Future Consequences by Kalvana--Updated 2/09

[mcharmed21]

Phoebe and Paige watched in horror as Leo slumped to the floor. They could see the area within the crystals distort, though they couldn’t tell why. “Piper!” Phoebe screamed, seeing her sister hold tightly to Chris’s hands.

“Demon!” Paige shouted, bring those who were outside the crystals attention to the figure on the doorway.

Melinda flicked up her hands, attempting to freeze the man, but there was no response, he only took another step forwards, his eyes on Piper. “Not a demon!” Melinda informed them.

“Harry!” Pi shouted, attempting to run into the intruder’s arms.

“Pi, no!” Phoebe screamed, gathering the girl up in her arms. “He’s under a spell. He’s here to kill Piper.”<br>
“What are his powers?” Paige asked.

“Conjuration,” Pi said as a sword appeared in the man’s hands.

“Paige!” Piper screamed from her place in the crystal cage. “Orb everyone out. One of the crystals too!”<br>
Paige nodded, realizing her sister’s plan. She gathered the Halliwell witches together, lifting Wyatt from his playpen. “Crystal” she called, even as they all disappeared in a swirl of light.

Piper could see Chris’s emotional energy burst from the cage, a wave of smoky gray knocking the intruding witch backwards, tumbling him into the wall. Piper watched as the intruder began to shake with the emotions Chris was projecting into him. She guessed Leo had somesort of immunity to it because of being an Elder. The only thing she could think that was protecting her was that she was prepared for it, but Harry was shaking from emotion as the pressure grew in the room, the air itself getting heavy and painfully pressurized. She saw the intruder’s nose begin to bleed as he screamed with the pain and then with a final shudder, passed out.

“Paige!” Piper screamed as Leo dragged her from the broken crystal circle. Paige orbed in, dropping the crystal she’d taken with her into place.

Piper dropped to her knees, looking back at her son as he began shaking restlessly again, shouting and screaming as his emotions began to rage outwards again. She panted, relieved of the pressure. “Paige, get back and help Phoebes with the girls. I don’t want them seeing Chris like this,” Piper instructed. Paige left in a swirl of orbs.

“He’s dead,” Leo said quietly, looking down at the man on the attic floor.

Piper dropped onto her back and laughed looking up at the ceiling. “Think about how amazingly powerful he is,” she laughed. “That was barely a taste of what Chris’s capable of. He’s an empath, giving him the ability to channel the emotions of thousands into power like that. The emotions of thousands living in a war zone. That was just his own.”<br>
“Chris is very powerful,” Leo agreed.

Piper laughed again. “And think about what Wyatt must be capable of in the future if he is winning against Chris and the Elders, the Charmed Ones and an army of magic folk willing to die to stop him. He’s so strong.”<br>
“Too strong,” Chris groaned. His parents turned to look at him, seeing that he was still unconscious. He twisted on the couch, gripping the cushions. “He’s too strong!” he shouted. He then seemed to soften, relax. “I don’t want to go,” he whispered. “I don’t want to leave you. I—“ Chris complained, stopping suddenly as if listening to someone. “I love you,” he said seriously, breathlessly. “Just make sure you take care of the guards, okay? Then get out of here. Because if he finds you, if he knows you betrayed him, he'll kill you.”<br>
Chris jerked in his sleep. “You really expect me to jump into this thing like before?” he asked. “How can you be so cold? How can you just stand there and pretend like we never meant anything to each other.” Again he was listening to the voices in his head. “Bianca, please don't do this. Don't give up on everything that we fought for.”<br>Piper stood at the edge of the magical barrier protecting her and the rest of the world from her son. She watched as he relived precious moments of his life and wished there were more happy ones for him.

“Hello, Wyatt,” Chris said flatly and for the briefest of moment Piper thought this might be a happy memory.
Her hopes were dashed. “I didn't go back to betray you, Wyatt. I went back to save you.” He seemed to sigh as he listened. “From whatever evil it was that turned you.” Chris growled low in his chest and Piper wished she could hear the other side of the conversation. “And whoever has the most power wins, is that it?”<br>“Too bad the rest of the city isn't fairing as well as your little shrine here.” Chris paused, seeming to lose his anger for the moment. “I think you know me better than that.” Again Chris growled. “Leave her out of this!” he spat, then grabbed at his throat, emitting gurgling sounds as he choked. The choke was released and Chris twitched and flailed as if he’d been tossed across the room, instead tumbling from the couch to the floor.

[mcharmed21]

Chris twitched again in pain, his next words conspiratorially low. “Don't worry. I know what I'm doing. I think,” he added with a half laugh. There was a long pause and he looked afraid. He started speaking again, his words rushed. "Powers of witches rise, come to me across the skies, return my magic, give me back, all those taken from the attack."
Piper recognized the spell they’d used to give him back his powers and knew he was remembering what happened on the other side of that portal. “No!” Chris screamed, a primal sound. His arm flew out and Piper and Leo both saw everything trapped in that crystal cage with him hit the barrier, turning to smoke and flame: couch, cushions, the rug beneath him. “Bianca. No, no, no, no,” he cried, his face twisting in grief, tears flowing freely as he chocked on his own sobs. “Maybe we will be again,” he choked out hopefully. “No,” he said, shaking his head vehemently. Piper choked back a sob of her own as she watched her son relive the death of his fiancé, the mother of his child, the woman he loved.
Piper watched him drag himself to his feet, his eyes open, but unseeing. "Hear these words, hear the rhyme, heed the hope within my mind.” He ducked, turning to face something. “Send me back to where I'll find, what I wish in place and time."
“Oh god,” Leo gasped, seeing what Piper had yet to see. A bright blue tear began opening in the floor, a portal to someplace else.
“Chris!” Piper screamed, trying to get his attention. But he still stood, unseeing, or more accurately, still reliving his memory.

“Chris!” Leo echoed, staring terrified at the portal, watching as his son stepped towards it.

Piper saw it too now and kicked away one of the crystals, shouting in pain as the pressure within the force field broke through. But, it was too late. Chris had stepped into the shining tear in reality. Without a thought, Piper followed with Leo right on her heels.

“They’re gone,” Paige whispered to Phoebe as they watched the girls playing and sparring with their powers in the field. Wyatt sat on Phoebe’s lap, playing with a stuffed bear they’d brought.

“What?” Melinda asked.

“I can’t sense them. Not Piper, not Chris, not even Leo,” she explained, her voice thinly trying to conceal panic.

“What do you mean they’re gone?” Phoebe asked, beginning to panic.

“Just that. I don’t know.”<br>
“Girls!” Phoebe shouted, wrangling up her daughters. “We’ll go back, see if we can find a clue as to where they went.”<br>

[mcharmed21]

“Bastard!” Leo and Piper turned in surprise. They were in their attic, but it was different, destroyed. They turned to the voice, seeing a tall blond man pounding at the triquatra symbol on the wall. Piper watched Chris as he seemed to shake his head, bringing his wits about him as the last of the Kierzak demon’s spell wore off. “You’ll regret that, little brother!” Wyatt screamed.

“I regret nothing!” Chris shouted, thrusting his arms forward, pushing Wyatt through the wall, leaving him screaming. Chris turned quickly, using his powers to lift Bianca from the broken table leg. “Heal her, now!”

“But—“ Leo started, concerned about what Chris had said about healing damage caused by his own blood.

“It was indirect! He didn’t mean to do it! He loves her in his own twisted way!” Chris screamed, watching in relief as his father dropped to his knees, working furiously to heal the gaping wound.

“You brought our parents?” Wyatt asked as he reappeared in orbs. “Fool! You’re not even born yet in the time you and they came from. I kill them now and you never will.”<br>
“And do you really think I’d let you do that?” Chris shouted.

Just as Bianca gasped a breath and woke, Chris ran at Wyatt, physically tackling him to the ground. They both disappeared in the familiar swirl of blue and white light.

“Chris!” Piper shouted after them.

“No!” Bianca snapped, shaking her head as she gained her wits about her. “Wyatt will hear you too.”<br>
“Where did they go?” Leo asked.

Bianca shrugged. “If Chris survives, I know where he’ll go.” Bianca dragged herself from the floor, taking Leo and Piper’s hands, shimmering them all away from the attic.

[mcharmed21]

“We’re protected here,” she explained when they reappeared in a dark room, her voice echoing. With flicks of her hands, torches were lit. “The magic of the dead keeps it from Wyatt’s radar. He knows of it’s existence, but he has yet to find it. And if he did, there is no power to harm here. It’s the last piece of truly neutral territory we have.” Bianca dropped down onto the floor, sitting against the wall as she looked up at Chris’s parents. “Why are you here?”<br>
“Chris was attacked by a Keirsak demon. He was reliving memory. He said the spell, opened the portal, stepped through and we followed.”<br>
“But that spell is only a door to the past, not the future.”<br>
“Well, technically, this is Chris’s past. Or, at least it was at the moment we stepped through,” Leo pointed out.

Piper groaned. “I’m never going to figure out time travel.” Piper looked around at the graveyard. She’d been here not too long ago. Leo watched as Piper stepped over to a stone with her name on it, but ignored the rock for a patch of barren earth and rock in front of it. She knelt down, touching the spot tenderly.

“Don’t!” Bianca gasped. She laid her hand over her mouth, the color draining from her face. “Please,” she added.

Piper nodded, moving away from her granddaughter’s grave. “Will Chris survive?” Piper asked.

“They fight for opposite sides, leading good and leading evil. They fight and will die for it, but have yet to kill each other. Chris doesn’t have the heart. Wyatt likes too much to torture his great betrayer,” Bianca shrugged. “You can’t be here,” Bianca added. “It’s too dangerous.”<br>
“Betrayer?” Leo asked, ignoring Bianca’s comments.

Bianca nodded and laughed bitterly. It was odd seeing Piper. They’d never meet except for glimpses of eachother when Bianca had gone to the past, but Bianca still felt as if she knew the older woman. She reminded her so much of Chris, his curiosity, his single mindedness, his intense stubbornness, but despite all of that, there was no escaping the caring they both exuded. “Wyatt feels that everyone who is against him betrayed him. Wyatt feels that Chris, being his brother, should be his number one supporter. Instead, he leads the fight against him. He makes it out to be the ultimate betrayal.” She shook her head, shaking away the tears. “Unfortunately Wyatt is twisted enough not to see murdering everyone Chris has ever loved as betrayal.”<br>
“You’re still alive,” Piper pointed out.

“My relationship with Wyatt has kept me alive longer than I should have been.” Bianca nodded. “I am Wyatt’s ultimate betrayer,” she said sadly. Piper sat down next to the young woman. “My mother was one of Wyatt’s first recruits. He was young then, barely thirteen when he started recruiting. First demons and evil witches. We were the same age. He took a liking to me. My mother basically sold me to him as a consort,” she spat. “He was powerful and I found myself seduced by it. Nature of a phoenix, after all.” Bianca pushed away angry tears. She never talked about her relationship with Wyatt with anyone, barely even with Chris.

[mcharmed21]

Piper reached out, taking Bianca’s hand. “It’s okay.”<br>
“A couple of years after your death, Wyatt was setting up the museum at the manor. I was there with him when Chris appeared in a last ditch effort to steal away the book. Things got out of hand and Chris grabbed me as a human shield and hostage. He bound my powers and I stayed in the caverns. There’s no way in or out without shimmering or orbing or blinking. Phoebe wanted me executed and my body sent back to Wyatt in pieces, made no bones about telling me that. Chris, though, he told her that he would not sink to Wyatt’s level. I just lived there and I watched him and Phoebe care for all these people and take care of them all and Chris was so good to me. He treated me like a person. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t a warrior in someone’s service, or a consort, or a witch trading her skills. I was just Bianca and Chris let me have that. I fell in love so easily. So easily.”<br>
She laughed at herself as she pushed away her tears. “When Chris gave me back my powers, I shimmered out immediately. I know he felt as if I’d betrayed him. I went directly to Wyatt’s compound and managed to take out all of his counselors before I was too wounded to go on and I shimmered back. Wyatt never even saw me. I’ve been with Chris ever since.” Leo nodded, smiling weakly to Piper, leaving her to comfort the crying woman. “I was playing both sides, but I knew from the moment it began that Wyatt was suspicious. I refused his advances and he knew that there was someone else. When I got pregnant, I disappeared from his Court. It wasn’t long until I was found out and he went on a rampage.” Leo stepped away, looking at the names etched into crude lumps of rock.

Piper slid her arm around the other woman, letting her rest on her shoulder as she cried. It was hard to equate the woman crying in her arms to the woman who had come back to kidnap Chris, the Phoenix, the killer she had assumed her to be.

Bianca jumped to her feet, pushing away the last of her tears as orbs appeared. Piper stepped back, knowing that Chris and Bianca needed a moment to properly reunite. But the form was not Chris and she froze.

“What the hell is going on?” future Leo snapped. “Everyone in the underworld, the heavens and earth is aware of a battle. It can only be those two! I thought Chris was in the past!”<br>
“He was and he will be again,” Bianca argued coldly. “Where are they?”<br>
“Orbing all over the damned globe, too fast for me to catch up!” future Leo shouted, glaring at the young witch in front of him. “And there was healing! In the museum of all places! Care to explain that?” he snapped. “How can you be so foolish!”<br>
“Bianca was healed,” Piper said, seeing the other witch look down, ashamed of being alive.

Future Leo swung his head around to face the intruder on their conversation, only to visibly shake when he saw her. “Piper?” he gasped, not trusting his own eyes. He blinked, trying to reassure himself. “Oh, God, Piper!” he breathed, closing the few steps between them, sweeping her up in a kiss, his hands framing her face.

[mcharmed21]

Leo perused of the gravestones, seeing Phoebes, and who he assumed to be her husband. Beside that stone was a small one with the name of Prudence Penelope “Prune Juice” Halliwell. He glanced up when the arguing began, but stayed still, knowing that the newcomer was unaware of his presence. But, when the man grabbed his wife, kissing her, he decided to make that presence known. “Hey!” Present Leo shouted, making his way to the couple. He managed to pull the man away from his wife and froze when he saw his face. The two Leo’s stared at each other, circling around each other. Identical, but different. Future Leo appeared the same age, which made sense with technically being dead, but the age seemed to weigh roughly on him. Their clothing was similar: jeans and t-shirts, though future Leo’s were stained and torn. Future Leo had a scar stretching from the corner of his mouth to his ear. And most noticeably, where as present Leo’s hair was short, future Leo’s was shaggy and curly as if he didn’t have the time or presence of mind to have it cut regularly and it went from dark blond to almost white at the tips, bleached by the sun, or something else.

“What the hell is going on?!” future Leo demanded, turning to Bianca for answers.

“I went to the past to retrieve Chris.”<br>
“On whose order?”<br>
Bianca bit her tongue at the question, looking angry. “My own!” she shouted, stepping into future Leo’s face. “With Chris gone, who do you think has been making the decisions? The caverns were invaded. Most of us are dead and the ones that survived were incapacitated and are now in your son’s dungeons!”<br>
Future Leo looked honestly surprised. “When did that happen?”<br>
“Months ago! Less than a month after Chris left!” She seemed to calm herself a little bit. “Wyatt gave me a choice, either go back and retrieve Chris, or watch him murder the rest of us starting with Pay and Pi! Wyatt promised me he wouldn’t harm Chris! He’d strip him of powers and let him and the rest of us be!”<br>
“And you believed him?” future Leo spat.

“Yeah, I chose to because I knew that even if Chris were killed when he returned, I knew that that would be a sacrifice he’d have no problem making even if it meant only one more day that his daughters got to live!”<br>
Future Leo bit his lip, his next words barely a whisper as if he knew they’d be hurtful and regretted them. “They’re not his daughters,” he said.

“They’re the closest thing he has because of your hatred of me! Because you refused to answer his call, sensing it was me in pain!” Bianca screamed as tears sprung to her eyes. She slumped back down to the floor, letting herself cry as she stared at Piper’s grave and the grave of her daughter.

He knelt in front of the young woman. “I don’t hate you. I hate only what you remind me of.” Bianca looked up at him through tear filled eyes. “You remind me of this war,” he said softly, answering her unspoken question. “Both of my son’s love you.”<br>
“Wyatt doesn’t know what love is,” Bianca spat.

“He does. He just knows hate better.”<br>
“You allowed my daughter to die,” Bianca seethed.

[mcharmed21]

“I sensed it was you in pain, but I also sensed that it was not life threatening.”<br>
“To me,” Bianca shouted. “But to my daughter?! Chris’s daughter?!”<br>
“I didn’t know. I should have, but I didn’t even know you were pregnant,” Future Leo sighed, almost apologetically. “I should have,” he repeated. “I would never allow you to die because you have saved Chris’s life. Soul as well as body.” He ran his hand over Bianca’s hair, showing the slightest sign of affection to the young woman who held his youngest son together before turning to face his past self and the lost love of his existence. “So Bianca went to the past?”<br>
Piper nodded. “She stripped Chris’s powers and took him through a portal. In the past, we put a spell in the floorboards of the attic to give him his powers back. Bianca and Chris fought Wyatt. Bianca was impaled and Chris escaped through the portal.”<br>
“Then what are you all doing here?” future Leo asked.

Present Leo stepped forward. “Wyatt’s been sending assassins back to kill Chris. Actually, to kill Piper to negate Chris’s existence. One of them was a Kierzek demon.”<br>
“It trapped Chris in his own mind,” Piper continued. “We got the potion to reverse it. He started projecting everything as he relived key moments. And I guess, as he was reliving the moments where Bianca was impaled, he recited the spell for time travel. A portal opened up on the floor and he stepped through. Leo and I followed. We ended up in the attic just as he’d left.”<br>
“And you healed Bianca,” future Leo concluded, gesturing to his past self. “And now Wyatt and Chris are fighting.”<br>
“Yes,” Piper answered for them all.

“We have to get Chris back to the past,” future Leo said.

“You sent him in the first place?” present Leo asked.

“No, but I supported it. This needs to stop before it starts.”<br>
“How are things not already affected?” present Leo asked. “How is it that you don’t remember where I am now?”<br>
”The time lines are separated and will remain separated until true and lasting change occurs, until something solely in the past does something to change this future. Things from the future can’t affect the present.”<br>
“But Chris—“ Piper started.

“Has been urging the Charmed Ones to change their own future,” future Leo argued.

“But what about Wyatt?” present Leo asked. “Why doesn’t he just go back to the past himself?”<br>
Future Leo shook his head. “He won’t do that because in the past is the one known force that has the power to stop him: The Charmed Ones.” Future Leo let out a long sigh. “We have to get Chris out of here.”<br>
“How do we do that? I can’t sense them,” present Leo muttered.

“My powers have grown stronger. So, I can,” future Leo said. “But they’re moving too fast. I’m sensing them as they’re leaving one place or another. All we can do is wait.”<br>
“For what?” Piper asked.

Future Leo shrugged. “For one of them to be injured enough that they slow down.”<br>
“I’m not quite sure how I feel about the possibility of Wyatt being injured, but I am not willing to let Chris die!” Piper shouted at future Leo.

“There’s no other option,” Bianca said sadly. Future Leo nodded his agreement and sat to wait. Piper plopped down onto the nearest seat, completely unaware that she was sitting on her own gravestone. The image was unnerving and disturbing to present Leo, as he paced through the cavernous graveyard. But, it didn’t seem to bother his future self, who sat lounged against a gravestone with a name Leo didn’t recognize. Present Leo watched as his future self stared at Piper, watching her every moment with a bemused smile on his face, occasionally licking his lips.

Piper kept her head down, staring at the ground. She was trying to wrap her head around the fact that somewhere out there her two sons were trying to kill each other. She was trying to wrap her thoughts around the fact that the young man she had so distrusted just a few days ago was her number one concern, her son. And though her thoughts were centered on Chris, the disconcerting gaxe of the future form of her husband was beginning to make her feel uneasy.

[mcharmed21]

“Hey!” present Leo shouted, catching all of their attention. Piper breathed a sigh of relief when she looked up and saw her husband calling for his future self, waving him to follow to the other side of the room. Future Leo reluctantly rose and followed.

“Is he always like that?” Piper asked softly, not really thinking anyone was listening.

Bianca sat down next to her. “I’ve met him only a few times. But there are many stories of him in our camp, just as I am sure there are many stories of Chris in his own.”<br>
“What do you mean?” Piper asked.

“He keeps a camp in the heavens. They are even more constantly under attack. It is considered the more dangerous of the two positions. He’s dealing with the effects of good versus evil. Chris, here, was dealing only with the repercussions of the battle. Though, many consider him the hero of it all.”<br>
“How do you mean?” Piper asked quietly.

“Wyatt can’t go to the heavens, or won’t. I don’t think Leo and him have actually come face to face for years, maybe even since your death. Not long after you died, Leo tried to take Chris up there to be with him, to fight along side him, but Chris had already seen the refugees Wyatt had created, seen that there wasn’t that escape for everyone. He made the decision to stay on earth with Phoebe. He gave up paradise to defend people he didn’t know from his own family.

“Phoebe once told me that Leo was so angry. Said that he felt betrayed by both sons, but he recognized the goodness in Chris’s heart. Phoebe said it saddened him to finally make the break from this world that the Elders had been pushing for. Leo became Chris’s ally, but no longer his father. But, both of them are folk heroes in the other’s camp.”<br>
“And they barely know eachother because of it.”<br>
“Yes. I’ve been told how much Leo had hardened since your death. I didn’t really believe it until I met him in the past. I couldn’t believe the Leo I knew being anything but determined and focused to the point of ignoring everything but what was right in front of him. He’s a good leader, but he is the commander of an army and makes no qualms about sacrificing one thing for another. He can be harsh and seemingly uncaring,” Bianca explained. “He won’t speak of you.”<br>
“Why?” Piper asked, watching as the two Leos spoke quietly on the other side of the room.

“I’m not sure. He just refuses. Yet another reason he and Chris have lost any familial bond. You were what connected them.”<br>
“I have to ask you something,” present Leo said softly. He watched his future self with his eyes still trained on Piper. He moved to step into the older version of himself’s view. “I want to know something.”

Future Leo rolled his eyes. “If you’re going to ask me to stop staring at your wife, don’t forget she’s my wife too.”<br>
“No,” present Leo said sternly. “Your wife is dead.” Present Leo saw the stricken look that crossed his other self’s face, almost felt the pain the statement caused. “Which brings me to my question: how could you have let Piper die?”<br>
Future Leo looked down at his hands, for the first time since they’d met, looking humble and sad instead of angry and cold. “There was nothing I could have done,” he breathed. “I can’t heal damage caused by my own blood.”<br>
“I was there. I saw what happened,” present Leo said.

“How?” his future self asked eagerly.

“Chris showed me. Showed the sisters and me the death of the Charmed Ones, the four Wyatt killed.” Present Leo saw a tear in his other self’s eye. “How could you have let them die? Please? Explain it to me. Tell me I’m not as horrible as I think I am in the future,” he pled.

Future Leo nodded. “I couldn’t sense when Paige got stabbed. There was too much going on. I was in overload. The heavens and the school were under attack. The whole world was screaming. Phoebe died on her own. And it was quick. Too quick for me to have stopped, not that I could have done anything once Wyatt stabbed her.”<br>

[mcharmed21]

“Wyatt was directly responsible for Phoebe too?”<br>
“Yes. Killing is what he’s good at. I went to save Prunie, to get to her so I could get her to a healer, but I was too late. I couldn’t get there until Wyatt had left.”<br>
“Why?” Leo asked.

“Wyatt has yet to capture an Elder, a true Elder. And there are only three of us left. If he were to capture any of us . . . Could you even imagine the terror he could wreak if he were to have the knowledge of the Elders. It’s too big of a risk.”<br>
“And Piper?”<br>
“I told you. There was nothing I could have done.”<br>
“I never thought myself so low,” present Leo spat. “When Chris told me why you weren’t there, I couldn’t believe him. I couldn’t accept I could ever—“

“Why did Chris say I wasn’t there?” future Leo asked, his face twisting in confusion.

“He told me that he always believed that the reason you let Piper die is because you wanted her in the heavens with you!” present Leo seethed.

Future Leo slumped to the floor, looking in complete shock. “Add it to the lists of reasons for Chris to hate me,” he said to himself. He looked up at his younger self with the indignation and anger coloring his features. “Piper is not in heaven. Neither is Paige or Phoebe.”<br>

[Nite Owl]

“I don’t understand,” present Leo said, shaking his head. “How is that poss—“

“Feel them,” future Leo instructed. He watched his younger self bite back an argument and close his eyes, watched as he breathed a calming breath, watched him frown.

“I can’t.”<br>
“Feel them,” future Leo repeated.

Present Leo concentrated, pushed away the distraction of his present day wife in search for the spirits of the Charmed Ones. And then he felt them. “They’re moving so fast,” he whispered. It took him a moment to focus on them, feel them. “They’re angry and bitter.”<br>
“Yes.”<br>
“And they’ve given up,” present Leo added. His older self nodded sadly. “They’re moving so fast,” present Leo repeated, his eyes snapping open. “I don’t understand. Where are they?”<br>
Before the question could be finished, his future self screamed, doubling over in pain. “He’s hurt!” future Leo gasped, getting attention even from the women across the room. “But at least they’ve stopped moving.”<br>
“What?” present Leo asked, confused.

“Chris,” Bianca said, already on her feet.

“Why can you feel him so strongly?” present Leo asked.

“Because he’s my son,” future Leo shrugged.

“But—“

“No,” future Leo corrected before the argument could be made. “Your son hasn’t been born yet.”<br>
“You have to get him!” Bianca pled.

“We will,” the two Leo’s assured her at the same time. Future Leo continued. “Wyatt will kill you if you stay.”<br>
Bianca shook her head as she realized what Leo was suggesting. “But who’ll—“

Future Leo wrapped his arms around her, kissing her on the forehead as he did. “Who’ll take care of my son if you don’t?” he asked gently, giving her a smile. “You have to go.” Sadly, she nodded. “Good. You and Piper draw the triquatra, prepare for the spell. Leo, we’ll orb together. You grab Chris get him here and through the portal.”<br>
“What are you going to do?” present Leo asked.

“I’m going to try and distract Wyatt long enough for you to get through.”

“But if Wyatt gets you—“

“There is no future,” future Leo said. “It has yet to be written. Think of this as a first draft.”<br>
“There will be no coming back for Chris . . .” present Leo whispered to himself. The two Leo’s nodded at eachother, understanding completely. Future Leo turned, placing a lingering kiss on Piper’s lips. Present Leo only bit his tongue, not knowing how to react to his future self kissing his wife. Future Leo turned, looking at present Leo. “Protect her with everything you have. Your life may not depend on it, but your soul most certainly does.”<br>
“I don’t understand. How—“

“There’s no time!” future Leo shouted, cringing from continued pain. Present Leo could only nod and reluctantly prepare himself. “Ready?” They both nodded and orbed out.



Wyatt pushed his hair out of his face so he could look down at his brother without the curtain between them. “Don’t make me do this!” he shouted.

“I make you do nothing!” Chris shouted weakly, holding his hand over the burn on his stomach from the energy ball he’d been hit with. “Everything you have done has been a choice! One influenced by a spell, but choice none the less!”<br>
“You’re wrong, Chris,” Wyatt said, shaking his head. “If you would just accept what we are—“

“You’re a killer! I’ve accepted that!” Wyatt growled, shaking his head. “You murdered our aunts! Our mother!”<br>
“They were keeping us from what we truly can be. Can’t you see that? Can’t you see that they were holding us back? We could be the greatest magical force this world has ever dreamed of. We are more powerful than the Charmed Ones could ever be!”<br>
“Liar!” Chris laughed. “If you were so powerful, you wouldn’t fear them!”<br>
“I do not fear them!” Wyatt shouted. He ducked down as he tried to reel in his anger. “Join me, Chris. That’s all I ask. Be my brother.”<br>
“I am your brother,” Chris said, dropping his head back onto the cold ground. “But I am also my mother’s son and I can’t let you do what you’ve done.”<br>
“Then you leave me no choice,” Wyatt said sadly. Chris looked up, seeing a small swirl of orbs in Wyatt’s hand, saw it materialize into an athemae. With a powerful strike, Wyatt dropped to his knees, ramming the blade as deep into his brother as he could. And then the world was orbs.

Wyatt turned, seeing not only one father, but two appearing in orbs. The one from his own time, scarred and worn stood between him and the one from his past, who knelt over his little brother. “Get him out of here,” future Leo said, without turning to look at his younger self.

“But—“

“Hi, Dad,” Wyatt grinned. “Long time no see.”<br>
“Go!” future Leo shouted, thankful when he heard the orbs. Quickly he ran at his son, knocking him to the ground, orbing him as he did, struggling to keep the orbing going so that Wyatt would not be able to sense his brother’s whereabouts. And when Wyatt’s energyballs finally wounded him enough that he could not keep them orbing, he met his fate gratefully knowing that Chris was safe in the past.

[Nite Owl]

Piper wasted no time in grabbing a soft clay stone from the cavern floor. She jogged to the cavern wall and started drawing the symbol of her family. Bianca soon joined her, drawing the opposite side of it. They stood waiting anxiously, hands twisting together and pacing. The moment orbs began to form, Piper started to recite the spell she’d heard Chris use, only to have Bianca elbow her, stopping her mid word. “Not until we know it’s not Wyatt.”<br>
Piper nodded, feeling silly, but started again when Leo appeared, kneeling on the floor over a wounded Chris. Bianca ran for Chris, helping Leo to get him off the floor as Piper finished opening the portal and the four of them ran through.





Phoebe paced the attic furiously. “Where could they be?” she snapped at Paige, who sat with her eyes closed, focusing on trying to sense them. The two girls sat on the floor playing with baby Wyatt. Fleetingly, Phoebe wondered if they realized the tiny baby they were playing would become the man who murdered their sister.

“Here!” Paige gasped in surprise, just as a blue light tore through the wall of the attic. The watched as Piper came jogging out, followed by Leo and a woman supporting Chris.

“B!” Pi shouted, running at the woman. That’s when Paige and Phoebe recognized her as Bianca. Pay quickly joined her sister, hugging at Binaca’s legs. “Girls, get back!” Bianca commanded gently before turning her attention back to Chris.

“Get him on the couch!” Leo suggested, then realized that Chris had destroyed the couch. “On the floor,” he suggested finally.

“Oh god!” Paige gasped, seeing the gaping wound in Chris’s stomach, the blade still there.

Phoebe grabbed her two daughters, pulling them away as Leo tried to heal Chris. “Why is nothing happening?” Piper demanded.

“Chris told me I can’t heal damage caused by my own blood!” Leo explained, still panicked.

“Out of my way!” Bianca snapped, pushing everyone away from Chris. She seethed as she pulled the blade from his gut, muttering apologies for causing him pain. She tore open his shirt, ripping it into shreds as she did, pressing them into the wound. “It’s going to be okay, baby,” she promised quietly as she reached up to brush hair from his face. She took the athemae in her hand. “You’re going to be fine.”<br>
Bianca grabbed the handle in one hand and blade in the other and pulled apart, slicing open her own palm. She removed the makeshift bandages and placed her bleeding palm on top the wound. They all watched as a warm red glow surrounded both Chris and Bianca. Chris’s breathing eased and deepened all at once.

“What was that?” Leo asked.

“I’m a phoenix, remember?” Bianca spat. “We rise from the ashes. Our blood has minor healing properties. It’ll stabilize him and stop the bleeding.”<br>
“Why don’t you do this more often?” Piper asked, knowing Chris had been in a coma for months after the attack that killed Prue.

In response, Bianca raised her arms, palms out, revealing long thin scars crisscrossing her hands and forearms. “Wyatt can detect it too, so it’s not something I do carelessly. Besides, it doesn’t really heal as much as it stabilizes people so they can heal on their own.”<br>
“Bianca,” Chris said weakly, reaching to grab her still bleeding hand. “You’re alive,” he said, surprised by the thought.

“Yeah, baby,” Bianca whispered back, lying down next to him, cuddling into his side. “We’re both alive and I intend to keep it that way.”<br>
“I love you,” Chris whispered, smiling when he heard Bianca echo the sentiment.

“Chrissy?” Pay asked meekly, taking a tentative step towards her ‘parents.’<br>
“I’m going to be fine, Pay Day,” he said quietly, reaching his hand up for her to take. “Pi?” Chris asked. The girl swallowed her tears and went to Chris obediently. The remaining duo of a second generation of the Power of Three quietly curled up next to Chris, leaving him surrounded by his loved ones as he allowed sleep to take him, to begin to heal him.

[Nite Owl]

“How are they?” Paige asked when Piper, Leo, and Phoebe reappeared in the attic doorway. She had been filling Melinda in on how she’d come into the Halliwell fold.

“Sleeping,” Piper said, dropping down into the padded chair. Leo had orbed the exhausted pile of witches to his and Piper’s bed. Chris was still wounded, but seemed stable. Bianca had been exhausted, having died herself and the two little girls curled up with them had been through one hell of a day.

“They are a beautiful family,” Melinda said quietly. “Chris and his lover and their daughters.” Phoebe bit back a tear at the thought. They truly were his daughters, biology not withstanding.

“I think it’s time we got back on track. What happened to your sisters?” Piper asked.

Before Melinda could answer, Phoebe looked over at Leo, who had taken a seat on the floor in front of Piper. “Leo?” she asked, her voice showing the concern she felt. She could feel his confusion and concern. “What is it?”<br>
Leo shook his head, trying to clear his future self’s words from his mind. ‘Piper is not in heaven. Neither is Paige or Phoebe.’ Those words were haunting, along with the feeling of them in the future, hurt and confused and angry and hopeless. Where were they, if not in heaven?

“Leo?” Piper asked, when her husband seemed not to hear Phoebe. Leo snapped to attention and shook his head at Piper, dismissing that anything was wrong.

“What are you scared of?” Phoebe asked.

“The future,” Leo muttered, before turning to Melinda. “But right now, I think it best if we look to the past.”<br>
“No,” Phoebe said, interrupting. “It’s more than that. What did you see there?”<br>
“What did he say to you?” Piper asked, knowing that the only thing he experienced there that she hadn’t is the talk with his future self.

“Who?” Paige asked. “What’s going on?”<br>
Leo shook his head and almost laughed. “It doesn’t really matter, does it? If the future is going to change, right? It just . . . It’s confusing, that’s all.”<br>
“What is?” Melinda asked.

“You’re not in Heaven,” Leo said finally. “The three of you are not in Heaven.”<br>
“Then where are we?” Piper demanded.

Leo shook his head and shrugged. “He told me to sense you,” Leo whispered, closing his eyes to focus on sensing, just as Paige did now. And he felt them again, their selves staring at him, worried and determined. But there was more. Their presence was stronger than it had ever been.

“Oh God!” Phoebe gasped suddenly. “How could we have forgotten?” she asked herself as she hopped up from the floor. “Paige, get the rest of the Kierzak demon potion.” Paige nodded and felt guilt when she saw Phoebe dragging the bucket of Tasha towards them. Phoebe took the potion from Paige and stared down at the silver liquid in the bucket. “How do we do this?” she asked.

When she looked around for answers, all she got was confused looks and shrugs. Phoebe shrugged as well and poured the vial in the bucket. They all waited as the red potion sunk beneath the surface of the silver liquid. A moment later it began to bubble and swirl on its own. Slowly the liquid began to thicken and take shape until Tasha was standing shakily in the attic.

“You feeling alright?” Leo asked as he stepped to the young woman’s side, steadying her and helping her to a seat on an overstuffed chair.

“I feel dizzy,” Tasha said, dropping onto the chair happily, looking around the room in confusion. “What happened?”<br>
“Short of it?” Paige said. “You, Chris and the girls were attacked by a Kierzak demon. You were turned into a puddle. Chris got stuck in his head, ended up opening a portal to the future, where Leo, Piper and him rescued Bianca and brought her back to this time. We managed to mix a potion into you to allow you to regain your shape.”<br>
“Bianca is here?” Tasha asked, her voice hopeful and quiet. “Alive?”<br>
“Alive and well,” Leo said. “Chris is certainly worse for wear, but he, Bianca and the girls are down stairs sleeping.”<br>
A couple of happy tears escaped Tasha’s eyes as she thanked gods and goddesses alike. “Thank you,” she whispered again, more to herself than anyone actually in the room.

“An admirer of Chris’s?” Melinda asked.

Tasha looked up, seeing the unfamiliar face. “Who are you?”<br>
“Oh, you haven’t met,” Phoebe said inanely. “Melinda, this is Tasha, she’s one of the resistance from the future, and yes, a friend of Chris’s. Tasha, this is Melinda Warren, our ancestor. The first of our line, actually.”<br>
“Wow,” Tasha said. “An honor to meet you. Umm . . . why are you here?”<br>
“She was just about to tell us about her sisters who turned Wyatt,” Piper informed the young witch. “Would you like to stay, or did you want to get some sleep?”<br>
“I’ll stay,” Tasha said, he voice showing her determination. It was so apparent to the Charmed Ones that she was close to Chris, close enough for his focus to rub off on her.




“You awake?” Chris asked softly into the darkness. He felt the pressure of other warm bodies curled against him and felt an overwhelming joy at the sensation, even though his belly felt like it had been chewed through and burned.

“You think I could possibly sleep at this moment?” Bianca let out a small laugh. “The first peaceful moment in my existence? With the Charmed Ones themselves guarding me, the little girls I raised and the man I love? I’m too excited to sleep.”<br>
Chris joined her, laughing lightly. “I love you.” Bianca responded by kissing his shoulder and running her fingers easily through his hair. “You died. I’ve been mourning you for a week.”<br>
“Oh, please,” Bianca scoffed and laughed. “I know you. You haven’t mourned. You’ve kept yourself twice as busy as anyone ever should be. You’ve avoided mourning.”<br>
“Which was probably a good thing,” Chris defended weakly, accenting the comment with a cough. “It would have been time wasted when I rescued you.”<br>
“Technically, your dad rescued me,” Bianca said. Chris groaned. Bianca laughed. “If I admit it was your dad from this time period, would you be less annoyed?”<br>
“This whole time thing is giving me a headache.” Chris ran his finger over her bare arm to her hand, their fingertips touching, entwining. He could feel the bandage that she wore from where she had cut herself to save his life. “Thank you,” Chris whispered.

[Nite Owl]

It was as much for me as it was for you. I couldn’t live without you.”<br>
“You could because you’d have to,” Chris said.

Bianca laughed. “Ever wonder where and what we’d be if Wyatt weren’t—“ she stopped, unsure how to phrase her question.

“I think I’d like to be a chef,” Chris answered easliy.

“The man who hardly eats wants to cook for others,” Bianca commented.

“You?”<br>
“I don’t know,” Bianca said.

“Let’s see, a normal job for Bianca?” Chris mused playfully. “Something active. No sitting behind a desk for you. Something that can be dangerous. You can’t live without it. Something where you can work out some aggression. I wouldn’t want you coming home with it all bottled up.”<br>
“And even without the circumstance of Wyatt, we’d still be together?” Bianca asked.

“I don’t think there is any way we wouldn’t be,” Chris whispered. “I don’t think that could happen.”<br>
“We only met because of him,” Bianca pointed out.

“Fate would have found another way to bring us together.” Bianca again kissed his shoulder at the reassurance he offered. “Our laying around down here isn’t helping anything. We should be upstairs trying to figure out what to do about the Warren demons.”<br>
“You’re hurt. Badly hurt. You need rest.”<br>
“I’ll rest later,” Chris said, already struggling to sit up and pull himself from the bed, disentangling the sleeping youngsters from around him. Bianca bit her lip to keep from arguing, knowing there would be no use to it. Instead she helped him, supporting his weight and helping him stand.



Melinda nodded and turned back to the group that had gathered here in the family manor’s attic. “I was the eldest of the three, and I had what was considered the strongest of our powers, the power to move things. Maggie was the youngest and could freeze time. And Melissa could see the future. We got word of a demon stealing children from a neighboring village. We went hunting. The beast was vicious.”<br>
Melinda stood, beginning to pace the length of the room as she told her story. “He attacked us all, all of us being scratched and clawed. We retreated and soon we discovered that the wounds would not just heal on their own. I was the first to get the fever, feeling my insides burning. To this day, I do not know the kind of demon that we fought, so there was no looking in the book to discover an antidote. We knew that all of us were dying, but we didn’t want the Warren line to end with us, not after what our mother went through to bore me and my sisters.”<br>
Piper and Phoebe exchanged a look, remembering their part in those moments. It was odd how time continued to shift and how their actions were so connected to the past as well as the future. Melinda shook her head. “We pooled our power, seeking answers. We saw the future, our futures if we were to survive. Maggie’s son’s power was great, but corrupted and used to kill innocents later in his life. Melissa’s grandson was the same. I bore only daughters, as did my daughters. None of them were corrupted, all of them fought for good. I was ready to die, knowing that I would have only bore good witches.

“That’s when the demon returned. We were all too weak to fight. And the demon saw an opportunity. He would gain minions. He agreed to heal one of us, if the other two surrendered to him willingly. I didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to allow it, but I had been most wounded in the attack. I was the weakest. Melissa and Maggie gave me their powers and surrendered themselves, making me promise to protect the goodness of our line, to assure them that the only witches with the Warren blood would be good witches. I remember them going to the demon, kissing his cheek. The next thing I remember was waking up, healed and strong.”<br>
“Why is our line supposed to bear only daughters?” Paige asked.

“My sisters saw to that,” Melinda explained. “When they gave me their powers, they cast a spell on me so that my line would bear only daughters because women are not nearly as easily corruptible as men.”<br>
Piper bit her lip, thinking. “If it is true, and a spell is the reason Warren and Halliwell witches are always female, then somewhere along the line, your sister must have cast a spell on me to bear sons.”<br>
“So that they could corrupt them,” Melinda finished.

“Why me?” Piper asked softly.

“Because of us,” Leo responded. Piper snapped his gaze to her husband. “Because of me.”<br>
“What are you talking about?” Phoebe asked.

“The child of a Charmed One and a whitelighter,” Melinda started, picking up on Leo’s thought, “Would be extremely powerful. Twice blessed. To corrupt that generation would be sure to destroy the family as a whole.”<br>
“They’re failing,” came a gruff voice from the doorway. They all turned to see Chris, one hand on his abdomen, holding his wound while his other arm was draped around Bianca, who was supporting the bulk of his weight.

“You should be resting,” Piper admonished weakly, even as she evacuated her cushioned chair for Chris to sit in.

Chris ignored the statement and cleared his throat. It didn’t work. His voice still came out harsh and scratchy. “If their purpose was to destroy the family, they’re failing.”<br>
“It may not be a conventional one,” Bianca continued as she dropped onto the floor at Chris’s knee, her arm wrapping around his leg. “But our family is strong. A constant bombardment of fighting and loss has made it so.”<br>
Melinda smiled softly, sadly at the young couple. “Even the strength of love you all hold for one another cannot keep your numbers from dwindling in the face of an enemy such as Wyatt.” Bianca looked down, seeming like a chastised child while Chris turned away, staring at the wall with his jaw set.

“Chris—“ Phoebe started, feeling his emotions, feeling his guilt and shame and inadequacy because again, just in other words, it has come down to him not being strong enough, powerful enough to defeat Wyatt. But as soon as his name escaped her lips, Chris had shut in his emotions, somehow blocking her in a way she couldn’t quite figure out.

Piper saw the exchange between her sister and son and knew what it was about almost instinctively. She also saw the way Phoebe seemed to shutter and knew Chris had locked her out again. She turned, opening the cabinet behind her and pulled out a small bottle. “Drink this,” she said, offering it to Chris. Instinctively, he knew its contents and refused, shaking his head. “You’re wounded and I won’t let you weaken yourself further by expelling energy to block her out. Just drink it.”<br>
“No,” Chris said, pushing the bottle of empathy blocking potion away. “It messes with my own powers. I can’t use them correctly.”<br>
“Well, you need to rest,” Piper countered, pushing the bottle at him again.

“No rest for the wicked,” Chris muttered, crossing his arms over his chest and turning resolutely away. Piper’s laughter caught his attention and he turned to look at her indignantly.

“I’m sorry,” she offered, still laughing. “I just got a flash of you refusing to take your medicine when you were little.”<br>
Chris rolled his eyes. “Can we get back on track?” he snapped. It didn’t take an empath to tell he was in pain from the way he sat with his arms wrapped around himself, his jaw tight and the occasional gasp when he shifted his position at all. Piper wanted nothing more than to send him off to bed like a child, but knew that now was not the moment to assert herself as his mother. “It’s obviously too late to go back and stop the demons from casting the spell on Mom to make her have sons instead of daughters. That could have been done as far back as her own birth or as recently as right before Wyatt’s. It doesn’t matter. What we have to do now is find them and stop them before they can turn Wyatt.”<br>

[Nite Owl]

“Finding them should be easy enough,” Paige offered. “They are family. We could do a lost witch spell, modified. Or just scry for them since, technically, we all share blood.”<br>
“The problem is vanquishing them when we do find them,” Phoebe added.

“Our powers won’t work on them. They’re immune to spells and potions,” Piper listed off.

“Actually,” Melinda said sadly. “You can’t vanquish them because if you do, the entire line would suffer.”<br>
“How do you mean?” Leo asked.

“I held their powers in my life, but they were only borrowed. If they were to die, their powers would die with them. Mine were passed through the generations, as well as theirs through me, but if they were to die, their powers would be erased from our line.”<br>
“Meaning our powers would be gone,” Piper said.

“Some of them, anyway,” Melinda shrugged.

“Chris?” Bianca worried voice asked, turning to face him. Everyone else turned at the same time, seeing him asleep in the chair. But Bianca’s worry made their own come to life. Bianca turned onto her knees, reaching up to brush a hand over Chris’s cheek as she tried to wake him. “Wake up,” she demanded harshly, lifting her bandaged hand, tearing at the bandage to reopen the wound. She pressed her palm against his stomach and again they all saw the red glow surround her and Chris. Chris seemed to suck in a deep breath as the glow dissipated, but he did not wake up.

Piper turned towards Leo to ask for help, but all she saw were orbs as he disappeared. “Leo!” Piper shouted, trying to call him back even as she wondered where he was going.

“Come on, Chris,” Bianca said softly. “Wake up for me,” she asked. “Wake up for the girls.” They all watched helplessly as Bianca continued to try and wake Chris. But it wasn’t working. “Chris!” Bianca screamed as she saw blood on the corner of his mouth. She grabbed a knife from the small table beside them and slashed at her forearm before anyone could stop her. She rested her bleeding forearm over Chris’s abdomen. “Christopher Halliwell, you wake up this second!” she screamed.

“Leo!” Piper shouted desperately as she dropped to Chris’s side. She rested one hand on Bianca’s back as the younger woman cried. Her other hand gripped onto Chris’s, which was growing colder by the moment. Phoebe bit her lip as she tried to stave off the tears threatening her. Paige wrapped an arm around her sister, allowing her tears to flow. They all watched as Chris’s breathing became slower and slower, but just as they thought it would stop altogether, Chris disappeared in a swirl of orbs.
************

[Nite Owl]

“I need a healer!” Leo shouted, staring up at the rest of the Elders as they stood on the dais at the edge of the gleaming white court.

“You are a healer,” someone said, though he couldn’t pick out from whom it came.

“I can’t heal him!” Leo shouted desperately. “Please! He needs healing!”<br>
“Who are you to beg this of us?”<br>
Leo growled, his fists clenching, frustrated tears brimming his eyes. “I am not begging! I am demanding! I am an Elder the same as you and I demand this to be done!”<br>
There was a long pause before one of the men stepped forward and nodded in agreement with Leo. There was a swirl of white and blue lights and Chris landed with a soft thud at the man’s feet. Leo ran to him, scooping up his son’s hand as his fellow Elder knelt beside Chris. Leo watched the dull glow from the Elder’s hands and watched his son’s face expectantly, the moments feeling like hours.

The Elder stood as the wound closed completely and Chris blinked, trying to gain his focus. “Thank you, Thomas,” Leo said quietly as he smiled at Chris, squeezing his hand reassuringly.

“It’s not that simple,” Thomas said sadly. “You’ve been neglecting your duties.”<br>
“I have other duties, and priorities that keep me away.”<br>
“So you’ve noticed the problem too.” Thomas rested his hand on Leo’s shoulder as he led him away from where Chris still lay, finally getting his bearings. “This can not continue as it has.”<br>
Leo watched as two of the other Elders flanked Chris and pulled him to his feet. “I am committed to being an Elder,” Leo ground out. “But I committed to being a husband and a father first, and those duties are far more pressing.”<br>
“You can’t just decide to not be an Elder.”<br>
“It is an immortal position that I ask a leave from,” Leo said.

“His family needs him,” Chris piped up, finally figuring out what was going on. “His absence will have dire consequences not only to the Charmed Ones and their children, but to the entire world.”<br>
”He can watch over his family from here, protect them from here.”<br>
“Being here doesn’t allow him to truly know what’s going on!” Chris shouted. “Being here does not help!”<br>
“How would you know about being an Elder?” Thomas snapped back.

“You’ve been watching him, haven’t you? Since he disappeared? Since he ‘abandoned his Elder duties’?” Chris asked sarcastically.

“Yes.”<br>
“Then tell me my name,” Chris said.

“Chris.”<br>
“My last name,” Chris clarified. “Tell me who I am.”<br>
Thomas turned, looking at the other Elders, none of who made a move. “We tend not to make note of irrelevant information,” Thomas said quietly.

“Halliwell,” Chris said, watching the slight startle appear of Thomas’s face. “My name is Christopher Halliwell. And I may not know what it is like to be an Elder, but I do know the consequences of my father’s absence.” Chris met Leo’s eye as if asking permission. Leo nodded slightly. “And so will you.”<br>
Leo’s never felt anything like it and for a moment was again awed by his son’s power. In a whirl of images and sensations, more often than not painful and dark, he witnessed Chris’s life from his painful birth as Piper must have viewed it, until this moment standing in the hall of the Elders, facing off against the leaders of the Good world. He witnessed again the deaths of the Charmed Ones, the death of his granddaughter, his niece. He felt the pain of too many wounds to count rip though him and never was there relief offered. And he saw Wyatt, laughing as he caused it all. And through the whirlwind of terror and pain and loss and anger, there was a small haven, an anchor of calm: Bianca.

When Leo came back to himself, he found himself on his knees, gasping for breath. The other Elders were in various states of recovery, some leaning on their knees, while others were on the floor, all recovering from Chris’s mental attack. Chris was lying on his back, staring up at the brilliant white expanse, huffing for his own breaths. “You okay?” Leo asked.

“Just tired,” Chris gasped out. He began to shimmer into blue and white orbs as Leo watched, unable to stop it.

“Leo!” Thomas shouted from his place among the other Elders. “You will stay until a decision is made!”<br>
“They need me down there!” Leo argued.






Chris blinked and when he opened his eyes, he was lying on the floor of the attic, watching as the last of a stream of orbs disappeared from around him. “Chris?” Bianca asked tentatively as she knelt down beside him.

“Yeah,” Chris said quietly, gripping her hand as it slid into his.

“What happened?” Piper asked. “Where’d you go?”<br>
“Up there. Leo made them heal me,” he whispered, confusion winkling his brow.

“Where is Leo?” Piper asked him.

“There was an argument about Leo’s place as an Elder. I showed them the consequences, the future through my eyes. They said he was to stay until a decision was made.”<br>
“Can you orb?” she asked her son.

[Nite Owl]

I think so,” Chris said quietly. “Why?”<br>
“Take me up there?” Piper begged.

“I have a feeling that isn’t wise,” Melinda said.

“I don’t care,” Piper said, helping Chris to his feet, her hand still tightly gripping his. They orbed away, only to be harshly slammed back to earth. “What happened?”<br>
Chris shook his head. “They won’t let me up there.”<br>
“Paige?” Piper asked, turning to the younger sister. She watched Paige disappear in a swirl of light, only to reappear quickly as she fell to the floor from the jolt.

“I’d say the heavens are closed for business today,” Paige said as she dragged herself back to her feet.

Piper bit her lower lip and tried to think of what to do. She glanced over at Chris, only to see him waiver and his knees fold. Bianca caught him on his way to the floor and lowered him slowly. “What’s the matter?” Piper demanded.

“I’m just tired,” Chris answered. Piper glared, silently asking for the whole truth. “I promise,” Chris explained. Piper shook her head, preparing to argue.

“He’s telling the truth,” Phoebe cut in quickly. “As far as he knows, he’s just tired.”<br>
“Then you’re going to bed,” Piper said. She put up her hand to stop Chris’s argument. “I don’t care if you should be here. I don’t care if you have every right to be here. I don’t care that you’re not a child anymore and I sure as hell don’t care that it wasn’t technically me who raised you. I’m your mother and I am demanding that you get some real, solid sleep.”<br>
“But—“ Chris started.

“Ahh!” Piper cut him off, sending him a death glare.

“I’ll stay, Chris,” Bianca cut in. “I know you well enough to speak for you,” she said.

“I know, but—“ Chris argued again. Bianca shimmered quickly, not a split second later, Chris ran for the other side of the room, sensing what she was going to do. He was too late. Bianca stood by the open potions cabinet, a sleeping potion in her hand.

“Two choices, Christopher,” Bianca said, making to throw the potion. Chris bit back an angry retort and seemed almost to growl. “Two choices,” Bianca repeated. Chris nodded reluctantly and disappeared in a swirl of orbs.

“Paige?” Piper asked as soon as he’d left.

Paige rolled her eyes and closed them. “He’s in bed with the twins,” she answered Piper’s unvoiced question.

“You’re good,” Piper commented to Bianca.

Bianca laughed. “Sometimes.”<br>
“Now, the way I see it, we have two major problems,” Piper said quickly as she paced the length of the attic.

“I see three,” Phoebe interjected.

Piper frowned, confused. “The Warren sisters, my husband being kidnapped by the Elders, and?”<br>
“The fact when we die, we don’t go to heaven.”<br>
“No,” Paige said quietly. “The way Leo was talking about what Leo said, it seems as if we weren’t exactly dead. If Leo told Leo to sense us, then we had to have been on the same plain. Not even Leo with his Elder powers can sense people on another plain, well, other than heaven. Leo knew that.”<br>
“Too many ‘Leo’s in that statement,” Phoebe muttered beneath her breath.

“You’re saying we’re on earth?” Piper asked.

“Yes,” Paige answered simply. “Our spirits anyway.”<br>
“What are you talking about?” Binaca asked, confusion wrinkling her brow. Piper looked over at the young woman, barely recognizing her as the assassin that had forcibly taken Chris back to the future. She was dressed in some of Phoebe’s old sleep clothes: powder blue drawstring pants and a white tank top. The clothes softened her, as did the loose tail her hair had been pulled into. “I don’t understand.”<br>
“While we were in the future. Your Leo told my Leo that the Charmed Ones, meaning the three of us, are not in heaven, which is the reason he didn’t come to heal me when Chris was calling for him as I died,” Piper explained quickly.

“If that were true, though, wouldn’t Chris have sensed it too?” Phoebe asked.

“Chris doesn’t have sensing,” Bianca said quickly.

“He does now,” Paige said.

[Nite Owl]

“According to Leo, it’s new since he’s come to the past. Chris told Leo that his powers had grown a lot since coming to the past,” Piper explained.

“Is sensing the only new one?” Bianca asked.

“Yes,” Piper answered. Bianca shook her head sadly. “What?”<br>
“It’s nothing,” Bianca said, shaking her head. “It’s just that I always assumed he’d get your powers, Piper.”<br>
“Mine? Why? Their useless against Wyatt because he’s technically a witch.”<br>
“It’s just that he has a power from each of the Charmed ones but you. Prue’s telekinesis. Phoebe’s empathy. Paige’s orbing.”<br>
“He orbs because of his father,” Paige pointed out.

“Yes, but with the history between them, do you think he’d see it that way?” Bianca asked. “He just sees it as Piper’s powers being lost. Wyatt has powers of the Charmed Ones, and of Leo’s, that Chris does not, though some overlap. Neither inherited Piper’s. Chris was always saddened by that.” Piper frowned at the thought.

“Anyway,” Paige interrupted. “I feel our own whereabouts in the future are a moot point now. If we change what happens, presumably we won’t be there anyway, right?”<br>
“Right,” Piper agreed.

“So that limits our problems to two. What to do about Leo and what to do about the Warren sisters,” Paige pointed out.

“We don’t have much in the way f options on either front,” Phoebe said. “We can’t get into the Heavens to find out anything about Leo and we are useless against the witches.”<br>
“Our powers are useless, but we can still kill them the old fashioned way,” Piper said adamantly.

“But our powers!” Paige pled.

“Are something I am willing to sacrifice for the sake of my sons and the world’s future!” Piper snapped.

“Enough!” Bianca shouted, standing from her place on the floor. “Arguing this is ridiculous! We can hold the option as a last resort, but the loss of the Charmed Ones at this juncture may be just as devastating to the future as Wyatt’s turning. So here is what we are going to do.” She looked around the room, waiting for an interruption or objection, but the gathered women said nothing, all hoping she knew an answer they had overlooked. “Melinda, you are to go. We will contact you if we need any more information, but in the mean time, it isn’t right for you to stay here.”<br>
“But—“ Melinda started.

“In the mean time, you can try and find out if anyone up there knows why the Charmed Ones would not have gone to heaven.” Melinda nodded and faded away. “You three, focus on Leo. Neither Tasha nor I know anything about them,” she said as she pointed up, “that could possibly help you. Instead, we will focus on the Warren sisters,” Bianca continued.

“The Warren sisters are our fight,” Piper interjected.

“And you have until my Chris is born to win it,” Bianca added. “Tasha and I will take the attic to work in.”<br>
“She’s right,” Phoebe agreed. “Come on, Piper. Let’s take the book downstairs and see about your husband. We’ll leave Bianca and Tasha to think on the Warrens.”<br>
Piper reluctantly nodded and stood. “I’m trusting you with my family,” she said, looking at Bianca, trying to weigh her. She barely knew the young woman in front of her, but needed to trust her.

“And though you may not know me, Piper. Trust me when I say that I feel they are my family as well.” Piper nodded and followed her sisters from the room.

[Nite Owl]

“We could summon him,” Phoebe offered from her place curled on the couch.

“Wouldn’t work,” Paige said quickly, not looking up from the Book of Shadows spread across her lap. “I’m sure they’ve taken pains to stop that from happening.” Paige closed the book and looked up, seeing Piper chewing on a fingernail as she paced the room, Wyatt balanced on her hip, half asleep. “Don’t you think?”<br>
“Yeah,” Piper answered. “This isn’t right. This isn’t fair.”<br>
“I agree. What right do they have to take Leo away from his family?” Phoebe asked. “I mean, he has a wife and two little boys to--”<br>
“One,” Piper said dully.

“Fine, one soon to be two,” Phoebe continued, “little boys to be there for.”<br>
“No,” Piper said dully, shaking her head dully.

“What do you mean?” Phoebe asked. “What about Chris?!”<br>
“I checked my calendar,” Piper said softly. “According to Chris, he has another week to be conceived. But, according to my calendar, I’m ovulating now.”<br>
“But—“

“Chris was born early. It’s possible he wasn’t sure how early. I’ve checked my calendar three times. I keep track of this stuff. It’s today and tomorrow that I—“ Piper’s voice cracked and she shook her head, stopping her thought.

“All right. We have to do something now!” Phoebe demanded. “We can’t lose Chris!”<br>
“The only thing we can do is summon him,” Paige said.

“No,” Piper said softly. “We’ll do a reverse summoning. We’ll send me to him.”<br>
“We’ll all go,” Phoebe said.

“No, just me and Wyatt. His family will plead his case,” Piper said quietly.

“Then it looks like I’m going too,” Chris said from his place leaning in the doorway.

“You’re supposed to be resting,” Paige reprimanded weakly.

“Yes, well, when one of my aunts shouts my name in a panic, I tend to hear it and show up,” Chris teased, looking at Phoebe, who blushed sadly.

“How much did you hear?” Piper asked.

“Enough to know my existence may be at stake,” Chris said, not looking up.

“Then we should get started,” Piper said, already heading to the stairs. “We’ll need supplies from the attic.”<br>
“No,” Chris said. “I don’t want Bianca to know what’s going on.”<br>
“Why?” Paige asked.

“There’s nothing she can to and she’ll just get frustrated and angry. I’m sure you want to keep her focused on what she’s doing,” Chris answered.

Paige nodded and held out her arms. “Candles!” she called and five candles appeared piled in her grasp.






Tasha watched as her friend paced the length of the room, her long stride eating up ground. She watched as Bianca rubbed at her temples as if trying to make her entire head disappear. No word had been spoken since the Charmed Ones had left the room.

“Is there a reason you suggested they leave?” Tasha finally asked.

“Because Phoebe’s constant babbling, Paige’s constant state of indignant confusion and Piper’s stubborn streak longer than even Chris’s was grating on my nerves. It’s a wonder they accomplish anything,” Bianca groaned as she dropped onto the couch beside Tasha. “I’m sorry. It’s just weird, you know? Being here,” she said, gesturing to their surroundings. “Besides, I knew Phoebe well. I just hadn’t realized how much the time had changed her.”<br>
“How do you mean?”<br>
“Phoebe Halliwell, when I knew her, was short tempered, short spoken and decisive. She just did what she had to. She had her relaxed moments, but they were spent quietly watching Chris and I, or with James.”<br>

[Nite Owl]

I’d only been with the resistance a couple of weeks when he was killed, when Phoebe was killed. I don’t really remember her. It was you and Chris and Shay that took me in, made sure I was doing all right.”<br>
Bianca laughed. “Phoebe was over nine months pregnant with triplets. She could barely move and when she did, it was only her mouth screaming at people. She was not a happy pregnant person,” Bianca laughed, remembering the waddling Charmed One.

She looked around the room, taking in the sight of the museum she knew, now equipped with worn furniture and odds and ends that made it look used and lived in. Her eyes were distracted to the cabinet where orbs shimmered inside, marking that Paige and the sisters were up to something. That’s when she saw it, sitting on the table across from them. She hopped to her feet and grabbed the athemae they’d pulled from Chris. His blood was on it, caking to the blade as it dried. She reached for an old rag, wiping the blood away furiously. She couldn’t deal with seeing it, being reminded of how close she’d come to losing him yet again.

“This place in infuriating!” Bianca groaned. “Back home it’s attack and defend, attack and defend. There is no research, no figuring things out. It’s so clear cut. It’s kill and be killed. It’s protect the ones you care about! This time period is just infuriating!” Tasha could only laugh from her place on the couch. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed Bianca.





Paige and Phoebe watched as their sister and nephews disappeared. They had disappeared, so they could only assume they’d made it to the heavens. They then heard a crash, followed by a series of screams coming from up in the attic. Paige instinctively grabbed Phoebe and they orbed up, saving the thirty seconds the stair would have taken.

“Is he getting tired of watching his leverage die?” Bianca spat as she faced off against the demons that lined the walls. When Phoebe and Paige appeared in the doorway, they found the sight odd. Bianca, who stood with her back to them to block the door, had gone from the soft and quiet girl who was wearing Phoebe’s pajamas to the assassin they had first met, looking out of place in powder blue sleep pants and a white tank top, a gleaming athemae in her hand.

“The Lord wants this to end. He wants to negotiate with his brother.”<br>
“What is there to negotiate?” Bianca said. “Wyatt is systematically destroying the entire world! Unless he plans on stopping that, there is nothing more to say.”<br>
“He wants his brother as an ally.”<br>
“His brother is his nemesis. There is no changing that,” Bianca spat. “There is no redefining that relationship.”<br>
“If his Lordship’s brother is unwilling to ally himself with the Lord, our only option is to kill him, don’t you see that, Mistress?” the demon pled.

“I am not your mistress!” Bianca screamed. “And go ahead and try to kill him. But, you’ll have to kill me first!”<br>
“An unfortunate necessity,” the demon who’d been speaking agreed, nodding his head. He quietly signaled to half the demons to attack.

Paige and Phoebe were about to move to help when then became mesmerized watching Bianca fight. She shimmered faster than most demons could blink, disappearing and reappearing without a thought as she moved around the room, using quick, precise attacks to kill and maim the demon who dared advance towards the door, to the exit, to the Charmed Ones. Tasha, again in the form of a giant cat, sat nobly guarding the window.

The two Charmed Ones could not see past the flames of dying demons, but when they did, they saw Bianca standing behind the demon who had been speaking with her dagger at his throat. The remaining half dozen demons seemed to wait for instruction. “I don’t want to kill you, Borias. I’ve known you too long, and too well. You go back and tell Wyatt to stop this madness and let the fates decide.”<br>
“The fates have already decided!” Borias spat. “Don’t you see that! They decided in the original timeline and now you dare to change it!”<br>
“Go back and give Wyatt my message!” Bianca shouted.

“No, you know that!” Borias said. “I volunteered for this duty, not because I thought I could succeed, but because you were a good mistress who deserves this warning. Something was stolen from the Lord by his father or his brother. I don’t know what. He was ranting. And it’s loss is enough to make him willing to come back here personally to retrieve it.”<br>
“My gods,” Bianca gasped. “When?”<br>
“I have twenty four hours to show a change in the timeline,” Borias offered, shaking his head. “After enough time has passed to let him know that this group has failed.”<br>
“Thank you, Borias,” Bianca said quietly. She pushed him away so that she faced him and his demons. “How do you want to do this?” she asked sadly. Borias and the other demons attacked haphazardly. Bianca quickly dispatched them with the athemae and then dropped onto the couch, tears in her eyes that would not fall.

“What just happened?” Paige asked, completely confused.

“An old friend brought me a warning that meant his death.”<br>
“He could have shimmered, or blinked, or what ever. Gone to safety. Instead, he committed suicide!” Phoebe argued.

“It was die by my hand, which is quick. Or go back and die by Wyatt’s. And Wyatt has a reputation of taking days to kill those he is disappointed in,” Bianca said, looking down at the blade in her hand.

“What could Chris or Leo have taken?” Phoebe asked. “They didn’t come back with anything, did they?” she asked Paige, who shook her head.

Bianca looked down at the blade in her hand, charred with the blood of demons. The blade that Wyatt had plunged into his own brother. The blade that should have killed him, was meant to kill him. She watched momentarily as the blood seemed to fade, revealing the mirror like finish. And suddenly it connected in her mind. She pulled the blade behind her back and shrugged innocently.

[Nite Owl]

You are not allowed up here!” a booming voice echoed. Piper held Wyatt just a bit tighter and stood just a bit taller as she glanced around the mists for the origin of the voice.

“I want to see my husband!” Piper shouted back.

“A decision is being made about his fate.”<br>
“And I want a chance to speak on his behalf!” Piper shouted.

“It is because of his family that Leo has done what he has done, it is only right that you take that into consideration, us into consideration,” Chris said quietly, not bothering to shout as Piper was, knowing that they heard.

“You have already given us a lot to think on, Christopher Halliwell.”<br>
“True,” Chris nodded. “I showed you the future of this world. I showed you a world without Elders, without goodness.” Chris stepped forward, taking Wyatt from Piper’s arms. “You sent a unicorn, an emblem of purity and light, a most sacred animal to ensure that Wyatt, the twice blessed child, was brought into this world safely. Now, all I ask is that you give us his father to help ensure he will remain good and pure.”<br>
“You ask for his father to ensure your own existence,” the voice corrected, less echoic, more solid. Chris saw a man step forward and recognized him as Thomas, the Elder who had healed him not too long ago. “Isn’t that right, Christopher?”<br>
“I love my brother,” Chris said sadly, looking at the tow headed toddler in his arms. “And I want nothing more than to keep him from becoming the bitter and evil man he is in my future. Leo would be an intricate part in my plan for that.”<br>
“And what of your own existence?” Thomas asked.

Chris straightened his back, turning fully from his mother. He cleared his through and tried fruitlessly to ward off his tears. “If that’s the cost.”<br>
“No!” Piper shouted angrily, stepping around Chris to face Thomas herself. “You can’t ask him to make a sacrifice like that in exchange for something good and right, something you should be doing without begging. Leo and I are married. A union that you blessed and accepted. How can you take it away now?” Piper argued, tears coming to her eyes.

Thomas smiled at her and waved his hand at her. Chris watched in horror as his mother disappeared, was taken away just as his father had been. “Bring her back!” Chris shouted, hugging Wyatt tighter, even as he backed away from the Elder before him.

“There is no need,” Thomas said quietly. “You have no idea of who you are, Christopher. Of what you are.” Wyatt’s shield came up, protecting himself and Chris from the Elder that approached.

“I am the son of a Whitelighter and a Charmed One and am not defenseless even against the Elders themselves,” Chris threatened, his tears spilling as Thomas continued to come towards him.

“Wrong,” Thomas said simply. “The boy in your arms is the son of a Whitelighter and a Charmed One. The Twice Blessed child. A very special child with a great role to play. But you are something different. Wyatt knew it in your future, even as you deny what you are.”<br>
“What are you talking about?” Chris asked, feeling the panic and confusion in his belly rising. He wished he could read Thomas, feel what the Elder felt.

“I’m talking about you Christopher. I’m talking about why Wyatt can’t kill you. You are not the son of a Charmed One and a Whitelighter,” Thomas said again.

“Yes I am!” Chris shouted. Thomas only looked at him, silently telling him to think again. “No, I’m not,” Chris realized. Thomas nodded. “I’m the son of a Charmed One and-- and an Elder.”<br>
“The only true son of any Elder, Christopher. Wyatt was blocking that by systematically killing your spirit. He made you lose sight of your own destiny.”<br>
“My destiny is only to protect against Wyatt. It’s only to stop him from taking over the world.”<br>
“No, Christopher. Your destiny is your own.”<br>
“I don’t understand,” Chris said, shaking his head.

“Why does he kill with an athemae?” Thomas asked.

“Equally useful against demon as against witches?” Chris offered.

“Why not something else? His powers? An axe? A darklighter bow?”<br>
“A sword,” Chris breathed. Thomas nodded. “Oh my God,” Chris breathed again. “Oh God.”<br>