Piper and Leo entered the sitting room looking at each of them,
"Well this is really comfortable!" Piper said walking towards an empty chair. "Why don't we start with Penny answering my question."
Penny watched her as she gracefully sat, then glancing at Leo she could tell he was interested in what she had to say. Holding Paige's hand she looked over at Chris who was staring at his shoelaces.
"I don't know how to say it gently," she started. "So I guess I'll just spit it out. James profits because he is going to be linked to you soon. Piper do you remember what I said when you asked me my name?"
"You said it was Penelope Patricia Grace you paused when you got to your last name."
"My full name is Penelope Patricia Grace Daniels! James Daniels is my father."
Chris put his hands up to his head, Paige's face drained completely of colour.
"How? I don't associate with evil forces."
"He's not evil!" Penny told her, "My father is a wonderful man. He was very driven in the beginning and he made a very wrong decision, but that doesn't make him evil."
"So who is he working for?" Phoebe asked cautiously.
"His name is Dalton. My father is just a pawn in his race to become the source."
Piper let out a hushed laugh.
"Well what else is new? Whenever a demon wants to try and take the evil throne they always come after us first. Why use your father?"
"Because by using my dad he can break into your inner sanctum, attack from within." Penny told her.
Chris lent forward, taking a breath he added,
"James isn't a bad guy. He really loves you all. But Dalton had such a hold on him, he couldn't fight him until it was too late."
"Too late?" Leo asked perplexed.
Chris took a look at Penny who was shaking he head in defiance, she didn't want him to say it.
"During one attack, someone is mortally wounded. It isn't until then that James defies Dalton."
"Who?" Piper asked.
"Me!" Paige said her voice cracking. "It's me, isn't it!"
Penny looked down at her feet, her eyes beginning to well again. Slowly she nodded her head.
"Yes! It's you." she whispered as a tear fell.
Phoebe and Piper both put their hands to their mouths, the shock unbearable.
"I'm not losing another sister." Phoebe yelled. "I'm not. I'm sorry Penny, but she's not going anywhere near James Daniels."
Paige was staring at her hysterical sister. Her eyes full of misapprehension 'How can this be happening to me?' she thought. Leo, who was still standing, slowly sat.
"She has to!" Piper said softly.
"What? No she does not!" Phoebe shrieked, tears in her eyes.
"Yes I do." Paige told her tears falling.
Chris stood up and left the room, they heard him on the stairs.
"Where is he going?" Phoebe cried.
"To get the book." Penny assumed.
"Maybe we can stop Dalton, before anything bad happens. I mean we know who's after us, we know why. We obviously know more now than we did before. We can stop all that from happening." Leo told them all.
Upstairs they heard the attic door open, and seconds later close again, then Chris' on the stairs again.
"Maybe." Paige said.
Chris bounded around the corner holding the book in both hands, quickly sitting back down he pulled the coffee table closer to him and laid the book down. Flicking through it he searched quickly, knowing what page he was after.
"Here!" he said turning the book towards Paige. "This is Dalton, he enters in a cloud of smoke and flames, he also has mental control over those who call on him."
Phoebe slumped into the chair,
"So we can't call for him, he'll be able to control us." she said frustrated.
Penny looked at her and smiled,
"No you can't. But dad can. What Chris didn't say is that blood is required as part of the spell. Dad, has called for him before, he knows the spell and how to perform it."
"So you want us to send Paige out there tomorrow, and somehow get your father back here and perform the spell?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah! Why not? They were going to meet tomorrow anyway. You can't dodge fate, even when it's partly fabricated."
Paige looked at Piper and Leo, searching their faces for a hint of what they were thinking.
"I'll do it." she said squeezing Penny's hand. "If it is in my future that I meet this guy, I'll meet him. And hey if we defeat a demon and I fall in love, great."
"Don't worry he won't harm you." Penny assured her. "He never does."
Piper smiled and thought, 'Poor kid. She obviously loves both her parents, no matter what happened.'
"Okay, now that that's settled Chris, It's your turn."
Chris groaned.
"Fine."
"The last thing I remember about being here before, is dad, begging me not to go. Then I woke up, in my bed, in my time, two days later."
Leo was taken aback,
"But how?"
Chris looked him in the eyes, and shook his head.
"At first we didn't know, we still don't know exactly how." he told him. "Everyone had their own little theory, That because the timeline had changed I couldn't have been directly affected by Gideon's attack. Or that I was somehow protected by some kind of unknown magic. Or the plain and simple, that when I was born I had to leave because I couldn't exist in one place as two beings."
"But you still don't know?" Piper asked.
"Well, there is another thing that I did find out just before I came here now." he told her. Penny's forehead creased as he spoke.
"What?" she asked cautiously.
Chris looked over at her.
"I was talking to Wyatt, telling him what you had done and that I was coming back to get you. And he started to talking, explaining something at a million miles per minute. I sat him down and told him to slow down and tell me what he'd just said all over again, and he did."
"What was it Chris? What did he say?" Penny asked.
"He told me that he brought me back, at the last moment. When I was fading, he called for me. Then he and a friend, Jacob, had healed me. Watched over me for two days, and when I was conscious he told everyone else that I had appeared."
Penny was so confused, She just stared at him unable to speak.
"Why did Wyatt wait so long to tell us that you had come back?" Piper asked.
Getting up Chris walked over to the fireplace, keeping his back to all of them.
"He wasn't sure if I was going to live. The magic from Gideon's dagger was meant to kill him, and when I was stabbed by it, it slowly started to do the same thing. But for some reason it accelerated when he called for me, and that's when he started to panic. He didn't want to call dad or tell mom, because he wasn't sure how to tell anyone what he'd done."
All of them sank deep into their chairs taking in what Chris had said. Penny considered everything that Chris had just told them, and everything they already knew.
"He couldn't bear losing you." she said her voice filled with admiration.
Chris turned around and they all looked at her. Smiling she shook her head.
"Wyatt and Chris are the best of friends. They do everything together and with us, in the future we're like one whole gang of friends. Wyatt, Chris, Mel and me. We hang out, bounce ideas of each other, tell each other our deepest, darkest secrets." she explained.
Chris smiled at her.
"Wyatt brought you to him, because he wanted to be there if the worst happened. He loves you Leo, but he couldn't bear it if anything happened to Chris." she continued.
Piper looked down at her hands, a slight smile in the corners of her mouth, she was so happy to hear that her boys had grown up loving each other as she loved her sisters.
"So Wyatt saved you?" Phoebe asked.
"Yeah. Umm. Dad and the others wouldn't have been able to slow or stop what was happening. He said there was this whole thing about because it was meant for him only he could stop it from actually killing me and that the baby version of him couldn't have done anything. And that by the time you had all figured it out it would have been to late."
"I can't believe he didn't tell us. He kept that to himself for five years. Wyatt knew we were all dying to know what the heck had happened." Penny rambled.
Chris laughed, his green eyes lighting up.
"Penny you know Wyatt just as well as I do. That guy wouldn't tell you he'd fixed your spelling errors if it meant that you were going to praise him. He's a humble guy. So quiet and unassuming that you usually have to coax a conversation out of him."
Penny nodded in agreement, that was her cousin all right. Piper stood and walked over to Chris and gave him a huge hug.
"I'm so glad that you are still in my future, I love you so much" she told him.
Breaking apart she took his hand and led him towards the hallway, stopping to take Penny's hand.
"Why don't I show you where you two are going to sleep tonight." she said.
Paige jumped up and took Penny's hand in her own.
"If it's all the same I'd like Penny to stay with me tonight." she told Piper.
"Ok then. But it's getting late we should all get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be a big day."
In an apartment near his office James Daniels twisted and turned as he slept. Sweat poured off of his face and chest.
"No, No, No!" he yelled as he woke himself from a nightmare. Kicking his legs free from the sheet's he swung them off the side if the bed. Lifting one arm he flicked the light switch, and the room was flooded with light. Resting his head in his hands and elbows on his knees, he thought back on what he had just dreamt. 'Could that be my future?' he thought. Easing himself up he walked out of the bedroom and into a small entertaining room, heading straight to the bar he poured himself a glass of fifteen year old scotch. Taking a sip, he closed his eyes as it burned the back of his throat. Walking over to the closest chair he sat and remembered the woman's face, that he had been dreaming about.
Paige watched Penny as she slept, gently pushing a strand of hair off of her face. Smiling to herself she thought over everything she had heard today.
"How can I love somebody I only just met so much?" she asked quietly.
Resting her head on her inner arm Paige put her face level with Penny's studying every inch.
"I won't let you down." she told her pulling the blanket up over Penny's shoulder. Then rolling over she turned the light out and drifted off.