I'm am so sorry it took so long to get this chapter! And I'm still convinced that it sucks, but something's better than nothing, right? It's not like there are many people reading this anyway. No offense. But anyway, here it is.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"Come on, people, let's go!" I shouted. "We're supposed to be at the Manor in five minutes!"

"Oh, calm down," Roxy said as she walked out of her room. "We can be there in five seconds."

I sighed. "Well, Rae still has to go get Bryan, and you know she's going to take forever because she has to stop to-"

"Don't finish that sentence." Rae's voice came from behind me.

"Okay. Just don't take forever, okay? And don't forget about Paolo!" I called when she started to shimmer.

"Oops," she said and ran to Paolo's room. "Bye!" she shouted from there. I sighed. "Come on, Roxy, let's go. Maybe we can be on time for once." She shimmered and I glistened.

We soon reappeared in the dining room of the Manor. Only the kids and Henry so much as blinked an eye at our sudden arrival, and that's all that they did. I love hanging out with this family. They know everything that we're going through.

"Good, you're here," Piper said. "Everyone sit down. We'll start as soon as Raven, Paolo, and Bryan – never mind."

I turned at her words and saw that they had just arrived. Rae sat Bryan next to Roxy and sat next to him. I took my place on the other side of her, next to Piper.

Dinner was absolutely delicious, as usual with Piper's cooking…or at leas the part of it that I got to enjoy was. Not even half an hour after we started eating Cynthia called. Rose?

I jumped and responded, Yeah, what's up, Cynthy?

Get over here, now. I didn't need any more prompting. Cynthia sounded terrified. My normally composed, annoyingly composed, sister was terrified. I muttered an excuse, I don't remember exactly what I said, then glistened to Mom's house.

As soon as I got there I saw why Cynthia had been scared. There must have been at least two dozen demons! I say "at least" because it's not like I stopped to count. In fact, as soon as I glistened in I had to duck a fireball. Most of the rest is all kind of a blur. When I came to my senses the room was about half cleared. I was looking to see how Cynthia was doing when one of the demons stabbed her.

"No!" I cried, then started to call for Andy, but Mom stopped me with a mental cry. Wait, don't! Look towards the far corner. I obeyed and saw two darklighters. I cursed and called, Rae! Roxy! Get over here! They shimmered in a few moments later and I immediately headed for the darklighters. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Raven head over to Mom, who was backed into a corner. There were demons all around, so I couldn't do anything too bad to them, but I did get my back to the wall and waited for one of them to fire an arrow, then tapped into Rae's psychokinesis using my telepathy and redirected it back at him, then used my pyrokinesis on the other.

"Andy!" Roxy called and pointed toward Cynthia as son as he orbed in, lying on the floor with Rae and Mom standing over her to keep someone from finishing the job. Andy immediately orbed her out and I got back to vanquishing demons.

I was getting exhausted from constantly using my pyrokinesis. "It'd be nice if I had an athame!" I cried. Almost immediately one thudded into the wall above my head. I grinned at Cynthia, who had thrown it seconds after Andy had orbed her back in, fully healed. He was nowhere to be seen. Ah well, he wouldn't be much help in a fight anyway. I grabbed the athame out of the wall and stabbed a demon in front of me as I watched Cynthia kill one sneaking up behind her. That girl is good with a knife!

It took a little over fifteen minutes to fully clear the room of demons and I immediately slumped to the floor. Usually demon fighting gave me such an adrenaline rush that I was hyper for a while afterward, but I felt a little lightheaded…I vaguely heard Rae call for Andy before I blacked out.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

I wasn't hurt too bad, just a little blood loss. Once Andy had finished healing everyone (we had all acquired a few wounds, mostly small ones) and we said our good-byes, he orbed back home and Rae and Roxy shimmered me – I was still a little weak – back to the Halliwells'. They had finished dinner and were eating dessert. Piper gave us ice cream instead of the pie they were eating. Thank God, because I know I for one was sweating like crazy. Ew.

We didn't stay long. It only took a few minutes before we decided to go home and take a shower, you know, get the demon blood off of us. Bryan decided to come with us and so Rae shimmered him while Roxy took Paolo and I.

Once there, of course, we had a brief fight over who would get the shower first. Rae won and so everyone else sat down in the living room (Roxy and I sat on the floor because we were still gross). "If this is going to keep up we definitely need a house."

"Stop nagging," Roxy muttered, lying down and putting an arm over her face. "I have a headache."

"You have a headache? You have a headache? I'll have you know-"

"Yeah, yeah," Roxy said. "I've heard it all before. You have a headache all the time or whatever. Blah, blah, blah."

I heard Bryan smother a laugh and had to bite my lip to keep from laughing myself. Paolo, of course, just laughed out loud and didn't stop until he saw me glaring at him. Finally I heard the two words I had been waiting for.

"Shower's free," Rae called. I glistened to the bathroom before Roxy could even move.

"Cheater!" I heard her call and opened the bathroom door.

I yelled back, "All's fair in love and war!"

"So which one is this?"

"War!" I said at the same time Rae called from her room, "Love!"

"Shut up Rae!" And I closed the door again.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

"What the hell?!" I cried. Roxy's response was, "I think you just answered your own question." A demon had just shimmered in.

Before we had fully registered the fact and had time to react (it was late that night and we were exhausted) he threw a fireball at us. We watched, dazed, as the fireball was redirected at him. I heard an amused voice say, "We have to stop meeting like this." We turned around and saw…

"Chris?" Roxy asked, shocked.

"In the flesh." Piper and Leo's future son grinned. "You girls look a lot older. How long has it been?"

"Since what? Since we saw you last or since you…died?"

"Well, the second one," he replied. "Although I didn't really die. I'll explain later." He looked expectantly at us until Roxy finally answered reluctantly.

"Almost three years."

Chris Halliwell sat heavily on the (thankfully nearby) couch. "Three years? What's the date?"

"May 15, 2007," Rae said, gave him a few minutes to recover, then asked, "What do you mean, you weren't really dead?"

"Well," he began, still looking slightly shocked. He seemed to recover, though, as he told his story. "Before I died, I faded away. The timeline had been changed already, even before Dad killed Gideon. But there's a twenty-four-hour window in which it can be fixed. The Elders weren't going to do that, but they did manage to save me. Somehow. They brought me Up There and healed me, then left me alone while they decided what to do with me. I came very close to being recycled, but finally they decided to send me back to Earth, under a new name. And I'm not allowed to see my family."

Silence followed his speech until I said, "So what's your name now?"

"Oh, right. It's not really new, but technically there's a Chris Halliwell already, so I'm Chris Perry."

"Right," I said, nodding. It made sense.

"Um…like I said, I'm not allowed to see my family, and you girls are the only witches I know in this timeline, so…could I stay here for a while?"

"Of course," Roxy said almost immediately.

Roxy!

What? He needs a place to stay, we can't just turn him away. And with that, she started talking to Chris again.

Fine! I said. Rae, where is he going to sleep? We've already got Andy on the couch! We thought for a while until I finally said telepathically, I suppose he can have my room and I'll bunk with…Roxy. You kick, and besides, we never know what you're doing in that bed, I added with a smirk.

"Rose!" Rae was so angry she said it out loud, but I just laughed. Meanwhile Roxy was telling a confused Chris that we were talking telepathically and that he'll have to get used to it.

"All right, well that's settled." I stood up. "Rae, will you help me pack up some stuff?"

She nodded, still a little mad. It was just a joke. Jeez, that woman…Anyway, we walked to my room. I looked around and sighed heavily. It was a mess.

"Great, this is going to take a while. Rae, will you start getting stuff together that I'm going to need while I go get some boxes from Mom's attic?"

"Sure," she said, and I glistened out. It took me a few minutes to find the boxes, then I glistened back to the apartment. By the looks of things, Rae hadn't done anything. I opened my mouth to say something to her, but then saw what she was doing. She was sitting on my bed, reading something in a notebook.

She looked up when I took a step forward. "Rose, what the hell is this?" she asked, holding up the notebook.

"Uh, a notebook."

"Rose,"she said dangerously.

"Fine, fine. They're notes."

"To who, exactly?"

"Oh, please," I replied. "Like you haven't figured it out by now."

Just then Roxy walked in. She took a look at the scene in my room and said, "Rae, what have you done now?"

"Me!" Rae said, indignant. "Rose is the one writing to Cole!"

Roxy gasped. "Cole? As in Cole Turner?"

"How many other Coles do we know?" I asked.

"And you want to know what the worst part is?" Rae asked. I don't think she'd been listening to Roxy and I. "He's been writing back!"

I sighed again. "Yeah, he has. Don't worry," I added, hearing their anxious thoughts, "He hasn't come back to life or anything." Quickly, before they could say anything else, I explained. I had had a prophetic dream about him, which I knew would only happen if he was in the room, because his psychic remnants would have to be really strong. So I wrote him a note and he answered. After years in Limbo he had figured out how to move things in the real world. After that, we became pen pals, of a sort.

Neither said anything after I told my story, I think they were too shocked. Finally Rae said simply, "Oh." I laughed, and after a while she smiled. "So why didn't you tell us?"

"I don't know," I said. "Have you told me about everyone that you talk to?"

"Well, no," she admitted. "But this is different!"

"Yeah, I know. Sorry?"

"Hmph," was he only reply, but I knew she had forgiven me. "Roxy?"

She waved a hand through the air. "Whatever. I'm over it." And she smiled and left the room. Rae continued to sit on my bed, rifling through the notebook. I didn't say anything against it. I didn't really care if she read the notes or not. She raised her eyebrows every once in a while and sometimes looked as if she were going to say something, but she kept her mouth shut. Meanwhile I started to do what we had actually come in there for, and began to pack. Most of the things on my floor I just shoved in boxes that I would take to Mom's later. I didn't feel like actually cleaning.

By the time I was done, only one box had been filled that was coming with me to Roxy's room. I left a lot of things in my room, including my clothes. I figured that'd be easier than trying to find room in Roxy's closet and dresser. Chris probably wouldn't mind anyway, as long as I didn't come barging in.

"Well, I'm done. Thanks for all your help, Rae," I added sarcastically.

"No problem," she replied. She turned a few more pages until she came to the last page that had writing on it. "Rose, why did you write 'See you soon'?"

"It's an expression," I said as I grabbed two boxes.

"Hm." I could tell she wasn't convinced, but what else would it mean? That he was going to come back to life? Yeah right. But then again, we did already have two dead men living in our house. I gave a breathless laugh as I thought that and glistened out.

000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000

So there it is. A new chapter. Raven's next one should be up very soon, it's already written. Although, I'm going to try and get her to rewrite some of it. She was apparently in a weird mood when she wrote it, and it's…interesting. 'Baking' is not a swear word, Rae!

Rosalyn