Hi everyone! Sorry about the wait. Things have just been a little hectic here since school, and everything else, started back and we had to wait for our exam results but at least things have settled into a rhythm now. I have also been informed the Atropine is actually used to treat certain types of poisonings by lizardmomma but I have decided not change it because I will forget it at some point and then things will just get confusing.
I'd like to thank everyone that has reviewed this story and/or is following it, you're the best!
Sorry about any mistakes in this chapter, I'm doing the final proofread on this at midnight on a school night.
"I want you to save Chris. Atropine is still forbidden in the past. They won't know how to save him. They won't even know who poisoned him because Ryake isn't born." Tamora explained.
"You want us to travel to the past?" Mel asked, dubiously.
"Tam, the only way to do that is from the Manor." Henry Jr. reminded her, slowly. "It's crawling with demons. And Wyatt."
"And we don't know how to cure atropine." Kat said. "Or how to get near the Manor."
"But I know someone who does." Tamora exclaimed, smiling deviously.
"Cole?" Mel guessed, taking Tamora's smile as confirmation.
"Cole." She confirmed out loud.
Matt sighed and Mel rolled her eyes when they noticed Cole shimmer into the darkest corner of the room. They were used to Cole trying to make a dramatic entrance.
The four cupid-witches all sighed at Cole, as one.
For Cole to have been so one cue, he must have been listening in on their conversation from just outside. Half demon, constant turncoat and drama queen, Mel mused, but if anyone would know how to find the antidote to a long forbidden poison it would be him.
Still, Mel scowled at the man. Cole was like an uncle to her, and like a father to Pearl and Peyton, but he had caused her family a lot of trouble in the past. "No offence, Uncle Cole. But Aunt Phoebe and Aunt Paige, Mom and Dad would kill you the second you arrived."
"I would have orbed you to Antarctica." Paige agreed but she still walked over to Cole and briefly hugged him. Mel suspected that she was more grateful that Cole had helped Tamora than that he would help Chris.
"I'd use you as a little witch lighter shield if anything happened." Cole offered, smiling warmly at Mel to take out the sting of his words.
Ever since Piper died, Cole had watched over her children. They had all grown into a strange friendship that they hid under death threats and violence. No matter what side Cole was working with, he had never hurt any of them. Even when he worked for Wyatt, he usually did more harm than good to his Empire - and everyone suspected it was on purpose.
"Do you have an actual plan?" Leo asked. "One that doesn't involve using my daughter as a shield?" He suggested, good humouredly.
Cole laughed but his humour quickly evaporated. "Not here. I do have a plan. With all of us in the same place we'll draw some attention pretty quick."
Leo nodded. "How about the Bay Mirror? Kevin has it protected and it's been left alone for months."
"Dad, you go with PJ, Parker, Peyton and Pearl. Then Paige can take Henry and the twins, and we'll go last, just in case orbing gets us any attention." Mel ordered. She and Matt were the best hand versus magic fighters but Tam and Kat would be best if they were caught while orbing. Leo was powerful enough to protect the cupids until PJ or Parker could get out their bows. Mel was surprised when no one argued. But people were used to be ordered by Piper and Chris over the years.
After a quick check of the perimeter confirmed that there wasn't any scouts nearby, the cupids orbed with Leo. Orbing wasn't as noticeable as beaming.
Mel returned to her original side of the room as her potion began to boil over onto the Bunsen burner flame. It was a bright pink now. It was supposed to be a dull yellow.
"Maybe PJ should be the one to brew the antidote for Chris?" Paige suggested, peering into the pot.
"Don't worry, Mel will be my shield." Cole reminded her, squeezing Mel's shoulder.
"How about a glamour?" Matthew countered, checking his watch until it was safe for Paige to orb with her kids.
"Fine." Cole sighed. He sounded almost annoyed that they weren't letting him get attacked by his ex-wife.
Mel snorted. Cole always did go for danger. "Never change, Cole." She requested.
"No, not until he changes side again."
Mel froze. She knew that voice. It haunted all of them. Wyatt.
She tore her eyes away from the failed potion to stare at her formerly loving big brother. No trace of him remained in the monster standing in the doorway.
Wyatt's long fingers were wrapped around Tamora's pale, delicate throat. He didn't look angry or betrayed.
Wyatt felt nothing anymore. "I was right to distrust you." Wyatt said, tonelessly.
"Wyatt," Paige begged. "Please."
Mel knew it was useless. If Wyatt hadn't listened to her begging, to Chris's begging, all those times that he had them chained up and tortured then he wouldn't listen to Paige now.
"Mom?" Henry Jr. said, tearfully. Mel saw that he was tugging on Paige's arm. "We need to go."
Mel felt a different hand clamp down on her shoulder. She knew Henry was right.
As she and Matt shimmered away from Wyatt she saw Cole grab Kat around the middle to stop her from throwing herself at Wyatt.
Mel heard Paige shout out her daughter's name in despair. She heard Kat's pained scream and then she heard an unnatural snap.
All was silent.
A Charmed Child was dead.
Phoebe stood in the doorway of Piper's bedroom, watching the scene in front of her.
Piper and Leo watching over their hurt witch lighter while their son held a one-sided conversation with Chris.
She wasn't sure if she should interrupt. Chris was sick, and they were on a time limit but she was reluctant to break the fragile peace between Piper and Leo. It seemed like there was something deeper going on between them. It wasn't the love that they still shared, it was something else. A different connection.
While she was debating what to do, Piper looked away from Chris and saw her.
"Phoebe?" She said, looking worried.
Phoebe shook herself, the moment had passed. She held out the bottle of pain relief pills she had found at the back of the medicine cabinet. With Leo around they didn't often need them.
Piper reached out to take them but Phoebe hesitated.
"We, um, Paige found the demons we think did this. We have the potions to stop them but we'll need to go find them." She explained, glancing between the pair. "We can handle this on our own if you want to stay and…" Phoebe shrugged. She felt like she needed to offer Piper the option to stay even though she knew that she wouldn't.
They would need to bring back a demon to ask them about their current boss. They needed Piper.
Piper looked surprised, and torn. Phoebe could see that she wanted to help Chris but the best way for her to do that was to find out who did it.
"I can handle Chris and Wyatt on my own while you're gone." Leo offered.
Wyatt squealed.
Phoebe smiled. "I think Wyatt wants to help Chris too." She interpreted. "He can keep Chris safe if anything happens." If Leo had to go for back up.
"Okay." Piper decided. "Have we any idea where they are?"
"Yeah, Paige knows." Phoebe said. "She's still in the attic making up some spare potions."
Piper nodded. "We'll we'd better get this done quickly." She said, briskly, rising to her feet and leaving.
"She's just worried." Phoebe said to Leo.
Leo nodded. He glanced down at Chris, who had paled significantly again. His uneven gasping breaths were only broken by moans and harsh, body wracking coughs.
"We all are."
He was on fire.
That was Chris's first thought.
His skin burned. His blood boiled. His breaths caught on what must be smoke.
Chris began to panic.
What was going on? Had he been attacked? How had they found the safe house? Were the others alive? Had Wyatt gotten to them?
No, Chris reminded himself. He was in the past. Wyatt was only a toddler here. The others were in the present – future? – And they were counting on him.
But what had happened to him? Had a demon attacked him?
Chris remembered a searing pain in his arm, taking him by surprise. He hadn't seen the archer, only the arrow sticking out of his arm. He remembered noticing something different about the arrow. The smell? The colour? There was something that made Chris think that he should keep the arrow but he still tore it out of his skin.
There was something on the arrow, Chris realised. Was… had he been poisoned? Was that what had happened? It made sense.
He remembered hands – familiar hands – trying to hold him up and a voice begging him to do… something. Who had been talking to him? His Dad? No, Leo. He wasn't his dad yet, he might not end up being his dad if he didn't bring his parents back together again.
Chris began to ponder how he was supposed to do that. It was difficult to try plan when his thoughts kept slipping away from him. But it was easier to plan than to focus on the burning pain throughout his body.
He had started to wonder about that when a different type of pain seared through him.
It cut through his mind and his heart. He felt like he couldn't breathe.
Chris knew what this pain was. He knew what it meant.
The image of an auburn haired girl giggling while flames danced around her fingers came to the forefront of Chris's mind. Tamora.
The image blurred and changed to Tamora gasping and clutching her neck. Her tearful, brown eyes darted around the room to people that he couldn't see. He didn't know if he was seeing this through someone else's eyes or his own but Chris couldn't take his eyes away from anything other than his cousin.
He felt a stab of guilt when her eyes met his, desperate. He wanted to do something. He wanted to help her. But Chris knew that she was already dead.
The cries of his family filled the room behind him but Chris didn't check to see if he could look at them. He just stared at Tamora, wishing that she had never gone over to Wyatt's side.
The horrifying snap of her neck was somehow less heart wrenching to Chris than the slow dimming of her eyes.
Her body was dropped to the ground, falling like a rag doll. The life was gone from her body but it still chilled Chris to the core.
"Oh, poor little Tammy," taunted a familiar, heart stopping, emotionless voice. Wyatt.
Snapped back to the present, Chris felt a tingling, numbing feeling spread through his body but he didn't care. He couldn't care. Tamora was dead. Wyatt had killed her.
She was dead.
Leo always enjoyed spending time with Wyatt but he couldn't do that while he worried over Chris's worsening condition. Because he could tell that Chris was getting worse.
He didn't know what poison had been used or what the symptoms were but Leo could tell that he was getting worse.
Occasionally, strange, unintelligible murmurs passed through his lips but it was usually just horrible wheezes. Sometimes murmurs that sounded like names. Even through the wheezes Leo could hear the pleading, distressed tone in every unclear syllable.
Leo had wondered about Chris, mostly his intentions, ever since the young witch lighter had arrived from the future, to the past – his present. Leo tried not to spend too long thinking about that and not just because his opinion of Chris had changed.
He wondered about who Chris had been. He was very powerful for being so young, because he actually was only twenty one. He must have been taught how to use how powers all his life. He had probably been raised by his witch and white lighter parents.
Chris knew a lot about the Charmed Ones, which had made Leo suspicious. Now, he only wondered how Chris had known them.
Chris probably wasn't even born yet, Leo didn't want to think about if he had been conceived yet. He must have grown up with Wyatt. As far as Leo knew, Paige and Wyatt were the only witch lighters that were born in this time.
Maybe more would be born after Leo and Piper had had a relationship. Leo tried not to think about Chris's part in the ending of that relationship. Especially since he seemed to be what was bringing them closer together.
Leo brushed the hair away from Chris's hot forehead. "I guess you're still a child, and we are parents." Leo thought for a minute. "If you were Wyatt's friend, then did you know me and Piper?"
He must have. Leo liked to think that they would have opened their home to a young Chris Perry. He hoped that he would have been seen as one of the family. The Charmed Ones knew all about the problems of magic. Especially since Chris had mentioned not getting on with his father, Leo hoped that he could have been there for him. As a white lighter, as Wyatt's dad.
Leo was broken out of his thoughts were he noticed Chris's wheezing breath. Or rather, the lack of it.
He wasn't stupid enough to hope that meant Chris had recovered.
"Chris!" He cried, holding his hands over Chris's chest. Healing him hadn't worked before, but he wasn't going to do nothing while Chris died.
But Leo did find himself forced to do nothing when Chris's body started twitching and seizing madly in a rhythm only it knew.
Wyatt started bawling crying on the other side of the room. His little face was scrunched up and red as he tried to reach out for Chris. But there was nothing either one of them could do. Leo just hoped that the girls had found the demons.
It didn't look good for Chris, he didn't have much time.
After the screams and explosions of the previous few minutes, the cavern was eerily silent.
The Archer demons harsh breathes, Phoebe's quiet hisses and Paige's hushed fussing were the only sounds.
Piper was silent but her anger was no less terrifying. Paige never wanted to be on Piper's bad side whenever she was that angry.
The look Paige shared with Phoebe let her know that they were both in agreement to hang back while Piper talked to the surviving demon.
'Talked' in the loosest sense of the word, of course.
Paige flinched as the demon screams returned. She instead focus on checking over the bad scrape on Phoebe's arm. It was bleeding but not too badly. She only wrapped it up with a scarf to keep her hands busy.
She was glad it wasn't any worse because she didn't want to have to get in between Piper and the demon.
"Piper?" Phoebe called. "We need to get back soon."
Paige applauded Phoebe's courage while she was also terrified of how Piper might react. She had been like a maniac when they first arrived. Paige was surprised that any demons were left.
Piper growled, or that was what Paige heard. Paige hoped that she had just misheard.
Piper flicked her wrist, freezing the demon in place, instead of blowing up parts of him as she had been doing.
Phoebe snagged Paige's hand and dragged her over to Piper's hand. She threw Paige a look.
She was annoyed with Paige's hesitance, she definitely understood but she was annoyed. Paige didn't doubt that she would be scolding her that Chris was dying but she was worried about how Piper would react. They had been very careful about the 'd-word' concerning Chris.
They had both wondered about Piper's surge of maternal instincts towards Chris, and scared of it too.
"Let's hope Wyatt never brings any girls home," Paige muttered to Phoebe before Piper grabbed a hold of her other hand and gingerly touched the demon.
As they orbed towards the house, Paige felt the usual feeling of separating and reuniting. But she also felt a strange pain inside her chest. A burning pain.
When they orbed into the attic she stumbled away from Piper and Phoebe, clutching her chest. The only time she could remember feeling like that in any way was when her parents died. Who did she know who was dying?
"Something's happened," she warned her sisters and then fell to the ground.
Hope you enjoyed! This chapter is a bit longer but it's mostly in the future because I'm trying to get the story moving forward, so sorry to anyone who hates the future scenes or characters but they will be an important part of the story. Anyway, enjoy October!