Chapter 16: Echo of a Teardrop

Loneliness
One lonely footprint in a field
of freshly fallen snow.
An echo of a teardrop as it falls
on the ashes of an unkept fire..
The beauty of an sunset viewed
by a sole pair of sullen eyes..
The anger aroused by the joy
of a noisy playground...
The nagging fear brought on
by an act of friendship
of a passing stranger..
Look in the mirror my friend
and see a lonely soul.
By anonymous

The Manor

"We should get you back to the hospital before someone notices you're gone," Leo told her. "I'll get Phoebe or Paige to check this girl out."

"Well, she wont be in the Book, if she's from the future."

"You still have to go back."

"Okay." Leo orbed with Piper into the bathroom adjacent to her room. Luckily, no one had noticed that she was gone.

When Leo went to the nursery to check on newborn Chris, he thought he saw someone bending over the child. But he blinked, and no one was there. He frowned. Weird. He had thought for a second that the man was Chris, but Chris was dead...

The Bubble

Chris orbed back to the Bubble, and saw Alison standing there, looking annoyed.

"They could have figured out that you were alive! You could have been seen! And now they know who I am. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that I had to do something!"

"Or what?"

"Or you would have died! I couldn't let that happen, you know that."

She sighed. "Yeah, I know. It was still risky. Now that they know I'm here, they'll try to find me. And if they figure out that you're alive, we'll be back to square one!"

"Square one of what, exactly?"

"Keeping Wyatt from turning evil!"

"But Leo killed Gideon! He's safe."

"It's not that easy. It wasn't one thing that made him evil. It wasn't one demon that you can vanquish, one blessing you can do. His power corrupted him, nothing more."

"But Gideon-"

"Helped the process along, yes. But he didn't cause it. The only way to save him is to strip his powers."

"What?!! You can't be serious; he would have no way of defending himself."

"Only his witch powers, we could leave him with his orbing, healing, and shield."

"He killed mom with that shield."

Alison sighed heavily. "I know, but we don't have a choice. We just have to hope that he doesn't turn evil at all, without his other powers. If power corrupts, then-"

"We take away his power." Chris got it.

"Yes." She smiled.

"Piper would never allow it."

"Piper doesn't have to know."

"She'll kill you."

"I'll go back to my time."

'Will you still have your powers?"

"Yeah, they'll be like a recessive gene."

"Then let's do it."

The Manor

"So something orbed Piper here, and this girl was just lying in the couch? I sounds fishy." Paige said to Leo. "You should have waited to heal her."

"She would have died."

"It was that bad?"

"Yeah, the couch is still covered in her blood."

"We'll never get that out," she muttered. "Wait! We can scry for her with her blood."

"If she's Wyatt's daughter, won't she be too powerful for us?" Leo was worried.

"And she could be evil. Don't forget that." Phoebe put in.

"If she's evil, wouldn't she have killed us already?" Paige said.

"Good point." Phoebe shivered.

"So we scry." Paige decided, orbing upstairs to get a map. She brought a map of the world and one of San Francisco, and the scrying crystal.

She took a piece of bloody fabric from the couch and wrapped it around a stick. Then she tied the string around it, and started to swing the crystal over the map of the world.

The crystal immediately stopped over San Francisco. "Oh, good. She's local." Paige was relieved.

She swung the crystal over the map of the city, but frowned at her result, tried again. "Weird," she muttered.

"Is something wrong?" Leo asked.

"This says that she's in the middle of San Francisco Bay."

"Maybe she's on the Golden Gate Bridge," Leo suggested.

"No, she's no even near it.

"A boat?"

"I don't know, maybe we should orb over there and see."

Won't we need a boat?" Paige asked.

"I can float us," Leo replied. "Let's go."

"Already?" Phoebe asked, "Shouldn't we plan or something?"

"We go there, we use my scrying crystal to point directly at this girl, we orb there- it's simple."

"A thousand things could go wrong." Phoebe said.

"But they won't," Paige assured her.

They orbed out, and reappeared on top of the Golden Gate Bridge. Paige swung the crystal around, and the string went tight, pointing to a spot on the water.

"Okay, if I'm not back in a minute, something happened to me." Then Paige orbed out.

The Bubble

Alison and Chris were writing and erasing, writing and erasing, trying to come up with a good spell to strip Wyatt's powers.

"What if- no." Chris shook his head, and erased what he had just been working on.

"That's it." Alison raised her hands, and the future Book came crashing down on the table in front of her. Chris jumped.

"What are you doing? If the sisters see that it's gone-" Chris said.

"No, it's the future Book. From my time."

"And how exactly did you get it here?"

Alison blinked in surprise. "I don't know. I just called it, and it came."

"So that's yet another power."

She shrugged, and held her hands over the Book. "Power-stripping potion." She said, and the pages flew, finally coming to rest on a page with instructions for making a potion. She eyed the page.

"It says you have to get the person to drink this, and you have to make up a spell? Well that sucks."

"What's in the potion?"

"Well, some of his blood, plus this stuff." She showed him the page."

"I think I can get that stuff, but what about his blood?"

"I'll handle that. After all, in this time I'm more powerful than he is."

"Okay." Chris orbed out.

When Paige reappeared, she was about twenty feet away from the Bubble. She saw a blue orbs, but luckily never saw Chris. She orbed back to the bridge.

"Did you find anything?" Phoebe asked eagerly.

"Yeah, apparently she's living in a Bubble underwater. I saw two people, one girl, about how you described her, and one person I never saw, I only saw them orb out."

"Can you orb us in there?"

"Sure." They orbed out.

Alison felt the presence of Paige outside the Bubble. "Damn," she muttered, and grabbed the Book, and followed Chris, stopping just long enough to destroy the magic television.

When Paige, Phoebe, and Leo orbed in, they found the Bubble deserted and a mess.

"I guess she knew we were coming," Paige said, disappointed. "Oh, well."

"So we have to scry for her all over again?"

"She'll just orb out again." Leo put in.

"Well, maybe she only sensed me when I orbed in close. Maybe if we catch her by surprise..."

"That should work." They orbed back to the Manor.

Alison orbed into the middle of a magic shop. The owner looked up in surprise, then shrugged.

"Alison, what are you doing?" Chris hissed at her. "You're going to expose us!"

"The Charmed Ones found us," she muttered, "I had to get out before they saw me. Paige missed you by a few seconds, nothing more."

"Wow, that's faster than I would have thought."

"They probably scryed for me with the blood I left on the couch."

"Oh."

"So do you have the stuff?"

"I was just about to get it."

"Okay. Hurry, we need to get Wyatt's blood still."

"How are we going to get past the Charmed Ones?"

"You go invisible, and act ghostly, to distract them. I'll orb in, cut his arm with this knife, and catch the blood in this jar. As soon as that is done, we leave. And if at any point you are in any danger, orb out right away. We can't have you exposed."

"Okay." Chris bought the stuff, and they orbed back to the Bubble, after Alison made sure that the Charmed Ones were gone. Chris mixed the ingredients, while Alison made up a spell.

She sat for a while, then it came to her. She scribbled furiously on a piece of paper, then held it up, looked over it. "This should work." She showed the paper to Chris, who nodded.

"Very good. A variation on the unbinding spell?"

"Yeah." Alison said.

Chris put the potion in a vial, then handed it to her. He faded to invisibility. "Let's go." They orbed out.

"I am finally home," Piper said, holding baby Chris. Wyatt toddled beside her. "No more gross hospital food. Thank god."

There was a hastily made "Welcome Home Piper" banner and a few balloons. Piper smiled. "Oh that's so sweet." Her eyes were still a bit red from crying. The news of Chris's death- on the same day as his birth, no less- had come as a shock to all of them.

They only hoped that they had changed the future enough that Chris wouldn't have to die.

So there they were, in the bittersweet glory of it all, wondering if it would ever end. Not knowing what lay ahead. Afraid of what was to come, but willing to face it with and open heart.

All the balloons popped at the same time, creating a huge noise, like a gunshot. Piper jumped. Stuff began to topple, and to fly around the room. Paige screamed.

In all the commotion, no one noticed when Wyatt disappeared. He reappeared in the attic, immediately putting up his shield. Alison waved her hand and it disappeared. She rushed forward and slid the cool knife blade into his arm.

Blood began to pour out, and she quickly uncapped the potion and spilled a few drops in.

Downstairs, Piper realized that Wyatt was missing. With that instinct that all mothers have, she knew where he was, and ran to the attic. She saw Alison force Wyatt to drink the potion.

If only she hadn't made Leo heal her! But if the girl was Wyatt's daughter- and Piper had no doubt that she was- then why was she doing this?

"Get away form my son!"

When Alison heard Piper, she didn't even bother replying, she only put up her shield around herself and Wyatt. Piper uselessly used her power of explosion over, and over, and over.

Alison took out the spell, and began to read. She was majestic, regal. The one who had given up everything she cared about for this moment.

Beautiful, powerful, lonely. Angry, sad, empty. Desolate, pure, perfect. The one who would give her life to do this. To save the world. To save- him.

"In this night and in this hour." She spoke in a strong, clear voice, sure of herself, of what she was doing.

"I strip you of your witchly powers." Piper beat helplessly against the shield, crying.

"Never to return to thee." A whirlwind formed in the attic, and at the canter were Wyatt and Alison. Was he an innocent child that she was saving from himself? Or a cruel and evil murderer who had killed her one true love? Did it matter? Did anything matter?

"As is my will, so mote it be!" White orbs flew out of Wyatt, and winked out existence. He was left with only his whitelighter powers, and his force shield. Alison knelt beside him, and helped him to his feet.

"It's okay," she told him. "You'll be okay now."

Reviews:

Winter Blaze: I will, but the stories almost over. (

Lilwhitelighter: Thanks

Authors note: okay, that's about it for this story, I will put in an epilogue or, knowing me, a lot of them, just wrapping things up. Another charmed fanfic is in the process of being thought up. I wont give anything away yet, but I should have the first chapter up within a couple of weeks.