for AwayLaughing.

Richard insists - insists on having Chris over for dinner, and cooks a spread so lavish that both he and Paige feel somewhat obligated to enjoy it. But three twitchy, weird people in a room trying to be normal is a recipe for disaster; they barely make it through the main course before their shifty dinner guest throws out a bad excuse and bounces.

"Make sure he knows he's welcome anytime," Richard tells her, wrapping up half a pie for her to take home. Paige regards it sadly - she already knows Chris isn't going to eat it (will barely even notice it's there, and will probably make fun of her if she tries to push), and she herself can't stand pecan pie (not Richard's fault - they haven't exactly spent much time discussing food preferences), so these leftovers are destined for either one of Piper's late-night pregnancy craving kitchen raids, or to congeal silently in the back of the fridge until someone finally takes pity and throws it out. Richard looks so earnest though, and the pie did smell good, and Paige feels bad. She smiles at him and kisses his cheek.

"Thank you for trying," she says. "I know he's not the friendliest, but - he's got a lot on his mind…"

"Obviously," Richard says. Paige hasn't told him the entire story, but he's not stupid, he knows Chris isn't exactly who he seems. "But seriously, Paige, tell him. I want him to know. He doesn't have many friends, does he?"

The idea of Chris having friends strikes Paige as so ridiculous that she almost laughs. "He...keeps to himself."

"Not by choice," Richard says confidently. How he came to that conclusion, Paige really doesn't know. "Make sure he knows that he can stop by...if he wants. I'm not exactly rolling in companionship, either." His face softens. "Other than you, of course. It's...very lonely, trying to connect with mortals. Sometimes you really need to talk to someone who understands. Trust me."

Paige has been a witch now for a scant three years, and sometimes still feels overwhelmed when she takes stock of where her life has led, still has mornings where she wakes up and doesn't remember where she is, for that brief in-between moment when she forgets that everything she's ever known is completely different, and she's not actually a normal twentysomething girl with an everyday job and a boring backstory. Even Phoebe and Piper, for all the experience they have on her, still think of themselves as mortals who stumbled into something crazy. It wasn't until Paige met Richard that she really saw the chasm between people like her and her sisters, and witches who were raised in the craft from birth - people who never believed or even knew any fiction about how the world worked. There really is a difference - it's how they think about things, really. It's hard for Paige to describe.

"I'll tell him," she assures him, and graces him with a longer kiss. He really is trying. It makes Paige feel warm whenever she sees it - the effort he puts into being a good person. "Thank you. Really."

"Give him my number," Richard urges, and makes her take home some chicken, too. (Now that Paige will eat.)

She gets a good steam going, thinking about how rudely Chris had left the dinner - and how stiff he'd been during, for that matter, not speaking unless spoken to, and avoiding everyone's gaze - but it leaks away slowly over the next few days, during which Chris is nowhere to be found. He does this a lot - disappears periodically, then shows up again with some dire new threat or task for them to tackle. Since the revelation of who he really is, he's been doing it even more - avoiding Phoebe and Piper and their cloying concern, for the most part. Paige can see how irritated he is by their sudden about-face, and how close he's come to calling them out on it. But he probably knows just as well as Paige does that it would only make it worse, so he just puts up with it.

But this time, he seems to be avoiding her, too - the difference is rather startling. He finally shows his face about a week after the failed dinner party - Paige stumbles across him in the attic, flipping through the Book intently. He doesn't even look up when she enters the room, and she has the distinct feeling that it's more a matter of him allowing her to catch him than it is any lucky break on her part.

"Have you ever heard of a bakhtak?" Chris asks, as if they're already in the middle of a conversation. Paige is used to it; Piper does the same exact thing.

"Nope," Paige chirps, flopping down on the couch. "But I bet you're about to make us fight one, so why don't you just tell me how bad it is."

"No, I already killed it," Chris says absently. "I was just trying to figure out if I should expect its friends to come after me or not. It's a nightmare demon." Paige thinks of Barbas, and her face blanches. "Calm down - they're just nuisances, really. They feed on fear but they don't really harm people unless they're provoked. They're sort of like sprites, how they feed on negative energy."

"Hey, I've met sprites - they're nice!"

"You met nymphs," Chris corrects. "Sprites are different."

"Well fine then, Professor," Paige says, making a face at him. "Why'd you kill it if it doesn't actually hurt anybody?"

"Well, I provoked it," Chris says, his face twisting darkly. "So it did try to harm me."

"How does one provoke a nightmare demon?" Paige wonders out loud. "Were your nightmares offensive in some way?"

The look on Chris' face is like a door slamming shut. "I wasn't exactly interested in its opinion on my nightmares, Paige."

She winces. "Fair enough."

Chris slams the Book shut with a sigh. "There's nothing helpful in here; I don't know why I even tried. This thing blows my mind sometimes. You know half the entries in here are either wrong or misinformed, right?"

"Aren't most family Books like that?" Paige asks. "They're just journals, aren't they? Biased impressions written by your ancestors."

"You'd think the Halliwells, for all their self-righteous talk about destiny, would have invested in some fact checkers," Chris grumbles. Paige raises an eyebrow at him. "What?"

"You realize you are a Halliwell, don't you?"

"Begrudgingly so," Chris grumbles again.

Paige shakes her head at him. She'd ask who pissed in his Cheerios, but this is sort of his baseline personality, and she did promise Richard she'd try. So. Here she goes: with the trying. "So - I haven't seen you since you ran off last week. Richard wrapped up some leftovers for you, but I think Piper got to them first."

Chris scratches the back of his neck, looking vaguely uneasy. "Nice of him."

Paige narrows her eyes at him. "He wanted me to express to you," she says crisply, over enunciating the words, "that he is willing to lend an ear, should you ever need to bend one. He somehow picked up on the fact that you don't get out much - beats me, since you're so subtle about it."

Chris scowls at her. "Are you trying to set me up on a friend date with your boyfriend?" he asks with a sneer.

Paige, never one to back down, sneers right back. "Because you're just rolling in people who want to hang out with you," she drawls, rolling her eyes. "Don't ask me why he was so insistent about it - he must have a thing for guys who barely talk and then skip out right after the appetizer."

Chris huffs, but seems to shake off the nastiness, as easily as he ever does. This is one of the reasons Paige liked him even before they found out he was their nephew: he gives as good as he gets, and he doesn't seem to hold grudges about it. "Tell him 'thanks but no thanks' for me. It's not a good idea."

"Why not?" Paige asks, earnest about it for once. "Is it because he and I didn't stay together in your future? Because you don't have to spare my feelings about that." Paige knows a sinking ship when she's on one - and also, there's the little detail of how Chris' future was apparently unspeakably terrible. She's not holding onto illusions about happy endings for anyone.

"You didn't stay together, no, because you never met in the first place," Chris says dryly. "You were killed by the Titans seven months ago, remember?"

"Oh come on, I thought you were lying about that," Paige says, waving her hand.

"Why would I lie about that?"

"You know - to get us to trust you, let you stay."

Chris snorts. "If I was after your trust and affection, don't you think I would have been...I dunno, nicer?"

"I figured you couldn't help your own personality," Paige says, grinning at him with her tongue stuck between her teeth.

Chris shakes his head, but he's smiling, despite himself. "If I was weird the other night, it's my own problem. I'm sorry."

"You knew him, didn't you?" Paige asks, seeing the truth in his face. "In your future, you met him some other way."

"Lots of people knew the Montanas," Chris says, subtly evasive. "They're an old family. Big, too - lots of children."

"Yeah, but you knew him," Paige presses. Chris shrugs and doesn't reply. "And you...really didn't know me at all. Did you?" She's thought about it without really thinking about it: a future where she's not there. Just the way they've all acknowledged it without really processing what it means - that Chris is Leo and Piper's second son, that he's lived among them for months and kept the secret, that he's given up everything to change something they can't admit, and taken their grief for it, besides. Paige knows the guilt is what drives Phoebe's overprotectiveness, and Piper's intensity. Just as well that Chris avoids both.

"I can't tell you any details, Paige," Chris says, almost gently, like he's breaking bad news.

"I'm not asking for details. I'm just - " she shakes her head. "I dunno. I don't think I need to know anyway, even if you could tell me."

Chris is quiet for a moment, his eyes on the closed, ancient cover of the Book of Shadows. "He's a good man," he says finally, "despite having every excuse not to be. I wasn't surprised that you were drawn to him."

"He is," Paige says, feeling the words tremble in her throat.

"It's hard enough not saying the wrong thing with you guys, I can't take the risk…" he trails off. "Tell him 'thank you' for the offer, though. Truly, it means something."

Means 'something.' Paige is constantly surprised - in an impressed but irritated sort of way - at Chris' ability to say something by saying nothing. "He's not wrong, though. Everyone needs friends." Feeling guilty about her earlier dig, she fidgets a little. "And it's not like you can be exactly open with us."

"I'm fine," Chris says.

"I don't think you are, but okay," Paige says, pursing her lips. "What's your plan, anyway? For when this is over. Are you just gonna...hang out here, be our cryptic Whitelighter? Continue to keep yourself separate from any kind of actual life, just for the sake of our future?"

Chris laughs, incredulous and sharp. "'Hang out'?" he says. "Yeah, sure, Paige. That's what I'm gonna do. Hang out."

"You know what I mean," she snaps, irritated.

"I do know what you mean, and the fact that you're still thinking of it like that means you're not ready to hear my real answer," Chris says. "That is, if you really are asking, and you do really want to know."

Paige's stomach is stuck somewhere in between her gut and her throat, and it's not pleasant. "Why do you have to be like that?" she asks. "So defensive? I'm just trying to talk."

Chris just sighs, long and sad. "Paige. Come on."

Paige feels tears prick her eyes, and she looks away quickly, blinking rapidly. Her eyes land on the big open space in front of the podium - the round, old carpet that's seen so many battles, survived who knows how many demon attacks. "It's not fair. That's just...it's wrong."

"I knew what I was doing when I did it," Chris says, with another shrug. "Everything has consequences, Paige. It's the price you pay for magic like this. World-changing magic."

Paige wipes angrily at her eyes, thinking things she doesn't have to say: that it's always them who has to live with those consequences, that over and over their destiny brings them to impossible choices that do nothing but cause pain and grief and anguish. "Then what was all that fuss about getting Leo and Piper to conceive you? If you were just planning on fading away the whole time - "

"I haven't saved anyone yet," Chris interrupts. "I'm not done yet. That's what it was about." He blinks. "And there's nothing that says the Chris of this timeline still can't have a good life."

"You saved me," Paige says, somehow realizing it for the first time. Chris looks taken aback, his eyes widening just a bit. Yeah, she thinks. Take that, you self-righteous shit. You saved my life, you're a hero. Deal with it.

"And yet," Chris says, after a long, thorny moment, his mouth quirking, "you still give me so much crap. Why is that? You said it yourself - my life's unfair enough."

"This is the Halliwell family, buddy," Paige says, rubbing the last of her tears away. "It's how we show affection. You best get used to it."

"Good to know," Chris says dryly. But he's smiling again.

Sometimes Phoebe thinks her entire career is a joke, a stupid accident that nobody's caught onto yet. Sometimes she worries that it's magic, some kind of subconscious spell that got her this corner office, with all those veteran reporters crowded into cubicles outside her solid, well-polished door. She'll sit at a stop light and stare at her own face on those damn billboards, the sides of buses and park benches, and think, personal gain personal gain oh god personal gain. It's all a scam. A prank. Prue would be so ashamed of her.

But: Prue is why she's here, and that's the truth. Every job interview, meeting, big event or speech, Phoebe takes a second, behind the door, to breathe deeply and think, what would Prue do? How would she say it? And it always works. She reads her own columns on Sunday mornings and pictures Prue doing the same, munching on toast, laughing at Phoebe's puns with her boots propped up on the kitchen chair. Sometimes, when she hears her phone ping with a new text message, she indulges in a fantasy that it's Prue texting from her long, well-deserved, magic-free vacation in the Bahamas. Sitting on a beach, reading Phoebe's articles between sips of Mai Tais. It's her and Andy's honeymoon, probably. They've extended it another six months, because why the hell not?

God, she hopes that's what heaven is like. If it isn't, Phoebe's gonna be so fucking pissed.

"I think you're right about this one," Chris says, leaning heavily against the side of her desk so he can read over her shoulder. "You see that phrase there - that which the light of humanity cannot reach - that's a direct quote from Aurinda Crawford's History of Massachusetts. No mortal would have access to that book, let alone be able to quote it like that - "

"Is that the one written by the witch who escaped Salem, or that personal journal thing written by the witch who vanquished the first Source?" Phoebe grimaces comically at him. "I get them mixed up."

"Witch who escaped Salem? What are you talking about? None of the witches who escaped Salem wrote books." Chris shakes his head. "No, Aurinda Crawford was one of the first English witches to travel to the continent - her father was one of the first mayors of Boston. She was instrumental in driving back the demons who had claimed the Eastern coasts - with help from people from the Massachusett and Pawtucket tribes, but of course her memoirs downplay their role significantly, and since most of the Native American witches who lived during that time period were later prosecuted and hunted down by white missionaries, it's impossible to know - what?"

"Wow," Phoebe marvels, grinning up at him, "you're a nerd."

Chris shoots her an irritated look. "Thanks for your contribution, Phoebe. That's helpful."

"No, no, I'm just saying. Like I already knew before, but - wow. History nerd." Phoebe waves her hand, still grinning. "Go on. Super interesting - please continue."

Chris looks extremely unimpressed. "Anyway," he says, "there were only a few copies produced during her lifetime, of course, but they were reproduced in the early 1800s by a coven in Maine. But they enchanted all the copies so they could never be read by mortal eyes." Chris nods towards the screen pointedly. "So the fact that your letter writer has even seen it gives them away. They're definitely a magical."

"Could it be a coincidence?" Phoebe asks. "I mean, 'light which humanity cannot reach' - it's sort of vague enough that - "

"It's from literally the most famous passage from the book," Chris interrupts, shaking his head. "From a long paragraph where she describes seeing a demon for the first time. It's usually the only part of the book that people remember." He stands, crossing his arms. "It has to be an intentional reference. I'd bet you anything they're trying to reach out to you - indicate who they are in a subtle enough way that anyone else who'd read it wouldn't catch the subtext."

"That's what I thought." The vision she'd had when opening the email was vague enough that Phoebe hadn't been sure what, exactly, she was dealing with. Combined with the cryptic letter, she was confused - and weirded out - enough to ask, and Chris had orbed in just at the right time. She wouldn't have gone to him normally, but now that he's here, she's grateful. "But if they're an innocent, why reach out like this? Why not just ask? And if they're evil…"

"They could be," Chris concedes, taking one of the chairs across from her desk. "You should definitely be cautious. But they could also be an innocent. I mean, think about it, Phoebe. You're a Charmed One, and your face is plastered all over the city now, with your email address right underneath it. How else are people going to ask for help? I'm surprised it isn't happening more often."

"Is that a hint?" Phoebe teases. "Was I a famous witch guru in the future?"

"I think you know you weren't," Chris says flatly.

"I was kidding," Phoebe protests, holding up her hands. "Mostly."

He just shakes his head. "Reply back," he says. "Keep it vague. Put a reference to Aurinda Crawford in it so she knows you're listening. I'll bet you anything she'll come back with the real problem she's having."

"Assuming it's a she," Phoebe says, slipping her eyeglasses on and turning her focus to the computer.

"I think you know that, too," Chris says. He claps his hands on his knees. "Well, if that's all you needed, I - "

"Wait!" Phoebe holds up one finger. "Hold that thought. I'm typing."

"Really? I didn't just drop by to chat, Phoebe, there's - "

"Is it an emergency?" Phoebe asks. Chris sighs, irritated, but doesn't reply. "Hah. Then it can wait while I write this email. I want you to read it before I send it, anyway."

Chris sinks back in the chair, his expression still sharply annoyed, but he stays obediently silent. Phoebe keeps one eye on him while she types, just to be safe.

To her surprise, he folds his hands neatly in his lap, closes his eyes, and goes so still that she almost thinks he might have fallen asleep. His breath is too uneven though, and when she finishes her reply, his eyes pop back open.

"Were you just," Phoebe asks, hesitating, "meditating?"

"Don't sound so surprised," Chris says, standing up again. "Finished?"

Phoebe nods, rolling away in her chair so he can see the screen better. "I'm not, I suppose, I just - didn't know you did that, is all."

"Helps with stress," Chris mutters, eyes on the screen. He reaches out towards the screen in an abortive movement, then corrects course to the computer mouse, scrolling down the screen that way. Phoebe's noticed him doing that before - she's seen those fancy new computers with the screens you can touch, and his habitual mistake is pretty solid confirmation that they're going to become more and more common. She's not sure if Chris is aware how he gives himself away in little ways like that. "Sounds good to me. Vague enough nobody would suspect anything weird, if they didn't already know what you were referencing. Go ahead and send it."

"Thanks for the permission," Phoebe mutters, but clicks send anyway. "Okay. Now you can tell me your problem." She takes off her glasses, leaning up in her chair and putting on her best, most patronizing 'listening' face. "What do you need, dear?"

Chris gives her chair a little shove, sending it spinning towards the wall. Phoebe snorts out loud, flailing out with her hands to stop the movement. "Never mind. I'll go ask Piper - "

"Oh, no you won't!" Phoebe laughs a little, climbing with some effort out of her normally very fun and relaxing wheeling, spinny desk chair. Chris always manages to suck the fun out of everything, the little twerp. "Come on, what is it. You helped me - I help you, that's the deal, remember?"

"It's nothing. I needed some backup on a meeting, and I knew Paige wouldn't approve," Chris says. "Not that I think you'll approve either, but they might have intel we could use."

"What about Piper?" Phoebe asks. Chris just rolls his eyes in response, and Phoebe smirks. "Who is it?"

"A practitioner named Bran MacDermott," Chris says, crossing his arms, already defensive. "He's very old - been around for centuries. He was born in like, the 1500s or something, a Celtic sorcerer who stumbled onto a spell for eternal youth. He doesn't actually harm people, or go after innocents, but he does practice black magic, which technically makes him a warlock."

"Okay," Phoebe says warily. "And what makes you think he'll know anything about Wyatt's situation?"

"I knew him in my future," Chris says. "He stayed mostly neutral right up until the end, when he joined...our efforts."

"Not Wyatt's?" Phoebe asks. Their voices hush, as if they're both naturally inclined to whisper in dark corners, when discussing the terrible conclusion they're working so hard to prevent.

"No. Not all black magic users are evil," Chris says. "Strictly speaking, anyway. He might help us, but we'd have to offer him something - pay him."

"With what?" Phoebe asks incredulously, her voice squeaking.

"With money, Pheebs," Chris says, rolling his eyes again. "Jeez. And you say I'm paranoid."

Phoebe huffs at him. "I'm not sure I like it, but I'll help," she says cautiously. "We have to tell Paige and Piper what we're doing, though. That's non-negotiable."

"If you tell them, they're going to talk us out of it, or try to come along," Chris argues. "And trust me - you do not want this man in the same room as Piper and Paige. It is not going to end well for any of us."

"Well, we'll have to convince them otherwise," Phoebe says stubbornly. Seeing his expression, she firms her own. "No - if something goes wrong, Chris, they need to know where to start looking. I'm not about to just give myself up to some evil-adjacent Highlander because you don't want to deal with Piper's temper."

"He's Irish, actually," Chris says snippily. "The highlands are in Scotland."

"I was talking about the TV show," Phoebe says. Chris blinks at her. "Oh come on. Immortal sword fighters? Sean Connery?"

"What about my personality and history makes you think I would know what you're talking about?"

"Well, I figured you at least still got cable in the apocalypse," Phoebe snipes back. "Seems like kind of a raw deal, if the world ends and you can't get HBO."

Chris rubs one of his temples. "Sure, Pheebs. Whatever you say."

Phoebe makes a face at him. "Do we have to go right now, or can I at least pretend I'm putting in all forty hours they pay me for?"

"I'll meet you later at the Manor," Chris says, turning away. Phoebe grabs his arm before he can orb out. "What? I orbed in here. Someone will notice if I leave the normal way - "

"No, I just mean - it's lunch time," Phoebe says. "Have you eaten? I was gonna order something."

"I'm...fine," Chris says uncomfortably.

"That's not a no," Phoebe says.

"I'm busy."

"Too busy to eat?" Phoebe picks up her desk phone. "I'm getting Thai. Do you have Thai in your future? Never mind - you'll like it."

"Pheebs," Chris protests, but Phoebe puts her firm face back on and points to the chair. Chris sinks down in resignation. "Fine. Make it spicy."

"Of course you like spicy food too," Phoebe mutters, dialing her favorite delivery place from memory. It seems so obvious now that he's a Halliwell - the hair, the chin, the stubbornness, the self-righteousness, all of it a combination of fairly obvious dead giveaways. But more than anything, he reminds her of Prue. They have so much in common that it's eerie.

Her first thought, the reigning theory before the vision quest that revealed the truth, was that he was Prue's...reincarnation, somehow. A witch with some kind of connection to her sister - a student, mentee, something. A messenger from a future where Prue was somehow present again, as a ghost or...something else. She'd really thought she'd figured it out, worked out the big secret: that Prue was somehow acting through Chris, reaching out in the most roundabout way to continue protecting them the same way she did when she was alive.

Wishful thinking, indeed. She'd felt fairly stupid when she figured it out. Occam's Razor, and all that.

"I had a...friend," Chris says haltingly, "who made the spiciest food in the entire universe. They made me eat it so often that I got used to it. It helps things feel more normal, here."

Phoebe very, very badly wants to ask who that friend is - but it's the mysterious, dead fiance, she suspects. And bringing that out into the open would only set the conversation backwards a few thousand steps. "What's weird is that Piper can't stand anything spicy when she's pregnant. With Wyatt, she couldn't even smell it without feeling sick - it's the same now, with you. The other night Paige opened a jar of salsa and she had to leave the kitchen."

"Huh," Chris says, as neutral as ever.

On the phone, a man picks up and immediately asks Phoebe to hold, clamoring noise in the background. So she stands there, listening to the hold music, fidgeting, trying to come up with something that won't shut him down even more. Talking to Chris these days is a delicate negotiation. Sometimes she feels like she's doing it all so very wrong. "Prue loved spicy food," she blurts, unable to come up with anything else. "You know who Prue is, right? I mean - "

"Of course I do," Chris says, rolling his eyes.

"Right." Phoebe laughs nervously, propping the phone up between her shoulder and chin. "Well - she did. Added hot sauce to everything. She kept like a dozen different bottles in the fridge and swore up and down that each one tasted different. We thought she was nuts." Phoebe smiles fondly, the moment dropping when she remembers what it felt like to open the fridge in the weeks and months after she died, to see the bottles still sitting there innocuously, how much it hurt every single time. How long they just left them there, unable to throw them out, until they were so old you couldn't even open the caps because the sauce had crusted up and glued them shut. Finally throwing them away when Paige moved in, getting rid of them along with the boxes of cameras, the bottles of chemicals and tubs from her darkroom in the basement. Turning it into a gym instead, walking down the stairs every day stubbornly, determined to use the space for something she would have approved of. As if she were watching what they did - judging, forming opinions. Because Prue always had an opinion on everything.

Chris raises an eyebrow at her. Must run in the family, Phoebe figures. "You can train yourself to get used to it. Then you can start noticing the differences in flavor."

"You sound like Piper in her chef days," Phoebe says with a smile. "Going on and on about this type of garlic, not that kind, use butter not margarine in that, blah blah blah - "

"Sounds like Piper now," Chris interrupts.

Phoebe snorts. She listens to the hold music for a scant moment, making a face at him. "Still on hold."

He frowns. "I could just orb out and grab something - "

"No! No, it's fine. It's just the lunch rush, you'd be waiting just as long either way," Phoebe says quickly, smiling wanly. "Just relax. It's my treat - honestly."

Chris looks skeptical, but at least he stays put. Small victories.

"She would've liked you," Phoebe blurts. Then she winces. "I don't know why I said that. Today's been - "

"It was her birthday, wasn't it?" Chris asks quietly. He glances over at the clock absently, but the tenseness in his shoulders gives him away. "She's been on your mind."

"Yeah." Phoebe swallows. "I mean - she's always on my mind. In the background, you know. But the big dates - "

"You just bring them up every chance you get," Chris finishes, his expression far away. "You want people to notice."

"Piper doesn't like to talk about her," Phoebe says quietly, wrapping the phone cord around her wrist. "And I get why, I really do. But - "

"It's hard," Chris says, nodding. When he looks over, he makes eye contact - a rare thing, unless he's asking for something, or arguing. But he's evasive otherwise - not because he's shy, or a liar - which is what they all thought in the beginning - but because he doesn't want them to see the width and breadth of it. He's still got that block against her empathy that keeps Phoebe from sensing what he's feeling, but sometimes...sometimes it seeps through. The depth of what he feels, every moment of every day, is almost overwhelming. No wonder it was the first thing he did. It was probably for her sake as much as for his own.

"You would've liked her too," Phoebe says warmly, almost forgetting about the phone, letting it fall fully to her shoulder. "Probably would've gotten along way better with her than you ever have with us. She had that same...ruthlessness that you have. That focus of yours - that's Prue. That's where you get that from."

Chris doesn't say anything, but he looks away again. Phoebe can see the truth in that movement - the absence of what he says sometimes says just as much as the little hints and details he does let slip. That's the tricky part, when someone knows you're lying: they know what to look for. The truth hides in plain sight, when they know what you're up to.

He's never come to visit her at work before - not unprompted, without her calling him there. And he knew it was Prue's birthday. Small, small victories.

"I think they have curry," Phoebe blurts, desperate to break the heavy silence. She jerks the phone back up to her ear, but the hold music is still playing. She grins at him. "I wouldn't know; I'm boring, I always just get noodles. You're not a vegan or anything, are you?"

"What the hell is a vegan?" Chris asks, scrunching up his nose. Phoebe almost drops the phone, caught off guard by her own laugh.

"Never mind," she says.

"You don't have to," Piper says, embarrassed by herself. Being pregnant is a nine-month exercise in testing your own patience; most days she annoys herself with her own pickiness and mood swings and special requests, she can't imagine how her family puts up with it.

"It's no trouble," Chris says, scraping the last of the sauce out of the jar with the wrong end of a butter knife. "I'm no professional or anything, but if I can manage a vanquishing potion, I think I can pull off your weird pregnancy spaghetti."

Piper covers her smile with one hand, readjusting the pillow that's sitting at her lower back. She's into the stage where everything either hurts or chafes, and standing at the stove for more than a minute or two makes her want to scream and then die. And take a sister or two with her. "Well, I appreciate it. But seriously - I can call Leo down here, he's made it for me so many times I'm sure he remembers - "

"I can do it," Chris says hastily, flipping on the stove. The empty sauce jar flies through the air with a flick of his hand, landing neatly in the trash bin. Piper hides another smile, deciding not to point out the recycling bin sitting right next to it.

"That was very subtle. Hardly heard the bitterness there at all."

"What bitterness?" Chris asks, face blank. "Okay, what do I add to it? Salt? Pepper? Uh...rosemary?" He frowns. "What's the other one, the flaky green one. Oregano?"

"Well," Piper says through a smirk, "first you're gonna add that can of diced tomatoes. And then garlic. Spices come later."

"Right." Chris attacks the can with single-minded determination. "Clearly cooking isn't a genetic skill. I don't think I've made anything from scratch in…" he pauses. "Well, ever."

Nearly everything Chris says lately has this same effect on Piper - fond bemusement, a singular type of amazement at the truth of who he is, followed closely by a spike of intense grief for the life that he lived. He betrays himself all the time now, finally relaxed enough around her to let his true personality through - still neurotic, still a little too morally grey for her liking, but also...sweet hearted. Kind, in such a thoughtful way. Wickedly smart, with a dry sense of humor that rivals her own. Piper can't bear to think about the reason why her son doesn't know how to cook, but can't help herself from feeling proud, posessively so, that he's here now for her to teach.

"Normally," she says, clearing her throat, "you saute onions, and meat if you're adding it, first, and then add tomato sauce. But I couldn't stand the smell right now, so we're just skipping that step. See that garlic?" She nods at the clove that he picks up, presenting it like a prize. "Right. Think you can peel and chop that? Four cloves, at least."

"I think I can handle it," Chris says, sliding a paring knife out of the wooden block holder on the island. "Garlic, I can do. You use garlic in a lot of potions, you know."

"Yeah," Piper says fondly, "I know."

Chris smiles up at her sheepishly, as if apologizing. "Right, of course you do. I forget that you...anyway." She lets that one sit, watching as he prepares the garlic expertly, like he's done it a thousand times. Which he clearly has. "So you...let that cook for awhile?"

"Yeah. But add salt and pepper and basil - in the fridge," she says. "In that little plastic box - right." She nods at him, as he holds it up for inspection. "I'd teach you how to cut herbs properly but - whatever. Just throw it in. I'm the one eating it; I like the really big pieces. Save some for a garnish, though."

She watches as he adds the spices carefully, stirring it with one of her wooden spoons. "Heat on...medium?"

"Low-medium," Piper says. "Put a cover on it. It needs to simmer for twenty, twenty-five minutes." Chris follows her instructions carefully, brow furrowed. "Good. Now come help me with the zucchini."

"I have never in my life seen someone make noodles out of vegetables," Chris says, joining her at the table. "Is this a 2003 thing or was I just not paying attention?"

"You're the time traveller, you tell me," Piper says, handing him a peeler. "Just peel the whole thing, into long strips - like these, see? Don't worry about making it pretty."

Chris gets to work without so much as a blink, his hands sure and steady. Piper watches him for a minute, her chest tight with equal fondness and regret. "Is this what makes it 'pregnancy spaghetti'?"

"Partly," Piper answers. She blinks back down at her knife, and the halfway-julienned zucchini abandoned on the cutting board. "But I used to make a dish like this at my restaurant - zucchini fettuccine, with pine nuts and feta cheese." She drifts off a little, lost in the sense memory of her old kitchen - the foul mouthed line cooks, the steam that plastered her hair to her face. Coming home every night smelling like garlic and sweat. Prue and Phoebe used to make her wash her work clothes separately, claiming the smell would infect their bedsheets if she washed them together. "The pregnancy twist is the sauce, though. We're gonna add heavy cream and parmesan at the end."

"That doesn't seem too weird," Chris says, handing her a peeled zucchini.

"And then I add a bunch of pepperoni," Piper says, laughing as his face twists in disgust. "Don't worry - I save that for my own bowl. You can try it as is - it's pretty good. Or so I'm told."

"That raw pepperoni in the fridge?" Chris asks, still looking grossed out. "Do you even cook it?"

"It comes cooked!" Piper defends, still laughing. "It's cured pork, Chris. There's no such thing as raw pepperoni - "

"Fine, fine - do you even heat it up?"

"It's not that gross," Piper says. "Plenty of pregnant women eat grosser things. By comparison, I think pregnant spaghetti is actually pretty normal."

"Uh huh," says Chris, skeptical.

"Leo tried it with the pepperoni once, and he liked it." Chris' expression sours even further. "Oh look, it's the bitterness again. So funny, I thought you threw that face away with the tomato jar. Isn't it weird how it climbed all the way out and back up to your head?"

Chris shoots her a dry look. "I told you I'd help with your dinner. Nowhere in my agreement was a stipulation to get over my lifelong Leo issues in the ten minutes it took you to change your clothes and make it downstairs."

"Didn't take me that long," Piper mutters.

"It did. I heard every step. Like an earthquake," Chris says, laughing out loud as he dodges her smack. "Hey!"

"This is a sensitive time for me," Piper says, brandishing her knife. He shrinks away, still smirking. "Remember whose fault it is that I'm so big. Christopher."

Chris holds his hands up in surrender. "It's too easy. I shouldn't make fun, I'm sorry."

Piper chuckles, cutting the strips of zucchini into thin, weedy noodles. "Don't worry - I don't take it personally."

They work in silence for a while, the kitchen starting to bloom with the scenes of tomato and garlic. Piper used to think that if you cut her open, that's what she'd smell like. Her stomach would just be a big tomato, and all her blood and veins and organs would be pasta noodles, garlic and rosemary. "So I thought you two talked a bit. Worked something out."

Chris responds to her questions more receptively when she catches him off guard - when he's not expecting it. She feels sometimes like she's trying to catch him in a lie - sneak truth out of him, bit by bit. "It doesn't solve everything," he says. "There's no point, anyway."

Piper looks at him sharply, "hey. I don't want to hear that kind of talk, you understand me? Don't even think of it."

Chris nods, but without meeting her eye. There's an uncomfortable wedge, right beneath her heart. "Alright."

"You still haven't told me what there was to solve in the first place. Not really."

"Haven't you figured it out?" Chris asks, with a touch of exasperation. "You worked nearly everything else out on your own."

Piper almost laughs. "Are you kidding? I don't even know where you went to school. If you even went to school at all." Chris quiets, his face growing somber. "I don't know what music you listen to, what your friends were like. What you did with your free time, what movies you watched...what kind of clothes you wore - hell, I don't even know who you spent your time with! Who it was - after - "

Chris reaches out and neatly plucks the knife out of her hand. Piper blows out a slow breath, one hand on her rounded stomach. She feels a bit lightheaded. "Details," he says quietly, after giving her a moment. "Just details, Piper."

"Details matter," she says absently, sweeping the kitchen with her eyes. The broken tile by the window, where a badly aimed vanquishing potion once hit. The key rack by the door, the same one that's been there for decades, since Piper was just a little girl. Paige's collection of jackets, piled up by the door, Phoebe's stupid Tupperware that she never uses, overflowing in a cardboard box in the pantry. Two herb racks - one for cooking, one for potions - the basement door with the dent where Phoebe kicked it once - fridge magnets, half of which were bought by Prue - Leo's cherry sodas, which she still buys out of habit… "Details are what make a life. Details are your life, Chris. And I don't know any of them."

Chris sets the knife carefully down next to their bowl of zucchini, limp and green and listless. Piper is suddenly not very hungry anymore. "You know I can't tell you. And even if I could, you wouldn't understand it or want to know, not really. You know the important parts of who I am, and what my life was like. Some things are bigger than truth, Piper. That's the best I can give you."

"Yes, but - the small things - your favorite book, or, hell - I don't know. Your first kiss. The last time you saw the mountains. Surely that wouldn't change the future so dramatically - if you just gave me something - "

Chris sighs, standing up from the table, turning towards the window. Piper covers her mouth with one hand, regretting her words suddenly - wanting to pull them back, snatch them out of the air like flies.

"My favorite book," he says, moving over to the island, lifting the lid of the saucepan and angling his head away from the steam, "hasn't even been written yet. I could tell you the title, but what would it matter to you?" He stirs the sauce a few times, replacing the lid, then resting his hands on the empty counter, staring just off to the side of where Piper's sitting. Looking near her, but not at her. "It was a pretty successful book. It did very well when it was first published - you'll definitely hear about it, in the news or whatever. So what happens, in that moment, when you hear the title for the second time? And you remember, think to yourself - 'oh, that's Chris' favorite?'"

"I think, 'oh, that's Chris' favorite,'" Piper replies. "And I understand you a bit better. That's all."

"And what do you say to little Chris?" he asks, nodding at her stomach. "When you take him to the bookstore when he's older, and you show him the cover of the book, and he's not interested? What will you think then?"

Piper hesitates, caught by the idea of it. The surreal concept of this person in front of her and the baby in her stomach being the same person.

"It's bad enough, don't you see," Chris says, his face pleading, "that you know me as well as you do. You'll look for me in him - you won't be able to help it. And maybe it won't hurt anything - of course you won't mean anything by it, and I certainly don't think you'll treat him differently, or unfairly, because of your opinion of me. But...already, it's different. Do you see?" His face is creased with some kind of pain that Piper doesn't recognize, the knowledge of something she doesn't understand. As it always is - he knows something she doesn't. "I could tell you all these things - my friends, my school, my clothes, whatever. I could tell you all these details, and it would maybe make you feel better right now, in this moment - but then what happens if he's different? What happens if he's the same?"

Piper looks back down at her zucchini, breathing evenly and deeply. She doesn't know. She actually...really doesn't.

"You asked me why I lied about Wyatt, and of course you know why," Chris says lowly. "You just didn't want to admit it, at the time. But you get it, right? You get why I wasn't ever going to tell you."

"Yes," Piper says, forcing the word out. It was the kindest way he could do it, in a situation that wasn't kind to any of them. "Yes, I get it."

Chris comes back to his seat at the table slowly, the air between them heavy. What he's not saying, Piper hears anyway: I'm trusting you not to treat us differently. I'm trusting you to love them just the same, as if you didn't know. I'm trusting you with so much - and it still isn't enough. Why do you need more? Why do you always push?

She can't help it. It's what she does: she pushes. When she was little, she used to pull out her own baby teeth, as soon as they started to get loose. Her sisters were horrified, and Grams was mildly proud (in a weird, off-putting way), but Piper didn't understand why it was weird. It hurt - so she took it out. Of course she did.

Piper stares at the zucchini, so she doesn't have to look at his face. He looks so much like her dad, it's uncanny. Sometimes she can't bear it - to see that familiar face lie, over and over. Just like Dad. "Just tell me it's fixable. Whatever it is, with Leo - tell me I can keep it from getting out of control. Tell me it's something - something normal, something I can help with - "

Chris touches her arm, unspeakably gentle. "It's the most normal problem in the world," he says quietly. "You can fix it. You're already doing it."

Piper lets out a long breath, tears clouding her vision. She wipes them away with the back of her hand, brushing her sweaty hair out of her face in the same motion.

"And yes, I did go to school," Chris says, silently directing the conversation back to something lighter. "I even graduated."

"Really? From college, too?"

"Well - no," Chris says, "my college sort of got...blown up a little, halfway through my first year. But high school went very well, I must say."

Piper narrows her eyes. "You won't tell me the name of your freakin' favorite book, but you'll tell me someone blew up your college campus?"

Chris shrugs. "It's about cause and effect, Piper," he says, smiling wryly. "What are you gonna do with that fact? Somebody blew up a school you don't know the name of in a timeline that doesn't exist anymore? How is that gonna change the future?"

"It might change it more than me knowing who your first girlfriend was would," Piper argues.

"My first girlfriend was a girl named Abby and she was a terrible person," Chris says, grinning. "Literally just terrible. In every way."

Piper sputters. "Okay! First of all, I really wasn't actually asking that time, and second of all - how does that not do all that stuff you were saying before, bias me against little Chris' future self and personality, yadda yadda - "

"Because Abby's dad was a demon, and I killed him like six months ago," Chris says simply. "Ergo: no Abby." He grins at her. "See? Cause...effect."

Piper crosses her arms, unimpressed. "You're unbelievable sometimes, you know that? Just like that - you erased someone's existence, someone you dated, and it's no big deal?"

"She was evil, Piper. We only dated because she was trying to get close to me, so she could kill me." Chris is still grinning, having the time of his life with her discomfort, apparently. "So I didn't exactly shed tears over her, no."

"Oh. Well." Piper picks her knife back up. "That happens to all of us once or twice. Or...more than that. Possibly."

"Trust me," Chris says dryly, "I've heard the stories."

Piper narrows her eyes at him. "Which ones?"

"You tell me."

Piper throws a zucchini noodle at him. It hits him straight in the face, dangling limply off his nose.

"You deserved that," Piper says, smirking as he peels it off slowly, shooting her a dirty look.

"Bet I've got some you don't even know, too," Chris says innocently. "Since I prevented the cause, It's not going to change anything in this timeline to tell you that after Paige died, Phoebe went a little off the rails and dated a few real winners - "

"Okay, I changed my mind, I don't want you to tell me anything about the future," Piper says quickly, throwing another zucchini noodle at him. He dodges that one easily. "Let's go back to stoic and silent and kind of pissed off. That was easier for me to deal with."

Chris just smirks at her, handing over his last pile of stripped zucchini. He watches silently as she cuts them up carefully, sliding them off the cutting board with his hands and putting them into the waiting bowl for her.

"Isn't it lonely?" she asks. "I just think...you should talk to people. Everyone needs to talk to people."

"Of course it's lonely," he says. "That hasn't changed now that you know the truth. It's always been lonely."

Piper's hands freeze on the knife. She feels stricken by his bluntness.

"But it's worth it," Chris says casually, nudging her gently. "Come on. It's been about twenty minutes or so - the sauce should be almost done."

Piper forces herself back into movement. "I don't understand how you can...process these things like you do. Just...live with it every day, like it's no big deal." She shakes her head. "If it were me, I don't know how I'd even function."

"You would," Chris says confidently. He sighs. "It's like anything else, Piper. You can get used to anything, if you have to. You just get up every day and do it."

Piper nods silently. Yes - you get up every day, despite. Get up every day, even though. Get up and go, when all you want is to die.

"Thank you," she says, reaching out and catching his arm. "Thank you for coming back. Have we ever said that to you?"

Chris swallows visibly, his hands wavering on the bowl. He shrugs.

"Whatever happens, don't you dare forget how much we love you." Piper takes a breath, and forces herself to let him go. He stands immediately, the bowl held in a white knuckled grip. "You know what I mean, son. Don't you?"

"Yeah." Chris moves to the island, his face turned downward, at the counter. His hands tremble slightly, rattling the bowl against the tile. "Yeah. I love you too, you know?"

Oh, she knows. It was hard to see, at first. He's a good liar. But once she learned how to look, it was everywhere. Every breath, every word. Every painful, terrible, endless, beautiful day.

"So when do I add the cream?" Chris asks, pulling the lid off again. The steam obscures his face - probably his intention.

"Not until the very end, right before you serve it," Piper says, wiping her tears away. "Do you know how to temper it? So it doesn't curdle?"

"No," Chris says, setting the lid down carefully on a dishtowel. "I don't even really know what those words mean."

"Well, okay then," Piper says. "I can teach you."