Summary: What if Leo hadn't responded to Piper's call to heal Chris soon enough during 'Fantasies of the Flesh' only to find out too late the young Whitelighter's secret?

Authors note: I thought of this story when I caught the rerun after work one day. I hope you enjoy and I will soon post the next chapters to my other Charmed stories.

Disclaimer: I unfortunately do not own even the smallest sliver of Charmed. Oh darn for me.

Chapter Four

"Do you really want to know?"

Chris had been ready for an interrogation and yelling, not tears from Piper. He might have expected them from his own mother but not Piper. He had worked very hard to keep them both separate in his mind that it was now difficult to realize they were in a sense one and the same.

As soon as Paige and he had orbed back in, Piper had come running down the stairs, tears in her eyes, and intent on suffocating him with a fierce hug. Not exactly what he had expected. However, the interrogation was about to begin; now that Piper had satisfied herself that Chris was indeed alive and well.

"Where have you two been?" She demanded of both him and Paige. "We've been worried sick. Leo couldn't sense you."

"We were talking." Paige came to his rescue. "Chris woke with a bit of a shock."

"Talking where, the underworld?" Leo asked as he came down the stairs.

"No." Chris stated in a cool voice. "Golden Gate Bridge."

"Why couldn't I sense you."?

"I was cloaking myself." He knew the moment he said that, it was the wrong thing to say. All eyes in the room were fixed on him as if silently waiting for an explanation. "Force of habit."

"Why would cloaking yourself be a force of habit?" Piper asked leading him and the conversation into the living room.

"Do you really want to know?"

"Yes." Phoebe replied for her older sister as she walked into the room, Wyatt in her arms with his head upon her shoulder.

"I don't really know where to begin." Chris muttered. "Cloaking myself is a force of habit because it was the only way to stay safe in the future."

"Why?"

"What, are you guys intend on playing the 'why' game?"

"Just tell us what you can, Chris." Paige said, again coming to his rescue. "The basics and we'll work from there."

"Okay," he took a deep breath and then chose to hold his fathers stare with one of his one. Leo wasn't going to like what he had to say. "My name is Christopher Perry Halliwell and I am twenty two. I came back in time, not to help you fight the Titan's but to keep my brother safe."

"What?" Piper asked as she sank onto the couch next to him. "What happens to Wyatt?"

Chris didn't know what to say. Should he be truthful, or just say a demon is after him? He found the thought of telling Piper that her innocent baby was going to grow up to become the one thing she had lost so much fighting against, repulsive. He knew it would break her heart.

"Tell me."

"Lord Wyatt Halliwell, as he is known in the future, is in need of saving and seeing as I got stuck being his younger brother it fell to me to save him."

"Save him from what, exactly?" Leo asked softly.

"If I knew exactly what happened I would have already dealt with it and gone home."

"Chris…" Paige warned. "Tell them what you told me."

Chris' head shot up and he glared at his aunt. Tell them that Wyatt was the Source of all evil? Was the woman mad? Leo would flip and Piper would call him a liar. How could anyone believe that such a sweet and innocent child would grow to be so cold? Chris would have found it hard to believe as he gazed upon Wyatt now, had he not lived it.

"Fine," He drew a deep breath before continuing. "The Wyatt that I grew up with, my brother, is no more. However, in his place is the Dark Lord, as he is most commonly referred to."

"No way!" Leo's voice boomed as he stared down his grown second born. "I can't believe that."

"Then don't." came the simple answer.

"Hold it!" Piper yelled as both men prepared to orb. "Phoebe help us out here."

Phoebe handed Wyatt over to Paige and stood before Chris, questioning him with her eyes. With a nod he took her hands and closed his eyes. They wanted proof, and he would give it to them. Concentrating on Wyatt and moments the two brothers had shared last. It was not a beautiful memory, but a battle, to the death. Chris was there, his green eyes electric in the dim light as he faced off against a tall, muscular blond man. There was no mistaking Wyatt, for he looked so very much like his father. After a few minutes Phoebe broke away trembling, her eyes widened in horror, her normally tan skin, pale in color.

"It's all true," she whispered as she sank to the floor, head in her hands. "He's so cold."

"Why, though?" Piper asked brokenly. "Was I a bad mother?"

"What!" Chris knelt down in front of Piper and took her trembling hands into his own. "You were the best. Something changed the way Wyatt viewed magic and how you were supposed to use it. To Wyatt, there is no good verses evil. It's all about power."

"Why didn't you just tell us?" Piper whispered to her son in a tear filled voice. "Why make us distrust you so?"

Chris gazed brokenly at his family. Piper, ashen faced on the couch, Leo standing rigid and obviously shaken. Paige held tightly to the young and still innocent Wyatt, while Phoebe sat upon the floor alternating her gaze from young Wyatt to Chris, her cheeks wet with tears. How he loved them and just the thought of failing in this last ditch effort to save Wyatt and returning to where they were not sickened him. In that moment he vowed that if he could not save his brother he would do what was nessecery to stop him.

"Brother against brother," he whispered aloud.

"What did you say?" Leo asked.

Chris looked up at the man he had once craved attention from. Now all Chris felt was loathing. Leo Wyatt had tormented his life just as much as his brother Wyatt. Leo hadn't been there. Not for a birthday, not any of his soccer games, or even when he had been fourteen and holding his mother's limp and dying body to his chest calling endlessly for Leo to appear, his voice hoarse from tears and yelling his father's name. Leo never came. Not then or any other time he had been in need. What right did he have to question him now?

"Nothing, Dad." He growled. "Nothing at all." With that said he turned and took in the sight of the rest of them. He felt the need to flee. He had dropped a gigantic bomb on them so to speak and felt responsible for their tears. Leo unable to stand it any longer orbed away, hoping to find a way to sort through everything he had just been dumped with.

They were all so lost in thought that they didn't see the demon shimmer in, athame in hand. It was only when a slightly audible gasp escaped from Chris' lips did anyone glance up. The familiar demon shimmered away with a smile as Chris sank to the floor, clutching a bloody wound at his side.

A/N: Sorry about how long this took. Just got internet up and running yesterday. Keep those reviews coming. I love to know what ya'll think and they will force me to write faster.