Chapter 7

A/N: Long story short; life doesn't always happen the way you think it does. That being said, neither does the development of this story, even for me. Enjoy.

Cole observed the young Halliwell quietly. The two of them had been discussing the nature of the portal's blockade and why Chris could somehow channel that energy for the past hour. The former demon first surmised that it was due to the fact that the magic blocking the portal was partly Wyatt's. They were brothers, their magic was related as well so there could be a possibility that Chris could pull Wyatt's magic from an external source. Chris, however, didn't agree and pointed out that if the essence of Wyatt's magic would do that for him, then the involved essence of the Grimlock magic shouldn't have hurt the other Grimlocks. They continued to talk about more ideas but every new idea seemed to get further away from being a likely possibility. The young witchlighter was smarter than Cole had expected though. He knew the Halliwell's weren't dumb, but they did have a tendency of acting on their emotions. Thus far, Chris had managed to keep his emotions bottled up in front of the spirit and each of his ideas had shown a certain amount of insightfulness.

Said witchlighter was currently standing in front of the portal, arms crossed in front of him and frowning deeply. They had fallen in to silence for about fifteen minutes now. While Chris was fixated on the portal, Cole pulled a small ball of light from one of his pockets. The blue light was dim and flickered a little. The former demon knew that this soul didn't have much time left, they needed to make progress now.

While the Halliwell obviously still chose to distrust him, no matter what he did, the reason for him to break through to the Ghostly Plane had nothing to do with himself. It was for the soul he was holding on to. It had appeared in the cosmic void two years ago but, unlike Cole, this soul wasn't meant to be there. Thus it's energy started to deplete more and more until the soul couldn't hold on to a bodily form anymore and turned into the little ball of light. But not before Cole had heard his story, how the person had died and how he had ended up in the cosmic void. With all of that information, the former demon knew that he had to safe this soul or else they wouldn't have met. Unfortunately, time was running out.

"So how about this." Cole started, drawing Chris' attention after he tucked away the soul again. "The portal is overloaded with magical energy. You can tap in to that magical energy and drain the portal. Maybe it's an idea you simply tap it, until there is nothing to tap anymore."

Chris looked from Cole back to the portal. "I don't... What if there is too much energy to drain? I mean, it's not like I'm a bottomless pit that can store magical energy endlessly."

"Well if you threaten to overflow, just release some of it." Cole answered with a smile. "Just like you did with the grimlock."

"There is nobody here to vanquish, what if the energy gets sucked back in to the portal?"

"Let's tackle that problem when and if that arrives, shall we?"

Chris wasn't completely convinced yet but figured that maybe they had been overthinking the whole situation and it could be as simple as Cole suggested. A slightly hesitant nod followed and the Halliwell stepped closer to the portal. Cole took a few steps to distance himself, making sure he wouldn't get caught in any crossfire if their plan happened to backfire. Chris reached out with his right hand but kept it hovering a few inches from the portal. An unsure glance back over his shoulder towards Cole showed the former demon that while the witchlighter was a powerful Halliwell; he was still young and didn't have the experience that his mother and aunts had.

Chris looked back at the portal and released a nervous sigh. This better works... He scrunched his eyes and brought his hand further forward, finally making contact with the portal. Once again electricity erupted from the portal and flowed around Chris. The brunette felt the magical energy settle in his body, the sensation leaving him breathless.

The magic kept flowing from the portal as Cole once again took a moment to be impressed by the young Halliwell. A clear determination to do this right was visible on Chris' face. Some beings would be scared by an unknown power taking a hold of them, others would loose themselves in a feeling of grandeur. So far the witchlighter kept his focus, his goal in mind and that was what impressed Cole.

After another few minutes of draining the power from the portal, Chris felt the incoming flow lessening and he was glad for it. Slowly but surely he had also started to feel that the amount of power he could hold was coming to an end. From aside, Cole could also see that the energy coming from the portal was getting less and less.

"Keep it up, you're almost there."

Chris felt sweat appearing on his forehead and the amount of magic was becoming less comfortable to hold on to. "Maybe..." His breath was becoming labored. "Maybe I should stop for a moment and release some of it."

"It's nearly done." Cole replied as he brushed his hand against the soul in his pocket. The more Chris would be occupied with dealing with the amount of magic power he absorbed, the more chance Cole had to get the soul to the land of the living.

Suddenly the stream of magic flowing in to Chris stopped and the witchlighter sighed in relief as he bowed down to rest his hands on his legs and catch his breath. "Finally."

"Well done. That shou-..." Before Cole could finish his sentence a tremor shook the house. The two men looked up and around. Out of nowhere a very familiar wave of magic washed over the two of them. Chris' eyes widening in recognition and Cole's in surprise.

Feeling the air escaping his lungs, a sudden calmness settled in the witchlighter's mind and he knew his timeline had been restored. Just as sudden as the wave had arrived, it was gone and no trace of it ever happening remained. None, except for the fact that Chris no longer felt the presence of the bad timeline in the back of his mind.

"I suppose that was the timeline restoring itself." Cole stated as he looked at the Halliwell. He wouldn't outright admit to the boy that he was surprised by the sudden magic wave. Problems with timelines tended to be a little more difficult to clean up.

"Yeah, it seems the memories from the different timeline are no longer there."

"I was wondering how it was that you actually remember your own memories and the other memories as well?" It had been a surprise. So far Cole's experience with alternating timelines always resulted in people not knowing anything changed. Except for the one time with Paige. "You didn't happen to be orbing while the timeline changed?"

Chris shook his head. "No... Uhm. The Angel of Death said it had something to do with my soul being formed by time magic before."

Unvoluntarily, Cole's hand shot to his pocket where he kept the flickering blue soul. "Is that so, huh? I guess I must have been busy around that time to have missed that. So you can resist that kind of magic?"

"It's not really something I actively resist. It's more like that my soul apparently does. I don't know. The way the Angel of Death... he called himself Clarence... talked about it, it almost seemed as if my soul is scarred by it."

"Like a piece of it got ripped out and it never became whole again?"

Chris glanced at Cole with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. "I..."

"No never mind." The former demon suddenly interrupted him. There was a more pressing matter. "That Angel of Death. Why was he here?"

"I don't really know. All I know is that he said he wasn't here for me and that I could probably fix the portal on my own."

Cursing out loud, Cole turned around and started pacing. It couldn't be a coincidence. The Angel of Death had to be in the Ghostly Plane for the soul Cole was carrying. If the angel was there for a different unrelated soul then he wouldn't have appeared in front of Chris. He probably mixed their magic signatures up, which wouldn't be that difficult, but that meant the former demon was running out of time to save the soul.

Meanwhile Chris wasn't sure what to think of Cole's behaviour. While the spirit had tried to convince him earlier that he had no ulterior motive, that now really seemed to be a lie. The witchlighter started to shake his head. His mother hadn't warned him for nothing. While Cole would probably always say he was out to help his family, being remorseful for all the crap he had pulled, it was never just that.

"What's wrong? You're afraid Clarence is here to get you?"

Cole looked up at the witchlighter, finding a pair of distrutful eyes looking at him. He sighed. It couldn't be helped he guessed.

"Oh no, I don't care what Clarence does with me. It would probably be a refreshing change of scenery if he would actually decide to take me somewhere else. It's not me I'm worried about at all."

Chris gave a cynical laugh. "Knock it off, don't keep trying to convince me this is about saving me."

The relief of no longer having to deal with another set of memories had subsided by now and Chris' annoyance with Cole's secrecy started to stir the gigantic mass of magical power he had absorbed. Cole noticed a spark here and there jumping from the witchlighter's fingers.

"This isn't about just you." The former demon figured he better put his cards on the table. "This is about saving the you who changed the timeline the first time."

"We have met in a new past that was created for your family. You wouldn't know, because the you that you are now was not yet born."

Clarence's words rang through Chris his mind as he saw Cole pull out a small pulsating ball of blue light. There was something familiar about that ball even though Chris had never seen it before in his life.

"What is that?"

Cole locked eyes with the witchlighter, trying to convey the message that his next words were really true. "This is the soul of Christopher Perry Halliwell, who went back in time to stop Wyatt from becoming the Source of all Evil. This soul is forever a part of your soul and right now, he is dying."