For a long while, Chris was just amazed to, well, not be dead. He was pretty much ready to go. He'd made his peace with his mistakes, with all the things he'd done wrong. The deals he'd made, the compromising positions he'd been forced to put himself in. He would probably answer for it all in the afterlife, and he wasn't looking forward to what the Elders would say once they knew his whole story. But he could deal with it. Eventually.
But once the pain had faded completely and the fever broke and the wound had healed, well, he had time to try and focus. And wonder why the girl was telling him about Christmas wishes. Oh, fine, she was a new whitelighter, he didn't care so long as she did the job well and obviously she had. How she'd done it was beyond him, though. Gideon was powerful. An Elder, playing both sides... It was dangerous. He really didn't know how she'd done it.
And then something else she said made sense. "You...missed me?" He leaned up on his elbows, realizing he was still outside, on a sidewalk. Not the classiest place to nearly die. "Missed me how? Have we met?" So weird. This wasn't something he was really able to deal with. Wasn't being nearly dead enough? "Where... Um. Risk of sounding stupid here...where are we?"