Since the story is about to start the new year, I wanted to just let readers know this in advance (though I can't imagine anyone particularly cares). This story was originally conceived of over a decade ago, and it would be a vast departure from the plan if I included all the ramifications of COVID, though we'll be spanning that time period. So don't expect anything about lockdown, etc. We're just going to pretend that this is still being written in 2004 and the year 2019 is some distant future date that we can only dream of.

(Year: 2010)

At Carmen's appointment with her OB/GYN, they told her she was four centimeters dilated and should not bother driving home. Instead, they called her an ambulance to take her straight to the hospital, where she signed in and waited in a quiet room for the bustle to begin. While she waited, she left a voicemail for Adam, asking him to please retrieve her hospital bag before he came. It had not occurred to her to bring it with her for a regular checkup for the baby, despite the fact that she'd been feeling contractions all throughout the morning. People got fake contractions all the time. She had convinced herself they meant nothing.

Hours later, once she had been set up with an epidural, was when it first struck her that Adam still hadn't arrived. "Is there anyone else you'd like us to call for you?" one of the nurses asked gently. "What about your parents?"

But how could Carmen call her mother, who had never approved of her boyfriend, certainly hadn't approved of a child out of wedlock, and had insisted this baby would be the worst thing that ever happened to her life?

"My boyfriend will be here," she assured the nurse who had spoken, "He's probably on his way right now." This nurse exchanged a look with another busy straightening out Carmen's blanket but said nothing further.

He would come. Of course he would. Sure, he may have expressed some reservations about becoming a dad, but Carmen knew all he had to do was hold their baby for the first time, and everything would slot into place. Her own father had always said the same happened to him, and he had been the perfect father. This baby would make everything right for both of them.

When, two hours later, she was nine centimeters dilated, Carmen caved and had them call her brother Michael. She also left another voicemail for Adam, reminding him of the hospital's address in case he had missed it the first time and telling him he didn't need to stop at the house to collect the hospital bag first.

Michael arrived in time for the birth; Adam did not. Afterwards, they briefly placed the squalling infant on her chest before whisking him away for a standard run of tests, leaving Carmen alone in the room with her brother.

"Congratulations, Car. He's beautiful."

She forced a smile to her face, but it slipped from her features quickly enough. She told herself it was because she was tired, though she could not stop her eyes from regularly straying to the open door, waiting for a certain visitor.

Michael carefully avoided bringing up Adam. As he settled into the chair beside her, he asked, "So have you thought of a name?"

She and Adam had discussed it often. Or, rather, she had repeatedly mentioned it to him, leaving him to shift in discomfort and change the subject. Nevertheless, she had settled on one early on. "Jake," she supplied, and Michael flashed her two thumbs up.

By the time a nurse wheeled Jake back into the room in a basinet, Carmen had fallen asleep. Jake's baby-gray eyes were open, his nose scrunched, his fingers curling and uncurling beside his head. Michael peered into the basinet. When he extended an index finger, the infant latched onto it.

"Hey, kid, I'm your uncle," Michael whispered. "Your mama's sleeping." Jake made a soft noise, then cracked open his mouth in a yawn. Once he closed it, Michael saw the tiniest of dimples creviced in one cheek. "You be good to your mama," he instructed solemnly, "She loves you very, very much."

The very next evening, the hospital discharged mother and son. Adam had not shown up once, but neither Carmen nor Michael, who had stayed with her overnight, brought this fact up.

Not even when he drove her home, helped her unload the car and bring the baby into an empty, dark home. Not even when Carmen entered her and Adam's bedroom and found half the drawers pulled out of the dresser, hanging there glaring and vacant. She did, however, fall to her knees in the stained carpet and began to sob. And when Michael lugged the car seat in after her, he set it down and knelt to embrace her silently while she cried.

[Sunday, December 22, 2019]

For Chris, who led a double life, vacation never really meant time off, not fully. He couldn't go away somewhere for a week with friends or spend every moment lazing around the house in pajamas to bask in the idleness. Vacation meant more time to play catch-up with his magical education. Piper desperately wanted her children to lead normal lives but not at the expense of their heritage.

So while her own class of adolescent witches at Magic School got to spend time with their families at home, Aunt Paige came to hound Chris, Wyatt, and Prue about potion making and spell casting. Aunt Phoebe took some time off work to pitch in, teaching the kids about some of the more esoteric art forms, spirituality, other planes of existence. Their father, meanwhile, educated them about the vast responsibilities of a fully-grown witch, the expectations they would one day need to uphold. And their mother pushed all the large furniture to the edges of the attic to create an open space where she could train them rigorously in the use of their powers. For the three Halliwell children, winter break was no true break at all.

Normally, the adults made sure to give the children at least some time away to spend with friends, usually the afternoons, but Chris's vacation took an unexpected and unpleasant turn early on. The second afternoon of winter break, after Wyatt, done with practice, had orbed out of the attic and Leo had left to drive Prue to a friend, Piper had held Chris back. "I think we need to spend extra time this week, Chris," she explained, her voice apologetic but firm.

"Are you kidding?" Chris protested, throwing up his hands. "That's so unfair!"

Piper rested a hand on his forearm with a grimace. "Fair or not, it has to happen. You have a new power. That's difficult for anyone to go through, let alone a witch at a mortal high school. We have to make sure you have a handle on your abilities before you return to school."

"That's totally unnecessary," he snapped, wrenching out of her grip. "I'll be fine. I'm the only one who can even see my power working, so it's not as if there's a risk of exposure."

"For now," Piper cut in. "But we have no way of knowing if that'll change."

"It won't," he insisted, though he could guarantee no such thing. He crossed his arms, glaring down at Piper. "Mom, I have plans. Dwight and I are going to see a movie. The new Knives Out; it's supposed to be really good. I can't cancel again. I can't."

Piper sighed. "I'm sorry, Chris. Reschedule it for next week. If we make enough progress, you can go then. We should really have done it the moment you told me about these powers, but you were in the middle of exams, and I didn't want to jeopardize your grades."

Chris stormed over to the couch pushed up against the window. "But you can jeopardize my social life?" he countered bitterly. He refused to look at her, staring instead at the driveway out the window.

"Oh, don't be so dramatic," Piper replied, losing some of her patience. She followed him to the couch and slid up beside him, her own arms folded. "Just call Dwight to reschedule. I'm sure he'll understand."

But he wouldn't understand; Chris was pretty certain of it. Though the past few weeks had been pretty good between them, Chris still remembered All Hallow's Eve, the conversation they'd had, the friendship he had almost lost. Dwight had always been pretty forgiving, but he had reached the last straw. I'm done being mad at you, he had said. You flake again and I'm out.

But he couldn't very well explain that to his mother, could he? And she didn't leave him a choice. Dully, Chris trudged downstairs to his room to dial his friend's number. Dwight picked up on the fourth ring, his voice coming in tinny from the receiver. "Chris, what's up? I was thinking I'll pick you up in an hour. Figured we'll get the best seats if we're a bit early."

Chris heard his friend's chatter from a distance and waited for him to pause, to ask if everything was okay, before he spoke. "I… can't… go. My mom—I'm grounded…"

There was a long pause on the other end. Chris couldn't bring himself to break the silence at first, but eventually he could bear it no longer. "Dwight?" he said timidly.

"Grounded," Dwight repeated in a deadpan, "Right."

"Yeah." Chris grasped the phone with both hands, willing his friend to believe him. "For the whole week. My mom, she's really mad. I thought—maybe we could, you know, reschedule? For next week." More silence. "Dwight?"

"Why bother?" the voice replied bitterly.

"Dwight, I'm s—"

"Sorry, yeah, I know. Are you seriously doing this again? Are you really—" He stopped in the middle of his voice picking up steam and then released the air from his lungs in one soft gust. Chris could imagine him running a frustrated hand through his curls. When he spoke again, he sounded much calmer. "Just forget it. I'll go with Beckling."

"Dwight, please—"

"See you around, Halliwell," Dwight said shortly before the line went dead. Chris sank onto his bed, staring numbly at the phone in his hand. What could he do? Dwight was right. Chris never put their friendship first, couldn't, and didn't Dwight deserve better than that from a best friend? His fingers closed around the phone, tightening until he felt its edges dig into his skin.

A crackly sound, like shouts at a distance, drew his attention. Directly in front of him on the carpeted floor appeared a chain-link fence, running out in both directions until it vanished into the wall on either end of his room. In front of it sat a young Dwight, maybe seven or eight, in black and white, his elbows propped up on his knees and his chin resting in his hands. The boy's hair fell in clumps into his face as he stared at the dirt between his feet.

"Not now," Chris growled, furiously scrubbing at his eyes to prevent any tears from falling.

A little boy with moppy hair and vibrant eyes raced over to him, casting a shadow over Dwight's frame. "I'm Chris," the boy stated proudly. "We're playing freeze tag."

Chris remembered this moment. Dwight had switched into his second grade class earlier that week, and Chris hadn't paid him much attention, except to apologize to him once after accidentally packing his math workbook into the wrong cubby. But that day at recess, Chris had noticed him sitting against the fence at the edge of the playground, kicking up dust with the toe of his sneaker. Chris had been frozen by "It" at the time but had promptly forgotten the game and trotted over to the boy.

The Dwight in Chris's bedroom now shaded his eyes to look up at the intruder grinning down at him with a gap in his teeth. Child Chris's voice cut in and out as he said, "…play, too? Gabe's 'It.'" Off Dwight's uncomfortable squirm, he added, "Oh, right, you're new… the one with red hair and…"

Chris watched his younger self put a hand to his forehead like a visor and point in one direction. Dwight looked over with an "Ummm…" then bit his lip and shook his head.

"M'kay," child Chris said cheerfully. Without thinking twice, he sank down beside the boy and crossed his legs into a pretzel. "Tag's boring anyway once you're freezed. Your name's Dwight, right? Let's be friends!"

Feeling his chest tighten, Chris looked away. He waited, eyes closed, until the distant shouting faded to silence, then finally looked back up. The fence and the boys had disappeared, leaving Chris alone in his room.

Though he worked with his mother for the rest of the day, Chris couldn't get his powers to work on command. He didn't see a single other vision than the one in his bedroom. He was beginning to think it would be worth faking one just to get his mother off his back when Piper called it quits.

"We'll try again in the morning," she said. Chris said nothing.

The next day he resumed training without complaint. What else did he have to complain about? His friendship with Dwight was done. While Wyatt and Prue got started on potion work with Aunt Paige in the kitchen, Piper led Chris back to the attic for some one-on-one attention.

"I asked Phoebe to help," she said, opening the door to reveal his older aunt waiting on the other side. "I know her powers are different from yours, but they both seem to have psychic elements. I thought she might have some ideas."

As Phoebe waved Chris inside, Piper closed the door and went to the couch. Chris waited silently, shoulders slumped in defeat. As soon as he stepped in front of her, Phoebe's eyes narrowed on him. "What's wrong?" she demanded.

Chris refused to meet her eyes. Stupid empathy. "Nothing," he mumbled. She cast a sharp glance at Piper, who looked bewildered, then back at her nephew appraisingly. His shoulders hitched defensively. "Let's just start already."

For the moment, she let his swirl of emotions slide. "Okay, try to clear your mind. Focus on your breathing—in, hold, out—"

Dryly, he cut in, "Aunt Phoebe, I know how to meditate."

She smiled sheepishly. "Good. Do that. Once your mind is clear, try touching something. The door or the bookcase. Using your other senses might help activate a vision."

He could have told her that his visions didn't work that way, that so far they had never come when his mind was clear but when he was unfocused with plenty to think about, too much even. But he didn't bother with any of that. Since yesterday's phone call, he didn't really see a purpose to disputing the extra work dumped on him. It wasn't as if he had competing plans to worry about, not anymore. Heaving a sigh, he closed his eyes. He missed the next look his aunt exchanged with his mother.

"All right," her voice said, interrupting his meditation. "Try the bookcase." He followed her instructions, reaching out to the shelf at eye level, but didn't hear the telltale crackle of sound that seemed to precede the use of his powers. When he opened his eyes, he saw only Phoebe before him and Piper watching intently from the sofa. Shrugging, he shook his head and dropped his arm back to his side.

"Maybe that's the wrong way to go about it," Piper called, standing up and sauntering over to join them. "Maybe he should focus on something specific, a memory, see if he can't conjure one that way."

Phoebe frowned, dubious. "I don't know," she remarked. "If he needs to already be thinking of the memory to trigger one, it seems like a pretty useless power." As far as Chris was concerned, "useless" was a perfectly apt descriptor for this power, as was "annoying."

"It's worth a try," Piper argued, crossing her arms. "It's not like your way is working."

Phoebe huffed. "It takes practice, Piper."

While the sisters bickered, Chris meandered over to the couch, taking a seat beneath the window. He stared at them through half-lidded eyes, indifferent to the end result. They would keep him stuck here, practicing, regardless of who won out. And though he couldn't say how he knew, he sensed that this power wasn't like his other abilities. Somehow, he knew they wouldn't be controllable.

Eventually, the sisters came to a compromise and had Chris start again. He followed their instructions without a single breakthrough until well past noon, when Piper had them brake for lunch. She led them down to join Paige, Wyatt, and Prue for sandwiches in the dining room. Wyatt looked no more pleased than Chris about how he had spent his morning. Prue, who loved potions, practically bounced in her seat from enthusiasm.

At the end of their break, Piper sent Chris to work with Paige for the afternoon. This, too, he did without complaint. Just before he disappeared into the kitchen, Phoebe caught him by the arm. "Chris, what's going on?" she murmured to him, keeping her voice low. "Something's up. I can tell."

Uncomfortable, Chris shrugged out of her grip and crossed his arms defensively. "It's nothing, Aunt Phoebe. Just forget it. Seriously." She stood in the doorway, frowning as she watched him march away.

After a couple of hours working on potions, Chris was halted by a hand on his shoulder. Piper had come from working with Wyatt and Prue in the attic. Tapping his stirring rod against the rim of his pot to wick away excess moisture, he lowered the flame to a simmer. "Am I back to practicing powers?" he guessed dully.

Piper's brow furrowed. Clearly, she had talked to Phoebe. "No," she said slowly. "I… was wrong about what I said yesterday. You deserve a break from studying. You deserve some normalcy. You earned it."

Chris waited a beat to make sure she had finished, then turned the flame back up beneath his potion. "I'm good, thanks." She blinked in surprise, as did Paige watching from the kitchen table. Neither had ever seen Chris turn down an opportunity to escape a potion lesson. That, more than anything Phoebe had said, told Piper something was wrong.

"Sweetheart, is there something you want to talk about?" She cast Paige a significant look, and her sister, nodding, obediently slipped out of the room to give them privacy.

"No," Chris intoned. He reached over his bubbling pot for the pickled newts' eyes just behind it, dropping two into the pot. The liquid hissed and bled from magenta to turquoise in the span of a couple seconds.

"Chris, stop." Piper's hand came down on his shoulder once again, gently turning him to face her. "I said I was wrong. Go. We'll work around your schedule. You can go spend time with Dwight."

"No, I can't, actually," he snapped, yanking himself free. Dropping his stirring rod on the counter with a sharp clink, he stormed out of the kitchen and up the stairs as a bewildered Piper watched him retreat.

He didn't get the sympathy he had hoped for from his older self that night. "It's for the best," the man said instead. When Chris stared at him in hurt shock, he clarified, "Not for you, maybe. Probably not. But don't you think your friend deserves more than the sort of friendship you can offer?"

Chris leaned over the desk with his hands splayed across the surface. He couldn't turn around to face his counterpart, mostly because he didn't want to admit to the part of him that agreed with the statement. "So, what, you just had no friends ever?" he hissed. "Is that what I should look forward to?"

The voice behind him sounded at least a little compassionate this time. "Magical creatures, maybe. Other witches. People who understand your true nature." Chris wanted to argue that Dwight did understand his true nature, better than anyone else, in fact, but his older self didn't give him a chance. "People you don't have to lie to," he continued. "I changed a lot about your timeline, but part of that means magic is still a secret here. On a cosmic level, that's a really good thing. No witches being hanged or burned or stoned. On a personal level…" Chris heard him shift against the couch cushion, leaving the end of his sentence to dangle uncomfortably between them.

Chris couldn't find fault in his older self's words. It was all true, wasn't it? Would he try to fight for Dwight's forgiveness, only to break his trust at the very next turn? Perhaps his mother had been wrong to send him to public school, but even that didn't matter. Right now, it was his reality, the life he had to deal with. His future self was right: Dwight deserved better.

Chris woke the next morning with grim resignation. But he was caught off guard when his eyes landed on the clock and he realized his mother had let him sleep in for once. When he trekked down to the kitchen for breakfast, he found both his parents at the table waiting for him. Leo usually spent the break preparing the Magic School library for its next influx of students. Chris wondered how long the two had sat there before he had woken up.

"Chris, buddy, sit, please," Leo murmured. "There's something we want to talk to you about."

Frowning, Chris slid into an empty chair across from them. "Where are Wyatt and Prue?" he asked.

"They're upstairs working with Phoebe," Piper replied. "This is important."

"Okay," he said slowly, settling his hands on top of the table and interlacing his fingers as he waited. Piper reached across the surface to cover his hands with one of her own, squeezing gently. He noticed his father's arm around his mother's shoulders in an attempt to give her strength.

"Sweetheart, we know this has been difficult," she said at last. "Living a double life like this. It's hard at any age, but hardest as a teenager." Usually, Chris bristled at any implication that he was not an adult, but in this instance he couldn't argue. He stared at her hand on his, unwilling to look up. "I may not know exactly what happened between you and Dwight, but I also might have a better guess than you'd think."

Surprised, he raised his gaze. She watched him with knowing eyes, pain and sympathy warring in her half smile. She must have lost plenty of friends when she first learned that she was a witch, he realized. And his father, in his own way, surely went through a similar pain when he became a whitelighter and had to leave everyone in his old life behind.

Blinking rapidly, he looked away again. "The other me, he says I should let it go. That it's better for Dwight not to be friends with me." Beneath his mother's grasp, he crunched his fingers into fists. "He's right, isn't he?" he continued bitterly. "I can't ever be a good friend when I have to lie about half my life."

"No, sweetheart, he isn't right," Piper said firmly. "He may be from the future, but I'm your mother. I know these things." It felt so good to hear her refute it that Chris didn't even care that he didn't really believe her. He wanted his mother to fix all of this, the way she always managed to do in his childhood. "That's why we wanted to talk to you." She squeezed his hands again, and this time Chris turned them over and opened them, letting her palm slot into his. She smiled. "I was wrong about taking up all your vacation for studying, and I was wrong about this, too."

"About what?" Chris asked with a frown.

Piper seemed to have difficulty getting the words out, so Leo supplied them for her: "About expecting you to keep yourself a secret from your best friend for so many years."

Chris's eyes went wide as he stared at his father. His jaw dropped open. "Wait, what are you saying?"

Piper couldn't look at him. Instead, she stared at the surface in front of their hands. "You kept it a secret when you were children because we had no way of preventing him from spilling the truth to others. But you're both older now. If you believe Dwight can be trusted, then"—she cast a glance at Leo—"your father and I believe it's time to trust you."

Chris could think of nothing to say. He looked from one parent to the other as they stared back at him. He knew, of course, that his family had exposed themselves before—to innocents when necessary, and he had heard about a couple of police officers many years ago, and of course Uncle Henry had been brought into the fold, though he had known the truth as long as Chris could remember—but, aside from Uncle Henry, who was family and so barely counted, Chris had never known of any mortals personally who knew their secret. For the innocents, the Charmed Ones preferred to work behind the scenes whenever possible. And the police officers had been out of the Halliwells' lives almost as long as Chris had been alive.

Leo rapped softly on the table to get Chris's attention, clearing his throat at the same time. "There's a bit more," he admitted. Chris glanced at his mother to see her face pulled into a scowl, lips pursed, though she didn't try to stop her husband from speaking. "It's entirely up to you," Leo continued, "But if you don't feel Dwight is trustworthy, or if—for any other reason—you choose not to tell him… If you think Magic School would be a better fit for you, we'll respect your decision."

Chris let the words hang in the air for a moment. "You'll… you'll let me enroll in Magic School," he repeated. Leo nodded.

"You don't have to decide right away," Piper rushed to add. "I hope you'll give it some serious thought before you jump into anything."

They didn't push him to respond, which was a relief to Chris, who had no reply forthcoming. Instead, after a moment, they both stood and, with a warm squeeze to either shoulder, left him alone to think.

Could he really win back Dwight's trust? Would he even want to remain friends if he knew the truth? Chris would still be the unreliable kid who cancelled plans at the last minute. That could not change. Would it help Dwight to know the real reasons behind his behavior? Or was his other self right; did he owe Dwight freedom from this friendship? What did knowing truly accomplish?

And Chris could attend Magic School. He wouldn't have friends who lived nearby, perhaps, but he would have people his own age to relate to, kids with whom he could be himself without worrying about the truth coming out. He would be able to orb home from school without worrying about getting caught on camera.

But he couldn't just leave, could he? As much as part of him longed to go, he owed it to Dwight to at least give a last-ditch effort to repair their friendship. It was his fault it had ended. He had to try. Didn't he?

Chris mulled over his options for a full week, until the day before New Year's Eve, half afraid to take the next step. Deep down, he probably knew the decision he would make since that first afternoon and just hadn't wanted to admit it. But he couldn't live with inaction forever. His parents still didn't press him for an answer, but class would be starting up again in six days. He had to know by then if he intended to switch schools. And he wouldn't know anything until he spoke with Dwight. So finally, that evening, he picked up the phone.

He had to leave a voicemail; Dwight didn't answer the call. "I know you don't owe me anything, but I owe you. An explanation. For all of it. If you don't want to be friends after that, I understand, but I hope you'll at least give me a chance. If you will, meet me at the Shack tomorrow night before the fireworks." He hung up with a tightness in his stomach he could not dislodge.

Too preoccupied the next afternoon to focus on anything else, he orbed to the Shack a couple hours before dark and waited. When the sun went down, though he still had a couple of hours before their meet time, he began to worry that Dwight wouldn't show. Chris certainly hadn't given him a reason to after all the times he had flaked on his friend. Perhaps he should have knocked on Dwight's door, invited him in person, forced his hand. Except that wouldn't exactly have been fair, would it? Whatever Dwight's decision, Chris would have to respect it.

Finally, the door creaked. As Chris leapt to his feet, Dwight stepped inside. He looked around the open space, eyes landing everywhere but on Chris, who stood motionless, waiting for the silence to break. "You forgot flashlights," Dwight remarked at length.

Chris glanced around the room. It had still been light out when he arrived, but without the sun streaming in through the dirt-streaked windows he had been sitting in shadows. "Yeah," he said, "I forgot. Sorry." He meant the apology for more than just this small oversight, but Dwight either didn't realize or ignored the deeper meaning.

Avoiding Chris's gaze, he fished a miniature flashlight out of his pocket and flicked it on. It cast a decent glow, a small circle between them as he set it down on the floor. "Well," he said without looking up, "You said you had something to say. Talk."

"Right." Chris wished he had thought out how to explain this, but every time he had mulled it over these past few hours he had just felt queasy. He wished Dwight would look at him. "I haven't been honest with you, not totally. It's not completely my fault." He saw Dwight roll his eyes and said quickly, "I don't mean, I mean, it is my fault. I just meant." Frustrated, he ran a hand through his hair. "Look, my family has a secret. And I've been keeping it for them. For us."

He paced closer to Dwight until the light cast a semicircular glow across his face. Taking a deep breath, he plunged in. "We're witches. Like, real ones. With magic."

Dwight crossed his arms, eyebrows raised in disbelief. When he realized Chris was done, he scoffed, "That's all you've got?" Now that he had finally made eye contact, Chris almost wished he wouldn't. There was poorly-concealed anger shadowed in his gaze that made it difficult for Chris to focus.

"No," Chris admitted. "I can prove it. But I wanted to explain it all first. In case the… proof… freaked you out."

"I thought you knew me," Dwight said. "I don't 'freak out.'"

"I know, I know," Chris said, waving his hands in a pacifying motion. "But this is big." He shrugged helplessly. Where to begin? "You remember that whole thing with my appendix?" Dwight said nothing. "Well, I wasn't really sick. I was actually kidnapped. By demons."

"Well, points for originality," Dwight intoned lifelessly.

"I'm not making this up," Chris insisted. "And that time I had to cancel that movie, not last week, the time before that." He winced. That he had to clarify meant it happened far too often to justify, really. "Someone was attacked by a demon. I had to help her." He didn't disclose Ms. Gowell's identity; that wasn't his secret to tell.

"And last week? Let me guess," Dwight snapped. "Demon again?"

Chris shrugged a bit helplessly. "No, that was—I got a new magical power, and my mom wanted me to try to learn to control it."

"A new power. Of course."

Staring at his feet, he said, "Listen, I told you I'd prove it, and I will. Just…" He didn't know how to finish that sentence, so he merely gave another shrug. "Ready?"

Dwight threw his hands into the air. "Sure," he sneered. "Knock my socks off."

So Chris melted away in a shower of orbs.

Seconds later, he reappeared in the same spot. As promised, Dwight did not "freak out." In fact, he didn't react much at all. He merely stared, eyes roving from Chris's head down to his dusty loafers. For Chris time seemed to stand still. As he held his breath, Dwight paced a circle around him, stopping behind his back.

In a voice devoid of its previous animosity, Dwight said, "Do that again."

"Um… okay." Again, Chris summoned his orbs, whose brightness cast away the darkness along the walls as he vanished in blue and white. This time he returned a couple feet away, facing his friend.

Dwight's brow furrowed. His palm went to his chin, fingers drumming gently against his lips as he considered Chris. He said only, "Huh."

A nervous smile stretched over Chris's face as he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "Is that all you're gonna say?" he asked, aiming for nonchalance but sounding anxious instead.

"I think that pretty much sums it up, yeah," Dwight replied, distracted. He circled Chris a second time.

"Well…" Chris stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets. "Do you believe me?"

Toeing forward, Dwight prodded Chris's shoulder with his index and middle fingers. Chris rocked back on the heels of his feet. "Not sure," Dwight replied.

"Seriously?" Chris cried, throwing up his hands. Shock, he had expected. Fear, even, or anger. But doubt in the face of overwhelming evidence, he had not. "How can you not believe me after that?"

"I could be dreaming," Dwight pointed out calmly. "Or hallucinating. Or having a seizure."

Chris crossed his arms. "You don't get seizures," he stated flatly.

Nodding, Dwight said, "True. But I dream."

"Look," Chris ground out through gritted teeth, "I'm not sure what I have to say to convince you, but you're not asleep, either. You want me to punch you or something?"

"No thanks," Dwight said mildly. He stepped away. "Can you do it again?"

Growling in frustration, Chris stalked forward, grabbed Dwight by the forearm, and orbed them both. They landed on the other side of the front door, where the sound of chirping crickets exploded around them. Chris released Dwight's arm. "There. Happy?"

For a moment Dwight didn't speak, didn't even breath; his chest stood stiff. Chris really shouldn't have lost his patience. For a mortal the experience of orbing could be overwhelming. Uncle Henry seemed to strongly prefer non-magical modes of transportation, despite their limitations. Even Chris's grandfather, with several years more practice, maintained a strong aversion to orbing. Not Chris's brightest decision. But after the moment passed, the air whooshed out of Dwight's lungs in a single gust. His light brown eyes glittered. On his lips was pasted a half grin that he seemed not to even notice he wore. "Whoa," he breathed. "Okay, that was cool."

Stepping back in the dirt, Chris shoved his hands back into his pockets. Slowly, Dwight returned to himself. The goofy grin faded, and his hand went up to tamp down his dirty-blond curls as if he expected them to be windswept after their travel. He didn't look afraid, which Chris took as an encouraging victory, but his expression became unreadable as the minutes ticked by. Chris bit down on his tongue to refrain from breaking the silence. Feeling antsy, he glanced at his watch. Twenty-two minutes until the end of the year.

"So." He jerked his eyes back up to Dwight, who had tilted his head to the side as he observed Chris. "A witch." Chris nodded, chewing his lip and holding his breath. "Aren't witches girls? Wouldn't you be, like, a wizard or something?"

Chris pulled a face. "Misinformation. Wizards are a totally different species, and 'witch' is a non-gendered term."

A long moment passed with just the sound of crickets rubbing their wings together. "I'm not sure how I feel about this," Dwight finally admitted. "I mean, I sort of get why you never told me, but also… we've been best friends for years. Years."

Nodding, Chris swallowed around the dryness in his throat. "I know," he rasped. "I'm sorry."

"Yeah, like I said." Dwight shrugged. "I'm not sure how I feel." He stood silent for a moment, staring at the floor of dirt and dead leaves beneath his sneakers. "I need some time," he said at last.

Ignoring the sharp twinge in his chest, Chris forced himself to say, "Totally. I get it. Whatever you want." His gaze remained glued to his own feet as he said it, unable to look at his friend.

He didn't see Dwight nod. "I've, uh, gotta get my flashlight," the boy mumbled. While he shuffled inside to retrieve it, Chris checked the time again. Thirteen minutes. When Dwight returned, they looked at each other awkwardly from several feet apart. "Well, uh, I'll see you."

"Yeah," Chris replied with forced cheerfulness. Dwight turned. Chris watched his receding back disappear into the darkness beneath the canopy of trees. In a moment, his silhouette vanished completely. A part of Chris half-hoped his friend would reappear at a run, puffing as he insisted that he understood and all was forgiven. But the rational part of Chris's mind didn't allow him to give the idea more than a passing thought. It would never happen.

Chris didn't orb home; he didn't feel quite ready to face anybody else. Instead, after giving Dwight a few minutes' head start as a courtesy, he trailed off in the same direction, passing beneath wide branches that obscured his view of the thin sliver of moon in the sky. Eventually, the playground came into view in the distance. Usually, at this time of night, one could find a handful of older teens hanging out there, but today they were nowhere to be found, likely having sought out a clear spot to watch the fireworks.

As he neared the playground, he slowed, frowning. There on one of the swings sat a boy, young, no older than nine or ten. He stared at the ground, so Chris could see only the mess of brown hair on his head. Oblivious to Chris's presence, the boy kicked his feet into the dirt, pushing the swing backward. Chris had no real interest in getting involved, but what sort of responsible parent left a kid outside unattended in the middle of the night? Chris wondered if Dwight had noticed him, too, or if the boy had only just arrived.

"Hey!" Chris called down the hill. He jogged the rest of the way to the swing set. "Hey, kid!"

The boy jerked his head up to stare at Chris with a pair of intense green eyes. "Hey, mister," the boy said in a high-pitched voice, "Wouldja push me?" He kicked himself back again, lifting his muddy sneakers to swing forward the few feet.

"Uh…" Chris scratched the back of his neck, casting his gaze around for anyone else. They were alone. "Isn't it a bit late? Where's your mom or dad?" Up close, Chris could see the boy wore a thin t-shirt, and his jeans were worn through at one of the knees. He had to be cold.

Hitching a shoulder into a half shrug, the boy replied, "Don't got none."

"What, parents?" Chris asked, bewildered. The boy gave another shrug. Suddenly, a crack reverberated through the air, and the sky erupted in lights. Chris glanced up to watch the colors shower down in a collection of sparks. Crack, rain, fade. Crack, rain, fade.

When Chris looked back at the boy, he was kicking the swing back yet again, digging his heels into the dirt beneath his feet and ignoring the show above his head. He coasted forward, baring his teeth in a grin. One front tooth was missing. The hands that gripped the swing's chains appeared… translucent. Chris squinted, wondering if it was just from the dark or the fireworks. But as he stared, the rest of the boy began to fade as well. Chris could see the seat beneath the boy's thighs. The dirt-streaked skin of his arms vanished completely, as did his torso. His face bleached of color until only his eyes remained visible, grew brighter, even, glittering like twin beacons in the dark.

By the time the next crack of fireworks exploded in the air, Chris was entirely alone.

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