Chapter 6 of 9
Parents
The next morning, Piper couldn’t believe what she just read. She was goggling at the book. How could he do that? To the only one who ever trusted him? She jumped startled as Paige’s voice came behind her.
“What are you reading that has had you holed up in here every chance you get since yesterday?” Paige asked staring suspiciously at Piper, who had gotten up from the loveseat she had been sprawled on and was unsuccessfully hiding the book behind her back.
“Nothing,” she said vaguely
“Uh hu- book,” Paige finished extending her hand and when the book landed on her hand her eyes went wide. “How did you get this? Oh my God, I want to read it!” she started leafing through the book and simultaneously dancing around Piper who was trying to get it back.
“Give that back! I promised Chris not to tell anyone!”
“Chris gave this to you?” Paige asked shocked. “Mr. Future Consequences handed to you a book that isn’t coming out in-“ she stopped to see the releasing date in the first page, “two years, over two years!”
“The last one too,” Piper said smugly pointing at the little table where another book was sitting innocently.
Paige smiled, “You do realize what this means right?” she asked and Piper nodded. “That not all is lost and apparently, he’s still a mamma’s boy. He didn’t offer me this,” she huffed at the end.
“But he still won’t let me in,” Piper said sadly.
“I think he did, even if just a little. Be patient,” she said and she started walking away with the book.
“Hey! Give that back!”
“I wanna read it!”
“I haven’t finished!”
Phoebe came into the kitchen where Wyatt was shamelessly robbing chocolate frosting and crossed her arms scowling at him. He was at a loss and just stared at her with the chocolate spoon dangling from his mouth.
“Wha’?”he asked defensively.
“How come Piper gets to read Harry Potter and I don’t?’
“Chris asked me to let her. He was very firm on assuring me he was not doing that because he forgave her but because he didn’t want to be annoyed and I pretended to believe him.”
“Where is he?”
“Underworld, trying to find out exactly who those demons are. Where’s Aunt Paige?”
“Last I saw she was waiting eagerly for Piper to finish the last chapter, why?”
“Because I think dad should coach her on healing, now that he can’t.”
“Come on, just one tiny cut,” Leo said extending his hand to Phoebe.
“Why can’t you do it?”
“Because Paige won’t be allowed to heal self inflicted injuries. Get that knife and cut me!” he ordered more firmly and Phoebe closed her eyes and made a small cut on Leo’s hand over the dining room table. Leo then turned the hand towards Paige.
“Now close your eyes, it will help the first few times, and sense for the wound. Just like when you’re sensing for one of us except you need to focus on wanting to know what’s wrong and then you need to will it back right.”
“How will I know what’s right? I’m not a doctor,” Paige said.
“Your magic will know. You just need to want me to heal.”
Paige hovered her hand over the small wound and tried concentrating on sensing Leo, she found him and sensed him. There was something missing from how she usually felt him and she realized that must have been his magic. She tried to sense for what was wrong and she could picture the wound and she willed the wound to close and go back to the way the hand should be. She felt the wound closing, the skin merging back together and the blood vessel closing. She opened her eyes just in time to see her hand stop glowing on top of the unblemished skin.
“I did it!” she cried happily and Phoebe nodded with her.
“Again,” Leo said turning his hand to Phoebe.
“But she did it,” Phoebe protested, not a fan of cutting Leo up.
”She has to get used to that feeling so she can do it naturally or she won’t be able to heal the serious wounds. A little bigger this time.”
Leo, Paige and Phoebe spent the whole day practicing, while Piper had already gone through most of the last Harry Potter Book, Chris did get the bookworm gene from someone after all, and Chris had been investigating in the Underworld, which had left Wyatt with the very strange task of babysitting his baby self. Not that he didn’t have practice. He and Chris had babysat for Billie and her husband before. Billie used to joke that since she had babysat them it was their turn now. But changing your own diaper was just weird.
Wyatt was coming down from putting baby Wyatt to sleep when he saw orbs forming in the parlor, “Hey.” He called.
“Hey,” was the exhausted answer his brother gave him.
“Any news?”
Chris only shook his head, “No, but one of my contacts told me that there is going to be a meeting in two weeks in one of the bars. They are spreading the word that they will expose more of the plan that day. I might go undercover that day and get a chance to see at least one of them.” Wyatt nodded but he was not comfortable with the idea of his brother going into a demon bar all by himself.
They walked into the dining room and where about to ask how the practicing was going when Piper came into the room crying.
“Mom!” Wyatt cried while all the others cried.
“Piper!”
Piper grabbed Wyatt in a hug and started babbling, “He loved her!”
“Uh?” Wyatt answered patting Piper’s back a little uncomfortably, not being good with crying women.
“And poor Teddy! All alone!” realizing what was going on Wyatt and Chris rolled their eyes.
“Who’s Teddy?” Phoebe asked.
“No one. Hopefully the lack of pregnancy won’t give you two the same reaction,” Chris said annoyed.
“And Dobby!”
“Aunt Phoebe might,” Wyatt winced.
“What is going on here?” Leo asked but Phoebe and Paige, who had understood, ran to the conservatory and you could hear from the distance, “No, it’s my turn!”
“Don’t you have to go look for a future husband?”
“Not now!”
“You can read out loud!” Chris called out.
“This is about a book?” Leo asked bewildered.
“It’s so sad!” Piper sniffed. “Poor Teddy!”
Wyatt winced, yeah maybe letting his mother, who was always fighting, read about a couple who died fighting leaving their infant son orphan might not have been a good idea. Not only on her pregnant state but on her current emotional state with said child she was bearing. Wyatt looked at Chris and saw he was shuffling his feet uncomfortably.
“Sorry. I shouldn’t have let you read the book,” he mumbled.
“That’s not your fault Chris,” Leo said comfortably. “She would have cried when the book was released anyway,” he finished trying to put a hand on Chris’s shoulder but Chris backed away almost instinctively and Leo brought his hand back in a fist to his side nodding sadly.
“I’m going home. Have a shower and all,” Chris said awkwardly and before anyone could say anything he orbed out.
Wyatt squeezed his hug on Piper, who looked forlorn, and said, “Give him time. It may not look like it but you’ve made huge progress.”
Chris dropped on the bed heavily. He turned to the side and brought his knees to his chest. He missed her, but at the same time he didn’t want to open up again and get hurt. His mother had always been the most important person in his life together with Wyatt. He loved the rest of his family to bits but they were the two top ones. She had something special. She would always smile at him when he got home from school, or a friend’s, or wherever he’d been as if he had just made her day by being there. Piper on the other hand always looked at him as if he was the worst part of her day, with disgust and even hatred. She would be smiling and when her eyes landed on him her smile just faded. The opposite of what happened with his mother. And every time she did that, every time she barked at him angrily she stole one little piece of good memory he had from his mother, because when he tried to remember his mother’s voice, he heard Piper’s angry one, when he tried to remember her smile he saw Piper’s glare and his memories of his mother was all he had, and at times he hated Piper for stealing that away. Because she just killed his mother a little bit more every time.
And what if they were all wrong, what if Piper had seen him and hadn’t liked what she saw, hadn’t liked the person Chris was? What if his mother hadn’t liked either but since she was his mother she forced herself to, or to at least pretend? How could he ever know? And could he live with not knowing?
And Leo, he didn’t even know where to start there. Yes, Leo seemed to be making an effort, but would that effort last or would he revert to the father that only cared for Wyatt? How many times had Leo promised he’d change just to forget about Chris again? Chris didn’t think he could handle being let down by his father again. He buried his face on the pillow and groaned.
That was how Victor found his grandson a little while later. He quietly sat by the bed and gently poked him, “Want to talk?” Chris shrugged turning his head a little so he was facing his grandfather. “Can I talk then?” another shrug. “You love your mom don’t you?” Chris nodded. “I know this might come as a shock to you, but she isn’t perfect,” Chris smiled a little at that. “And she most certainly isn’t yet the woman you’re used to. The Piper you know has eighteen years of experience in fighting demons, raising two sons and of dealing with an absentee husband-“
“Ex. Mom and dad never got back together in our time,” Chris corrected.
“Even worst, she had experience in raising two sons alone. This Piper hasn’t. She’s still a new mom. Wyatt is a baby and she might know how to deal with diaper changing but not with tumbling emotions. She might have been dealing with demons for six years but when you compare it to your mom, that’s quite little time. But even that being little time it already brought a lot of pain to her, so her first reaction is going into defensive mode, and to Piper, the best defense is to attack. This Piper will make a lot more mistakes than your mother, not that your mother didn’t make them, you just were too little to remember her making them. So you need to be a lot more patient with Piper than you would have been with your mother. Give her more leeway. I’m not saying not to let her know how she hurt you, but give her a chance. Go tell her how she hurt you. Rant and yell and cry with her and then forgive her if you can, because right now you’re both hurting and I don’t like that.”
Chris turned his eyes to stare at the wall. Could he?