Disclaimer: I don't own. You don't sue. Everyone get how this works?
The Charmed Ones and Leo exchanged glances.
"Follow?" asked Paige bluntly, watching the place her fellow whitelighter/wiccan half-breed had disappeared.
"Follow." confirmed Phoebe, and with a last weary look at each other the sisters and Leo took off after him.
They reached the stairway, but as soon as they began the descent there was a blinding flash of scarlet light accompanied by a deafening explosion. The four raced down the steps, now, praying they weren't too late. Through the back door in the earthen room they had first appeared in, and down a long narrow stone corridor they sprinted, where at last the corridor opened out into a vast dimly lit hall… where an unexpected sight met their eyes.
Chris was alone in the massive room, on his knees with his back to them. All around him were ashes, the walls burned black and sooty. His hand closed dreamlike around the ashes that lay spread before him, and the boy watched as though in a trance as they slipped through the cracks between his fingers. He seemed completely lost to reality, completely unaware of their presence. The sisters and Leo stopped a few feet away.
"Chris," said Phoebe cautiously, taking a few steps forward. "What… happened?"
Chris took a deep breath and didn't answer immediately. At length he slid his sunglasses back on and stood, staring down at the ashes. "He vanquished Bianca…" The boy said quietly, still not facing them. "I got mad. Vanquished the demons…" At last he seemed to realize who he was speaking to, or actually that he was speaking aloud, maybe, and snapped back into his closed, guarded composure and turned back to look at the four. "If we're going somewhere I suggest we go now. Before the Source comes back."
"Wait, wait, wait," Piper cut off anything he might have been going to add. "Where is the Source?"
"Gobi Desert."
The Charmed ones and Elder stared at him and his indifference as he said this.
"Okay…" said Piper, slowly. "Then what's keeping him from flaming back in here at this very moment?"
"Not much. Maybe the couple of misplaced feathers… possibly the beak…" Chris replied absently. "So what's the plan?"
"You turned the Source into a duck, too!" Blurt out Phoebe before she could stop herself.
Chris glanced at her, unsurprised. "Not exactly. It's just that all my spells seem to end in… feathers. I think someone must've cursed me when I was a kid…"
Still not quite sure what to make of this situation, Paige said slowly, looking to her sisters for help, "Well, we were going to go to the year you found this thing…"
"The Transporting Archeohauge," assisted Leo. "To bring back a device for the other Elders and me."
"What?" exclaimed the younger male, aghast, his mask of unconcern falling away at last. "No! We can't go back there--- it's too dangerous. There were booby-traps and moral and intelligence tests and everything in that damn place!"
"Do you remember the day?" pressed Leo, ignoring the outburst.
"I was sixteen or seventeen, that's all I remember concerning the time part," he responded coldly. They knew he was giving Leo a look that not only would have curdled milk into butter, but burned the proverbial toast it went on as well.
"Leo…" said Piper in a pleasant voice that always foretold of dangerous, homicidal anger. "The backwards spell only works with a specific date in mind --- he doesn't even remember the year!"
There it was, but Leo took it into stride. "Don't worry," he replied smoothly and a remote control with only four buttons orbed into his out held hand. He held it up for them to see, apparently pleased with himself. "Fast forward and rewind days," he said, indicating the top two buttons, "Fast forward and rewind years," he indicated the other two. "Elders had every magical creature that deals with time help make it-- just for us, just in case. Only problem is: how far we go forward or backwards depends on how long we hold the button down, so it's kind of--"
"Unpredictable?" suggested Paige. "Not an exact science?"
Leo nodded reluctantly. "Sort of."
"No," said Chris immediately. "We are not leapfrogging around your future. That's final."
So they were in Chris' third grade class when --- just kidding.
Back to the argument.
"Why?" challenged Leo. "Something you don't want us to see?"
"Yes, actually," retorted Chris without skipping a beat. "There are some things that you just can't know about the future. Some things that aren't going to change just because we vanquished a few more demons than the first time. It could seriously screw up everything-- even more than it already is!"
"Well that's too bad, cause we're going," said Piper, and, leaving no room for protest, she threw vials at all their feet. They were consumed in a puff of silver and gold smoke. When it cleared the five looked around. Nothing had changed. The four not-Pipers looked at Piper, arching eyebrows.
"We're invisible to everyone but each other," she explained irritably, snatching the time-remote from Leo and hitting the backwards year button without taking the angry complaints from her new whitelighter. Just as her finger released, they all felt as though a hook and caught them by the shoulders and abruptly yanked them backwards so fast their surroundings melted into a complete blur of colors. Wind whipped at them from all directions, but besides that it was actually quiet.
"Oh," moaned Paige, clutching her stomach, face a pale greenish hue as they were pulled backwards faster and faster. "This was a really bad plan."
Not two disorienting seconds after she had uttered this, they came to a halt so suddenly Piper, Phoebe, Paige, and Leo were hurtled clean off their feet and into a wall colored in deep violet wallpaper. Chris, however, simply walked over to the nearest table and sat down, silent.
They appeared to have landed in some kind of a club with a bar, a stage (complete with a teenaged rock/punk band), and about five dozen small round tables for couples the same color as the wall paper. Lining the walls was a long, continuous midnight blue cushion or couch, whichever.
Getting back to their feet, Piper looked around. "This can't be right," she mused, frowning. With that she hit the fast forward days button. When nothing happened, she hit it again… then again.
"Piper!" exclaimed Leo, snatching it away. When his ex-wife gave him a look that told of murder, he hastened to explain, "It takes anywhere from five to twenty minutes to work again. Now when it does it'll only be a few days, then a few days again." He paused, taking in his surroundings at last and frowning likewise. "Hm. I don't know how we ended up here, though. It was supposed to take us to where ever Chris' past self was at the time…"
"Who cares?" said Paige brightly. "We're at a cool club with a damn good band playing. Let's just take advantage of it while we can and relax." The red-haired woman went over to a table in front of the band and took a seat, careful not to move the chair, remembering she was invisible. Piper and Leo shared a look and with a shrug went to join her. Phoebe, however, spotted Chris and took the seat in front of him.
The young man had lost his anger and was staring into space, she knew, behind those black shades. Even though he was blocking her empathy she could see the devastation in his composure he always had unyielding and guarded. Though it still was, she could see through it, none the less. Not knowing exactly what to say to a man who had just watched his fiancée die, she still felt she had to say something since she knew her sisters or brother-in-law wouldn't.
"Hey," she said, trying to get him to look up at her at the very least.
"Hey," he replied, still staring unseeingly at the table before him.
"…Chris, I'm sorry," she managed at last.
He finally looked up at her. "For what?"
"Bianca," she replied softly. "I know what it feels like to lose someone you love dearly."
"Big surprise there," came the sarcastic response.
Phoebe, resisting the sudden urge to slap him, changed the subject.
"So, Leo said the remote would take us to you. Where are you?"
Chris raised his eyebrows, genuinely surprised. "You really don't see me? Phoebe…" He stood, pulled her down from her own stool, and directed her to the front where the others were sitting by the stage.
"Hey, have you heard this band?" asked Piper. "They are good even if they probably aren't even born yet…"
Phoebe and Chris ignored her, Chris bringing Phoebe not two feet from the stage and pointing her shoulders so that she was directly facing the lead singer/guitarist.
The woman laughed. "No way…"
The boy in front of her was thirteen or fourteen, with sandy brown hair that had a casual way of spilling into his startlingly green eyes. Eyes so green you could hold a green crayon up to and not see the difference besides the intricate gold lacing around the pupils. The boy was wearing a loose fitting long-sleeved black shirt, baggy black cargo pants, and fingerless gloves. He had a way of playing the electric guitar and singing that totally natural.
"Yes way."
Phoebe's brow furrowed as she looked up at her 22 year old whitelighter. "But your eyes are blue," she pointed out, perplexed.
"Ever heard of this magic trick--- pretty new--- called glamouring?" he asked sardonically, rolling his eyes.
"But why?" she continued. "Yours are so pretty green."
"It's complicated. Something to do with putting people in comas, turning their hair white, weird stuff like that."
Phoebe, almost squealing with excitement, ran over to Piper, Paige and Leo. "The remote isn't messed up," she said in a rush, grinning widely. "Chris is here."
"What? Where?" said Piper, looking around. Eyes wide and staring up onto the platform, Paige turned her sister's head to face the stage and the thirteen year old Chris. Her reaction was the same as Phoebe's. "Nuh-uh…"
Paige, Phoebe, and Chris all nodded.
"You never told us you could sing!" accused Paige, almost laughing.
"You never asked," he shrugged, biting back an involuntary smile at their astonishment.
Suddenly there was a burst of music from the stage other that the band, softer, but still very audible. The thirteen year old Chris winced, still singing, but moved over to the keyboardist beside him who was currently waiting to come back in. He motioned with his head to his pocket, and his band mate answered his cell phone.
The sisters turned to the adult Chris with mild laughter. "You left your phone on during a gig?" He wrinkled his nose at them… like Prue used to do.
"Hey, Chris," hissed the keyboardist, pushing her raven black hair out of her face. "Some dude named The Source wants you to join him for a limited time discount price. What do I tell him?"
A/N: You may think this is a stupid cliff hanger, but I know just how much it actually is… Mwhahahahahahahahaha! No I don't need help, whatever would make you say that? (smiles innocently)