𝐈𝐋𝐋𝐔𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍 || 𝐂𝐡𝐫𝐢𝐬 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐢𝐰𝐞𝐥𝐥

Chapter 9 - Grace

A familiar sharp pain shot through my head and I winced at yet another migraine coming on as I held the steaming cup of coffee in my hands, bare feet treading silently up the stairs to the attic. I guess that was to be expected though, the past few days had been so turbulent.

But at least the girls were able to get Piper back and the household was partially normal again. And even Paige had a date - with Oscar the dog, if you can believe it. Yeah...don't ask, it's too hard to explain. Everything was the way it used to be.

A sigh escaped my mouth as I reclined into the sofa in front of the stained-glass window, putting my feet up on the coffee-table as I began to flip through The Looking Glass-Wars book in my lap. It had just been released Friday and I had begged Paige like a puppy to take me. I smiled at the memory, my fingers tracing the curly font on the front just as memory lane took the turn back to the situation at hand.

I still wasn't sure in what capacity Leo was or was not staying at the manor. As far as I heard Phoebe tell it, Piper and Leo had made up - if, at least for Wyatt's sake - but she still didn't quite want Leo around here. The thought made a bubble of sadness well up in my chest - Leo was a father figure to me and always had been. In fact, he was really the only father I'd truly known since my demon bio-dad had never been in the picture.

At least he'd be in and out of the house though, that was something. Better anyway than him being stuck up there with the other Elders.

"Knock, knock," a voice sounded from the doorway, knuckles rapping on the hardwood frame.

I glanced up, not being able to stop the slight alteration of my heartbeat at the green gaze looking back at me. Rolling my eyes, I took a sip of my coffee, grimacing only slightly at the burn of the liquid as it slid down my throat.

"What do you want now, Chris?" I asked, not glancing up from my cup as he waltzed into the attic, "Shouldn't you be asleep or something? Or are you more like a Salvatore?"

Instead of scowling at me, a smirk split his face as he sat down across from me on one of the armchairs, "Maybe I am. Maybe I'm a real-life vampire and you just don't know it, Garcia."

I stuck my tongue out at him to which he only laughed, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Gosh, he was gorgeous when he laughed.

Whoa, nope, did not mean to think that!

I shook the thought away, leaning away from him to gain some clarity as I placed my book onto the coffee-table alongside my cup. He was our Whitelighter, nothing more than that. At least...it was what I needed to keep reminding myself. But still...being around him had a strange affect on me - one even I couldn't discern.

"What are you thinking?" he asked me suddenly, his melodic voice startling me from my own reverie.

I blushed scarlet, hoping he wouldn't notice and blurted the first thing I could think of besides, of course, the thoughts of him that had been circling in my brain, "Leo,"

His eyebrows furrowed and I explained, "I just wonder what life is going to be like now that he's back and sort-of living here again,"

Chris scowled in response, his mood suddenly darkening at the new subject matter. I knew him and Leo didn't get along - Leo didn't trust him and truthfully, who could blame him with the circumstances? But still...it did make me curious of why Chris hated him so much. It wasn't just mutual dislike, no, there was something much deeper there. Almost as if there were some years-long feud. But that was impossible - he'd only met Leo a few months ago as the rest of us had met him.

I cocked my head to the side then, observing the mixture of irritation and guilt flooding his features, "Why don't you like Leo? And don't tell me it's because he pushed you because I won't buy it,"

Chris visibly tensed, seeming even more irritated by my question than by the mention of Leo.

"I don't dislike him - he dislikes me for some reason," he waved away my question, trying to change the subject in vain.

But I wasn't letting go that easy. I was like a dog with a bone that way, I suppose.

"That's not true. You didn't like him before this mess with Piper and Valhalla. Admit it, you don't like Leo," I pressed him.

Chris was on his feet now, pacing across the hardwood floor of the attic. I curled my feet under me, sitting up straighter as I watched him. Strands of brown hair fell in his face, his blue eyes dark with apparent anger. Anger, I suppose, that I had caused.

"Just drop it, okay? It doesn't matter, none of it has ever mattered and it sure doesn't now." he fumed, his voice becoming louder in the stillness as he got himself worked up, "He never cared to fix what's broken and he never will."

I shook my head, confusion still blooming in my mind. Even that didn't make sense.

"Chris, look, I know it can be hard to have misunderstandings with people but it can't be that ba-" I began before he cut me off, voice so sharp it cut like a knife as he hurled his next words at me.

"No, you don't! Don't you dare say that! You have no idea what I've gone through so just shut up, Mattie Grace!"

I sucked in a sharp breath, eyes going wide as saucers with disbelief. It was like someone had punched me in the gut, confusion and shock ricocheting like bullets in my mind. Chris went silent then, blanching as he realized the words that had just crossed his lips.

"How...how did you-? How did you know my middle name?" I asked, my voice catching on the last words.

Grace. That name was steeped in bad memories for me, sticking like syrup to a stack of pancakes. It was tied to my father - my real father - as it was given to me by him at birth and consequently tied to the side of my DNA I hated more than anything, his demon kind - I couldn't disassociate the two for any given reason. I left Grace behind long before I even met the Charmed Ones. Even they didn't know of it. So how then...how could this Whitelighter boy know that about me?

Chris's lips pressed into a straight, hard line and the startled, guilty expression disappeared from his face, replaced by one unreadable to me. Wordlessly then, his form shimmered before bursting into an array of blue-and-white-orbs and in the blink of an eye, he was gone.

Leaving me totally and utterly alone with my thoughts.