Disclaimer: I don't own my education yet, so I really don't think I can afford to buy a copyright. Until then, I'm just having some fun.

Author's Note: For those of you who have never had to trudge through my writing, I went to the Stephen King School of Logorrhea. I write incredibly long chapters, but they are all divided into smaller sections. There are breaks for you to breathe, grab a Fresca and M&Ms, or any adult beverage of choice. I hope this ends up being as much an adventure for you as it was for me. There won't be any sequels or anything like that, but I think I was able to cover all the bases here. It's three years' worth of work, so I hope you enjoy. / I am removing all of the notes at the end of the final chapter. I was a little too crazy on the credits. / Happy reading! Six

ETA July 2012: I have learned so much about writing in the last few years, things I thought I knew but obviously didn't. (Seriously? Word count, Wordy McWordyson. Good grief!) So yes, this story is still the same monster I've had here for years, but I'm slowly trying to improve it, section by section, so you probably won't notice until I'm done. It still isn't perfect — I'd have to start over for something like that — but it's definitely getting better (and shorter!). When it's done, I'll be breaking it up into smaller chapters as well. Until I'm done ... If you reread, or if you're new the to party, ENJOY! (but know it's still a changing, living thing). Thanks for your time, whether I hear about it or not. — Six

The Snow Gardens
by That Girl Six

Chapter One
If You Don't Mind Broken Things

I.

Everything falls apart. Sometimes it's a small chip off the top to knock a girl down a few pegs, or the entire structure of the thing collapses from inside out to make her start all over. It doesn't matter how it happens. Shit just happens, like the bumper sticker says. At one point or another, every single damned thing falls apart.

If anyone in the world would know that, it was Phoebe Halliwell.

Even with everything she'd been through over the last six, almost seven years, it was amazing how little her life had actually changed, no matter how much good she did or how much she sacrificed. Before she knew she was a witch, her adult life had been about wandering and hoping for the next big thing to come along that could duct tape her life together for a little while. Later, it became about retaining her own happiness as well as everyone else's. Innocent after Innocent, demon after demon, one royal mess after another, there never seemed to be an end to the quick fixes and repairs to tide herself and her sisters over until the next thing came along to blow it all to pieces again anyway. She was awfully tired of spending her life putting pieces together instead of getting to enjoy even a small full picture, especially with the picture she was seeing these days.

Still, her broken life was the only one she had. It wasn't like she hadn't figured out a long time ago that being a Charmed One, fighting demons so the rest of the world wouldn't have to, would cause a little chaos in her life. Insanity was her job. Most of the time, it wasn't a bad gig at all. It came with powers (most of the time) and adventure (a lot of the time) and a definite lack of boredom (pretty much all of the time). It would just be nice if the job came with paid vacation — or vacation at all.

Vacation would be heaven — a vacation from life, from having to hurt, from having to feel anything at all. Of course, she knew that didn't make her any different from every other person on the planet. She had felt this way many, many times before she knew who she was, just as she had after releasing the dormant witch inside. Every time she and Prue had hung up on one another, every time Grams had begged her to explain why she was wasting her life, every time another now-faceless man had left her, she'd been well in touch with those emotions. Let me out. Gimme a break. Even if it's just for a massage or something, let me out. And just like every other person in the world, she got over it and started over until the next big thing happened. That was what ordinary people did. That was what she was supposed to do after a while, too. Otherwise, what were they going through all of this for?

Today, though, she would wallow all she wanted. Normal people got to once in a while, too, right? At least, she thought she remembered being able to wallow. Besides, her life had once again been blown up in huge proportions and, by God, she had earned a good pout. In the last month, she'd given up one of her oldest, most trusted friends, her active powers, one of her nephews, and yet another chunk of her heart. Nothing on this plane could keep her from having a good old fashioned mope fest.

"Uh? Phoebe?"

Except maybe Elise. Damn it.

Phoebe sighed deep, rolled her closed eyes, and opened them to look at Elise, her mind already racing to find an excuse. "Whatever it was, I'm sorry, and it won't happen again, I swear."

"Whatever what was?"

"Whatever it is you're here to yell at me for?" Phoebe weakly guessed, her eyebrows raised in realization that she wasn't going to get yelled at and had made a fool of herself (again). Like she hadn't given Elise enough reasons to wonder if she was an escaped mental patient, right?

Elise's eyes crinkled in concern. Without being invited, she took a seat in the chair in front of Phoebe's desk, folding her hands softly in her lap as they stared each other down. "What's wrong?"

Not wanting to get into it with her boss — Pick a problem, Elise, any one, I've got plenty — Phoebe shrugged innocently and leaned back into her chair. "Nothing. Why do you ask?"

"Well, didn't your sister have a baby the other day?"

"Yeah. Christopher. He's beautiful."

"Then why do you sound like the sky is falling and you lost your best friend all in the same day when you say that?"

Phoebe's glare wasn't exactly the kindest look ever directed at Elise. "What part of 'he's beautiful' suggests that? My nephew is perfect. He's healthy, and Piper made it through the surgery fine. We couldn't be happier. We're all fine."

Elise didn't say anything for a while. Instead, she turned her attention to the framed photographs on the shelf behind Phoebe's head. She stared at them with a strange, nostalgic smile before she rose to circle behind the desk. Reaching up to grab one, careful to pick out the right one, she nodded approvingly. She held the baby blue frame tenderly, running her fingers over the sparkly letters that spelled out Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. She placed the frame on the desk in front of Phoebe so that the little face in it looked right back up at her. Phoebe's glare turned even colder.

"What do you want from me?"

Elise pointed at the disregarded picture frame. "I want you to look at that picture. Remember when Wyatt was born. Remember how excited you were about his life, how crazy you drove every single person in this office because you were constantly showing us pictures and telling us about every burp, every tear, every diaper, every giggle, and every single other thing he did. I want you to look at that little face and remember. Then when you've felt all of that again, I want you to look at me and tell me why you aren't in the least bit excited about this new baby."

Only because she knew it was the only way to get Elise off her back did Phoebe look at the photo. Who the hell did Elise think she was, telling her she didn't love Christopher as much as she loved Wyatt? Elise had no idea. She had a lot more to deal with from Christopher's birth. A lot more. That didn't mean he was any less loved. What business was it of Elise's anyway? She certainly had no idea what had happened to her family in the last nine days or the last twenty months. For her to criticize how Phoebe was celebrating her nephew's birth was just . . . just . . . She had no idea. Even her sisters couldn't know, not really. No one could. This was just . . . Ridiculous? Ludicrous? Mean? Stupid? None of her business!

"Just because I'm not saying as much about Christopher as I did Wyatt — "

Gently but quite firmly, Elise interrupted. "That's just it: you aren't saying anything at all. I wouldn't have even known about him yet, except Gary down in Records asked me if that was your sister's name he was publishing in the birth announcements section. No one else here knew either. They're all waiting to congratulate you and your family, by the way. They have been for six days since the announcement appeared, but you seem to be locked here in your office and don't seem excited about him at all."

Annoyed at the shock Phoebe was getting — but certainly not outwardly denying that maybe there was at least a little truth to what Elise was saying — she defended herself with a harsh, "I care about Christopher. I love him more than you can imagine."

"Then cheer up. Give him as big a welcome into this world as you did for Wyatt. Trust me. He won't know it now, but as kids get older, they can tell when they're being treated differently than their brothers and sisters. Get out of that habit now before it even gets started."

All kinds of small things Chris had done or said came back to Phoebe in a rush. Every indication that Chris and Wyatt had had very different experiences growing up was right there in front of her, the most obvious being Chris's upset utterance of "It's not like I don't have an inferiority complex about him already". When Paige had told her Chris said that, her heart had broken from imagining all of the things said and done around Chris to make him feel that way. Paige said she'd teased him about it, but only because she hadn't known what else to say to him. How could any of them apologize for things they didn't even know they would do at some unspecified point in the future, no matter how awful it made them feel now? Now her heart broke all over again as what Elise tried to tell her sunk in, terrible, hard, and fast.

She was already doing it. Baby Christopher (they had all developed the habit of distinguishing the two for now) wasn't even ten days old yet, but she was already treating him differently than she had Wyatt. What the hell was she doing?

"You're right," Phoebe whispered slowly. "Christopher deserves better than what I've given him so far. I don't know why I — well, I do, but I never thought I would actually — nevermind. Long story. I've just been distracted by other things."

"There are always distractions."

Of course, Elise couldn't possibly know how right she was. There would always be distractions for the Halliwells. A demon had already attacked the house since Christopher had been home. Their other problems would always be there. Things would always happen, normal family stuff along with Charmed One family stuff. Neither of the boys should be punished for that. A smile flickered over her face as she admitted as much to Elise without admitting anything in the way of wrong-doing. "When did you get to be so smart about this stuff?"

Elise chuckled wryly. "I'm the fourth of five girls, and we're all in therapy."

"That explains so much," Phoebe teased, laughing for the first time in almost two weeks. It felt good to laugh, especially over something so normal, so non-magical. Elise joined her in her laughter, not seeming to care that the giggles were coming at her expense. When they both let it die off, Phoebe reached a hand over to Elise, who took it happily. "Thank you. I'm sorry."

"You can make it up to me by bringing me some Polaroids of the little angel tomorrow."

"That's a promise."

Elise stood up from her chair and made to leave, but instead turned back at the last moment. There was an earnestness to her expression that she had worn only on one or two occasions with Phoebe, but when she did, she had the best of her heart behind it. "I know we aren't really what I would call friends, but every once in a while, if there is something you can't tell your sisters, you can come to me. Sometimes even advice columnists need help from someone else."

Knowing what the woman was driving at, Phoebe smiled gratefully. "We'll get through this one okay, but I'll keep that in mind the next time something big comes up."

"All right." Elise nodded. As she reached for the knob to shut the office door, she asked, "Pictures tomorrow?"

"And a play by play of everything he does tonight."

The door closed with the excited squeal that only pictures of newborn babies can extract, leaving Phoebe once again alone with nothing but her thoughts, memories she didn't particularly want at the moment, and her ringing cell phone.

II.

Across town, Paige Matthews struggled in a much different way. While everyone else in the Halliwell household mourned the loss of Chris more than celebrating the arrival of Baby Christopher, she went of her way to be overly cheerful about her new nephew. She had every intention of celebrating for all of them if she had to. Future past mistakes wouldn't be made this time. She would enjoy the new baby if it killed her.

Of course, that would be a lot easier to do if she could get out of her head the adult voice of her nephew protesting, "I'm the baby. I give you permission not to."

She missed him. She didn't want to. She didn't want to think about him at all right now. When she thought about Chris, her mind might start on a fun memory, but each and every time her mind gave way to the image of him lying there on his parents' bed, slowly dying with pain and fear no one could stop.

No. No. Absolutely not. Not again.

Paige shoved the memory down into some choked place in the back of her throat, opting instead to fiddle with a rack of beer glasses she had already washed twice. At least P3 couldn't be hit with a health code violation any time soon, she told herself. Besides, work was always a good deterrent to depression. There was no shortage of things to do, especially with Piper still out of commission for a few more days. Things at the club, like The Vines showing up in another hour, wouldn't stop because their lives were in upheaval. If that were true, it never would have opened in the first place. So the Vines were coming, and she had to help set up. When that was done, there were always plenty of things to do around the house. She had put some money away so that, if Leo would help her, they could build a new bedroom down in the basement so Wyatt could have a new bedroom upstairs while she moved downstairs. Simply having a new baby in the house was work, too. She had plenty to do so she wouldn't have to think about —

No. Absolutely not. No.

"Paige?"

A distraction! Thank God!

Paige swiveled around to the source of the voice with a huge smile plastered over her brightly painted red lips. "Hey, Ray!"

The bartender jumped back, startled at the blast of greeting. With a wide-eyed chuckle he asked, "Well, aren't we chipper this afternoon? Too much caffeine in the coffee again?"

"We have a new baby in the house. How else should I be?"

"Fair enough." He laughed. "How are they, by the way — Piper and the baby?"

She set down the glass she had been vanquishing of fingerprints and bubbled over with happy hand gestures in every direction. "They couldn't be better. I mean, Piper's still kind of sore, but for a while there we didn't think she was going to make it through the surgery at all, so 'sore' is pretty much an improvement in my book. We're all pretty happy she's okay. The baby is fabulous. He's perfect — ten fingers and ten toes. He has Leo's eyes, definitely Leo's eyes. I know they say it can't happen yet, but I'm pretty sure he smiled at me this morning when I left the house. It's really wonderful. They're both just fine."

"What did she name him?"

"Christopher, after his grandfather," she told him, happy she could tag that last piece of information on the end there. At least they knew now where his name came from. It really would have sucked if, when he was old enough to be in school, he asked why his parents had chosen 'Christopher' and they couldn't tell him. Somehow, 'because your future self told us that was your name' didn't seem like an answer that would go over very well. Repeating it with the replay in her head of Chris finally offering them the tidbit of information, she said, "It was Leo's father's name."

"That's nice. I'm named after my grandfather, too. Both of them, actually, but that's not anything I want getting around."

"That bad, huh?"

"Araylias Alvin."

Paige wrinkled her nose in sympathy. "Yikes!"

"No kidding," he groaned, rolling his eyes. "I don't know what my mom was smoking that day. But that's where the 'Ray' comes from. Don't get me wrong — I loved my grandpas, but I swear, some parents are so cruel."

"If my sister ever even tried to do that, I would kill her myself so her kids' kindergarten teacher wouldn't have to," Paige joked. "I do like 'Christopher', though. Granted, there were probably thirty of them in my class, but maybe then it won't be so popular for kids his age. I would hate for him to be 'Chris H.' or something. 'Chris' really suits him. You just look at him and think, 'Baby Christopher'. He looks like a 'Chris'."

"Then it's a good thing you didn't go with Percival."

"Percival?" asked Paige, again with an offended crinkle in her nose. "What gave you that idea?"

"My brother doesn't want you to know." Pulling his focus back to the business at hand of running a particularly hot Hot Spot, Ray asked, "Do you have any idea what time the band wants to run sound and light checks?"

Paige shook her currently dark head, nearly black strands falling into her eyes. She huffed them out of the way and backed out from behind the bar, answering even as she moved to check. "It's in Piper's calendar somewhere. I left it back in the office when I came in."

"Got it," said Ray, flipping over the first of many barstools to be flipped. Almost as an afterthought, he called after her. "Hey, Paige? While you're back there, look for a note from your friend Chris, would you? A package came for him while you were at the bank, and I was hoping he'd left a note or something telling you what to do with it, or if he was even expecting something."

Without even thinking about what Ray was saying, Paige answered, "Sure. Leave it on the bar for me, would you?"

"I put it next to the register."

"Perfect."

"You haven't seen him, have you?"

"Seen who?" asked Paige automatically, still not really hearing what was being said.

Ray looked at her, concerned now that he caught on to her distraction. "Chris. We were talking about your friend Chris. No one's seen him since last Tuesday, and we were starting to wonder where he was. Have you seen him?" When she didn't answer him, Ray asked, "Paige? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. Piper and the baby are just fine. He's perfect," Paige answered, still a little too much on the chipper end of the spectrum. The mention of their 'friend' jarred her a little too hard back to thinking about things and people she didn't want to think about, couldn't think about. No. Band in the club. New baby. Work to do. New baby. New baby. Get to the office. It's safe in the office. Paige jerked a thumb over her shoulder toward the office door and quickly made a break for it. "I'll only be a minute."

She didn't wait for Ray to answer her. There wasn't enough time. She had to move. The more she moved and the more she did, the less she had to think. Even as she walked, she realized her hands didn't have anything to do, so she reached up and twisted a lock of her hair around her fingers in the hope that the action would be enough to keep herself occupied until the next task of opening the office door.

Panic hit her. She was in the office, but she couldn't remember for the life of her why in the hell she was in the office. Happy thoughts about the new baby weren't going to overshadow other feelings coming back where they weren't . The date book. Piper's date book. She dashed over to the desk, violently rifling through everything on the desk and in the drawers. The repetitive motion occupied her hands, and the constant chanting tried to occupy her mind (and hopefully her heart, too).

New baby. Time to celebrate. Celebrate because the others can't. New baby. Celebrate. New baby. New baby. Things to do. New baby. Celebrate.

In her distraction, Paige shifted a page too quickly. It sliced through her skin, nice and throbbing, leaving a line of red right on the crease between her thumb and the rest of her hand. With a yelp, she dropped the sheaf of papers and drew the wound to her mouth. She whimpered as she tried to suck the sting away, only to have to give up and slump back into Piper's cushy ergonomic chair.

Though it hadn't ever done her any good, Paige took a wild chance that someone besides her sort-of brother-in-law was Up There listening to her as she grumped, "Like I don't have enough in my life to hurt me right now? You have to send freaking office supplies after me now, too?"

Instinctively, her eyes darted around the room, looking for a familiar trail of bluish orbs floating around to indicate someone from Up There intended to swoop in with an answer for her. It didn't take long before her bright brown eyes grew tired of looking for the answer that wasn't coming. The longer she waited, the harder it became to want to distract herself with happy thoughts about Baby Christopher. Too tired to fight the bad stuff, her barrier of happiness (hopefully only temporarily) broke down. Instead, she found herself trapped, helpless, and frustrated as all hell that she couldn't heal even a simple paper cut.

"Healing is kinda big," Chris told her once, long before they'd known who he was. No kidding. Still, his voice was the one to remind her. As if the annoying sting wasn't enough to remind her, right? Thanks for the reminder, kid, really. You're a big help.

"I suppose a paper cut is a little below Your radar," she sniped at no one in particular and every single one of Them Up There. "Apparently a lot of things are below your radar."

Suddenly then, there it was, that thing she would rather erase from her mind forever than ever think of it again. There it was, right there, playing for her in full Technicolor brightness in her mind.

Her voice was barely above a whisper as she pleaded with Those who weren't listening to her. "Take this one away? Please? Before I have to see it again? Please? It's not like we don't do plenty for You. You're perfectly capable of erasing memories. You've done it over and over for whatever reason suits You. You people wanted to kill my nephew. You got the wrong one, of course, but it was what You wanted. You owe us. You owe me that much. Take this one memory. Just this one. I can't see it again. Please? I've seen it enough to last me ten lifetimes."

Since the Elders refused to help her (as They so often did when she and her sisters wanted Their somewhat aggravating input), the memory consumed her, and her pleas slowly died off to pathetic whimpers until all she could do was hope that somehow it would go faster this time.

Even though she knew it wasn't real, that it was only a memory in her head, her left arm was overcome with ickiness. She could feel it along with the memory as the SWAT guy, for the millionth time already, hauled her to her feet like she was nothing more than a rag doll, which hadn't been too far from the truth at the time. Sheridan hit her pretty hard. Then when, in her mind, she was fully standing up, Darryl and that bitch cop Sheridan joyfully jumped right back on her, demanding to know where Chris was.

"I know he's here, Paige," Darryl chirped, a sick smile on his face. "It's not like he has any other place to go. Don't lie to me. I would hate to see you lose your tongue. Where is he?"

Darryl's twisted song didn't stop ringing in her ears when Sheridan had twittered to the (completely unnecessary) thirty SWAT guys, "Search every room. He has to be in one of them. Start with the basement and attic and move in toward the middle floors. Let's get a move on, people."

One of the bastards started whistling Whistle While You Work as they'd all skipped toward the stairs. The guy holding her arm had the nerve to ask Paige, "Beautiful day, isn't it?"

Paige held her tongue, not wanting to get knocked flat to the floor again, but she had at least the satisfaction of rolling her eyes at the back of his head. She turned back to confront this dementedly sweet Darryl, but he'd already sauntered around her toward the stairs. She dashed over to meet him and grabbed his hand, trying to hold him back long enough that she might actually reach into him the way Leo had broken through to her and Phoebe. "Darryl, please, don't do this. He's already hurt. Just leave him alone. Please?"

"He broke the law," Darryl sang, seemingly not feeling anything other than the giddy.

Paige remembered thinking at that point that if he never sang another note, she would be able to die happy. It'd been getting old, especially under the circumstances. She hadn't even seen Chris yet, but Leo had been perfectly clear: they needed to find Gideon — quickly, for Chris's sake, and Wyatt's. Wasting time listening to these completely oblivious people hadn't been part of the plan. Taking care of Chris had been the plan.

"He needs to pay his fine and take his punishment," Darryl continued, hitting a rather high E flat for someone with his range. The memory of it made Paige sick.

Paige clearly remembered losing what little care she had for the rules. Something had snapped inside her. Screw exposure. She gave Darryl a particularly nasty look, and after making sure no one was looking in her direction, she allowed herself to disappear in a swirl of bluish orbs.

Taking a wild guess that Leo would have taken his son to the room he had once shared with Piper, Paige had been quite relieved to find she was right. The memory of her body reconstituted itself at Chris's side where, seeing him lying there, she lost all composure. Leo hadn't been exaggerating. There was no way, not with all that blood, that Chris wasn't dying. Twenty-two years old or not, he looked terribly small. He jumped at her appearance, but that movement alone seemed to have taken a lot out of him because he closed his eyes and caught his breath. Once he had the energy, he worked up a half-smile, happy to see her.

Her memory grinned reassuringly back when she heard the heavy footsteps of the SWAT guys trampling on their newly-cleaned rugs in the hallway. She held her finger to her lips to shush him so she could tiptoe over to the bedroom door and shut it with, hopefully, as little squeak as possible. As soon as it shut, she dropped to his side. Brushing his constantly unruly hair out of his eyes with one hand, she squeezed one of his clammy hands with the other. Their eyes met for a moment in mutual love and mutual fear, which was quickly (and forever) amplified by the sound of a hand turning the locked doorknob.

"We have to get you out of here."

"Go where? There's nowhere to go. Gideon is the only one who can stop this."

"Yeah, well, he tried to kill you, and he's taken Wyatt; I'm not relying on that sonofabitch to do anything to help us right now. But at least somewhere else you'll be safer than you are here. Darryl brought in an entire cavalry to bring you in, and they're going to find us any second. I need to get you some place safe."

Her hand gripped his a little bit tighter and prepared to orb them both out of the room when the door was unceremoniously kicked open to reveal a grinning Darryl. "Don't try to orb out of here. You'll have to come back to the house eventually, and we'll wait here until you do." Then, just as chipperly, he nodded his head back toward the small army of geared up men behind him. High on happiness, he sang, "Take him."

Even as the memory replayed in her mind, Paige felt the absolute sickness in her gut as if she were living it the first time. She could see Chris's eyes, so weak and afraid and completely helpless. He hadn't been able to protect himself from a fly, let alone thirty sweaty guys in commando gear. As the unstoppable force of the memory continued on in her head, she begged whoever was listening one more time, "Please? Before this goes any further? Please. Make this one stop?"

But it didn't stop. She wrapped her arms tightly around her head and tried to shield herself in the darkness of the office, but she still couldn't get away from it. She couldn't get away from his eyes. Never, in the time she had known him, had she seen Chris look so terrified. He was helpless. And those people . . .

One of them grabbed her from behind, wrapping his arms around her and pinning her arms to her sides. Panic overtook her as the jerk tried to drag her away. She kicked her heel hard into his shin, sending him hopping backward with a happily uttered, "Ouch. That stings."

Spinning, she put herself between the commandos and her nephew. Hands out defensively, she growled, "You stay away from him!"

"Now, Paige, that isn't any way to talk to an officer of the law," Darryl's memory sang.

The annoying tone in his voice had been enough to distract her attention from the man behind Darryl, who had been inconspicuously removing a stun gun from the Velcro pocket in his vest. Only Chris calling out her name clued her in to anything going on but himself and Darryl. She sidestepped out of the commando's way barely in time, grabbing his arm and sending him stumbling away from the end of the bed into the closet door to land in a heap on the floor.

"I can keep taking your guys out one by one like that all day if I have to, Darryl, and you know it. Leave us alone."

"I'm afraid he can't do that," the voice of Inspector Sheridan bubbled from inside the doorframe.

That time the distraction had been enough for another one of Sheridan's goons to grab onto Paige and forcefully pull her away from between Chris and the police. She struggled in the grip (much, much stronger than the first guy's had been) as Sheridan and Darryl had advanced on the bed. Five guys on either side of Paige and her captor flanked them, forming a circle so she could in no way get to Chris. Still, she twisted and turned, trying to get a clear look at her nephew.

"Stand still," the guy in front of her commanded far too politely.

Chris must have heard the order because Paige heard him yell weakly, "Leave her alone! Paige!"

"Chris!"

Before she finished calling his name, not really knowing why except to let him know she was still there with him, he called out her name again, that time in a way she had never heard before. His feet on the bed tried futilely to scamper away from the hands about to start poking and prodding him. She certainly didn't need Phoebe's empathic powers to feel the absolute terror going through him. Every single person in the room would have felt it if they weren't so goddamned happy.

Chris's screams had been punched with agony. Her eyes, both in her real world and in her world of memory, shut tight against the sound. In her memory, the scream stopped abruptly. For a split second, her world seemed to stop. That sudden end to his screams could only have meant he was either unconscious or dead. Neither one of them had been on her list of things she wanted to see. Then she heard him panting in his pain, still — thankfully — breathing. Her relief was only temporary, though, as Sheridan brought up a bloody hand.

Ever so cheerfully, she reached that bloody hand backward toward one of her officers and wiggled her fingers. "Oops! Forgot to use a glove. I can't very well go poking around in a wound to see if it's mortal without a glove. Silly me. After all, if it's my fault that he dies, that's going to be breaking the law, and I wouldn't want to do that. Then you'd have to kill me."

Days later, Paige still heard the snap of latex around Sheridan's hand, accompanied by unbearable screams of pain coming once again from the bed. It had been at that moment when she lost any remaining shred of sanity. Adrenaline taking over, she and her memory turned on her heels, throwing both of the men holding her off and into the carpet. She charged Sheridan, grabbing the woman about the shoulders, and tried to pull her off Chris with every bit of energy she could manage over her churning stomach. The effort was wasted, though, as three more black-clad men snatched her away from the inspectors, removing her forcefully from the room even as Chris tried once again to tell them to get away from her.

Instinct led her to do the only thing she could in a crisis like that. "LEO! LEO!"

Over the shoulders of the two men who had taken to guarding the door against her re-entry, Paige heard Chris stop screaming. Darryl said something to Sheridan that she still wasn't quite able to make out, but it had sounded so happy that she couldn't have deciphered if that was good or bad news anyway. Instead, she did her best to take advantage of the break in sound to shout over the blockading shoulders, "I'm still here, Chris! Can you hear me? I'm still here!"

Weak and tired, she heard him call, "So am I."

Smart ass. She had thought it then, with a teary smile on her face, and again that same smile struck her. She remembered thinking he really was his father's son. He would get through this one like he had every other thing he'd been through in his life. Just like his dad had. Chris definitely got his fight from his dad. His mom, too, but that particular moment was very much like his dad. Still, it wouldn't hurt to tell him to do it anyway, so her memory called out to him, "Good! You stay here! You hear me? Just hold on. I'll get your dad, but you have to hang on for me. LEO!"

Leo Leo Leo Leo LEO LEO LEO!

In her dreams in the days since, Leo heard her call so much sooner. He arrived in plenty of time, with Gideon in tow. They'd saved Chris, fixed the unbalance between the worlds, and everything turned out okay. They knew without a doubt that Wyatt wouldn't turn evil. Piper's delivery had gone much smoother. Chris returned to the future, his beautiful future he'd worked so hard for, without any further complications.

But that was in her dreams.

In her memory as it had really happened, over and over she had screamed for the angel. When he'd finally orbed in, it had been only with enough time for him to plead with everything he had in him for his son to hold on. Paige again watched them from the door, not wanting to interrupt what turned out to be their last moment together. Even while Chris told his father not to give up, he closed his eyes for the last time and then just disappeared.

She liked her dream version a lot better.

When it was over, Paige made the conscious decision not to tell anyone about what had happened in the bedroom in the moments before Leo had arrived. The memory of it was hard enough for her. Sounds of Chris screaming wouldn't be extinguished any time soon, if ever. It was enough that they knew what Leo could tell them about what had happened. They needed to focus on the new baby. With any luck, things would be turned around enough in his future that he wouldn't have to come back again and he wouldn't have to go through that. He could die old and happy in his own bed with his family around him, many, many, many years in the future.

With any luck at all, that would be his future now. Please, Dear God, let that be his future now.

A soft knock on the office door mercifully took her out of her pain. She sniffed back the wells of tears in her eyes, rubbed at them to make sure they were clear, and cleared her throat. "Yeah, Ray, I'm coming. Sorry. It just took me a second to remember where I put the damned thing."

The door opened to reveal a bright, smiley Ray, which almost made Paige cringe. She never wanted to see anyone that happy ever again. She was grateful when his voice was at a perfectly normal level of kindness. "I thought maybe you fell asleep in here or something. I guess this is probably the only place you're going to be getting any sleep with the new baby in the house, anyway."

The happy (but not too exuberantly happy) façade she'd worn for the last few days returned to its rightful place. "Actually, so far he's been sleeping through the night. We'll have at least a month of it before he gets too awful, I think. But no, I just got distracted for a minute." She picked up Piper's date book from the corner of the desk where she had left it and tossed the pages until she reached today's date. Scribbled on Post-Its stuck inside were all of the notes needed for the preparations for the night's entertainment. She plucked them out and handed them over. "That should be everything."

Ray looked the notes over quickly before nodding at her. "Looks like it."

"Sounds good." Paige grinned at him and waved him off. "I'll be out in a minute."

"Oh, by the way? Phoebe's here waiting for you."

Without even thinking about it, Paige's normal reaction popped out of her mouth. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing. Don't worry about it. She said to take your time and that she'll wait out there. I think she's eyeing the new booze delivery guy, anyway."

Paige smirked. "What letter does his name start with?"

"'S' for 'Shane'. Why?"

"Nevermind." She chuckled, both at the man's confusion and her sister's ability to race through the dating alphabet. "Tell her I'll be right out."

With a normally toned "Will do", Ray disappeared behind the closed office door, giving Paige a few more seconds to silently rail at the ghost of Memory that wanted to do nothing more than haunt her tirelessly these days. Yeah, that was so not the way she wanted to remember her nephew.

To the sky, she growled, "Fine. As always, I have to do everything without any help from You. Thanks for nothing. Really. You guys are the best. Thanks."

Unpleasant memory forced back down for what she hoped would be a good long few hours, she heard the chant start again in her head and continue long after she joined Phoebe back in the bar.

New baby. Celebrate. Baby Chris. Must welcome Baby Chris. New Baby. Celebrate . . .

III.

He needed to know.

There were a lot of things Leo Wyatt would like to know. He'd like to know the ultimate reason he was made a Whitelighter after his human death sixty years ago. He'd like to know how it was the Elders had decided he was the best choice, of all the Whitelighters out there, to be the guide to the three most powerful witches the world had ever seen. He would like to know how it was he had managed to fall in love and, despite every single obstacle thrown at them, still love Piper through all of it. He wanted to know how it was Paige still had any hair on her head considering how often she chemically changed the color of it. He wanted to know how it was that Phoebe had managed to find every single Mr. Wrong in San Francisco and still have the gumption to tell other people how to live their romantic lives in an advice column. He wanted to know how it was that Piper could possibly have managed to do . . . Well, it was probably better not to think about those things he wanted to know. Even thinking in the Halliwell home could get a guy in trouble some days.

Although, wanting to know how they were going to fit three (maybe hopefully someday again, four) adults and two little kids into a three bedroom house was probably a good thing. He would have to figure that one out and soon.

Still, he didn't need to know any of those things. They didn't have anywhere near the urgency this thing did. Nowhere close.

Leo sat on the floor of the attic, futzing with the loose floorboard. Up and down, up and down he pushed it. Squeak after shuddering squeak, he continued to play with the board as he let his thoughts wander. Nine days after his son had both died and been born into this world, he had absolutely no idea what he was supposed to do with that.

Granted, he would have had to say goodbye to him anyway, but not in a cloud of pain and loss. Chris was supposed to get back to his own time, where he would live to be an old man, chasing his grandchildren around and loving a wife who would love him back like there was no one else in the world. They were supposed to get him back to a future where he could see he had been right, that Wyatt had been saved from becoming something evil and murderous. Instead, the man Chris had unknowingly come back to stop had stopped him dead. Chris was gone, and nothing Leo could do would bring his boy back. It was in that moment when Chris faded away from him that Leo knew, without a doubt, what they had always said was beyond heartbreakingly true: there was absolutely no pain greater for a parent than the death of a child.

When all of the anger and fear and wreck of the day had finally come to its awful conclusion, he joined her there to welcome the newly-born version of his son to the world his older self had tried so hard to save. There had been incredible joy at seeing his second son, but it had been different from the elation he'd felt when his first son had been born. After everything he had been through, Paige had put it best for him: We didn't lose him after all.

That didn't make the loss any easier for Leo or, he imagined, the girls either. Whether they were going to know Chris in the future or not, he was still a part of their lives that was now gone and wouldn't ever be known to them ever again. Dead. Alive. Reconciling the two was proving to be something of a challenge. As much as he fought everything Chris did before knowing the anxiously fixated little Whitelighter was his son, he loved the kid. He really did. He would have done anything for him. That was what fathers did for their sons.

And yet, what was he doing at the moment? Playing with a loose floorboard and moping. No wonder Chris had thought him such a lousy father. Save Wyatt? Save Chris? At the moment, Leo couldn't even save himself.

He wanted to. He wanted to be able to save himself and his sons and his family, but lately, what he wanted in this world didn't really seem to matter to a whole lot of anybody. The Elders certainly weren't on his side. They were all Up There right now, debating and arguing what his future as an Elder should be. Needless to say, not everyone Up There understood why he'd killed Gideon. Not everyone Up There understood what it was like for him compared to every single other one of Them Up There. He was a father, an experience none of Them could possibly understand. Not a one of Them had bothered to ask what he wanted in all of that.

And Piper, well . . . He wanted more than anything to stay with her and their sons. She was slowly coming around, but it wasn't too long ago that what he wanted didn't matter much to her either. She had moved on. The sisters, of course, were going to side with Piper, mostly out of principle. As for Chris, he certainly hadn't been looking to make his father happy there for quite some time. It didn't matter that he'd wanted to fix things with his son. Chris didn't want anything to do with him. Some of that was fixable. Some of it had already been fixed. Still, none of it was coming out the way he wanted. What he wanted was —

"Leo?"

With a little help from the hand he stretched up to her, Piper sat down cross-legged at his side. When she was comfortable, she tugged on his arm until he relented and slung it around her shoulders. Together they sat quietly, each lost in their own thoughts as Piper slowly rocked them both gently side to side in a comforting rhythm.

It was nearly ten minutes later when she finally spoke again, her voice barely above a whisper. "I miss him, too."

Leo's voice wasn't anywhere near as gentle as hers. It was full of hatred and anger as he seethed, "I promised I would get him home. I promised him he would be okay. I'm his father. I'm supposed to make it okay."

"You didn't know Gideon was going to attack him."

"But I should have. As soon as we figured out it was Gideon all along and that he would be after Wyatt, I shouldn't have left Chris alone. I shouldn't have left the boys alone."

As angry as Piper still was (and always would be) at Gideon's betrayal, she couldn't let anyone blame themselves for something they didn't know. She was saving all of that blame for herself. Instead, Logic and Reason kicked in to tell Leo the thing she tried so hard to tell herself yet still didn't believe. "Tell me: in the entire time Chris was here, before you knew he was our son, did you ever think you couldn't leave him alone, that he was in any way incapable of taking care of himself?"

"Yes," said Leo a little too quickly to be honest.

"Liar."

"I did."

"No, you thought you couldn't leave us alone with him," Piper argued with a sympathetic smile. "You left him alone plenty of times. You were as suspicious of him as the rest of us were from time to time. You don't want to see it now, knowing what you know, but that's now. There's a difference."

Pointedly, Leo argued, "What about Bianca?"

"Special circumstance," Piper countered sharply, preferring to put the gaping hole that had been in her son's chest in the Memory Bin marked Severe Amnesia. If she lived long enough in the future to do it, she would be sending that girl as far away from her son as possible, no matter how much he loved her. Guaranteed. If she wasn't going to live that long, she'd make sure someone in the family could do it for her. But that wasn't the problem at hand, now, was it? "The point is he was perfectly capable of taking care of himself. The outcome doesn't change the circumstance any. You had no reason to believe he couldn't take care of himself and Wyatt. As much as you want to deny it right now, eventually you're going to remember I'm right this time."

"Maybe."

They sat quietly for a moment, neither one of them knowing what to do or say anyway. It wasn't until the silence grew long enough to produce that shimmering wetness in Piper's eye that she quickly found a way to avoid letting any more tears get control of her. She'd promised herself no tears today. She gripped Leo's shoulder (maybe a little too tightly) and used it to catapult her still-sore body up again, digging his shoulder hard enough to pinch them both to a sense of reality.

"Where are you going?"

"The Book," she said, a conspiratorial smile on her features, although only she knew who she was conspiring with. She started lazily flipping pages at the podium, not really noticing which ones she was turning as she explained, "I don't know what made me think of it." She laughed lightly, seeing the situation so much differently than she had that day. She saw a lot of things differently now. "That first day we met him, right after the circus arrived and I sent you Up to see the Elders, he and I were up here alone for the first time. Well, Paige was here, but she was stone at the time, so it doesn't count. I found him looking in The Book like he'd been doing it all his life. Of course, we know now that he had, but when I saw him there, I chased him away from The Book as fast as I possibly could. He was so calm about it, though. He just made a joke about updating the Goblins entry. At least, I thought it was a joke, but something tells me he was serious about that one."

"He never mentioned anything about goblins to me."

Piper shrugged. "He only said we needed to do it, that it was going to 'get ugly', whatever that meant. Like I said, I don't know what made me think of it, but since the boys are sleeping anyway, I might as well see what we have in The Book and what I can find to add to it for later on. Considering it's one of the few things he said to warn us about future events, I figure it's advice worth taking."

"Sounds like a good idea to me, too."

Permission granted but not really required, Piper went about the business of searching The Book, passing by many demons she didn't recognize from when she'd last looked in it a few weeks ago. "Did you guys add a few things while I was gone and not tell me?"

Leo hauled himself up to his feet and joined Piper at the podium. As she flipped page after page, he too was stumped as she was. There had to be at least ten demons and a handful of other magical creatures with entries in The Book of Shadows that he knew fully well weren't there the last time he had looked. Then, as she continued to rifle through the pages, a clump of pages flipped forward all at once, unable to lay down flat any longer. A sheaf of paper, folded in quarters and firmly embedded in the spinal crease, was stiff enough to send the other pages over onto the other side. Piper examined them with a crinkled brow.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I don't know."

The two sheets of paper unfolded easily enough, like they hadn't been folded into their shape for very long. Piper took in a sharp breath. She blinked a few times, looking between the papers and the new entries in The Book. "Chris," she whispered.

Leo looked like he was about to either smile or cry, possibly both. "Chris did this?"

"We'll see." Piper walked over to their much-abused sofa, The Book and papers in hand. Leo followed close behind. Together they sat, him being watchful of how she moved in case she would be in any pain. Once they were both comfortable, she examined the two samples of handwriting a little more before confirming, "This is definitely his writing."

"What does it say?"

"I'm a little afraid to look."

"Take your time," Leo said softly. He reached down and took her free hand, squeezing it hard in his. "When you're ready, I'll be here."

It took them both a moment to compose themselves. After a while, they silently started nodding at one another, shrugging and carrying on in a wordless conversation to make certain the other was prepared for whatever they were about to read. When they were both sure, Piper turned inside a bit toward Leo, holding up the paper between them so they could go through it together. After one more steeling blink of her eyes, Piper started to read.

Dear Mom, Dad, Aunt Phoebe, and Aunt Paige,

If you're reading this right now, that means you finally decided to update the Goblins entry in The Book like I told you to almost two years ago. Right on time, too . . . It's what? Mid-December? Right? I took care of it for you, so you can relax this one time. I swear, there is a big, fat "I told you so" in here somewhere. — Oh, and watch out in the sunroom under the northwest window. There is a weak spot in the boards they'll try to come up through from the crawl space underneath. I didn't get around to fixing that one. Sorry. Now go take care of the goblins, then read this. I didn't go through all of this to get you three killed by goblins. Vanquish, then read. Got it?

But anyway, back to business . . . I figured you would see this if I left it here. I thought about the club, but too many people could accidentally find it. I didn't want you finding it before I left, either, so here it is.

For the last few days, I've been trying to figure out how I'm going to say goodbye to you when I go back tomorrow. The thing is I don't think I can. So you're stuck with this instead. I hope it's enough.

I know I wasn't the most honest — scratch that; I wasn't the most forthcoming — person when I first got here or during the twenty months I was here. I hope you really do understand now how it was for your own protection, and for Wyatt's, and maybe even a little bit for myself (ask Grandpa — he'll know what that means). I know you all got really tired of me saying I couldn't tell you things because it might mess up the future, but I think that you, Phoebe, can understand better than anyone what changing the smallest thing did. (I will never make another wish to a genie ever again.) Besides, if I had told you everything in the first place, I doubt you would have believed me. Things would have been worse for all of us, and I wouldn't have been able to fix the future I came back here to save. So I hope you'll forgive me for being so secretive, if you haven't yet. I hope you have. I hope you will.

I don't know what kind of future I'm going back to for sure. Maybe the future can't be saved at all, but I have to believe we did it anyway. My brother is going to be good again, and our family will be together. I have to believe that. But if things are still the way they were, or worse even, I think I can at least find a little peace for myself when I get there. I don't mean that I'll stop trying to help Wyatt. Whatever he's done, he's still my brother, and I'll do whatever I have to. I just mean that I think I'll have better reasons to fight this time. This time I'll know exactly what I'm trying to save, not just some imagined life I always wanted. None of you are an idea anymore. I have a family to save this time, a real family.

I've had to say goodbye too many times in my life already. You'd think this would get easier. Damn it.

Paige, I don't know if you remember, but the day I came back, you were supposed to have died instead of just being turned to stone. In my lifetime, I never knew you. All I knew was what people told me or what I could find up in the attic. For me, you were only a story of someone Mom and Dad and Phoebe used to know. But now, in your time, I got to actually know the person who I had heard so many stories about. After Bianca came back for me, in the few minutes I was in the future, all of the memories of you that the altered timeline created caught up with me. Of course they did, since in that time, you had made it through that attack okay. I finally had a second set of memories with you in them, but my brief time back in the future still wasn't enough for me to lose the ones where you weren't there. I guess my point is that my world, no matter what time I'm in, is better now that I've been able to know you. (This is the part where I ask you for money, right?)

Phoebe, between you and me, I'm glad you're the one who figured it out first. It was actually kind of a relief. (You couldn't have figured it out a little sooner? If you guys kicked me out of the house one more time, I was going to lose it, I swear.) The thing of it is, and I really mean this, while it was a premonition or vision or whatever that brought you to that conclusion, it was your other powers that made it all okay. When I needed you most, you were there for me as my aunt, not as a witch (no matter how much grief I gave you for it). That night, sitting with you in the office, just talking, I needed it as much as you did. Thank you for giving that to me. Now let me give this to you. I know I won't be your Whitelighter anymore, but take this advice from me anyway: Don't worry so much about not having your powers right now. You'll find your way without them. You will. And I'll be just as proud of you for being Phoebe the Aunt as I am of you being Phoebe the Charmed One. Your active powers, they help you fight demons, and that's great. It's your birthright, and it's what your destiny was for the world. But your heart, that's the power you have that your family needs the most. Ask Mom. She knows what it means to be the middle child to hold everything together. You're filling her shoes just fine, Phoebe. I promise.

Thank you both, by the way, for trying to help me with that thing. You know which one I mean.

I'm only through two of you and my hand hurts. Ugh. Anyway . . .

Piper, Mom, I don't know where to start. I have missed you so much, and to be here with you, seeing you so young and different — It was nice to see you as an adult, not as a son. I understand so much now. I know that's what kids are supposed to say to their parents when they're grown up and away from home, but it really is true. You really have given me so much. And if all of this has given you any doubts of what an amazing mother you are, don't do that. (Yeah, I had a really nice talk with Grandpa.) I've watched you with Wyatt. You were so busy spending so much time trying to figure out what it was that turned him that I could just watch you without you even knowing I was watching. What I saw more than anything else was just how hard you work to make sure he is the happiest baby to ever have lived. I know neither of us will grow up afraid of anything because we have you for our mom. We're the luckiest kids in the world. We really are. I love you, Mom. (Oh, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for you to remember I've said this now when I'm about thirteen, okay? No matter what I say that day, I don't mean it.) I love you, Mom.

Leo, Dad. Um. Yeah. So we've got issues no matter what time we're in, huh? I'm sorry I've given you such a hard time since I came back. Do with that what you will. As for the things I said to you that night in the cave and on the bridge, I guess we both have some changing of our own to do. You were right; things don't have to be the way they were. I'll try harder if you will. And know that for all myanger, you're still my dad and I love you. That didn't change. Loving you was never the problem. You're my dad. We're just going to have to figure the rest of it out as we go along. You'll figure it out. You always do. Did. Will. Whatever. The last three months since you found out about me have been the best three months we have ever had, Dad, EVER. I want more of them, if that's okay with you. Please? Figure it out. With any luck, my memories will all change when I get back, and all of the stuff we did to each other will be some little secret you never have to tell me about. We got a new start here. I don't want to lose that.

Speaking of secrets you never tell me about, when I'm growing up, don't tell me about any of this. If for some reason we didn't succeed in saving Wyatt, I want to come back because I want to come back to save my brother, not because I was told all my life that I did. You know what I mean? I came back because my brother, my family needed me to because I was the only one left who could. I don't want to have that hanging over my head my whole life. I don't want that hanging over Wyatt's head either. I did what I came to do. I'm sure that if it had been the other way, Wyatt would have done the same for me. Neither one of us needs to know that.

Okay, enough of that stuff . . .

A few requests before this is done . . .

Even though I'm heading into early retirement here, I'm still your Whitelighter for a few more hours. And, as your Whitelighter, I have one last bit of advice for you. Don't ever stop wanting to be normal. I know Grams and Dad and everyone around you, including me, have been drilling it into your heads that you aren't normal and you're never going to be normal. That's true, of course, but so is this: what you're thinking of as a normal life, a life without magic, comes with its own set of problems. If you take away the magic from our lives, you are normal. You're three sisters who care very much for each other, who are working at making a successful, loving family. With that comes bills and housework and marital arguments. Dating is just as hard without magic. People can annoy you at work without magic as easily as they can with it in your lives. This family is normal. We make it through everything the same way every family does — with each other. That's normal. You don't need magic for that. Magic is just a bonus. And believe me, in the future that I came from, there are plenty of people who would give their lives for our normal.

So I was thinking, when I get back, the first thing I want to see when I come through the portal is my family. I don't know exactly how all of that is going to work, but I do know I want to know you are all okay. It might take awhile for my memories to catch up with me, but I don't think I can wait that long. I know it's kind of early for any of you to be planning a dinner twenty-three years in the future when half the time you can't even plan your mornings once you get up, but I thought maybe we could plan on you being here in the attic waiting for me? We'll have plenty catching up to do. I'll understand if you can't, and I'll find you all as quickly as I can once I know for sure it's safe, but it would just . . . you know . . . It's just an idea. You've got twenty-three years to think about it.

Anyway, Paige, you and Gideon just called me to come work on the spell some more, so I should probably get going. I don't know what else to tell you anyway. Be safe, please? I want my family back when I get home, if that isn't too much to ask. I love you all so much, more than you can possibly imagine. Take care of each other, take care of us, and I'll see you in a little over twenty years.

Love, Chris

A few readings, a few laughs, and a few gulps later, the letter had done the thing Piper thought only seeing the real, live Chris could do. Warmth returned to her heart. It wasn't the same as having him really be okay, but at least she knew that when he was ready to leave, he'd been happy. After everything his family had put him through, both present and future, her little boy finally found some peace with all of it and was happy.

Leo, however, turned away from the letter after the first read with a much different interpretation of his son's words. The cold anger he'd harbored since holding his dying son in his arms grew even colder, if that was possible. His hatred for the man who took his son from him knew no bounds. All of that hope Chris had had, all of the work he'd done to make the future better was quite possibly destroyed. It was entirely possible that all of the hope poured into that letter had been for nothing. If anything, the letter only made him sadder.

While Piper went on to start a fifth reading, Leo solemnly broke into her thoughts, his voice a choked whisper. "I want to go, Piper. I need to go."

Not liking even the insinuation — that had better be what that was — that her husband, the father of her children, was suggesting he should be anywhere but with his sons right now, Piper glowered unhappily at Leo. He was not leaving. No way. Her gaze was not in the least bit friendly as she put the letter down in her lap and asked, "Go where?"

"I need to know."

"Need to know what exactly, and where do you think you have to do this? Because if it's anywhere other than right here in this house with your sons, you can forget it."

Leo pointed at the chalk outline on the wall with a tinge of uncertainty but all the determination in the world of a father set on a mission. "I need to know we really did save Wyatt. I need to know what future we were sending Chris to."

"Ooh, no. No. Nuh-uh," Piper began to argue, the sharp laughter in her voice not the sound of anything happy. "You are not going anywhere. No way."

"I need to."

"And we," Piper gestured wildly in a circle with her finger, indicating everywhere in the house, "your family need you here. I need you here. I can't do this without you."

"I have to."

"No, you really don't."

For the first time since Piper had come upstairs, Leo managed to look her hard in the eyes. He pleaded with her, willing her to feel his need, his frustration, to feel anything he was feeling at the moment. "Yes, I do. I have to know that I would have been taking him someplace safe. I need to know that Wyatt is . . . that he — that Chris really did save his brother . . . I need to know for sure that Wyatt was not and in no way will be turned to Evil. For both their sakes, I don't want there to be any doubt."

"I think that if there was anything wrong, Chris would have known."

"I need to know for certain, Piper. I do. I need to know that Chris didn't die in vain for something that he couldn't fix. I need to know he didn't go through everything we put him through only to . . . to . . . You weren't here. You didn't see him. He tried so hard to be brave, but he was scared. I know it. I could feel it. Our son deserved better than that."

Softening, Piper let go of the letter so she could take both of Leo's hands in hers. She held them tightly, somehow hoping to send the same hope she had from the letter into him. She tried to smile at him, though it was a little bit harder than she had expected it to be. "Yes, he did. He does. Leo, Chris is still here. Maybe he isn't in the form that we — he isn't the Chris we need to be able to fix things for right now, but he's still here. He's small and he's powerless — I think — and he needs his father."

"And I promise I'll be here for him, every single step of the way. I won't miss anything." He dropped her hands, trying to make his point. "And part of being there for him is making sure we would have sent his adult self to a positive, beautiful future."

"Leo."

"What if I get there and Wyatt is still ruling all Evil? What then? How will we know what it is that turns him? If Gideon had enough time to turn him, we need to know now so we can fix it before it festers in him. Or what if it was something altogether different that turned him? Hmm? What if it was a hundred little things instead of only one person like Gideon? We have to know. I can't spend the next twenty years wondering if my sons are okay or if one of them is going to be terrorizing the entire magical world for his own happiness."

"That won't happen this time," she said, a bit more harshly than she wanted it to sound. "We're going to know to watch for things. We have a head start on it this time around."

Leo shook his head, still set in his mind. "I promised Chris I would make it better this time. You saw how much he hated me before we talked. I must have missed a thousand things for him. He probably tried to tell me what was wrong with Wyatt. He probably tried to tell me a lot of things, and I didn't hear them. It has to be different this time."

"It will be."

"I need to be sure."

"Need to be sure of what?" came Phoebe's concerned voice from the doorway to the attic. She took one look at Piper and Leo on the couch, both with tears in their eyes and The Book in between their laps and knew immediately (without powers) that something was wrong. She didn't sound in the least bit hopeful when she exasperatedly threw her arms up in the air and asked, "Oh, good grief, who's trying to kill us now?"

Wiping hot tears out of her eyes, Piper turned her attention away from Leo and directed at her sister a straight, tense smile that said she was anything but happy about being interrupted. "Someone's trying to kill us?"

"I don't think so," said Phoebe, confused. She looked at Paige at her side, her brow knotted in skepticism. "Is someone trying to kill us?"

"You mean this week?" Paige shrugged cheerfully as she twisted herself around Phoebe through the doorway to go sit comfortably on the floor in front of Piper and Leo. He took the opportunity to look away, his glare boring a hole into the sole of his shoe. Knowing that look of Leo's all too well, Paige poured her attention onto Piper, who only stared back. Obviously, this was going to be one of those conversations where Paige and Phoebe did all of the talking. Settling in for the long haul, she rocked herself back onto her hands and crossed her ankles. "What's going on?"

"Read for yourself," Piper said and handed the heart-felt chicken scratch over.

While Paige started reading, Phoebe looked them all up and down, not even realizing she was still trying to sense feelings from them without the aid of her powers. A little voice in her head teased, You know you aren't going to get them back until you stop trying to use them. SO STOP TRYING TO USE THEM! Shaking her little voice out of her head, she asked, "What is it?"

"A letter from Chris," Piper explained, both hopeful and sad. "He left it in The Book the day before he was supposed to leave."

A sharply chuckled 'Heh' from Paige was followed by a quick look up at Piper. "What's this about goblins?"

"Your nephew is a smart-ass is what that is," said Piper, crossing her arms over her chest. "But don't worry about it, apparently not until Mid-December. Nevermind. Just keep reading."

"Goblins?" asked Phoebe.

"You'll see when you read it," Piper told her.

Another snort of laughter struck Paige. When everyone looked at her to figure out what she was laughing at, she rolled her eyes. "You know, for someone so into dramatic announcements, he sure has a sense of understatement in here. He wasn't the 'most forthcoming'? Did he even experience the same ten months of total secrecy we did?"

"Read," Piper ordered. She could tell Phoebe was starting to get grabby and wanted to rip the letter right out of Paige's hands. It wouldn't be long before she wouldn't get to finish it if she didn't hurry up.

During the next few tears, chuckles, and sighs, the others sat quietly, giving Paige her time alone with the letter as Leo and Piper had had. When she was done, the cheerful, staccato chant was gone from her head, an entire letter's worth of happier thoughts there in her mind for a while to keep her going. Paige reached a hand up to put it on her sister's knee. "You raised me a pretty sweet nephew." She handed the letter over to an anxious Phoebe and put that hand on Leo's knee. "You both did."

"We all did." Piper grinned back, covering Paige's hand with her own. She reached her other hand to put it on top of Leo's and Paige's where they sat together and smiled. Leo, however, squeezed their hands and stood up, making the move away from the sisters. Paige and Piper glanced confusedly at one another. "Leo?"

Leo didn't say anything. Instead, he let the sisters look over the letter in their own time. He quietly closed his eyes against the sunshine coming in through the window, listening to them and their reactions. Just as Paige had before her, Phoebe laughed a few times, sniffed once or twice, and snorted her agreement with Paige about her nephew's word choice. When she was done, he heard her say with a big smile, teary though it was, "Yeah, what she said."

"He did turn out to be a pretty good kid, didn't he?"

"At least we know one of them did."

Phoebe glanced at Piper before looking back at the hopeless-sounding Leo. "What do you mean?"

Before Leo had the chance to explain, Piper jumped in with a sniped, "Leo seems to think that he needs to leave us again."

Both Paige and Phoebe gaped at their brother-in-law. "WHAT?"

Leo turned on Piper, none too happy with her characterization of his intentions. "That's not what I'm saying, and you know it."

"You don't know what could happen there," Piper countered. She stood up, stomped over to the window, and left her sisters behind, closing Leo off from any escape but Up. "What if you don't make it back? We can't take that chance right now. Your sons need you here at home. I need you here, too. We all do. You aren't the only one this happened to. And you don't know what could happen."

"That's the point, isn't it?"

"What are you guys talking about?" asked Paige, flanking Piper on one side while Phoebe took the other. "What could happen where?"

Piper's hands flew up in frustration, blowing up one of Grams's old racks of potion bottles on the shelf inches to the side of Leo's head. "Leo seems to think he needs to take a little pleasure portal to The Future instead of staying here with his kids the way they are now."

"Piper," Leo started at the same time as Paige.

Sisterhood overruled former husbandhood, so Leo watched Paige twitch her shoulders the way she always did when she was either caught having done something she shouldn't or when she was going to have to disagree with a sister when she didn't want to. Her face scrunched in apologetic argument. "Maybe, Piper — just maybe — that might not be such a bad idea."

"What?"

"Wait a second." Paige reached forward and grabbed Piper's outstretched wrists and put them together, calming her. She then looked at Leo, guessing what it was he was trying to say. "You just want to go see if the future is okay, right?"

"Yeah."

Seeing where they were all heading, Phoebe added, "You want to know that Chris and Wyatt are both safe?"

"Yes. That's all I wanted to do." Leo took over the explanation again, this time trying to be a little more steeled in the conversation than he had been before. "I'll be gone for an hour, tops. I only need to see if the boys are safe. That's all. I can't wait for twenty-odd years to find out if things changed for them or not. Is that really such a bad idea? Don't you want to know, Piper? Don't you want to be sure?"

"Of course I want to know," she said. "You act as if I'm not concerned with the futures of my sons at all."

"That's not what I'm saying, and you know it," Leo argued. "All I'm saying is that, for both of the boys, we need to know that the time with Gideon didn't start to turn him already."

"And I'm saying there has to be a better way to find out than sending you to a future where we don't know what's going to happen. Too many things could go wrong. Is it — "

Before she could finish, Phoebe's cell phone rang, interrupting all of them. She looked embarrassed as she fumbled for it in her pocket, flipping the top of it up with a snap of annoyance at the caller. "Phoebe Halliwell."

While they waited for whoever was on the other end of her conversation to identify themselves, Piper and Leo glared at one another in anger and grief. Only Paige separated them, and from the look in her sister's eyes, she was wondering if that was the safest place in the room for her to be. All of them had their attention pulled back to Phoebe, though, as she gasped.

"Oh, god, Darryl. I'm so sorry. We got involved in a family thing just now when I came to get Piper. We'll be right there, though, okay? Just give us a few minutes?" Phoebe listened to whatever Darryl's response was and then said a quick goodbye before snapping the phone shut again. She looked at the tiny object for a moment then turned to Piper with a half-smile. "I'm sorry. I got a little — Chris's letter kind of threw me off. Darryl called me at work a little while ago. It sounded kind of important."

Paige glared at her sister, even though there was no real way that Phoebe could have known why it was that Paige was looking at her that way. "Wait a minute. He's the reason you pulled me away from the club? You didn't tell me that. If I had known he was the emergency, I would have just stayed there."

"It sounds important," said Phoebe.

"Not important enough for me to leave the club," Paige argued. "I promised Piper I'd help them set up for the band tonight, and do all the schmoozing and — "

Her own anger temporarily shelved at the sharpness of Paige's voice, Piper soothed, "I'm sure they can handle it there. Ray is perfectly capable. So is Rex. That's why I hired them. I appreciate the help, but if you really want to help out, there are plenty of things I could put you to work doing around here, none of which has to be done this very minute. It's really okay."

"No, it's not," snipped Paige without meaning to. That didn't stop her, however, from ranting a little more, letting something of her anger slip out for the first time since the last time she had seen Darryl. "What? He kicks us out of his life and throws your son in jail, but as soon as he calls, all is forgiven?"

"I don't think that's what's going on here," Phoebe said. "He sounded really upset when he called."

"I don't care how upset he sounded," Paige spit out. "I'm not going anywhere near him."

Phoebe tried again to get through. "Paige, it's Darryl. What's going on?"

Nearing a place in her head that wasn't too far from hysterics, Paige could hear the chant starting up again, mingling in with memories of screams Chris had been unable to contain while dying on his parents' bed. All of it clouded around her brain, shouting at her in a muddled mess until a clear vision finally came of Darryl, standing over Chris's body and smiling without a real care in the world. Darryl in the hallway, telling Leo he was sorry when she knew damned good and well that there wasn't a single cell in his body that was sorry. Darryl too busy being in that blissful state every other person around them had been in. She wasn't ever going to be able to look at him again. That sick smile would always be on his face, no matter what she did to see him differently. She couldn't have any forgiveness for that, certainly not right now, not after reading Chris's letter and finding out all of those things he'd wanted to say to them. No way.

New Baby. Baby Christopher. Have to celebrate. Welcome the baby.

Shaking her head, Paige looked hard at her sisters and then gave a pleading glance toward Leo, hoping he would know her thoughts. Only he would have even a hint of understanding of what she was feeling at the moment. "Leo, I can't."

"It's okay." Softly, Leo asked, "The boys are asleep?"

"Yeah, they're both in the nursery," Piper said slowly, not understanding the sudden change of topic.

Leo turned to a quite obviously grateful Paige. He smiled and nodded, a silent pact between them to understand each other during all of this. "You want to help out with something? Go sit with Wyatt and Christopher. I'm sure they'll be awake soon."

Her slightly overdone cheerfulness back in her demeanor, Paige gripped Leo's hand. "I was looking forward to some alone time with my nephews anyway. We need some 'Auntie Paige' time." With that, she turned away from the group and headed out of the attic without another word. Her incredible sigh of relief trailed unheard behind her.

Phoebe chastised Leo, "Why did you do that?"

"You weren't here." He felt a lump of rocky something in the back of his throat, rising with his anger again. This was one of those times he would defend Paige until she gave him a reason not to. He was sick thinking about what could possibly have happened when she was alone with Chris to put that much hate in her eyes. Darryl's stupidly unfeeling 'I'm sorry, Leo' was enough to tell him it hadn't been good. He bit back the sickness, though, and hoped he could say enough to make the sisters understand why he let her go. "All I know is, there was at least a fifteen minute window in there where it was just the two of them against Darryl, Inspector Sheridan, and an entire SWAT team. I don't know what happened, and quite frankly, I don't want to, not judging from Paige's behavior. Personally, I don't want to see Darryl either, at least not for a very long time. So cut her some slack. Do this without her. You won't change her mind anyway. Besides, aren't you the ones who were just trying to tell me I'm not the only one Chris's death happened to?"

Piper shuddered at the words 'Chris's death' as if she hadn't heard the words yet. The comforting words of her son's letter now a shattered illusion, she nodded her head a few times, coming to a jarring conclusion. She bit her tongue, the decision made. "He's right. C'mon."

"Are you sure?" asked Phoebe.

"Yeah. Let's just get this over with." Piper reached to take her Phoebe's hand in hers and squeezed hard. She tugged on a little bit so that they could get on the road, but before they made it even two steps, she stopped hard and turned around. She smiled at Leo and tried really hard to recall 'The Tools' of communication they had been trying so hard to work on before any of the insanity had started to happen almost two years ago. "Leo," she started, much gentler than she had been talking to him since he had sprung his idea on her. "I do understand what you want and why. I do. And maybe you can convince me it's a good idea. I don't know yet. Can you wait a little while? Give me a few days to think about it. Please? If you're going to go, I want it to be completely safe for you to do it. Okay?"

Leo crossed the distance between them and gently kissed her on her forehead. His voice was back to its normal, eerily serene self that it had been of late when he ordered, "Go see Darryl."

Phoebe led them out the door toward a meeting that they were more than impolitely late for. "Good enough. See you in a while."

Piper's voice floated down the hall as they reached the top of the stairs, "Help Paige with the boys while we're gone. Bottles are in the fridge."

IV.

Several plots and mausoleums in from the dirt road that weaved through the cemetery, Darryl Morris waited for them, hands neatly folded in front of him as if bowing his head in a silent prayer. He'd done a lot of that lately, which wasn't all that reassuring to him. The idea that he would turn to the god he had long ago turned away from instead of to people who he knew both actually existed and loved him was one of the many cosmic contradictions messing with his head these days. Somehow, now in this newly relocated, long-absent calm in his chest, he realized that, whichever of the options he chose, they both would lead him here.

This was, after all, where it all began. This was where it should end.

When the girls arrived, he simply let them come, didn't turn to acknowledge them, or give any sign he knew they were there at all. In turn, the sisters stood back far enough to give him room to prepare whatever it was he had to say. He had called this meeting. He'd let them know when it started.

It took a few long, deep breaths before he started, but when he did, Darryl certainly didn't pull any punches. His voice was calculated, but low and husky, as if he'd been fighting the urge to cry for so long that it was actually painful not to. "I love you girls. We've been through a lot together. You're the closest things to sisters that I have."

"We love you, too," said Phoebe, who was quickly nudged in the side by Piper for interrupting. Quickly, she urged, "Sorry. Go on."

Darryl chuckled a little, knowing what had happened behind his back without having to see it. He'd seen it a thousand times before. "God, I love you." As quickly as his face lit up, it clouded over into something much colder. "But as much as I love you, I hate you. I hate what this has done to me, what it's done to all of us."

When the girls didn't say anything, he turned around for the first time to face them, revealing swollen eyes and complete heartbreak. It also revealed the stone he had been standing in front of, and for the first time, the girls realized exactly where they were standing. Piper grabbed for Phoebe's hand when she saw it, knowing she was probably feeling the same pain that she was. They hadn't been there in a long time.

"Where's Paige?"

Phoebe's face screwed up in apology, but she never got to explain because Darryl cut her off.

"It's okay. If I were her, I wouldn't want to see me either."

Piper asked, "Why? Darryl, what's going on?"

"It doesn't matter," he said, shaking his head. "I can't fix it now anyway. There are a lot of things I can't fix."

"Darryl?"

Kneeling next to the headstone he guarded so reverently, his fingers traced the letters across the stone as if the person buried underneath it could still feel his presence that way. Bitterness crept into his voice as he told them, "I love all three of you so much, but I can't end up here. If I stay, if I let you stay a part of my life, of my family's lives, this is exactly where I'm going to end up. I loved Andy. He was my partner and my best friend for a long, long time, but if this is where all of this is going to end, I don't want to be like him."

The reality of how close they had come to losing Darryl not too long ago hit both Phoebe and Piper hard. They knew he'd been scared. Without a doubt, he'd been scared enough to decide he couldn't cover for them any longer. They just didn't know that it had hit him this hard. As an unspoken rule, they never talked about Andy. Today, it seemed, it was going to be all about Andy. Still they kept their silence, letting Darryl finally have the say he had apparently been struggling with now for over a month. They could try to help him out of it afterward.

"Andy was one of the best people I have ever known. He loved you two, and he loved your sister. He loved Prue more than I think any of us realized. I have to wonder, though, what he would think about all of this if he'd lived. Would he still protect you after what I went through last month? Would he have found a way to get over it? Would he continue to risk everything if it were him? I've been thinking this over and over and over. It's keeping me awake at night. I'd give anything right now to know what he would tell me about this. Then, two nights ago, it came to me. The only thing that keeps coming back in my head now is that it really doesn't matter what Andy would do. I'm the one who lived, and he's the one under our feet."

Interrupting again, but not really caring if it meant she got pinched in the side or not, Phoebe said quietly, "I think, if Andy was here, all he'd tell you is that he wants you to be happy. And you need to do what you have to do to make yourself and your family happy, Darryl. That's all we want for you, too, you know. We just want you to be happy."

"We never wanted any of this to happen to you," added Piper. "You have to know that."

"I know you didn't." Morris nodded and closed his eyes, his heart clenching around the words. He sighed and opened them again, his dark eyes still colder than they had ever been toward the girls before. "But the thing is, these things keep happening. They keep happening to you because of who you are. Don't get me wrong; I'm proud of everything you've done. I only wish I could tell the world about all of the things you do for it, but even with all of the good you've done, the evil still comes back. It isn't your fault. It's just the way it is." He stood up again and turned to face them. He had been struggling to make eye contact the entire time, but he knew that he needed to look them in the eye to say this. They had earned that much from him. "I'm sorry I didn't come to you sooner. I know I didn't handle things the way I should have. You earned a better treatment than what I've been giving you lately."

Soothingly, Piper reached a hand over to him, clasping his fingers in hers. She swung his hand back and forth a little with reassurance. "We understood. We did. We do. And if things had been a little less hectic, we probably could have at least sat down to talk about it."

"We understand why you don't want to be caught in the middle anymore," Phoebe chimed in. "It's risky for you, especially with Sheridan on your back. We just wish it could have been talked about instead of thrown at us with cops coming in through our back door to arrest Chris."

"I know that. Trust me; if I didn't, Sheila belts it into my head every night at dinner anyway."

"You married a good woman," Piper joked.

"Yes, I did."

Before his expression could darken again, Phoebe jumped the gun a little bit and said what he hadn't said yet. "And you have to take care of her and Darryl, Jr. That's why you aren't going to protect us anymore."

"If that's what you're trying to say, you don't have to," said Piper. "We know that."

Morris licked his lips, preparing to make the last big part of the speech he'd rehearsed in his head over and over for the last two days. It was a little bit easier, knowing they already knew, sort of, what he wanted to say in the first place. "I told you, I love you. I would go on protecting you forever if I could, but sooner or later, my luck will run out. This last time was too close, and the time before that and the time before that. What I've come to realize in the last month is that it's going to keep happening. You're always going to have demons coming after you, and I'm always going to want to save you. That's what I believe Andy would have done, and I know it's what I want. You girls are family. I don't want to see you hurt or worse. But if I stick around, that's what I have to look forward to. When Prue died, I lost a sister, too. I wish I could make it easier for all of you, but at the same time, I've had to make things better for you for a long time — first Andy, then Prue, Cole, and now Chris. I can't watch it happen again. How many more people have to die before I can stop protecting you? It's not that I don't love you enough to do it, but I'm only capable of my own heart breaking so many times."

"It really is okay," Piper said, once again shaking his hand in comfort.

Phoebe nodded. "We'll figure something else out. We don't really know what yet, but we will figure it out. We always do. So don't worry about it anymore, okay?"

Piper wrapped her arm inside the crook of Phoebe's so that the three of them were briefly linked. "We're going to be just fine. We promise."

"I just wish — " Morris started, only to be cut off.

"You know what?" asked Phoebe, stretching a smile over her face. "Stop apologizing. You've apologized enough."

Relief washed over Darryl's entire body. His hand, which had been shaking in Piper's, was finally able to grip hers back. It was as if he was suddenly talking to his friends again, not some strangers. Relief calmed him enough to make the big announcement he planned, knowing now that he was doing the right thing for everyone involved. "Then you won't be mad at me when I tell you I've decided that the best thing I can do is take my family and leave?"

"Leave?" both girls asked.

"Next week. I've accepted a job out of state. If I stay here, things will either go back to the way they have been in the last month, or they'll go back to the way they were before. Either way, there will be files coming across my desk and people asking questions again. It's time I gave all of us a clean slate. Like I've been trying to say, the best way I can protect all of us is to break free. Clean break."

Both Piper and Phoebe looked stunned, their mouths half open. It was Phoebe who came to her senses first, pursing her lips with regret. Her eyes darted to the ground for a moment before she let go of her Piper's arm and crossed the short distance between herself and her surrogate big brother. She got up on her tiptoes to wrap both arms around his neck and placed a soft kiss on his cheek. When she was back down on her feet again, she grinned at him, tears in her eyes. "Then I wish you all the best of luck, and I hope you will at least call us now and then. You're still family, no matter how far away you are."

Piper took her turn next, tears brightening her eyes as well. "We're really going to miss you."

When Piper had set her feet back down, he grasped both of her hands in his and squeezed them tightly. "I'm so sorry about Chris — uh, grownup Chris — but I'm glad the two of you made it through the surgery all right."

"Thanks," Piper said, not knowing what else to say to that.

"I only wish I had understood what was going on that day. I know there is some magical excuse for what was going on I'm doomed to never understand. I couldn't feel anything at the time. I wish I could take it back. I never wanted him to die like that."

"We know," Phoebe said because her sister was unable to.

Quickly changing the subject to something else because she couldn't talk about her son any longer, Piper let go of Darryl's hands and gestured outwardly. "You know, this isn't right. Let's at least say goodbye properly, not here in the cemetery. We can do it at a neutral location. The club? Some other restaurant? That way whole family can say goodbye properly and without me feeling guilty that we're standing on top of Andy."

"That sounds like a wonderful idea," Phoebe began.

Together, the three of them went on to make plans for a dinner the following week while the sun started dipping low enough in the sky to be in all of their eyes, hiding their real thoughts from one another in the bright glow.

V.

Back at the house, Paige, too, noticed the sun coming in softer into the bedroom, casting a ray of yellow on everything it touched. A light knock on the door rousted her from other thoughts from where she was watching her two favorite nephews sleeping peacefully on the bed with her. She started, immediately checking to see that the knock didn't wake the boys before she creeped off the bed to go to the door. Behind it, she wasn't all that surprised to see Leo.

"How are they?"

"Still sleeping," she said in a whisper. "Wyatt orbed Buster in from the nursery about twenty minutes ago, but otherwise, they've just been lying here. It's uneventful."

"But nice," Leo finished her thought for her.

"Yeah." Paige glanced back at the two boys and the circle of pillows that surrounded them to keep Wyatt from rolling over. Seeing they were both all right, that familiar tug pulled at the corner of her mouth as she formed her thoughts then looked up at Leo. "Thanks for backing me up up there."

"You're welcome."

"Were they really mad at me?"

Leo shrugged, not really caring if the sisters were mad at her or him at the moment. "If they are, they'll get over it. You have every right to not want to see him." Softening, he added in his usual Whitelighter/Elder-ish way, "But don't let it go for too long. It might help you deal with whatever it is you're dealing with if you talk to them."

Paige turned away from the doorway to gaze back at her nephews. In her mind, the big version of Chris was still lying there on the bed, even though his little self was lying there next to their brother. She had hoped that being in this bedroom alone would maybe take some of the memory away for her, that maybe she could replace the images of her adult nephew dying with pictures of her infant nephew in a state of warmth and peace. So far, it wasn't working, but there was no way she was going to let her brother-in-law know that. Chris's father didn't need to know that. Putting that excited baby face back on, she said, "I'm not dealing with anything. There's a new baby in the house. Baby Christopher is my focus. He takes a back seat to everything else."

"Okay," Leo agreed in that voice that said he really didn't believe her. Instead of pushing, he changed the subject, which was why he had come downstairs in the first place. "Listen, I was thinking about taking a walk."

"Since when do you just take random walks?"

"Well, not a walk, exactly. There's this place I like to go to think. I just need some time to think."

Paige nodded and reached over to turn Leo around by the shoulders, shoving him out of the doorway. "Understood. Go. Enjoy. We'll be fine here."

"You're sure?"

"Positive. Go. Think. Be brilliant." She waved him off. Leo made to orb out of the hallway, but came right back when Paige called his name for him to return. "Leo? Give her time. She'll see your side of things. I know she will."

"Thanks," he said and this time fully orbed out of the hallway.

What Leo hadn't told Paige was that he had no intention of waiting for the mother of his sons to come around to his way of thinking. He couldn't sit around and debate things over and over until Piper finally understood how he wanted to do this for the welfare of his entire family. He certainly couldn't wait for the other Elders to make a decision about his future that could quite possibly keep him from being able to go through with his plan in the first place. No, he needed to do it now, while the girls were out of the house and out of the way. Besides, if all went well, they wouldn't even have to know he had gone at all. The argument would be done, and he would have the peace of mind he needed. That wasn't all that much to ask, now, was it?

So instead of orbing to the top of San Francisco's Golden Gate bridge like he normally would, he orbed himself right back up to the attic. Careful not to make any sounds that could be heard downstairs, he tiptoed across the floor, mindful of the squeaky floorboard hidden by the carpet.

He stood in front of the chalk outline triquetra on the wall, staring at it in deep concentration. It couldn't hurt to be focused on exactly where he wanted to go. He plunged his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, feeling the bottles hidden in them all afternoon. The one on the left would take him there; the one on the right would bring him back. All he had to do was use them.

He fingered the bottle in his left pocket, bringing it out into the open. He held it up to eye level, looking through it in the light. It was amazing how so small a vial of so many powerful magical elements could end up doing so much. It was that vial that held the power to give him peace of mind. It was that vial that probably would also make life with his former wife a little more than miserable when he used its partner later on. Still, it was for the greater good, and she would forgive him eventually. What could possibly be bad about something so small?

"I'm sorry, Piper," he whispered into the air, even though he knew she would hear. Then he drew his fist back and threw the bottle into the wall, smashing it. Potion spilled all over the drawing, causing it to glow a bright whitish blue. Leo took one last deep breath and stepped forward toward the opening portal.

As his first leg went through, he smiled to himself. "For you, Chris. I wish you were coming with me."

(End Part One)