Relevant note: Mrs. Winterbourne appeared in S06E14, The Legend of Sleepy Halliwell.
[Friday, April 10, 2020]
Henry returned to his wife's side for a time until the baby was carried off to run some standard tests, at which point he gave the three sisters more private time together. When the Halliwells left the hospital a few hours later, it felt to Chris as though several days had passed. Bobby, yawning repeatedly, insisted he wasn't tired, but Henry nonetheless sent him home with Piper.
As they trekked down the corridors to the elevator, he chattered away to his cousins, aunts, and uncles. "Did you hold the baby? Because I held the baby, she's my sister, you know, I'm a big brother now…" While half the group piled into the elevator once it opened, the rest waited for the next one to come. They finally got to the lobby and through the revolving doors to step outside, blinking at the sun, high overhead, casting its brassy glare upon them.
The bubbly enthusiasm of new life meant nobody felt quite ready to part ways just yet, so Piper invited Phoebe and her family back to the manor for a late lunch. Bobby rode in Piper's five-seater while Prue squeezed into the backseat of Phoebe's silver Honda between Lea and Katie. Within five minutes, Bobby was conked out, drooling on Chris's shoulder.
Once they got home, Piper sent Wyatt to the local market to pick up a few ready-made salads and sushi, for once not up for whipping up the meal herself. Leo carried Bobby inside, settling him on the couch and removing his sneakers so he could comfortably curl into the seat cushion.
Phoebe, who had stopped for gas, pulled up behind Piper's car within minutes. As everyone piled into the house, Piper took Chris aside to hand him a folded up post-it. "Paige asked for some of her stuff from Magic School so she doesn't fall behind on grading," she explained as Chris flipped open the paper and read down the list scrawled in pencil on the back. "Go quickly before Wyatt gets back with the food."
Stuffing the list into his pocket, he orbed to the Magic School library, a hub of activity for a center of education that didn't take traditional vacations. He wasn't sure where to find Paige's classroom for advanced magic. If he had spotted a faculty member, he would have asked; but the librarian, a bodiless spirit who roamed the shelves, never spoke and only ever corporealized to check out books.
So Chris wandered the wide corridors in search of someone to ask, but they were empty, save the rare young student dashing late to a class that had already begun. When Chris tried to call out to one of them, she ignored him, and he didn't dare interrupt one of the classes to ask a teacher.
At some point, some of the turns he took began to feel familiar. Perhaps he had taken them as a child on the occasional visit to his father's office, though he couldn't draw up a specific memory of doing so. As he wandered, a chorus of high-pitched laughter drew him to one of the ornate doors.
Peering through the glass slot at eye level, he spotted a circle of cross-legged nursery-age children. He was startled to realize he recognized the round rug they sat on, a midnight blue with yellow stars and crescent moons scattered across it. He recognized, too, the adult woman with frizzy, dirty blond hair in black teaching robes who sat on a chair holding an open book facing out to the students. Carefully, Chris eased the door open.
"—and I'll bloooow your house down!" the teacher was saying, pitching her voice deeper to create the character's voice. The classroom of kids once again burst into laughter, several hands flying up to cover giggling mouths.
As she smiled at her avid audience, the teacher's gaze shifted past the circle to Chris in the doorway. Waving him inside, she continued to recite without glancing at the page, "So he huffed and he puffed and he puffed and he huffed, but try as he might, the house of bricks would not fall! So do you know what he did?"
"The chimney!" cried a girl with blond pigtails.
"He climbed into the chimney!" a redheaded boy agreed.
Feigning affront, the teacher said, "Hey! Have you guys read this book before?"
More giggles. "You read it to us!" said a boy with a bowl haircut and bangs that fell into his eyes. As the room devolved into animated chatter—"She forgot she read it last week!" "We remember!"—the teacher, instead of calling for quiet, swept to her feet, setting the open book upside down on her vacated chair, and ambled over to Chris. Clasping her hands together at her waist, she said, eyes warm, "Chris Halliwell, what can I do for you?"
Chris blinked in surprise. "Wh-How did you know my name?"
"I remember every student I ever taught," she said. With a glimmer of mirth, she added, "Especially the ones who were a handful."
Chris felt too stunned to be chagrined. Was that how he recognized this woman? Somewhere in his mind he had been aware that his parents had briefly sent him to Magic School before he had learned to control his powers, the same way he knew he had been a colicky baby or he had contracted chicken pox as a toddler. His parents had mentioned it often enough for him to be cognizant of the fact, though he had no recollection of his own. Certainly, if he cast his mind back, he could not retrieve specific memory of being in a class with other magic users. Truthfully, most of that time of his life he remembered only in vague snapshots—holding his baby sister for the first time in a wooden hospital chair, getting carried in from the car after falling asleep during a long drive.
His hazy recollection, along with his mother's deep disdain for Magic School, to which he attributed his brain's reluctance to retain memories of the place, meant it never occurred to him that the elusive sense of familiarity he felt walking these halls, seeing that round carpet, might be linked to a real experience from his past.
"But I don't remem…" His voice petered out as his gaze swept across the classroom. In the back, a row of cubbies filled with lunch boxes. Beside another wall, a cluster of round, knee-high tables where finger-painting projects currently lay to dry. Aside from the fact that one of the children cross-legged on the rug levitated a couple inches off the floor, it looked just as ordinary as any other nursery. He could have attended this class without ever realizing there was anything magical about it.
"…don't remember this place?" the teacher finished for him knowingly. "You wouldn't be the first to say that. But you'd be surprised how many of our memories lie dormant, just waiting for the right trigger." Clasping his arm with one hand, she said, "I'm Mrs. Winterbourne." He had heard her name before, he was certain.
"You used to let me pour the apple juice," Chris recalled suddenly.
The woman flashed him a broad smile. "That's right. You were my special snack time helper. When you weren't off levitating other kids' toys out of their reach." He had to admit, that certainly sounded a lot like him. The fact that this stranger seemed to know him, or at least a version of him, so well made him a bit self-conscious.
"Your mother felt the risk of exposing your magic outweighed the benefits of what she called a 'normal' life." Mrs. Winterbourne cast a fond look back at her students. "Although I like to think my kids are just as normal as you please. There's nothing at all wrong with them."
As her hand dropped away from his arm, she pierced him again with eyes that seemed to stare right through him and said, "I like to think perhaps your mom also saw the benefits of giving you a place where you could feel comfortable being yourself." She inclined her head to add, "But maybe that's a bit of a generous interpretation of her decision."
Chris thought it probably was, exceedingly so, but he didn't say so.
At his silence, she prompted, "So was there something I can help you with?"
The purpose for his presence soared back to him. Stuffed into his pocket, the post-it mocked him for getting so easily side-tracked. "I'm looking for my aunt Paige's classroom. I'm here to pick up some stuff, but I don't really know my way."
Mrs. Winterbourne held her hands open before him. "Did she have the baby, then? How wonderful. I'd be happy to take you there."
At best, Chris had expected her to send him off with directions or, if he were really lucky, summon another faculty member to guide him. Her offer to show him in person, when she had responsibilities of her own here, seemed unnecessarily generous. With one palm rubbing at the back of his neck, he said, gesturing with his other hand toward the kids behind her, "Um, don't you need to, uh, watch them?"
Her eyes crinkled into an earnest smile. "Not to worry." The outline of her body began to blur and then, from her backside, a whole person emerged, another woman identical to the one standing before him, the same frizzy hair and dark robes. While the woman in front of him didn't even bother turning around, her duplicate glided back to the blue rug and gave one crisp clap of her hands. At once the children whispered and shushed each other.
"Is everyone ready to finish the story?" she exclaimed, retrieving the book and reclaiming her seat.
The original copy, still standing with Chris, assessed his baffled look. "Astral projection," she explained. "Comes in handy for a nursery teacher."
"I thought, with astral projection, only one of you is awake at a time." Chris had had an aunt with that power, his sister's namesake. He had never met her, but his parents and Aunt Phoebe spoke of her often enough, especially in their lessons on magic.
"You can learn to control both selves with time. Shall we?" she asked, motioning him out of the classroom.
For all that his mother and Aunt Phoebe spoke of their older sister as a super-witch, well versed in magic, if Chris remembered correctly, she had reconnected with her abilities only a handful of years before her death. That couldn't have given her much time to master her powers. At fifteen, Chris had more experience than she ever did. It was strange to think of it.
As Mrs. Winterbourne led him down one corridor and up another, she probed him with questions about life and school and friends. Most of her former students continued to attend Magic School, so she saw them regularly enough to keep abreast of how they progressed. She seemed thrilled to find out that the kid who had once levitated classmates' toys out of reach during tantrums had grown into a well-adjusted high school student in—mostly—complete control of his powers. She wanted to hear every detail he deigned important enough to mention, and he found himself sharing more freely than he normally would have to this relative stranger.
He told her about his new ability with time. He wasn't quite sure what compelled him to do so, but the information spilled out of him before he could consider the reasoning behind his implicit trust in her. There was something about one's nursery teacher, he supposed, someone who only ever saw you at your most innocent and never again. They never saw you struggle academically. They never fought with you over incomplete homework assignments or a "failure to live up to your potential." More than anyone else ever could, they saw the best in you, found it impossible to believe you wouldn't succeed.
"You were proficient with your powers even before you had complete control," she assured with complete confidence as they passed the library. "I know you'll get the hang of this new one now, too." From anyone else, he would take this as an empty platitude with a roll of his eyes, but she gazed at him with such sincerity that he found himself taking the words to heart.
"Thanks," he said.
Their conversation got cut short by a deep, resonant gong reverberating in every direction. An instant later, the classroom doors on either side burst open, pouring students into the hallway all around them.
Over the din, Mrs. Winterbourne called, "It's just this way," and guided him by the elbow around the last turn. This corridor teemed with older teenagers who cast confused glanced at the duo as they passed. They heard a few cheerful greetings called out to their fondly-remembered nursery teacher, who took the time to wave and respond to each student in turn before continuing on.
By the time she pointed Chris to the right door, the classroom beyond it had emptied completely save one haggard young man contorted over the teacher's desk. With a farewell pat on Chris's shoulder, Mrs. Winterbourne's body winked out of existence.
As he crossed the threshold, Chris turned his attention to the teacher. Even at his young age, the man had already begun balding, the top of his head shiny beneath wisps of hair combed over to cover the top of his scalp. Inside his open teaching robes, the buttons of his starched, white shirt were misaligned.
When Chris cleared his throat, the man's head jerked up in a flash, expression half-crazed with panic. "I'm just a sub!" he cried desperately, waving his arms to fend Chris off. "You'll have to come back when Ms. Matthews returns!"
Paige had always claimed her class of advanced students was the most difficult to manage. Though she insisted she would not trade her problematic teens for anything, few others were up for the challenge. It seemed this substitute had drawn the short straw.
Though amusement tickled the back of his mind, Chris held up both hands in submissive surrender. "I'm her nephew. I'm just here for her stuff," he assured.
"Oh." The man's face seemed to collapse in on itself in relief, though the frenetic energy still buzzed around him as he began to gather together the scattered textbooks and notebooks on his desk into a single towering pile.
Only after he heaved the precarious pile into his arms did he try to shift it to one side to point Chris over to the locked filing cabinet at the back of the room. The results were unpleasant as first one notebook, then all the rest, toppled out of his grasp and scattered across the floor, leaving the man with a single textbook in his hands. Groaning in dismay, he knelt to retrieve his supplies.
Leaving the sub to collect himself, Chris crossed the room to the filing cabinet. He fished the post-it out of his pocket. At the top above the list of requested supplies, Paige had sketched out the shape of a rune, one unfamiliar to Chris. Though she hadn't written instructions, he could guess its purpose. Likely she had the cabinet warded against prying students and used this rune as the key to unlock it.
With his index finger, Chris carefully traced out the shape on the cool metal of the filing cabinet. As the top drawer began to glow a pale lilac, he heard a soft click before the drawer popped open half an inch. Drawing it open the rest of the way, he began to flip through folders one at a time to scour through labels for those on Paige's list.
Once each of the handful of folders was retrieved, he stacked them under one arm and slid the drawer shut again. The cabinet blazed with light, sealing itself off once more, and Chris returned to the front of the room, where the nervous substitute had finally gotten a better handle on his books. His eyes tracked Chris to the door, almost pleading, enough that Chris felt guilty for leaving without offering a bit of moral support.
His hand on the doorknob, he glanced over his shoulder to submit encouragingly, "Er, keep your chin up. Just, y'know, don't let them intimidate you. You'll do fine." Before the man could respond (beyond the involuntary scoff that escaped his lips), Chris ducked out of the room.
By the time Chris returned to the manor, Wyatt had already brought home the food and everyone except Bobby, asleep in the living room, had gathered in the dining room to eat. Chris piled Paige's files on the table in the kitchen before joining them.
Phoebe, who had recently passed the four-month mark of her pregnancy and had the extended stomach to show for it, still often felt queasy throughout the day. Avoiding the heavier options, like bagels, and dismissing the raw fish entirely, she opted to nibble on some dry lettuce while everyone else dug in.
After lunch, Wyatt, Chris, and Prue cleared the table while Phoebe's family got ready to leave. The three siblings popped back into the foyer in time to say goodbye to their cousins. As soon as everyone left, Piper shooed Chris back to the hospital to drop off Paige's supplies (as well as a few containers' worth of bagels, egg salad, tuna, and salad that she threw into his arms before he could orb). "And tell them I'll drop off a homemade dinner later," she added. "None of that hospital food nonsense."
With the files, the food, and the message, Chris hurried to orb before Piper thought of something else to add. He materialized in a bathroom stall in the hospital lobby and collected another visitor's pass at the front desk before returning to the maternity ward.
This time, Paige was alone. Henry had gone down to the cafeteria to find a decent cup of coffee. She ushered Chris inside while the baby shifted noisily in the basinet at the foot of the bed. Though she graciously thanked him for the delivery, she set everything down on the side table and motioned for him to pull the basinet over with him to the empty chair beside her. When he did so, Ariel jerked awake but did not cry.
Placing a hand on the rim of the basinet to peer inside, Paige whispered, "Isn't she cute?" barely paying attention when her nephew heartily agreed.
Ariel reached up a delicate hand, fingers furling and unfurling, as if reaching for the face looming over her. Instead of sticking her hand inside, Paige nudged Chris. "Go on," she urged with a grin. With one knuckle, he brushed the back of Ariel's hand. Immediately, her palm turned, folding around his finger. A pair of intense, gray eyes blinked up at him.
A short time later, Henry returned with a Styrofoam cup piping steam into the air. He assured Chris that they didn't need dinner—they would order takeout from their favorite restaurant—and left the teen with the task of explaining such blasphemy to Piper.
She was not pleased to hear this when he returned home with the news. "Better than a home-cooked meal? Is he kidding?" she demanded, aggressively stacking plates into the dishwasher.
Chris made sure to agree with her repeatedly and fervently, doing so until Bobby wandered in, rubbing his eyes. "Aunt Piper, can you make me something to eat?" he asked.
"See?" she said, jerking her hand at Chris, "Their son understands. What would you like, Bobby? Mac n' cheese?" The boy nodded as he climbed onto a chair. "You got it, sweetheart. Coming right up." As she knelt to retrieve a pot from the cabinet, Chris escaped to his room.
Paige and the baby were released Saturday afternoon. Bobby stayed at the manor overnight, but Henry picked him up before discharge so they could drive his mother and baby sister home together. Although the sisters, especially Phoebe, wanted to be there to usher little Ariel into her home, they allowed Paige's family its privacy. For Chris, the rest of the weekend was a quiet affair.
The end of vacation that Monday came too soon. The one saving grace to returning to school was finally getting the chance to find out about Dwight's trip. He had heard nothing from his friend since he drove off with his mother on the last day before the break.
He found Dwight digging through his locker with uncharacteristically jerky movements. Shoving textbooks to the side, tossing loose pages behind his books, snatching the binder at the bottom of a pile and sending supplies flying in all directions. Even from behind, Chris noted that his energy was off.
Instead of addressing his mood directly, Chris stepped up beside him and carefully asked, "So… fishing?"
Dwight made a disgusted noise in the back of his throat. "They want to get married," he burst out, snatching up a notebook and shoving it into his knapsack.
"Ah," Chris replied tactfully.
Dwight slammed his locker shut and spun to face him. The boy had developed a fairly serious sunburn with dead skin peeling off his cheeks and the bridge of his nose. "Apparently, they've been thinking about it for a while. I can't believe she didn't give me a heads-up."
Chris leaned one shoulder against the locker beside Dwight's. Privately, he doubted his friend would have reacted any differently if she had warned him, but he kept that thought wisely to himself.
Dwight kicked off of his locker and started to storm away, Chris keeping pace beside him. "I mean, how long have they even been dating? A few months? She barely knows him!"
The first time Chris remembered Dwight mentioning Charlie had been shortly before midterm exams. Of course, that being Dwight's introduction to the man did not mean his mother had begun dating him only then. She had likely dated him for some time before deeming him worthy of meeting her son. This, too, Chris did not say aloud. Instead, he asked, "Is he horrible?"
Dwight wrinkled his nose. "You mean aside from liking fishing?" With a lopsided grin, Chris shrugged. Dwight stopped in front of his classroom door to face Chris, who had biology at the other end of the hall. "He's—I don't know—"
The ringing bell cut him off. Releasing a huff, he opened his mouth to speak, then snapped it shut again and marched silently into his classroom. Chris jogged to his own room and slipped inside just as Mr. Garcia started writing his first word on the board.
When the door thumped shut, the man glanced at Chris slinking down the aisle into an empty desk. "Not a good start, Halliwell," he tutted.
"I'm much better at middles and endings," Chris replied, slinging his knapsack down at the foot of the desk and easing into the seat.
When they next met up before history, Dwight seemed to have mellowed a bit, but his usual cheerful demeanor was still muted in lieu of a simmering, antsy tension that kept his leg jiggling when they claimed seats in the back of the classroom.
Correctly assuming little had been retained from before the break, Ms. Gowell welcomed her students back with a recap of the lessons preceding their vacation. Though precious little of it rang familiar to Chris, since it was technically a review, he absolved himself of paying attention, instead nudging Dwight's foot with his own. When Dwight glanced over, Chris raised his eyebrows expectantly to pick up their conversation where they had left off.
At first, Dwight avoided his pointed gaze, staring instead at the open notebook on Chris's desk. Finally, voice hushed, he said, "He's nothing like my dad. I mean, totally different." With his index finger, he rolled his pen to the edge of the desk, where it wobbled, then rolled back down to him so he could do it again.
"Did you… want him to be?" Chris asked.
Looking rather uncomfortable, Dwight shrugged, but he did not answer immediately. When he spoke again, forgetting as he pondered the question to whisper, it was to admit, "Not really. I just assumed since she, you know"—a flash of pain darted across his face—"loved him."
It took a moment for the duo to realize the lecture had halted and draw their eyes back to the board, where Ms. Gowell stood with her arms crossed and her lips pursed to a fine line. Once she finally regained their attention, she said tersely, "Mr. Ryder, Mr. Halliwell, you had all vacation to chat."
"Actually, he was away," Chris replied woefully.
She did not look amused, her lips tightening, if possible, even further, barely visible now. "Regardless, please contain yourselves until the bell rings."
When she returned to the lecture, the boys sank back into their seats, half-heartedly attempting to take notes until the bell finally rang.
In the intervening periods before lunch, they didn't have much time to talk. Or, rather, Dwight seemed to prefer to drop the subject, and Chris willingly complied. His friend did appear slightly less agitated for having gotten the news off his chest, at least, which Chris noted with no small amount of relief.
In the cafeteria, they grabbed trays of food and found an empty table to deposit themselves. Before they could strike up a conversation, Rina Nicholae slid onto the bench beside Dwight, bumping him over as she plopped her homemade lunch on the table in front of her. "So congratulations!" she exclaimed to Chris.
He smiled thinly while Dwight glanced from him to her and back again. "Congratulations for what?" he asked.
"His aunt had a baby," Rina explained. She began to pull containers out of her brown paper bag. Peeling off the lid on the tub of stuffed cabbage and potatoes, she unwrapped a plastic fork and knife to dig in.
"Dude, you didn't say," Dwight protested. Guilt spread over his face.
Truthfully, even if they hadn't been talking about Dwight's Charlie issues, Chris likely would not have thought to mention it. Certainly, he was happy for his aunt, and interested in getting to know the girl once she grew old enough to have an actual personality; but for now, if he were honest, he didn't expect her presence to impact his life all that drastically.
Shrugging, he stabbed his spoon into the goo of canned peas on his tray. "Her name's Ariel," he offered. "Well, Isabella Ariel, but they're calling her Ariel."
"Neat. Congrats," Dwight replied.
Rina swallowed a chunk of cabbage, meat, and rice before asking, "So how were your vacations?"
Dwight groaned and took a large bite of soggy pizza to avoid responding. Eyebrows raised in bewilderment, Rina nonetheless turned to Chris for an answer instead. "Mine was fine," he said. "Busy, but no demon attacks, at least."
Both Dwight and Rina froze, looking up at the same time. "Uh, Chris…?" Rina said slowly, eyes wide.
"Oh, it's fine, he knows," Chris replied with a dismissive wave.
Eyes narrowed, Dwight's gaze darted to Rina. "Wait, why does she know?" he demanded. He may have seen Chris hang out with her on occasion, but never had he suspected they were close enough for Chris to spill to her his biggest secret. A step above casual acquaintances, perhaps. To be honest, he felt a pang of hurt that someone else had warranted knowing Chris's truth.
Heaving a sigh, she said, "I'm Romani."
Dwight made a face. "That's not a secret. So?"
"So," Rina replied, jabbing a potato toward him with the end of her fork, "We have certain magical traditions. We're sisters to the witch community."
"So why's it safe for you to go around telling people you're Romani but not for them"—he jabbed a thumb in Chris's direction—"to tell people they're witches?"
"Because," Chris interjected dully, "When people find out about us, they burn us at the stake."
Dwight winced, but Rina frowned. "We've had plenty of persecution, thank you. Why do you think we're still a nomadic people? Ever heard of the Holocaust?"
Biting his lip, Chris averted his gaze. "Sorry. That's not what I meant." He felt pretty scummy at the oversight. Rina was right, of course. The Romani had been chased out of and ostracized from almost every country to one degree or another. What was worse, Chris had discounted this centuries-long persecution even when he had a version of himself living inside his own head who had experienced just such a persecution firsthand after a Romani family had taken him in to protect him during the Exposure. Erasure was a lousy way to repay the kindness.
Rina let the apology go without further critique, opting instead to explain to Dwight, "We are also a people. A nation. A witch can be anyone from any background. You don't need to be part of a community."
"Though it's helpful," Chris added.
"Being Romani is closer to being Wiccan," Rina said, "Except that Wicca is a religion and Romani is an ethnicity."
Looking a bit embarrassed, Dwight admitted, "I assumed Wicca and witches were the same."
Chris waved his hand. "Nah. Though a lot of witches do practice Wicca. And Wiccans are generally more accepting of witchcraft than other populations."
"Right." Dwight seemed, if anything, a bit overloaded by the information they presented, though he scrambled desperately to keep up. "So you guys, what? Met at some magic convention or something?"
With half a smile at the suggestion, Chris corrected, "Family friends. My mom saved her mom from a demon before we were born."
"Roma hunter," Rina clarified.
"Whatever," Chris snorted as he finished off the last of his crust. Though Dwight tried to keep track of the discussion, by the time the lunch period ended he was thoroughly confused.
Only after the last bell rang, when the boys were following the stream of students down the front steps, did Chris risk broaching the subject of Charlie again. The sun, uncommonly warm for mid-April, seemed to beg them to forgo the long, stuffy bus ride, so with little debate they made the joint decision to bypass the row of buses lined up in front of the building, instead passing through the chain link fence around the parking lot. On the way down the sidewalk, Chris asked about the guy's personality—weirdly goofy, Dwight replied with a wrinkle in his nose—and how Dwight's mom acted around him.
"Not the way she acted around my dad, that's for sure," Dwight answered sourly.
Since it wasn't the first time he had brought up his father in contrast, Chris tentatively asked, "So what was your dad like? You don't talk about him much."
The bitter old woman next door to the school, out watering her lawn, shook a fist at them as they passed, which they happily ignored. As they turned the corner in the direction of Dwight's house, Chris watched Dwight finger the dog tags around his neck, taking a moment to consider the question.
"He was very rule-oriented," Dwight said at last. "Never let me stay up past eight, even on a weekend. Mom was always the relaxed one."
Chris, who noticed his friend's faraway gaze, chose not to break the silence that rose between them as they continued down the path. Eventually, grinning, Dwight piped up, "He taught me how to ride a two-wheeler when I was four. I was the youngest kid on the block who could. That sort of thing was important to him."
"Being first?" Chris wondered.
"Practicing until you got things right," Dwight corrected.
The conversation dipped again and eventually segued smoothly into another topic, which they discussed until they got to Dwight's front door. Since the house was empty, he invited Chris inside to orb home out of sight of prying eyes.
The next few days zipped and slogged in equal measure so that, by the time two weeks had passed, Chris felt about ready for another vacation. Already, six weeks before exams, teachers were bringing up test materials during almost every class. They suggested study schedules, handed out outlines, and started lessons with pop quizzes to "keep the information fresh." Mrs. Williams assigned a final essay due the last week of school, which Chris knew he wouldn't begin until a few days before its due date, never mind that that would coincide with exams.
Most of whatever respite he got from school, he spent with Jake, highly aware that pretty soon his free time would become scarce. At least three times a week, at the end of his last class, he orbed to Jake, almost always finding him at his desk in his bedroom. He barely even bothered to sense his charge's location before orbing anymore.
This bit of inattentiveness led him to a rather unpleasant surprise two Thursdays after classes resumed. Only half-focused on the tendrils he sent out to sense his charge's whereabouts, he materialized in a distinctly unfamiliar location.
The first thing to hit him when he arrived, even before he had fully formed, was the sterile smell of antiseptic. It filled his nostrils so completely that, after a single inhalation, he began to cough. The next thing he noticed was a steady beeping, until finally the room solidified around him, revealing a narrow hospital bed sectioned off by a white and blue striped curtain. And there, tucked beneath the covers, lay his charge.
Within the span of a heartbeat, Chris found himself standing at Jake's bedside with no memory of crossing the room. The boy was in a drugged slumber, his features slack, his chest rising and falling at a steady pace. Chris's eyes traced the line of an IV that ran from a pole beside the bed all the way to the crook of Jake's elbow, where a continuous trickle of clear liquid entered his bloodstream.
Across one entire side of his chin and up half his cheek spread a giant purplish bruise while a few much smaller ones littered his arms. His left arm, the one without the IV, rested across his chest and was bound up in white cast plaster from forearm to knuckles.
After an interminable stretch, with only the beeping machine and Jake's soft, deep breathing to break the silence, a rustling behind the curtain drew Chris's attention. The curtain slid back to reveal Jake's mother, a steaming cup of coffee in hand. When her eyes landed on the unexpected visitor, she stopped short. "How did you…?"
For a moment, Chris's mind remained frozen, wordless as a black, tight fury surged in his chest. All sorts of scenarios bubbled, unbidden, to the surface. Instead of answer her unfinished question, he bit out, "What. Happened."
His rage roared so fiercely in his ears that he almost missed her response when it came. "On his way home from school." Carmen's gaze drifted downward to her son's prone form, a sheen across her eyes making them glisten. "There's supposed to be a crossing guard at the crosswalk, but I don't know, maybe he just didn't show up today. I don't…"
Averting her gaze, she stared unseeing into her cup. "It's my fault," she whispered. "He's too young to walk home by himself, of course he is. I shouldn't work such late hours. I should pick him up from school. Stupid. Of course he's too young."
Chris wanted to respond—to absolve her of blame? to agree with her self-flagellating perspective? he wasn't sure—but he couldn't find his voice. Instead, eyes glued to his charge, he stepped still closer until his knees bumped against the bedframe and all he could see was the slow, rhythmic inhale and exhale of Jake's chest, the way the fingers peeking out of the cast twitched against his sternum. He let the gentle motions soothe him until his own breathing fell in sync with the boy's. With every release of air, he felt his anger bleed away. Finally, from a distance, he heard himself speak to Carmen. "Is he going to be okay?"
"They're keeping him here a few hours," she said at once, as though she had expected the question. "They have some more tests to run to make sure he doesn't have internal injuries." After a moment, she added, "His brain scan already came back clean, so that's good. Once they're done, they'll let him come home."
Only half listening, Chris reached down to brush the slack hand resting at his side against the mattress. "They said it was normal for the painkillers to make him sleepy," Carmen explained, seemingly to fill the heavy silence. Chris did not respond.
Beneath his fingers, Jake's hand twitched, and the skin around his eyes scrunched as he began to shift. As Chris held his breath, Jake blinked his eyes open. Voice thick with sleep, he mumbled, "Mommy?"
Rushing to his other side, Carmen cooed at once, "I'm right here, baby." She set her cooling coffee on the rolling table beside a hard plastic cup and a small pitcher of water so she could use both hands, one to cup her son's cheek and the other to caress the sweaty bangs off his forehead.
"Mommy, I'm thirsty," Jake croaked. Immediately, Carmen reached for the plastic cup waiting on the table surface. With one hand, she tilted his neck forward while the other brought the cup to his lips. After he took a few frantic gulps, he eased himself back against the pillow once more.
As she set the cup aside, Carmen asked, "Does anything hurt, baby?"
Drowsily, the boy shook his head. In doing so, he finally caught sight of Chris on his other side. Frowning, he mumbled, "Chris?"
Past the dry knot in his throat, Chris forced himself to say, "Hey, Jake. How ya feeling?"
Jake pondered this for a long, sluggish moment before responding. At last, in a slur, he said, "M'arm itches." The incongruity of the scene, its severity, and the triviality of Jake's remark, drew a short, abrupt laugh out of Chris as his body sagged with relief.
"That's not too bad," he said.
From her side of the bed, Carmen straightened. Looking distinctly uncomfortable at her intrusion into their conversation, she offered, "I'll, um, I'll go grab you a snack from the cafeteria, okay, baby?" When, after a moment, Jake gave her a wobbly nod, she tiptoed behind the curtain, giving the duo—very much to Chris's relief—a bit of privacy.
Once he was certain she had left the room—and after a few extra seconds' wait to make sure she had passed out of earshot—Chris wiggled one thigh onto the edge of the bed in a half-seated position. The mattress dipping beneath him forced Jake to squirm into a more comfortable position. Carefully, Chris lifted the boy's uncasted hand in both of his own, cradling it between them as he, expression grave, met Jake's eyes. Jake blinked blearily up at him.
Voice low but strained with emotion, Chris asked, "Why didn't you call me?"
With one hand clasped in Chris's and the other a dead weight on his chest, Jake struggled to shrug. "I don't really remember it happening," he admitted. "The car was real fast. And then there were just lots of people doing stuff, and then I was just here. And everything's been pretty blurry. I didn't even think about it. I'm sorry."
Releasing a rueful sigh, Chris set the boy's hand gently back at his side. "Don't be sorry," he said, "It's not your fault." Then, somewhat fiercely, "I'm going to make sure you're okay, got it? You've got absolutely nothing to worry about."
As Jake smiled, his eyes drifted closed. "I know you will," he murmured, his voice meandering away.
Chris waited in that same position, posture stiff, until the boy's breathing evened out again. Once he was certain Jake had fallen back asleep, he eased himself off the mattress and stepped away from the bed. As quietly as he could, he tiptoed toward the curtain.
When he exited the room, he nearly tripped over a body. The toe of his sneaker caught in the crook of someone's bent knee, and he threw up his hands to the wall just in time to prevent himself from colliding with the person seated below him.
Huddled on the floor just outside the door sat Carmen, her legs crossed, her hands cupped over her face. She glanced up when she felt the kick strike her leg and, seeing Chris, scrambled to her feet.
"Oh, I'm sorry!" She swiped the back of her hand beneath red-rimmed eyes, scrubbing wet cheeks.
And all of a sudden, this woman Chris hated morphed into a mother in agony, a person falling apart as her son lay prone in a hospital bed. As much as instinct made him want to blame this abusive, neglectful parent for Jake's current predicament, he knew he couldn't. This wasn't abuse or neglect; it was cruel happenstance. Much more gently than he ever imagined possible, Chris found himself asking her, "Are you all right?"
Though Carmen tried to smile, she couldn't manage more than a grimace. "I just…" The words caught in her throat. "I just…" With a sob, fresh tears trickled down her cheeks. Mortified, she clapped her hands back over her face. "I'm sorry," she gasped, her small voice muffled by her palms. "It's just, he's my baby. He's the only person I have in my life. It's just the two of us. If he had died, I don't know what I would've done." For a second, she pressed her fingers hard into her eyes, then seemed to gather herself enough to make eye contact once more.
Until now, Chris hadn't realized just how exhausted she appeared. Beneath the tears, her eyes were sunken, smudged with dark circles. Steeling herself, she continued, barely above a whisper, "And he would have died hating me. He deserves better than this." She seemed on the precipice of something crucial, something Chris felt intuitively should not be interrupted, so he stood stoically in front of her without uttering a sound, merely waiting.
"You may not know this—or maybe you do, I don't know how much Jake talks to you—I have, well, a problem with alcohol. It turns me into someone…" Though she trailed off, for once she had Chris's undivided attention. "I think it's time I… well, that I get help. For Jake." After a moment, she added, "For myself, too."
For what felt like hours, Chris held his breath. The world seemed to halt around them. There she was, this woman he had never seen as her own person with her own struggles until this very moment. Slowly, he exhaled. For the very first time, Chris smiled at Jake's mother. "I think that's a good idea," he said. Without meeting his eyes, she nodded. "He's sleeping, you know. So you don't have to go get him something to eat." At her continued silence, he offered, "Can I get you something? A coke? Something from the cafeteria?"
Again she tried and failed to smile. Her whole body sagged into itself, perhaps at her son's circumstances, perhaps at her admission, granted voice for the first time. "I think I'm just going to go back in there so I can be there when he wakes up." For the briefest flash, her eyes darted up to meet his before flitting away. "I'm sure he appreciates you visiting him. You're a good person. I know you've been helping him. So"—she seemed to almost choke on the words—"thank you."
Despite their abilities, the Halliwell brothers had long maintained an unspoken agreement not to orb into each other's private space unannounced—it just seemed proper etiquette—but today Chris disregarded this mutual understanding. As he materialized at the center of Wyatt's bedroom, he heard Wyatt's voice, midsentence. "—hitting a wall with Devon."
Wyatt, who was draped sideways across his bed with his legs kicking in the air behind him, was not alone. Bent forward in the desk chair with his elbows propped on his knees sat their father.
Within moments of Chris appearing between them, Wyatt clocked his brother's tense, no-nonsense expression. Instantly alert, he sat up on his knees to ask, "What's wrong?"
"My charge is in the hospital," Chris replied, bouncing on the balls of his feet with impatience. Even the time it took to explain himself felt too long, but he forced himself through it with gritted teeth.
Before Wyatt, already clambering off his bed, could respond, Leo interjected. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on." Feeling riled up, Chris brusquely swiveled in place to face his father, who held one hand in the air to halt Wyatt's progress. "Why don't you tell us what's going on first?"
Chris nearly growled his frustration. "Why?" he demanded. "Jake is my charge. He needs healing. What more could you possibly need to know?"
Though Leo eased back in his seat to scrutinize his younger son, he did not back down. Calmly, he countered, "For starters, what happened. Was he attacked by demons?"
Crossing his arms, Chris drummed his fingers along the crook of his elbow. "No," he said with exaggerated patience and a roll of his eyes, "he was hit by a car. Does that satisfy your curiosity?"
Unflappable as ever, Leo replied, "It's not curiosity, Chris. The details are important. Are his wounds fatal?"
"No," Chris ground out, fingernails digging into his skin at the implication that this less severe injury did not warrant attention. "They're not fatal. But he's badly injured, and they don't know exactly when he'll be released. He needs help. I wasn't there to help him when it mattered, so I don't plan to abandon him now."
He hadn't meant to say those words aloud, hadn't truly even realized he'd been thinking them. Since the moment his eyes had landed on Jake in that bed, his insides had been buzzing with some agitating emotion he couldn't name, but the moment he uttered that sentence the sensation stilled, settled, the roiling guilt. His father's lips parted in a silent "ah" as he began to nod.
Attempting to backtrack on the admission, Chris insisted, "That's not what I meant. That's not why it matters to me. It's because it's my job."
"No, Chris," Leo said gently, "Your job is to guide him on his path and protect him from evil and corruption."
"How is a car accident not evil?" Chris demanded, throwing up his arms. Leo said nothing to this, but he didn't need to. Though he was too stubborn to admit as much, Chris knew without being told that this wasn't the case here.
When Leo spoke again, it was with the calm authority of a former Elder. "If his life were threatened, there would be no question. However, in this circumstance, the risk of exposure outweighs the benefits. More importantly, you would be doing your charge a grave disservice."
When Chris's mouth snapped open to argue, Leo held up a placating hand. "Shielding him from every challenge he faces may seem like support, Chris, but it only impedes growth. He needs to learn to face adversity head-on. He is destined to become a whitelighter. If you alter the course of his natural life by too many degrees, he may never fulfill his destiny."
"So I should just, what? Let him suffer?" Chris asked, his tone half bitter and half pleading.
"Being a whitelighter is a lot like being a parent," Leo remarked. "You want to protect them, but you have to learn when to stand back and let them get up on their own."
With no argument left in his arsenal, an embittered Chris turned away to spot Wyatt scrupulously attempting to avoid staring in their direction. Balling his hands into fists, Chris stomped out of the room, down the hall, and into his own room, where he slammed the door shut.
When Chris heard Jake's soft-spoken call later that evening, he leapt to respond. The boy had been released to his home, where Carmen had tucked him snugly into bed. Once fully materialized, Chris glided over to his side and half-sat on the mattress in much the same way he had in the hospital room. The large bruise on the boy's chin stood out as starkly as face paint and with just as much vibrancy, and Chris tried his hardest to ignore it, though a lump knotted itself inside his gut the entire time he did so.
To avoid alerting Carmen to his intrusion, he spoke to Jake in a whisper. "I'm glad you're back home."
"Me, too," Jake agreed, sinking deeper into his pillow with a relieved smile. "Thanks for visiting me before."
Swallowing dryly, Chris said, "Jake, listen…" before pausing. He had been dreading this conversation since the moment he had stormed from Wyatt's room. "I can't—I can't heal your injuries. I wish I could more than anything, I hope you know that, but I can't."
He wasn't sure exactly what reaction he expected, but Jake barely seemed to react at all. "That's okay," he chirped, patting Chris's arm with his casted hand. "The doctor said it's not so bad. All I have is a broken wrist and a sprained ankle and some bruises. Tomorrow I'm gonna get all my friends to sign my cast."
It felt almost surreal, how calmly Jake accepted all this. Perhaps Leo was right and Chris needed to place more trust in his charge's resilience.
Forcing a smile, he said, "I hope you'll save me a spot to sign it."
"I will," Jake promised.
They heard footsteps shuffle toward the bedroom door from down the hall. "I'll come back tomorrow morning, okay?" Chris whispered quickly. When he leaned forward to ruffle Jake's hair, the boy closed his eyes. With his hand still on the crown of Jake's head, Chris orbed away.
Just seconds later, Carmen inched the door open. "Baby, are you awake? You can take the next dose of painkillers now." She wriggled past the barely-open door, one hand clutching a tall cup of water that frosted the glass. In the other she held two small pills at the center of her cupped palm.
Once she helped him squirm into a seated position, she handed him the pills one at a time. He placed each one on the back of his tongue, then downed half the glass. After he swallowed the second one, Carmen set the cup down on the table beside his bed and knelt down on the mattress, trapping his legs beneath the covers as she carefully brushed his bangs out of his eyes. She took his unbroken hand in both of hers, then placed it carefully over her own heart. "Oh, baby," she murmured, her voice tight with unreleased tears, "I am so, so sorry for everything."
Jake smiled at her sleepily as he leaned back again. "S'okay, Mommy."
Some time after dinner, while Chris was organizing the clean laundry Piper had left in his room, Leo knocked on his door. Chris was seated cross-legged on the carpet with paired and unpaired socks strewn in a halo all around him. The man watched him hold two nearly identical black socks up to the light, squinting at them before dropping one back to the floor and selecting another with a similar hue. He did this twice more before rolling one sock into the other, setting the match behind him, and finally addressing his father.
"What's up?" he asked, grabbing two striped orange socks and folding them together.
Instead of answer immediately, Leo asked, "How's the matching going?"
Narrowing his eyes, Chris set down the white sock he had just picked up. "Fine," he said shortly, and waited for his father to raise the subject that had brought him to the door.
"That's good," Leo said. "Keep at it." Chris said nothing. Finally, the man admitted, "There's something I need to talk to you about."
With a wry grin, Chris remarked, "Yeah, I kind of figured that out." But Leo didn't smile with him. Instead, he took a minute to cross the room and ease himself onto Chris's bed beside a pile of folded t-shirts, rubbing his hands up and down the tops of his thighs as he searched for words.
At last he said, "It's about your charge."
Assuming he knew where Leo intended to take the conversation, Chris quickly said, "Yeah, about that. I'm sorry how I acted earlier. I was just a bit freaked. But you were right. He's gonna be fine without magical intervention."
After a pause, Leo replied, "Well, good. That's good." But something else seemed to war in his mind.
After pairing up two more socks, Chris stopped to study his father's expression. "Is that… what you wanted to talk about?"
Meeting his gaze, Leo sighed. "No. Not exactly."
"Okay. So…?" Chris let the word linger in the air, waiting for Leo to jump in.
Leo's palms stilled on his knees. He offered a grim smile. "Your reaction earlier concerned me, Chris," he confessed. "I'm worried what might happen in the future."
Chris frowned. "What does that mean?"
At first Leo remained silent, as if waiting for Chris to connect the dots himself. But eventually, with a slow exhale, he explained, "You must realize, as a future whitelighter, your charge is destined to die."
Chris didn't respond right away. A coldness seeped into his chest. Once he found his voice, he said, "Maybe so, but I'm his whitelighter. I'm supposed to protect him."
"Oh, Chris." Sympathetic pain tightened around Leo's eyes. "You can't protect him from his destiny."
Trying to ignore his father's words, he turned his focus back to the socks. There were a few yet unpaired, but he gathered all of them, pairs and singles, together in his arms and clumsily climbed to his feet. With careful balance, he carried the pile to his dresser, attempting to keep the armful stable as he freed one hand to open the top drawer. A couple of bundles tumbled off the top, but the rest he stuffed into the drawer. Once his hands were unburdened, he knelt to retrieve those that had escaped.
All the while, internally, his thoughts roiled. Obviously, in the recesses of his mind he had known what it meant for his charge to be a future whiteligehter, what eventuality it implied. But that was really the most consideration he had given the idea. Eventuality. As in, eventually. Surely he wasn't meant to die this young.
Leo's voice cut through his thoughts to add, "And even if that weren't his fate… Chris, whitelighter assignments aren't meant to be permanent. The Charmed Ones' unique circumstances notwithstanding. Most charges require guardianship for only a brief time until the risk to their future has passed. It's the hardest thing in the world to lose a charge, whether to the assignment's termination or to more… nefarious reasons. More than anything, I wish I could shield you from that." He flipped his palms toward the ceiling, almost pleading. "I just… it's important you are prepared for that. I don't want you to blame yourself if something happens."
As he marched to the bed to grab the pile of shirts beside his father, Chris huffed, "All right, I won't," but they both knew the words rang hollow. Chris refused to let something else happen to Jake, and Leo could see as much in the stubborn set of his jaw.
When Leo pinned Chris with a knowing look, the teen squirmed away to shove his shirts into their drawer, where they bulged over the rim. He stuffed and shoved until the piles lay flat enough to close, at which point he slammed the drawer roughly shut. With nothing else to do, and unwilling to turn to face his father, he tugged the top drawer open again to stare at the disarray of solo socks.
Releasing a mournful breath, Leo got to his feet. As he passed Chris to leave the room, he paused, laying a warm palm on the crown of his son's head. "I hope you'll keep this conversation with you," he murmured, then slipped out the door, leaving Chris to stare numbly into his sock drawer.
A bit longer than usual, but I wanted to get it all in.
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Replies
Guest 1 - Thank you! I want to develop Chris's maturity in several ways over the course of the story, so I felt him learning to treat his sister with respect was a reasonable avenue to pursue. Glad you appreciate it. Hope you enjoy this chapter's conversation with his father, too.
Guest 2 - Thanks! I always had a soft spot for the relationship between Chris and Bianca, so I leapt on the chance to portray it from different timelines' perspectives. It was such a treat. Glad you enjoyed it!