Short chapter again. I was going to go on for a while longer, but I didn't have the inspiration and was just going to leave it, but then I thought that shorter chapters mean more frequent chapters, so I cut it off at the end of this chapter and posted it. Thanks to all those who reviewed anonymously, I daren't mention too much about you here for fear of wrath, but thank you and maybe log in next time if you can so I can thank you personally? Enjoy.

Twisted Flame.

The devastation written on Piper's face crushed Chris more than anything else that had happened that day. Not for the first time since he had been in the past he found himself observing the special bond that his parents seemed to have and wondering when it had all gone wrong for them. He hated to see his mother look like that and guilt surged through his body, knowing that he was the majority of the reason that Leo had gone on his demonic rampage. If he had somehow been able to keep his father a whitelighter, then none of this would have happened.

"Leo's gonna be a demon?" the oldest Charmed One asked in a tiny voice. She hugged herself, rubbing up and down her arms. If Leo became a demon, then they would do everything in their power to save him but, if it came to it… Could she vanquish her sort-of-ex-husband? She didn't think she had it in her, and she didn't think that her sisters would either. Not after everything he had been through with them.

"No, he's not," Phoebe soothed, hugging Piper. "He's not gonna be a demon, sweetie. We won't let him."

"Yeah and, besides, he has to gather enough power first, right? Which means finding some other witches to suck the powers out of." Paige shrugged, smiling. "And, if this Kaden kid couldn't manage to go fully demonic after sucking both you and Chris, then it's gonna be a while before they find another witch powerful enough too— Wait…"

"Yeah," Chris mumbled, tracing a pattern in the dust on the floor and determinedly not looking at his family. He felt enough shame at his failing to protect Wyatt already, without them heaping it on him as well. "Wyatt."

Phoebe threw her hands up in the air and rubbed at her forehead with her fingertips. "Oh, God. That's it, then. Right? We're screwed, aren't we?"

"Well, with that attitude…" Paige said, looking her sister up and down. "No. We need to stay upbeat. Stay focussed. Ideas?"

But Piper was rapidly falling to pieces and shrinking back into herself at the thought of the double blow of losing her son and her husband, and Chris had distanced himself from them out of shame and guilt. Phoebe just believed that they were screwed, so she wasn't going to find any help there. Throwing her own hands up in the air, the witch-whitelighter huffed indignantly and strode over to her nephew, grabbing his arm and pinching it hard.

"Ow! Hey! Ow!" the brunette yelped, slapping his hand over his aunt's pinch. "What was that for? Ow!"

Paige rolled her eyes and started dragging him up from the floor. "Quit being such a baby. We need everyone's brains firing on all cylinders. Yes, you screwed up with protecting Wyatt, but it wasn't your fault. You did everything you could. And, right now, he is in danger and, if we don't come up with something fast, we have no way to help him. Got it?"

Chris nodded, though still rubbing his arm and pouting at her. "Yeah…"

Paige walked over to Piper and shook her shoulders, not entirely sure that her sister was above detonating her ass if she pinched her. "The same goes for you. You're not gonna be able to help Leo and Wyatt unless you snap out of it and think, okay?"

Piper looked momentarily shocked and blinked at her sister as if she wasn't there for a few seconds before nodding assertively. "Yes. You're right. I'm sorry. Now is not the time to panic." She exhaled, shook out her shoulders and tried to kick start her brain again. "So… Plan?"

Paige stepped backwards, holding out her hands. "See, my contribution was the motivation. I was kind of thinking about leaving the actual plan part up to you."

"Can we tip the mug over?" Chris asked, pushing on the wall. It didn't give until he slammed his entire weight into it, and even then it only grated a millimetre or two across the floor and stopped moving.

Paige shook her head. "Not unless we can somehow get to the top of the mug and push there, and none of us seem to be in cheerleader, human pyramid mode, so, sorry. No."

"Then we're gonna have to tip it up from the bottom…" Chris mused, frowning at the rim of the mug. "We need a lever. Something to topple it over that way."

"A lever?" asked Phoebe sceptically. "Huh. Darn. The day I leave my crowbar in my other dress…"

"Not helping," Piper bit out, annoyed at her sister's lack of engagement and her flippancy.

Paige's eyes suddenly gleamed, shining brightly with the idea formulating in her mind. She grabbed the edge of the tattoo and began pulling it, straining to move it. "Help… me," she grunted, nearly losing possession on the floor and falling over.

Phoebe grabbed the tattoo as well and helped to pull. "Why? This isn't a particularly good lever, Paige…"

Paige tried to reply, but just gasped with the exertion. It was a freaking slip of transfer paper. Why was it so heavy? Finally, they managed to drag it to the end of the mug and set it down, and Paige walked back into the mug's centre, grinning and pointing down at the floor. "There's our lever." The looks she caught from Chris and Piper told her that they thought that she was insane, and she didn't even want to think about the look that Phoebe was throwing at her so she stamped an impatient foot. "The floorboards are nailed down! With nails!"

Piper caught on immediately and blasted the rug covering the floor. Acrid smoke billowed into the air around them as the rug smouldered, opening up a red-and-orange-rimmed hole in the carpet and exposing the floorboards beneath.

The smoke tickled her throat, and the witch-whitelighter gave a small cough before demanding, "Nail!" Orbs rose around the head of the nail, but it didn't shift. "Nail!" Once again, orbs sparkled, but it was too tightly embedded for her smaller power to move. She shook out her shoulder and rotated her head, popping her neck. "NAIL!"

There was a small grinding noise and the head of the nail rose up from the floor slightly. Piper was working on stamping out the burning rug, her sleeve clamped over her mouth and nose. Her vision was almost completely obscured by her streaming eyes, and her lungs felt as if she were breathing in the fire and not just the smoke. Chris, Paige and Phoebe were coughing as well, choking on the very air. Sweat beaded her forehead, threatening to run down her face.

"NAIL!" Paige called again, her voice strained. The nail didn't move again. She was rapidly tiring herself out, and she knew it, but this nail was what their whole plan rested on. She had to get this free of the floor so they could tip the mug over. Grimacing, she took a deep breath to call for it again but she got a lungful of smoke that scalded her voice box, and she dissolved into a coughing fit. Okay, so, admittedly, Piper blowing a hole in the rug had not been her best plan ever, considering that it seemed likely that it was about to kill them, but they had had to expose the floorboard and the nails beneath.

Chris had his hands out in front of him, palms raised to the ceiling, tendons standing out on the side of his neck with the strain of what he was doing. His face was red with the effort and he was breathing in short, desperate gasps with through his nose. The nail shifted another half a centimetre out of the floor and he dropped his hands, exhausted and a little dizzy.

Piper suddenly turned, whipping out her hands in the direction of the nail and shaving splinters out of the floorboards at its base. If she could just manage to blast the boards away… The nail was now looser in its moorings and she unleashed the power again even as the smoke threatened to overwhelm her. Once more and Paige might be able to move it with Chris's help. She had to try. She had to try, or she was going to die in here. They were all going do die in her. Sliding down the ceramic wall behind her she concentrated and blew up another small chunk of the wood. That was it. That was all she could give them.

"Nail!" Paige cried again, desperate for it to budge. Orbs shone and rattled the nail around in its hole and her eyes brightened with hope. "Nail!" It rose out of the floor some more. "C'mon… Nail!" It was dragged up from the floor, she could even see its point, but then she couldn't hold it anymore. Her legs collapsed underneath her like jelly and the nail fell back into its hole.

Chris, seeing his aunt fall, caught the nail with his mind. It was free now. He just had to lift it out of the hole… Grimacing, he focussed and the nail began to slowly rise out of its hole, millimetre by painful millimetre. Sweat dripped in his eyes, and he took another mouthful of fumes and nearly dropped it. He was muttering curse words under his breath, a string of obscenities spilling from his lips so fast that they were a blur even to his ears. With a metallic clatter, the nail fell to the floorboards and he grinned a shaky, triumphant grin before crawling towards it.

The thing was even bent with the uneven force that it had been driven into the joist below the board. It was what had made it such a bitch to get out, but it was what was going to save their lives. It was the perfect lever. If he could just get to it and jam it under the rim of the mug…

Phoebe was there before him, her hands on the shaft of the nail, pushing it but making no leeway. He grabbed the cold metal and began pulling, and it started to shift across the burning floor. Paige lunged for the nail out of the eerily green-tinged smoke and latched onto it, throwing her weight against it. She looked up at the head of the nail towering above her and set her face determinedly. It began to slide faster and Chris pulled as hard as he could until, eventually, the point was jammed between the floorboards and the rim of the mug. A tiny chink of what lay beyond the mug beckoned to him, a sweet, teasing wisp of fresh air blowing in.

Running around to his aunts, Chris grabbed the nail and began pulling backwards, as did Phoebe and Paige. Shakily, the mug began to tilt, and the gap widened. Throwing his whole weight into it, practically swinging from the nail, he grunted, "Go and get mom and get out of here. I'll hold this thing…"

"You can't," Paige told him. "Phoebe can go and get Piper. I'm holding this thing open with you."

Exasperated, he glared at his aunt but saw that she was not going to accept an argument. Phoebe scurried back to where Piper lay and hooked her hands under her sister's armpits, dragging her across the floor to the clean air.

All of Chris's muscles were shaking with the effort, and the pain in his ribs was practically blinding him. He ignored it, acknowledging that his tank was running on fumes. He couldn't give in now. He had to hold this open so he could at least get his mother out…

Phoebe finally pulled Piper clear and Chris let out a shaky sigh of relief and turned to Paige. "I think you're next."

"I'm not leaving you here," Paige bit back, her voice as strained with effort as his was. "We'll go together."

"We can't. The mug will fall."

"Can you hold it up?"

Chris grimaced at the question, wishing she hadn't asked it. He could try to hold it up, but there was no guarantee. He could barely hold his head up anymore. His breathing was rasping in his chest and, more alarmingly, bubbling slightly as well. He didn't know how much longer he could stay conscious for, so he just nodded.

"On three. One, two… THREE!"

They let go of the nail and the mug began rapidly descending. Chris threw out an arm and caught it with his power. It was shaking just as much as he was, juddering, and it suddenly slipped, practically touching the floor. Straining, he motioned for his aunt to go. She crawled underneath on her stomach and then reached back for him, beckoning frantically. He led down to crawl underneath, but the mug dropped again, leaving a gap that he couldn't squeeze under. He was exhausted. His vision was dimming and his eyes were slowly closing.

In a flash, he saw adult Wyatt standing over him, regarding him with a sneer. He had been in a situation so much like this before, and Wyatt had been smirking at him, triumphant because he had this brother back. Battered and bruised into submission, but he had Chris back on his side.

Chris knew that he didn't ever want to feel that way again.

His eyes snapped open and he flung out an arm, rising the cup off the floor so that he could walk out underneath it with his head ducked. On the other side, he finally collapsed onto the floor and the mug crashed back down behind him. He took his gulps of the clean air, savouring being able to breathe.

"Now what?" he heard Phoebe hiss. "We can't orb out, right, or you would have done it already. How are we gonna get out of here?"

Chris looked around, and then looked up. "The mattress. We can get out through the mattress."

"Huh?"

"Mom can blow a hole in the mattress cover. We should be able to orb up there with the springs, blow another hole in the top and get the hell out of here. It'll be like… bypassing the force field. I think."

"Mom can do that," Piper confirmed. Her face was streaky, sweat having run down through the black soot on her skin, leaving pale tracks. Her lips were pressed into a thin line and she was wobbling slightly back and forth, as if she was on a boat, but she was up, and that was the main thing to all of them. Chris rushed forward and caught her elbow as the moved a little too violently, but she slapped his hands off. "Don't mother me. It's all… wrong."

Chris stepped back, still holding out his hands to snatch her from the air if she began to fall, but apologised. "Sorry."

"Better," Piper nodded, sucking in a deep breath and letting it out, seeming to somehow press her lips even tighter than before. She nodded again and looked up at the 'ceiling' miles above her and let the breath out, flicking out her hands and smiling tightly when the fabric of the mattress disintegrated into ash.

"Uh… guys?" Paige said, her voice tense. "We got company. Let's go."

Piper whipped around and saw demons running at them from every direction. "This better work," she said quickly, grabbing Chris's arm. Her sisters dissolved into orbs a split second before they did and her vision was gradually obscured by the orbs until she wasn't standing anymore.

"They're going to be following," Phoebe informed them in a whisper, looking down through the hole and seeing nothing but darkness that made her uneasy.

Around her, silver metal springs gleamed dully, towering and spiralling above her head. She was walking on the oddly springy cushioning of the mattress beneath her and the springs spread in every direction,as crazy as Shakespeare's wood near Athens only metallic and futuristic.

"On it," Piper rapped back at her sister, flicking her wrists and blowing a hole in the topside of the mattress and the sheet on it. "Let's go. Come on." She grabbed Chris's arm again and they dissolved into orbs just as the first signs of shimmering began to appear around them.