Prologue

"Piper, what are you doing?" Leo asked quietly as he watched his wife take yet another picture of Wyatt and Chris and toss it into the fire. "Why are you destroying all of our pictures?"

Piper shook her head and said, "I'm not getting rid of all of them. Only the ones with Chris in them." She continued searching through the stack of pictures in front of her, looking for ones that showed the grown up version of her youngest child.

"Why?" Leo repeated gently.

Piper turned and stared at him. Leo's eyes were red, bloodshot from all the tears he had cried after Chris had died. But Piper's eyes were dry. She had not cried. She had been oddly calm about the entire situation, and instead of showing her emotions, she had bottled everything up and started organizing the house, removing any sign that Chris had ever been there.

"So Wyatt won't remember."

Leo frowned, confused. "Remember what?"

"Remember Chris. The big Chris. I don't want him to know that his brother died. I don't want him to know about the other future where he was evil. I don't want him to know about any of that," Piper explained matter-of-factly.

"We are going to have to tell Chris and Wyatt at some point about all this," Leo argued. "We can't keep it a secret."

"Why not?" Piper demanded. "Why would we force them to deal with this? They don't need to know. That future is gone."

Leo nodded slowly and said, "You know, destroying these pictures, pretending that past didn't happen…it won't change the fact that it did happen. What you are doing, it won't change what happened to Chris."

Piper narrowed her eyes and said, "Nothing happened to Chris. He is downstairs with Paige. He is fine." She bit off the last word and turned back to the pile of pictures. "I have to keep sorting these. Excuse me." She picked up a few pictures and walked over to the fire.

"Piper, look at me," Leo instructed. He moved to his wife and grabbed her arm, spinning her around. "Just stop this! This isn't the right thing to do."

"How do you know?" Piper spat. "I don't want my children, or any of my future family, to know about this. There is no reason to burden them with knowledge of a future that is gone."

"I know, I get what you are saying. But you aren't destroying those pictures to protect Wyatt and Chris and the future family. You are doing it so that you can pretend everything is okay! You can't bottle everything up. You need to grieve."

"There is nothing to grieve for," Piper repeated, but her voice shook a little and tears appeared in her eyes.

Leo stepped away from his wife and retorted coldly, "I saw him fade away in my arms! The hell there isn't anything to grieve about! My son is dead."

Piper burst in to tears. She moved away from Leo and sat down on the sofa. "No. He can't be dead, because I can't deal with him being dead," she whispered between sobs.

Leo walked over to his wife and sat down next to her. "I know, Piper. I know what you are going through, I am going through it too. But…we need you. Your sisters, me, Wyatt, little Chris…we all need you right now."

Piper nodded and wiped away a tear. "I know. I'm sorry, I just…" She glanced over at the pictures. "I just have to do this."

"You really don't want the boys to know what happened?" Leo questioned.

"I think it is for the best."

"Okay," Leo agreed. "I'll tell Phoebe and Paige. We won't tell Wyatt and Chris what happened." Leo got up and placed a hand on Piper's shoulder. "You've got me and your sisters if you want to talk. You know that, right?"

Piper nodded, and murmured, "I know." She got up and grabbed a stack of pictures, then began to toss them into the fireplace.

Leo stared at her for a moment, then reached for one of the pictures. It showed Wyatt and Big Chris playing with blocks on the floor of the kitchen. He stared at it for a moment, then slipped the picture quietly into his pocket. Making sure Piper did not see him take the picture, he turned and walked from the room.

Piper tossed another picture of Chris into the fire and watched as the flames curled around, turning the photo to ash.