"Hey." Phoebe looked up at her sister as Piper walked into the attic. "What happened now?" She asked when she saw the look on Piper's face.

"I'm not sure, actually. Cole's not invincible anymore." Phoebe's eyes widened.

"What? How did that happen? Where is he anyway?" Piper shook her head.

"I don't know how it happened. About half a dozen demons shimmered in and attacked us. One of them had to of thrown a potion or something. Cole thought it would be a good idea to go down to the underworld to check things out."

"And you're worried." She nodded, sitting down on the couch.

"The thing is that the demons didn't even seem to be after me, just Cole. They pretty much ignored me, even after I blew several of them up. And Cole still has his powers; he's just not invincible anymore." Phoebe frowned.

"But how could a demon do that? And if they did have the power to strip him of his invincibility, why not all his powers?" Piper stood up, pacing a little.

"I don't know. I mean, we wouldn't try that again after what happened last time. His powers didn't just disappear when I stripped them last time. The thing is that any demon would love that, wouldn't they? As far as we know, Cole is one of the most powerful magical beings in existence. Stripping his powers and then taking them for themselves, wouldn't that be something that a demon would want? Which just makes me think…"

"That it might not be a demon." Phoebe finished for her.

"Not to mention the fact that no demon would know how to strip Cole of his powers. I'm the one who made that potion; I'm the only one who knows the ingredients. And again that was just a stripping potion. It wasn't selective."

"No." Phoebe frowned. "But you could you have made it selective if you wanted to?" Piper's eyes narrowed she stalked out of the room.

"Piper?" Phoebe followed her. Piper went into her room and went over to the desk beside her bed, digging inside for something. She came up empty handed and turned to Phoebe.

"It's gone." She said looking a little bit scared now. "I don't understand, I made sure that you, Paige and Cole were the only ones who could touch it."

"Touch what?" Piper sighed.

"I sort of came up with another idea when Barbas attacked Cole. When I thought his powers were driving him crazy. You know a way to not leave him completely defenseless but also take away some of his more…destructive powers. I figured it might be enough to keep them from driving him off the deep end. After all, he spent months with Belthazor's powers as a good guy."

"A selective stripping potion?" Phoebe asked. Piper nodded.

"But I didn't have time to get it right then. The power stripping potion was sort of the only option I had."

"So, what? We're dealing with someone who might want to hurt Cole, but doesn't want to strip his powers."

"And the book that I had there was the info I needed to make that potion. Meaning that it has info on all of his powers." Phoebe sighed, rubbing a hand across her forehead.

"So who would want to kill Cole but wouldn't want his powers for themselves?" Piper sat down, letting out a sigh of her own.

"A witch maybe? I don't know someone who has got it in for him that's not a demon. Remember Emma? Maybe it's another person from his past, from when he was still Belthazor, or even when the Source was possessing him."

"Someone who also knows what happened when you stripped his powers." Piper nodded.

"And someone who isn't above working with demons to get the job done." She finished.

"Well, Chris has been checking things out. He said he hasn't found anything yet, but I'm sure he will."

"I know you're here." Chris said anger in his voice. He turned as she orbed in.

"Chris. Good to see you too." He glared at her.

"What are you doing here? Are you nuts?" He knew the answer to that question, though. She hadn't been right for a while now, not since her children had been taken from her.

"I'm doing what has to be done." She said calmly. "What no one else will do."

"Killing Cole?" He asked, sighing and rubbing a hand over his eyes warily. "What happened in the future…what happened to you…it's not his fault."

"No? You sure about that?"

"Yes." Chris said firmly. "I was there, remember? You're not the only one who lost everything."

"Everything but him." She said with contempt.

"I won't let you do this." Chris said calmly, wondering why he was even trying to reason with her. She wasn't in her right mind, and was fixated on Cole since she couldn't hurt the person who had really taken everything from her.

"Are you going to kill me, Chris?" She asked, tilting her head to the side and watching him. "You could never do it before." It was the truth. No matter what, he didn't know if he could bring himself to hurt her. It wasn't her fault she was like this, but it wasn't Cole's either.

"If you do this, you kill me too." He reminded her. There was an instant of clarity, of regret, in her eyes before it was gone, replaced by the familiar madness they had held for so long now.

"I'll do what I have to." She repeated. "You came back here to change things, didn't you?"

"But not like this!" Chris said, shaking his head.

"I'm sorry, Chris." She said, and orbed out. Chris stared at the spot where she had been, before sitting down in one of the chairs in the empty room. He put his head in his hands. He wasn't expecting this, and it was another problem he had to deal with.

How was he supposed to convince the sisters of this one? Maybe he could deal with this one on his own. He never wanted his mom and aunts to know about these types of things. He wondered how he would take it if they found out who was trying to take Cole out.

He wondered if she was working alone, if she had brought anyone else back with her, not that there were many people to bring back. He looked up when he heard the sound of someone else orbing in and his eyes widened when he saw who it was.

"Kyle?"

"Find anything?" Piper asked Cole, after she had assured herself that he wasn't injured. He shook his head.

"No one knows anything. At least no one that I've talked to." Piper nodded. She had been expecting that, with the things that she and Phoebe had worked out.

"Yeah. Phoebe and I sort of had a theory on that."

"That it's not a demon." Cole asked, sitting down next to her on the couch in the attic. "I've been thinking about what happened too."

"You remember when I told you about that selective stripping potion idea I had when Barbas attacked? Well, the notes I had on that are gone."

"Which means whoever is doing this has is probably going to figure out a way to vanquish me."

"They're not going to get the chance." Piper said, steel in her voice.

"This means we need to find whoever it is first." Phoebe spoke up from in front of the book. "Problem is, it isn't going to be easy, not without more to go on. Hopefully Chris will find something."

"The kids looking into this?" Cole asked.

"Yeah. He seems real worried about it, too." Cole shrugged.

"Well, without him, we probably still wouldn't remember all this." Piper nodded.

"I still need to thank him for that one."

"What are you doing?" Chris asked, standing up. "You said you'd look after her."

"Why do you think I'm here Chris? I followed her back when I figured out what she was planning." Chris sighed.

"How is everyone there? Cole and Leo?" Kyle hesitated for a moment.

"We really should be talking about what's going on here, don't you think? This could make everything so much worse." But Chris saw something in Kyle's eyes that he didn't like, saw the hesitation.

"What is it? What happened?" He stepped closer to Kyle. "Tell me." He said when Kyle remained silent.

"Cole's dead, Chris." He said softly.

"What?" Chris sat down again heavily, and his face paled. "She…she didn't…?" Kyle shook his head.

"No, it wasn't her. I don't know how it happened. It shouldn't have been possible. I mean, all these years and no ones ever been able to vanquish him, and then all the sudden…"

"It is her." Chris said softly. "She changed the future. Made a potion to strip him of his invincibility. Made it possible for someone to kill him. He wouldn't have known…" Kyle sat down next to him, just as heavily.

"I'm sorry, Chris." He said after a moment. "I should have been watching more closely." Chris shook his head.

"I shouldn't have come back." He didn't cry, not right then.

"You came back to change it."

"At the cost of his life." Chris said bitterly. Kyle shook his head.

"You can change that. You came back to change it. To change it all, right? He believed in you." Chris felt his eyes burn.

"I didn't even talk to him before I left. I didn't think he'd let me do it if I did. I thought he'd try and stop me." Kyle smiled sadly.

"He probably would have."

"What if I don't succeed? What if I don't change anything? Then he's really just gone, and I didn't…" Kyle put an arm around his shoulders as he tried to face the fact that one of the last members of his family was gone.

"He's still alive, Chris. Here, in this time. Maybe you should focus on that, on the fact that you can change the outcome of all this." Chris nodded, rubbing the tears out of his eyes.

"I should probably go talk to the sisters. They're waiting for me." Kyle nodded. "You're staying, right?"

"For now, of course." Kyle shrugged, standing with him. "It's my job to look out for you, right?" Chris smiled slightly at him before orbing out, back to the manor.

Kyle sighed when Chris orbed out and sat there for several minutes, contemplating how badly everything was screwed up. It was supposed to be his job to look after Chris, but he hadn't done great at that.

He had thought the elders were trying to torture him somehow when they had assigned him as Chris' whitelighter. He had even been slightly surprised that the elders even did assign Chris a whitelighter, considering who Chris was.

True, they had waited a couple of years after he had become a whitelighter to assign him to Chris, given him time, at least in their minds, to get over his feelings for Paige. Still, it hadn't been easy at first.

Now, here he was. Back in the time before he had even met Paige. It was strange to think that it was still a year from now before he would be getting involved in her life.

He'd had to come here, though. He'd had to follow her back. It wasn't even a real choice, especially after what had happened to Cole. Kyle was relieved that Chris was here. Cole's death had been a horrible thing to witness and he was glad that Chris hadn't been there to see it.

Sighing, he orbed out, intending to find the person who was going to screw up the future in even worse ways.

When Chris orbed back to the manor, for a moment he just stared at them. At Piper and Cole, sitting on the couch in the attic together. At Phoebe, standing at the book. He'd been doing a good job of separating these people from the ones he had grown up with, of cutting himself off from them, but seeing Kyle, hearing his revelation about Cole…

"Hey." Phoebe said. "Find anything?" Chris blinked, looking over at her. It was Cole who frowned at him, who stood up.

"You alright?" He asked, and Chris shook his head, trying to get his emotions in check.

"Uh…I-" He cut off, and wished that Cole would stop looking at him, wished that he'd just sit back down. "I'm still…looking, actually." He got out finally. They were all frowning at him now, though. And then Phoebe's frown deepened and a look of pain crossed over her face.

"Chris, what happened to you?" She asked. Panic flared for a moment when he realized that she had gotten some of his emotions.

"Nothing. I have to go. I'll keep looking." He orbed out immediately, reappearing back at P3, and collapsing on the couch. That shouldn't have happened. He shouldn't have orbed straight to the manor after talking to Kyle. Phoebe could only channel his emotions when they were particularly out of control.

Unable to stop it, he felt the tears forming. When he closed his eyes, he came up with a vivid image of his mom and her sisters vanquishing Cole.

Once, when he was ten, and he and one of his cousins had found out that Phoebe and Cole had a relationship before Cole and Piper, they had inadvertently sent themselves to the past when a potion went wrong. All they had been wondering was why Phoebe and Cole had broken up. All they had seen was them vanquishing Cole.

Chris had been more than a little confused, and more than a little angry at the sisters for a while after that, until finally, reluctantly, Cole had told him the whole story.

Now, knowing what had happened in the future after he had left, the image of him dying, of him bursting into flames and disappearing kept playing over and over again in his head, and he cried for the first time in a long time.