Not thrilled with how this came out, but I didn't want to wait longer to get this to you. The chapter is longer than usual. I didn't want to break it into two. Hopefully it's not a slog to get through.
[Sunday, May 17, 2020]
Before he heard or saw anything, Chris felt the rough, polycotton fabric of a gown against his skin, the sleek, cool sheets tucked around his body, the warm grip engulfing one of his hands. He felt someone's fingers interlaced with his own. And though even the thought of moving made every part of him ache, with monumental effort he forced his fingers to squeeze. He felt the hand inside his jerk in surprise.
Slowly, his other senses returned, first hearing—the steady beep of a monitor somewhere behind him; a deep, urgent, familiar voice saying, "Chris? Oh god, Chris, can you hear me?" Then smell, a powerful antiseptic that made his nostrils burn. Then taste, a sticky sweetness coating his parched tongue.
Finally, he managed to peel open his eyes. At first his vision was blurry, blocky shapes of light and dark that shifted around him, but after a couple of seconds his father's face swam into focus. He saw Leo for only a moment before the face swooped in, blocking out the light, and kissed his forehead, his cheek, the back of his hand, any part of him that he could reach.
"Chris, Chris," he kept repeating. Chris had never heard his father's voice this laden with emotion. Indeed, when the man finally sat back, his eyes were rimmed with red, his cheeks damp with tears.
Chris managed an exhausted smile. "Hey, Dad," he breathed.
Leo swiped the hair out of Chris's face, leaving one hand on either cheek as, words failing him, he simply stared at his son.
When Chris tried to speak again, he managed only a dehydrated cough. Immediately, his father shushed him, reaching for a plastic cup just out of Chris's view, which he brought to tip forward at his son's lips. Chris swallowed again and again, grateful, greedy, for the tepid, stale water within it. His arms felt leaden, weighed down at his sides, so he let Leo hold the cup for him, upending it with care, until Chris, sated, finally pulled away.
While Leo turned to set the cup aside, during which time Chris cast his gaze over the room, it finally struck his sluggish mind that this unfamiliar space wasn't his bedroom. Voice barely above a whisper, he rasped, "Where are we?"
Laughing with relief, Leo began to fill him in on what had transpired over the past week. If Chris concentrated very hard, he could vaguely recall the Monday he'd had his piercing headache. He didn't remember collapsing at all. The last thing he recalled from the outside world was getting up from the table in the cafeteria and Dwight, at his side, recommending he see the nurse.
Much fresher in his mind was waking up trapped in his own subconscious while the demon of dreams consumed his selves' souls, draining their life an ounce at a time. There had been nightmares rising up from the ground all around him, flashes—he recalled none in detail—of blows raining down from above, of fire blazing up his back, of a golden dagger slicing through his insides like butter.
"Chris?"
His eyes must have unfocused, must have grown hazy again, from the way his father now examined him with concern. "Sorry," he croaked. "I know you said I've been unconscious this whole time, but I feel like I haven't slept in weeks."
Carefully, Leo patted the boy's hand. "Well, do you think you can hang on a bit longer?" he asked, almost a croon. "I'm sure your mom will want to speak to you."
Chris tried. He really did. But in the time it took Leo to call for Wyatt—and bring your mother—he had already dozed off again. Leo was torn between waking the boy for his wife's sake and letting him sleep for his own sake, but he needn't have worried. The soft tinkling sound of orbs was enough to rouse Chris once again, at least enough to dutifully accept the shower of hugs and kisses, though he had to struggle to keep his mind aware.
He didn't have the energy to tell them much, just enough wherewithal to confirm that, yes, there had been demonic involvement and to assure them his attacker no longer posed a threat. For the time being, his parents had to be content to leave the conversation there because already Chris was drifting back asleep.
All around him spread the aftermath of the demon's attack. Cracks without bottom split off from the center of the abyss and splintered in every direction. In one huddled corner, Krissy was comforting Boy, who crouched willingly in her arms. Demon sat with Mutt atop the jungle gym tunnel, their feet dangling over the side as Mutt rested his head against Demon's arm. Almost without realizing himself, Demon placed a hand on Mutt's knee.
Chris watched the duo until Ian crossed his path. Dangling from one hand was a small, partitioned canister with several colors of paint, in his other hand a brush. Before Chris, the boy got down on his hands and knees, set his canister on the floor beside him, and began to run his brush up and down the length of one of the crevices at Chris's feet. In Ian's wake, Chris saw when he gazed behind him, he had left a trail of green vines to systematically blot out the broken edges of the world, tattooing them with flower petals and other curling designs.
The boy craned his neck up to offer Chris a still-shaky smile. "Mamă always said to make your world beautiful however you can."
"It looks great," Chris said softly.
A few of the others had settled around the large oak table in Sir Christopher's wedge—with one notable absence: Sir Christopher himself was nowhere to be seen. The auras of color had returned to most of the wedges, wan but persistent, but in this one there were shadows that hadn't existed before when the yellow glow, now snuffed out, had poured through the windows. But someone had lit the torches along the wall to cast away the worst of the darkness.
After a beat, and a momentary inhale to steel himself, Chris headed in that direction. Perry sat at the table with his back to Chris, his head blocking Chris's view of the person with whom he spoke. Based on the man's height, the top of his hair just peeking out above Perry's scalp, Chris assumed it was Christian until he spotted Christian a couple seats over, talking gravely with a pale and silent Merlin.
Honestly, it surprised Chris to see Merlin in the presence of others; the teen rarely opted to spend time with them, excepting the occasional game of cards, which he did with no small complaint (though no one forced him into it). But Chris could see now in the way Merlin kept his eyes averted to his hands on the table, refusing to meet Christian's gaze, that his nightmare had shifted something fundamental inside him. That he did not want to be alone.
As Chris drew closer, Perry's head, as if hearing the footsteps behind him, tilted sideways to listen, revealing an unfamiliar face. His eyes locked with the newcomer as he made his way over. With his dark hair and blazing green eyes, there was no doubt this was another self. But more than that, Chris realized with a jolt. A version he had met before. Once, long ago. Given their striking resemblance, it was a wonder Chris hadn't pegged the man's identity back then. (Granted, he had been unacquainted with his powers at the time.)
Following the direction of the newcomer's hard stare, Perry twisted in his chair to glance over his shoulder. As soon as his gaze landed on Chris, the muscles around his eyes twitched—was that pity? sympathy?—just once before they fell slack again. His carefully easing out of his seat seemed to cue the others to fall silent in their own conversation, tracking the man as he, with his vacated chair still pulled out, waved his hand toward it in invitation.
Chris didn't sit, though he did glide up and thunk his hand down with decisive intent on top of the backrest. Not once did his eyes shift off the newcomer. "You're another one, aren't you," he stated flatly.
From behind Chris, a young voice piped up, "His name's Death." Ian, with his canister and brush and wet paint on the knees of his pants, had trailed in after him without him noticing. "We voted on what to call him," he explained.
Chris thought back to their first encounter, long before even Perry had shown up in his life. How the man had warned him they would meet again. He had known. Back then, this man had known what Chris would become. "So you, you were the first," he said.
Those solemn eyes watched Chris, stared through him. Slowly, with an almost lethargy, though he remained pristinely alert the entire time, he began to speak, as if mulling over each word before it exited his mouth. "I was," he acknowledged with a nod. "You were not ready then."
The silence grew heavy, uncomfortable, between them, alerting Chris suddenly to the sharp focus donated them from those around them, the hungry way the others watched them, waiting eagerly to hear their conversation. The sensation of all eyes trained on him made Chris squirm.
Perry must have gleaned something from the rigid set of Chris's shoulders because he tapped Christian's arm, simultaneously jerking his chin toward Merlin. Reluctantly, the two pushed back their chairs and climbed to their feet. As Perry, flanked by the others, passed Chris, he gave a supportive clap to his shoulder. "You two should get to know each other." He gave the shoulder a brief squeeze before releasing him. "We'll give you a couple minutes."
"But—" Ian protested. But whatever the argument, Perry steered the boy away before he could voice it, leaving Chris alone with Death.
Finally, Chris claimed Perry's vacated seat, scraping the chair in so he could prop his elbows on the table. Death merely blinked, wholly unbothered by the chasm of silence that stretched ever-further between them. "Right," Chris muttered, feeling the beginnings of a blush creep up behind his ears. Thrusting away his discomfort, he adopted a façade of nonchalance, enough to lean back in his seat, grin, and quirk an eyebrow. "So… wrong again, huh?"
He had wanted to throw the angel off his rhythm, shake something out of him beyond cool, calm, collected, but Death merely cocked his head in a wordless question. "You know," Chris continued, losing a bit of confidence, "Since I obviously escaped death a second time. I saw him here before I passed out, the other angel of death, I mean, but I'm still alive." And he rapped his chest with one fist to demonstrate his solidity.
But Death responded without words, a patient sigh that blew all the wind from Chris's sails, that made him feel like a toddler, foolish in his bravado. He slouched in his seat, frowning at his fists clenching and unclenching on the table. "What?" he grumbled.
Death laced his fingers together on top of the table. "You were lucky, Christopher, nothing more," he said. "Do not think yourself invincible. Such conviction is the downfall of many a witch; that much is certain."
The angel's penetrating but dispassionate stare left Chris feeling uneasy in a way he couldn't fully describe. Were his words meant as advice or a portent? In truth, either way, he resented the belittlement. Hadn't he proven himself tougher than he looked at first glance? He had survived an ancient demon's psychological warfare; wasn't that enough to earn him a few resilience points? (He chose to conveniently ignore who had saved him from that certain death—and though he couldn't say how he knew, something deep within him affirmed that the angel's appearance directly correlated with the demon's departure.)
Glancing away, he muttered petulantly at the table, "Nothing's permanent when I control time."
Sounding surprised, Death asked, "Is that what you think?"
Chris glanced up without lifting his head, brows raised, eyes disbelieving in an expression that clearly conveyed, Duh.
"Time cannot be controlled," Death corrected. "It has puttered along well before your existence and will carry on long after you have left this world behind."
Chris's eyes darted over his shoulder at Perry in the distance, a man who had accomplished a feat almost unheard of by travelling through the past to change the future. Before him, if the stories were true, it had taken all of the Elders' pooled resources to send the Charmed Ones back once before. As far as he was aware, no single person had ever possessed this ability before him, and who knew if one ever would again. "But… my powers…" he protested.
"—do not grant you dominion over time, merely a deeper connection to its passage," Death finished for him.
Wrinkling his nose, Chris said, "So, what, time controls me?"
Death opened his hands heavenward in as close to a shrug as his decorous posture could muster. "As much as it controls anyone on the physical plane."
Chris felt frustration mount in his chest and allowed himself to huff in disgust as he crossed his arms. "So basically what you're saying is these powers do absolutely squat for me."
Leaning forward in his seat, the angel caught and held Chris's gaze, his eyes boring into Chris, almost patronizing, or at least patronizing enough that Chris felt puerile slouching there with folded arms and promptly dropped them back to the table and straightened in his seat, though he still begrudged Death's next statement when it came. "They are not for you, Christopher. None of your powers are. They were granted to you for a higher purpose, to serve the Greater Good."
That sounded enough like his father's lectures to make Chris roll his eyes. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered. "Has anyone ever told you you're a real drag?"
At this, a smile ghosted over Death's face. "Most of the people with whom I converse have recently perished and are most often preoccupied by other thoughts."
Chris graced the comment with a smile, but it was short-lived. "What about the demon? Siyut. How do we know he won't come back to try again?"
"He is no longer a threat to anyone," Death replied.
Chris's eyebrows rose in surprise. Though he had sensed as much, it nonetheless felt rather anticlimactic to go from all-embracing imprisonment in his mind, watching his own life siphon away, to waking up with his attacker vanquished behind the scenes and everyone doing just fine. Well—a cursory glance around the splintered abyss told him fine wasn't quite the word, but they had lived. Most of them. It seemed hard to believe the threat was simply over with so little effort on his part.
Death must have seen the disbelief written on his face because he explained, "I drained the energy he had amassed from your collective nightmares. It is fuel for him, the fear, and without it he could not survive. I assure you he is gone."
"Oh. Right. Thanks."
A sheepish cough behind Chris made him twist in his seat. A few feet behind him stood Ian, who had at some point acquired a smudge of green paint on his cheek, which he didn't appear to notice. The boy offered a nervous smile and hoisted his paint canister. "Krissy and me were gonna paint the scars in this room. If that's okay."
Chris peered past him to where Krissy stood several yards away, desperately attempting to look as though she weren't eavesdropping or part of the interruption in any way.
Before responding, Chris glanced back at Death with a scrutinizing squint to glean what more he might impart. But Death's blank expression conveyed absolutely nothing. Chris might not even have realized they'd done anything more than sit in silence for several minutes had he not been privy to the conversation himself. Death barely stirred. Feeling a bit disheartened, though he could not explain why, Chris turned back to Ian. "Go ahead," he sighed, and with a squeal of delight the boy trotted in. Krissy's head perked up, and she headed in their direction.
Before he reached the first crevice, just a yard from Death's feet, Ian paused to cock his head toward the angel, nibbling his lip as he did so as if debating something in his mind. It seemed his request had not been much more than a pretense to start a conversation. Just as Chris was about to insist he just ask already, the boy blurted out, "We were kinda wondering… Where's your spot?"
Surprised, Chris glanced around the abyss. It was true: none of the wedges had shifted to make room for another. Aside from the deep cracks running through the ground, nothing at all had changed.
"I exist outside of time and space," Death answered. "It means I have no place of my own."
By this point, Krissy had joined them. "That's sad," she said with a frown.
Not appearing remotely perturbed by this, Death remarked, "Is it?"
Seeing that Ian and Krissy had encroached on Chris and Death's conversation without repercussions, the others took this as a positive sign and began to migrate over as well. The seats around them slowly filled. Even Boy ventured warily out of his wedge, though he hovered a few feet from the table, unwilling to claim a seat for himself.
Nobody, not even Perry, who had spoken with the angel previously, seemed willing to be the first to broach a topic now. Perhaps they waited for Chris to take the lead, so the teen searched his mind for something to say, something innocuous enough to jumpstart a conversation for everyone. (The only one who didn't seem itching to ask questions was Death himself, serene at the nucleus of all their stares.)
"So," Chris said at last, "how did I become an angel of death in your timeline anyway? Did the Elders just decide we were low on angels and figure they'd bestow those powers on me?"
Briefly, Death closed his eyes, giving the tiniest shake of his head, as if in disappointment. "Angels are neutral. Death, Destiny. We are beyond Good and Evil. The Elders play no role in our existence."
Was Chris supposed to have known that? This creature acted as though the facts of his existence were common knowledge! Feeling defensive, he huffed, "Okay, how, then? Was it a spell? A hex? Did I wake up one day and just go poof?" He threw up his hands in irritation as the others clung to every word, curiosity spurring the conversation forward.
"We don't materialize out of thin air, Christopher."
"It's 'Chris,'" the teen ground out. "So, what, then? How did you happen?"
The other versions of himself all turned expectantly to Death, who said simply, "I was born." After a moment, he added, seemingly as clarification, "Angels of death are born."
Chris waited for more, but when Death did not continue it was Ian who timidly asked, "But… how?"
Calmly, Death said, "Piper Halliwell died when a demon called Shax attacked—"
Without thinking, Chris corrected, "No, that's not right. That's the demon who killed Prue, my—our—aunt."
"That is not what Destiny had planned," Death said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "Piper was meant to die, and in one timeline she did. The dead…" He flipped his hands palms-up as if in surrender. "Well, life is best left to the living. But Leo never did follow the rules."
"What do you mean?" Chris asked.
"He followed her. Into the Afterlife."
"That's so romantic!" Krissy squealed, but Perry interrupted her.
"It's not romantic, it's stupid," he snapped. When she released an offended scoff, he said, "Hey, I'm sorry, but just look—look at what their 'romance' produced." He jerked a sharp hand across the table to the angel who watched him without expression. "Welcome to the progeny of a whitelighter and a ghost. He's a byproduct of death itself."
"Every creature deserves to live," Krissy countered stubbornly.
"It is not life," Death interjected. "Life and existence are not one in the same."
"Well, that's true enough," Demon remarked from the seat across from Krissy. The girl wrinkled her nose at even being addressed by Demon. She got along about as well with him as she did with Merlin. He knew just how to push her buttons and relished doing so at every available turn.
Seeing her expression now, his eyes narrowed devilishly and a lazy smirk unfurled across his face. Without taking his gaze off her, he called, "Hey, Boy! I'm thirsty. Get me something to drink."
As expected, Krissy's eyes flared. Slamming her hands down on the table, she snapped, "Quit telling him what to do all the time!" Meanwhile, Boy scampered to the edge of Sir Christopher's wedge, where the knight had kept a small wine rack upon whose surface sat a tray of silver goblets.
Demon's grin split wider. "Why?" he asked innocently as Boy began to pry a cork out of one of the bottles. "He likes it. That's his purpose in life, is to serve. Demons especially. I'm doing him a favor."
Head bowed, Boy returned with a goblet that he had filled with dark red wine, which he set down before Demon. Lifting the goblet by its stem, Demon raised it in mocking toast to Krissy before downing half the liquid in a single gulp.
"Leave him alone," Krissy growled, shoving her chair back to abruptly stand, palms splayed out on the table as she towered over it.
Groaning, Chris tried to tune out their argument. This was not the first, nor likely the last, of their debates. With his fingers pressed against his temple, he turned to Perry seated beside him. "Will it ever end?" he asked softly. "This clutter in my head, I mean. Will there ever be a point where no more of you—me—appear?"
Perry offered a sympathetic smile and grasped him by the shoulder. "There are an endless number of parallel planes," he replied. "As long as there's a trigger, you can potentially access all of them."
Chris flopped his head down onto the table with a solid thud. Through his muffled face, he groaned, "Guess I'll take that as a no, then."
"Sorry," he heard Perry remark above him.
"Sure you are," he griped.
Chris spent another two days in the hospital, though they transferred him out of the ICU the morning after he first awoke. The doctors were stumped by his spontaneous recovery. After another battery of tests, which provided no further explanation, they threw up their hands and decided it must have been an infection after all and that the broad-spectrum antibiotics had cleared it from his system.
The time in a coma damaged more of his physical body than his doctors had anticipated. Chris suspected the demon's attack had a lot to do with it. He felt parts of himself missing. Not just Sir Christopher's presence. The barrier between his conscious and unconscious mind had crumbled so much that, at times, he could hear his other selves' voices even when awake, faint but definitely there, like an unwelcome buzzing in his ear. During most of his waking hours, he felt distinctly out of sorts and off-kilter, as if he had lost a limb or perhaps grown a new one.
The first time he tried to get out of the hospital bed, he found his legs unwilling to bear his own weight. They trembled with fatigue until his father helped him back onto the mattress. The doctor ordered a visit from a physical therapist, who came with a cane and showed him how to feed the majority of his weight through his arm with every step.
They insisted Chris return if he began to feel the onset of any symptoms, which Chris assured them he would, and only then agreed to ultimately allow his parents to take him home.
The afternoon he was scheduled to get released, Dwight knocked on the door and poked his head inside. Chris, who struggled still with the extreme weakness but tried his best to deny it—which generally worked until he needed someone to help him to the bathroom (though, thankfully, in the bathroom itself he could accomplish his goals unaided)—had had his father shift him into a sitting position that morning. He waved his friend inside and over to an empty chair.
"Your sister told me you were getting out today," Dwight said.
Chris raised his eyebrows in surprise. "You talk to Prue?" His voice still sounded raspy from disuse.
With a shrug, Dwight sank into the seat. "Just for life and death circumstances," he quipped, though he watched Chris's face nervously as though unsure of the joke. Chris grinned to ease his uncertainty. After a beat, more seriously, Dwight asked, "So how are you feeling?"
"Tired," Chris admitted, sinking back against his propped-up mattress. For his family he tried to maintain the façade (mostly so his mother wouldn't insist he extend his stay), but with Dwight he felt no compulsion to lie. Honesty was a relief after his extended visage of fortitude these past couple days. "Like, constantly."
"At least you're awake," Dwight pointed out. Chris guffawed.
"So what have I missed?" he asked.
Obediently, Dwight ran through some of the more entertaining stories that had occurred at school during Chris's absence. Frankly, there wasn't much to report. For the most part, hallway gossip still favored Chris's dramatic collapse and subsequent ambulance episode. (Chris winced to hear as much.) But bit by bit the topic was beginning to lose its interest for people. The freshman dance was coming up, and a lot of attention had been dedicated to its preparation. Most teachers were gearing up for final exams. (Dwight had copied his notes for Chris, though he hadn't brought them with him to the hospital.)
Finally, and with utmost hesitation, Dwight broached the topic he had avoided until now. Leaning forward in his seat, his eyes bright with curiosity despite his reticence, he asked, "What exactly… happened? Prue didn't mention, and I didn't want to pry."
Chris opened his mouth to respond, but several voices jumped in at once. Don't tell him! Krissy cried in dismay, Mortals can't be trusted. She was still reeling from the direction her nightmare had taken, the betrayal she had experienced.
You'll scare him off, Ian added. Chris could sense the boy's thoughts drift to the witch hunters of his world, their insatiable desire to wipe all magic out of existence.
Scowling, with fingertips pressed tightly to his forehead, Chris muttered, "Keep quiet—no, not you." Dwight snapped his mouth shut halfway through an apology. "Sorry," Chris said, massaging his temple as if to scrub the voices out of his skull, "I'm still recovering. It was a demon. It, I don't know, got inside my head somehow. It basically made nightmares come to life." Off Dwight's bewildered expression, he added, "It's… hard to explain. Sorry."
"No, no," Dwight said quickly. "It makes sense. I mean, sort of. I'm just glad it's gone." After a brief pause, he added, "It is gone, right?"
"I'm pretty sure," Chris replied. "It's not still inside my head, at any rate."
"Well, that's a relief." Dwight sat back. "Your life is pretty crazy."
"Yeah," Chris sighed.
You see, you're a burden on him, Merlin said. Although a lot of his animosity toward magic had been sapped over the course of his own persecution, he still harbored a bit of resentment that he couldn't help but inject into the conversation. Truthfully, Chris couldn't argue with him. His magic did interfere with his ability to maintain normal relationships, even with people who knew the truth. After all this time, he still couldn't decide whether he'd made the right choice in revealing his secret to Dwight. It had made himself feel better, but was it right to expose Dwight to all the dangers that this knowledge entailed?
His ambivalence must have played openly across his face because Dwight interrupted his thoughts. "You're regretting telling me about this, aren't you?"
"No," Chris lied, but Dwight snorted. "Okay, a little," he admitted.
"Well, don't," Dwight stated stubbornly. "I'm glad I know the truth." Chris couldn't tell whether he meant it about this specific instance or more generally, but it seemed the statement was enough to quell any residual internal protests. The voices remained quashed for the rest of Dwight's stay.
The visit lasted just under an hour. Dwight would have stayed longer, but a physical therapist entered the room to make sure Chris would have the necessary equipment for him to leave later that day.
Back at the manor, Chris struggled up the stairs to his bedroom and fell back asleep the moment his head hit the pillow. When he awoke next, he had no idea how much time had passed, just that there was a tray of soup on his bedside table and his brother scrawling busily at his desk across the room.
Feeling muzzy and confused, Chris groaned, "Wyatt?"
Wyatt glanced up from the notes he was writing and twisted around in the chair to face him. "Hey, you're awake. Mom wanted someone in here to keep an eye on you." He seemed apologetic about this admission, but Chris was too hazy to be annoyed by having a babysitter. "She wanted to know when you were awake. Hang on."
Without standing up, he orbed out of the room. Chris squinted, shading his eyes against the sudden garish light, a contrast that tipped him off to the fact that the sky outside his window had already darkened. By the time the afterglow of orbs had faded from his vision and he could drop his hand back to his side, someone was lightly knocking on the door.
"Come in," he called, and in trooped the whole family, Piper in the lead, followed by Leo and Wyatt, then a guilty-looking Prue sneaking in to bring up the rear.
For the first time, watching her shut the door behind her, it struck Chris what an anomaly she was. Out of all his other selves, did any of them have a little sister? Most of them had Wyatt (or some variation in Melinda); his older sibling seemed like a near-constant throughout the timelines. But none of the other timelines he encountered so far had Prue. He found this a shame. The realization surprised him, but it was true. Though she annoyed him, at times incredibly so, he would regret living in a world without her. As she tucked herself into the nook between his desk and dresser, hugging herself by the elbows, Chris threw her a smile, which seemed at first to startle her before she reticently returned it.
"Sweetheart, how do you feel?" Piper cooed, drawing his attention to her. She stood at the center of the room with Leo beside her while Wyatt returned to the desk, sitting backward in the chair to watch the proceedings.
Before saying anything, Chris took the time to wriggle into a sitting position with his back propped against the headboard. Leo stepped forward to assist, but Chris waved him off, adamant he could accomplish it himself, so the others stood back to watch him.
Once comfortable, Chris glanced from one somber face to the next. "What is this, an intervention?" he quipped.
"Don't be silly, Chris," Piper said, "We just wanted to see how you were feeling."
"All of you," Chris remarked, his eyes landing on Prue in particular.
The girl blushed. "Mom wouldn't let me peek in earlier. She didn't want me to wake you."
"Ah."
With everyone watching, he reached to drag the bowl of soup over from its tray on his bedside table onto his bent knees, then hunched forward to spoon some into his mouth. Stone cold. Before he could set the utensil back into the bowl, Piper pounced at him. "Do you want me to reheat that for you?" She was already reaching out the take the bowl off his hands.
Chris stopped her with a single shake of his head. "S'fine," he assured. Honestly, at the moment, he was so famished he didn't care one whit about temperature. He could have tipped the entire thing down his throat without a moment's hesitation.
"All right," Leo piped up. "Would you say you're feeling better? The doctor said to call if you started to get worse again."
"Uh…" Chris glanced up from his soup. He felt like a student at the head of the class, gearing up for a presentation for which he hadn't practiced and didn't know the lines. The unblinking stares unnerved him. "It's kind of a bit early to tell. I was just released today… It was today, right?" It occurred to him that he had no idea how long he'd slept. But in her nook, Prue was already nodding. The clock beside him said eight-thirty, which meant only a few hours had passed since his homecoming.
His next thought he knew would upset his audience, his parents at any rate, but he felt strongly enough about it that he opted to bring it up regardless of consequences. Too much time had passed to ignore it. "Look, I know you'll think I'm not ready, but I have to go see Jake."
As suspected, almost before Chris had finished his sentence, Piper's eyebrows had snapped downward. "Absolutely not," she barked. "You can barely even walk. You are nowhere near ready to use your powers again."
Though Chris had no argument for that, he refused give in. "I have to," he insisted firmly. "He has no idea about any of this. He's all alone in a new environment that he's barely gotten used to. He'll be freaking out that I haven't been to see him!"
From behind their parents, silent until this point, Wyatt quietly piped up, "He's fine."
Head jerking toward his brother, Chris protested, "You don't know that."
"Actually, I do," Wyatt calmly replied. The assurance in his statement made Chris stop while both Piper and Leo twisted around to peer behind them as well. Sheepish with all eyes on him, the teen shrugged. "I've been checking in on him to make sure he was okay. I figured you'd worry about him feeling abandoned."
"You didn't tell him what was going on, did you?" Possibly worse than Jake's fear of abandonment was his fear that people would be taken from him against their will. Chris being hospitalized would not serve as reassurance.
"I told him you had extra angel training."
An immense wave of gratitude coursed through Chris, enough to cut off his determined protests. When it came down to the really important stuff, he hadn't even had to make the request. Even with him comatose, Wyatt had known his priorities, had known what he would have wanted and, without hesitation, had acted accordingly. The thought humbled Chris. He didn't know what words could appropriately convey his relief and appreciation. In the background of his thoughts, he felt Mutt's stupefied bewilderment; in his entire life, nobody had ever done something like that for him. (That's sad, said Ian, reflecting on his adoptive parents and the life of safety they had sacrificed to protect him.)
Sitting back, Chris said softly, "Oh. Thanks." Wyatt nodded gravely.
"So you'll give yourself the time you need to recuperate?" Piper affirmed. When he hesitated, she added, "I mean it, mister. I'll put up anti-orb spells if I have to."
With some measure of reluctance, but recognizing a battle he could not win, Chris conceded, "I guess I will, yeah."
He watched Leo inch across the room to stand beside Wyatt, grasping his older son's shoulder and gazing down at him with an expression saturated with pride.
"Well, good," Piper said with a single clap of her hands. "Can I bring you anything else to eat? Are you still hungry?"
Chris acknowledged that, indeed, he was and watched her usher the others out of his room so he could relax until she brought something up. Though he thought he had slept long enough over the past few days to last himself a season or two at least, he found himself nonetheless dozing off as he waited.
When Piper returned later with a plate piping with steam and piled high with fresh chicken and rice, he frowned. "You made that just now," he accused. "I thought you were just reheating leftovers."
Piper gave a self-deprecating laugh as she set the plate on the bedside table. "We don't actually have any leftovers," she admitted. "I haven't been doing much in the way of cooking these past couple weeks. Unless you count a bit of potion brewing."
The Halliwell manor without a fridge full of leftovers… To suggest it sounded downright blasphemous. "It's just rice and chicken, but yes it's new," Piper granted as she took a seat in his desk chair.
Without further protest, Chris dug into his still-hot meal, humming with appreciation. After he had made it through half the plate, enough to take the edge off the pangs in his gut, he slowed down. To his mother, who had sat watching him, he said, "So we can both agree I don't actually have a brain infection, right?"
One eyebrow piqued in a silent bid for her son to elaborate. "The meds," he pressed. While he'd been in the hospital, he'd been fed antibiotics through an IV. Before he'd been discharged, they had handed his mother a prescription of those same medications in tablet form, which she had dropped off at the local pharmacy while Chris had slept. "I don't really have to take them, do I?"
Her expression did not change. "Sure do," she said.
"Oh, come on," he scoffed. "I was attacked by a demon. Why?"
"Because those are the doctor's orders," she countered simply.
"Because he doesn't know about demons," Chris protested, shoveling a last resentful spoonful into his mouth. Once he swallowed it down, he added, "Mom, that's certifiable. It makes no sense. We all know there was never an infection."
Unperturbed, she said, "Be that as it may, you will be taking a pill as soon as your father picks up the prescription. And twice a day after that for another week."
Finished with his plate, he set it to the side. "Just as long as you know you're insane," he chirped.
Piper rose from her chair to take the empty plate, her hand lingering on top of his head for a stretch, long enough that he tilted his chin to gaze up at her, his smirk fading. She was smiling warmly at him. "I'm glad you're home, sweetheart," she murmured, then glided out of the room, flicking out the lights behind her.
Chris awoke late the next morning, after his siblings had set out for school. For lack of anything better to do, he started sifting through some of the notes Dwight had dropped off the previous day (at some point while he'd slept). He had not gotten through much when a knock at his door disturbed him.
He called for the visitor to enter. When he saw his mother peek past the door, he opened his mouth to tell her he was still full from the last three snacks she had left on his bedside table, but this time she entered hefting in her arms, instead of a tray of food, the Halliwell Book of Shadows.
As she always did now, she started the conversation with a, "How are you feeling?"
He gave her a look, then, ignoring the question, shimmied up against the headboard, set his notes aside, and asked, "What's with the Book?"
Sitting down at the edge of his bed, she set the tome on his knees. "I think it's about time for a rite of passage," she said fondly.
"Huh?"
"Well, sweetheart, you're the only one who knows anything about this demon who attacked you. I checked the Book the night you told us about him. Nobody by his name was in here. Which means…" She gave a couple sturdy raps to the Book's cover with her knuckles. "It's time for you to add your first entry."
He blinked at her, uncomprehending, as she slid a ballpoint pen into his slack grip. "But…" He floundered for something to say. "But he's dead."
"Death isn't always permanent when it comes to demons," she pointed out. "Future generations need to be prepared for what he can do."
The boy stared at the pen in his hand, then down at the triquetra carved into the green cover, which he carefully lifted to open the book. Flipping through the pages, something he did all the time, this time somehow felt surreal. Sure, he knew his mother and aunts had added their own two cents to the tome several times over the course of his life, but it had never occurred to him that someday he might do the same. That Piper would even let him.
He landed on a blank page and glanced back up at Piper, his gaze questioning, almost asking permission. Smiling, she patted his arm. "I'll leave you to think," she said.
Once she was gone, Chris spent several minutes inspecting the empty page. Finally, adjusting his grip on the pen, he bent forward and began to write.
As soon as he copied down the demon's name, the letters in his jagged scrawl squirmed and shifted, morphing before his eyes into an ornate calligraphy. As he continued, the words shrank and arranged themselves to fit smoothly within the margins.
For days after his discharge, Chris struggled with basic tasks. In his mind, he could picture himself walking, running even, as smoothly as he ever could, but when he tried to order his body into motion every belabored step required intense concentration. Just making it down the hall to the bathroom left him sweating and exhausted.
He used the cane given to him by the physical therapist because he had somehow lost his center of balance. She had assured him he would likely regain full functionality with a bit of time and perseverance, but it sure didn't feel like it. The waiting game left him frustrated and impatient. It didn't help that the disorienting lack of barrier between his conscious and subconscious made his nerves feel fried, his mind frazzled, his every emotion too close to the surface.
Nearly a week passed before he even felt stable enough to visit Jake for the first time. (To himself, if to no one else, he had to admit that his parents were right to forbid him; there was no way he could have orbed to his charge immediately after his discharge from the hospital.) It was a Tuesday afternoon. The instant Chris materialized in the boy's room, he lost his footing and stumbled into the bed. The ensuing thump made Jake jump from where he'd taken up residence, in a new beanbag chair situated just beneath the window.
"Chris, where were you?" he cried in surprise. "You weren't here for ages and ages. Wyatt said you were training."
Chris tried to compose himself on the bed so it appeared as though he had sat down there intentionally. "I, the truth is, I got a bit hurt during, uh, training." Off Jake's wide-eyed look of concern, he scrambled to assure, "I'm totally fine, I promise. It wasn't such a big deal. I just needed a bit of rest."
He had not brought the cane—had not wanted to draw attention to his infirmity and figured he wouldn't stay too long anyway—so when he tried to get up to close the space between him and his charge his body protested. He ended up having to brace himself on the wall to force his lower limbs into motion, then shift his weight from there to the dresser as he edged along. The effort left him breathless.
"You don't look better," Jake said skeptically. He stood to meet Chris halfway across the small room.
Chris took the opportunity to grasp Jake by the shoulder, surreptitiously using the point of contact to aid his balance. He thought he'd done an admirable job at subtlety until Jake placed a hand on top of his, squeezed it, and led Chris carefully back to the bed.
"You should probably sit down," he said, guiding Chris onto the mattress.
Though he hated to show weakness, Chris could not deny his relief at sinking down and taking the weight off his feet.
"Yeah, maybe you're right," he forced himself to admit. Lying—at least a complete lie, especially one so obvious—would only serve to alienate his charge, to destabilize their carefully crafted bastion of trust. "I'm not totally back to normal just yet. But I'm getting there."
As he expected, he did not stay long. Jake seemed to sense his need to rest and ushered him out only a few minutes later. But Chris felt better for having made the trip. It was an immeasurable relief that, unlike after his kidnapping, this time Jake had not assumed his guardian angel had abandoned him. He knew he mostly had Wyatt to thank for that. He had expressed his gratitude in abundance over the past few days, but it didn't feel like enough for what he knew he could have lost.
By the time the weekend of the freshman dance came along, Chris was itching to get out of the house. Although reluctant, Piper had agreed to let him attend as sort of a trial run for returning to school—with a few caveats. He couldn't dance (there was no risk of that) or engage in any other strenuous activity, had to return home before eleven, and had to avoid any sort of alcohol that students might manage to sneak into the event.
And under no circumstances could he attempt to use magic. That much, at least, would not be difficult. Except for the day he had orbed to Jake, he had not mustered the strength to use his powers at all. The orb back had been exhausting and left him nauseated for hours after, and he hadn't tried to do so since, leaving his charge to Wyatt's care for the time being. Now, whenever he attempted to tap into his magic, the exertion left behind a loud buzzing in his ears and made his head spin.
Once he was dressed and ready to go, Leo offered to drive Chris over to Rina's house to pick up his date. He struggled with the cane up her walkway to ring her doorbell. Her mother answered.
"Chris," Eva said, her eyes warm. "I'm so glad you're doing better. We were all praying for you."
"Oh, uh, thanks," Chris replied sheepishly.
She ushered him to a chair to wait for Rina to join them. "She was just helping me brew a remedy we ran out of last week," she explained.
Good-naturedly, Chris remarked, "What is it with Romani and potions? You're as bad as Mom is." Eva smiled.
Suddenly, Rina appeared behind her mother, wiping her hands on a dishtowel. She had her hair up in a messy half-pony and a cotton apron tied around her waist. The sleeves of her green dress had been rolled up to avoid stains.
"Okay, I set it to simmer for a few minutes. I didn't end up adding the mint leaves because I thought they might overcook, but other than that it's practically done." Turning to Chris, she said, "I'm impressed. You're actually on time." Though her eyes grazed over the cane propped between his knees, she did not comment on it, a fact Chris privately appreciated.
"My goodness," he retorted gamely, "You have such little faith in me."
"Yeah, well, I'm a practical person." Before he could retort, she added, "So should we go?"
"Uh…" One eyebrow raised, Chris gave her a once-over. "With the apron?"
She glanced down. "Oh," she remarked, hands fumbling to untie the knot in the back, "Good point." Ducking out of it revealed an ankle-length dress with lace below the waist. After hanging the apron on the coat rack (Nice dress, Krissy remarked), Rina rolled her sheer sleeves down below her elbows, smoothed down her hair, and said, "Okay, now we can go." She turned to kiss her mother on the cheek. "Night, Mamă."
"Have fun. Bye, Chris. Send your mother regards."
After promising to do just that, Chris followed Rina out the door and down the walk. They passed Eva's famous garden of herbs, the light, intermingled scents of mint and rosemary wafting over to them. Neat rows of greenery stretched out in front of the brick wall of their house, rustling in the warm evening breeze. Rina paused to rip off a leaf from some unknown plant, then turned to tuck it into Chris's front pocket, patting his chest with satisfaction.
"What was—?"
"It's clover," she said as they continued past the house and down the couple steps in the walkway. She descended first, then watched him with a scrutinizing gaze, clearly waiting to intervene if necessary, though she ultimately let him hobble down aided only by his cane on one side and a rickety iron banister on the other. Once he was safely past the bottom step, she explained, "It brings luck. Which you could probably benefit from some, given your track record." As she climbed into the backseat of Leo's idling car, she said with a chuckle, "I'd give you sage for wisdom, but you'd need a whole forest full of it to make a dent."
Chris rolled his eyes. "Romanis," he muttered, shifting in beside her. "So obsessed with some silly plants."
"Witches," she retorted right back. "No appreciation for natural magics."
"Touché," Chris laughed as Leo pulled away from the curb. Rina didn't live far from the school building; they wouldn't be long.
Dropping the banter, Rina leaned over to murmur much more solemnly, "Will you be okay tonight? Are you sure you're ready for this? I won't mind if you're not."
Chris shrugged. "Let's find out." After a pause, he admitted, "Everything feels harder than before. I just keep waiting for things to go back to normal."
"They will," Rina assured. "Demons leave scars, but scars heal."
Chris thought back to the deep crevices left in the abyss, the designs Ian had painted around them. Beautify the world however you can. "Yeah," he sighed, scrubbing his face with his hands. "If only they gave you time to heal in between the attacks."
"How about," Rina suggested as the school building came into sight, "just for tonight we pretend that we're just like everyone else."
Chris grinned. "You always were pretty smart. No sage necessary"
The freshman dance was, overwhelmingly, a gawky affair. Though a few brave souls ventured out with their dates onto the dance floor, most kids stuck to the periphery, either with their dates or, more often, with clusters of friends huddled together watching those uncomfortably swaying few at the center. Chris stood stiffly beside Rina, unsure how to conduct himself, where to hang the hand that wasn't clasped around the cane handle. He had gotten her a tiny paper cup of punch when they first arrived, so she stood their sipping occasionally but saying nothing. The silence reminded Chris of sitting before Death, waiting for someone to speak, made him hyperaware, as before, of the feeling of eyes on him. Were people staring, or was he imagining it?
Invite her to dance, Krissy instructed with a pompous scoff.
Ew! sniffed Mutt as, simultaneously, Ian protested, He's not allowed!
Chris glanced sideways at the portable laminate tiles that the student dance committee had assembled earlier that day, then awkwardly over at his date, who met his gaze expectantly, as if waiting for him to say something.
He felt a blush creep its way up the back of his neck. "Do you… uh… wanna dance?" He had promised his mother he wouldn't (and had zero interest in doing so), but in the face of her unblinking stare he felt he had to break the silence somehow and Krissy's instruction was simply the first to make it to his lips.
Rina laughed, her eyes dancing as she did so. "Not a chance. I doubt you're coordinated even without the cane, never mind the fact that your mom called to let me know there was to be no dancing of any kind under any circumstances."
The blush he had previously rebuffed returned full force, a fierce burning in his cheeks at the thought of his mother—geez!—contacting his date behind his back to make sure her baby didn't overexert himself on his first day back. Could this evening get any more mortifying?
But Rina didn't leave him much time to feel embarrassed, at least not about that, brushing past the revelation with a cheerful, "But I did want to hear you turn yourself stupid trying to ask, so thanks for that."
Chris rolled his eyes. "No problem."
About to speak again, she got diverted by a friend tapping her on the shoulder. Chris waited patiently (and with a private sigh of relief) as they chatted for a bit until the girl jerked her thumb toward a small group of kids along the opposite wall of the gymnasium. Turning back to Chris, she asked, "So how far does this whole 'fake date' thing extend? Do we need to ply each other with food and drink and coo over each other the rest of the night?"
Grinning, Chris waved her off. He offered to dispose of her now-empty cup, which she handed him with thanks, then watched her trot off across the room.
He had thought he would feel less self-conscious without a date at his side, but alone he now felt the brunt of the eyes he was sure followed him wherever he went. Nobody had seen him since his very public collapse. Surely they were curious where he'd been over the past nearly three weeks. Crushing the paper cup in his fist, he began to hobble to the folding table draped with a plastic silver party tablecloth and stocked with drinks, snacks, and dips. Did the sea of eyes track with him? It certainly felt like it.
You can handle standing on the precipice of death but balk at the mere insinuation of attention from your peers? Christian mused with a tinge of disbelief and more than a little mirth.
Under his breath, Chris muttered, "Who says I 'handled' almost dying?" Once at the table, he tossed the cup in the nearby bin and propped his cane against the table so he could use both hands to pour himself some Sprite. Then, reclaiming the cane, he slunk back to the wall, where he found a shadowed, unoccupied corner with an empty folding chair that he could claim as his own. Taking a seat, he tucked the cane beneath his legs, out of the way of passersby.
With minimal interest but not quite sure where else to direct his gaze, he watched the dance floor until a nearby voice called his name and Dwight ambled over, dragging a chair behind him, to dump himself beside his friend. He didn't speak, and after a moment Chris noted the suspicious silence.
"Everything okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, fine." Dwight wouldn't look at him. Suddenly, the teen blurted out, "Mom wants Charlie to move in."
Chris blinked. "Really?"
Dwight began to pick carefully at his fingernails, feigning (poorly, as his knees bounced at an aggressive tempo) nonchalance. "She said I get the final say, but she's hoping to ask him next month."
Cautiously, Chris asked, "What are you going to tell her?"
With a huff, Dwight finally met his eyes. "Don't know," he admitted, then added, as if it physically pained him to say so, "He's okay. But I like my house the way it is."
"You could come live with us," Chris offered. "S'long as you don't mind the occasional demon attack."
Dwight barked out a short laugh. "Thanks."
For a time, they lapsed back into silence, listening to the jaunty bop from the speakers fade into a slightly mellower tune. From across the sprawling room, Chris saw Rina chattering with animation to her posse of friends. "Did you bring a date?" he asked.
"Lacey," Dwight answered. "She wore some crazy fancy dress, but someone spilled coke on it about ten minutes ago. She went to the bathroom with Gemma to try to wash it out. Who'd you come with?"
"Rina," Chris replied, nodding in her general direction. "Sort of. We're not actually on a date. We just came together, really."
"Oh, right, sure," Dwight snorted. "Did you pick her up?" When Chris grunted in the affirmative, Dwight, triumphant, announced, "Then it's a date. I don't see her; what's she wearing?"
"She's in green. Over there." Chris gestured vaguely.
"Did you tell her she looks nice?"
Rolling his eyes, Chris said, "No. I told you, it's not a real d—"
"Dude, you're such an idiot," Dwight snorted. "You think she doesn't care, but she probably spent hours before you got there getting all fancied up and whatever. I bet she'll end up crying to her mom about what a jerk you are when she gets home."
Chris pondered the image of Rina with her messy half-pony, rolled-up sleeves, the apron she had nearly forgotten to remove before departing. "Uh… she's not really that type…"
"Look," Dwight interjected, "I don't really know Nicholae that well, but all girls like to get a bit of admiration. Who doesn't?"
"I guess…" Chris replied, dubious.
But the statement, and more significantly the confidence with which it had been uttered, wormed its way into Chris's mind. When Leo returned to pick them up later that evening and Chris and Rina rendezvoused at the doors, after they asked each other how the evening had been, Chris fumbled out, "I, uh, meant to tell you. You, uh, look beautiful tonight."
Rina granted him an almost indulgent smile as they exited the gymnasium into the parking lot. She paused briefly to ever-so-gently pat his shoulder. "Sorry, Chris, I don't like you like that. But," she added kindly as she opened the car door, "it was sweet of you to think I wanted to hear it."
It was, surprisingly, Merlin who grumbled, Never should've trusted that Dwight kid.
Reviews are golden. Please let me know what you think.
IWantColoredRain – Glad I asked! I don't remember exactly what I said, but I'll try to recall as much as possible. First off, hope you enjoyed seeing more of the other timelines (sort of – not sure nightmares that aren't true memories count). In terms of more Bianca – just wait. She'll show up again briefly at a later date. I've always been very intrigued by the Chris/Bianca dynamic as well.
In terms of charges and whitelighters potentially having a temporary relationship, I don't think it was ever addressed in canon. (I've never read any of the books or comics, so if it ever came up there I wouldn't know.) There were a few things that hinted to me that some charges might require them only as-needed. For one, There's no indication that Penny had a whitelighter. It could, of course, be argued that just because we don't know who it is doesn't mean he/she didn't exist.
There's no indication the girls have a whitelighter as children. It could be argued that Sam was the "family" whitelighter, but when Leo first introduces him he calls him "your mom's whitelighter," not "your family's" or "your old one." I'm not assuming Leo was their whitelighter from birth because it seems odd that he would infiltrate their lives only as adults if he was responsible for them their whole lives. Why wait?
The fact that Sam fell in love with Patty… Well, that's not evidence of anything so much as it would have a major "ick" factor if he had watched over Penny since she was a baby. So I'd like to think/hope that wasn't the case. (And I don't see logical reason for the Elders to switch a charge's whitelighter midway through her life.)
All the other characters we see with whitelighters are pretty ambiguous. They seem familiar with their whitelighters but never imply a parent-child relationship or something similar that might appear if you've known someone since you were born. Ultimately, based on evidence, it could probably go either way. I would imagine some, like the Charmed Ones, once assigned a whitelighter would have one on a more permanent basis since they regularly put their lives at risk. But by all indication, they are outliers because of their destiny and most witches or future whitelighters just quietly live out their magical lives. So I used a bit of creative license and decided to run with it.
Sorry for the rant. I love talking about the world-building aspect of the show. Since it's been over for a while, it's not very often I get to do that, so you get to deal with the ramifications of that. Hope this doesn't bore you terribly.