Hi! I'm working on catching up on feedback, and I will, I promise. I only have internet on and off right now, so it's kind of touch and go. But! Here is a new chapter, and I hope you're all having a lovely holiday, whatever it is you celebrate. As always, none of these characters belong to me. I do, however, love them quite dearly.
"I just think that we have to face the reality that Chris's destiny might have been just to come here and warn us about Wyatt, and that's all." –Phoebe, "The Courtship of Wyatt's Father"
He went back to his studio apartment and stood in the middle of the room, lost.
His charge was dead. He hadn't been watching over her like he should have been, and now she was dead. He was a terrible whitelighter; the elders were right to take his other charge away.
He sat down on his couch and stared numbly at the blank wall before him. In ten years, he hadn't even put up pictures. He'd barely come to this place at all. He'd spent his time at work, or at class, or in parks, or by the lake. And at the coffee shop. With June.
June was gone, and he didn't have a single person he could turn to. And what could he have said anyway? I'm a crappy whitelighter and now my charge is dead?
He supposed that normally, whitelighters would go Up There and chat with other whitelighters and with elders. But he wasn't normal, and he sure wasn't going back Up There. He'd had enough of secret gardens and elders messing around with his life.
But he certainly wasn't going home either. Especially not now that he was a failure at the only thing he'd tried outside of life as a Halliwell. He could imagine Paige taunting him and Phoebe nodding knowingly. Of course he was a screw up. He was meant for one thing, and he had done it. Wyatt was safe; there was nothing left.
Leo stood for a long time, staring off into the white nothingness on the edge of Up There. He couldn't get over his shock from what the elder had told him. All this time, he'd hoped that he'd find his son, but he hadn't ever really expected to learn this.
He had imagined scenarios where Chris was growing up with another family, normal and nothing magical about it. Or where Chris had kept on living, only with no memory of where he'd been before. Or he was working for the elders, doing secret undercover work to take down evil once and for all. In all the things he had pictured, Chris had a reason for not coming home—a physical, unavoidable reason. Child status. Memory loss. Secret agent. Anything like that. He'd had a long time to dream up reasons.
Of course, he had long since thrown out dead and gone forever. That was unacceptable, and the other reasons he had thought of he could deal with. But this made him ache deep down inside.
His son had been hiding out. From his family. For ten years.
His son was still hiding out, even though he'd been told Leo would be coming for him. He was avoiding his family, his home, and everything he had ever known, for what?
All Leo knew so far was that he had charges and a job far away from California; he had asked for a new life and been granted one. Leo wished it didn't sting quite as much as it did.
On the edge of Up There, he tried to decide. He had the tools to find his son now, but apparently Chris didn't want to be found. And he couldn't go home to Piper and tell her that he'd found their son without first getting Chris to agree to come home. He wasn't going to break her heart again, so he decided to take a page from her book instead.
He braced himself for a fight and an argument and orbed away.
Chris had given up on the empty apartment and gone back down to the café. He sat at his usual spot and stared at the vacant chair across from him.
I screwed up. What do I do?
How about a peppermint mocha to start with? Then you can cry it out and I'll pat you on the back or something.
June, come on. I'm serious here.
Chris. You know what you need to do. We've been over this.
I'm not ready.
You never will be. You've got to rip that band aide off and go. No more second guessing.
He looked down into black coffee and sighed. Not only was he pathetic enough to lose a charge, but now he was talking to people that weren't even there.
The chair across from his was pulled out and he looked up, expecting to see June. Hoping to see June.
It wasn't June.
"You know," Victor said, stirring a packet of sugar into his tea, "Leo told me you would look the same, but this…" He waved his hand in Chris's direction. "This is amazing. You look exactly like the last time I saw you.
"How do I look? I gave up the smoking, just like you said, and grandkids have done me good, I think. Actual, young grandkids, that is. You, on the other hand, seem to cause an endless amount of stress."
Chris stared him with his mouth embarrassingly wide open before he shook himself and tried something more coherent.
"Grandpa, what? I mean, how did you get here? How did you know where I'd be?"
Victor looked at him over his cup at he took a sip. While he sat it back down on the table he said, "Leo brought me." He shuddered dramatically. "I hate that orbing thing you guys do. It's going to take a bit longer to get used to."
"Leo brought you? Is he here?" Chris looked around the coffee shop but didn't see him, and couldn't decide if it was relief or distress he felt.
"He's parking the car, or hiding out outside or something. Not that we brought a car. He sent me in first. Coward."
Victor took another sip while Chris stared out the front windows.
"You know," he said, "when my son-in-law orbed into my living room this afternoon, without any of my daughters or grandkids, I knew something was up. When he started pacing around my coffee table, I knew it was something big. But when he told me… I yelled a bit. I couldn't believe it, not after everything that happened back then. I mean, I never thought I would get this moment. I thought you were dead, and you can explain that to me later. But then Leo said you were alive and had been for the past ten years." Victor leaned over the table until he caught Chris's eyes and kept them. "It's time to come home."
"I can't," Chris whispered, holding the eye contact.
"You can. You should have right away, but what's done is done. We'll deal with it. All of us."
Chris broke the stare to cast his gaze back to the windows. He pictured his father there, just out of view, but it wasn't his father, not really. It was Leo. He wanted to tell Victor that they weren't even related anymore. He wanted to tell him that he didn't belong back with the family. He wanted to tell him that he was a terrible whitelighter and then orb down to Florida to stick to his other charge like glue, even if he wasn't assigned to him anymore. He said nothing.
Instead, Victor reached over and grabbed his wrist. "I'm serious, kiddo. Whatever it is, we'll take care of it. Your parents miss you like crazy, and I do, too. You've got to see Wyatt, and meet Melinda. You've missed so much, and you've been missed." Victor tugged at his arm. "Come on, I'm getting old, and I want to see all my grandchildren together at least once.
"And I want to hear about this fountain of youth thing you've got going on. You've got to tell me how I can get in on that."