Disclaimer: Don't own. Don't sue. Don't like (u).

A/N: WARNING: This chapter contains mention of forced sodomy, so if you're sensitive about reading that type of thing, email me and I'll send you back an edited version (Which means I'll just erase those few sentences and make the story where it still flows without them). "And that's all I got to say about that." ((--Forest Gump))

Chris and his faithful steed… I mean, winged talking camel with a degree in psychology, bifocals, and fancy Irish accent, followed Damien Halliwell, teenager of 19, up the wooden steps silently. Neither liked staying in the dungeons, and only Damien knew the way out, or in any other circumstance Chris would have whole heartedly objected to teaming up with this brother. Damien and he were not known for their abilities to get along.

Luckily, however, they made it out of the Source's headquarters without killing each other and were soon on the war-worn streets of San Francisco. The sight of rumble sided cracked streets and acrid stench of burning and rotting flesh had long since held any sway over Chris' emotions. Now, it just was. There was nothing he could do to challenge the Source to change it anymore. Nothing he could say or do would change it now… unless I succeed in changing the past. A little voice added in the back of his mind, somehow making him feel worse.

Why did the fate of the world and the lives of hundreds always have to fall directly on his shoulders? He was still just a freakin' kid! He should be just helping the war effort, not leading it. Well, the war was actually kind of over… Yeah, good had gotten its collective ass kicked. Badly.

"Yeah, it does stink," said Damien with a drawn look, misinterpreting Chris' shudder. Or… Chris really couldn't tell if Damien was misinterpreting it or just playing dumb. He knew his second to oldest brother, and that particular brother was actually 'scary smart' to put in Joden's words. Chris sometimes doubted whether Wyatt knew that properly or not. He always seemed to underestimate Damien's position… and power. And intelligence.

Darn. Now that he thought about it, Chris realized Wyatt underestimated his second brother even more than his baby brother. And Wyatt was always underestimating Chris.

"You've got to talk to him about investing in air fresheners or something," Chris muttered instead, as a reply. Damien threw him a sideways glance at that. Clearly he hadn't been expecting such deadpan-sarcasm in a situation like this, from a brother like that. There should have at least been a bit more bite to it…

Chris raised his eyebrows, disconcerted by the look but hiding it by taking the offense. "Yes?" he demanded coldly.

Damien continued to give him that look with his penetrating grey eyes, but now there was a hint of amusement in it. "…"

He looked away, smiling slightly. Chris was hard put not to gape. Damien really did enjoy having him around, if only just to have someone to have a civilized fight with. That was messed up!

"So where we you planning on taking me?" Chris asked at last as they passed the remains of what was once P3. It had been one of the first refuges for innocents set up by Paige and Phoebe, but had also been the first to go down. Chris felt no great emotional ties to the place… It was just another nightclub that had gone done without much of a fight. He'd still never heard the whole story of how it fell in the first place… That had been during the time he'd been captured by the Source and too engrossed in other problems to fret over one that had nothing to do with his immediate concerns.

Damien raised an eyebrow, casting his little brother another sidelong look. "Hmm… you really don't know…? I should think you would, seeing as it's your idea I'm going by."

Chris' eyes went wide at that. Uh-oh. "What idea?" he managed to voice at last.

A wicked grin. "Oh, just one you had last year--- Just kidding!" he added hurriedly as Chris jumped backwards, horrified. He laughed, shaking his head.

"Dude, that's not funny! Gawd, you asshole!" Chris spluttered at first, but ended near a rage. "That is so not cool! How could you think that was funny? That was evil!"

Damien rolled his eyes, pushing his dark curls out of his face as he did so. "Anyway, as I was about to say before you freaked, how were you planning to get back to the past? Through the manor, again?"

Chris stared at him, completely taken aback. "Wait-- you want to help me get back to the past?"

"That's the plan, Smart One," came the 'duh' reply.

Chris couldn't stop staring at him. This was not, repeat: Not the Damien he knew. The Damien he knew might, might help him out of the Source's base if he was feeling extremely generous, but he would never, repeat: Never help him get back to the past if it had made Wyatt as mad as he'd said. Nobody liked to piss Wyatt off. Not even his brothers. "Why?" was all he managed to force out through the racing thoughts in his mind.

Damien tilted another look at him. "Why not?"

Chris' mouth really did fall open at that. "What the heck happened to you?"

Of all the things he'd been expecting to change when he came back, he'd never anticipated changing Damien. Damien was… well… Damien. There was no other words in the human, or Elder language to describe him.

Damien didn't even look at him. "Come on," he said quietly. "Probes have been swamping this place since you pulled your last stunt. They've probably already sensed our presence, so the sooner we get out of the open, the better."

Chris continued watching Damien for more than a little while, all the thoughts running through his mind stopped dead in their tracks. After a moment, however, something seemed to click within him and he lengthened his stride to catch up. Whatever had happened… Damien wasn't going to tell him willingly. They'd never had an open relationship, anyway, so he wasn't surprised.

They were coming up on Prescott Street, where Chris could clearly see the only standing houses within sight, including the Halliwell Manor Museum, as he called it subconsciously. He had no idea what it was really called. They could also see quite clearly the metal, hovering probes that patrolled the perimeter of the house.

The two brothers shared a look, and for one of the only times in history, they were both thinking the same thing. In perfect sync, they raised an arm and flung it roughly to the right, sending all fifteen probes crashing mercilessly into the hard wooden fence that separated the manor from the neighbors. None survived.

The two shared another look, both appearing highly amused, though trying to mask it. "Nicely done," commented Chris with pseudo-indifference.

"Not bad, yourself," came the much better nonchalant reply. Chris had to stop himself from rolling his eyes. "Now let's pick up our feet and stop playing around here," continued Damien, serious again. "He'll sense their absence and know exactly what it means."

Chris understood. He and Bianca had joined the tour group for a reason. Nobody cared about a demon disappearing, no matter where he was stationed. Destroying a probe, though… that was another matter completely….

Damien and Chris rushed forward, picked the magical lock, and slipped inside. No tour. It was Sunday. There weren't even guards, as they'd expected would meet them at the front door.

"You have the spell?" asked Damien, strolling over to the pantry and pulling out a bag of Oreos. He opened it and pulled one out, popping it into his mouth. Not even a moment later, however, he spat it out with a disgusted look on his countenance. "Ugh! Plastic! He's too cheap to even supply real cookies! Damn him!"

Chris gave him a look. "…Okay… Anyway… yeah, I've got it. We just need to get to the attic and draw the triquetta."

"Alright then."

Five minutes later, Christopher and Damien Halliwell could be found in the attic, Damien drawing the design and Chris writing down the spell from memory. It should all stay the same so long as he just thought of the time his charges were presently in as he said the spell. And the two were holding a very… interesting conversation.

"No, really," Chris almost laughed, holding up his hands as if to prove he wasn't crossing his fingers. "If you died I would get very choked up. Honestly! There might actually be tears."

Damien rolled his eyes, turning around to face Chris and pausing in his 'art project'. "You are one mean mother, you know that, Christopher? And people say I was always the evil one." He shook his head and turned back to the chalk drawing. "But imagine all the times I've tried to kill you. Now I really don't know if I'd care if you were gone forever."

Chris rolled his eyes, again portraying the family similarities. "But you never really thought you'd succeed in killing me. I mean, you tried but you weren't really expecting it to get anywhere." When Damien gave him a look over his shoulder, Chris returned it easily. "Hey, dude, you're talking to an empath, here. I know."

Damien sighed. "Yeah… that might explain why you're not dead. I mean, I had every Halliwell power at my disposal and you're still standing…"

"I knew it!" Chris exclaimed suddenly, jabbing a fist into the air triumphantly. "You have the power of copying! And you so lied to me when I figured it out--!"

"No way! Stop the presses!" Damien gasped in mock shock. "Damien lied to Christopher! My God, Armageddon is here!"

Chris glowered darkly. "Smart ass."

Damien shot him a smug look. "What can I say? It runs in the family."

Chris crossed his arms, but shot a cold, cheerful smirk at his brother in a way only Chris could pull off. "Done drawing?"

"Yeah…" said Damien, getting the hint to drop it and adding one last touch to the triquetta. He stood back, dusting the chalk off his hands listlessly. "So what year will you be going to, exactly?"

Chris opened his mouth to reply, but someone else's voice said, "Just this one, if I have anything to do with it."

Chris didn't need to turn around, and neither did Damien. "Hello, Wyatt," the two younger brothers murmured in unison. At length, Chris turned himself so that he faced the brother he'd spent his childhood relying on as a small kid would rely on its mother. Now that relationship had been busted beyond belief.

"Christopher," Wyatt said, his cold eyes turning turquoise and examining his baby brother without expression. His hands were clasped casually behind his back. For once he was in human clothes, even if they were still all black.

Chris didn't flinch underneath the quietly hostile gaze. Even though he'd been under it enough to know that whatever was coming was going to be an almost literal Hell, he couldn't bring himself to show any form of submission. "You, I could expect," Wyatt said softly, danger edging his voice like the thin, yet sharp tip of a knife. "But you, Damien…" His gaze fell on the not so young brother.

At last Damien turned to face Wyatt, and Chris could see his steel eyes harden coldly. There was a quiet passion about him that frankly unnerved Chris. "Really, Wyatt? Don't tell me with all the shit you do to me you never saw this coming. Don't even try to say it." The look Damien was giving Wyatt could have turned the most rampant forest fire into an Antarctica look-alike and melted it into steam at the same time.

Wyatt crossed the room and even the air seemed to part for him. Without a word, he took Damien by the chin and tilted his face up to look at him, eyes harder than stone, now. "Do. Not. Tell. Me. What. To. Do."

Damien's eyes narrowed and he hissed in a mocking, scathing voice, "Yes, master."

For a moment, it looked as though Wyatt was livid with fury, but that only lasted a fraction of a second before it was replaced with a look of cold amusement. "If any other person, Damien, said that to me in that voice, I'd kill them on the spot."

Damien put on a tearful expression and a hand over his heart. In complete mockery, he said tearfully, "Oh my, Wyatt. I never knew you cared so much. I can just feel the love right here," he said, patting his hand over his heart as he continued to give Wyatt the feigned love-y eyes.

That really pissed Wyatt off, if nothing else had. Without warning, he threw out his hand, sending Damien flying across the room and crashing through the grandfather clock that had been moved to the attic only a year ago.

That snapped Chris out of the daze he'd been in. With one movement, he sent Wyatt crashing into the ingredient shelves and whirled around in time to see Damien getting to his feet with that same feline grace he'd always had, grey eyes impassive.

"Chris, that was probably the stupidest thing you've done since you put Nair in my shampoo," came the dry comment as Wyatt began to stir. "You pissed off the Source. Nice job."

Chris rolled his eyes. Putting Nair in Damien's shampoo had been funny as everything, but the torment for the next several weeks he had gotten in retaliation had been… well, let's just say he'd rather not think about it at the moment.

Sure enough, the next thing the two younger brothers knew, Wyatt was on his feet, the entire house shaking as it tried to contain his fury. And before either could so much as blink, they were being thrown violently across the attic and literally crashing through the wooden floor.

Chris bemusedly cursed the unpredictability of his intangibility as he weakly lifted himself up from the living room sofa he'd broken, falling onto. Every inch of his body ached from the fall, if one would even call it that. He had to lift long, busted ply wood off himself as he struggled to his feet, but as soon as he was standing, the floor met the ceiling.

He groaned from beneath the glass table he'd rolled under during his second fall and didn't even try to get up again, this time. From somewhere to his right, he heard Damien swearing vehemently. Closing his eyes and trying to stop the dull throbbing pain, Chris asked, "You still alive, then?"

"Nah, duh, Sherlock," came the strained reply. He swore violently again and for a moment, Chris could feel waves of severe pain radiate from his brother. Frowning, he tried to focus it, and because of very developed empathy, could. A piece of broken floorboard had gone through Damien's shoulder. Chris winced. He could relate through experience as well as through empathy. "And, of course, Chris is generally unscathed," Damien remarked, again in a dry voice. Chris felt slightly indignant as he felt Damien using his copying power to copy his empathy, but then had to wonder how many times he'd copied him before… this was actually the first time he'd been able to feel it…

He cut his musings short, however, as he heard footsteps on the stairs. Of course Wyatt would go for the theatric, slow and deliberate way down the stairs, even though they all knew good and well that he could just orb or flame or something. More intimidating, perhaps. Chris forced himself to open his eyes and prepared to roll out from under the glass table, but found himself weaker than he'd thought. For a moment, he felt a violent wave of disgust seize him: Staying in the past had made him soft! Jeez…

But that moment cost him dearly, for the next thing he knew, Wyatt had flicked his fingers and the table above him busted violently into dozens of piercing knife-like pieces. Chris found himself unable to stop the cry of pain that escaped his lips as multiple shards sliced through his chest and stomach, cutting his face and neck as well.

For a split second, he knew nothing but the hot, crimson blood that flowed freely into his vision from the gashes on his face; he knew nothing but the agony of the impalements in his upper body that sent white-hot bolts of pain ricocheting throughout his entire being. For a moment, he knew nothing but the darkness that faded his sight to black.

Chris opened his eyes groggily and wondered in the back of his mind why he was lying on the floor in sticky reddish brown stuff in the… attic. Yes, his vision was beginning to come back, and he was in the attic at his old house… But did that mean… was he back in the past with the sisters as his charges? Or… how old was he? Was he back with his real family with Wyatt and Damien and Jess and… and his mother?

"Wow, being in the past has made you soft, Christopher," drawled a dark voice quietly. He knew that voice, and it wasn't from any of the above. He was eighteen. He was in the same attic he'd fallen through the floor of not so long ago. He was in the presence of the Source of all Evil with his now-strange brother, Damien. "Not even--what?-- twelve, maybe thirteen little cuts and you pass out. Tut-tut. Your endurance level has gone way down… We'll have to do something about that… Won't we?"

Now that he was mostly coherent, Chris looked around himself. He was trapped in a crystal cage in the attic with Wyatt leaning on the sofa in front of him, watching him impassively. Chris himself was… not well off. The glass blades had been taken out of him, but the deep, deep wounds remained. Well over a handful, and they were all bleeding profusely. Judging from the amount of blood puddled around him, he supposed they had been pouring consistently for some time.

Biting back a cry of pain, Chris sat up, closing his eyes once more. The aches from crashing through the floor were not forgotten, either. "We won't do anything about it, Wyatt." He said coldly to cover the strain of using his vocal cords. He was pretty sure the deepest cut in his throat was around them…

"On the contrary," remarked Wyatt conversationally. "I can't be known to have a weak, traitor of a brother, can I? No, that won't do at all…"

Chris squeezed his eyes shut tighter, now biting his bottom lip to stop the pain. It was only intensifying as time passed, not dulling to numbness as it usually did. Usually. Huh. It was wrong that he should even know what 'usually' was, but then again, 'usually' was his life… How unfortunate, as Phoebe once put it, being blunt…

He didn't bother to open his eyes when he felt someone shimmer in, but when he heard Bianca's voice, they snapped open.

"Wyatt! What the hell did you do to him?" There was fear and anger alike in her voice, and she looked both, too. "Wyatt, you promised me when he came back that you wouldn't hurt him! So what the hell is this?"

"I lied," came the easy response. The Source leaned forward and kissed Bianca on the cheek. "I thought you were taking care of Damien?"

Bianca's expression at him being so close to her was such a forced indifference she almost couldn't pull it off. "… I gave the order…" she all but whispered, eyes glued on Chris, and Chris could almost see how she was itching to help him. Or at least give him an aspirin. Either way he'd be grateful for at the moment. "Wyatt, why do you do that to him…? He's been more of a brother and more cooperative than Chris…" She was just keeping up the conversation to disguise her concern over her ex-fiancé, he knew.

A slow smile came across the Source's face. A twisted smile that Chris had only seen once or twice before, but had never figured out exactly what signified. "Yes, well… it's the only punishment that gets through to him. Just be glad it's not me in the bed with him, this time…"

At that, Chris was too slow to stop with sound of horror and disgust that escaped his lips, or the look that went with it that crossed his face. Wyatt tilted an eyebrow at him, amused. "I see Christopher doesn't approve of that method, either," he smirked. "But I have noticed that forced sodomy is very effective… and also leaves him extremely emotionally scarred… which makes him so much the more interesting…"

At that, Chris almost threw up. Rape by another gender was bad enough… but sodomy… Chris had never before felt so bad for Damien as he did now. Well, said the ever-ironic voice in his head, now you know why he's so different. Who wouldn't be if they have to deal with that kind of a threat… kind of a past, hovering about them everywhere they went? Chris told the voice to shut up; he had other pressing things to worry about… like bleeding to death. Or watching Wyatt tongue Bianca. That would be just as ill a fate as death. More gross than death, though…

H glanced up with the least amount of a grimace he could handle and saw that Wyatt was looking at him curiously, as though trying to read his mind. Chris had no idea what to think about that, but his mouth said bitterly, "I think you know you can't do that anymore. Don't even waste your time trying."

The Source smiled at that, but in a regretful way this time. "Yes… shame you had to sever that link when you went crazy last year. I never would have killed everybody if I knew you would react like that… Too late to change that now, though, I suppose."

"Yes, I suppose so," came the curt response. The blood loss was really starting to get to him, now… The floor was beginning to rock, as though it were sitting on the ocean and pretending to be a boat or some drift wood or something. He was never really fond of boats… He supposed it came with the whole 'my parents tried to drown me when I was a small child' thing, but maybe he wouldn't have even liked them before that. Who knew? It could be like the-- Chris! My God, are you stoned or something? Why are you thinking about why you don't like modes of water transportation? Jeez, boy, get back on the tracks here! Do you want to stay here in this time period forever? No? THEN GET IT TOGETHER! Good grief…

"You do?" said Wyatt, sounding genuinely surprised. "Honestly… that time I expected you to say something smart about pulling that little time traveling stunt you did.…Which, by the way," he added, looking up from his fingernails, which he'd been examining, "I had planned on letting you off easy. But now with this…" He gestured helplessly, but Chris could see that he was enjoying every second of it. "Sorry, Christopher, but I can't let this slip by, too. You're going to have to pay double, now."

Chris stared at him, unable to believe this was happening. Not so long ago, the biggest problem he'd had to deal with was trying to get the sisters to put their personal lives on hold for just five minutes to vanquish some measly Power of Three demon… now he was dealing with a pissed off Wyatt, already suffering from the dozen stab wounds all over his upper torso? No way… He didn't believe it.

Wyatt's game-like face, however, had vanished, and was replaced with one of utter seriousness. He got up from leaning against the couch to kneel down in front of his little brother, eyes cold and black once more. Chris involuntarily felt fear prickle in his chest. This was not, not, not, not, not good. This was so not good, it was very bad. And he and the silent Bianca both knew it. Wyatt… Wyatt was having fun, but he was also dead serious. Never good…

"Christopher… do you recall why you went insane last year, perchance?"

...Chris felt as though the floor had completely given out beneath him.