A/N: Thanks so much for sticking with this story this is so exciting! If you guys have questions don't forget to ask them and I'll try to answer them as best as my ability would allow me.

Chapter 4:

"Is he going to be alright?" asked Wyatt once they were found alone in the living room.

Elder Leo had orbed Chris into his room when he had passed out.

"I hope so." Leo answered while Paige held her tongue.

"What were you two talking about?" asked Leo.

It was strange to see Leo in the mortal realm. It had been twenty years since the Elder had set foot in the Halliwell manor. When Wyatt had brought Chris back into the living Elder Leo had emerged into the mortal realm. She knew that the boys went to visit their father often in the heavens and that they had a good relationship. Leo had never left his sons and he had showed them the love he had for them as the years passed by.

"He's feeling overwhelmed." Paige answered, "I'm afraid that he won't be able to make it through this time around."

"He mentioned something like that days ago," Wyatt interfered, "what do you mean by "this time around?"

Paige looked at Leo, but the Elder was as confused as his oldest son.

In the privacy of her memory she sometimes visited the dark times she had experienced in the strange future. She thought of the Chris she had met and his life journey. She had not revealed his secrets to her sisters or anyone else in particular, because in many ways she didn't want to burden them. She didn't want people to confuse the other Chris to the infant that had grown in their new changed lives. She had never revealed her own experience with anyone else because she knew it would be pointless to remember a history that she had helped prevent. Now like most memories they came back to haunt them.

"I never mentioned his story," Paige began looking away from the men in the room into the window outside.

The weather was nice outside. The sky was clear as if mocking her inner turmoil.

"I never stopped thinking of the Chris that returned to the past and saved me in many others in so many ways." She said feeling their gazes on her, "But I learned to love the little Chris. They were the same but very different. You Wyatt…you were different too as to the older version of what I remember."

"What happened to him Paige?" Leo asked in that soothing voice only Elders knew how.

"I'm not going to reveal his life to you," Paige looked at Leo's eyes, "I can't that's not my place nor is it my story."

"We need to find a way to help him." Leo added.

"I understand," she agreed, "and that's why I'm going to tell you this. I expect you to leave your inquiries at rest and not ask me to expend more than what I'm going to reveal."

Both Leo and Wyatt nodded sitting on opposite sides of the sofa from her.

Paige took a big breath recalling Chris's life story mapping together events and his expressions when he had revealed it to her.

"It was during a battle." She began, "many people were fighting and many were falling. The Wyatt and the Leo of the other timeline were fighting each other and were very far away from where it happened. Chris was fighting Wyatt's right hand-man a demon to be more exact by the name of Zankou, and he was winning. Zankou wanted Chris dead because he thought that Chris was Wyatt's only weakness and he didn't think that Wyatt should have his weakness fighting in the side of the resistance. So he aimed his attack to Chris's cousin killing her in the process.

"Distracted with grief Chris lost himself that's when Zankoo killed him."

"What?" Wyatt hissed clenching his jaw and narrowing his gaze giving his face a darker complexion.

"How is it that Chris survived?" Leo the Elder asked placing a reassuring hand on Wyatt's shoulder.

"The Emperor god-King Wyatt yanked him from the afterlife and from the hands of the Keeper." Paige explained.

She watched as the colour in Wyatt's face drain.

"Chris didn't expand much on how long it took him to recover, but he did say that he couldn't move for a very long time." Paige said looking at Wyatt, "We have all experienced it now."

She stayed quiet watching both men for their reactions.

"That's why he couldn't reunite with the infant soul when he died here." Wyatt whispered hoarsely.

"No," Paige shook her head. "Chris's spell should have let him unite with the infant being born."

"The reason why he couldn't unite was because he had used the power of the Source of all Good in this space and time." Leo the Elder explained, "We don't know the specifics of the spell he performed but from what we understand he broke the contract and made an imbalance to the Universe. Thus the Universe restored that balance by making his soul roam the abyss."

"Wait!" Wyatt got to his feet looking between his father and aunt while shaking with fury, "That means that you two knew that my brother was never going to enter the afterlife?"

"We knew," Leo answered while Paige swallowed hard.

"The Chris that came back to the past to save you was aware of that," Paige added, "he believed that no matter what he would save your soul even if it meant condemning his."

"He's my brother," Wyatt took a step back, "how could the other me let him do that?"

"Not for the lack of trying." Leo said, "It was because the other version of you tried coming back to the past and take Chris to the space and time he belonged to. He forced Chris to use the powers of the Source of all Good to push his older brother instead."

"So it was my fault?" Wyatt asked, "It's my fault that my brother would never enter the afterlife even this time around?"

"I don't know about this time around." Paige said standing up, "the shift of powers has changed. Maybe this time around he will be allowed back into the afterlife with the rest of our family."

"It wasn't you," Leo shook his head standing up as well leveling with Wyatt's eyes. "That Wyatt is not you."

"We did the same thing!" Wyatt shook looking mortified.

"I know you," Leo said taking a step closer to his son while Paige hugged herself unsure what to believe. She had pounded on that thought for a long time and she had not been able to draw a definite conclusion. Not to mention that Wyatt's actions were very questionable now more than ever.

"Maybe you're wrong," Wyatt shook his head harder and pointing up to the ceiling where Chris laid sleeping. "I've seen how he looks at me. He looks at me as if I'm about to rip him apart. He distrusts me but I know what he's thinking with those murderous looks!"

"I'm not wrong son," Leo said soothingly. "You did it out of grief."

"Maybe so did the other Wyatt." Wyatt said, "Maybe he couldn't cope losing a brother like I couldn't stand for it. It drove me crazy with grief and I knew I had the power to do it so I did it. I brought him back."

"You're not the same," Leo said firmly. "Look at yourself. If you two were the same then you wouldn't feel so remorse. You wouldn't have asked me to forgive you after you perform the ritual to bring him back. You wouldn't have looked so distraught. You wouldn't be avoiding him but trying to find a way to bring the piece of the soul you consider your brother to the surface."

Leo's words were true and Paige's doubt on Wyatt turning evil vanished. The Wyatt that they had saved was not evil because a rogue Elder had decided to take fate into his own hands. Her mind was finally put at rest knowing that the sacrifice of so many had actually paid off. The other Wyatt and this Wyatt had done the unforgivable out of the same grief of losing a brother but the outcome of their action was different.

"You just need to prove it to him and to yourself that you are not that Wyatt." Leo continued holding his son's shoulders into his hands, "It is time for you to make amends and learn to forgive yourself. Ask for forgiveness and deal with the consequences so that you can start living again. So that the man you brought into the living can also begin to live."

TBC.

A/N: A penny for your thoughts…