For one of the scenes, I channeled Mr. Stromboli from Mop Top, for those who may have fond memories of that book from childhood.
[Wednesday, April 1, 2020]
The next morning started Chris's last day of school before Spring break. There was an antsy atmosphere in the classrooms and corridors, and most teachers chose not to bother with lessons. What good would they do? The students would not retain the information in the interim week and a half before classes resumed.
When Dwight saw Chris at his locker before first period, he punched his shoulder. "Gutsy move, ditching the second-to-last day before vacation."
"Yeah," Chris agreed, swinging his locker shut. "Too bad demons don't work around my school schedule."
Dwight lowered his voice to say, "Wait, seriously?" and, when Chris gave a curt nod, "But it's, like, dead now, right?"
Shrugging, Chris turned down the hallway toward their sign language classroom. "We came to an understanding," he replied.
With an impressed shake of his head, Dwight said, "I didn't think you could negotiate with demons." A couple of people who must have overheard gave him strange looks as they walked by but only in passing before they dismissed the unusual comment from their otherwise preoccupied minds.
Chris had a similar conversation with Ms. Gowell at the end of her class that afternoon. She did not seem pleased to hear their attacker was roaming free, but Chris assured her the assassin would not pose a risk anymore. "She just wants to be left alone," he said.
During next period's English class, Dwight and Chris discussed their vacation plans. Mrs. Williams had decided to play a video of Romeo and Juliet in lieu of progressing with her curriculum. The blinds were drawn over the windows and the lights were off, leaving the room in semi-darkness that still cast a glare over the boxy television screen. Most of the students doodled or passed notes under their desks while Mrs. Williams rested her eyes at the front of the classroom.
Dwight had turned backward in his seat to face Chris, leaning over the back of his chair. "Mom planned a fishing trip for us and her boyfriend," he groaned.
"So she's still dating that Charlie guy?" Chris asked.
Dwight nodded. "The least he could do is pick a 'bonding activity' that doesn't mean waking up at five in the morning." Chris pulled a face as Dwight raised his voice to protest, "Vacation is the one time you get to sleep late!"
Reluctantly opening her eyes at the disturbance, Mrs. Williams lazily called, "Mr. Ryder, at least have the courtesy to feign attention."
Without turning around, Dwight quipped, "I think everyone else has that covered." A collective chuckle rose from their classmates.
"Be that as it may…" Mrs. Williams replied around a smile of her own. When he glanced over his shoulder, she twirled her finger in the air expectantly. With a sigh, Dwight faced forward once more.
Once class had ended and they were walking to their last period before freedom, Chris asked Dwight when he was leaving. That afternoon, apparently. His mom would be picking him up from school, in fact. She had sprung this on him the night before, likely so he wouldn't have a chance to come up with a way to wriggle out of it. Just enough time to pack a suitcase before leaving for school that morning.
After the last bell rang, Chris hung around on the stoop outside the front doors with Dwight until his mother's Honda pulled up at the end of the walkway. Chris shaded his eyes to catch a glimpse of the balding man seated in the front passenger's seat. Despite the lack of hair on top, the man possessed a long ponytail at the nape of his neck. "That him?" he asked. Glumly, Dwight nodded. He reached for the knapsack sitting at his feet. Chris wasn't sure what to say in such a situation, so he just wished Dwight luck as his friend forced his feet into motion.
He did wish he had the chance to hang out with Dwight over Spring break, but truthfully it was likely better this way. During his last vacation, magical lessons had nearly torn apart their friendship. Of course, Dwight hadn't known Chris's secret back then, but the memory was still fresh in Chris's mind and left him hesitant for a repeat performance.
This also came with the added benefit of giving Chris extra time to dedicate to his charge. He hadn't seen Jake since the boy's birthday almost a week ago. Bianca's attack had made another visit impossible. Now, he could devote much of the next week and a half to the boy. Starting now.
As soon as Dwight's car pulled away, Chris headed around the building to the back, where his orbing alcove waited. Wyatt had already left; Chris had seen him board the bus while waiting with Dwight at the school entrance. (At the time, it had struck Chris as odd that his brother would take the long way home in lieu of orbing, but he figured Wyatt wanted to spend a bit more time with his friends before vacation officially started.)
Materializing at home to drop off his knapsack, Chris orbed to Jake. As expected, the boy was at his desk in his room, writing busily, his face hidden beneath a broken-in baseball cap. When he heard Chris appear, he put down his pencil but didn't look up.
Though Chris couldn't say what, something felt off. Frowning, he took a step closer. He stopped, however, when he saw Jake's shoulders tense. "Jake?" he said, inflecting so that the name itself came out as a question. The last time they had seen each other, Jake had been all smiles. What had changed?
Especially when Jake seemed so guarded already, he didn't want to issue demands, so he phrased his next words instead as a request. "Would you look at me? Please?"
Slowly, Jake twisted in his chair, lifting his gaze while only barely raising his chin. With one hand, he tugged his cap lower over his forehead. His eyes glimmered.
"Jake, what's wrong?" Chris asked desperately, but the boy only shrugged. With a knot of dread settling in his stomach, Chris said, "Did I… did I do something?" Quickly, Jake shook his head. The relief Chris felt at the certainty of his response was not long lived. It filled him instead with a shrewd sort of trepidation. Narrowing his eyes, he said, "Was it your mom, then?" This time, Jake refused to answer.
Anger flashed in Chris's gut, but as quickly as it reared its head he reined it in. If he showed it, Jake would shut down, he knew. Instead, he gave himself a moment before he spoke. Sliding forward, he said carefully, "Jake, I'm not mad. I just want to know what happened. If she hurt you, I can get someone to heal you." He almost added, "Remember last time?" before, at the last second, recalling the spell he had cast to wipe clean Jake's memory of the demon's attack. Jake might still recognize Wyatt, but he would have no recollection of getting healed.
Remaining silent, Chris reached out a hand to placate the boy, but Jake's shoulders only hitched higher. At last, averting his eyes to the carpet at Chris's feet, he mumbled, "She didn't hurt me."
"Then what…?" Chris wondered, feeling helpless.
Still without looking up, Jake reached to grasp the visor of his cap. With his eyes squeezed shut, he flipped the cap off his head and into his lap.
Chris stared at the mess of uneven clumps of hair stabbing in every direction. He could think of nothing to say. Finally, he managed the obvious question: "What happened?"
"Mommy said I needed a haircut." The boy shrugged miserably. "I think she was mad it was my birthday."
Chris backed up to the bed to sit down. The casual malice of the action left him almost numb. Why? What did she even gain by mortifying her own son this way? How strange that something as innocuous as cutting hair struck him in a place that even a physical blow somehow did not. The beatings he had come to expect. But this act had been so needlessly cruel. Truly, what even went through her mind to drive her to this? From a distance, Chris heard himself say, "She did this on your birthday?"
Lips pressed together, Jake nodded.
There were a million other questions Chris wanted to ask—why? foremost among them—but none that the boy would have answers to. "Oh, Jake," he sighed softly. "Why didn't you call me?" Another question he couldn't—or wouldn't—answer. And if Chris had taken even a moment to think about it, he wouldn't have needed to ask. Jake did not call him for the same reason he told no one of the rest of her abuse: to protect his mother.
"I'm sorry," Chris murmured. "I should have been here to prevent it." But Chris could see in Jake's eyes that the boy didn't blame him, didn't even blame his mother. He blamed himself.
Biting his lip, Jake admitted quietly, "Everyone laughed at me in school last week." Swallowing hard, Chris closed his eyes. "So now I'm just…" He fiddled with the rim of the baseball cap. A shrug.
Enough, Chris chastised himself. You weren't there. So be there now. Forcing his expression into a smile, he said, "Well, what do you say we fix this?" He couldn't change what had happened, couldn't protect Jake from the hurt and mockery he had already experienced, but he could do something going forward. The solution seemed fairly obvious, in fact.
Not to Jake, who stared at him with a frown. Chris jerked his chin, motioning him over, and wiggled the fingers of his outstretched hand. Hesitantly, with one hand still gripping his cap, Jake stood and edged forward. "Where are we going?" he asked.
"To a barber," Chris said, grasping the boy's hand.
"But…" Jake's voice indicated reluctance, but his pleading eyes belied his eagerness at the possibility.
Knowing that imposing this decision on him against his will would do more harm than good, Chris gave him the chance to argue, but the boy never finished his sentence. After the tiniest of nods from his charge, Chris orbed them to a secluded spot down the block from his own barbershop. He led the boy down the sidewalk and through the glass door.
There weren't too many customers inside when Chris waved Jake over to the sofa in the front of the shop to wait. Jake's head swiveled as he looked around at the rows of mirrors, the cushioned barber chairs, the mounds of different colored hair scattered across the linoleum floor.
"How come the seats are so tall?" he asked Chris. For the moment, at least, his embarrassment was forgotten.
Chris's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Haven't you been to a barbershop before?" he asked.
Jake shook his head. "Mommy says we can't afford it and that she can do it just fine." Reminded all of a sudden why they were here, he bit his lip. "Usually it's fine," he insisted.
"I know," Chris assured. "It happens." It did not, in fact, happen, at least not to normal people, but there was no purpose, certainly, in giving Jake further reason to feel self-conscious just now. "The chairs are like that so the barber can reach your hair without bending over. There's even a pedal so he can adjust the height. See?" He pointed it out on the chair closest to them.
Within a few minutes, the owner stroller over. A rotund man with rosy cheeks and a shiny, perfectly bald head. The only hair he had was in the bushy gray mustache curling over his upper lip. "Chris Halliwell!" he barked cheerfully. "Come for a trim?"
"Not for me," Chris replied, setting a hand on Jake's shoulder.
When the man's eyes fell on the boy, he guffawed. "Oh-ho! Looks like someone tried to cut his own hair, eh?"
Blushing, Jake stared at the floor, his sneaker twisting into the linoleum. "That's not what happened," Chris said flatly. Though he wanted to clear up the misconception to spare Jake further embarrassment, he knew the boy would not thank him for implicating his mother. So Chris didn't give an alternative explanation, but his glare preempted further questions from the barber.
Unperturbed, the man exclaimed, "Well, right then!" and led them both to an empty chair. "Hop up, kiddo!" Jake didn't so much "hop" as "clamor." As soon as his butt touched the seat, the barber swung a smock around his front, velcroing it closed at the back of his neck. "Now then, how about a buzz?"
The haircut ended up longer than expected. Chris had assumed, with only a cursory glance at the damage, that Jake would need almost everything removed to even it all out. But for all that Chris's barber was nosy, he had skill with a razor. It wasn't long, but the style certainly did not look out of place on a kid his age.
Chris dug a twenty out of his wallet as Jake admired his new look in the mirror. Before they left, Chris handed Jake a couple dollars so that he could stuff the crumpled bills into the tip jar. He did so shyly and smiled when the barber ruffled what remained of his hair.
"Come back soon!" he called as the bell above the door dinged them out.
On their way back down the block, Chris broached a potentially sensitive topic. "Will your mom… notice? The haircut, I mean. Will she get angry that you got it fixed?" Chris would have taken Jake for a cut regardless, but if need be he would consider an illusion spell to deceive the boy's mother. While he refused to let Jake suffer with his classmates, he also would not let this elicit the further potential harm his mother could cause.
But Jake, eyes on his sneakers, was shaking his head. "Probably not. But if she does, she'll pretend she doesn't. She probably feels bad about it." For Jake, Chris could tell, Carmen's unspoken remorse, though a non-apology, was enough to earn her forgiveness. Though this infuriated the teen, he let it pass without comment. Calling it out would do nothing to benefit their relationship.
By the time Chris returned home later that evening, Jake was fed (Chris had shown off some of his newly-Googled skills to fry him an omelet) and ready for bed. He had missed dinner at home but warmed some leftovers for himself in the microwave before returning to his room. Spring break had officially begun.
Chris's parents actually made a good-faith effort not to monopolize all of their kids' time with magical studies. While mornings were spent learning magical theory, practicing their powers, and brewing potions (with Piper since Paige's due date grew ever nearer), afternoons were, for the most part, up to them.
Without anyone to hang out with, though, Chris would have preferred lessons start in the afternoon so he could sleep in instead, but this arrangement was at least preferable to no free time at all.
Since the Phoenix attack, he had developed a deeper appreciation for Prue's brewing skills, and he watched her with half an eye while Piper walked them through standard potion steps. To Prue these sessions seemed less like lessons and more like periods for her to experiment.
Remembering how she had reacted the last time he had commented on her abilities, he tried to compliment her often. Whatever it gave her, it certainly helped Chris to see her as more than a pesky younger sister. A full-fledged witch, a person with her own wants and needs. It felt silly that he had never truly stopped to consider this before her help with the assassin, so he tried to be mindful and make up for it now. She seemed to blossom under the positive attention, smiling more readily at her brother and wheedling and provoking him with less frequency each day that passed.
Wyatt, on the other hand, had been acting rather strange since the Bianca encounter, though Chris felt as if he was the only one who noticed it.
One afternoon, after a lecture from Leo on where neutral magical creatures, like gnomes and leprechauns, fit into the Great Balance, Chris spotted Wyatt slinking up to the attic. He followed and found him poring over a page in the Book.
This in itself wasn't unusual. Wyatt often consulted the Book before orbing down to the Underworld for a bit of demon hunting. But something about the hunch of his shoulders, the taut, almost anxious, expression on his face made Chris wonder if there wasn't more going on here.
"What are you doing?" he asked casually as he stepped into the room.
"Research," Wyatt grunted without looking up. He jotted something down on a notepad he had propped beside the Book, then flipped to the next page.
Chris gave his brother a once-over. Khaki pants, a striped red t-shirt, sweat socks without sneakers. Where was his trench coat? His combat boots? Folding his arms, Chris remarked, "You're not exactly dressed for a demon hunt."
Looking annoyed, Wyatt shot his brother a glare. "That's because I'm doing research," he repeated impatiently.
Chris snorted. "You never just research. I research. You go hunting."
Something shifted in Wyatt's eyes as he quickly averted his gaze. Though he tried to feign nonchalance with a shrug, Chris noticed the flash of fear before he could tuck it away. "You don't have a monopoly on research, Chris," he snapped to cover up his emotions.
Chris didn't let himself get misdirected by the hostility. Dropping his arms to his sides, he stepped closer to the lectern. "Wyatt, what's wrong?"
Raising a defensive shoulder, Wyatt insisted, "Nothing."
Chris eyed his brother carefully up and down before he guessed, "Does this have to do with your new charge?" It was true, since his taking on that new responsibility, Chris had noticed a sharp decrease in Wyatt sneaking down to the Underworld, but somehow this seemed different. There had been no fear then, only less time for such extracurricular activities.
Wyatt rolled his eyes. "No. Because there is no 'this.' It's all in your head." He aggressively flipped the next page and made a show of ignoring his brother.
Losing patience, Chris snapped, "Don't treat me like an idiot, Wyatt. You're acting weird. Maybe no one else has noticed because they don't know how often you used to go on your little field trips, but as someone who was in on the secret from the beginning let me tell you it is beyond obvious." He slapped a palm over the page Wyatt was pretending to read, forcing him to look up. "Explain." When Wyatt said nothing, he added in a flat tone, "I won't leave you alone until you do."
After a brief standoff, where each employed his most impressive glare, Wyatt sighed and looked away. Chris took this as a sign of surrender, so when Wyatt nudged his hand off the Book to start turning pages, he let his arm drop away. He flipped backward several pages until landing on a highly-stylized entry with two faces that Chris recognized, with shock white hair and blood red eyes.
"The Parasites," Chris said without reading the title. He scrutinized Wyatt's face. "What, do you think they're still a threat? That they're still out there?"
But Wyatt shook his head, his eyes scanning the paragraph that he had already committed to memory. "No, they're dead. At least for now." Before Chris could ask about that cryptic statement, he continued, somewhat begrudgingly, "That's never happened to me before, okay? I've never not been able to rely on my powers."
"Well, welcome to the club, then," Chris teased, but Wyatt didn't smile.
Instead, he looked more frustrated than before. "Look, I get that I'm lucky, okay? That I'm 'blessed.'" He rolled his eyes as he uttered the word. "I get that it's normal for you to be helpless, and that I'm spoiled and probably too self-involved, but it's not normal for me."
Chris could have taken offense at Wyatt's casual sense of superiority, but he didn't. It was the truth, after all. More importantly, even if it hadn't been true, that wouldn't negate Wyatt's fears in the now. Chris, who had come to terms with the reality of his own frailty years ago, had as a child been able to run into his parents' reassuring arms and have them promise they would always protect him, he would always be safe. And at the time, Chris had been young enough to believe it. As he grew, he had been able to come to terms with his vulnerability a little at a time.
For Wyatt, being at someone else's mercy was a wholly foreign experience. What must it be like to think yourself invincible for years only to have that belief ripped from you in one harsh instant? He had every right to be afraid.
"I get it," Chris sighed. "And it's fair. And I'm not saying I'm glad it happened, but maybe it is sort of a good thing." Wyatt looked up sharply, hurt flashing in his eyes. Expression warm with sympathy, Chris held up a hand to forestall an argument. "No, hear me out. Whether you wanted to believe it or not, you're not immortal. The way you acted would've gotten you killed eventually. You're the most powerful solo witch there is, but even demons get a lucky break sometimes."
Expression bleak, Wyatt said, only half joking, "So, what? I should just wait for the right demon to get me?"
"Obviously not," Chris huffed. "It's just… a wakeup call. Don't be stupid. Be responsible. Don't get yourself killed."
"I thought I was being responsible," Wyatt complained. Chris chuckled. "It's not funny, I'm serious!" Wyatt insisted.
"That's what makes it funny," Chris said. When Wyatt only glared, Chris tried his best to swallow his grin and school his expression back to empathetic. "You know who you're like? Katie."
Sighing, Wyatt thumped the cover shut on the Book. "How's that?" he intoned, leaning against the lectern as he stared at his brother with one eyebrow raised.
Chris jerked his chin toward the other end of the room, persuading Wyatt to head there with him. The two sauntered over and plopped themselves onto the sofa, Wyatt turning sideways, raising one leg to the cushion, and hugging his knee to his chest as Chris began to explain himself. "When Lea and I were helping her practice how to become tangible, she had no concept of the idea of avoiding an oncoming object. Seriously. We had to teach her how to duck."
Despite himself, as he rested his chin on his kneecap, Wyatt smiled. "Your problem is," Chris continued, "you suddenly learned about oncoming objects. But instead of ducking, you're hiding in a bunker so nothing will reach you at all."
"So I need to learn how to duck, is that it?" Wyatt remarked dryly.
Chris shrugged. "Basically." He could see Wyatt's shift in emotions, the way the tightness in his shoulders unwound, and offered an encouraging smile. "And also how to rely on others for help sometimes," he added pointedly.
"Yeah, yeah," Wyatt grumbled, tossing a throw pillow at Chris's head. "I get it, O' Wise One."
Catching it inches before it hit his face, Chris chirped, "That's me."
With a sly smile from Wyatt, a book on the shelves behind him got swallowed in orb light and soared straight at Chris's face. Easily, Chris dodged the missile, laughing, then spread his arms wide and, flashing a smirk, quipped, "See? Ducking."
Wyatt rolled his eyes. As Chris floated the book back to its spot on the shelf, watching it wriggle into place, he asked, "So how is your new charge working out? Devon, right?"
With a nod, Wyatt's expression turned contemplative. "Okay so far. He doesn't know I'm a witch yet, but he trusts me. He's sort of taken me under his wing, which I feel is the best relationship for us right now. He's protective. I figure one day I'll pretend to accidentally expose my powers so he'll know I'm safe to talk to about that kind of stuff. See if maybe me acting freaked about magic will force him to reassure me about it. I'm hoping it'll help him embrace being a witch. He seems reluctant to be one." He dropped his leg to the floor and draped his arm over the back of the couch. "Mostly I'm just taking it slow."
"Smart," Chris said with approval. As if he, still a novice himself, had any wisdom to share. But nonetheless, Wyatt seemed to appreciate the judgment.
Most of Spring break was a quiet affair. Chris did seem to gain a modicum of control over his powers over time, though he still wouldn't call that control useful. A couple of times, he managed to manifest one of his monochrome visions into existence, but he had no ability to preemptively determine what he would see. The visions that appeared remained not quite random but beyond manipulation at the very least. And still incredibly mundane.
He saw his parents, many years younger, curled up together on the sofa, watching a movie, Piper's head on Leo's chest, Leo's arm across Piper's shoulder. He saw Prue as a toddler in onesie pajamas, wandering down the hall with her favorite knitted blanket dragging on the floor behind her as she rubbed nightmares out of tearful eyes and parted her lips to mouth, "Mommy!" He saw Leo carrying in groceries from the car.
When he wasn't practicing his powers or taking other magical lessons, he was with Jake. The boy's vacation had started half a week after Chris's and would last a full week after Chris would return to school, so Chris wanted to get in as much quality time together while they could.
Within a couple weeks after returning to school, Chris knew that he would need to start preparing for final exams. He wanted to spend time with Jake before extra time became a faint memory.
Most days, he took Jake to the boy's favorite pizza place for a late lunch. Sometimes they went to the park, sometimes to wander around the mall, and sometimes they stayed at home with free reign of the house since Carmen was usually at work.
The boy seemed much happier with his new haircut. The prior reluctance to leave the house morphed to eagerness to show Chris around his neighborhood. Often, they took the long trek home instead of orbing so Jake could point out the aggressive barking dog down the block and the boarded-up house that had been abandoned at least as long as Jake had lived there.
Chris kept himself so busy that he barely noticed how infrequently the abyss took over his subconscious those nights. Perhaps it was a consequence of gaining more control over his powers, perhaps some other cause. Whatever the reason, Chris was relieved to get some uninterrupted sleep for once. He could do without Krissy and Merlin going at each other's throats, Demon cheerfully attempting to rile everyone up, succeeding with almost everyone but Perry and, surprisingly, Ian. And Sir Christopher's nobility got old fast.
Before he knew it, a full week had passed and the end of Spring break was beginning to encroach upon him. He went to sleep Thursday night wishing he had more time.
On Friday, at three in the morning, the phone rang. Piper, groggy with sleep, reached across her bedside table to answer it. It was Henry, clearly frazzled, too mixed with nerves and excitement to string together a coherent sentence. "Piper! Oh good, did we wake you? Probably, right? What time is it? Never mind, it's Paige! I mean, the baby—the water. I mean—Paige's water broke. We need to get to the hospital. But Bobby—"
Laughing, Piper cut him off. "I'll send one of the boys over to bring Bobby back here." She sat up, shaking Leo awake, and mouthed to her husband, Paige.
Prue, the lightest sleeper, came stumbling out of her bedroom when Piper did. Rubbing sleep from her eyes, she mumbled, "Was that the phone?"
"Aunt Paige is having the baby," Piper replied, going to Wyatt's door to knock.
Prue perked up. "Really?" she asked. Piper motioned for her to keep quiet, but the conversation in the hallway had already alerted Chris, who inched his door open to give a bleary, "Unh?"
"The baby's coming!" Prue squeaked.
"Oh, uh…" Chris tried to give his sleep-adled brain a moment to process that statement.
There was no waking Wyatt. In the middle of the night, he could sleep through a horde of demons trouncing through the attic directly above his head. Ultimately, Chris stuffed his bare feet into a pair of sneakers and orbed, pajamas and all, to Paige's apartment.
There was chaos. Paige was on the sofa with her hands around her belly, taking sharp, shallow breaths as Henry stomped around the room, upending pillows and lamps and muttering, "Where are they? Where are they?" Bobby, who clearly did not appreciate having been woken, was wailing as he tried to climb onto his mother's lap and she kept fending him off with her elbow.
"Chris, thank goodness!" she cried when he materialized. "Bobby, go with Chris, hon."
"I don't wanna!" Bobby sobbed, flailing to reach her as she held him back.
"Come on, kiddo, you—" She stopped midsentence, wincing at a contraction. "Time?" she called to her husband, who paused his search behind the window curtains to check his watch and answer, "Three eleven."
"Six minutes apart," she panted, "Henry, we gotta go." She grimaced when Bobby pressed his face into her stomach in protest.
"I still can't find the keys!" Henry replied in frustration, pacing into the kitchen.
While the couple searched, Paige calling out suggestions, Henry checking them, Chris cajoled Bobby away from his mother and off the couch. "Let's go see Auntie Piper!" Chris chirped, hoping the enthusiasm would infect his young cousin.
But Bobby wrapped his arms around himself, stuck out his bottom lip, and pouted, "I don't wanna."
"Well, how 'bout we do it anyway?" Chris suggested. The boy stubbornly shook his head.
"Got 'em!" Henry crawled out from under the armchair, raising a fist in triumph. From his fingers dangled a set of keys.
"Good luck!" Chris offered brightly, "See you soon!" Bracing himself for a monumental tantrum, he grabbed Bobby's hand and orbed back home.
Bobby's screams of indignation were enough to wake even Wyatt. Luckily, they didn't last long. Piper, the experienced mother, had anticipated Bobby's reluctance to be separated from his parents. As soon as Chris had left, she had gone down to the kitchen to defrost some oatmeal raisin cookies she kept stored in the freezer. As soon as she handed Bobby the plate, his screams morphed to quiet hiccups. On the floor in the hallway, he plopped down and dug in.
At some point, everyone migrated downstairs to gather around the dining room table. Piper microwaved a whole plateful of cookies, enough for everyone.
"Soon we're gonna go visit Mommy and Daddy in the hospital," she told Bobby.
"When?" the boy demanded around a mouthful of crumbs, some of which tumbled out of his mouth when he spoke.
"Just as soon as everyone gets dressed," she said. She had already thrown on a pair of pants and a loose blouse. Leo had pulled on clothes as well. After her pronouncement, Chris, Wyatt, and Prue dutifully slid out of their seats and marched up the stairs to change.
Only Bobby, without a spare outfit, remained in his pajamas, but this didn't seem to bother him. Within the hour, the family arrived in the hospital's maternity ward and was directed to the empty waiting room.
Phoebe and Lea were only half an hour behind them. Piper had called her to deliver the news while Chris had been at Paige's apartment. Coop stayed home with Katie, who needed the sleep and would not join them until after the sun had risen.
It was several more hours before Henry came through the double doors, looking exhausted but elated. He wore a badge that said "priority" clasped to his shirt. (The rest of them had each received one saying only, "visitor.") Prue had nodded off curled up in one of the uncomfortable plastic chairs with her head on Piper's shoulder. Bobby, too, had fallen asleep in a ball on Leo's lap.
"It's a girl!" Henry announced to cheers and applause. He knelt in front of Leo and nudged his son awake. "Hey, kid. Wanna go meet your sister?" Bobby unfurled his body and took his father's hand, allowing himself to be led past the automatic doors.
By the time the two of them returned, Coop and Katie had arrived, bringing with them two dozen donuts and a teddy bear hugging a red heart. Henry tucked into a donut and then told his wife's sisters her room number and waved them inside. Piper eased Prue's cheek off her shoulder, waking her in the process, and then she and Phoebe scurried in to visit the mom and their new niece.
At some point, the cousins were gestured inside. They had to sneak past the nurse's station one at a time because the rules didn't allow more than two visitors at once. Chris, bringing up the rear, halted just beyond the double doors. The hazy sound of static he heard whenever his powers were triggered buzzed in his ears.
In front of him stood a black and white version of his father, more than a decade younger, and both his aunts. Phoebe, with short-cropped hair, hugged a pale-haired toddler close, cheek to cheek. They stood with a man in scrubs, whose lips moved soundlessly until, from beside him, a woman in smock and bouffant cap appeared holding a snug bundle. She deposited the infant into Leo's open arms. He, Phoebe, and Paige gazed down at him with glassy eyes. The baby blinked his eyes open and twitched his nose. Phoebe turned to the boy in her own arms—Wyatt, Chris realized—and murmured something to him, pressing her forehead to his.
"—lost?"
Chris frowned at the sound of the voice, too clear to have come from the vision. The voice repeated the question. "Are you lost?" He looked up and saw a nurse marching toward him, hands on hips.
When he glanced back, the vision had dissipated. "No, I, uh, no," he stuttered out. "Sorry." It felt vaguely unsettling to witness the moments after his own birth—he was certain that's what he had seen. But he shook off the disconcerted sensation to avoid arousing further notice and searched for Paige's room. His cousins had all already disappeared inside it.
There wasn't much space in the room with an eight-year-old and three teenagers crowded inside, but Chris managed to squeeze in. Paige's hair was matted to her neck and forehead. She smiled at Chris with a tired wave. Already the infant had fallen asleep in her hold, looking so like the baby in his vision that he was surprised to see her in full color. The same twitching nose, the same tiny lips. But this child, wrapped in a bright yellow blanket, had an unmistakable full head of dark hair, unlike the bald head he had seen.
Prue nudged Chris to inform him, "Her name is Isabella Ariel."
"We're calling her Ariel," Paige added.
Chris leaned over to watch the baby stir, blinking against the light. "Welcome to the family, Ariel," he whispered.
It didn't take long before the cousins were spotted by a passing nurse, who herded them out with a lecture about the rules being for patient safety and the risk to the baby being exposed to so many people at once. Nobody said anything but Chris's eyes met Lea's as they trooped back to the waiting room, and he knew they were thinking the same thing: with a mother who had the power to heal, they weren't too concerned about little Ariel's chances.
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