Once the initial shock had somewhat worn off - for the Charmed Ones, the Charmed Children could never come to terms with seeing their deceased parents and aunts, and seeing them so young - they all broke into teams to discuss their plan.

Henry and Paige had gone to put Wyatt to bed for a short nap. PJ was bonding with Phoebe while Matt made sure that she didn't blurt out anything too dangerous to their futures, while he pretended to watch over Chris, and Kat and Mel gathered in the attic to peruse the Book of Shadows, trying to see if there was any mention of the more notable Archer Demons mentioned in the Book of Shadows. Their demonic education tended to be more focused on the present rather than the past, so they had to see who was alive and wasn't yet alive.

Mel shook her head. "I can't believe any of this," she muttered, keeping her voice low to avoid being overheard. "Being back in the Manor, seeing my mom, seeing Chris," she shook her head again. "Running straight in Ryake, Wyatt, knowing that Javik is dead, and now Lokl. It's just crazy."

Kat wrapped her arms around her. "I can't believe that Tam's just gone. And I came so close to losing Henry."

Mel sighed. "Kat," she said softly, wrapping her arms around her younger cousin. She wasn't the most empathetic or comforting among the Charmed Children, but she understood the pain of losing your family all too well. "We're going to fix this. We're going to stop the evil, stop Wyatt, and we'll save Tam before any of this even happens," she promised.

Kat nodded. "I know," she agreed.

Mel pulled back, glancing down at the Book. "I'm not recognising a lot of names, I don't know if that's a good thing or not. Maybe the others killed them all before our time, or maybe they're already dead by now and no one's done any spring cleaning in the Book for years." She sighed, running a hand over their birthright.

Kat sniffed. "Tammy was always good at that."

Mel nodded sadly. "Yeah," she sighed. "She had the best handwriting out of any of us."

"And the best drawing skills," Kat added. "I miss her, Mel. I know she wasn't around for years, but now… I can't feel her anymore. She's just… gone."

"I know, Kat. I know," Mel sympathised. "It hurts. But, you will get through this. We've lost people like this before, and we've survived it. We'll get through this and stop the evil from turning Wyatt."

Kat sniffed again. "Wyatt is the evil!" She snapped. "He's the one we need to stop."

Mel shook her head. "Kat, we're tried. It won't work. He's too protected. He knows our powers too well. And we can't trust anyone else to do it. No one else is powerful enough and anyone who gets close to powerful enough, he has them killed."

"He's protected in our time, but what about this time," Kat hissed. "He's a toddler. He couldn't protect himself. Not from all of us. He might be Twice-Blessed and powerful, but we grew up learning his weaknesses, it's our job. It's our duty to stop him."

"Kat, he's a child," Mel warned, shocked at her cousin, and also not shocked. The idea had crossed her mind a few times. She had discussed it with Chris, but they both knew that it was a last resort. Neither of them wanted to kill their brother, but they also knew that the repercussions on their timeline would be disastrous. "He's an innocent."

"He killed my sister!"

"Our Wyatt killed your sister! The child downstairs has done nothing wrong! If you kill him, you will be killing good, and turning evil. Tam's not alive to avenge yet! If you killed Wyatt now, what if the rest of us are never born? Tam will never even be alive!"

"At least then she'd never die!" Kat hissed, eye ablaze.

Mel bit back a snarl. Kat was grieving. She wasn't thinking rationally. Not that rational thinking was ever her strong suit. "Kat, calm down," she growled. "If we screw this up - which you trying to kill their child would definitely do - then we won't get a second chance. Chris will die, and Tam's death will have been entirely in vain. Do you want that? Do you want your sister to have died for nothing? Because, I don't," Mel finished panting for breath.

Kat stepped back, eyes still ablaze but she looked calmer now. "Fine," she spat, and then she orbed away, with no indication of where she was going.

Mel wanted to be worried, but she knew that she had a greater chance of slapping her younger cousin than comforting her. Kat had survived to this age without dying in a dystopian world, she would be fine in normal-day San Francisco.

On the other side of the attic, Piper and Leo were putting up a united front against Cole, who found the entire thing amusing, and a little depressing considering the state of their relationship in his memories. Although it was typical them to only grow stronger when one of their children was in danger. There was nothing like it to bring those two together.

"Okay, I get it. You don't trust me again, I know why. I'm not going to tell you again, because you will eventually learn it all, you already have from my perspective. But, trust me for now that I have these kids' best interests at heart. I have Chris' best interests at heart," Cole insisted. "I promised every member of those kids' families that I would keep them safe - I already failed once. I refuse to fail again."

Piper and Leo shared a look and Cole had to hide a smile. They never lost those 'look's. Chris and Mel did the same, but Piper and Leo could have a whole argument with only a single look. Piper's kids never got to their parents' level.

"Fine," Piper huffed. "But don't you dare try anything."

"Or you'll blow me up, I know," Cole finished throwing up his hands.

"What did the demon tell you, Piper?" Leo asked.

"Lokl," Cole cut in, before she could speak. "His name was Lokl, he was from the future. So if he told you that he wasn't involved, then he was lying."

"I guessed," Piper snapped. "He said that he was working for someone, and he knew about some sort of 'temporary' cure."

Cole nodded. "He was probably working for Wyatt, but there has to be a higher level demon running things on this end. It certainly wasn't Lokl, his brother was always the brains of that operation."

"Forget who's in charge, if you know where the cure is, why don't we just go find it?" Piper demanded.

Cole raised his hands again. "Look, I don't want Chris in pain either, but you have no idea how many Archer demons there are, they've probably already created a couple dozen spawn in the time since we've arrived. We need to stop their leader to disorient the group and that takes time. The temporary cure is just that, but it'll give Chris a much better chance. And, he's one of the best fighters that we have. It wouldn't hurt to have him fighting the demons with us."

Leo was shaking his head. "Chris can't even get up, there's no way he can fight."

Cole scowled. "You don't know Chris. And this temporary cure is good, they used to deal it out instead of the real one - convince people that they were fine long enough to slink back into the Underworld. It gives us time. We need it."

Neither one of the couple looked entirely convinced, until Mel sauntered over, glancing uncertainly between her parents when they couldn't see her, but behaving every inch the Resistance leader that she was when they could.

"Cole's right. Chris needs time. And so do we, according to the Book, we've missed something big. There's a second time travel portal, as long as that one is open," she pointed to the chalk drawing of the trifecta left on the attic wall, "there's one open in the Underworld. For all we know, they've gotten every demon in the city flooding down there right now. We need to think before we act."

Cole was impressed, Mel's parents were less so.

"Fine," they both grudgingly agreed.

"But how do we do this?" Piper wondered.

"You seem to have developed some planning skills, Cole," Leo said, sounding somewhat accusing, which was fair considering Leo's history with him, but Cole still took offence to considering how many of his plans had saved his children's lives.

"Well, we'll need the group to work together, but we still need information. From what I remember, there are still plenty of Elders you can ask for help from," Cole hinted.

Leo nodded. "I could talk to Gideon," he offered.

Mel nodded in agreement but Cole couldn't help but notice the frown that spread across her face. "Just… be careful, alright?" She said. "Gideon, he's… I've heard things over the years. I'm not so sure about that guy."

Leo looked bewildered but nodded. "Alright."

Leo orbed into Gideon's office in Magic School, surprised to not find the other Elder there. "Gideon?" He called out.

It took a moment, but Gideon orbed into the room behind him, looking surprised. "Leo," he said. "I thought you would be busy dealing with your white-lighter." He paused. "Chris Perry, he is alright, isn't he?"

Maybe it was Mel's warning, but Leo couldn't help but feel that there was something 'off' about the way that Gideon asked about Chris.

"He's fine for now, but we need to heal him. Soon. We've figured out that he's been poisoned, with something called atropine. And we know that there is a cure for it, somewhere."

Gideon shook his head. "I'm sorry, Leo. I'm familiar with that poison. But no one has been able to find any cure for it, we don't know if it even exists anymore. I'm sorry. No one deserves to die like that."

Leo grit his teeth. "Surely, there's something," he pleaded. "There is a cure for it in the future."

Gideon paused. "Chris told you that?"

Leo opened his mouth to say that it was Chris' time travelling relatives, but, again, Mel's warning ran through his mind. "Yes," he said, instead. "And Piper captured an Archer demon who told her that one does exist, and that whoever is in charge might know it's location. Do you have any idea who could be in charge? Or where it might be?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Gideon sighed. "And healing isn't working?" He asked.

Leo shook his head, with growing frustration. If Gideon didn't know anything then there was no point in sitting around talking when he could be joining the others in helping Chris.

"Perhaps, Wyatt might be able to heal Chris," Gideon suggested.

Leo startled. "Wyatt?" He repeated. Wyatt was powerful, but his healing wasn't any stronger than an Elders, not yet anyway. "He's not powerful enough. No one is."

Gideon hummed. "Not powerful enough," he muttered. "How powerful is he?" He wondered.

Leo took a small step back. "I don't know," he admitted. "We won't know until he grows up. We can only teach him to control it."

"But, can he control it, Leo?"

"He's a child!" Leo snapped. "He still needs to learn."

"But, will he?" Gideon wondered. "If what Chris says about his future is true, then Wyatt doesn't learn to control his powers. And the entire world suffers."

Leo couldn't believe that that was true, and he suspected that Chris would argue against it too. In all the brief glimpses into his future that he let slip, he had never once implied that Wyatt's powers were out of control. If anything, he had too much control over his powers, he was a true force of Evil, unstoppable by all the forces of good currently hiding out in the Manor.

Wyatt turning wasn't about the strength of his powers, but rather the man who wielded them. The man that Leo would ensure would never turn evil.

"I'll figure this out on my own, Gideon," Leo said. "Thank you for the help."

PJ had switched places with Matt a few moments ago, and was now sitting with her cousin's head in her lap, brushing back his hair. She remembered Aunt Piper doing the same to her when her mom had had to go work and she was at home sick. She had probably done the same to her own children. She hoped that Chris would find it comforting.

She felt a strange mix of despair, elation, fear and excitement. She was home again, in the Manor, seeing her mother, but she knew how badly things would get. She knew that her mother only had a few years until she died. She knew that it was even less time for Piper, less time until Aunt Paige's heart was broken. She knew what was coming, but now she could see exactly what they had to fight for. She could see that she hadn't forgotten what her mother looked like, she hadn't forgotten any of it. If they did this right, then this would all be theirs again.

They would run through these halls again, laugh with these people, be safe and loved and home again. But only if they did it right.

PJ didn't even want to think about what would happen if they did it wrong. If Chris died. If Wyatt still turned evil. If their future still occurred. If poor Tammy died again.

PJ hadn't been in the room when Tam died, and she grateful, because the shock wave from her own grief compounded by that from her siblings and her cousins had been immense. Even now, her own grief was wrapped up in the others, unable to be dealt with behind the worry and fear for Chris, for Wyatt, for themselves.

"I can hear you worrying, PJ," Chris murmured.

PJ paused in her stroking and looked down at her older cousin with a fond smile. "Chris," she said, softly. "How are you?" She could feel his pain and hurt through their Charmed bond and her own empathetic nature, even though that was dulled just enough to make her suspect a blocking potion.

Matt stood up from where he sat at the end of the bed talking to Phoebe. He squeezed Chris' knee. "Hey, Chris. You're sister is working on how to help you right now. We're all focused on keeping you safe. So you better do that same," he warned.

PJ smiled, well aware of how Chris was about his own illnesses, but as aware of how hypocritical that was coming from someone who had once challenged six demons - with three knives sticking out of him.

Chris smirked weakly. "Right," he agreed, placatingly.

"Phoebe," Henry called softly, the way people did at the bedside of the infirm. "Will you go to check on Wyatt? Apparently Kat's run off, and I think Mel wants Paige to try find her."

Phoebe nodded and got up. "Don't worry, Chris," she said before slipping out of the room passed her unknown nephew.

"Hey Chris," Henry said, fondly, moving closer to his cousins and friend. "Long time no see, I just wished that you looked a little bit better."

"You're one to talk," Chris croaked. "I heard Ryake nearly had you back at the Manor, what was that about?"

Henry rolled his eyes with an exaggerated sigh. "He snuck up on me. How can I fight demons that I'm woefully ill equipped to fight when they won't fight fair?"

It was an old argument between the boys. Henry might not have to powers to fight, but he had the skills to keep himself alive, and the heart to never back down from a fight.

Chris laughed, which quickly turned to a painful sounding cough. "I'm sure you showed him in the end though," Chris choked out.

"Not yet," Henry promised, even though his face showed the clear worry he felt for his cousin.

PJ's heart clenched with the shared worry among her cousins and friend.

"Listen," Chris coughed again. "I want you all to be careful," he began.

"Don't worry, Chris," Matt cut off. "I won't let Henry damage his pretty face on Ryake's fists." Henry pretended to scowl.

"No," Chris argued. "It's not about that. It's about our parents. Don't let them know who any of us are. It could cause irreparable damage to our futures. We're already in trouble in our own lives, we don't need to ruin our timelines any more. Be careful," he warned, having to cut himself off with a cough.

"We will," PJ promised, squeezing Chris' hand. "We'll keep each other safe."