Konichiwa

Disclaimer: Yes, I own Charmed. I own all of Charmed -- down to the very last character. Which is exacctly why I'm sitting here writing a pathetically pathetic (good choice of words, no?) fanfiction, even though I already get millions of bucks for writing the real episodes. Actually, now that I mention it, do we need disclaimers for Charmed anymore -- since, technically, no one owns it now that it's over . . . and now that Aaron Spelling bit the dust (no offense meant, Mr. Spelling)? Well, anyway, for those of you slow folks (not that I'm implying anything) I do not own Charmed. This was what most of us like to call sarcasm -- it was a joke of sorts. Now, since I'm assuming most/all of you knew I was just kidding (though I wish I weren't), I think it's safe to say we can get started on the actual episode. What do you think? All right-y then, let's go:

Basic Summary: Hmmm . . . It's pretty hard to write a summary for a oneshot, but I'll give it a try. Leo tells Chris that tears are for babies, so Chris stops crying . . . forever. He goes through year after year with the need to cry, but he is unable to do so. And, like everything other bad thing in Chris's life, it's all Leo's fault.

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Chris stayed home with a stomach virus one afternoon in second grade. When he trudged down the stairs at noon, expecting to find Piper in the kitchen, he was surprised to see his dad. His eyes were closed, and he looked as if he were concentrating very hard. Chris assumed he was using his Elder abilities to sense someone. He didn't want to bother Leo, but his stomach really hurt. He hoped that Leo wouldn't mind healing his bug so that he wouldn't feel so gross for the rest of the day.

"Daddy," Chris whimpered. "Daddy, I don't feel too good."

Leo scowled at Chris as if he couldn't be bothered with his younger son. "Chris, I'm busy right now."

"But, Daddy, my stomach hurts." Tears trickled down Chris's cheeks as he stared up at his father, hoping he would kneel down and hug him. "It hurts, Daddy."

"Chris!" Leo growled. "I said I'm busy. You're already eight years old, which means you're a big boy-which means you can't whine."

"B-but, Daddy," Chris stuttered. "It-"

"Stop it!" Leo snapped. "Stop your whining and your crying! Grow up!" Finally, he knelt down and grabbed Chris by the shoulders, shaking him vigorously. "It's time for you to grow up and stop complaining about every little bump in the road! Just grow up! You're a witch and a Whitelighter. It's about time you start acting your age-it's about time you grow up. Grow up!"

When Leo let go, Chris remained immobilized, shocked into silence. His dad had never done that before, but it had seemed as if Leo had wanted to do that for a while. Had he hated his younger son from the beginning?

Without a word, Chris backed away from Leo and orbed up to his room. However, he didn't cry-he wouldn't cry; he was going to grow up-just as his father had so kindly suggested. He wouldn't give Leo a reason to hate him any more than he already did.

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"Daddy?" Chris called quietly. He peaked his head around the corner but still couldn't find his dad.

"Daddy?" he repeated, a little louder this time. "Daddy, where are you?" Still no answer. Chris edged farther into the living room and whispered, "Daddy…"

"Chris!" someone said behind him, causing him to whirl around in shock. "Honey, what are you doing awake so late? I thought you went to bed." It was Piper.

"Hi, Mom," Chris mumbled, afraid she would be upset. "Wyatt just came upstairs and told me that Daddy came by, so I came down to say hi to him."

"Oh, sweetheart," Piper said sadly. "He… he just left a few minutes ago-he got called away. I'm sorry."

Sorrowfully, Chris stared down at his feet, shrugging. "That's okay, I don't mind. I just thought he might wanna say goodnight, that's all… seeing as he said it to Wyatt before Wyatt came upstairs." Piper didn't miss the bitterness in Chris's tone.

"Chris…"

"Mom, can I ask you a question?"

Piper gazed at her nine-year-old lovingly and nodded. "Of course you can, anything."

"Why doesn't Daddy love me?"

"What?" Piper cried, broken-hearted. "Of course he loves you-more than anything in the world! Why would you even think otherwise?"

Again, he shrugged and muttered, "It's just that… he's always doin' stuff for Wyatt but never for me. Is it 'cause Wyatt's got more powers? I didn't mean to be so weak, I'm sorry." He sighed and held back the tears that threatened to overflow. He wouldn't cry-he couldn't cry-he had promised himself that he wouldn't… not after the last time when his dad had yelled at him for it.

"Oh, baby," Piper moaned, furious at Leo for giving his child ideas like that. "That's not it at all. It doesn't matter if you have more power than Wyatt or not. I love you just the same… and so does Daddy."

"He doesn't act like it," Chris remarked matter-of-factly. "Are you sure?"

"Positive," Piepr confirmed immediately. "I know these things, too, because I'm your mother. You've got to trust me on this one, okay?" She tickled him lightly under his chin, and he grinned.

"Okay, Mom."

OooOooOooOooO

Silently, Chris slid into the room, unnoticed by the two bickering adults. He didn't want to eavesdrop-okay, fine, maybe he did-but he wanted to find out what was making his mom so upset.

"Daddy?" he whispered inaudibly when he saw whom she was talking to.

"What do you mean you can't stay?" Piper cried indignantly. "You promised them, Leo. You promised your sons you would take them out today!"

"I know, Piper," Leo replied irritably, trying to be patient with her, "but something came up, and I can't do it today."

"Something always comes up, Leo! It's the story of your life!"

"Piper, I'm sorry-really, I am; but this is important. I can't just blow off work."

"So… what? You can blow off your sons instead? You think that's actually okay? Do you think they'll keep forgiving you after they haven't seen you for years?" she demanded.

"Come on, Piper, that's not fair," Leo protested. "I haven't skipped out on them that much, and you know it."

"Not yet," came the dark reply.

The conversation Leo had had with Chris when he was eight was the only thing that made Chris hold back his tears. He hadn't cried once since that day, and he wasn't about to start now… But he knew what was about to happen. It always happened, and it amazed him how he could be so hurt every single time that Leo canceled a day he promised to spend with his sons.

Leo was going to choose the Elders over his boys, over his family. Once again, he was going to make his job more important than his family. Chris should have been used to it by now, but for some strange reason, he still felt a twinge of pain every time he heard Leo utter the words, "I can't."

Unseen by his parents, Chris raced from the kitchen and up to his room, where he fell onto his bed. He stared at the ceiling lifelessly, but his tears wouldn't come. He almost felt as if his humanity was slipping away from him. There was something terribly wrong with him if he couldn't cry when he was sad. Everyone cried. How was it possible for the little, ten-year-old boy to be physically unable to cry?

He wanted to blame his dad for that, but he could never blame Leo for anything. Leo was his dad-Daddy-Leo could do no wrong in his eyes. If he couldn't cry, it had to be his, Chris's, fault.

Maybe that was why Leo seemed to hate Chris. Maybe it was because he wasn't normal-because he couldn't cry. Maybe it was because he could never do anything right.

Chris didn't deserve attention from his dad. He didn't deserve the kindness and gentleness that Leo showed Wyatt. He didn't deserve love.

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"Hi, Daddy!" Chris squealed excitedly, orbing downstairs to see Leo before he had to orb away again, forgetting to say goodbye before he would leave. No, that wasn't true; Leo never forgot to say goodbye. He always said goodbye to Wyatt. It was just that sometimes he was so busy that he forgot that he hadn't already said the same to his younger son before orbing away.

At least that was what Chris kept telling himself.

But it didn't matter anyway because this time he would catch his dad and say goodbye himself. That way he would help Leo remember. When he appeared in a swirl of blue lights, his dad glanced up, an expression of fury on his face.

"What have I told you about orbing in the house?" Leo demanded angrily. "Doesn't your mother teach you anything about controlling your magic?"

"Yes!" Chris cried defensively, feeling the need to protect his mother's name. "Of course she does! I never orb when there are any mortals in the house."

"You shouldn't use your powers for personal gain," Leo scolded, shaking his head in disappointment. "I should think you'd know better by now. You're ten, Chris. You're already big enough to know the difference between right and wrong."

Chris snorted indignantly. "I'm eleven," he corrected hotly. Besides, if he were old enough to understand what was right and what was wrong, shouldn't Wyatt also be aware? Then why was the older of the two brothers always stealing money from their mom without asking and playing hookie and doing all that stuff only bad kids did?

Ignoring his younger son's comment, Leo continued to reprimmand him for using magic. "You could lose control of it," he added, and if Chris hadn't known better he would have said Leo actually cared about him. "You could end up exposing your magic to mortals."

"I won't expose my powers!" Chris yelled. If this had been a few years ago, he would have wondered where his tears were; they should have come long before now. But Chris had stopped questioning that a long time ago. He hadn't felt hot tears sting his cheeks for three years, and he knew now that they would never come again.

"You never know," Leo countered. "Just don't orb, Chris. Listen to me-I'm your father. Don't argue with me."

"Some father you turned out to be!" Chris shouted back, losing his temper. "Trevor's got a better dad than I do-and his dad's been dead since he was three!"

"Chris!" Leo roared, flying to his feet in his fury. Chris barely saw the motion-just a blur in the corner of his eye. It took a couple of seconds for him to feel the hot sting that burned his cheek. For a second he thought it was actually tears that had come, three years overdue. He had almost forgotten what tears felt like and welcomed it-until he realized it wasn't tears at all. It was the feeling of a slap against his cheek. The blur had been Leo's hand.

Chris turned away, disgusted with his dad-even hating his dad-and ran out of the room. Happy, Daddy? He thought, despising the man who was biologically his dad. I didn't use my precious powers-the ones I freakin' had to share with you.

More than anything right now, Chris wished he could get rid of the pieces of Leo within him-the power to orb, the power to sense, his height-anything that connected him to his so-called father.

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"Hey, Chris! Check this out!" Wyatt called to his brother, motioning him over to the flowing water. "Look at that!" The teen pointed to a dead frog in the mini river, the water pouring over it.

Chris came over and followed Wyatt's gaze, scrunching his nose in disgust at the sight. "What is that?" he shuddered. "How old is the body?"

Wyatt shrugged, smirking a bit. "About three minutes," he replied.

Surprised, Chris looked up at his brother's cool gaze. "You killed it?" he asked, and Wyatt nodded. "But… why?"

Again, Wyatt shrugged indifferently. "Because I can," he answered, chuckling to himself. "Why not?"

"It's a harmless animal," Chris portested, as if there were still some way of saving it, as if it wasn't lying in front of him, already dead.

"It's ugly," Wyatt said simply as if that justified his reasoning. "Look, forget about it, all right? It's just a dumb frog. I won't show you next time." He made it sound as if that would be the greatest deprivation for Chris-not being able to see a dead frog.

"I didn't even want to see it in the first place, genius!" Chris called after his older brother as Wyatt continued down the marked path. Chris turned back to the carcass, finding himself spellbound, unable to look away.

Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder and whirled around, expecting to see Wyatt standing behind him. He was thoroughly surprised to see that it was none other than Leo and immediately shrugged off his grip. Without sparing so much as a glance in his father's direction, the brunette headed off down the trail.

"Why did you do it?" Leo yelled to him, and Chris stopped walking long enough for Leo to catch up. "Why did you do it?" Leo repeated firmly, an annoyed expression playing on his features.

"Do what?" Chris asked, confused and impatient.

"Don't play games with me," Leo warned.

Chris snorted. "When have I ever played anything with you, Dad?"

"I'm warning you, Chris," Leo added in a low growl. "I want an answer-now."

"An answer to what?" Chris hissed in irritation. "Why did I do what? I haven't got the faintest idea of whhat you're talking about, so how about you clue me in!"

"The frog, Chris!" Leo burst out. "Do you think this is a game? Do you think you can just go around killing innocent creatures? That's the stuff that sets us apart from the bad guys-murder."

"What?" Chris demanded icily. "I didn't kill the frog. It was Wyatt! He just went on ahead, but he was here before. I had nothing to do with it! Whhy do you automatically assume it was my fault?"

"Because you were standing right over it when I orbed here," Leo answered calmly. "And I don't it's right of you to blame your brother. He's not even here now-how could he have done it?"

"He was here-before. He just went on ahead, though, probably because he sensed you were coming." The last part was said in an undertone and under his breath, but Leo heard it all the same.

In a flash, Chris's wrist was grasped tightly in Leo's hand; and Leo hissed, "Apologize. Now. I don't like this behavior I'm seeing in you, Chris."

"But I didn't do it," Chris protested in vain. "I swear… Just leave me alone. You don't know what's going on with us. You can't just orb down whenever you want and expect to know what's happening. That's not gonna fly."

"Don't tell me what I can and can't do, Chris," Leo said. "I'm the father; you're the son-not the other way around. I tell you what to do."

"So I noticed," Chris grumbled as Leo released him. After that, Chris bit his lip and stalked away. His teeth sunk into his lip until they drew blood, but no tears came-not that he was expecting them anymore. In fact, he would have been astonished if they did come. Tears were a thing so far in the past he could scarcely remember he had ever been able to cry!

Damn, why did his dad always have to make him feel like this?

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"Mom, can we go already?" Wyatt called in annoyance. "We're going to be late."

"I know!" came a voice from the kitchen. "I just need to get this chicken out of the oven. You want dinner when you get home, don't you?" It was a rhetorical question, Wyatt knew, but he answered it anyway.

"Not if it means I don't get to my game on time," he grumbled so that only Chris-who was standing right beside him-heard it. After a beat of silence, he began to complain again. "Can we just go already?"

"Mom!" Chris groaned. "Can you tell Wyatt to shut up? He's giving me a headache, and we haven't even gotten to the game yet!"

"If you don't want to come, don't," Wyatt hissed at his younger brother. "No one's forcing you."

"Wrong," Chris shot back. "Mom wants me to come since Dad's coming. She wants us to all be there today so that we can visit him-or he can visit us. I don't know which one."

"Not my problem," Wyatt snorted.

A few seconds later, Piper appeared in the doorway, exasperated. "Come on, boys!" she moaned. "You're going to make us late." Within a couple of seconds, she had grabbed her purse and exited the manor, letting the door swing shut behind her.

Chris and Wyatt stared at each other-neither able to hide a grin. Their mom always had a way of making them laugh, no matter how irritated they were. They scrambled outside and climbed into the car just as Piper turned on the engine.

"Well, it's about time," she sighed overdramatically. "Let's get going already!'

The boys chuckled as they drove to the basketball field. Piper and Chris both grabbed seats close to the front-saving one for Leo for when he showed up. When the game started and Leo still hadn't shown up, Chris assumed that-like all the other times-something had come up. However, ten minutes before game ended, Leo hurried over to them, a big smile on his face.

"How's he doing?" he asked, sliding into the seat beside Chris-to Chris's extreme uncomfort. "Is his team winning?" He seemed genuinely interested, and Chris couldn't help but feel a tiny spark of jealousy for Wyatt. Leo loved Wyatt. Why couldn't he love his second son that way, too?

"Yeah," Piper said grudgingly, letting her irritation drop with a sigh. She didn't want to bicker with Leo today-the only day he was here. "His team is winning by three right now, and there are ten more minutes left in the game.

Deciding to try to get along with his dad just this once, Chris sat up straighter in his chair. "Hey, Dad, guess what," he said with fake excitement. He was going to say he had gotten a ninety-five on his English test-his worst subject-but Leo never gave him the chance.

"Chris, I came to see Wyatt play today," Leo sighed, his eyes never leaving the court. "When I come to see you play, I don't let Wyatt get all the attention, right? So do you think it's really fair if you take all the attention away from your brother on the one day I come down to see him play?"

Chris slumped back in his seat, saying nothing. He didn't bother mentioning the fact that he never actually participated in any sports or teams-Leo probably wouldn't listen anyway. God, his dad was just so… so… self-centered! No, actually-Wyatt-centered would be a better word for it. Sometimes Chris just wished Wyatt weren't his brother. He just wished he had a few hours of the attention Wyatt always got from their dad. It wasn't fair-life just wasn't fair.

He would have bit back tears-except there weren't any to worry about. There never were nowadays, were there?

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"Mom!" Chris's eyes widened, and he could barely think straight.

Mom fell-demon's attacked-Mom's got an athame sticking out of her stomach-her chest-her heart-oh god-oh god-oh god-this isn't happening-her heart-how could this be happening?-Mom!-an athame-Mom!-she's dying-oh god, Mom!

"M-Mom?" Chris cursed the quiver in his tone as he dropped to his mother's side, ignoring the blood that pooled beneath his knees. He reached out and gingerly touched his mom's ice-cold hand. "Are y-you okay? Mom?"

Her lips-already tinted a deathly shade of pale blue-moved slowly, but Chris's couldn't make out the words. What was she saying-what was she trying to tell him?

A moan escaped her lips, but she persisted stubbornly, unwilling to give up without a fight. She wouldn't let go without getting him to understand what she was trying to say. Her lips moved again, and he was slowly able to make out the single word she mouthed over and her-her voice already gone.

'Love.'

"I love you, too, Mom," Chris said quietly.

A faint smile touched her lips, and they stopped moving. Briefly Chris wondered if maybe pretending he hadn't understood her would have kept her alive longer. So he just added guilt to the pile of many feelings he had accumulated in the few minutes he had seen his mom like this: hate, fear, despair…

No tears… How could there be no tears? Chris just didn't understand it. God, it felt so wrong to have dry cheeks after this. His whole world was just… wrong now. It had been turned upside down; it was going to hell. Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god…

He was so desperate to feel the tears that he even thought about going to the kitchen and wetting his face with water-if only just to have the feeling of someone who just cried. He needed tears now, but they would come. They would never come again.

Robotically, he got up to go to the kitchen; but before he could reach the sink, he heard the tinkle of orbs in the living-where his precious mother's body lay. Immediately, he walked back into the living room, his resolve hardening immediately. He knew who was here. Leo must have sensed that there was something wrong with Piper. He just didn't know how wrong it was.

Not feeling any sympathy for Leo, Chris stepped closer, watching through unfeeling eyes as Leo saw his ex-wife's crumpled, mangled, bloodied body. As naturally as breathing, tears spilled out onto his cheeks. Chris felt despise bubbling beneath his skin. Here Leo was, able to cry without a second thought-yet he, Chris, was deprived of that feeling of comfort simply because Leo had yelled at him all those years ago. Chris got an unnatural satisfaction from seeing Leo broken-hearted. A croooked smile played at his lips.

Leo tried in vain to heal Piper, and gave up after a few minutes. An audible sob bubbled to the surface, and more followed before he could stop himself. He clutched the dead body to his chest as if it might be able to console him.

"Come on, Leo," Chris suddenly heard himself say in a voice that wasn't his own. It couldn't be him speaking-it sounded too cold, too callous. "You really should know better than that. Why are you crying?"

Leo stared at Chris in shock, unable to move or speak. How could his son ask why he was crying when his wife-Chris's mother-was lying there, dead, on the floor? What could possibly compel him to ask such a question?

Chris couldn't be stopped. In a harsh, unsympathetic tone, he repeated those same words that had been spoken to him all those many years ago. "It's about time you start acting your age… It's about time you grow up."

OooooooooooooooooTHE ENDooooooooooooooooO

A/N: So . . . How did I do? I know, it's pretty strange. Actually, no, it's more than pretty strange. It makes absolutely no sense. Well, in all fairness, I did write it at about midnight -- when my brain was totally fried. Good enough reason . . . right? Well, I thought so. Anyway, I give you full permission to flame me -- a once in a lifetime opportunity! You should seize it and review! I don't care how horrible the reviews are -- I just want them! LoL! I'm greedy, I know -- and I'll probably regret it: karma working it's magic ways, LoL! Oh well, I'll take my chances. Pleas review!

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