Hi everyone. Sorry about the long wait for this chapter. Things just away from me, especially with my computer refusing to save this document. Then I ended up working during the summer which, at the very least, has improved my typing skills. I hope everyone has enjoyed the summer and I hope that anyone who experienced the recent storm isn't having too much difficulty.

Hopefully there are no mistakes in this chapter. I'm sorry if there are, but I've only finished writing this just before I go to bed.

Mel watched PJ kiss Parker, Peyton and Pearl goodbye, whispering something to each before she pulled away. Despite herself, Mel felt a stab of envy at the heartbroken expression on the cupids' faces. She didn't have many more people to lose, or many people to say to goodbye to. Her cousins, her aunt, her friends – they were all ready for her to turn up dead. Even Leo.

Paige was clutching Kat and Henry Jr to her, like she never wanted to let them go. Mel remembered how tightly she, Chris and Wyatt had clung to each other after her mother's death. It was last time she had seen Wyatt as her brother. Before he became evil. At first, Mel hadn't blamed him. They were young and angry and grieving. They wanted all the fighting to stop but Wyatt went too far. People died. He hadn't cared who. Mel wondered sometimes if Chris was trying to save Wyatt or trying to undo all the death that they had caused by not stopped their brother earlier.

"Mel," Leo said, hesitantly.

Mel looked away from her cousins when Leo pulled her off to one side. They had never been much for long goodbyes. They had rarely given each other much more than a 'by the way' before they undertook dangerous or nearly suicidal missions. That was was why she was surprised by the red rimming his eyes. But, she supposed, if they failed in this then Leo will have lost all his children.

"Is it about Chris?" She asked, worried.

Leo nodded. "I can feel him," he explained. "The portal to the past hasn't closed fully, it can't until Chris is back. I can still sense him.

As his father or as his white lighter? Mel wondered but she didn't say it. It was no use trying to start a fight about Leo's parenting skills right now. "Is he doing alright?" She asked, hopefully instead. Too many of her friends had wasted away after escaping Wyatt only to get poisoned in the process.

"I've asked him to hold on," Leo replied, looking helpless. "Begged him, really. But I don't know." He sighed. "I told him you were coming, I don't know if he heard."

"He'll hold on," Mel said with confidence that she didn't feel.

"Yeah," Leo muttered, sounding half as confident as Mel felt. Which was to say, not at all.

"But if he doesn't?" Mel asked, unable to stop the desperate question. She felt like a little girl again, asking her daddy to make everything better. Except Mel had never had to ask Leo to make things better. She had always had Chris or Wyatt or her mother to help her. Mel wasn't sure how to make it in a world where her mother was dead, her brother was evil and Chris was… she didn't even want to think it.

"Chris has always surpassed every expectation I've have of him," Leo admitted. "Even if they were pitifully low. He won't give up, even if it's just to prove everyone wrong."

Mel smiled weakly at her dad. Matt came up beside her, he quietly squeezed her hand at the same time as he squeezed Leo's shoulder.

"Chris has never let us down before, we shouldn't start doubting him just yet. He might need our help now, but I'm sure he's got everything else under control," Matt assured them both.

Leo smiled at Matt. "Thank you. Make sure that you take care of yourself in the future, I know you're in no danger of erasing your existence, but your future is still in danger," he reminded him. "Both of you need to remember to keep your future's safe." Leo took a deep breath and let it out shakily. "I would rather not lose either of you, even if it meant that Chris…" Leo didn't finish.

Mel, even as she internally screamed, nodded. She understood, in a way. She would prefer to have Chris alive than to have him die in the past trying to save Wyatt. Even if that meant that they would have to kill Wyatt in the present. No one wanted to lose anyone else trying to save a man who didn't want to be saved.

Mel could admit, to herself, that she only wanted to save Wyatt because it meant that Bianca, her mother and Tamora would be alive. She couldn't bring herself to care about her brother. She couldn't let herself care about Wyatt, not after everything he did. She imagined that Chris would be horrified if he ever found that out. Then again, Wyatt had never killed his own family before. Maybe Chris would see the irredeemable monster that the world knew Wyatt to be.

"Is everyone ready?" Cole asked.

Mel looked to her cousins, checking them over. They stood tall and proud. And scared too. That summed up pretty much every Resistance member out there; strong and steely, while shaking in fear. The Charmed Children stepped away from their family members and towards Cole.

Their plan involved Cole and Matt shimmering them as close to the Manor as they dared. The security would no doubt be even higher than usual after Tamora's death. No doubt Wyatt would expect repercussions. Once they arrived, it would be a matter of stealth to sneak into the Manor. That was one benefit of having the home base of the world's biggest evil be your childhood home, you knew all the secrets. Mel pushed away the memory of Aunt Phoebe telling her about sneaking in through the second-storey windows after curfew. She needed to focus on the present, then she could deal with the past.

"Remember to be careful about using your powers," Paige warned, standing next to Leo. "There are only a few witch-lighters in the past." She shot Mel a particularly hard look, warning her, specifically, not to mess up by using her powers. Mel wanted to be indignant but she had to admit that she had forgotten that she would have to hide her white lighter powers. At least at first.

PJ reached out and squeezed her hand. Mel squeezed back, gratefully. "I wonder has anyone ever heard of a witch-cupid hybrid around that time? Or were the Halliwells revolutionaries in creating hybrid families?" PJ teased.

Despite herself, Mel smiled, even though it soon fell as she thought of all the other hybrid children that she had known growing up. Most of them were dead or had defected to Wyatt. Hybrids were slightly more powerful, and much more valuable or dangerous to a dark regime. There weren't many of them left on either side anymore.

"If worse comes to worst, you'll keep going, won't you?" Henry Jr asked suddenly.

Mel started. She hadn't thought of that. She stared at Leo and Paige carefully, with their remaining cousins crowded around their aunt and uncle. She imagined that they would keep protecting the children, and healing the injured members of the resistance, but she doubted that their hearts would be in it. She had never lost a child – even if she had lost every other family member – but she imagined it would be impossible to go on. All that was keeping Paige going right now was the hope that they would succeed and Tamora's death would be undone. Although, her life could be undone too.

They were really playing with fire here, weren't they. Would they even know who got burned? Would they wake up in a safe world one day, remembering when everything was destroyed, when they lived in fear? Or would they go on with their new, daily life, not knowing that their neighbours had ratted them out or that members of their family don't exist anymore? She decided that she didn't want to think about it. All she wanted to do was save Chris. She would deal with whatever else came at her when it came.

"We'll do our best," Leo promised, stiffly.

Liar, Mel thought, but she didn't say anything. No one did. They all just stared at each other before, on some unspoken signal, Matt and Cole took two Charmed Children each and shimmered away to their possible death.

Mel's last glimpse of her father was of him turning his head away so that she wouldn't see him break down.

Phoebe pressed a hand to her chest, just over her heart. She was aware of Paige watching her, worriedly. "I'm okay," she murmured. "It's just…" she didn't really have the words to describe it but Paige nodded anyway.

"We're all a little shook up with everything that's happening to Chris," she offered as an excuse.

Phoebe pounced on it gratefully. "Yeah, that must be it." She passed Paige her mug of tea. "I think I'll go check on him. Make sure that he and Leo haven't killed each other," she joked.

Paige's lips twitched in a tiny smile. "Yeah," she muttered. She glanced over at Piper, who hadn't noticed Phoebe's gasp and was still interrogating the demon. She frowned. "Is this…? Should we…? Should I stop her?" She asked, uncertainly, her eyes flicking over to Phoebe.

Phoebe looked to her older sister with her own frown. "I don't know," she admitted. "I don't think getting in between Piper and her goal of saving Chris is in any way safe right now but… I don't like what this is turning her into. I haven't seen her like this since Prue," she added.

Paige hummed. "It reminds me Chris, actually. Of how he was after Bianca died."

Phoebe blinked at the comparison. Now that Paige mentioned it, their reactions to grief were very similar. Chris and Piper really did have a lot in common. A thought poked at the back of Phoebe's mind. She refused to let it come to the forefront, though. It didn't make any sense – but it did, her empathy powers whispered – and she didn't have any proof.

When Chris recovered, because Piper would make sure of that, Phoebe would just have to sit on him until she got a straight answer. Or maybe she could offer to save him from Piper's aggressive mothering once he began to heal. Phoebe pushed away that thought. Aggressive smothering, she corrected.

"I'm going to go check on Chris," she announced to Piper. Piper only spared a glance over her shoulder. To Paige, she muttered, "make sure she doesn't go overboard?"

Paige nodded. "Tell Chris we're rooting for him."

Phoebe strode out of the attic and didn't look back. That feeling in her chest had grown the longer she stayed in the attic but Phoebe had a feeling that she would be better off sitting with Chris. She still couldn't help herself from hoping that Chris would have miraculously recovered in the time that they had been away. But one glance at Leo's pinched face chased away that hope.

Leo stared at Chris with such open despair and worry that it was hard to believe that him and Chris hadn't always gotten along. He looked as though he was about to lose a brother.

Or a son, Phoebe's treacherous thought whispered. She ignored it again. She still had no proof. "Any change?" She asked Leo.

He shook his head. "He started talking a while ago," Leo was interrupted by Chris's heartbroken murmur of "Tam," before he continued, "he had a seizure too."

"Poor Chris," Phoebe sighed. She moved to the head of the bed to pet the witch-lighter's hair. Wyatt paused in the middle of the same task to look up at her and hiccup. She forced a smile onto her face. "It'll be okay, Wyatt," she lied. "Chris'll be fine. Your mommy will make sure of that," she promised.

Wyatt huffed and resumed patting Chris's sweat-soaked hair.

"Mel," Chris muttered. His voice was much clearer.

Phoebe sucked in a breath when Chris's eyes cracked open. "Chris?" She called, hopefully.

"Mel," he repeated, louder and more insistently.

"Who's Mel, Chris?" Leo asked, moving closer, trying to encourage Chris to interact with the world and not get lost in delusions.

"Th... they're coming."

Mel kept close to the wall of the Manor, PJ behind her, Kat behind her and Matt bring up the rear. She followed closely behind Henry Jr while Cole scouted ahead. She watched him peer around the corner.

"We're clear," he whispered, gesturing them forward.

Henry moved quick enough that Mel had to hurry to keep up. Getting to the Manor from their arrival point had been a challenge. In ideal circumstances, it would have only been a two minute walk but as things were now, it had taken them nearly half an hour of creeping forward inch by inch. Now, things were moving much quicker.

Mel's heart began to pound with fear and anticipation. They were going to break into the home of their evil overlord, it was thrilling. Even ignoring the time travel, this was a heart pounding situation, especially considering that this plan had only been made in the last few hours.

Henry took over as leader once they rounded the corner to the front of the Manor. If there was one weakness of the Manor, it was its front door. Wyatt never updated or improved the security to the front of the house. Mel didn't know if that was Wyatt's arrogance or the house's own magic. The ancestral home of such a powerful line of witches was bound to have its own secrets after all.

Their plan was to sneak in the front door of the Manor, and then orb to the attic. PJ held the spell to travel to the past hidden in her quiver. The three Charmed girls would recite the spell and, with any luck, they would be gone before anyone had the chance to stop them. The orb alarms in the house would go off as soon as they moved in but there was nothing they could do about that. Nothing but hope that they were fast enough, of course.

Henry reached the door and crouched low. Mel followed his lead. From right behind her, Cole brushed his fingers against her shoulder. She wasn't sure if she imagined his mutter of "good luck." If she, or any magical being, opened the door the sensors would detect her magic immediately and alert the house. But Henry didn't have any magic. He could open the door and then she would orb him up as soon as they cleared the threshold.

Henry glanced back at her. "Ready?" he mouthed.

She nodded. Let's do this, she thought.

From the moment Henry's hand grasped the handle, Mel suddenly knew something was wrong. She just couldn't put her finger on what. But, really, it didn't matter what went wrong, only that something did.

It only mattered that, when the door to the Halliwell house opened, Ryake was waiting.

Sorry about the cliffhanger. A lot of things had to happen in the future during this chapter and it took a while to fit it all together. There should finally be some action next chapter, not that I have any actual skills at writing action. I hope you enjoyed this anyway :)

Also, congratulations to anyone who got their Leaving Cert results this summer, and good luck to anyone waiting to get their Junior Cert results.