Well, this is faster than I usually ever update, but I'm having fun with this, and it's easy to write shorter snippets like this. Once again, none of it's mine, but it sure is fun to play with. :-)

"Besides, I'm a father first." –Leo, "Little Monsters"

Home. If he knew one thing for certain, it was that he did not want to go home. At home, there was a new baby, and it wasn't that he was prone to youngest child syndrome, it was that he had already begun to feel as though he had never been a child at all. Not in this time, and not in that family.

When the elder told him he was still a Halliwell, he knew deep down that she was wrong. He wasn't a Halliwell anymore. He gave that up when he came back from his future and introduced himself as a Perry. Could he be Christopher Peregrine Perry now?

He would have to be.

He removed his hand from between hers and looked her straight in the eye. "I'm not a Halliwell anymore," he said. "In this time line, I'm not a Halliwell."

She cocked her head, "Well, you may not have been born, but genetically…"

"I'm not a Halliwell," he repeated. "I know you think you're doing me a favor, giving me all this extra time, giving me a life back, but I don't want that life. I can't have that life."

"Then what do you want?"

"Give me some charges. Let me work as a whitelighter. I can do that."

"And your family?"

"They're not mine anymore."

Melinda was a beautiful baby, both of her aunts agreed. Sure, she cried and fussed, but even when she was doing that it was beautiful. They argued with each other over who should hold her, and they argued over who should feed her, and they even argued over who should change her, except in that case they were arguing for someone else to do it.

When Piper and Leo brought her home, and placed her in the bassinette, the family felt a joy and a peace that they hadn't felt in a while. Wyatt was home safe and not evil, all the sisters were together, and even Piper and Leo were back together. The only thing missing was Chris.

"I'm afraid that without healing abilities, you won't be able to completely protect any charges," she said as they walked back through the gardens. "I can suggest to the council that you be allowed to serve as a part-time whitelighter, but I would rather not. You're alive. You would do more good as a witch."

"I'm not exactly alive," he said. "I'm stuck at 23 for the next 23 years. How would I explain that to normal people? Besides, I may not be able to heal, but I have other abilities."

"I'd like you to reconsider going home."

"I'd like you to give up on that."

She snorted a little and stopped in the path to face him. "You've been given a great gift, Chris, and while I think you're wasting it, it's not my place to stop you. I will confer with the other elders about your requests."

"Thank you."

Piper and Leo stood in their bedroom and looked down at the last place they had seen their younger son. The bed looked as though it had never even been touched.

"Did he go back to the future?" Piper asked.

Leo shrugged a little and ran his hand over the pillow where Chris' head had been.

"Probably not. How could he go back to a future in which he doesn't exist?"

"Maybe he wasn't our son after all, though. Maybe he was adopted, or just a friend of Wyatt's. Then he could still go back. He could be alive." She sat on the bed and put her hand over his.

"How can you say that?" he whispered, and pulled his hand away. "He was our son."

She reached her hand up to his face. "Melinda is our daughter," she said.

He searched her face. "That doesn't mean he's not ours, too."

She sighed and turned away. "I'm tired, Leo." He thought he heard her sniffling, but he let it go.

Leo left Piper in their bedroom after he had helped her settle down for a nap by finding her a blanket and removing her shoes. They hadn't talked anymore about a subject that was clearly bothering both of them. He found his sisters-in-law in the baby's room, Phoebe holding Melinda in the rocking chair and Paige putting away some of the new items they had bought once they found out they had a niece instead of another nephew. Suddenly, they had found themselves with a shortage of things in pink.

"Oh Leo," Phoebe breathed, "she's so beautiful. Our beautiful little niece. Yes she is," she cooed down at the sleeping child and continued to rock.

"Yeah, good work, daddy," Paige said and held up some little pink slippers. "See what we got her?"

Leo took the slippers and turned them over in his hands. "They're great, thanks guys."

"Whoa, shouldn't you be a little more excited about this?"

Leo handed the slippers back with a sigh. "I am excited," he said, "but I just lost a son. I can't be excited about that."

Paige and Phoebe exchanged a look. "Of course you should be sad about Chris, Leo," Phoebe said, "but he would want you to be happy. He did what he came here for. He saved Wyatt."

Leo shook his head. "He may not have admitted to it, but I don't think that's the only reason he came here. I think he knew that saving Wyatt would save the future, but I think he hoped that it would save our whole family."

Phoebe stood and brought Melinda over to Leo. "Hold your daughter," she said as she passed the baby to her daddy. Once the precious cargo had been safely transferred, she said, "He did save our family, and even gave us something precious. We should be celebrating him."

"How?" Leo asked as he looked down into the face of his sleeping child.

Paige steered him over to the rocking chair. "By raising a little girl. By raising your son to be good. By loving your wife and being nice to her sisters. By being happy."

The girls busied themselves around the room a little longer and then left quietly. After they had gone he rocked gently and studied his daughter. She had been unexpected, sure, but he loved her, just as he had loved Chris once he'd known. He wouldn't give her up now for the whole world, and he felt the same way about Chris. He had to figure out what had happened.

He put Melinda down in the bassinette and orbed away.

"The elders have agreed to your requests, but also ask that in addition to your whitelighter duties you continue to practice as a witch. Like you said, you do have other abilities."

"Okay," he said. "It probably would have been hard for me to avoid anyway."

She smiled at him gently. "Your first assignment is in Chicago. He's a university student there. We thought you might take the opportunity to take some classes yourself, maybe decide what you want to do with the time you've been given."

She reached a hand out and placed it on his shoulder. "Remember, you can always go home, if you need to." She laughed at the exasperated look he gave her, and then they were gone from the garden.

Up there, Leo found the council clacking away at each other excitedly, but a hush fell over them when he approached.

When none of them immediately spoke to him, he put his hands out in a helpless gesture.

"Where is my son?" he asked.

After some mumbling amongst themselves, one finally stepped forward. It was a woman, but she didn't remove her hood so he was unable to identify her.

She said, "Leo, go home to your family. Everything is as it will be."

Leo shook his head. "I can't accept that. I can't accept that he doesn't exist. Not after everything he did for us. For the whole world."

"A decision has been made," she said. "There is nothing more to be done."