Summary: Piper accidentally brings Mark Chao back.
After finding Mark Chao's body and spending time with him as a ghostly apparition Piper decides to take a look in the Book of Shadows hoping to protect him from Yama. She finds a spell that is supposed to bring about the judgement of a soul and send it to where it belongs; be it heaven, hell or some other plane of existence. What the spell did though is different. It judged his soul alright, but determined it was not his time and reinstated him to his body, healed him as best it could and reviving him, just before they find his body for transport to the morgue. The medical professionals believe it is a miracle that he survived.
Piper doesn't realize until a little later what had happened as when she goes to talk to his mother, Lei, she finds out she hasn't seen him and later that evening the news announces Tony Wong as being in the hospital in a coma. They find this strange as his body is alive, but Mark's ghost is still with her though, so they decide to sneak into Wong's hideout to get proof it isn't him in the hospital. Piper is kidnapped by Wong and his men after she had gotten the proof needed, and the Prue and Phoebe save the day unknown to authorities with Wong dying at Andy's hand.
At this point Mark disappears from Piper's side as his help is no longer needed and he must return to his body. He is in a healing coma, but he wakes a few days later. When he does, he asks for Piper. The hospital asked her to come down as Mark is asking for her. Even though she knew he was alive thanks to the doctors it is still a bit of a shock to actually see him awake. It is overwhelming and astonishing; she cries and kisses his cheek gently and tells him how glad she is that he is awake. He thanks Piper for returning him to life.
Piper explains to him that while she is very happy that he is alive and, on the mend, that the spell she did shouldn't have returned him to his body. It should have helped him to heaven. She says, "I don't know what happened Mark. There have occasionally been some surprises we have come across when using magic, but I have never had one do something so far off the spectrum for what it was supposed to do. It is very strange, and I want you to tell me if anything strange starts happening to you as we cannot be sure there won't be some kind of side effects. If it is okay with you. I think I should visit often and monitor for any side effects from dying and coming back." He agrees, especially as it gives him a chance to be around her.
What Piper doesn't know is that Mark is meant to be a future Whitelighter, but he hasn't had the chance to do the good that he was meant to and gain his status as Whitelighter. A number of years into the future, after he finishes his degree in Molecular Biology, he will discover a cure for many forms of Muscular Dystrophy and with his advances it will lead to the eventual discovery of cures for other genetic diseases and helping to prevent certain birth defects. This in effect will save millions of lives far into the future. After he becomes a Whitelighter he will go on to save many more.
So, the Elders in charge up there high-jacked Piper's spell as a conduit to bring him back. They were unwilling to lose such a force of good to an ill-timed death and her spell was just the way to do it without rewinding time which isn't allowed except for special circumstances.
Mark is still badly burned and has a gunshot wound, but he'll survive. Piper decides that she is going to make a potion that will help along his healing. It won't make the healing much faster, but it will help with the pain and scarring. It will make it, so he is fully functioning and fully able to do good things in the future.
At first Prue and Phoebe were upset with what Piper had done, especially without consulting them first. Not long after an argument with Piper about what she had done, Phoebe is sent a vision and a message of sorts. She sees a few news articles about different cures for genetic diseases. After analyzing them she realizes the first article is about the discovery of a cure for Muscular Dystrophy. At first, she doesn't understand why these visions are important or realize the significance until she sees that they date 15 or more years into the future and Mark's picture is included in the last article she is shown. It is this that makes her realize that without him they may have never found the cure which means all of those other cures and advances may have never happened either.
The message she also receives is that the twist in the spell was not all Piper's doing. The spell she had chosen would have done exactly as it said it would if it wasn't high jacked by those in charge of ensuring his destiny went on as planned. With the visions and message, Phoebe understands that this wasn't Piper's doing at all, but her being used as a conduit for the Elders plans. Once she explains this to Prue, she is no longer pissed at Piper, but instead the Elders for risking Piper and their possible exposure.
Piper and Mark are very happy to use 'monitoring' Mark as a real chance for them to get to know one another better as they are definitely attracted to one another. They became very close while he was a ghost and now that he has a second chance, he wants to live his life to the fullest and having Piper in his life and possibly dating Piper is a chance he is glad to have. Piper visits Mark in the hospital every day he is there, which is close to a month as he had severe burns all over his entire body and so needed many skin graft surgeries and infection preventatives done. Although thanks to the help of Piper's healing potions it isn't as bad as it could've been and there will be minimal scarring which may later go away completely with more topical potions once he is out of the hospital. The two spend a lot of time talking about there lives, the deaths of one of their parents, their love of cooking, Piper and her sisters becoming the Charmed Ones after their Grams death, what her feelings are on being a witch and how uncertain she is and so on. Mark reassures her that she is a force of good. He also finds her magic fascinating which helps Piper more readily accept her magic.
With how close the two of them become in the months he resides in the hospital; Mark feels that it will be quite easy to fall in love with her. Piper feels the same for him and also believes it will be easier not having to hide that she is a witch from him as she sees the turmoil Prue goes through having to hide it from Andy.
Once he is finally allowed to leave the hospital and spent time at home recovering some and catching up in his classes, the two finally go on a date. Mark takes her to one of his favorite restaurants as it has exception food and great prices. Afterward they go to a movie. It was a great first date. Both being into food and cooking, enjoyed a well-made meal. They talked through dinner on various topics with passion and familiarity and the conversation never stilted and whenever there was silence it was never awkward, instead it was comfortable. The movie went well as well. Afterward Mark brought Piper home and the two went on more dates from then on.
Mark's mother Lei absolutely loves Piper. She becomes used to seeing her at Mark's side whenever she can and so isn't surprised when the two begin dating. She is a little disappointed he isn't with a nice Chinese girl but adores Piper. The two get to know one another well from visiting Mark at the hospital and sometimes going for tea after a visit to talk one on one. As Lei has such strong belief in the supernatural, Mark and Piper decide to tell her the truth of how they truly met, and she believes it is their destiny to be together. It is one of the reasons she doesn't put up a fuss about Piper not being Chinese.
Mark also gets along well with Phoebe and Prue once he starts dating Piper. They had of course visited him a few times while he was in the hospital, Phoebe more than Prue, but it wasn't often. Once he and Piper started dating though, they insisted on getting to know him and find him to be a likeable fellow. They also adore his cooking as much as Piper's.
Once he finishes his degree, he starts working for a research firm. The sisters had told him about Phoebe's visions and so knows he is heading the right direction in his research. Along the way he also decides that he wants to help the sisters where he can even if it is just by covering for them in the fight against evil. He also helps Prue tell Andy the truth without the use of the spell and run off the reporter that finds out about them. This changes things for the better as Andy doesn't die. Mark instantly likes Leo but is curious about him as his gut tells him something is off about him.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Comments are encouraged. I am also stuck, a little writer's block. So any ideas, please throw them my way. Inspiration is needed. Thank you.