Chapter 7 of 12
Parents
“There isn’t anything here about time travel side effects,” Paige groaned worriedly. Leo had orbed home a while ago and came back with bad news. Chris wasn’t getting better, he seemed worse. He was still conscious but it had been over an hour since Piper had managed to get him to say anything coherent. Now he was just lying silent as if he didn’t understand the world around him. That was two hours ago and they were getting desperate.
A book snapped and Gideon put it aside with a defeated expression, “Nothing,” he shook his head in answer to the other three silent question. “Just the usual rules and risks about changing the timeline but no physical effect on the traveler.”
“We are sure he wasn’t attacked?” Phoebe asked again and Leo shook his head.
“Yes,” he repeated. “I made him promise not to block me. I would have known if he was.”
“Yeah, but this is Chris-I-have-to-deal-with-everything-on-my-own-Halliwell we are talking about,” she said.
“Even so,” Leo said. “If he had blocked me I would know he was blocking me. Now that I know what to look for,” he huffed at his own blindness before. Every day he noticed a new way that should have revealed who Chris was and they just didn’t see. He suddenly snapped his head up. “Piper’s calling. Something happened.”
He orbed out and the others followed him. Really, you just don’t say something like that and expect them to sit and wait for him!
As they appeared in the Manor’s living room they met a frantic Piper, a worried Victor and an unconscious Chris.
“What happened?” Leo asked.
“This happened,” Victor said holding Chris’ hand up for them to see. It was see through.
“What?” Leo looked bewildered. “What is going on here?” he asked worried. His son was disappearing. He looked at the others and though Phoebe and Paige looked appropriately shocked Gideon was smiling.
“What are you smiling at?” Piper snapped at the Elder.
“Oh, sorry,” he said flustered. “I just realized what the problem is. He isn’t sick, injured or having a side effect of the time travel.”
“Then what is happening?” Piper cried.
“How long has it been since he snapped and you found out who he was?”
“Two months,” Paige answered and comprehension dawned on her. “Oh, two months, he had two months, yes. We’re wasting time here!” she cried turning to Leo and Piper who were still so worried about Chris that they couldn’t understand what apparently everyone else had as Phoebe was nodding and Victor looked definitely uncomfortable. “But I don’t understand. You two are back together. Haven’t you, you know?”
“Haven’t I what?” Piper snapped. “My son is disappearing and you people speak in riddles.”
“Exactly, he is ceasing to exist, he needs to be conceived,” Gideon said simply smiling. “You to need to – er-“ apparently his calm and wise demeanor didn’t prevent him blushing as he tried to continue. “You know.” He finished flustered.
“Oh,” Piper said taken aback. “But we have been, er- you-know.”
“Well, obviously you need to have more,” Phoebe stated. “So go!”
“What if he isn’t?” Leo asked worried. He was a little nervous. He didn’t know if he was going to be able to have sex on command like this.
“He was never going to be conceived before his time Leo,” Gideon said. “Or else it wouldn’t be him. But he needs to be conceived or else he’ll disappear completely. I’m pretty confident the time to conceive his has come.”
“We could wipe up a lust potion if you two need the help,” Phoebe offered.
“We don’t need help,” Piper hissed then she looked at Leo who was green with nerves. “Maybe, just in case. Leave it by our door.”
She grabbed Leo by the hand and pulled him away in the direction of their room not looking at the others.
Paige patted Victor’s arm, “You can stop looking as if you’ll throw up Victor, all the talk about your daughter’s sex life is over.”
“Thank God!” Victor said sitting on the couch’s arm.
Piper had gone to changed in the bathroom. Phoebe had knocked on the door and Leo, who had already striped down to just his boxers, stuck his hand out to get the potions vials. He looked at them and sighed. He didn’t want his son conceived by a lust potion. Piper and Leo had talked about this and they were eager to have this new baby. He was wanted and he should be conceived naturally. But at the same time he didn’t want to risk his son. He put the potions on the nightstand and waited.
He decided that if they weren’t able to get in the mood he would not risk Chris. He would just drink the potion and- every thought went out of his head when Piper opened the door and came wearing a nightgown Leo had never seen before. Oh, they definitely wouldn’t be needing any potion.
“I think we’re on the clear,” Paige smiled as Chris’s hand started looking more solid. She, Victor and Phoebe had stayed downstairs with Chris. Victor was steadily playing with Wyatt to avoid thinking about what Piper and Leo were doing. Gideon had orbed back to Magic School telling them that he would stop later on because he had done all the research he needed and he would come explain his idea.
Chris started stirring and rubbed his eyes. He looked groggily around and when he looked up he met his Aunt Phoebe’s smiling face. When he realized he had his head on her lap he sat up abruptly.
“What happened?” he asked.
“How do you feel?” Phoebe asked.
“I’m fine. Don’t feel dizzy anymore,” he said simply.
“Good,” she nodded.
“What happened ?” he asked again.
“Oh,” Paige answered simply patting his arm. “You just needed to get conceived. But don’t worry, your parents went upstairs and took care of it.”
Chris’s made a disgusted face and shuddered, “I so didn’t need to know that!”
Chris hovered in front of his parents’ bedroom door as he came down from the attic. He shuddered again, really people! They’ve been there forever! He had already been conceived! Stop being so horny!
He decided to just go back downstairs. As he passed through Paige’s room, his room now, he hovered a little. He looked around to see if anyone was coming and slowly entered the room. He set the book he had been carrying on the bed and gently ran his hand through the bedspread. The bed was still Paige’s but the sheets and duvet had a more clean mixture of a blue and white pattern to them. A lot less girly and very similar to what he used to have in the future in this very same room.
Leo must have been the one to chose the sheets, he thought. The rest of the furniture was still Paige’s but her stuffed animals were gone and the shelves were empty except for one or other book on Magic. The shelves where ready for his stuff.
He sat on the bed and looked around. He thought of the last two months. He had been getting closer to them, not as close as he was in the future but he was more open to their approach. To their care. He closed his eyes and thought back to his mother’s gentle care while he was sick. He had been dizzy, having a hard time comprehending what was going on but her touches were there. Smoothing his hair, asking if he wanted something.
And his dad had known he wasn’t well, and orbed as soon as Chris had first started wobbling.
He missed that. He knew he was an adult. He shouldn’t be missing that. He had lived so long without that, but would he be living without that care if his family hadn’t died? He was only eighteen, he’d still be in school, getting ready for College. No, he knew he might protest but his mother would still be taking care of him if he was sick.
He looked around, he wasn’t ready to call them mom and dad but he was ready to come home. Home, he thought with a smile.
Chris walked out of his room; he had decided he was going to tell everyone he was staying here. He hoped his grandfather didn’t mind. Somehow he thought he wouldn’t. As he came out in the corridor the door to his parents’ bedroom opened and he came face to face with the smiling faces. He couldn’t help it. He turned his face and blushed furiously.
“Chris,” his dad called and came to him. “Are you feeling alright?”
“Humhum,” Chris moaned not wanting to stay there with the images that were running through his head.
“Are you sure,” Piper asked coming towards them. “You don’t sound alright.” She frowned and started checking his hand to make sure it was solid.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” He rushed to say. “You’re pregnant. You did it. I mean –NO!- I mean, oh my God! Can we not talk about this, please!” he begged and Piper and Leo who where now blushing too nodded and hurried downstairs.
Piper had cooked dinner for everyone in an attempt to remove her sisters smirks and her father’s and Chris’s awkward expression. They were about to start eating when the familiar jingling of orbs was heard and Gideon appeared with a bunch of books.
“Oh, good. You’re all here,” he said and deposited the books on the dinner table right next to the roasted chicken. Without missing a beat and not a little bit fazed about interrupting dinner he started.
“I think we can use Chris’s and Wyatt’s bond to find out who kidnapped Wyatt since Chris already knows,” he stated.
“No I don’t!” Chris looked outraged. Did Gideon think that if he knew he wouldn’t have already taken care of the bastard?
“Well, not consciously you don’t,” Gideon explained. “But you and your brother share a mind link so you may actually have his memory of the event.”
“Gideon,” Piper said slowly. “Please sit down and explain. Properly. As if we couldn’t read your mind.”
“Oh, yes,” Gideon took a seat on the table and started, “I’ve been researching bonds of the nature you and your brother share. It is my comprehension that at that age where you were still in the womb and Wyatt was a toddler neither of you could have blocked the other, but at the same time you were probably too young to comprehend what was going on to remember. So even though you have the memory. It is not conscious.”
“Wouldn’t Leo have seen it though,” Paige asked.
“No, because it’s like we said before, “Phoebe continued for Gideon getting excited. “Leo has Chris perspectives of happenings and I bet for Chris coming out of the womb and trying to survive was more important and required the baby’s full attention than whatever might have come through Wyatt’s link. But at the same time the memory is there. So you want to make Chris remember what happened to Wyatt so we can see the kidnapper?”
“Exactly,” Gideon said pleased that someone was following his line of thought.