "Come home with me?"

Still smirking, Christopher laughed. "Are you sure you want two of me in one house? Mom always told me I was a real handful."

"Nothing would make me happier than to bring you home with me right now, Christopher. Nothing."

Still not entirely convinced, Christopher cocked a sarcastic eyebrow and asked, "Will I have to change diapers?"

Thinking of the pregnant girl that Christopher had been doting so preciously on, Leo winked at his son and said slyly, "It wouldn't hurt for you to have the practice, now, would it?"

"I guess not."

Immediately, Leo regretted dragging Christopher's mind back to the place it probably hadn't left yet anyway. "Christopher, I . . . "

"She really isn't going to meet us here, is she?" Sadly, Christopher looked off into the sky one last time, picking out where he knew his star to be and wishing like hell on it that things would turn out okay. Part of him also knew that the only way things were going to turn out okay was for him to get off his ass and get to work. He sighed, resigned. "I'm really doing this without her."

Leo clapped his boy's shoulder reassuringly. "We're going to get her back for you, her and your brother both. I promise. And can we just stop this nonsense now? I don't care if she's your sister, your cousin, or the next door neighbor's red-headed step-child's third cousin twice removed. I won't tell anyone at home about her, but you have to give me a name so that I don't have to call her 'Her' anymore. Please?"

"Call her 'Bum'. That's always worked for Grandpa. None of us could walk through the door without him yelling, 'Hey, you bum'. It was his thing."

"Christopher," Leo groaned.

"Fut- — "

"-ture consequences," the two of the groaned together, not quite but nearly breaking into grins. It was still an important reason, but it was starting to hurt a lot less to say or hear it.

"Lucy," the boy admitted reluctantly and quite uncomfortably. "It's Lucy Penelope Halliwell. Mom usually called her 'Lu', so did everyone else. Don't even try to call her 'Lulu' or 'Lucky'. Grandpa and I are the only ones who can get by with that one. She'll punch your lights out before you call her either one ever again."

"Got it. And you go by 'Christopher'?"

"Most of the time. It's what Mom preferred. Wyatt calls me 'Chris' a lot, Lucy, too. To everyone else, it's pretty much Christopher."

"Thank you."

"You can't say anything."

Together, they both said again, "Future consequences."

Leo laughed the first real laugh that he could remember having in nearly two weeks. He stood and lowered a hand to help his son up. When they were both standing, Leo gave Christopher an odd look, a curious eyebrow raised. "Lucy was my mother's name, you know."

"Yeah, I know," said Christopher with a knowing smile.

Realization dawned on Leo for the umpteenth time in the last few hours, a feeling that he wasn't all that sure he was enjoying too much. It was starting to become a tad ridiculous, actually. Too many things were creeping up on him and he didn't like it. The dangers of time travel were just too confusing sometimes. Still . . . he was a father, or at least he was going to be (again). His father would have liked that. His father always said he wanted to have a little girl to spoil and call his grandda- — "I'm going to be a grandfather," Leo said softly.

Christopher just about choked on his laugh. "Caught that, did you?"

Father and son exchanged another look before orbing out to head back to the house, to the warmth, and to where Christopher could finally figure out where he needed to begin.

II.

Victor shook the pitcher of grape juice that he had pulled out of the refrigerator with a little more force than he'd intended, causing a few drops of the sticky liquid to spray over his fingers when he finally popped the jug's top. He put his fingers to his lips to suck the sharp taste away before absently wiping his hand on the back of his jeans. He growled, annoyed, in the back of his throat at the remnants of the stickiness as he filled the brightly colored sports bottle three quarters of the way through with the juice and then cut it the rest of the way with the cold water from the next pitcher. He washed his hands and wiped the bottle clean of any remaining sugar before handing it over to the elder of his two grandsons. It wasn't until Victor noticed that Wyatt wasn't in any way reacting to accept the bottle that he realized that the boy had been staring right at him for the last five minutes without hardly blinking.

As much as he loved Wyatt, he had to admit that he had never been so unnerved by a two-year-old before.

Impossibly bright blue eyes were fixed back at him, ageless. Victor didn't know what it was, but there was something in his grandson's eyes. Wyatt was only a baby. He couldn't understand grief or despair, but somehow, it was there. He couldn't understand the kind of resolve that pushed a man beyond those things until all that's left is ice and blackness, but somehow, it was there in Wyatt's eyes. Growing up in an atmosphere where he'd been so constantly doted on and spoiled couldn't produce that look in such young eyes, but there it was. It couldn't. It just couldn't, but it was there.

Victor stole a quick glance at Christopher (who was already falling asleep in his bouncy seat on the kitchen table) before sitting down in front of Wyatt. He turned his grandson's chair toward him and his own chair so that they would be directly facing one another. He tried again to hand Wyatt the grape juice, but the boy didn't even look at it. He just looked at his grandfather with eyes that both understood everything and comprehended nothing. The man bent over at the waist, resting his chin on the arm of Wyatt's chair. He got a few errant crumbs of what smelled like graham crackers stuck to it, but at the moment, he didn't really care. His first grandson, who he would and almost had died for, was in some kind of pain. What kind of pain a two-year-old could know was a little beyond him, but he could see it was there. If what Chris had told him had been true, it was his job as grandfather to these boys to find out what that pain was and try to make it better.

Still, such an adult, linear thinking didn't exactly make a whole lot of sense regarding a not quite two-year-old toddler. It was probably best to start out on a much more basic level. Victor took the bottle of juice in his hand, hoping that Wyatt's eyes would move toward it. With a lopsided grin, Victor asked, "Are you sure you don't want some juice?"

The boy didn't even blink.

"Is it because I put the water in it?" There was, almost expectedly, no answer. "I know you think you can taste the difference, but there isn't one. It tastes exactly the same, I swear." All the boy offered his grandfather was a blank stare. "Wyatt, it's almost eight o'clock. You can't have any more sugar than that or you'll never go to sleep tonight." Still, the toddler did nothing to acknowledge the man in front of him. "You know, your mom used to try that same thing on me when she was your age. So did your aunt Prudence. They would look at me like that and pout because they thought if they looked that cute at me for long enough, I'd give in, and they'd get their way. So I'm well versed in this tactic, Buddyboy. You aren't going to get that one passed me. Sorry, Pal." Still there was a lot more of nothing but blue-eyed stares. "I'll take it away, you know. I'll put it away, and you won't get any more juice tonight." There was no reaction at all. Wyatt simply continued to stare at his grandfather (or more accurately, right at his left ear, it seemed). Victor shook his head, grinding crumbs into the chair arm. He sat back up and started to move toward the refrigerator. "Okay, Wyatt. Here it goes. It's going away now. The juice is going away. No more juice for Wyatt tonight. None. It's going away. Okay then . . . "

As Victor put the sports bottle into the refrigerator, he was pleasantly startled by his grandson's small voice behind him. "'Hat's 'at?"

The smile of happiness at finally hearing Wyatt say something withered when he saw the pout on his grandson's face puff out even more. Still, Wyatt could be pouting for any number of reasons. He could just be mad that the juice was now officially put away. He could just legitimately be asking what something was, though, too. It wasn't like this wasn't the perfect age for Wyatt to be constantly asking that question. So he offered to play along, giving his grandson a playful wiggle of his eyebrows. "What's what, Wyatt?" The boy pointed in the direction of the door that led down to the basement so Victor said helpfully, "That's the door, Pal. Door. Do-or. Door."

As soon as Victor was finished schooling his grandson, Wyatt's face took on the same alarmed expression that he'd been wearing on first sight that night. Victor barely had time to register the look before, without warning, a knife, large and pointy, sparkled blue out of the cutlery block and darted toward the door. Victor barely had enough time to leap out of the way before the blade thudded into the wood, wiggling back and forth and making a threatening sound. Victor's head whipped back and forth between blade and boy, confused. "Uh . . . "

Wyatt's pout finally turned to whimpering tears. "Bad."

Still startled, Victor exhaled sharply and muttered, "Uh, yeah." He gave the knife (the largest in the Piper's well-kept block, naturally) one last look of concern before putting his full attention on his grandson. "Bad? Wyatt, why is the door bad?"

The toddler didn't answer. He looked at his grandfather with the same eyes that had stared so deeply against the juice. Victor suddenly wondered if the boy had even seen the juice at all. He wasn't sure why, but for whatever reason, the only thing he could think to do was pick up his grandson and steer his eyes far away from the basement door in the hope that being held would be enough to make that pout go away. He glanced down at Christopher in his seat where he was now fully asleep and grinned warily. Okay. One kid down, one to go. He heaved Wyatt up out of his chair and positioned the boy on his hip, wrapped safely in his arm. Surprisingly, Wyatt seemed to sense some sort of safety in the arms of his grandfather, too, because he buried his tear-streaked face in the big man's shoulder.

Together the two of them paced back and forth, Victor carefully rubbing circles into Wyatt's back with his free hand. His eyes occasionally glanced back toward the knife in the door to make sure that it was still there. He'd seen Wyatt do little things with his powers before, but up until now, it had been with his toys, not knives. Piper would have said something if he had done anything dangerous. She would have. So seeing that sweet, beautiful boy in his arms wielding that knife, it just . . . It couldn't and didn't make any sense.

But then there were his grandson's eyes. Wyatt's eyes were still staring straight ahead, even though he couldn't see the knife in the door anymore. He certainly saw something, though. They were too fixed to not be seeing something. They scared Victor. There was something in them, betraying a kind of knowledge that no child his age could possibly have. Unless . . . Softly, Victor hugged his grandson closer to his chest and whispered painfully, "You saw something, didn't you? You saw something you weren't meant to see."

Wyatt didn't acknowledge the question except to point at the sleeping baby on the table before digging his chin hard into his grandfather's shoulder. He squeezed his grandfather's neck even harder, whimpering into the man's ear. "Nononononono."

"Oh, baby," Victor bleakly hushed his grandson. "It's okay. It's all going to be okay."

Victor started walking a little faster, bouncing Wyatt absently for comfort. He kept whispering softly, not really even paying attention to what it was that he was saying. All he knew was that he needed to make his beautiful grandson feel safe until the girls could straighten out the situation, and he'd get his explanation he'd been promised, even though he didn't even know what explanation he was waiting for.

"Okay, Kiddo . . . I've got you. I promise. I'm not letting you go. It's going to be okay, Wyatt. I don't know exactly what 'it' is or why it isn't okay at the moment, but it's going to be okay. Your mom and your dad and your aunts are all going to do everything that they can to make sure that you are never less than completely safe and loved and happy. I can't imagine what it is that you saw that has you so wound up, but no one in this house is going to ever let anything happen to you. That means me, too. I'm your grandfather. That's what I do. That's what grandpas do. They're there for their grandsons. So I'm going to be here, right here with you . . . hidden away safely in the kitchen — at the Kids' Table. Why? Because I'm your grandpa."

A wry but sort of amused smile breached the man's face as he cuddled his grandson. A sarcastic groan colored his smile as he went on. ". . . and because I'm always relegated to the Kids' Table. Not that it's a bad thing to be at the Kids' Table. It's good to be out of the way, because you're here, and Christopher is here. We have our own little club here. The Kids' Table, Out of the Way Guys. It has a catchy ring to it, don't you think? We'll have jackets made and everything, because let's face it: we're going to be spending a lot of time here. You've had two years with the family now, you understand. Don't you? The women of this family, they have a tendency to put the men in the family out of the way. Most of the time, that's okay with me. I like the Kids' Table. While they're blowing things up and getting slimed by demons, we get the cool toys. I get grandson time, like I am right now. Because you guys, you and your brother, you're a lot more fun to hang out with than the slimy demons or scaly monsters. Who wants to blow up icky monsters anyway?"

Slowly growing concerned at hearing his own words, but not wanting to stay quiet for too long in case it would inspire his grandson to worry himself, Victor went on rambling. Moving on to advice instead of self pity, he said, "Now, Wyatt, listen — Man to Man — I know you're probably going to want to some day. Let's face it: your mother and your aunts make it look easy and almost fun. Eventually, you're going to like it like they do. I know your brother does. He told me that it makes him feel like he is doing something good for the world that other people can't do. What worries me is that you guys are a little too young right now to be seeing that kind of thing. It's around you so much, I don't know . . . Chris told me that some day, you're going to like it too much. I don't really know what that means because your brother stopped talking after that. He used that 'Future Consequences' excuse that I heard he used on a regular basis around all of you. I think your mom knows what that's supposed to mean, though, so I guess that's okay. I wish they would have told me, too, but then, I'm a man in this family. I don't get told things until they're over."

The grandfather jiggled the slowly calming bundle in his arms, crooked his head, and puffed up with pride. There was no mistaking the 'Nah nah nyah nyah nyah' tone to his voice as he proudly said, "Except from your brother. We didn't have a lot of time together before he left, but in the time that we had, he never once treated me like I was anything less than the girls. He called me, you know, the day before he left to go back to the future. He knew I'm not worthless. Chris thinks I'm awesome — his word, not mine, I swear. You were in the other room. You missed that part, but he did; he called me 'awesome'. He talked to me for a while, too, when he called. I bet we were on the phone for a good half an hour. He asked me to take care of you and your mom and your aunts for him. You know what? I'll gladly do that. I'll be more than happy to take care of you, and not just because he asked me to. Granted, if you had heard his voice, you'd know that I don't really have much of a choice. He really wanted me to be here. So here I am, looking out for you and the rest of the family. That would be a lot easier to do, though, if your mom would actually tell me things I need to know once in a while. They don't tell me things, though. They never have. When your mom was just your size, your grandma and her mom did the same thing to me. I wasn't allowed to play with any of the girls in the house because I wasn't special like them. I can't blow things up just by looking at them or throw people across the room just by moving my hands. Your brother says I'm going to end up liking to orb when you kids are older, but that is one of those things that's going to have to remain to be seen, too. If I could do that by myself, I don't think I'd be doing it very often. I definitely didn't come with that cool little blue bubble thing you've got, either. I'm just me, and that was never good enough for your great-grandmother, but don't tell her I told you that. She'd say that I'm feeling sorry for myself or something. I'm not. I just . . . I never thought I was going to end up in a world like the one you guys live in, where I was the one who needed to be protected."

Victor inwardly huffed and put his hand up to Wyatt's back, squeezing his grandson tighter for the comfort of them both. Their cheeks met as the grandfather shrugged. His tone softened a little and became almost nostalgic as he went on. "I wasn't raised that way, you know. I grew up in a different time, where men were taught that women needed to be protected and taken care of. Now don't go thinking that your old grandpa is, well, old, because I'm not. Things have changed a lot in my lifetime. Can you believe that when I was in school, girls still couldn't wear anything but skirts or dresses to school? Yeah. It wasn't that long ago. Now girls wear things to school that make me wonder if half of them haven't been arrested for solicitation — but you don't need to know what that means. It's a big word. We'll just leave it at that. The point is, Wyatt, things were a little different when I was a boy. Strong, wonderful women like your mother and your aunts didn't seem to have a place in this world. They weren't treated with the respect that they deserved. I didn't really believe that stuff, but there were still certain expectations for a man like me. When I met your grandmother, that was one of the things that impressed me the most about her; she didn't believe that garbage either. She was an amazing woman, and she knew it. Your grandmother, Wyatt, she shined. She's still the most beautiful woman I've ever known. Man, she was beautiful. I hope that some day, you'll get to know her like you should have been able to if she hadn't died. It's not like she hasn't been brought here before like your great-grandmother. There is a certain something about Patty, though, that can't be described. You'll have to see it to know it. I've never stopped loving her, you know. No matter what you might hear as you grow up, you need to hear from me how much I loved her."

Hearing a little snuffling noise, Victor stopped walking around for a moment so that he could look down at Christopher in his bouncy seat and then at Wyatt in his arms. Whichever one of them had sniffled, they both looked oblivious to the fact that he'd heard the noise at all. Then he realized, surprised, that the noise had come from his own throat. Confession, even to a couple of babies, was hard work. He hadn't been even remotely prepared for it. It was worth it, though. He was getting time alone with his grandsons, just as Chris had promised him he would some day. Wow. It seemed like it was only last week that his girls were this small, listening to his rambling nonsense just as the boys were now. Maybe Chris's assessment of their relationship in the future wasn't so far off, after all. He liked that. He really liked that idea.

Going on, now that he felt an inner rhythm to his ramblings, Victor glanced in sadness at his boys. "I might as well get all of this out while we're alone and you're too young to be able to blackmail me with the information, right? Okay, so here goes . . . I think you guys should know, and I've never been able to say this to your mom or your aunts, but I think it might be good for you to know. I never meant for any of those things to happen. I never meant for your mother and your aunts to grow up without a father around, without me. I never wanted to be so far away. After a while, though, I didn't know how to come back home. I wanted so badly to come home. Coming home is a really scary thing, though. You can't imagine. I hope you never have to. I promise you, though, that there is nothing that you could ever do in your lifetime that will ever be so bad that you can't come home. Okay? I will never let you think otherwise. But then, you're already a lot stronger than I ever was. Coming home wasn't an option for me, no matter how much I wanted it.

"I'll tell you a little secret, though, just between us guys, huh? I think I've come home to stay this time. I don't want to be away from home anymore. It's time that I did, don't you think? I'd rather be here at the Kids' Table with you than ever be back in that lonely old apartment, ever again. You and me and your brother? We're going to stick together. We're the boys club in this family, and that means a lot of being told to hide. So we'll hide at the park and the movie theatres and the zoo and any place else you like. We'll find all kinds of things to do, because, as great as this is right now, just hanging out here in the kitchen isn't going to be all that fun if we're going to do this on a regular basis, you know?"

Nervously, Victor's eye caught the knife again, still plunging ominously in the door where it had been (for a moment, at least) forgotten. Out loud to both himself and Wyatt, he mused, "What do you think they're doing up there, huh? It can't be too exciting. I don't hear anything crashing or the girls yelling or anything. What do you think?"

Victor craned his neck back a bit to get a look at Wyatt, expecting to see those bright blue eyes to still be far too aware and staring back at him. Instead, he was pleasantly surprised to find a calmly sleeping boy nestled into his shoulder, thumb in his mouth and a peaceful, dreamy look on his face. Both down, safe, and loved. Dad's still got it. Yeah. Just like riding a bike . . . Now if only you could figure out how you're going to explain that knife in the door, you'd be the champ . . .

Not ready to let this moment end yet, though, Victor continued to pace around with his grandson in his arms, softly talking to the boy more for himself than anything else. "Okay, fellas, what else can we talk about, huh?"

Neither boy offered even a yawn for an answer, causing Victor to shrug in grandfatherly amusement. He was on his own, but it was a great kind of aloneness, even if the subject matter of his discussion wasn't exactly Sesame Street material.

"I suppose that talking about me not being around for your mom and Prue and Phoebe has made you wonder a few things about your own dad, huh? I'm sure it's been a scary year having him gone all the time. I admit, I wasn't all that thrilled with him for taking that promotion either. Speaking as a father, though, I can tell you that every single second he's been gone, he was thinking about you. I know he was, so I don't want you to be mad at him for too long, okay? I thought I had all the time in the world to say I was sorry to your aunt Prue, but I didn't. I don't want either of you to make that same mistake that she and I did. Okay? As much as I hate to admit it, your dad isn't such a bad guy. So if things don't work out with your mom and dad, don't be too hard on him. He loves you just as much as your mom does. I promise. Everything they do, it's for you guys. You have the best parents in the world. And ask your brother — you have a pretty terrific grandpa, too . . . I believe the word is 'awesome'. Learn it, know it, love it."

A soft, slightly amazed voice came from the doorway, tugging him out of his rambling advisings and anecdotes. "You got them to sleep."

Victor grinned happily up at his daughter even though the crookedness in his voice feigned a minor offense. "Hey! I didn't forget everything about being a father."

"I never thought you did," said Piper fondly. As an afterthought, she added, "That was Prue's deal."

The man shrugged his eyebrows ruefully, acknowledging the brutal honesty of his daughter's remark. "In a lot of ways, she was right."

"But not all of them," Piper said reassuringly. "Things were never perfect, but of all of us, she had the most to forgive. She forgave you. If the Powers That Be or whoever controls these things would let us summon her here, I know she'd tell you the same thing. Besides, you know Prue. She holds the marathon record on grudges. Even that wasn't insurmountable. Very few things in this world are."

Attempting to slip his question under the radar, Victor turned his attention back to Wyatt and the business of settling the sleeping boy into another position in his arms. As arms twisted and shifted, he asked, "What about what just happened upstairs? Is that insurmountable?"

Piper chuckled and rolled her eyes at her father's complete lack of subtlety. "Nice segue."

"I do my best. So are you going to tell me what all of this is about, or do I just need to hide in the corner until it all goes away like a good little boy?"

Neither father nor daughter said anything for a moment while Piper studied her father handling her sons. The boys both seemed so serene and happy under their grandfather's care, something that she hadn't seen much of from Wyatt in the last ten days. Her boys looked like they finally felt safe. Even though she was guessing that he wouldn't admit it, she was willing to bet that her father was about ready to bust at the seams with happiness at the moment. He looked so comfortable with them, not awkward as she might have expected. He had been gone for so long during their childhoods that she never really knew if he even knew how to handle a baby. She had seen it a little bit with Wyatt, but she had always been right there with him. This time, the three men of the family had been on their own. Yet somehow, no catastrophes had happened. Her father was still conscious. No demons had popped in to take their shots at Wyatt or Christopher. Everything had been quiet and calm, and the boys were asleep. Maybe what she was thinking wasn't such a bad idea after all.

"Actually, Dad, that's kind of what I wanted to talk to you about while you were here. I haven't talked about this with the others yet, but I was wondering . . . after everything that Chris said and the way the two of you got along, I was just . . . I know you have a life and things you want to be doing with it, but I was hoping that maybe you would consider moving a little closer to home now. The boys really need their grandfather in their life. I don't want you just hiding in the wings. You aren't hiding anyway. Dad, if I ever made you feel like we wanted you to hide . . . You're my dad. I'd like you to be around. I need you to be here. I need you to do something that apparently none of the rest of the people in this house can do: I need you to keep my sons safe."

Victor swayed from side to side, his grandson draped over the cradle the man's arms made in front of him. He didn't know what else to do. He'd been waiting for so long to hear something along those lines to come from his children that he wasn't remotely prepared for it to actually happen. So instead of looking at her, he smiled down at the boy in his arms and patted his bottom in rhythm with the direction of his swaying hips. Properly distracted, he said, "Piper, you guys do just fine taking care of the boys. They're both perfectly safe. They're fine."

Piper tiptoed over to the table, and in a direct imitation of her father, distracted herself with the task of wrangling her baby out of his seat. As she groaned and hoisted Christopher to her shoulder, she said sadly, "We don't know that, Dad. We don't know that at all."

"Oh, Piper," Victor pishawed.

Interrupting, Piper jumped right in before her father could even try to be any more reassuring. "Dad, did Chris tell you why he was here from the future?"

They both looked at the small child in Piper's arms as Victor said, "To save the family." He nodded his chin at the infant and winked at him. Proudly, he said, "And he did a great job, didn't he? Yeah. I think he did. He looks pretty happy with it, if you ask me."

Undeterred from her mission to get all of the hard stuff out of the way in this one night, Piper firmly asked, "Did he tell you who he was trying to save the family from?"

"Honey — "

Piper sucked a strong breath in between her teeth, gathering as much air as she could. She hated this part of what had been happening to her family. She hated knowing the few things that Chris had told her, but most of all she hated this part of their story. Almost angrily, Piper pushed the air out as fast as she could get the words to come together and tell the story. "Chris was here to save the family from Wyatt, Dad. In the future, Wyatt grew up to be, for lack of a better way to put it, the ruler of all Evil. Demons bowed before him. He killed demons and witches alike. He grew up to be such a monster that Chris's only choices left were to either kill his own brother or come back here to the past and try to fix whatever it was that went wrong. He didn't even know what went wrong except that something or someone had done something to Wyatt before the day that he was born. Somehow, we had been unable to protect Wyatt from whatever it was that did that to him. Chris had been left without any other options because we couldn't protect his brother."

"But that's all changed now, right," Victor asked hopefully, attempting to keep thoughts of the knife in the door out of his head. (That was nothing, right? That was just Wyatt being jumpy, nothing more. It had been a crazy couple of days. That was all.) Everything was fine. They didn't need to worry any further. Still, it didn't hurt to ask. "There's — Chris went back to the future. He called to tell me he was leaving. He told me that he'd done what he'd come to do and that it was safe to go back. So that means that Wyatt is safe, that Chris is safe, that the future is safe. Right? I mean, he never would have gone back to the future unless he was sure that everything was fixed. So Wyatt's safe. I don't understand why that . . . "

"We were wrong," Piper seethed, still using what was left of that angry air she had collected in her lungs. "The person who was after Wyatt tricked us into thinking we'd found those responsible for turning Wyatt in the future. He tricked us. So yes, when Chris called you, we all thought that Wyatt was safe, but the man who was really after Wyatt, he manipulated us to get Chris and Leo out of the way so that he could keep Paige and Phoebe busy. He pretended to help us with sending Chris back when he was really sending them to this other plane so that we would have to help them. While Phoebe and Paige were trying to sort that out, this man, he tried to . . . "

Nervously, Victor interrupted. He could tell that he wasn't going to like what his daughter was going to tell him, but there was still a shred of hope left in him that he had to clarify. Everyone was here and safe and alive so he didn't see the point in all of the in between parts of the story when he could just skip ahead to the happy ending. "Okay, I don't know who 'He' is, but he tried. He didn't succeed. The boys are right here. You and your sisters are here. Everybody's okay."

"We don't know that. We don't know anything. The sonofabitch — Gideon, his name was Gideon — he took Wyatt. Once he got all of them out of the way and I was in labor, he tried several times to kill Wyatt before he figured out that he would have to take my son away from everything before he could succeed. In a roundabout way, the things he did to manipulate the situation to his advantage . . . He got Phoebe shot, point blank in the chest. She almost died. If Leo hadn't been there in the house, we would have lost her. And Chris . . . Gideon murdered Chris, Dad. He never made it back to the future. Gideon killed him before he could go back."

"W-what?" There were only two other times in his life that Victor's voice had been as small as it was then. When Patty had died and when Prue had been taken from them, it had taken everything that he'd had to be able to push even that tiny word out of his lungs. A single syllable shouldn't be so hard to say, but it was damned near agonizing. He tried it again, though, after clearing his throat several times. "What?"

Before she had the chance to get too emotional about things again, Piper plowed through the remainder of their tale with as even a tone as she could manage. "He did it right in front of Wyatt, Dad. We don't know what Gideon did to him after he took him, but I'm guessing that seeing Chris basically gutted just before being kidnapped . . . We have no idea if Wyatt's okay."

Sleeping babies prevented him from physically comforting his daughter, but Victor hoped that the devastated look he knew was on his face would be enough to let her know he understood her grief. Sadly, he fumbled for words again. "Oh, Piper . . . I — Honey, w-why didn't you tell me? I would have come so much sooner if I had known."

"Was I supposed to tell you that on the phone? How was I supposed to tell you that we were unable to protect your grandson and got him killed? Even if I had told you, we can't do anything for him. There wasn't . . . After he died, Chris disappeared from Leo's arms. You wouldn't have been able to do anything. I thought it would be better if we got to talk about it in person. It's just . . . "

"He disappeared? How could he disappear?"

"We don't know. We think that maybe it's because this wasn't his time, like he just faded away back into his own time or something. We don't know. We have no idea where he is or what's happened to him. We're hoping he's right here in this little guy, but we don't know for sure. We have no way of knowing."

Victor immediately started looking about for his coat and shoes, ready to sprint out the door. "Well, shouldn't we be out looking? He could be anywhere, Piper. What are we doing just sitting talking when we should be out there looking for him?"

Piper's head hung low. She knew that propulsion toward the door all too well, but she also knew the stark futility of it. "Dad, it . . . It doesn't work like that."

"How do you know? You said you don't know. He could be here."

"If I thought there was even the slightest chance that he was out there somewhere, I would be the first one out there looking for him."

"I know you would, Honey, I do. I just . . . Disappeared?"

"Dad," Piper started, unsure of where they should be going next. She stuttered along though, knowing that if she stopped, it would give her the time to actually hear what she was saying instead of just knowing that she was saying words with letters. "I wish that I could tell you more. I wasn't here. Paige and Leo are the only ones who were here to know what really happened. If I knew more, I would tell you, I would, but there is . . . "

"What about what you were saying upstairs? I heard the three of you. You said you saw Chris, just now, up in the attic. If he's dead and disappeared like you say, how did you see him?"

"I don't know. I'm not sure how that happened at all. That's why I wish Leo would come back and tell me what the hell is going on. I know that he knows at least some of what's going on. Right now, all I know is that I saw him and that Grams did, too. We'll find out everything else as soon as Leo gets back, I guess."

"And that's — " Victor started, but stopped at the realization that he was near yelling. Taking the decibel level down a notch and swaying little more to keep both Wyatt and himself calm, he started over, this time at a level a little more conducive to keeping babies asleep. The lower voice didn't hide his astonishment, though, and there was plenty of it. "And that's good enough for you? Your son who you thought was dead is off wandering around, and 'Wait and See' is the best plan you have? Honey, you know that as much as I love you, I've never been a fan of the line of work you girls were given, but aren't you supposed to be the most powerful witches ever? Shouldn't you be able to do something?"

Piper gave her father an ugly, 'Flattery Will Get You Nowhere' look. Still, part of her knew that he had at least a partial point. She just wasn't used to being this helpless. She hadn't felt this way in quite a long time. Annoyed that she was even thinking he knew what he was talking about, she grumbled, "Thanks for that vote of confidence, Dad, but I don't think it's going to work that way this time."

"So what do we do now?"

She thought it over, chewing her lower lip in concentration. Finally steeled against every crazy impulse she had to chase down her husband like her father wanted, Piper took a heavy breath and shrugged. "We put these two to bed and hope that, by the time we're done, Leo will have found Chris and can talk him into coming home."

Almost disappointed with the answer, Victor asked, "That's all?"

"That's all." Smiling with effort, she tried to bring the topic back to something a little less tense until Leo could return and help them figure out what was going on. She hugged Christopher to her, tighter than she realized, and kissed him gently on the top of his head. "I've got mine. Got yours?"

"Check."

Together, they embarked on the operation of bringing two babies upstairs from a full day downstairs. There were babies to carry, their blankets, bottles, pacifiers, teddy bears (or in Wyatt's case, his new favorite for the week, the stuffed tiger Phoebe had found for him), and all of it had to be done in one load. It was too risky to make trips. Trips left openings for the boys to wake up in their room and realize that they were alone, which would lead to crying, which would wake up the remaining sleeping child, and that in turn would lead to a very long night of switching off waking children. It was best to keep them from waking at all. Baby Christopher would be awake soon enough as it was.

When they were both fully packed like the strongest of pack mules, they both cocked their eyebrows at one another, a clear sign that they were ready to make the dangerous journey up the stairs that could at any moment wake the sleeping boys. As gracefully as they possibly could, they tiptoed out of the kitchen into the main hallway and foyer. The easy part of their trek was almost accomplished until they reached the table in the middle of the way when wrenching their hips around it caused a pacifier to clatter to the ground. Of course, since they were both trying to be extremely quiet, the sound of the plastic clattering on the hardwood floor sounded like a cannon shooting off. Both Wyatt and Christopher made small noises, but settled back into position after bringing identical fists to their eyes, the universal sign of Tired Baby On Board.

Both father and daughter looked down at the discarded pacifier, debating whether or not to risk its retrieval, but Victor finally nodded his chin toward the stairs. "Leave it. I'll come back for it after they're asleep."

A swirl of bluish orbs sparkled in the darkened hallway, brightly announcing Leo's return. Before he was even fully formed, he told his sort-of wife in a whisper, "It's okay. I've got it."

Even as he reached down and picked up the pacifier, stuck it in his mouth to clean it off, and then handed it over to Piper's overloaded hand, another swirl of orbs was forming a person right next to him. "Dad, they aren't in the attic," a disembodied but familiar (and entirely too loud) voice informed them. "They weren't in your room either. Did you . . . " When the body was fully formed, Christopher stared out at them, clearly unsure of what to say. " . . . You found them."

Both babies, awakened first by the bright lights and then loud voices, began to cry. They started to cry even harder when they must have somehow realized that neither Mommy nor Grandpa were listening to them at all. The grownups were too busy standing there with their mouths agape, not knowing what to do or say.

Piper had been expecting this ever since Leo had taken off to go find their son over an hour ago, but she still wasn't ready for it. Nothing in the world could have prepared her for this, even after seeing him briefly in the attic. She'd spent the last nine days trying to figure out how to mourn and celebrate her son at the same time. She had just told her grandmother and father that her son was dead, yet there he was. She was willing to bet that if she reached out and touched him, he would be solid and warm and alive. What was she supposed to think about that? Seeing Chris standing there in front of her was . . . She didn't have a word for it. Words had pretty much failed her. All she could do was ask, "Chris? Ar-are you okay?"

Christopher just stopped and blinked hard, shocked. He knew he should probably say something, but what was he supposed to say? He could see it in their faces; Leo really hadn't been kidding. Everyone really thought he was dead and . . . Oh, man. His poor mother . . . Maybe he should have waited for Leo to say something about his appearance before he'd said anything . . . But still, wow. She looked beautiful. He'd forgotten how beautiful she was, even when she wasn't in the best of moods. He wondered, if he hugged her, if she would still smell like cookies. She had always been baking when he was a kid. She had said that she was trying to remember what it was like to not have to be a witch when she was in the kitchen. He loved that smell on her, but a hug was a long way off. He'd be lucky if he could get through the next five minutes. Still, she was visibly worried, but she looked so good.

Victor knew his eyes had to be bulging, but he couldn't stop them. Piper had only just told him that his grandson was dead, murdered, and yet there he was, standing right there in front of them. He was covered in blood and looking far too pale to be real, but there he was. A little too loud to be under his breath, Victor mumbled in amazement, "I do believe in spooks. I do believe in spooks. I do, I do, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks."

Piper's head whipped around so fast that hair caught in her mouth. She bit on the strands as she hissed, "Dad!"

Defensively, Victor half-chuckled, "I'm sorry, Honey, but I swear, this house sees more dead people than a graveyard."

"Dad!"

"It's okay, Piper," Christopher dashed in, attempting to rescue his grandfather. The poor guy looked like he really had just been spooked, and if everything Leo had told him was in fact the truth, being spooked was probably the most logical reaction the man would have. Granted, the man probably could have found a better way to express his shock, but still . . . Christopher got the joke. He'd watched that movie with his grandfather millions of times when he was a kid and again when Victor was dying. It had been their private joke for a long time, even if, in this time, Grandpa didn't know it yet. Besides, it was Grandpa. He couldn't leave his grandfather just hanging there. Gently, Christopher defended the man. "Really. I don't mind. Leo explained everything."

Trying incredibly hard not to sound in any way hurt or unhappy with her son's appearance, Piper still had to ask about the first of many obvious changes in her son. Being alive was a slight change, yeah? But there had to be an easier place to start. The rest of it was too big right now. Best to start small. She groaned a little in between words from the strain as she attempted to shift the boy in her arms, making her sound more sarcastic than concerned. "'Piper'? 'Leo'? What happened to 'Mom' or 'Dad'?"

Christopher's eyes popped wide open in classic Deer In Headlights formation. Ever since he had realized that he was coming to a place in time where his family would know exactly who he was, he knew he was going to have to deal with questions like that if he was discovered for who he truly was. He had tried so very hard to separate the people in this part of time, the people who had yet to become the people that he knew and loved, from all that he had ever known. He and Lucy both had spent months trying to remind themselves that 'Piper and Leo' weren't the same people as 'Mom and Dad'. They both thought it would be easier that way. Faced with it now, though, it was no easier. It was damned near unbearable. 'Excruciating' couldn't even cover it. He was glad Lu wasn't there to have to see it. Her heart had been broken enough lately. He didn't even know if his could take it.

When Piper saw her son's eyes fly open, she immediately felt guilty. He had just come home, and already she was asking questions that had answers he probably wasn't willing to give. She also realized that what she had feared was true: this wasn't Chris. This was someone else. 'Mom and Dad' hadn't gone anywhere because he didn't remember what had happened before. They had been trying so hard not to see Chris in the baby, not yet, that it hadn't occurred to her that they might never let Christopher be 'Chris'. She wasn't sure how she knew, but she did. It was in the eyes. So she gave this son her best understanding smile that she could manage under the circumstances and said softly, "Nevermind. We can talk about that later. We have a few other things about all of this that need to be cleared up before we even get around to those kinds of questions."

"That's an understatement," said Victor under his breath, again too loud to be unheard. He resituated the fussing Wyatt around so that he was straddling his grandfather's hip again. The boy was clearly not wanting to be lying down in the man's arms. He wanted to be looking around and seeing all of the action going on. Victor could understand that. He did, too. After all, how often did someone from the future come back from the dead in the front hallway?

"Dad, knock it off," Piper warned one last time.

"Sorry," he said, bouncing Wyatt once to make it a little more comfortable for the both of them.

"Good. Thank you. Okay — now, which one of you wants to go first," asked Piper, focusing solely on Leo and Chris. Although her words suggested that either of them might be the one to start explaining, the evil eye she was giving Leo left no room for interpretation. He had better start explaining, and he'd better do it fast, or he'd be sleeping somewhere a lot less comfortable than the sofa when they all finally went to bed in a few hours.

The most the angel could manage to say, though, was a nervous "Uh . . . Um, Piper . . . Uh . . . "

As Leo's voice faltered, there was a stiff silence dropped over the room. Leo and Christopher both rammed their fists into their back pockets and rocked back and forth on the balls of their feet. Neither one of them could look at anyone else in the room. Looking for something to do, Leo sidled over to Piper after a moment and took their infant son out of her arms to try and soothe at least one version of their younger boy. With her arms free, Piper was left with nothing to do with her hands and was suddenly lost. This was not turning out to be her best Mom moment of all time. She was standing there doing absolutely nothing, and it wasn't making any sense to her. It was just as she was feeling her worst when Wyatt started fussing much more loudly, giving her a reason to take over and do something again. The standing there and doing nothing was killing her. Taking Wyatt from her father and being a mother was going to suit her just fine.

What she didn't see coming, though, was Chris, the adult Christopher, jumping in (apparently without even thinking about it). He moved forward like he'd been handling children for years, with his arms stretched out. He wasn't even looking directly at the child he was reaching for, as if he was quite accustomed to carrying on a conversation and taking care of children at the same time, a skill that Piper had only seen easily managed by other parents and grandparents. As if it were part of his everyday routine, Christopher said to his parents without seeing his brother, "I've got this one. You guys get the other one upstairs. I'll follow — Whoa! What the hell is that?"

Christopher's hands had been caught just short of reaching Wyatt when they had taken on an unexpected shock. The toddler's protective bubble had come up around him, warbling there in the darkness of the hallway with an eerie thinness to it. Somehow, Wyatt had been able to control the amount of shock sent to the man who (probably in his eyes) looked like Chris but couldn't be Chris. Apparently, Wyatt wasn't taking any chances, but didn't want to hurt the man either, just in case. So a small shock the man received.

Confused, the parents both glanced at Wyatt, each other, and then Wyatt again. Piper came up right next to him and her father, both concerned at Wyatt's reaction and understanding exactly what it was that he was feeling. Of course she did. She was just as confused about what was going on. If she was confused, there was no way that she could expect that her two-year-old son wouldn't be just as upset, if not more so. This was going to be a hard one to explain, no question. Piper looked over to Leo and saw without asking that he was thinking the same thing. Together they smiled at him to try to settle him down at least enough for Piper to be able to get through to him. After a moment of them making ridiculously happy faces at him, Wyatt lowered his shield enough so that his mother could look him over, pouting as her hand took his and shook it.

"Hey, little man, what's the matter?"

"'Ommy, not 'ris," he cried before sticking his thumb back in his mouth and glaring at the man who he probably thought was an imposter. He pulled his thumb back out, grumbled, and put it back in. "Nonono. 'ou not 'ris! No!"

"What is that," Christopher asked again, looking very concerned at his brother. He shook his hands to try to get the sting out of them. What in the world was that thing, and why weren't his parents in the least bit concerned about it? They knew why he was here. Did they not get it? Was he truly already there too late to save his brother, again? Damn, that thing hurt. What was that?

"I'll run up and get Phoebe to take him," Leo suggested. He glanced between Wyatt and Christopher, sadly seeing that his elder son's protective bubble, while less dangerous, was still obviously up. They both looked so confused. At least Christopher was an adult, though. He would be able to understand once they had a chance to explain. Wyatt might not. This was definitely going to be one of those times where it was going to be a lot easier to do things if his boys were separated. "It's okay, Christopher. He's just confused by seeing you, I think. He'll get over it. I don't think this is something we're going to be able to explain to Wyatt in one night, though. It would probably be better to get him out of the room. As for the shield, Piper, you explain this one."

"Oooh-hoho, oh, no," Piper stopped him, huffing dangerously. "Nice try. You're not going anywhere, and I am not letting you out of my sight until you explain some of this to me."

Leo felt Christopher flinch at his side. He knew that the poor kid had had enough explaining for one night. Frankly, so had he. In an attempt to buy himself and Christopher some time, Leo argued, "Piper, we are not going to stand here and deal with all of this in the dark."

"Then maybe someone should turn some lights on," said Phoebe's voice from the top of the stairs. As her footfalls echoed on the creaking stairs, she asked, "What are you guys doing down here? And why aren't the boys in bed? It's way past their — holy god, how did he get here?" It was dark in the foyer, but not so dark that Phoebe couldn't see the form of her youngest nephew standing there in the middle of it. He was right there, covered in blood and looking incredibly pale in the glow of his brother's shield. She blinked a few times, thinking that it was just like her memories that she'd been sharing with Chris lately. She'd be able to blink it away. She had to. Like a ghost, he would be gone when she opened her eyes again. He couldn't be real. Even when Piper had told her that she'd seen him upstairs, she had thought that it was just a dream or something. Piper must have wanted to see Chris so badly that he'd appeared, like a flash. They were witches, after all. Their powers were tied to their emotions. Piper probably had conjured him without being aware that she'd done it. Now she was doing it, too. Her nephew was only there because she wanted to see him. That had to be it. So Phoebe tried to blink him away a few times, slower and faster, but each time she opened her eyes, he was still there. Chris was there and alive. It was . . . Her head flashed between the boy and his mother as she addressed her sister. "He's here. He's right there. How is that again?"

"How very observant of you, Pheebs," Piper dripped. "I only told you I'd seen him."

Phoebe huffed dismissively at her sister. "Yeah, but I thought you were just seeing things. It wouldn't be the first time, but that's really not the point. How in the world did he get here? Did you check him for a pulse? Because he looks half-dead to me."

Christopher fought the urge to remind them all that he was standing right there by staring eye to eye with his brother, who wouldn't take his eyes off of him either. He'd never seen his brother's eyes look so clear before. Wyatt's eyes had almost always been dark to him, but somehow, they were this amazing blue that he'd never seen. It was almost easier to watch Wyatt than to actually have to listen to his mother and aunt bicker about him. As far as he was concerned, Leo could straighten them all out and he'd fill in the rest of the gaps later. He was tired of explaining. Still, in the back of his mind, he was reminding them, 'He is standing right here, thank you very much. Get your eyes checked — and while you're at it, quit talking about me like I'm not here.'

Leo interrupted his sister-in-law with a slumping sigh, "I was just coming up to tell you."

"Tell me now," said Phoebe, narrowing her eyes and clutching onto the stair's railing to keep from pitching down the stairs in her astonished confusion. When Leo opened his mouth to explain, Phoebe's hand shot up to silence him. She turned her protective, sisterly anger on the not-so-dead boy next to Leo, who jumped at his aunt's shout. "You! You're going to explain. And then you're going to apologize to your mother and great-grandmother for giving them both heart attacks."

"Nonsense, Phoebe," interrupted Penny from the top of the stairs in that sarcastic, airy way that she had of saying just about anything condescending to her girls. Her hands flared out dramatically as she reaffirmed for anyone who wasn't already completely certain of her status, "I'm already dead. A heart attack is the least of my problems these days." Her voice dropped a little, as if she meant to say only to herself, "It still itches once in a while, though."

"Making a point here, Grams," Phoebe shooshed her grandmother. She threw her hand out in Christopher's direction emphatically and made a face that clearly said, "Duh!"

Penny obviously didn't like her granddaughter's tone, both verbal and physical, and would have no problem letting the girl know as much. In that authoritative voice she only used on her girls when she'd had enough backtalk from them, she snapped, "No, young lady, you weren't. You were yelling, and if anyone is going to be doing the yelling here right now, it's going to be your sister. So why don't you wait to see what she wants to do before you go attacking the boy into another early grave, hmmm?"

"GRAMS!"

While both sisters, completely mortified at her comment, admonished their grandmother for having an inappropriate sense of gallows humor, Christopher chuckled to himself. He relaxed a little and jammed his hands back into his back pockets, looking down at his feet to try to hide the smirk on his face. He'd really missed this. He needed some kind of laugh today, any kind of laugh. That Grams was here and being Grams was always good for one of those. There was no greater lady in the Ghostly Plane than his great-grandmother. She could make anything lively, and for a ghost, that was saying something. And Phoebe . . . well, it was kind of fun to watch Grams slap Phoebe around a little bit. Seeing Piper and Phoebe ganging up on Grams was always a treat, too. That many powerful witches in a room was always good for a few fireworks, verbal or otherwise. As long as it wasn't him being picked on, it was fine with him. They could go on trading insults all night long as long as they left him out of it. Still, he supposed it would go a long way toward getting Phoebe's forgiveness if he at least attempted to rescue her, so he quietly, sheepishly said into the floor, "I thought it was funny."

Without even realizing that she was snapping, Phoebe turned her anger on Christopher. She barked, "Chris, I love you, I do, but I really would like an answer from someone in this room who is actually living. Thanks."

This time, it was Piper and Penny's chance to yell. "PHOEBE!"

While everyone was yelling at each other and getting absolutely nowhere, no one was noticing that Wyatt wasn't exactly happy with everything that was going on. Victor assumed that the boy's squirming around in his arms was from all of the commotion of people yelling and waking him up. No one heard him say in a small, panicky voice, "'at's 'at? No. Go 'way! 'ad! No!" No one heard him at all. It wasn't until bright blue-white orbs darted in dangerously from the kitchen that anyone paid him any attention.

Christopher's attention was more than turned on Wyatt when suddenly, without any provocation or warning, he was suddenly orbing out of the hallway. As his body was being whisked away by orbs not of his own doing, his very freaked out voice floated behind him. "What the — "

Just as Christopher's body orbed out of the way, the other set of darting orbs collided with the wall, solidifying into the same lethal blade that had attacked some unseen thing in the kitchen door. All eyes flickered between the knife embedded in the wall and the boy who they knew had thrown it. They all looked to one another, not sure what in the world to think.

Piper's heart stopped. The last time she'd seen her son do anything with a sharp object was the time that he had rammed a sword right into a man's chest. A knife wasn't the same as a sword, sure, but with the amount of time that she spent keeping her best knives in tip-top sharpness, it was certainly just as deadly. That the weapon had been directed right at Chris was just a little much to bear. What in the world was going on? Why was Wyatt so afraid? He'd spent nearly two years with the older version of his brother without too much difficulty. Wyatt had even learned how to play with Chris without raising his shield at all. Wyatt trusted Chris. What was he doing throwing knives at him now? Frightened, Piper reached her hands out to her eldest son to try to hold him and give him at least some sense of security, but he pulled away from her with a dark pout.

"No."

"Honey," she started to plead, but was rewarded with only another pout. At rope's end, she threw her hands up in the air. With hurt and frustration in her voice, she pleaded with him, "Okay, Wyatt, I can only handle one of my kids keeping secrets and making me feel like a lousy mother tonight. So one of you has to take a number here."

"He did the same thing in the kitchen," Victor offered, thinking that it was as good a time as any to tell his daughter that her son had been flinging knives in multiple directions that evening. "I was — "

Before her father could defend himself, Piper interrupted angrily, "He what? Dad, why didn't you say something? A two-year-old throwing knives didn't seem at all odd to you?"

"I've got a better question for you right now," Phoebe started as she thumped the rest of the way down the staircase. She stepped over next to Leo and waved her hand through the air in the space where Christopher had been standing. Concerned, she asked, "Where's Chris?"

"He's right here, and it's Christopher." The witch's disembodied voice announced his re-arrival with which he was clearly unhappy. When he was fully formed once again, he was shuffling his fingers through his rain-soaked hair, flinging water everywhere. He made an ugly face like a cat that had just been dumped in water as he flung water from his hands as well. Being wet was even worse than being orbed out of the room without his say-so (although he and Wyatt would most definitely be addressing that issue once the kid wasn't trying to kill him). Annoyed, he grumbled, "And he's very wet."

Giving up on trying to figure out the absurdity of the one situation in order to work on this new one, Phoebe tried not to look too amused at her obviously uncomfortable nephew as she asked, "Where did you go?"

Irritated, Christopher bit back, "I didn't go anywhere. He orbed me to the roof!"

Wyatt's thumb popped out of his mouth long enough for him to shout, "Go 'way!" As soon as his thumb was back in his mouth, he blinked his eyes. Bluish orbs surrounded his adult younger brother once again, starting upward.

Christopher was ready for it, though, and he immediately settled himself back onto the floor. Instead of bothering to ask anyone else, he went straight to the source, even though he knew he wasn't going to get an answer. That game was going to get really old really fast, and he didn't want to play anymore. He leaned his face in as close to Wyatt as he could without being shocked again and asked him in as nice a voice as possible, "Okay, Wyatt. What's the deal?"

Wyatt pulled away and started crying, burying his face into his grandfather's shoulder. His voice was high-pitched and tearful as he told his mother, "'Ommy, 'at not 'ris. 'ot."

Confused, Penny floated down the rest of the stairs as well and asked as if it were the most logical question in all the world, "If he isn't Chris, Wyatt, who is he?"

"Bad 'an," the toddler said, tears clogging his voice and nose. He sniffled and pointed again to a very confused Christopher and tried unsuccessfully to orb him away again. "Go 'way!"

As an increasingly annoyed Christopher reconstituted himself on the floor, he flung his arms up in the air at his father. "I am not going to do this all night. Would you talk to him, please?"

Leo stepped in and got his face in as close to Victor's shoulder as Wyatt's protective bubble would allow. He put on a gentle smile on his face and tried to settle his son down. "It's okay, buddy. It really is." He straightened his neck up again and looked at the others. "We should probably get him out of here until we figure out how we're going to explain this one. Phoebe, could you?"

Never unwilling to take her nephew, Phoebe wrung her hands greedily and marched right up to her father and Wyatt. She smiled at the boy, who had yet to let his shield down. She extended her hands as far she could without being shocked and bribed, "C'mon, Wyatt. We're going to get you and your brother upstairs. It'll be a lot more fun up there than it is down here. What do you say? Your brother is going to. We'll have a lot of fun. We'll read any story you want as many times as you want. You wanna come hang out upstairs with your auntie Phoebe and Grams?"

It took a moment of smiling pleadings and a little more of her baby talk, but eventually Wyatt let down his blue bubble and allowed Phoebe to take him into her arms. As the room was plunged into near darkness again without the light of his shield, Phoebe happily squeezed her nephew tightly, smoothing his hair as she leaned him in toward her father's face. "Are you going to give your grandpa kisses?"

They made the rounds between parents and grandparents with both of the boys once Penny greedily took her new great-grandson into her arms for the first time. They all kissed the boys 'Good Night', except for Christopher, who thought it better that he stay out of the small circle until his temperamental older brother could no longer see him. He didn't feel like taking any more unexpected trips to the roof at his brother's expense. He also very carefully avoided having to kiss himself, the weirdness of it just too much for even him to handle. His day had been weird enough already.

When at last everyone was ready to head up the stairs, Piper gave her sons one last wave. To her sister and grandmother, she offered her thanks. "Come on down once they're asleep. We'll try not to say anything too important until you get back."

"We should probably call Paige," added Phoebe, nodding emphatically toward Christopher. "The last thing we need is her walking in the door to find him sitting there without some warning."

"Not yet," disagreed Leo. His throat closed up on him as he pictured the many different things that he'd felt at seeing his son alive again. He could only imagine how much worse it was going to be for Paige. She had been with him longer and seen so much more of Chris's last moments. They hadn't said anything about it, but it had become clear this afternoon that the two of them had a special understanding. They were the only ones who could really know what it had been like that day. None of them would ever understand. So now that Christopher was here and she would eventually have to see him, it was up to Leo to tell her about it. To have the news come from anyone else right now would probably make the situation worse for her right now, not better. Unsure of how to put that into words for anyone else to understand, Leo stammered along as quickly as possible. "She'll be at the club until at least closing. I'll go over there once everyone's out and talk to her then. She's going to need a little more time to work it out before she comes home and sees him. Trust me."

"Yeah," Piper agreed tightly with an uncomfortable shake of her head and squint of her eyes. "Whatever is going on with her, she's having a hard time with it. I don't know if it's Chris or what, but she's having a thing. We have no idea how she'll react to all of this. It's better if we tell her once we can give her a full explanation of things — which is also what I'm waiting for, too, so . . . " She waved at her small children and then turned her wrists around, fanning her sister and grandmother out of the way. "G'night, my beautiful little men. Now get your aunt and great-grandmother out of here so that your daddy can tell me what the H-E-L-L is going on. I love you, but go away."

"Yeah, yeah," Phoebe grumbled and rolled her eyes. They started up the first step with her waving Wyatt's small hands one more time in the direction of the people they were leaving behind. "Tell them 'nuh-nigh', Honey. Nuh-nigh."

"G'night," the various parents and brother called out to them as they started the trudge up the wooden staircase. "Night, night."

The last they heard from the children and their handlers was Penny's voice floating down the stairs in a voice that was far too loud not to be deliberate. "It's going to be just fine, Wyatt. Now that we have you away from that wicked Wiccan philistine you call your grandfather, everything is going to be just fine . . . "

Christopher gave Leo a look and, to his father's surprise, a crooked smile flashed over his face. It was gone as soon as it appeared, but it had been there. Then Christopher's still blood-stained hand raked through his hair because he needed to do something with his hands to remind him that he was safe and not as trapped as he was starting to feel. With a wry chuckle, he said to his father, "Well, at least I know now that some things never change. He still hates me, and he still wants to kill me. No, really. It's comforting."

"We'll figure this out, Christopher," Leo said reassuringly. "We will."

Thinking about the family in the future that needed that to be true as much as he needed to believe it, Christopher sighed, "Yeah. I hope so."

Another awkward silence fell over the hallway. Christopher and Leo kept looking to one another so that Christopher could keep from looking at his mother or grandfather. He could feel them staring at him, but he knew he couldn't look at them, not yet. He wouldn't know what to say to them if he turned to them yet. It wasn't until Piper tried to get his attention that words fell into place. He wasn't sure if they were the right words, but he had to use them anyway. Anything else was too hard.

"Chris," Piper started slowly. "I'm sorry, Christopher. You'd think I would be used to that by now, but seeing you all grown up . . . You look just like Chris. Of course you do. It's just . . ."

Keeping his voice a whisper, Christopher walked over to the witch and put his arms around her, feeling her hair under his chin for the first time in seven years. He knew that he was probably holding her a little too tight, but that didn't really matter. She was holding him tight enough that he couldn't breathe either. "I'm so sorry, Pi-Mom. I didn't mean to scare you. I didn't know about . . . I'm really sorry."

"But you're okay," she asked into his chest. She would sort out the mess of Who was Who and Who did What later. Right now, all that mattered was that the boy in her arms was safe and unharmed. Looking for a little more convincing, she started to ask, "The blood, it isn't . . . "

Christopher opened his eyes and glanced up at his father, exchanging a mutual look that told him that they both understood that the best thing for him to do at the moment was lie. So with a sarcastic, wry chuckle, Christopher smiled into his mother's hair and said simply, "I had a rough time getting here, that's all. I'm okay."

Piper pulled back so that she could look at her son through her misty eyes. She held on to him with one arm and wiped at her eyes with the other hand, sniffing a little as she asked, "You're sure?"

"Yeah."

Half laughing and half crying, Piper snuffled, "Okay, but if it's all the same to you, I'd still like to get you out of those bloody clothes, okay?"

Christopher pulled the bloody shirt out from his side so that he could get the first really good look at it that he'd had in the light. That really was a lot of blood. It didn't matter that it wasn't his. It was a lot of blood, and he didn't want to have to look at it any more than they did. He shrugged and offered his mother a half of a smile. "That might be a good idea. Yeah."

"Well, they'll be a little big, but your dad has some clothes in the closet that I'm sure would at least be more comfortable than these are."

"That'd be great."

Looking down, Piper kicked her toe at the scuffed up sandals on his feet. "Who let you wear those with that suit, young man?"

Leo laughed, feeling a little validated in having thought that exact same thing when he'd seen his son's ensemble when he'd come through the attic door. He continued to chuckle as he clapped Christopher on the shoulder and told him, "I'll go get you something."

"No, don't go," said Christopher all too fast but with a barely perceptible touch of panic. He wasn't ready to let his father out of his sight yet. He didn't exactly know who his allies were or how things were going to work, and since his father was the only piece of safety he had so far, he didn't want to let it go. "I-it can wait. We can go later. Let's just get this over with, 'cause if I don't close my eyes here pretty soon, I'm going to drop."

Seeing that Christopher was starting to get that trapped, uncomfortable look to his eyes again, the one he'd been wearing most of the time on the bridge, Leo nodded. "Sure. Although, you know, I really don't think there's anything else we can do tonight anyway. Unless you guys want to start thumbing through The Book of Shadows, I don't think it would be such a bad idea to call it a night."

Christopher didn't like that idea any better. He didn't want to close his eyes, not yet. Part of him wondered, if he closed his eyes and slept, if all of this would still be here when he woke up. What if seeing his parents again was only a dream? What if none of the things that had happened today had actually happened to him? What if he had to go through all of that again tomorrow? No, quitting for the night was a bad, bad idea. "It's okay. I can go for a while yet. I'm just saying that it won't be for very long."

Almost as if she could read his mind, Piper said softly, "We'll still be here in the morning. We can talk about things then."

"No. I want to get this part over with."

Leo tried to reassure his son, but was cut off at the pass. "Christopher — "

"I — "

Piper, too, tried to convince her son at the same time as her husband that everything would still be okay in the morning, only to have Christopher cut her off as well. "Honey, it's okay, if — "

Finally snapping at his parents' inability to hear him, Christopher exasperatedly groaned, "Really, you guys, I need you to — "

"Hey," Victor jumped in, his voice just loud enough to cover everyone else's. "Piper, Leo, give the kid a chance to breathe, would you? And Christopher, watch that tone when you talk to your parents, young man." As everyone took a breath and calmed down, Victor grinned around the hallway at his family, seeing them all actually listen to him for once. "Now, look. I'm just as confused as the rest of you, but none of us is going to get any answers if we're all yelling. So let's all go sit down in the living room. Piper, I'll help you make some tea and coffee. Leo, you can run upstairs and get Christopher some clothes. Then we can all sit, relax, and try to figure out how we're going to start the day tomorrow because not a one of you looks like you're ready to do anything at all tonight other than talk anyway. Is that workable? Can we all do this and not jump down anyone else's throats?"

Properly reproved, the three of them nodded at one another and Victor in peace.

Surprised at the success of his argument, Victor marveled as he tried to further his plan along. "Well, then . . . Uh . . . Great. Okay. Good. This is good. So let's get moving then. Leo, go get the kid some clothes. Christopher, go with him. Piper, let's go whip something up fast in the kitchen. We'll meet back here in five minutes. Let's go."

With that and a bright circle of anxious grins, the family moved off into their separate missions. Father and Son disappeared up the stairs, the sounds of their footfalls echoing up behind them. Father and Daughter swept into the kitchen, the sounds of Piper teasing her father fading as her stockinged feet slid across the wooden floors.

A few minutes later, people started finding their way back to the living room, milling around nervously without saying much to each other. Piper kept ducking in and out as she brought in various items from the kitchen, suddenly bound and determined to put some color in her son's pale cheeks. Victor followed her, carrying as much as he could for the apparent feast that was piling up on the living room coffee table, but he stopped when Christopher came back down. The boy hadn't changed out of the bloody clothes yet and looked like he could really use the company. Piper looked curiously at him when she came back in with a load of plates and silver, but didn't say anything, leaving the talking to her father for a moment.

Victor watched his grandson pace along the back of the sofa, his curiosity and his concern both sufficiently peaked. Softly, Victor asked, "Didn't find anything that would fit, huh?"

Christopher seemed to jump at the sound of his grandfather's voice. He looked out toward the hallway and where Leo would be coming down the stairs soon instead of trying to even allow himself to look at his grandfather. His voice was barely audible as he answered, "He's looking. I forgot that they had put the nursery in their old closet. I thought it would be best if I just came back down. I didn't want to wake Wyatt up and have him try to send me to Timbuktu or something this time."

"That's probably a good idea," Victor chuckled to cover up his concern. His gaze followed Christopher's to the stairway. He would have been amused by the look on Christopher's face if it wasn't so genuine. The last time they had seen each other, Chris wanted nothing to do with his father, but this time around, the boy obviously didn't want to let his father out of his sight. Trying to keep his grandson's mind occupied, Victor asked, "So your dad's upstairs then?"

"Yeah."

"Well, I'm sure he'll be down in a minute. So why don't we sit down, huh? You look really tired."

Christopher closed his eyes, trying not to actually hear the words his grandfather was saying. He wished Grandpa wouldn't be so . . . grandfatherly. He didn't want to do it like this. He wasn't ready. He wasn't even remotely ready to be doing this. All he wanted right now was for his father to get downstairs so that he would have an excuse to leave the room and go change clothes or something. But Leo just wasn't coming fast enough. Trying his best not to sound like he was in any way uncomfortable, he put a little more air behind his words so that they would sound normal as he said, "I'm fine."

"Please?"

Pained, Christopher did everything he could not to look at his grandfather. A tear escaped his eye anyway as he said almost cheerfully, "Grandpa, I'm really okay."

Smiling crookedly at his grandson's back, Victor agreed, "I know you are, but I'm not. This is all just a little much for me, so why don't we sit down, okay?"

Reluctantly, Christopher sat down in the corner of the sofa, squeezing himself in and trying to make himself as small as possible. Victor sat down in the chair facing him. They sat in silence as Piper came bustling back into the room with another armful. She looked between them as she made to leave and, when she saw that they weren't talking at all as she'd hoped, Piper prodded her father with a nice hard fist to his shoulder. He gave her back a nasty look until she was out of sight, then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. On a mission now, he would get something of an answer out of his grandson if it killed him.

"You know you scared your mother," Victor teased, giving his grandson a loving but evil eye. "Maybe you should burst through magical portals with a little less blood next time, huh?"

Christopher didn't know what to do or say, so he figured it was best not to say anything at all. He played with his tie instead, flipping the end of it between his index and middle fingers, watching the light catch on the metallic sheen of the black and silver checks. He had never liked ties. The only time he had ever worn one for an occasion other than for a funeral was for Phoebe's wedding when he was nine. Ties weren't anything he could associate with a happy occasion. But if he had to pick a favorite of all his ties, this one would be it. Lucy had bought it for him last year to go with the silver tie clip their grandfather had given him for sentimental purposes. Dear god, he had just buried his grandfather eight hours ago. How was he supposed to sit here and just have a normal conversation with the man when he could still taste the bad frosting from the chocolate sheet cake they'd been serving that afternoon after his funeral? He couldn't. This wasn't normal. Nothing about this was normal, even for this family. His grandfather was sitting there, being his usual self with him, and it was awful. All of this, being surrounded by family he loved and hadn't seen for so long . . . it was terrible.

That his grandson was avoiding looking at him did not go unnoticed by Victor. He gave the boy a moment, but after that, he had to at least know what was going on with his grandson. He turned on his best Grandpa grin and asked, "Hey, Chris? Talk to me. You know you can always tell me anything. What's wrong?"

"G-grandpa, I — I can't do this," Christopher muttered, unable to look at the man or stop his lower lip from trembling.

Piper, who was bending over the coffee table with yet another tray of sandwiches, set the tray down and swiveled around just enough to get a clear look at her son. Suddenly, he looked to her like he was about to start hyperventilating if someone didn't calm him down, fast. His overbright green eyes were darting around the room like he was looking for the clearest path to the nearest exit. Concerned, she crouched down, reached a hand over, and put it soothingly on his knee. "Christopher?"

"I c-c-can't," the boy said again, his teeth starting to chatter from the grief-induced chills.

Before anyone knew what was going on, Christopher catapulted himself out of his seat. There wasn't time to even call his name as he bolted out into the hall then out the front door without any further explanation. Leo was caught in the whirlwind as Christopher blew past him, too far out of arm's reach. Confused, he took one step after his boy but stopped himself, looking back into the living room. He switched glances between the door that Christopher forgot to close behind him and the shell-shocked face of his son's mother. He knew exactly what was going on without having to ask at all. Seeing all the food piling up in front of Victor, he knew. Piper had been running back and forth, leaving Christopher alone with his grandfather. No wonder Christopher hadn't wanted to be left without his father. After a moment, he saw Piper drawing breath to ask him what was going on, but he stopped her with a sad whisper. "Leave it be, Piper. You can't fix this."

"What 'this', Leo? I have no idea what's going on here. I can't fix something that I don't even know happened. Do you? You know, don't you?"

As much as it pained him, knowing how much he hated the answer, he finally understood that it was for the good of the family every time Chris had said it. He tried not to look at her as he made his way into the living room and said, "I can't tell you. It could change the — "

"Ooohhh, no, you don't," Piper angrily chuckled as she warned him. "Nuh-uh. This isn't the time for that. You tell us what's going on with him. If we are going to get through this, we are doing it as a family this time. No secrets. No lies. No 'Future Consequences'. We aren't taking any chances with this Chris or with Wyatt. I won't."

"This isn't about Wyatt, Piper. You . . . I think — You need to leave him alone right now."

"If it isn't about Wyatt, then what?"

Unable to control himself — No wonder Chris had been such a basket case before to have to keep all of his secrets; you can't even last ten minutes under the pressure, jackass — Leo sat down on the only clear space left on the coffee table in front of his wife and father-in-law. He carefully folded his hands on his knees after a quick gesture toward Victor to give himself a moment to collect his thoughts and breath. He had no idea how to explain the future to them any more than the other Chris had. Leo only wished he would have realized that sooner so that maybe he could have avoided this question a lot better. But he hadn't dodged it, and now he needed to find some way to answer them so that they would leave Christopher to himself for a while. Mechanically, because that seemed like the easiest way to go, he said, "When I got to the future, he had a house full of people. They had just come back from the cemetery." He gave Victor a pointed but sympathetic smile. "He just buried you this afternoon."

Visibly paling but more concerned about Christopher than himself, Victor muttered, "Oh, wow. He . . . wow. Poor kid."

"Yeah," Leo nodded, knowing that his father-in-law at least had some concept of what he was trying to say.

"Well, no wonder he isn't okay," said Piper sadly, somehow unable to look at her father. She reached for his hand, though, and held it tightly. "Was he — I mean, how did he seem when you got there?"

"I wasn't with them for very long, but the kids were pretty devastated. I hate to put it that way, but they were. They tried to . . . I don't know. They just seemed lost. They covered it up with jokes, but they were so very lost." Leo felt lost himself, still not quite over seeing the kids when they had been just sitting there on the attic sofa, trying to comfort one another in something that they knew they would find no comfort in. He cleared his throat, willing himself to change direction and keep himself from revealing too much. And yet, maybe if they knew something about what was going on, this time it would be a little easier for them to figure out how to solve the problem, like Piper said, as a family. Maybe just this once . . . "If Christopher wants to tell you about it, Victor, he'll tell you. Otherwise, I think you should let him have some time. He's had a really nasty day today. When they were getting ready to — That is, when we were all getting ready to leave, there was . . . I didn't get close enough to check, but I think his brother murdered their Whitelighter when they tried to escape. I couldn't tell if he was still breathing or not. His great-grandmother was blown back to the Ghostly Plane in a way that makes me wonder if she's all right. I had to leave his pregnant — Well, he had to leave someone behind after she had been injured and was tortured right in front of us by his brother. All in all, I'd say it's been a tough — " Suddenly Leo stopped and cocked his head to the side. His eyes flew open and even as he orbed out without warning, he growled angrily, "Barbas!"

"Uh, Leo?" Piper glared angrily up at the ceiling where her sort-of husband had so quickly disappeared. "What the — Great! You know what? I give up. Okay? Leo? I give up!"

Confused, Victor asked, "Who's Barbie? Bubba? Whatever?"

"Barbas, Dad," Piper almost choked, furious. Sighing as she realized that she had barely even begun to tell her father the story of what had been happening in their lives since the last time he'd been home, she slumped back into her chair again. "There's a lot about what happened with Chris that I haven't had the time to tell you about yet. You better get comfortable."

---

If you had half as much fun reading this chapter as I had writing it, then I had twice as much fun writing it as you had reading it. Heh. Thanks for reading.