Author's Notes: Voici chapter two! Don't forget to review :D

With his hands now carefully placed in front of him, Chris looked at each one of his family members, wondering what to say. Leo had been unfrozen by Piper, and the two of them were standing side by side, looking at their son. It was needless to say that he was feeling like he was being scrutinized.

"He can't be getting some kind of power upgrade, can he?" Piper mused aloud. "Most of those come within a reasonable amount of time. He's had the same powers for years."

"It's not…entirely impossible," Leo furrowed his brow for a second. "It'd be really farfetched this late in the game, but you never know. I mean, look how yours evolved after a while."

"What do you mean?" Piper asked.

"You know. You started out being able to slow molecules down, and then you became able to speed them up. And shortly after Melinda was born, you were able to choose how fast and how slow you wanted them to move. You gained full manipulation."

"But that…" Piper reached up to scratch the side of her head. "Chris is almost twenty-one. He's had his powers since he was a baby. I hadn't even had mine for a decade."

"Does it matter?" Melinda asked out of the blue. It was the first time she had spoken in a bit, and Chris looked over at her.

"Magic works in mysterious ways, Mom," Wyatt chimed in with a small smile on his face. "You and Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige are always telling us that."

Chris cleared his throat. "I think you people are missing a really important part of this. These blasts aren't anything outside of what I'm normally capable of. I've been able to do things like that for years."

"Yeah, but you usually don't do that when you're trying to get some milk." Mel stepped around the island, sipping her glass of orange juice. "You made minced meat out of the cookie jar and the toaster. What did they do to you?"

This was just getting more and more irritating, Chris thought to himself. If it were an evolution in his powers, then there likely would have been some sort of progression. He had first learned to control his whitelighter powers, and his witch powers followed thereafter. That was progression. This was…well, he didn't know what the hell it was.

And today was supposed to be their day off, of all things. That just made it worse.

"Wyatt, why don't you orb up to the Elders and see if there isn't something going on with Chris' powers?" Leo reached up to brush his fingers under his nose.

Without a word, Wyatt nodded and orbed away, leaving the four of them in the kitchen. Piper walked over to her other son and looked over him, as if she were studying him. Chris looked at her somewhat awkwardly.

"We'll figure it out," she told him. Her hands reached out and took his. "We've been through things like this before. Don't worry too much. Remember when—"

"Yeah, Mom, when you got your powers," Chris said. His voice sounded aggravated at first but it quickly turned quieter, softer. There was no point in taking his anger out on her; she hadn't done anything.

"Don't worry about it." She patted his arm and smiled just a little. "You can help me with the laundry, come on. A little normalcy will do you some good."

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According to the Elders, Chris wasn't scheduled for a power upgrade. Not that it mattered. His powers seemed to be fine after that point, even after a few tests just to make sure. When he felt confident that they weren't going to bonkers on him he felt relaxed enough to go back to doing what he had planned for the day: resting. There was no school to worry about, no demons to worry about, and in truth, that gave him the opportunity to just…enjoy himself.

But Chris was quickly beginning to realize that he wasn't quite sure how to go about doing that. Having canceled on his friends the night previous, he wasn't at all surprised when none of them answered his phone calls. Granted, he only had two people to call—Chris was sort of picky on who he hung out with—so he decided against leaving messages and just left his phone in his room on vibrate. If they called, then they could leave a message. He at least made an effort.

Once they had squared away that Chris' issues with his powers were an isolated event, his parents decided to go out and run their errands. And with their day off, his brother and sister had left the house, too. It usually didn't happen often, him being in the manor by himself. At first he didn't really know what to do with himself. It wasn't until he went back into the kitchen that he noticed there was a list of things to be done that his mom had written up before she left. There apparently was laundry to fold and some dusting and straightening up to do, and despite the fact that he really didn't have anything to do, he…didn't much feel like doing that. Cleaning had never been something he cared for.

There had to be something to do, he thought.

Chris was walking through the dining room when he noticed a collection of white-blue orbs forming just off to the side in the conservatory. Soon thereafter stood his cousin, Henry. Like his parents, Henry had dark hair and somewhat pale skin, and he was sort of tall and gangly like his mother. He was just a couple years younger than Chris was, closer in age to both Melinda and their cousin, Patty. Still, Henry was the cousin he got along the best with, because he was the only other boy next to Wyatt.

And there were still some sibling issues involved there, even if Chris didn't want to think about that.

"Henry!"

"Chris!" Henry looked a little surprised. "Hey, dude. I was hoping you were here, actually."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah." Henry stepped into the dining room and gripped one of the chairs by the table. "Listen. Janice and Sam have a whole bunch of their friends still over from this…absolutely insane sleepover they had last night, and I couldn't be around a bunch of screaming thirteen year-olds anymore. So I thought I'd come by here and see if you, Wyatt or Mel were around and wanted to do something."

"Mel and Wyatt are out," Chris told him. "But I'm here, and I don't have anything going on. I was supposed to go out last night, but there was a demon we had to fight. The damn thing freaking drooled on me." He rubbed his neck, which seemed to tingle and grow warm at the thought. The skin there felt just a bit drier than usual, but he didn't think much of it.

"You know, only about a year longer and I'll be able to help you guys. Then no demons should drool on you, cause we'll keep them all sufficiently distracted. And…wait, can't Patty help, too? Or doesn't she already?"

"Patty should be able to now, but since most of the demons we've been going against lately don't really…require empathy, she…hasn't been needed much." Chris didn't realize how bad that sounded until it came out of his mouth, and when it did he made a face. "Crap. Heh. Well, she's got that feeling projection, too, but you—"

"Yeah, it's cool. I know what you mean. Don't worry." Henry folded his arms over his chest, grinning slyly. "Just…don't let her hear you say that. Cause I think she might just kill you."

Chris laughed. "Her and Mel both. You know, Mel's more like a sister to her than she is to me. And I'm her brother. It's crazy."

"Yeah, well, I feel closer to you than I do to my sisters, so I guess it works. But!" He shrugged, "Enough chat about sisters. Ruins the day. What should we do? Wanna go see a movie?"

"A movie sounds pretty good," Chris said. "There's that new one out…I can't remember what it's called. But anyways, yeah. Let me just go grab my hoodie and my wallet and I'll meet you there, all right?"

"All right, cool. See you in a bit."

Henry orbed out of the dining room then, presumably to the alleyway behind the theatre that he, Chris and their siblings and cousins usually went to. He headed upstairs to grab his wallet, and then went back downstairs to grab his hoodie. Today was cooler than it usually was for a May afternoon, though for that, he was thankful. Fidgeting with his blue hoodie a bit before he locked the front door, Chris then focused on the alleyway behind the movie theatre, expecting himself to orb.

And orb he did, though it took a little longer than Chris had expected it to. On top of that, once he was actually in the air above the sitting room, he felt almost like he wasdrunk—dizzy, out of focus, and hazy. He hovered above the staircase for a minute before he felt himself losing control. With a thud Chris materialized, the momentum of his orbing causing him to hit the wall near the window. The shock of it paralyzed his body momentarily, and his body collapsed on the platform below it. It tumbled down to the hardwood floor below.

For a moment, he felt nothing. Then it all hit him like a ton of bricks, and Chris rolled over on the floor, groaning with a quiet whimper afterward. That had hurt a lot more than even being thrown against the wall by a demon and nearly choked to death, and that worried him. He slowly lifted himself up to a sitting position before he stood up and wobbled just a little. He was holding onto the banister when he saw orbs forming just in front of him.

It was Henry. "You coming, Chris?" he asked, looking a little confused at first. It turned to concern shortly thereafter at the sight of his cousin resting against the banister.

"Yeah, I'm fine. I just tripped and the banister caught my fall." Chris laughed as he pushed himself away. He still felt lightheaded and his body was throbbing. "I'm new to walking apparently."

"Come on, I'll orb us both. No worries." Henry reached out and clasped Chris' shoulder, and soon the two of them were orbing off to the theatre.

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"Chris…Chris. Come on. Wake up. You're gonna miss class."

Chris, curled up underneath his bed sheet and comforter, groaned quietly. Wyatt was shaking him, and coupled with the sound of his brother's voice, was enough to wake the younger one up to where he couldn't easily fall back asleep. Unlike usual, he woke up feeling tired, ill at ease and with a mild throbbing in his head that made him think he was going to get a headache.

"Chris. Damn it, come on. Mom'll kill you if you miss class! I'll meet you downstairs."

He didn't move until he heard the door shut behind him. Chris peeped his head up and out from beneath the covers, and he immediately regretted it. The sunlight pouring in hit him hard, and his eyes stung. He closed them and almost hissed from the pain. Wyatt could have at least shut the damn blinds. Now he was going to have a headache for sure.

That was the least of his worries at the moment. If he missed class again, he was for sure going to hear it from his mom, and so he slipped out of his bed and rubbed his hands up and down his face a few times. It always took him a bit to wake up in the morning so he didn't think much of that when he got dressed and headed down the stairs. And he certainly didn't know that he was looking worse for wear. But, when he stepped into the kitchen, Wyatt had no problem in letting him know that.

"Chris, you look like someone hit you with a two-by-four."

Chris' face fell and he glared near daggers at his brother. If they hadn't been alone in the kitchen, he probably would have tried to kill him. He was feeling overly sensitive for reasons he wasn't really sure of.

"Gee, thanks, Wyatt," he said flatly, heading for the fridge to grab himself the milk again, but slowly and carefully this time. He looked back at his brother who was over by the basement door. It was then that he caught sight of the time, and he nearly dropped the milk. "You couldn't have woken me up a little earlier? I've got like, five minutes!"

"What?" Wyatt looked up above him and at the clock. "I thought your class didn't start until ten?"

"No, nine," Chris corrected, voice coming out almost as a whine. He hurriedly placed the milk back in the fridge and turned around, feeling slightly woozy. He lifted a hand to his head, closed his eyes and took a slow, deep breath. This was the last thing that he needed right now…

Or dealing with a charge was. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind he heard a somewhat loud, urgent sounding yell of his name. He recognized the voice—it was one of his most recent charges, one that had had a lot of difficulty adjusting to the fact that they had a magic power. Why someone was after them now of all times…not only was it annoying, but it was inconvenient.

"Damn it," he muttered.

Wyatt recognized that look, and he stared at his brother with his head cocked to the side. "Charge?"

Chris just nodded. "I've gotta get out of here."

But he hesitated as the memories of what had happened just yesterday when he tried to orb came back to him. He saw himself crash into the wall, fall down the stairs and land on the ground. The images were quickly broken by the increasingly loud cries of his charge. He had to go. Wonky powers or not, they would straighten themselves out. They were gonna have to.

Unaware of the fact that his internal worry was beginning to show on his face, Chris focused on his charge, feeling himself begin to orb. The strange sensation from before came almost immediately, but he refused to let it affect him like it did before. The only thing that was different about this time was the fact that he couldn't feel himself moving. He was stationary, almost stuck in place. Until—

As if Wyatt had used his telekinesis on him, Chris felt his body suddenly jerk to the side. He materialized while simultaneously flying sideways with a slightly upward angle. Before he knew what happened he felt himself slam against the wall not too far away. He cried out both in surprise and pain, body giving way and falling onto the kitchen floor.

"Chris!" Wyatt was beside his brother in a moment's time, but he was hesitant to touch him. He didn't want to hurt him. "Chris—God—you okay?"

Chris responded with a sneeze that caused the nearby kitchen chair to fly across the room at the island and shatter. Both of them ducked.

Wyatt furrowed his brow worriedly.