The cavern was empty, save Demoriel pacing before his stone throne, the hem of his robe whipping back and forth as he spun on his heel to stomp back in the opposite direction. "I grow impatient," he growled into the abyss. "If even the most ancient of demons cannot help me achieve my goals, then it seems I must accomplish the task on my own."
He linked his hands behind his back in consideration, his glower softening as he pondered this realization. He should have known it would come to this. "If I cannot siphon his powers from afar, then I will find a way to bring him to me. All I need is the right… incentive."
The rest of June and half of July passed rather uneventfully. At the first sign of Piper obsessing over Siyut's attack ("Maybe you shouldn't be going out with Dwight without supervision; it happened in broad daylight"), Chris did his best to nip it in the bud. "Why did that demon target you specifically? That reeks of scheming," she remarked one afternoon.
He reminded her yet again that Siyut was dead and that, honestly, it didn't require much underhanded scheming to conclude that someone with multiple consciousnesses stuffed inside his brain would make a tastier morsel for a nightmare demon than the average mortal or witch.
Siyut was probably even the demon who had tipped them off to his kidnappers' identity all those months ago, and didn't that just tie up into a neat little bow? Certainly his kidnapping would have interfered with Siyut's potential meal, and who knew how long the demon of nightmares had been planning his attack?
Piper didn't seem to fond to hear him say as much but had to acknowledge Chris was probably right and that shadowing his comings and goings would serve only as punishment, not protection, for her son. Reluctantly, she let him lead his life.
Chris alternated his time between outings with Jake, hangouts with Dwight, and magical lessons with his family. It surprised him to realize that, since Siyut's attack, he hadn't had another vision. He couldn't guess if this was coincidence or somehow connected to his near-death experience, the draining of his power, or perhaps the death of one of his selves, and he had no idea if they would eventually return, but for now he certainly enjoyed the respite.
One morning, Chris and Wyatt were working on potions with Paige, though Chris's mind had strayed mostly to the axe-throwing he and Dwight had planned for later. Dwight was looking forward to seeing Chris use his powers; Chris, for his part, had promised he could trounce his friend without the aid of magic.
Wyatt was seated at the kitchen table working on a potion that utilized alcohol instead of heat to brew. In a shallow, cast-iron bowl, he combined ethanol with myrrh, sunflower stems, and rosemary. He added each ingredient with one hand, the other propping up his cheek as his face sank lower and lower with the weight of his boredom.
Meanwhile, sitting on a stool in front of the stove, Chris fed ingredients into a cauldron above a medium-low flame. Just before he could drop in a sprig of St. John's wort, Paige grabbed his wrist.
"Pay attention," she chided when he glanced up to meet her eyes.
"Huh?"
With a testy sigh, she drew his arm away from the pot. "The pixie wings go before the St. John's wort. They neutralize the blast risk. Are you looking to blow up the house?"
Setting the St. John's wort on a torn paper towel, its damp yellow petals clinging to the paper, Chris leaned forward to draw over a jar waiting just out of reach. Unscrewing the lid, he fished inside for a pair of thin, gossamer wings. "Pixie wings is murder," he grumbled, pulling a face as the burbling brew ate the wings with a loud burp.
Paige rolled her eyes. "Pixies shed their wings, Chris. Brush up on your magical biology before you start throwing around accusations, will you? You just sound ignorant." With a sharp tap to the recipe beside him, she added, "And pay attention to what you're doing." Silently, she glided over to Wyatt to oversee his work. After watching her leave, Chris sighed and returned to the St. John's wort.
Some time later, while Chris's potion was simmering alone for several minutes, Piper marched into the kitchen, her hands clutching the phone, her face pinched into a scowl. When Paige asked what was wrong, her scowl deepened. "Cassie quit."
With a frown, Paige said, "Cassie your waitress?"
"And the girl I had managing the bar," Piper added, voice tight with frustration. "She's my best employee. I'll have to work overtime until I find a suitable replacement."
Chris and Wyatt turned to watch the exchange, respective potions forgotten. They had met Cassie on a few prior occasions. In her early twenties, a studious girl, always on time, always ready with a friendly smile for her boss's kids. At one point, she had attended Magic School, though she had switched to a mortal school before Paige had had her as a student.
Latching the phone into its charging port, Piper stomped over to the table. Wyatt swung his face back to his potion just in time to avoid her noticing his eavesdropping. "I never had to ask," Piper complained, "She always knew exactly what I needed her to do."
Raising an eyebrow from the opposite end of the kitchen, Paige said practically, "Isn't she a telepath?"
Piper's face twisted in annoyance. "So?"
Chris snorted into his potion. When Piper glanced sharply in his direction, he ducked his head to avoid meeting her gaze.
"So what happened?" Paige asked carefully. "Did she ask for a raise?"
Offended, Piper cried, "I offered her one! She said she wants to"—here she used air quotes—"'go to college.'"
Tucking away a smile, Paige said, "Wow, shame on her. Wanting an education like that. The nerve of young people nowadays."
Piper wrinkled her nose at her sister. "Oh, phooey to you. When will the boys be ready to switch? Prue's done practicing her powers and is looking forward to the healing salve you said you'd show her."
Chris jerked his head up. "Now, we're ready now," he said quickly. Paige flicked him impatiently behind the ear. "Ow," he protested, rubbing the sting out with a hunched shoulder.
Ignoring him, Paige replied, "They still have a few minutes left. I'll send them up when they're done cleaning their work stations."
With a 'hmph,' Piper marched back out of the room. While Wyatt scrambled to finish adding ingredients, Chris turned off the flame beneath his brew. Paige peered into his cauldron, assessing its color, then, nodding with apparent satisfaction, passed him a handful of small vials to fill. He tucked a funnel into the mouth of the first one and ladled some of the dark blue liquid inside, watching it swirl down and settle at the bottom of the vial.
By the time all the vials were filled, Wyatt had successfully completed his potion. As he poured his into vials of its own, Chris began to clear away his ingredients, sealing lids and returning jars to the pantry. He lugged the empty cauldron to the sink, filled it to the brim with soap and tap water, and left it there to soak. After wiping down his workspace with a wet paper towel, he headed to the attic. Wyatt joined him there a few minutes later.
The two brothers practiced their powers until lunchtime, after which all three siblings gathered in the living room to listen to their father lecture about a witch's cosmic responsibility to the mortals of the world.
Once the clock struck two, Leo finally released them to their vacation. Chris met Dwight at the Shack, where he orbed them both to the axe-throwing facility. Dwight seemed to enjoy himself, and true to his word Chris did not use his powers to cheat. (He lost the competition.) If he were honest, after regularly battling demons, Chris found the experience a bit dull, but he feigned enthusiasm for Dwight's sake. They returned in time for Dwight to join the family for dinner.
Five days later, midafternoon, Chris was with Jake at the boy's grandmother's house. With the air warm and the sky clear, the woman had insisted they sit outside and sent them to the back patio with paper towels and a bowl of water so they could wipe down the dust and grime that had accumulated on the patio furniture.
They cleaned off two metal chairs and one half of the picnic table before retrieving the box of Monopoly from the living room game cupboard. After a few minutes, Jake's grandmother marched out carrying a glass pitcher of iced tea and a bowl of watermelon wedges, which the boys gratefully tucked into. When she returned inside, she held the door open briefly so that Bonno could slink out. The dog bounded back and forth across the yard as the boys set up the board.
Their game was well underway when Jake's grandmother went to answer an unexpected knock on the front door. She thought perhaps it was a package she had forgotten ordering, but when she pulled back the door her daughter stood before her with a suitcase at her feet, her expression one of muted apprehension. "Hi, Mother."
It took a moment for Jake's grandmother to make her mouth work. "I didn't know you were getting released today."
Carmen looked away. "I didn't want to say anything in case…" Her voice trailed off.
Finally, her mother pushed open the screen door to wave the woman inside and, releasing a breath, Carmen knelt to grab the handle of her suitcase and drag it across the threshold.
"Well, how are you, then?" her mother asked as she motioned to drop the suitcase by the door.
"Oh, um, good. I'm good." Carmen laced her fingers together. After a long stretch of silence, she asked, "Is he around?"
"Out back. He's with that friend of his." She led Carmen through the hallway to the back of the house.
Following, Carmen echoed, "Friend?"
"Oh, you know." Her mother waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder. "That teenager. He said they're partnered through the school."
Carmen wanted to ask how Chris had known where to find them (though she supposed it was no stranger than him showing up at the hospital after Jake's accident), how often he visited, how was Jake coping with her abandonment, a million different questions at the tip of her tongue, but at that moment she caught sight of the boy through the glass doors, his back to her, his head bowed as he counted out his paper bills, and her breath caught in her throat as her mother slid the door open.
Chris looked up first, his eyes widening in surprise, and his hand went to the boy's shoulder. "Jake…" he murmured, and Jake glanced up from his spread of money. When he saw Chris gazing at something over his shoulder, he frowned and twisted in his chair.
His whole face morphed, eyebrows up, cheeks flushed, mouth agape. "Mommy!" he cried, and tore out of the seat.
Just as she knelt to greet him, he threw his arms around her neck. Her own hands rose to his back as she showered his cheeks, forehead, anywhere she could reach, with kisses. Carmen laughed and cried simultaneously as the boy's grip tightened and his face burrowed into her shoulder.
For the first couple of seconds, his stomach feeling warm and settled, Chris just sat back to enjoy their reunion. Then, he began to gather in the property cards scattered around the table and parse out the Monopoly money into the proper slats. The board, dice, and tokens all returned to the box before, finally, Chris stood, dusting dirt off his shorts.
Standing behind the embracing duo, Carmen's mother met Chris's eyes. With a smile, he nodded to her. Tucking the game under one arm, he murmured, "I'll come back some other time." Jake barely seemed to notice his departure.
On his way back into the house, Chris passed the board game to Jake's grandmother. Turning to follow, she walked him down the hallway to the front door. She opened it for him and propped her shoulder against it as he stepped outside. Before he left, he turned to face her.
"It was very nice to get to know you," she said, shading her eyes from the sun glaring overhead.
"You, too," he said. "I hope I see you again."
"You're a good boy—young man," she corrected. "Jake is lucky to have you."
Chris blushed. He could think of no response to this other than a mumbled thanks. As he turned to march down the path, she closed the door behind him.
He didn't orb immediately. The heat of the sun radiated pleasantly on his face, and the internal warmth from watching Jake greet his mother made Chris feel lazy. Instead, he took the familiar path to the park that he and Jake had taken scores of times with Bonno. A dusty breeze filtered through the lazy branches, mussing his hair as he hiked through, cooling his face. He wandered for a while, letting himself lose track of the time, before finally heading home.
Chris waited three days before visiting Jake again, enough time, he felt, for the boy to settle back in at home. Chris had long since grown accustomed to orbing straight to Jake's bedroom, but for the first time since almost their original meeting, he arrived at their front door to knock.
It had never bothered him before, encroaching on Carmen's private space without her permission because, to be honest, he had never really respected her enough to actually care, this woman who had caused his charge so much hurt and anguish over the years and certainly throughout the time Chris had known him. Somehow, now, doing so seemed more of an intrusion, one Chris felt he ought to avoid. After everything she had done to get to this point, everything she had endured, she had at long last earned his respect.
Though Carmen was the one to answer the door, Chris spotted Jake hovering nearby. The boy smiled to see him, but when Chris suggested they migrate to his bedroom Jake declined. "I'd rather play in the living room," he said, casting a furtive glance at his mother behind Chris's shoulder.
So Chris acquiesced, allowing Jake to set up a game of cards on the carpet in front of the couch, where they passed a couple of hours without discussing anything of note, without conversing much at all, really, because what could a whitelighter and his charge talk about freely with a mortal in the room? But aside from the exceptional frequency with which Jake glanced over his shoulder to confirm his mother's presence, the boy seemed content as they were, enough that Chris felt confident when he eventually departed.
The next afternoon, Chris had something different in mind. Truthfully, he hadn't planned for it much in advance. In fact, the idea hadn't even occurred to him until, as he prepared to orb to Jake, he sensed his charge not at home as he had expected but out with his grandmother at Tony's Pizza, his mother, likely home alone, nowhere in sight. And really, how often would this happen, Chris having time alone with Carmen without risk of interruption? In the back of his mind, he had contemplated such an opportunity for a while, though he had not truly considered acting on it until this moment with Jake otherwise occupied for the foreseeable future. Steeling himself for the rickety, risky conversation he anticipated upon arrival, he orbed to Jake's porch and rapped soundly on the door.
It took almost two minutes for Carmen to answer, and when she did she seemed caught off guard by Chris's presence, as if she had expected him to know already about Jake's absence (which, well, he did, but she couldn't know that). Her hand on the doorframe, she stuttered out, "Oh, uh, Jake went out a little while ago. I can tell him you came by."
"Actually," Chris replied calmly, "I'm here to talk to you."
Shifting in discomfort, Carmen said, "Oh…" For a moment she merely blinked without stepping aside, her fingers tightening around the doorframe as across her face dashed a myriad of emotions—confusion, embarrassment, concern—each melting into the next almost too fast for Chris to identify. After a pregnant pause, filled with a lot both left unspoken, she said, "Uh, I guess, come in, then," and released the door to back away, not much, just enough to give Chris space to pass her. "Can I—I mean—do you want… something to drink or… it's very hot out…"
Chris realized pretty quickly he would have to be the confident one in this conversation, or at least act like it, so he replied as casually as he could, "No thanks," and sauntered across the living room to claim a seat on the couch. Expression carefully neutral, he met her gaze and waited, ever-patient, for her to join him.
With reluctance, she shuffled over, perching herself at the very edge of the armchair facing the couch. Her fingers twined together; her eyes roved everywhere except Chris's direction. At last, she mumbled, "Why do you want to talk to… me?"
"Jake's a really great kid," Chris started, but paused when he saw her whole body stiffen.
Almost defensively, she replied, "I know that." But then, after a few seconds, her body crumpled into itself in defeat and she folded her face into her hands. "You think I'm some awful monster for how I treated him, don't you?"
Chris thought back to a time when he had believed exactly that. It hadn't been so long ago, not really, but it felt worlds away from his mindset now. "No," he said.
Carmen scowled over the tops of her fingers. "Don't say no," she argued bitterly. "That's why you're here, isn't it? You think he's a great kid. He is. And you think I don't… don't deserve to raise him." Her voice trembled as she announced these words into the stagnant air, where they lingered like a curse. Much more quietly, as if her most horrible admission, she added, "I don't."
"I didn't say that," Chris pointed out softly.
Dropping her hands into her lap, Carmen countered, "No, but I know you thought it." Finally, she met his eyes, her own fierce with self-loathing. "You knew before I told you, didn't you? He must have told you. The first time we met—you already knew by then, didn't you? I could see it in your eyes."
Clasping his hands together between his kneecaps, Chris inclined his head. "Jake didn't tell me. I just… figured it out."
"Then don't tell me you don't hate me," she hissed. Staring down at her limp hands, she admitted, "I hate me."
"Well, I don't," Chris insisted.
"Why else would you be here?" she pointed out frankly.
With half a shrug, Chris repeated, "To tell you Jake's a really great kid—"
"I kn—"
"—and that didn't happen completely without you."
Her protest died on her lips as his words caught up with her. "Wh—huh?"
Sighing, Chris eased forward in his seat and steadily met her gaze. "You made some pretty bad mistakes, I'm not going to lie, and you hurt that kid a lot. But you love him."
Carmen was the first to break the stare, pinching her eyes shut as her chest began to heave with emotion. "Love isn't enough," she whispered.
"Not alone, maybe," Chris agreed. "But I saw you. You were willing to drop your whole life and admit to everything you've done wrong—you did drop your life—all so that you could give him a better life. Love with action—that's enough."
For some minutes, they sat together in silence. Carmen seemed to need time to mull over Chris's words, and though Chris's instinct normally would have been to fill the uncomfortable silence he forced himself to let it linger for the time Carmen needed to process his statement. The thought had never occurred to her, that perhaps she could become the mother Jake deserved. Perhaps she could make up for her mistakes. Perhaps he might one day forgive her.
A long stretch passed before she spoke again, her voice almost inaudible in the empty air between them. "My boss fired me when I went to rehab. I've been looking, but… I'm scared no one will hire me. Or what if… what if they do, but then the stress of the job makes me…" Her voice trailed off.
In this, Chris was very much out of his depth, so he simply sat watching her fold and unfold the hem of her shirt until suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, inspiration struck. "You know," he said, "I heard there's a nightclub hiring. You ever heard of P3?"
Chris left Carmen with the number of someone named Piper Halliwell. She made herself call as soon as he left before she could lose her nerve, and an interview was scheduled for the very next day. She had wanted this, of course, but after all of the obsessing she did over her lack of employment during rehab, all of a sudden things felt like they were happening far too quickly. Did she even have an updated résumé? What would she wear to the interview? And what would she do with Jake during the time she was gone? Before rehab, she had never thought twice about leaving him home alone, had done so for hours at a time on a daily basis, but now guilt niggled at her for considering it.
When her mother dropped Jake off after lunch, Carmen couldn't bring herself to ask for yet another favor, not after she had opened her home for weeks, not when babysitting meant an hours-long drive and Carmen had no guest room for her to even spent the night. She considered asking Chris—he knew the circumstances and had proven himself willing to help—but realized she didn't know his number.
She brought up this possibility with Jake, explaining the situation, and he assured her he would call to ask. Later that evening, he tiptoed into his bedroom, closed the door behind him, and whispered his whitelighter's name. Chris was more than willing to help out, which Jake happily relayed to his relieved mother.
Carmen made sure to show up early for her interview. She inched inside and carefully made her way down the steep stairwell that led into the underground club. She had rustled up a sky blue checkered blouse, which she smoothed down throughout the bus ride over, self-conscious of its wrinkles, and a knee-length pencil skirt that forced her gait into an awkward shuffle, not helped by the inch-high block heels that she had uncovered in the back of her closet, used once and then abandoned there to collect dust.
As soon as her heel hit the bottom step of the club entryway, the sound of hectic bustle hit her like a wall. Sucking in a deep, fortifying breath, she turned into the room, almost bumping into someone in the process. The man, broad-shouldered and burly, in a tight-fitted short-sleeved tee stretched over muscles that bulged under the weight of the burden in his arms, lugged a pile of cardboard boxes so high they blocked his vision, and Carmen managed to sidestep him only at the last moment.
In the middle of the room, beside the bar, stood a short woman with long, dark hair, absorbed in a document she leaned against the countertop to read. That had to be Piper Halliwell, long-time owner and Carmen's interviewer, hopefully future employer.
Carmen dug her fingers into the hem of her blouse, tugging it taut once more just to give her something on which to focus her nervous energy. Biting down hard on her lip to shake herself free of her anxiety, she forced her feet forward until she reached the woman, who didn't look up, didn't seem to notice her, even when Carmen loudly cleared her throat. "Um… Mrs. Halliwell?"
Finally, the woman tore her gaze from the document and stared at Carmen past unframed reading glasses. She gave a confused, distracted half-smile. "Can I help you?"
Carmen's stomach sank. "I, uh, called yesterday. For the job. You said I should come in today."
Piper snapped her fingers. "The interview! Sorry"—for one second, heavy with dread, Carmen thought Piper would tell her the position had already been filled—"it's been a bit crazy around here. I don't really—" Suddenly, her eyes shifted to something past Carmen's shoulder, and she cried, "Careful with that! There are glasses in there!" The man lifting the box grunted an apology, setting it down to readjust his grip. Piper's gaze returned to Carmen. "Sorry, what was I saying?"
"How you… don't have… time for an interview." Carmen tried to conceal the disappointment in her voice. Who would hire someone eking desperation out of every pore? It likely traced behind her path like a trail of slime off a snail.
"Right," Piper affirmed as she snatched up the clipboard holding her sheaf of documents and began to walk away, "So you don't mind if we walk and talk, do you?"
It took a moment for Carmen's brain to register the question. "Huh?"
But Piper was already waving her forward. "You know, an interview-on-the-go." When Carmen didn't follow, Piper halted in her tracks and turned to face her. "If you prefer a formal, sit-down thing, we can resched—"
"No! No, that's fine." Carmen darted to catch up with her. With the relief she had that Piper did not intend to send her away, she would just as easily have agreed to do the interview standing on her head. "On the go is perfect."
"Great." Piper smiled. "I'm just doing a bit of check-listing to make sure I have all my orders for tonight. It's Carmen, right? You have your résumé?" Carmen dug into her pocket to retrieve the folded document, opened it, and tried to smooth it out before handing it over as a blush crept up her neck. She should have carried it in a folder; who would ever hire someone who crumpled up her résumé?
But Piper only slipped it underneath the stack of papers attached to her clipboard as she started to move between various boxes, checking labels and marking them off on her clipboard with a ballpoint pen. While she worked, Carmen keeping pace behind her, she shot out questions, which Carmen did her best to answer succinctly.
At one point, Piper swung her gaze up to meet Carmen's, making the woman wilt a bit under her scrutiny, and asked pointedly, "If you don't mind my asking, why are you here? You seem a bit older than most of the people who come around here looking for a job. Most of my girls take this gig to put themselves through college."
"I, uh…" Carmen stumbled over what to say. This, she had not rehearsed. "I'm just trying to get a fresh start. There was a rough patch. I was—I'm a new person. And a hard worker," she added quickly, wondering if she had said too much.
Eyes softening, Piper returned to her checklist. "And you feel qualified to man the bar?"
The bitter words, "I have a lot of experience on the other side," slipped out before she could swallow them, and she nearly clapped a hand to her mouth in dismay. She was well and truly an idiot.
For a long moment, Piper stopped her work, expression grave as she scrutinized the fidgeting woman before her. At long last, she asked frankly, "Are you an alcoholic?" Carmen stared at the laces in her shoes, vision beginning to blur. She couldn't school her face quickly enough to attempt to lie but couldn't bring herself to admit the truth to this stranger, her would-be employer—although fat chance of that happening now. Once Piper realized Carmen wouldn't answer the question directly, she sighed, loud enough that Carmen's eyes darted up to hers for an instant before veering away again.
Piper set her clipboard down on one of the sealed boxes. Her face was set into something solemn but not unkind as she placed a hand on Carmen's forearm. "Look." She watched the blush creep up Carmen's face, over the tops of her ears. "You seem nice. You seem like you'd be willing to work hard. I like you. I do. Which is why I'm not going to hire you."
Going in, Carmen had told herself to expect this, but the disappointment nevertheless hit her sharply in the gut. She sucked in a spiky breath and blinked back tears that prickled at the corners of her eyes. "Please," she breathed, "I need this job. I have a son—"
"Carmen, listen to me," Piper insisted firmly. "You don't realize how difficult it would be for you to be around this stuff all night. I know alcohol—it's what I do for a living. All it takes is one slip-up, just one, and that life you were starting to rebuild, that fresh start you wanted—all of that comes crashing down in a second. I'm not going to hire you. And I can't force you, but I'd ask you not to look for a job at another nightclub, either. Not everyone will care about the dangers involved for you."
"Mrs. Halliwell, please, I'm begging you." Carmen's words spilled out in a rush, desperate to have this woman understand. But perhaps she understood more than Carmen realized; perhaps she understood a bit too much. "I need a way to support my boy. I'm on my own, and nobody else will hire me."
"Carmen, stop. I cannot in good conscience put you to work at a bar with your history." Though she had willed herself fiercely to keep the tears at bay, they nonetheless began to creep past her clenched-shut eyelids and track down her cheeks. She found herself too overwhelmed with desperation to care even remotely the pathetic picture she must have made for this woman, who pressed on with an insistent, "Your son will understand. If he loves you—and I'm sure he does—he won't want this for you, either." Setting an arm around the sobbing woman, Piper led her toward a door at the back of the club. She opened it to reveal a cluttered space with posters lining the walls and loose papers on every surface. In the middle of the room stood a couch, to which Piper led her companion. "Just take a minute to breathe, all right?"
She pressed a hand onto Carmen's shoulder, forcing her onto a lumpy cushion. Carmen leaned forward, elbows on her knees, to sniffle, swiping at the tears before they could fall. After a couple of minutes with the room quiet save Carmen's muffled sobs, Piper said gently, "I think you're feeling a bit overwhelmed about all of this. I can only imagine how hard it must be, pulling yourself to your own feet, especially as a single parent when you still have to worry about a kid at the same time. It's not going to be easy, starting up a new life. I won't tell you it won't be difficult—but you can pull through. Someone will hire you, and that person will be lucky to have someone with your dedication and passion."
From some distant place, Carmen realized she should say thank you—this woman had stopped her busy day to show a bit of compassion to a stranger, after all—but she couldn't get a word past her deep heaves of breath, face pressed into her palms so hard she thought she might leave imprints. She tried to narrow her focus to the hand rubbing soft circles against the back of her shirt, enough to slowly get her breathing under control.
She didn't know how long they sat in silence before Piper asked, "How old's your boy?"
Carmen gave a heavy sniff and found, though her throat was tight, talking of Jake was easier than talking of her desperation, enough of a distraction to allow her to hiccup out, "He's ten," and glance up through red-rimmed eyes to find Piper staring back at her with an encouraging smile.
"I remember when my kids were that age," Piper told her with a warmth akin to nostalgia. "I have three—two boys and a girl. They were quite a handful back then." She laughed and amended, "They still are."
"My boy is an angel," Carmen offered quietly. Piper nodded for her to continue. "He never gets into trouble." She gave a heavy sigh. "He deserves better than I'm doing for him."
"You'll give it to him," Piper insisted.
Eventually, with the woman's help, Carmen managed to clean herself up enough to head out, but as much as she loathed herself for her weakness, she cried again the entire bus ride home.
Carmen couldn't bring herself to tell the truth when Jake asked her how the interview went, so she mumbled out that they would call before brushing straight past him and Chris to her room and closing the door. For hours, even after Chris departed, Jake did not disturb her, but eventually, once dinnertime came and went, he knocked timidly at her door.
Wiping her eyes, long since spent of tears, she sat up on her bed and called for him to come in. He entered carefully balancing a plate in both hands and extended it to her with an air of nervous expectation. On it lay a pile of baked beans and two slices of extra-crispy toast. "I-I thought you might be hungry," he murmured.
Forcing a smile to her face, she accepted the dish, crossing her legs so she could set it down in her lap. "Where did you learn to make beans?" she asked as he handed her a fork he had stowed in his pocket.
After a brief hesitation, eyes darting from her face back to the food, he admitted, "Chris taught me."
Carmen wasn't even sure why her stomach sank to hear that news. She knew she had not been the one to teach him, after all, yet in this moment, hearing evidence of yet another of her failures felt like too much to bear. Once again, despite her determination not to let the emotion get the best of her, she felt her eyes burn, though this time she managed to halt the progression there. With a soft sigh through her half-congested nose, she set the plate on her bedside. Jake shifted nervously. "Jakey, come here," she urged, patting the mattress in front of her.
Looking uncertain, the boy nonetheless shucked off his sneakers and climbed onto the bed, taking up the same cross-legged position directly in front of her. For a while, they stared at each other.
"Baby, we have to talk about…" Carmen swallowed around the words lodged in her throat. She tried again, but they wouldn't come out. This time, she had to close her eyes at the onslaught of painful emotion that wedged itself into her breastbone.
Amidst the swirl of chaos in her mind, she felt a small hand touch her knee. When she opened her eyes to stare at it, a soft, earnest voice said, "You don't have to say anything, Mommy."
Though he meant the gesture as a comfort, it overwhelmed her with her guilt, loud enough and clear enough to be a scream in her ear. Placing her hand on top of his to center herself, she drew in a breath. "Yes, I do," she replied, squeezing his fingers with her own. Silent, he waited.
"I hurt you, Jake." Though she felt him stiffen beneath her palm, she forced herself to press onward. "I hit you. I hurt you a lot."
He started to say, "It's o—" but she cut him off.
"No, Jake, it's not okay. It was never okay. And it's important for you to believe that it wasn't okay. I was a bad mother. You didn't deserve any of how I treated you." The words flowed more easily now, though they still hurt, as she built up momentum.
"I'm not proud of it, but we can't run away from it. If we don't face it, it will stay between us forever." She touched his chin with her bent knuckle, forcing him to meet her gaze, and she saw that his eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "What I did was unforgiveable, Jake. You have to say it." He shook his head. "You have to," she insisted, feeling almost panicked with desperation.
"But I do forgive you," he whispered, squeezing his eyes shut.
Carmen stared at him, at the hunched shoulders, the pinched face, that small mouth, those soft cheeks, her baby, her miracle. "Why?"
"Because I love you," he squeaked, "Because you're my mommy."
Tears spilled down her cheeks; her nose began to run. "You shouldn't," she protested in a rough voice.
"But I do," he affirmed.
"Okay," she sighed, "Okay." She lifted his hand off her knee to cradle it between both her palms. No matter how she tried, she couldn't understand his capacity to forgive her atrocities, but she could read the conviction in his voice and knew he wouldn't budge. "At least say what I did to you was wrong. That you understand you didn't deserve any of it, not ever." When he hesitated, she pierced him with a stare. "Say it."
"It-it was wrong."
"And?" she prompted.
A tear escaped, and he drew his hand back from her grip to scrub it away. "And I didn't deserve it," he mumbled.
"Good," she sighed. "Jake, I promise I will never do that to you again, okay?" Swallowing hard, he nodded. "Can I—baby, can I hug you?"
Silently, Jake crawled across the mattress into her lap, and her arms rose around him. They sat there for a long while, curled into each other, weeping together.
They fell asleep in the same position, Jake's head resting in Carmen's lap, Carmen's propped against the wall at the head of the bed, and didn't budge until the cordless phone rang late Sunday morning. Jake slept through it, but Carmen awoke, a crick in her neck, and blindly reached for the phone on her bedside table. Her hand landed in half-congealed baked beans and, groaning, she shook out her fingers while reaching with the other hand to answer the call.
"Is this Carmen Porter?" asked a vaguely familiar voice.
"Uh… yeah." Making a face, Carmen wiped her fingers on her rumpled blouse.
"It's Piper Halliwell. If you're still available, I've got a job offer for you."
Carmen sat up so abruptly that Jake jerked in her lap, though he remained asleep. "A job?" she reiterated, unable to believe what she had heard. "But I thought you said…"
"This would be as a waitress," the voice on the phone explained. "I also own the restaurant across the street. I shuffled some staff around. That is, if you still want the job. I understand if I'm too late for—"
"No, no!" Carmen cried with a half-laugh. "I do. I mean—when do you—should I come now?"
She was already starting to shift Jake's head off her lap so she could climb off the bed when Piper responded with a chuckle of her own. "How about later this afternoon? You can come in and we'll discuss salary and benefits. You can start on Monday."
"Are you sure? I-I can come now if you—"
"Relax." The voice on the phone gave a good-natured chuckle. "The job isn't going anywhere."
After hanging up, Carmen was too wired to go back to sleep. Carefully, she finished easing Jake's head off her lap, then shimmied to the edge of the mattress until her toes touched the floor. Grabbing the encrusted plate left behind from last night's dinner, she tiptoed out of the room.
In the kitchen, Jake had left a bit of the mess the evening before. A pot of beans sat on the stove with a spoon still inside, the rim sticky with beans that had spilled over and onto the stovetop, where last night's flame had charred them to black. There were crumbs in front of the open toaster oven, and the door to the dish cabinet had been left ajar.
Setting her plate into the sink to soak, she rolled up her sleeves and pulled out a worn rag and the stove spray. First, she scraped what remained of the pot of beans into the trash bin, filling the pot with warm, soapy water, then got to work attacking the stains on the stove, wiping up spills, and clearing crumbs off the counter. In short order, she had everything gleaming enough that she could return to the dirty dishes. She scrubbed the pot until every bit of the dried bean mess was chipped away, then washed her dish and the one Jake had left in the sink from his own meal.
Even after she had set the dishes to dry in the rack, Jake still had not woken, and Carmen felt more energized than she had in a while, a lightness in her that urged her to work, to accomplish, to produce. On a whim, she reached into the pantry to pull out flour, sugar, and then a couple of ingredients that she had to grab from the fridge, then found a bowl and began to mix them all together.
By the time Jake wandered in rubbing his eyes with his fists, pancakes were cooking merrily in a pan. He stopped in the doorway, looking bewildered.
Carmen heard the pitter patter of his bare feet pause and glanced over her shoulder, her spatula dangling over the pan. "Good morning, baby," she said with an uncertain smile. When he said nothing, she added, "Pancakes are almost ready. Do you want to get plates?"
Rooted to the spot, Jake mouthed the word 'pancakes?' with his brows pinched in trepidation. Perhaps she should have given breakfast more consideration; the last time she had made these had been the day she broke the news about rehab, effectively abandoning her son. But it was too late to backtrack now, so she did her best to ignore the negative associations and padded to the cabinet to retrieve the two plates, clinking them both down beside the large platter of pancakes already near the stove.
She slid a couple of new ones, still steaming, onto each plate, then drizzled the last of the batter into the pan. When she turned around, a plate in either hand, Jake had not taken a single step. "Please sit," she begged softly.
Without taking his wary eyes off her, Jake dutifully glided forward and eased into a chair as she set a plate in front of him. Well, the only way to reassure him was to just come out with the truth, so she inhaled a lungful of air as she slid into the second seat and said, "Guess what."
The boy had been just about to slather his pancakes with syrup but, despite her enthusiastic tone, her words made him blanch and he set the bottle back on the table with a solid thud. Pretending not to notice his reaction (and the niggling guilt it provoked within her), she continued, "They called back about the job. I'm starting work tomorrow!"
The queasy, stricken expression melted from Jake's face into first relief, then exhilaration. With significantly more gusto than before, he tucked into breakfast as she transmitted all that she expected her new job to entail. Relief gave her the courage to admit to yesterday's fears that she would never get the job—or any job at all—and how much she looked forward to jumping in.
She paused in the middle to take the last pancakes off the flame and returned with those and a pitcher of orange juice, which she tipped into Jake's cup. "I'm starting work tomorrow," she said, setting down the pitcher. "I have to go in today just to find out the details, but—"
"Can I come?" Jake interjected. As soon as the words left his mouth, he ducked his head into his orange juice as though he regretted the request, swallowing hard as he stared guiltily at her through his bangs.
Carmen hesitated. "I don't know," she said slowly. "It doesn't feel very professional."
"That's okay," Jake mumbled quickly, taking a too-large gulp of juice that made him cough as he stared with determination at his nearly-empty plate.
Carmen watched the letdown flash across his face with a sinking stomach. True, it was maybe a bit unprofessional to bring your son to your orientation, but Piper Halliwell had seemed like the understanding sort. She had already gone out on a limb for Carmen. Of all people, she seemed like the kind of boss who wouldn't mind meeting her employee's child. Plus, this was a bit late on notice to ask that boy Chris to babysit. Most importantly, she couldn't bear the thought of disappointing Jake; she had already done that enough in his lifetime.
Swallowing hard against the lump in her throat, she murmured, "Okay." Jake's head jolted up in surprise, eyebrows piqued. "You can come with me today."
"Really?" Jake whispered, and she nodded. As she watched a smile split across his face, warmth filtered through her and she finished the last of her pancakes and then another, beaming all the while.
They barely finished half of the pancakes that she had cooked; the rest she wrapped in tinfoil and stuck in the fridge for later. After washing up, both Carmen and Jake went to change into fresh clothes before heading to the bus stop. The ride was only about half an hour, plus a ten-minute walk once they were dropped off, before they arrived. The hand Carmen wrapped around Jake's was damp with nerves as she led him inside the restaurant across the street from P3.
Astronomica was already bustling this early in the afternoon, but when Piper saw Carmen she led the pair into an office in back to talk in peace. Unlike at P3, where every wall of the back room was messily plastered with posters of bands and singers, presumably people who had played on their center stage, from the looks of the handwritten notes accompanied by signatures in the bottom corners of most of those posters, this room looked fairly neat, a desk in one corner, a small couch and armchair on the opposite wall, and a locked filing cabinet behind the door. The only clutter came from the admittedly orderly pile of papers in the right corner of the desk, which Piper went to now as she ushered the duo onto the couch. It sank in so deeply when they sat that Jake slid sideways, his hip bumping his mother's.
"So who's the handsome lad?" Piper asked without turning around.
With a shy glance at Carmen, Jake mumbled his name. In an instant, Piper's head jerked around, eyebrows furrowed as she scrutinized the boy, piercing enough that he shrank into the back of the couch and Carmen's breath caught in her chest. Did Piper mind his presence after all?
But Piper seemed to regain her composure quickly, just a brief frown that melted away as she turned her back once more and began to rummage through the top desk drawer, finally whipping from its depths a bright red lollipop. This she offered to Jake with a smile.
When she sat pulled over the desk chair and sat with a pile of papers, they got down to business.Carmen had made sure to bring with her any necessary documents and even some unnecessary ones; she took dutiful notes about hours and responsibilities, signing everything set in front of her.
Over an hour passed before they were finally ready to leave. As they were getting up, Piper abruptly asked, "Just out of curiosity, how did you hear about the job opening?" Though she spoke to Carmen, her intense gaze remained on Jake as she asked the question.
"Oh, it's—there's a teenager my son knows from his school. Chris. He helps out a lot. He knew about the position and recommended I check it out." Carmen smiled slightly. "He's a bit of a godsend, to be honest."
"Mm," Piper replied noncommittally. Her expression tightened. Or Carmen thought it did. But since she couldn't think of a reason for this, she had to have imagined it. They offered a few parting words before Carmen and Jake headed home.
That night, after Chris had returned from Dwight's house, Leo called to him from the living room. When Chris joined his father, seated in the plush armchair, Leo waved him to the couch.
Immediately on alert, Chris asked, still standing, "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong," Leo assured, "I just wanted to talk to you."
Skeptically, Chris asked, "About…?"
"Chris," Leo sighed, gesturing again to the couch. "Sit. Please." With a huff, Chris did as he was told, arranging himself on the cushion closest to his father, his posture rigid, though he couldn't have articulated why his instincts had him feeling so defensive before Leo had even explained himself. "It's about your charge," Leo finally admitted.
Chris folded his arms. "Okay. What about him?"
Leo took a moment to rub his hands back and forth against his thighs as he considered his words. "Your mom and I had a chat earlier today." He paused meaningfully. "She met him."
"Oh," Chris said dumbly. "How?"
"His mother brought him in when she got hired at Astronomica."
Forgetting his defensiveness, Chris dropped his arms and eagerly sat forward. "So she got the job?"
Leo inhaled softly. "So you did suggest it to her, then."
"Well, yeah," Chris replied, feeling as though he was missing something. "Obviously."
For a moment, Leo's eyes rose silently to the ceiling, searching or praying or—Chris wasn't sure what that look conveyed, his mind unable to reconcile Leo's seeming disapproval with the situation at hand, with the excitement he felt at Carmen's success. He had known his mother would help her out, give her a chance. This was excellent news. "You're a good person, Chris," Leo said at last, "It's great that you want to help your charge's mother, it really is. But you're overstepping. Above all you need to remember that she isn't your responsibility. You aren't supposed to get emotionally involved. You're bringing this too close to home. You need to separate your cosmic duties from your personal life."
Throughout Leo's lecture, Chris had sunk back into his seat, crossing his arms protectively over a chest that grew tighter and tighter with every word uttered. When Leo paused to take a breath, Chris snapped, "Oh, right, like you did with Mom, right?"
Ignoring the jab, Leo continued, "It isn't just that, Chris. Whitelighters aren't babysitters. They're not meant to spend all their free time with their charges. They're supposed to appear when they're needed, remain otherwise unseen."
Finally leaping to his feet, Chris growled, "Well, then the Elders should've mentioned that, shouldn't they? It's not like they sat me down to run through all these stupid, useless rules!" Without waiting for a response, he stormed past Leo's chair and toward the stairwell.
"Chris!" Leo called after him, "We need to talk about this!" But Chris didn't stop, and as he stomped up the steps, instead of chase him, Leo twisted back in his seat and sank his face into his palms. Dully, he remarked, "Well, that went well."
The next evening, in defiance of his father's assertion, Chris visited his charge. What did Leo know? Okay, yes, he'd been a whitelighter for several decades, an Elder for a few years after that, but he didn't know Jake, not the way Chris did. Sure, maybe for most charges it was enough to appear only when they summoned, but it had taken Jake months before he'd been willing to "bother" his whitelighter like that. Even now, he rarely called, regardless of need or circumstance.
If Leo couldn't understand that this was a critical juncture in Jake's life, a time when he needed extra support to assure him that no one would abandon him, well, Chris wasn't going to waste his breath explaining it.
It had been Carmen's first day on the job, late afternoon when Chris finally showed up, and with no one available to babysit she had reluctantly left Jake at home alone. Chris found the boy in the kitchen munching on potato chips. "I hope that's not dinner," he remarked with a grin, and Jake spun around in his chair to face him with a sheepish smile.
"No, I made grilled cheese in the microwave," he promised, which explained the crumbs scattered all across the counter.
Chris came to join him at the table, accepting a chip offered to him. Jake gnawed at his lower lip for a moment (See? Chris thought vindictively, He still hesitates to speak his mind) before asking, "Do you think it's going okay?"
Chris considered the question as he stuffed the chip into his mouth whole. Pressing it into the roof of his mouth to crack it in half, he swallowed, then acknowledged, "It's probably tough. Most first days are. But I'm sure she'll get the hang of it soon."
When he caught Jake's furrowed brow, he smiled gently. "Come on, let's play a game. She should be home soon, yeah?"
Jake cast a glance at the glowing numbers on the microwave. "Thirty minutes, I think."
"Great." Chris clapped his hands and stood, pressing the backs of his knees into his chair to push it away from the table. "Let's go take your mind off things for a while."
The work was more complicated than Carmen expected and took a lot of getting used to. Piper had assigned a woman named Crystal for Carmen to shadow, and Crystal cheerfully took Carmen under her wing, showing her how to work the register and how to use shorthand to take down orders, how to label the slips of paper in a way the chef in the kitchen would be able to identify, how to avoid his wrath when he inevitably fell behind schedule during the early afternoon rush, so many things, all of them useful but Carmen just knew she'd forget most of it in the coming days.
"That's all right," Crystal assured, "I'll remind you. You'll get the hang of it, I promise."
Crystal talked a lot. She, like Carmen, was a single mother (Piper seemed to have a soft spot). Crystal had three kids, Junior, Ashley, and Serena. "Junior can get angry, but he's a good boy. He's been much better since we moved in with my sister. His father was awful to him, always yelling. Plus, he's got more privacy now, his own room. My sister's got a five-bedroom."
Crystal also had the inside scoop about the other waiters and waitresses—"Connie comes late on Thursdays so she can visit her grandmother in the nursing home. Don't worry, it's Piper-sanctioned"—and the inner workings of the restaurant. "Johnny is what we call a Double Agent. That's someone who pulls both jobs, here and at the club across the street—Piper owns both places." (Carmen didn't mention she had actually interviewed across the street first.) "Actually, it's sort of weird, you being here only. The girl you're replacing, her name was Cassie, she was a Double Agent, too. Weird that Piper split the position." Carmen bit her lip. She knew why Piper had split the position; she knew exactly why.
Every second of that day, Carmen did her best to act the model employee. She took minimal bathroom breaks; Piper had to force her to take her lunch break after Carmen insisted she could work through it. She wanted so badly to convince Piper she had made the right decision hiring her, especially after hearing from Crystal and feeling that weight of guilt settle into her gut. Crystal laughed at her fresh enthusiasm. "You'll learn," she said, her voice tinged with a combination of nostalgia and compassion. "It's a great place to work. We're like a family here. But you don't need to be all eager beaver. We'll like you no matter what."
By the end of her first shift, Carmen felt about ready to collapse face-first into the couch in that back office. It took all her energy to trudge out the door and make the ten-minute hike to her bus stop.
At the first sign of Carmen's arrival—the front door creaking open down the hall—Chris orbed home. While Jake was collecting the cards splayed out on his mattress, Carmen poked her head into his room. Her hair was pulled back into a sleek bun, though over the hours some wisps had tugged free to fall into her eyes. She brushed them back with a weary hand.
"Hi, Mommy," Jake said, gazing at her with hopeful anticipation. "Was it… really hard?"
Carmen bit her lip, then stepped fully inside. She had a nametag pinned to the front of her button-down blouse, which she kept fingering as she walked over. Sitting at the edge of Jake's bed, she bent forward to unlace her sneakers, tugging them off one at a time and dropping them to the side.
"A bit," she admitted once her feet were free. She twiddled her toes inside her socks and propped herself back against her hands. "I'm sorry I left you all alone the whole day. Were you okay?"
He assured her he was, then crawled closer across the mattress. Squatting on his knees before her, he asked, "Do you want me to make you grilled cheese?"
Carmen gazed at him, a flash of—was it disappointment?—in her eyes. "No, baby," she sighed. "I'll make dinner. I'm sorry I didn't leave you something before I left."
"That's okay," he whispered, and scooched closer so he could wrap his arms around her middle. With another sigh, she settled a hand on the crown of his head, gently running her fingernails across his scalp.
"We'll figure this out," she promised him softly. "I'll find someone who can watch you. Or maybe I'll be able to afford a camp or…" She seemed to speak more to herself than to him, in a faraway mumble. "Maybe you could stay with Mother for the summer…"
Jake's head shot up. "No," he said quickly. "I want to stay here. With you."
She blinked at him, taken aback that he had responded to her thoughts, half-surprised she had even uttered them aloud. With a forced smile, she assured, "Don't worry, we'll figure something out."
"And you won't send me away?" he confirmed grimly.
After a moment, she affirmed, "No. You're staying right here with me." Satisfied, he tucked his head back into her chest, allowing her to card through his hair once more.
Carmen didn't find any full-time care, but ultimately she managed to get an elderly neighbor to agree to watch Jake for two of the six afternoons. Chris volunteered to a third. (After much debate, Piper and Leo had conceded to this but put their foot down about any more, Piper insisting he needed to spend time practicing his magic, and Leo uncomfortable about his spending additional non-whitelighter time with his charge.)
A fourth day, Carmen set up a recurring playdate with the boy across the street, his mother agreeing to serve Jake dinner before walking him home. The other two days Jake was on his own with strict instructions not to cross the street by himself. Carmen still had not forgotten his accident, though he had long since healed completely and seemed to suffer no residual trauma from the event, physical or otherwise. That was more than could be said for Carmen, often waking from nightmares of receiving a phone call from the authorities about her son back in the hospital.
On Carmen's one day off, Wednesdays, she made sure to spend the day with Jake. They went to the park, to the zoo, to the free local sprinkler park maintained by the township. If she gave herself the opportunity, she could have slept late into the morning, exhausted and overwhelmed by work the rest of the week, but she refused to let herself abandon him on the one day she had available.
On one of Chris's evenings, Carmen came home to find them just finishing a game of Life on the living room floor. She had missed the bus and had to catch a later one, so she sent Jake to get ready for bed as soon as she arrived.
As Jake slunk to his bedroom to get changed, Chris started to gather the tokens and money spread out across the carpet. "Leave it," she said, but he insisted it was no problem.
Slumping into the couch, she watched him for a moment through half-lidded eyes as she massaged one of her ankles. "I never thanked you," she said at last.
With a quick glance up, he dumped the pieces into the box. "I told you it's nothing," he assured.
"No, not this. The job." Staring down at the foot dangling over her knee, she said, "I never could have gotten it without your help."
He offered a brief smile. "You could have," he said, "but you're welcome."
He finished putting pieces away, folded the board into the box, and slid the lid back on top. Carmen watched him do this, one ear listening out for the water being turned on in the bathroom that told her Jake had started brushing his teeth.
In the end, she wasn't sure what made her say it; the words just slipped right off her tongue. "I used to write letters," she blurted out. Chris lifted his gaze. "To Jake's father," she continued, even as her brain shouted at her to stop talking. "I never sent them, though. Well, not after the first one." She ducked her head. "I never had his address." Would she have sent them if she could have? Most likely. It felt like the highest betrayal to Jake somehow, harboring positive emotions for the man who had abandoned him.
Unsure how to respond, Chris said nothing. But his silence seemed to give Carmen strength to continue. Without looking at the teenager, fingers intertwined in her lap, she admitted, "When he left, that's when life got… how it was. Things were tough before that, but after Adam was gone, I was alone. I didn't have enough money to go to my brother, and I was embarrassed to ask my mother for help. She always said Adam was good for nothing. I tried. For a few years. But… well, eventually, that's why I started… treating Jake…" Her throat dry, she swallowed hard.
"Well," Chris started uncomfortably, "Things are changing now, aren't they?"
Eyes closed, Carmen sighed, "I hope so."
"Don't hope so," Chris replied firmly, "Make it so."
They heard footsteps pad down the hallway, and Jake reappeared in his pajamas. "I'm ready, Mommy."
Sucking in a breath to force a smile to her face, she stood as Chris did. "Good," she said.
"G'night, Jake," Chris said. Then, his gaze met Carmen's. "Good night," he repeated, and she responded with a solemn nod that she knew he understood.
A/N: We're getting close to the end here. Just a few more chapters. Don't forget: reviews are golden!
