Disclaimer: Story's mine. Characters aren't.

Summary: No-one can ever have that perfect a cover on their first go. What if Chris blew it the first time round?

Recap: Paige just shook her head dumbly, for once at a loss for words. All she could think about was the injustices Chris had faced, and wonder where he was.

Chapter 6

Chris sat slumped on a narrow bed, almost despairing. Knowing it was fruitless, he nevertheless tried to orb out of the room once more. As he dissolved into blue and white, he hit a force field which was quite obviously a version of Wyatt's shield, and landed back on the bed with a thump.

He jumped up and started pacing around the room.

"What the hell do you want with me, Wyatt?" he muttered. Not particularly caring about where he was, he decided to try and attract Wyatt's attention.

He held his hands out and began to blow everything in the room up. He hit the window without even noticing, but glass crashed outward, leaving a stiff wind blowing into the room.

This caught his attention, and he moved over to the window cautiously. He moved his hand towards it, and for a minute thought he might be through.

Then Wyatt's force field repelled him back again.

"Tsk, tsk. Trying to escape AND blowing up your room. You're not behaving very well, Chris, are you?" Chris whirled to face Wyatt as he walked in.

"Go to hell, Wyatt." His brother sneered.

"Now, now. Insulting your host isn't the best way to get out of this room, little brother."

"I am this close to blowing you up, Wyatt." The grin vanished from Wyatt's face.

"Stop this playing around, Chris. You know you can't keep running forever. You should be on the winning side. My side." Wyatt was in earnest, but Chris was disgusted.

"Let me go home."

"What home, Chris? But still, if in spite of everything no is your answer, then maybe you need a little more persuading." He snapped his fingers and a figure walked into the room.

"Bianca!" Chris yelled in shock.


"Nothing. I still keep coming up with nothing!" declared Phoebe, annoyed. She dropped the crystal she was holding onto the map. She had been scrying for the last half-hour, while Paige was trying to write a summoning spell to get Chris back. Piper and Leo hadn't moved from downstairs.

"Jeez, no wonder Chris didn't want to tell us anything about his future. I mean, he didn't exactly have it good, did he?" Phoebe burst out.

"I don't think that was the reason, really, Pheebs. Messing with the future is a really bad idea in general. But I know what you mean. Piper and Leo didn't take it very well, either, did they? What a time to freeze up, though. I mean, we're both gonna be dead too, but at least we're still focusing."

"I haven't seen that look on Piper since Prue died." Phoebe declared. "I think that she thinks that she failed the boys by dying. And considering her eldest son is going to turn evil, she's probably questioning her worth as a mother. But Leo… God, I cannot believe he was never there for Chris."

"It explains Chris' behaviour towards him earlier, though." Paige said.

Phoebe nodded.

"He has to be slightly resentful toward Leo. Prue was, after dad left."

Paige looked at Phoebe oddly.

"What's with the feeling what everyone else is feeling thing?" Phoebe shrugged.

"I'm an advice columnist with a degree in psychology. I think it goes with the territory."

Paige sighed and closed the Book.

"I can't find anything in here that will help. Could somebody up there maybe give us a hand, please?" she called.

The Book opened, and the pages started turning, coming to rest on a page near the back of the Book. Paige bent over to read it as Phoebe picked up the crystal.

"It's kind of a reversal spell." She told Phoebe. "To send back an evil…well, we can use it to return evil Wyatt to his present, to our future. But we still need to find Chris–"

As she was talking, the spinning crystal dropped onto the San Francisco map.

"Got him!"

"Really? Just like that? That was easy." Phoebe frowned.

"You think it's a trap?"

"Well, we were scrying for a half an hour with no luck, then we just find them? I'd just prefer to go cautiously."

"Agreed. But we'd have to do that anyway. We have to take a chance. We can't just leave Chris alone. We need to save him."

She opened a trunk where they kept potions and potion ingredients. Picking out some strong all-purpose ones, she scooped them up and rummaged in the trunk for a bag. Finding one, she slung it over her shoulder after dropping the potion bottles into it. She held out her hand to Paige, and her younger sister took it and orbed them both downstairs.


After Phoebe and Paige had gone up to the attic, Piper and Leo had collected themselves enough to move to the couch and collapse next to each other. Both were in a state of shock. Actually, shock was a bit of an understatement for explaining how they felt. After a while, Leo summoned up the courage to speak, hardly daring to look Piper in the eye.

"Are you ok?" he asked her hoarsely. She gave a choked sort of laugh.

"Ok? I just found out that my eldest son is evil, I died in my son's arms, leaving him unprotected, and to top it all off, my eldest – evil, need I remind you – son has just come back from the future to kidnap his younger brother. I think that I am as far from ok as it is possible to be."

Leo winced.

"At least when you were alive, you were a good parent. And a good wife." He said. "I never even – never had time for Chris! My – our younger son grew up thinking I hated him! And I let you die, Piper. How could I let you die? What happened to me, Piper?"

"You became one of THEM." Piper answered disgustedly. The Elders had never been her favourite people, and to find out her husband had abandoned his family to become one made her feel sick.

"If that's what becoming an Elder will do to me, do not let me get promoted, ok?" Piper gave a weak grin.

"I promise, Leo. So we've dealt with your abandonment issues, how do we stop me being dead?"

"We'll have to figure that out later, when we get to it.. Right now, I think we'd better focus on Chris. We have to make sure Wyatt doesn't do anything to him."

"I suppose figuring out how we're going to stop our son turning evil is another thing we'll have to figure out later?" Piper queried.

"Yeah. But we will figure it out, Piper. Once we've figured this out." He replied. She stood, and pulled him up with her. Turning together, they headed for the stairs, only to hear the jingling sound of orbing behind them.

"Where are they?" Phoebe's voice asked. Paige grabbed hold of her shoulders and whirled her around to face their sister and bother-in-law.

"Oh, there you guys are! Well, at least you're not moping anymore." Phoebe stated, slightly untactfully. Paige elbowed her in the ribs before adding,

"We found Chris. Whatever was guarding him is gone now. And," she held up a small piece of lined paper triumphantly.

"We have a spell to send Wyatt back to the future. Once he's gone, we can rescue my youngest-older-whatever nephew and work out how to stop baby Wyatt from turning evil." Paige explained.

"I doubt it's going to be that simple, Paige." The eldest sister told her.

"Yeah, we've thought about the probability that it's a trap." Phoebe told her.

"Which is we we're going prepared." She held open the bag with the potions inside it. Piper glanced at them and nodded decisively.

"Potions are good. Especially demon vanquishing ones."

"Brilliant! So, what are we waiting for!" Paige cried excitedly, grabbing Phoebe's hand and orbing out.

"Paige, wait!" Piper yelled. "What about baby Wyatt?"


"Bianca? What are you doing here? You should be with the resistance, at Headquarters! What are you doing with him!"

"I'm sorry, Chris. I couldn't get out of the museum. Wyatt, he – he promised he wouldn't kill me if I told him where you were. I wouldn't, so he read it from my head anyway. Then he took me back here. I couldn't do anything. Chris, I'm so sorry!" she sobbed. Chris took her into his arms and shushed her. He glared daggers at his older brother.

"That was a low blow, Wyatt." He growled. Wyatt shrugged.

"She's a present for you. You may be able to deny your kinship to me, but I know you. And I know you value her safety above anything."

"No." Chris said sadly, pulling his fiancée tighter to him. "You're right. I couldn't just leave her here with you."

'I'm sorry, Mom/' he thought. 'I couldn't stop him. I failed you, mom.'

"Oh, come now, Chris. Joining me isn't failing mom. You know what she wanted was for us to stick together." Chris didn't even bother to contradict him. He just glared at his brother until Wyatt got the message and flamed out of the room.

"I missed you so much, B." Chris sighed.

"I know." She replied. "It's only been half a day, and I still missed you more than anything."

"Me too." He smiled at her, and leaning over, kissed her softly.


Wyatt was jubilant. He had Chris' power, and Chris, on his side. Much as he hated to admit it, there was still a little part of him that refused to oppose Chris. He was his brother, after all. They had looked out for each other their whole lives. Why couldn't the other witch-whitelighter accept that the reason Wyatt had started his campaign in the first place was to keep him safe!

Wyatt sighed. He just hoped the threat of harm to his brother's fiancée would be enough to keep Chris under control. One thing the once Twice-Blessed would admit – though only to himself – was that he was afraid. He was afraid that some day Chris would manage to make him turn his back on power, and go back to being weak.

He shuddered. He couldn't and wouldn't go back. And now Chris was on his side, the threat was gone. But Chris had always been a part of his plans anyway.

'My little brother is almost as strong as I am.' Wyatt thought wryly. Now, all he had to do was figure out a way to keep Chris on his side permanently. Holding Bianca prisoner wouldn't work for long. Chris would be too reluctant to do anything he thought was "evil".

'But, thinking about Bianca…' Maybe he could convince the former assassin of the truth. Chris would listen to her.

'But I have to get back to the future first. Before my meddling family get hold of Chris.' He thought. And he could be sure that they would.

AnimeAlexis: So, finally, an update! I did say I was on a major update campaign this summer! Hope you liked! If you want more, you know what to do!