Disclaimer : so depressing... me no own Charmed...
Author's note: This is about a month and a half after the prolouge and set during Chris-crossed, but I hope you can figure that out on your own. Chris never orbed back to the manor after his encounter with Bianca therefore Leo doesn't know her name. Also, I forgot to mention this is debatably AU. And he flips a lighter (like fire kind of lighter) if I say he does. You'll find out why :) .
The witch-demon with cold terra cotta eyes and chestnut brown hair held the dagger to Piper's throat.
"You were saying?"
"Bianca, don't!" Chris intervened, mind racing, "Just let them go. I promise I'll go back with you if you just leave them out of this. Please, Bianca, let's just leave." He cautiously took her shoulder and pulled her away.
"Chris what are you doing?" demanded Paige. "You can't just walk away!"
"Look," he said shortly. "I don't have a choice. She stripped my powers. Now please, just go before she changes her mind. I don't want you to die for me."
"You'd do well to heed his words," said Bianca tonelessly. She took the young whitelighter's hand and they walked to the wall where the triquetta was drawn in chalk. With a wave of her hand, the time door opened inside the circle.
"Piper, freeze them!" Phoebe cried. Piper flexed her fingers but nothing happened. The couple turned back to face them.
"Okay…" said Phoebe shakily. "I get why she didn't freeze-- but why didn't he freeze?"
"I don't--" began Piper. "Unless…"
"Unless I'm a witch, too?" Finished Chris softly, unable to look in their direction, even with his seemingly opaque sunglasses in place. Paige's jaw dropped. Piper's eyes went wide in either surprise or fury; they couldn't tell. "Yeah… part witch, part whitelighter. Just like you Paige."
"You lied to us?" Paige said, hurt and angry.
"I didn't want to, but if you knew I didn't have to earn my wings there'd be no reason for you to trust me," he said, trying to -what? - apologize?
"No," said Piper with a razor edge. "You know what, there is no reason for us to trust you. If you lie to us, that means you clearly don't trust us, and trust works both ways. So, Chris, just leave. Go back to your own time. You don't belong here."
Chris stared at her, and to Phoebe it seemed as if he carried the weight of the world with him. At last the boy sighed, and turning around to face the time door said softly, "I'm sorry."
Suddenly Phoebe screamed and collapsed on the floor.
"Phoebe!" Paige cried, and then to Chris, "What'd you do to her!"
"No," gasped Phoebe, "it's alri---ah!" she broke off in another scream.
"No," said Chris anxiously. "You're right, I'm sorry." Immediately Phoebe stopped, her muscles relaxing, still breathing hard.
While the sisters crowded around Phoebe, Bianca and Chris stepped through the time portal, silent as shadows. But suddenly, before it had a chance to close, Bianca stepped back through, kicked Piper in the face, and without so much as an explanation, stepped back into the swirling vortex.
"Wait!" Phoebe cried, pushing through the other two and ignoring Piper's bloody nose and bruised face. She swore loudly as the time door sealed. "They're gone!"
"And good riddance," remarked Paige dismissively.
"No," urged Phoebe. "You don't understand. You may have felt his deception, but I felt everything else. He opened himself to my power-- my empathy-- for the first time."
"Wha-- that's all you-- and his girlfriend just--" Piper sputtered, pinching her nose and looking murderous (all though very amusing in Paige's opinion, though she'd never risk her life by voicing that). "I DON'T CARE WHAT THAT SON OF A $& WAS FEELING! LOOK AT ME! &$# !"
"Piper, come on," said Phoebe rolling her eyes in a very Chris-like way. "Demons break your nose all the time-- but Chris is the one who needs our help now! He's not evil, I didn't feel one malicious or ill-boding feeling from him-- but he's struggling. There were too many emotions to control and that was tearing him apart."
"Phoebe," said Paige exasperatedly. "We are not going after him. If he has a problem he should deal with it in his own time. You don't see us going back to Gram's time to vanquish the Source, do you?" She took her sisters' hands and orbed them home just as soon as Leo orbed in beside them.
"Oh, thank God I found you," he said in obvious relief. "The Elders have an assignment for you and Chris that can't wait --- what?" He stopped at the look the three witches shared.
"Chris is gone," said Phoebe testily. "An assassin by the name of Bianca stripped his powers and almost killed Piper" --- Piper made an incredulous noise at this--- "and he went back to the future with her to save our lives."
Leo's shoulders sagged slightly as he went to heal Piper's injuries.
"Chris is half witch," Piper said as if it explained all. "He lied to everyone. He manipulated everything!"
"Piper, any other time I would gladly let him stay there," Leo responded dully, "but this task is impossible without him, unfortunately. We have to get him back."
"What is the task?" inquired Paige with interest.
"To send you to the future-- which how we were planning to do was by using a spell to take you to his past since just going to the future is impossible-- to retrieve an ancient device we elders believe is capable of enormous power for good. We also need Chris because he's the only one that's come across it for thousands of years."
"But if it's an ancient device," said Piper, "why do we need to go to the future?"
"The device has something like a security system," Leo stated matter-of-factly. "It moves everyday. We can't seem to find a pattern-- or it."
"But Chris did so you're sending us to the day he found it," concluded Paige, interest thoroughly piqued now. "Only one problem. Chris is gone and there's no spell to take us to the future to get him."
"Bummer, huh?" said Piper absent-mindedly, preparing to go to the kitchen. Then a light seemed to click on inside Phoebe's eyes and Piper stopped. "Uh… Phoebe?"
"I think I know how to get us there," she breathed, looking up at them all positively glowing with her own brilliance. "Look ---- there are spells that weren't specifically meant to but will in order to fulfill their function. Like the return to owner spell! We had to go to the past for Grams' that time, why not the future?"
"Phoebe, you're a genius!" praised Leo. "Then getting to that day with the past spell will be easier-- but you can't come back here first so take everything you'll need. I'll inform the Elders of the plan." He beamed at them for a moment, his eyes stopping on Piper. For a moment their gazes were locked until at last Piper pulled her eyes to the floor, hiding the way her heart was racing. "Good luck," Leo said softly, orbing out.
"Okay," said Paige, snapping into business-mode. "We need something of his--"
"And potions," added Piper. "World of darkness equals lots and lots of potions." She disappeared into the kitchen.
"Paige," said Phoebe, "Spell to take us to the past once we're there and spell to get Chris his powers back. I'll get something of his…"
Paige nodded and orbed to the attic and Phoebe began scouring the house for anything of his. Even without her empathy she knew he hated this house, but why, she had no idea, and doubted very seriously whether he would have left anything here. There had to be something though, even something small or insignificant. And as she was coming back down the stairs she found it. Sitting on the landing was the small black lighter he was always flicking on and off habitually, or so he claimed. Heart flipping almost, she reached down, but as she grasped it she felt her mind being pulled into to future in a premonition.
The scene spread out before her was black (figuratively speaking). Demons were everywhere; screaming, cheering, roaring, talking, fighting, laughing, howling-- like some kind of evil audience. Then she was able to make out one voice above all the yammering, "… ninety-three charges of sabotage, open mockery of his majesty the Source, blowing up his majesty the Source's royal latrine…" The voice continued on as Phoebe forced her mind's eye above the crowd and she saw what was happening.
On a platform between the demon and a stone building were three people and a small slender device that was creating a red beam of light. The beam was moving slowly across a vertically turned metal table on which Chris was confined, burning straight through the metal where it passed. Only centimeters remained between it and her whitelighter (she could still call him her whitelighter, couldn't she?) but he hardly seemed to notice. His wrists and ankles were all clasped separately to the metal slab, but he seemed to be doing something to the manacle around his right wrist, and just as the beam made contact with his side it clanked open. The boy winced in pain as the laser moved inwards and struggled to undo the second wrist clasp, his blood oozing down the table.
The premonition ended. Phoebe sprinted to the kitchen, where Piper was bottling the potions. "We have to hurry. Now," she gasped breathlessly.