Chapter 12 of 19
Talks
Victor was washing his dishes when he heard the sound of orbing. He looked up and saw his grown yet to be born grandson looking sick.
“Chris, are you okay?” he asked worried.
“Can I hide here?” the boy asked with his eyes wide.
“From whom?” Victor asked worried. What kind of trouble had the boy gotten into?
“Your daughter.”
Victor blanched, looked at Chris and then had to resist the urge to chuckled, “Would this be your mother?”
“She wanted to give me a sex talk,” the boy whispered then shuddered and Victor laughed. “This isn’t funny! I don’t know how she went from Darklighter, to Bianca and me being too young to be engaged to safe sex!”
“She was just worried,” Victor said putting an arm around his frazzled grandson. “You are a little young to be engaged though.”
Chris shrugged and looked ahead as if seeing the distant future, “Maybe if I had a normal life. But where I come from you never knew how long you’d be alive. So waiting wasn’t an option. I got engaged, but she died anyway didn’t she?” he smiled bitterly and Victor saw tears glistening his eyes.
He brought Chris’s head to his lips and said, “That won’t happen and this time waiting will be an option.”
Prue entered the room and did a back take. “Has that dough offended you somehow?” she asked her sister who was violently beating on some dough.
Piper looked at her with narrowed eyes, “Chris orbed away in the middle of a serious conversation,” she huffed.
Prue came forward and leaned on the counter, “About going back to the Darklighters- I know you’re worried but if he has an entrance he can’t waste-“
“I know that!” Piper cried. “That doesn’t mean I can’t worry. But no, I was talking about Bianca!”
“Oh,” Prue said. “Sensitive subject,” she whispered. She herself had avoided the subject because knowing her nephew she knew he hadn’t given himself a chance to mourn her, just went on with the mission.
“He is too young to be engaged. He was nineteen when he asked her for crying out loud!”
“You’re thinking as someone with a normal life where at nineteen he’d be in College partying away,” Prue said and then she chuckled. “No, that probably would be Wyatt; Chris would be in College studying away like the nerd he always was.”
“I know that,” Piper said. “I realize that,” then she looked up, “He was a nerd?”
“Yup,” Prue said happily. “At fourteen he already had all his career planned out. He was going to go to a good college, pre-med and then he already had the list of potential medical schools.”
“A doctor? He wanted to be a doctor?”
“Ironic uh?” Prue smirked. “Wanting to follow the career of the father who ignored him. At first I thought he was trying to please Leo, but no. Or maybe there was a little of that but that wasn’t the main reason. Chris really wanted to heal others. That you all got hurt and he couldn’t do more then call for help grated him enormously. I don’t think he ever envied Wyatt’s position or attention but he did envy that power. Wyatt on the other hand envied the firepower Chris got from his father that he didn’t.”
“Firepower?”
“Yes, remember, Leo was already an Elder when you had Chris but not when you had Wyatt.” Prue said. “But tell me, you brought Bianca up.”
“Yes, and then I did think about the fact that he has been in a war since he was sixteen. And that I was dead since his fourteenth and well, I thought that maybe no one had talked to him- I mean- I realize that dating someone six years older he probably isn’t a virgin anymore but I thought maybe no one talked to him- STOP LAUGHING PRUE!”
“Oh, this is precious,” Prue said holding her side. “What did he do?”
“He yelled he knew and orbed out! What?” Piper asked indignantly.
“You tried to the same when he was young, I think twelve or thirteen. The reaction you got was the same. Then you asked dad to talk to him and he got a better reaction.”
“Good, so I did cover that,” Piper answered huffing but Prue, aside from her laughter, decided that maybe her nephew needed to start mourning his dead fiancé.
“In a way I had already mourned her even before she died. We made promises and all but I knew that we were brought together because of the war. In an ideal world our paths wouldn’t have ever crossed,” Chris told his grandfather over hot chocolate. They were sitting on the dining room table and had been talking for a long time. Talking to his grandfather had always been easy and somehow he just stepped into that old familiarity with him. “When she died, I hurt so much because I couldn’t prevent that, but my Bianca had been already dead for months. I had already made peace with the fact that we might never be together again. But she’d be alive and well, and happy in her own way and that was enough for me.”
Victor nodded knowingly, “You’d rather have her safe but away from you than with you in danger.”
“Yes, but when Wyatt killed her…I failed you know? I failed at keeping my loved ones safe again. And…” Chris bit his lip as if he didn’t know how to phrase this. “I understand that she came because she wanted to keep me safe. That she was afraid of Wyatt would do to me but I thought she understood that this mission was more important, bigger than us, than our love. Yes, I want t save Wyatt, that is my biggest goal. But our world,” he had a pained expression. “Mom used to say sometimes when she was teaching me to cook and I burnt something that scraping the burnt wasn’t enough. That the food was too ruined to save, there was nothing left to save. And that is how our world is. Even if I take Wyatt down, do you think the demons will just go back to the underworld? And magic has been exposed. Wyatt rules mortals by fear, what do you think they will do once this is over?”
“Burn you all at the stake,” Victor said.
“She betrayed the cause and me,” Chris said sadly.
Paige was piling up the essays she had asked the students to write when Gideon entered the classroom. “I’m happy you decided to accept my offer Paige. You can’t imagine the honor of having a Charmed One teach in my school.”
Paige looked up and smiled, “I’m glad I can help and be around so much magic at the same time”
“If you ever need any help, just come to me. No matter what the subject,” Gideon said and Paige knew he was talking about Wyatt. She nodded hoping to come out as grateful. Gideon walked forward slowly and seemed to be looking at one of the essays on the desk. “How are your sisters and nephews? I hope progress has been made.”
“We’re having a little difficulty locating the clan of demons we’re looking for but Chris is on to that and I have faith in him.”
“If you gave me more details I could help,” Gideon said pleasantly.
“Don’t worry, we’re managing and Chris doesn’t want us talking about details outside our protections lest they find out,” Paige answered. They had decided they’d be as vague as possible so they wouldn’t get caught in a lie.
“Young Christopher’s caution is laudable but unnecessary after all I’m on your side,” Gideon said smiling.
“Yeah, we know,” Paige shrugged. “But you know him and from the little we know of his world his caution is understandable. I mean he didn’t even trust his own family with his secrets, did he?”
“Yes, of course,” Gideon said. “But I worry for him all alone with no active powers,” and Paige caught on to what Gideon was fishing for. And Chris being fond of Gideon or not, her chips where on him.
“Don’t you worry about that Gideon. Chris does have one active power, the same as Prue,” and many others I’m not telling you, she thought. “And from what I heard you taught him well.”
“Me?”
“Oh, yes. He is very fond of you.”
Gideon smiled, “That’s nice to know.”
Yeah, I bet, Paige thought.
Gideon entered his office and went straight to the mirror.
“If we taught them, then we know how they think,” his reflection said.
“Chris thinks like I would,” Gideon agreed and smiled “And if he likes me I might be able to manipulate him as I do his father.”
“Yes, quite handy piece of information,” his reflection mirrored his smile.
“So, how was magic school?” Chris’s voice asked as soon as Paige orbed home. She almost let out a scream and dropped her books putting a hand on her chest.
“I’ve decided, you are evil! Do you want to kill me from a heart attack?” she cried.
Chris shrugged. “Just wondering how your snooping went.”
“I haven’t had the opportunity to do much snooping yet,” she glared at him. “But I did manage to do something useful,” she smirked. “I let Gideon know how fond of him you are.” Chris frowned not following. “Made him think you’d do anything he told you,” and Chris smirked.
“And never in a million years suspect my mentor. I think it is high time I start talking to him more.”