Big question: I've decided to rework this story to make it (hopefully) publishable. Right now, I'm still working on finishing it as is and THEN going back to change elements to make it its own work of fiction. That's a really convoluted way of doing it, but I feel I owe it to people who are still reading. But if no one's reading, then I wouldn't feel guilty about "abandoning" this version and working the ending exclusively for the non-fanfiction version. (Currently, I have through chapter 47 mostly written.)
Basically, please let me know if you're reading so that I know whether I should keep pursuing this version until the end. You don't have to say anything other than, "Still reading!" so I know you exist. It would really help me out.
Torchlight flickered against the wall of the cavern, throwing out feeble light to accentuate the jagged edges of rocks that jutted up from the ground. Shadows leapt and shrank, trembling in place. At the center of the room, in front of Demoriel's marble throne, two brute demons stood at attention. One, pale and unmarred by tattoos, looked eager to be here. His partner, with dark brown skin and ornate red stripes painted up his biceps, appeared disgruntled, arms crossed and one booted foot impatiently tapping up dust.
"Why summon us if he's going to keep us waiting?" he grumbled to his partner.
"He'll be here," the other insisted. "The message said he had a proposition."
"It's been over an hour," the first argued.
A silky voice echoed from behind them. "I said I would make it worth your while."
The un-tattooed brute dropped immediately to his knees, head bowed, as Demoriel strode past them to claim his throne. The other merely tracked the demon lord with his eyes, seeming unimpressed. When Demoriel met his gaze, this one folded his arms tighter across his chest.
"Lord Demoriel, it is an honor to be called to your lair," the prostrated brute said. Demoriel barely acknowledged the statement, much more interested in his companion.
The standing brute snorted. "I doubt you have enough to make it worth our while."
Demoriel's eyes crinkled with mirth, his lips pressed into a thin, dangerous line. "Is that so?" he remarked, as if addressing a curiosity.
"It is," the brute grunted, growing bolder as his companion tried in vain to silence him from the ground. "I heard rumors about what you're after. The Charmed Ones! There isn't enough payment in the world to make the risk worth it. There hasn't been a demon yet who's confronted them and lived to boast about it."
Patiently, Demoriel drummed his clawed fingers against the armrest. When the brute fell silent, he bared his teeth in a feral grin. "The rumors are false. I'm after their offspring."
The brute seemed to falter momentarily but just as quickly regained his composure. "You attack their kids, you take on the Charmed Ones," he said with a dismissive wave of his hand.
Demoriel leaned forward in his seat. "Then perhaps it's a good thing I have no intention of sending you after him."
For the first time since his arrival, the brute began to look unsure of himself. "But you said—"
"Be silent," Demoriel hissed, seeming to finally lose patience with the conversation. His claws clenched into fists. Despite his defiance, the brute ducked his head. Closing his eyes to calm himself, Demoriel loosened his hands and smiled. In a much silkier tone, he continued, "I said I was after the boy. I did not say I was hiring you to attack him."
The brute met Demoriel's eye. "But if…" At the narrow-eyed glare Demoriel sent his way, he let the sentence trail off. Demoriel smirked.
"My first plan of attack fell short. So I would like to experiment. Test the boy by going after someone he cares for. His charge." He waved a lazy hand, motioning for the kneeling brute, silent until now, to rise. He did so, though he kept his head bowed in submission. "Do not kill him, not immediately. I intend to watch how the boy reacts. Can you withhold your… darker impulses?" He waited for each of the demons to nod.
"Excellent," he cooed. "My previous minion could not control himself, and I had to punish him accordingly." His eyes flashed at the memory of his prior failure. "I trust that will not happen with you."
As the pale brute rushed to assure, "We will not disappoint you," his tattooed comrade grumbled, "We are not minions. We are demons for hire. There's a difference."
Ignoring the protest, Demoriel continued, "I'm not quite ready for your services yet. But once everything is in place, can I count on you two to carry out the plan? I need it to be…"—Demoriel's eyes gleamed with mirth—"brutish."
The demon who had protested curled back his lip, revealing a row of gleaming, sharpened teeth. "Certainly." His partner nodded, his own eyes glinting in the torchlight.
When Demoriel said nothing more, the brutes turned to leave. Before they reached the entrance to the cavern, Demoriel spoke again, his voice almost too soft to be heard. "You should know," he hissed, "Perhaps no demon has survived the Halliwells yet, but I intend to be the first." The duo glanced back to see the sinister smile sneak across his face and swallowed hard. "Once I have the boy's abilities under my control, they will have no recourse to stop me."
[Sunday, February 2, 2020]
After stumbling across two new versions of himself over the course of just two weeks, Chris was relieved to see nothing else through the end of the month. No selves, no visions, just sweet, normal now. Even when he slept, he drifted straight into dreams—his own, thankfully. Perhaps his subconscious could sense he needed a break.
He and Dwight both passed their history test that Tuesday, Dwight acing it and Chris landing a solid eighty-two. Most of his free time Chris now dedicated to coming up with ideas to help Katie control her power. There had to be a way for her to make tangibility her default setting. If he searched hard enough, he was certain he'd find it.
That was how Chris found himself on the second day of February in the attic with the Book of Shadows in front of him and a phone cradled between his ear and shoulder. He had tucked it there so he'd have both hands free to flip through the Book.
"I'm not seeing anything that we haven't already tried," Chris sighed into the receiver. "Yes, Lea, I'm staring at it right now."
He listened for a moment, then said, "Don't you think someone would've found it long ago if it were in here somewhere?" It was, of course, possible that one of their ancestors had only recently added an entry from across the veil, but chances were low. This wasn't some demon they were encountering for the first time. Katie had been this way her whole life. If an ancestor had the knowledge to assist her, information would have been offered long ago.
Not expecting much, Chris flipped the next page. He heard a stair creak outside the door. Shifting the phone to his other ear, Chris hissed, "Look, I gotta go. Wyatt's coming." He hung up and lobbed the phone onto the couch seconds before the door slid open.
Chris had known it would be Wyatt. Today was the boy's birthday, after all, and Wyatt had always had a one-track mind when it came to his birthday. When he saw his little brother standing there, Wyatt froze in the threshold. "Chris," he said in surprise, "What are you doing here?"
"I'd ask you the same thing, except I already know the answer," Chris replied. He tossed his brother a sweet smile from his spot before the lectern.
"No you don't," Wyatt countered defensively, trying his hardest not to sound guilty.
"No?" Chris grinned in amusement. "You mean you're not here to wait for Excalibur to appear so you can try to claim it before Mom finds you, the way you do every single year on your birthday?"
Wyatt flushed, crossing his arms, and hunched his shoulders. "Well, so what?" he grumbled. "There's nothing wrong with it. It's my birthright—"
"Oh please," Chris interrupted with an intrusive snort. "Don't give me any of that 'birthright' nonsense. You're just as immature as every five-year-old who throws a tantrum because his parents won't let him open all the presents until after the party."
"Hey!" Wyatt protested. "We're not talking about a two-hour party here. It's been seventeen years. Every year, it appears again, and every year Mom and Dad say the same thing." This rant long since memorized, Chris mouthed the next words along with his brother: "'You're not old enough, Wyatt.' I think I'm entitled to my destiny by now. Seventeen is a perfectly fine age to get appointed king."
"You'd make a terrible king, Wyatt," Chris retorted. "You need brains to rule a kingdom."
Wyatt sniffed, turning purposefully away. "I won't lower myself by responding to that."
Chris snickered. "I hope I didn't offend His Highness's royal dignity by pointing out that he's actually nothing more than a royal pain in the—"
"Careful, mister," said a voice from the doorway. Chris and Wyatt jumped and turned to their mother, who had seemingly appeared out of nowhere, an uncanny ability on her part that often made her kids wonder if she were holding out on them when it came to her magical abilities.
Piper entered the room with her hands planted on her hips. Wyatt, knowing what came next, shrank back. Sensing weakness, Piper started in on him. "Wyatt Matthew Halliwell, I told you to stay away from the attic today."
"But it's my birthday," the teen protested feebly.
Piper merely raised one eyebrow. "I haven't forgotten what you did two years ago, buster. Birthday or not, I'm not afraid to ground you."
Every year, the sword Piper had hidden away in another dimension returned to its master, desperate to be wielded once more. With all the protective wards Piper had set on it, she had been unable to keep it from its annual pilgrimage to rejoin its master. And each year, Wyatt begged his mother to let him claim it, though his pleas fell on deaf ears.
Two years ago, he had attempted to break through her wards on the stone with a spell of his own. The subsequent concussive force had nearly razed the manor to its foundation.
Wyatt sniffed, placing his hand on his heart as if to intimate, Who, me? "I've matured since then," he insisted importantly.
"Good," Piper replied, refusing to budge an inch. "Then you're old enough to recognize the wisdom in waiting for your twenty-first birthday to wield a deadly magical weapon."
Wyatt gasped in horror. Behind him, Chris had to stuff his fist halfway into his mouth to stifle his snicker. "But, Mom!" Wyatt cried in dismay. "That's ages away. Next year I'll be old enough to vote!"
Piper closed her eyes, waving her hand at him. "Luckily, this isn't a democracy."
Before she finished her sentence, a plume of thick, gray smoke swirled into the space between the two brothers. A sharp crack! cut the air. When the smoke dissipated, a giant stone stood between them, a hilt jutting out of one thin crevice. Wyatt gazed longingly at the gleaming metal blade. As soon as he took his first step toward it, a blue perimeter began to glow on the floor around it, a warning. The room began to hum.
Chris didn't hear the next thing his mother said. From behind her, someone marched into the room. A rectangular metal helmet covered the man's face. He wore chain mail underneath a bright red fabric tunic. His shoulders, knees, and elbows were protected by shiny metal plates. His thick boots ended right below the knees. The man marched straight through Piper's body without even noticing her.
Chris closed his eyes, leaning against the lectern and swallowing a groan. It seemed his track record without visions had come to an unfortunate end. The man stopped before the stone and paused to tug off his helmet and lay it on the floor at his feet. It revealed a face somewhere shy of middle age with a close-cropped beard and mustache that were just starting to gray.
His ever-familiar green eyes assessed the stone intently. He ran a gloved hand over his chin in thought. Finally, widening his stance, the knight wrapped both hands around the sword's hilt and gave a mighty tug. Nothing happened. He tried again, this time throwing his entire weight against the sword and grunting with exertion. Still, the sword would not budge.
"Give it up," Chris muttered from the sidelines, "You're not King Arthur."
The man ignored him, but Wyatt glowered at the remark. "That's exactly what I am!" he argued hotly. "Excalibur has been waiting for me for seventeen years. I'm as King Arthur as they come!"
Chris didn't bother to correct his brother's assumption that the comment had been directed at him. He slid seamlessly back into the conversation. "It's a sword, Wyatt. It's not alive. It hasn't been waiting for anything."
"You are wrong, squire!" the knight announced, releasing the hilt to face him. His joints creaked as he shifted. "Excalibur is a creature of exquisite beauty. Can't you hear her sing?" He caressed the space where the stone met the blade, enraptured.
Chris rolled his eyes at the same time that Wyatt muttered, "That's what you think." It was getting difficult to follow both conversations at once. Chris whipped his head from the knight back to his brother. He could feel the prickles of a headache beginning at the base of his skull.
Piper stopped the discussion from going any further. "As it happens," she interjected loudly, "neither of your opinions matters. What matters is I'm saying no." Her tone brooked no argument, and Wyatt's mouth snapped shut in defeat. With a scowl, he slunk past her and out of the attic, casting one last mournful look toward his sword. She retreated after him.
As if taking the same cue, the knight turned translucent. He returned his attention back to the stone, but by the time he had settled his grip onto the hilt again only his upper body remained. The hands soon disappeared with the rest of him, followed by his head and the helmet on the floor. Chris expelled a long breath of relief when he was finally alone in the room once more.
Wyatt's seventeenth birthday panned out differently than in previous years. Normally, Piper spent the day planning a dinner for the whole family, including aunts, uncles, and cousins. She cooked favorite dishes, baked a cake, the whole nine yards. This year, Wyatt had begged Piper to let him go out with friends instead. It had felt terribly strange not to see the cousins that evening, but Piper had—at Leo's gentle cajoling—reluctantly acknowledged that Wyatt was indeed old enough to decide for himself how he wished to spend his birthday (barring, of course, any fencing-related activities).
The four of them—Piper, Leo, Chris, and Prue—ate dinner without him that evening. Piper's husband and kids tried their best to cheer her up after what felt to her like a direct slight. Afterward, Chris and Prue even stuck around in the living room to play a game of charades, adults versus kids. Though the siblings rarely saw eye to eye, Chris and Prue crushed the opposition.
By the end, when the adults returned to the kitchen, Piper to store the leftovers away and Leo to get started on the dishes soaking in the sink, Chris was feeling uncharacteristically charitable toward his pesky little sister.
He stopped her in the hallway between their two rooms. "Hey, Prue. Uh, nice game."
Her eyes lit up, and she flashed him a smile. "You gave good clues," she said. There was something eager in her eyes, though she tried to hide it behind casual indifference, that reminded Chris of the conversation about her that he'd had with his older self a few months earlier. Reminded Chris of the compassion his older self had expressed when talking about the sister he'd never had.
Chris had never been the protective older brother. He had always shared a closer relationship with Wyatt than with Prue, and why? Because she's a brat, a voice inside him argued. But if he were honest, he gave as good as he got. And most of her annoying traits stemmed in one way or another from her desire to fit in with her two big brothers.
Feeling a bit guilty all of a sudden, Chris turned to face Prue fully. She saw this and did the same, watching him with a curious but confused expression. With an awkward scratch behind his ears, he said, "Not just with the game. You're, uh, pretty cool…" His voice trailed off. It felt silly and sentimental to verbalize and he half-expected Prue to come back with an eye roll and a sarcastic retort, but Prue flushed at the compliment.
"You think so?" she asked self-consciously.
Chris shrugged but nodded. "Sure. I mean, you warned me about that premonition you had. That was pretty cool of you. And you're better than everyone but Mom when it comes to potions. Better than Aunt Paige." He leaned his shoulder against his bedroom door and loosely folded his arms.
Prue's face darkened further until it glowed a vibrant cherry red all the way to the tips of her ears. "Thanks," she mumbled. Then, hesitantly, as if afraid to test this strange truce Chris had called, she said, "You… you never told me—I mean, you said you took care of it, but you never told me how you ended up preventing my premonition from coming true." Gnawing on her bottom lip, she stared at the floor.
It startled Chris, the twinge of fear he caught in her gaze. Somehow, it had not occurred to him that his sister might have been worried about him all this time. Perhaps he should not have been so dismissive of her then.
With much greater compassion than he'd expressed before, he explained, "It's… sort of complicated, but bottom line is: it was a different me."
"The past you?" Prue guessed immediately. "The one who changed the future?"
"Exactly," Chris said, impressed by her intuition. "I managed to speak to him. He cleared everything up."
Prue's eyes grew wide with curiosity. "You spoke to him? What's he like? Did you talk for long? Did he tell you anything about his version of the future?"
Chris waved his hands wildly to stave off her questions. "Chill," he laughed, and she quickly looked away. "He's—I don't really know how to describe him. Different." He paused briefly, then added, "He's really impressed with you, you know." Chris wasn't quite sure how Prue would react to finding out she didn't exist in the other timeline, so he carefully omitted that fact. "With how you turned out here."
"Really? He told you that?" she asked, smiling shyly. "Even though I'm just a witch?"
Chris frowned. "Huh?"
"Nothing," Prue said quickly, clenching an anxious fist behind her back. She hadn't meant to say it; the words had simply popped right out while her guard had been lowered.
Over the past few months, especially after her parents informed her of Chris's new power, she had begun to nurse an ever-growing sense of inferiority when it came to comparing herself to the rest of her family. Of all of the cousins, she alone had no hybrid heritage. Her brothers had been conceived before their father had relinquished his powers (Chris had even been born of Elder blood; how many people could say that?). Bobby, though his father was mortal, inherited both witch and whitelighter blood from his mother. And Lea and Katie were part-Cupid, an even rarer phenomenon. Although it seemed a Cupid's powers did not transmit through blood the same way a witch's abilities did, the heritage alone made Prue feel like the odd one out in her large family.
As a Halliwell, Prue had plenty of firepower of her own. Most witches boasted a single magical ability, but Prue, like her aunt, had both premonitions as well as the power to levitate. And her mother had told her, given her age, she would likely grow into more before she reached adulthood. The average witch would look upon her with envy. But Prue didn't feel powerful. Next to her cousins and siblings, she felt like a joke.
Of course, she admitted none of this to her parents, who would worry unnecessarily about something they couldn't change anyway. Or worse, try to convince Prue how lucky she was to have the privilege she did. She already knew that; she didn't need them to tell her. It would serve only to make her feel worse for feeling crummy about it as she did.
But Chris had been nice to her for the first time in ages, had chatted with her as an equal instead of talking down to her. The words had slipped right out before she could bury them so deep even Aunt Phoebe's empathy wouldn't unearth them.
Chris was staring at her somewhat strangely, so she offered a too-wide smile. "Anyway, cool. I'm gonna—finish my homework. G'night!" She shuffled backward through her open door, gave a quick, nervous chuckle, then shut the door firmly behind her, leaving Chris to stare after her in bewilderment.
In the abyss that night, Chris met the newest addition with a wedge sandwiched between Perry's and Ian's. His space was almost as dark as Perry's, a cavernous stone room with unlit torches hanging along the walls. The only light came from three equally spaced window gaps in the wall, through which streamed a pale yellow aura. In one corner, beside a small lantern on the floor, sat a rolled-up pallet stuffed with straw. Along the opposite wall was a long, narrow wine rack whose gleaming surface held a tray with silver goblets. At the center of the wedge stood a giant, perfectly circular table with a shined and buffed oak surface.
"Don't tell me," Chris groaned as he stepped closer, "A knight of the round table?"
The knight, who had removed his armor in favor of a woolen green tunic with beige leggings and a loose rope belt around his waist, came up behind Chris. "Alas, t'is a dream to be so esteemed! This is my own table, a farce of what it honors." When Chris spun to face him, the knight gave a rigid salute. "Sir Christopher at your service!" he announced. Perry, who had arrived with the man, offered Chris a wry grin when their eyes met.
"Right," Chris said dryly.
Out of the corner of his eye, Chris saw Mutt crawl out of his tunnel, interest piqued. He clamored down a slide and trotted over to them. Beside the new wedge, Ian did the same. Merlin the Powerless, Chris noticed, remained in his own bedroom, where he glowered stubbornly, arms tight across his chest.
The two younger boys reached them at the same time. Mutt circled the newest member of their party with eagerness. "Where's them shiny clothes you was wearing before?" he asked.
Sir Christopher turned in place to keep his eye on Mutt as he paced around him. "A knight only wears his armor into battle, squire," he explained. He pointed toward the far corner of his wedge, where Chris noticed for the first time the winking metal suit reflecting the sparse light.
"Cool," Ian remarked, grinning. "Mom used to read to us about King Arthur before bed."
The knight spun to face him. "Your mother is wise, boy. All in the realm should know of King Arthur's greatness."
Chris rolled his eyes. He could almost agree with Merlin on this one. If magic were always this ridiculous, who needed it?
Perry sidled up beside him as Sir Christopher continued to chat with the boys. "Hey, it's your past life," he pointed out quietly, eyes twinkling with mirth.
Chris shot him a scowl. "Just as much yours as he is mine," he countered.
Chuckling, Perry nodded. "Can't argue with that," he agreed.
Chris was on the battlefield, growing weary as he swung his sword, parrying blow after blow from the oncoming bandits. His armor had been dented by a blow to his shoulder, and while he yet lived, the shoulder plate now dug into his neck every time he drew a breath. He ducked under another attack and lunged for the attacker. His sword, already coated in blood, bit deep into the man's chest. He dropped like a stone.
Ripping his blade free, Chris turned to meet the next threat, a giant of a man wielding an axe in either hand. Chris leapt backward to avoid the first swing, but he stumbled, lost his footing, and landed on one knee. The axe-wielder's lips curled in a sneer. He swung one axe high above his head. Chris raised his own blade to block it, having lost his shield earlier in the scuffle. The blow would surely slice him in two.
Before the man could swing, Chris flipped his blade upside down, yanking upward as hard as he could. The sword sliced right up through the attacker's groin. The man's eyes grew wide, the sneer dropping from his lips. Both axes fell limply to the grass on either side of Chris.
In a moment, the bandit toppled forward, landing on Chris and shoving him to the earth. His eyes, still wide, had gone blank. With a grunt, Chris shoved him to the side; the man rolled off him, face in the grass. Chris wiped his blood-spattered hands on the man's ragged tunic, freed his sword from the man's inner thigh, and clamored to his feet.
Several yards away, his comrade was dispensing with the last of the bandits. His sword burrowed into the man's kneecap, sending him crashing to the ground. With an efficient, powerful swing, Chris's comrade severed the fallen bandit's head from his neck.
Chris sauntered over, pausing to retrieve his shield from the mud. He offered a gloved hand to his comrade to pull him back to his feet. The man gasped to catch his breath. Chris nodded to him, a question in his eyes, and the man nodded back.
Sheathing his sword, Chris grasped the knight's forearm with his own. "Come," he said gravely. "We must alert the king that there are bandits in the valley."
Wednesday afternoon found Chris in Jake's living room as the boy got started on a new school project. Jake lay on his stomach on the floor with the assignment sheet splayed out in front of him while Chris watched from the couch. Jake's mother had taken a late shift at the grocery store. Her absence was the only reason Chris felt comfortable enough to spend time outside Jake's room. For the most part, he did his best to avoid running into her.
Jake tapped his pencil against the paper, gnawing on his lip as he read through the instructions. "We learned about family trees," he explained to Chris. "We're supposed to come home and ask about all the people we're related to. And glue on pictures." When he looked up, Chris saw a deep anxiety flickering in his eyes.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
The boy pressed his teeth hard into his lip. "It's just… Mommy doesn't really talk about them. And…" He scratched his fingernail across the floor, drawing deep lines through the carpet. "I asked her once. About my daddy…" He said nothing further, but Chris watched with rising anger as Jake winced at some unspoken memory. Subconsciously, the boy raised a hand to rub his cheek, and Chris had no trouble filling in the blanks.
In the intervening silence, Chris gave himself a moment to calm down. Expressing his fury, even on his charge's behalf, would only make Jake raise his barriers. Chris certainly had enough experience with that. Finally, Jake looked up again. "What do I write for my project?" he asked his whitelighter.
Chris rubbed his chin as he considered the question. Could he compose a spell to help reveal Jake's family history? Though it was for his charge, not himself, it still sounded awfully close to personal gain without a real magical justification to cast it. But how else could Jake find out without asking his mother directly?
When an idea suddenly sparked in his mind, Chris snapped his fingers. "Does your mom store keepsakes anywhere? Boxes with photos or something like that?" he asked.
Jake frowned. "I dunno," he said. "I never saw one. But I don't really…" He shrugged helplessly.
Chris hopped up, brushing his hands along his pants. "Okay, you get started with what you have," he decided. "I'll be back."
Jake stared at him with wide eyes, even opened his mouth as if to say something, possibly some form of protest, but then closed it again. It appeared his fear of failing the assignment outweighed the dread of his mother potentially finding out they had rifled through her secrets.
He turned back to the page as Chris marched down the hallway to Carmen's bedroom. Though he knew the room was empty, he pushed the door open an inch at a time. He wasn't sure what he expected—bottles of vodka rolling across the floor?—but the room looked entirely normal. A full size bed under a dirt-streaked window, a wide dresser, a bedside table with a lamp. In one corner of the room sat a folding chair with a couple of shirts messily draped over its back. One high-heeled shoe lay in the middle of the beige carpet.
The other one Chris spotted when he knelt to peer under her bed. He had hoped to find storage boxes there, but aside from the shoe and a rogue hanger all he came across was a thick layer of dust. Carmen obviously didn't bother vacuuming under there.
Climbing to his feet, Chris checked the closet next. Pushing the hanging clothes to one side, he peered behind them. There were two large trash bags knotted at the top, but each had a post-it stapled to the bag, labeling one as "Summer Stuff" and one as "Jake—Baby." He doubted he'd find something useful in either.
On the shelf above the hanging rod was where Chris caught a break. He had to grope blindly to reach it, but he felt something the width of a large shoe box in the back corner. Stretching up onto his tiptoes, he pulled the box down. A sheet of dust rained down on top of him, stinging his eyes and making him sneeze.
Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, he set the box down on the bed and slid off the lid. Inside he found several folded papers, a few trinkets, like a turtle-shaped keychain that appeared quite old, and a small album with space for only one photo per page.
Chris went for the album first. Settling onto the bed, he placed the book in his lap and flipped open the cover. The first photo was of a baby only hours old. Beneath it, in tight, neat script, the words, Carmen Elizabeth Porter, September 14, 1989.
Chris's stomach twisted at the soft-featured infant with lily-pale skin and a faint pink tinge across her cheeks and nose. How could she look like this, so innocent, so normal? If Chris squinted, he could even pick out some familiar traits she shared with Jake, even then. The upturn of her rosy lips, the one-sided dimple that had been captured on camera. It seemed wrong that this woman had once been an infant herself.
On the next page, two young boys were squished together in a lumpy hospital chair. Across both their laps lay the baby. The younger boy had his hand reaching out toward the camera. The older boy was gazing down, his eyes riveted to his new sister, his hand open as her fingers curled gently in his palm. The caption: Jordan and Michael meet Carmen.
Chris flipped through more pages. Bright faces grinned back at him. Carmen, her brothers, and her parents taking a hike, going to the beach, riding a carousel. Carmen's father tossing her in the air. Carmen on a bike with training wheels, trailing behind both her brothers along a gravel path.
As he paged through it, Chris noticed that after a certain point Carmen's father seemed to disappear from the picture. Chris had no way of knowing if he had died or abandoned them. The thought made him close the album with a snap. He didn't appreciate the pang of sympathy he suddenly felt for this horrible person and stubbornly shoved it aside.
He reached next for the papers folded neatly inside the box. Plucking one out at random, he unfolded it and began to read.
Dear Adam,
Our son turned one year old today. I baked him a cupcake, but it didn't cook right. I think I forgot the baking soda.
There was a simple elegance to the writing that intrigued Chris, nothing special but so unlike the drunk, embittered woman he perceived.
He said his first word when he was ten months old. I think he's very advanced. It was mama. I don't know why I'm telling you any of this. Even if it reaches you and even if you do read it, you made it pretty clear you have no interest in being a father. I just wish you could see the beautiful boy you're missing out on. Everything about him is perfect in every way. I didn't know I could love someone this much.
I still miss you. I don't even care that you left. I understand why. If you'd come back, I'd still want to be with you. I really think you'd learn to love being a dad if you gave it a chance. Please come back. I'm not sure I can do it without you.
Love, Carmen
Chris sat there without moving for a time. When he looked up from the letter, the air before him crackled with energy and a monochrome bed flickered into being ahead of him. And sitting on it, also in black and white, Carmen's familiar shape. She looked almost exactly as Chris had last seen her, same hair style even, but somehow she seemed like an entirely different person. The dark smudges beneath her eyes had not yet settled permanently into her face, and the deep shadows of despair had yet to seep underneath her skin.
Behind her, Chris noticed an infant asleep on his back in the middle of the mattress, his head tilted to the side and one tiny thumb tucked loosely between his lips. Carmen sat at the edge of the bed. She stared down at an envelope in her tight grip. Chris realized she was crying.
He peered closer at the envelope but couldn't get a good look at it until Carmen flung it to the floor. It landed a few inches away from Chris's feet, where he could easily read the large block letters stamped across the address: RETURN TO SENDER.
Chris looked up again in time to see Carmen begin to rage. He heard no sound, just the crackle of static, but he could see the scream in the way her face scrunched up and every muscle in her body tensed. The baby behind her jolted awake, screwed up his chin, and began to wail. That thin, reedy sound pierced the static and made Chris's heart skip a few beats.
Pawing through Carmen's album, even reading the desperation in her letter, somehow had not felt as much like a breach of privacy as witnessing that seconds-long snapshot. Chris had entered this bedroom feeling a sort of self-righteous anger. Jake deserved to know he had family; Carmen had kept hidden information she had no right to withhold.
And yet that scene, which winked out of existence as quickly as it had appeared, left Chris feeling like an intruder. The pity he had quashed earlier reared back full force. This time, he sat with it; this time, he let it be.
Carefully, he refolded the letter and tucked it back into the shoebox. The album he opened once more, just long enough to find a photo with Carmen's whole family. This he eased out of the plastic sleeve so he could give it to Jake. The album had nothing of his father to offer.
He tucked the album away, covered the box, then returned it to its place on the shelf. He made sure to place it in exactly the same position he'd found it to avoid arousing Carmen's suspicion. Truthfully, he doubted she would notice, but he didn't want to take the risk and have the blame land on Jake.
Before he left, he brushed dust that had come from the box off the duvet, then yanked it taut to straighten the creases he'd made when he sat down. Armed with the photo, he returned to Jake in the living room.
Chris relayed the names he had read to Jake, who copied them into a marble notebook. They had no way of identifying which boy, Jordan or Michael, was older, and Chris hadn't found the names of the grandparents anywhere, but at least Jake now had two uncles he could add to his tree.
When Chris transmitted his father's name, the boy's hand stilled on the page. He didn't look up, but Chris saw him swallow a few times in a row and blink rapidly to avoid tearing up. He wrote the name Adam in carefully neat print.
In case you didn't read the beginning: I've decided to rework this story to make it (hopefully) publishable. Right now, I'm still working on finishing it as is and THEN going back to change elements to make it its own work of fiction. That's a really convoluted way of doing it, but I feel I owe it to people who are still reading. But if no one's reading, then I wouldn't feel guilty about "abandoning" this version and working the ending exclusively for the non-fanfiction version. (Currently, I have through chapter 47 mostly written.)
Basically, please let me know if you're reading so that I know whether I should keep pursuing this version until the end. You don't have to say anything other than, "Still reading!" so I know you exist. It would really help me out.