Rain spattered on the windows of the manor, adding to the atmosphere in the dimly lit kitchen. Phoebe had finally caught hold of Piper and called Paige over, though the three women had known better than to talk in a household where there were ears and eyes everywhere until the children went to bed. Apparently nosy was another Halliwell trait that would not be trodden down.

"I don't understand, how can you not know what could possibly kill my son?" Piper snapped from across the table, her voice low as her eyes darted up the stairs where her two sons were sleeping. Phoebe rolled her eyes but waved her hands to catch Piper's attention.

"The Seer wasn't exactly crystal about anything, but the important thing is that we know now, so we can make do with what we've got. Chris is in danger and we need to protect him. We've been in tighter jams than this before and if we just work this out-"

"What if we aren't supposed to?"

Piper and Phoebe turned their heads to where Paige sat at the end of the table, her arms folded and face calm. Her words had clearly not impressed Piper, as the chandelier above them flickered dangerously.

"Care to say that again, Paige?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"What if we aren't supposed to do anything about this? I mean… it's obvious the Seer is talking about Chris' past and we all know how that ended. The Chris that came to us in the past even said that he didn't know if the future he changed would have major consequences."

Paige shifted in her chair and looked at the ground when she felt the gaze of her two sisters' fix on her.

"Are we really going to ignore the possibility that this is something… Chris did?"

Phoebe reached out to grip Piper's arm when the eldest sister bristled suddenly. A china vase shattered into dust and Paige raised her hands defensively when Piper (only barely held back by Phoebe) tried to rise from the table.

"What exactly are you trying to insinuate, Paige?" she snapped harshly.

Phoebe forced Piper back into the chair and calmly looked over at Paige, who was now holding her hands out in front of her.

"Look, all I am saying is that are we really going to overlook the fact that past Chris might have caused this? The fortune teller even said Twice a man, once dead. That has to be talking about Chris' past self. Maybe when Chris went back to the past from the unchanged future, what he did cause this ripple effect?"

"Paige," Phoebe admonished softly, almost seeing the fury radiating from Piper's body. Paige brushed it off and continued, her jaw set and her eyes determined.

"Piper, Chris is your son. He's my nephew and I love him. But even you can't deny that when he came to the past, he did things. He killed a Valkyrie. He scattered Leo's orbs and sent us all to pocket realms all for the sake of getting us to listen to him! He did whatever it would take to save Wyatt, and that meant some crazy things! We bandaged him how many times? He orbed back from god knows where covered in who knows what and kept all kinds of secrets. Who is to say that he didn't make a deal when he was desperate? Maybe… maybe Chris sold his own future to save the future? What if this is…"

"Don't say it." Piper began."

"Unavoidable." Paige finished. "What if it's just his time?"

Phoebe shoved Piper down and stepped between the two sisters, "No. The seer told me we had to save him, which means we have a chance to. Now, the seer talked about… a world within a world. Something trapped behind a veil that Chris is going to try and move."

"Like the All Hallow's Eve veil?" Piper asked through gritted teeth, her eyes still refusing to cross over Paige. "Separating realms?"

Phoebe made a face and began pacing, "Maybe? I mean, she made this seem like it was something more than that, but maybe the concept is still the same? If the Hallows veil can let things in and out on Halloween, maybe Chris is going to find something similar?"

"Well what else did she say?" Paige asked again, taking out a pen to scribble down the message. Phoebe floundered before she recalled the words Valerie had spoken to her and she slid the message pad away from Paige and took the pen to scribble several of her own notes on the page.

"The sisters are obviously us. Prue, me and Piper… torn apart by death. Reunited by fate is when we met you, Paige. The man blessed by angels is Chris and the once dead has to be his other self. Keeper of the grains though," she went quiet, "I don't know…."

"A demon."

Phoebe made a face and slowly shook her head, "I don't think so. Valerie said the grain keeper shows Chris something that he thinks he needs to see, but it's dangerous. I'm thinking maybe Chris gets into this accidentally?"

"No, Phoebe," Piper cut her off, "Nothing in this house is ever an accident. There are no coincidences. Everything in this family happens because something makes it happen… and I will be damned if I lose one of my sons over this."

The three women fell into a long moment of silence before Paige finally spoke, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her pajamas as she did.

"I could ask the Elders about this Keeper of the Grains thing? I mean, I know the Book basically cover to cover and there's nothing in there about that. As for Chris… we'll keep an eye on him. Discreetly."

Piper looked like she was about to object, but Paige cut her off, "You know Chris. If he thinks something is up, he'll end up getting himself in more trouble."

Piper, to her credit, knew better than to argue that. Chris was as stubborn as they came. She smiled fondly and folded her arms over her chest.

"Okay. I'll tell Leo about this in the morning and from right this moment… we're looking out for Chris. He'll never even know anything is going on."


It had been a week since Chris had seen Charlotte and discovered that his journal was missing several dozen pages, though he hadn't been able to accomplish much in that time. He wasn't an idiot; he knew something was going on. His mother now almost constantly kept a close eye on him, asking about his day and trying to squeeze as many details out of him as possible. His aunt Paige was orbing in and out of the manor at least twice a day, always unannounced, making it impossible for Chris to do anything with some privacy. The most interesting, perhaps, was his aunt Phoebe. She had buried herself under a mountain of work and barely made eye contact with him since the night she had come barging into the house. He knew whatever it was had something to do with him… and that just didn't sit well in his stomach.

His eyes were burning and wet as he scrutinised the text in front of him. The print was tiny and run together on the yellowed pages, but he tried to force himself to keep reading. If he stopped reading, he would fall asleep…. And if he fell asleep.

It took only a half hour before he found his way to the bed in groping fumbles before he collapsed on the comforter, drifting into darkness.

Blood. The stench was overwhelming and suffocated him as he searched blindly through the darkness. He could hear the racing of footsteps behind him and he staggered to the floor in the hope that nobody would search for him there. He could hear screaming, familiar voices of his Resistance members as they were slaughtered one by one. A hand seized the back of his shirt and he was yanked to his feet, black eyes burning into his soul.

"I found you…."

Chris awoke, gasping and drenched in sweat. His head pounded and the entire room swam in and out of focus as he fumbled for the bottle of painkillers beside his bed. His hands trembled as he tried to twist open the bottle, the shaking proving too much and the pills scattered across the floor. The teen pressed a palm to his head in an attempt to stop the agonising pulses. It took him several minutes before he had collected the pills and returned them to the bottle, though not before taking two and sighing heavily. When everything had finally moved into focus, he reached for his phone and squinted at the screen. One twenty seven. Early.

He flicked his finger across the screen and brought the phone to his ear, listening to the low dial tone. There was a click and a sudden rupture of noise before a familiar voice finally spoke.

"Hello?"

"Charlie… it's me."

There was commotion on the other end of the phone and the sound of glass breaking, shortly followed by Charlotte's voice and several expletives. He waited patiently until the sound was abruptly cut off and Charlotte was back in his ear.

"Hey… another one?"

Chris rubbed his forehead and shuffled back under his covers, grimacing when he realised how soaked the sheets were with his own sweat. "Yeah. Is everything okay there?"

"Just your typical Friday night," she replied dryly, "Lots of drunks and a total lack of common sense. We've had to stop four barfights and the new trend is apparently to throw glass bottles everywhere when you're angry."

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Are you?"

Chris sat on the edge of his bed in his grey sweatpants and white tank top; massaging his head and sighing, "Everything hurts."

Charlotte leaned against the wall in the storage closet and sighed softly. This was the sixth time Chris had called her this week. She didn't mind, she had asked for him to let her know when he was having trouble, but it killed her to know he would spend the rest of the night sitting up in bed and staring at the ceiling.

"Look… I get off in twenty minutes. Did you want to come over? You can orb right in, I won't mind."

"You want me to come to your apartment?" Chris asked after a beat. He looked over at the clock again before listening intently. There was no noise in the house except for the occasional faint snore from his brother's room. Wyatt had a room at college, but apparently his roommate was "the biggest idiot ever dropped headfirst onto the earth" and Wyatt was enjoying actually getting sleep in his old room.

"Well… yeah. Chris, I know you're not going back to sleep tonight so I'd rather you came and talked to someone or at least just sat with someone for the rest of the night. Or even for a little bit."

There was silence on the other end of the phone before a soft, broken voice crackled across the line.

"…okay."

Charlotte smiled, but it slipped when there was a loud crash and more yelling from the other side of the door, "Well just orb in, I'll be up in about a half hour."

A loud shout and a massive crash made her head turn and she switched her phone to the other ear, "Maybe forty five minutes, I have to go. Bye."

Chris heard the connected click away and he leaned forward and pressed his palms to his forehead. He could tell the commotion in the background meant problems and he would have to make sure Charlotte was okay when she came back. He looked around and grabbed his leather jacket and slid it on lazily before orbing out.


It was an hour before Charlotte was able to stumble out of the bar, wringing alcohol from her shirt. She locked up and shooed several overly drunken patrons off from the outside of the bar and rubbed her aching shoulder. The bouncers had broken up the fight and tossed most of the patrons headfirst into the street, but that didn't clean up the mess they had left behind.

Charlotte took the stairs two at a time until she reached her floor, stopping at the end of the hallway when she saw the figure sitting outside her door.

"You could have orbed right inside," she said quietly when she reached her door and unlocked it easily, "I don't mind, I already told you."

Chris looked up with a weak smile, "Seemed too rude."

Charlotte took a long, hard look at Chris' features and her stomach twisted. He had dark circles under his eyes and his skin was ghastly white. She had no idea how long he had been slouched in the poorly lit hallway on his own, and she didn't like it.

"You smell like alcohol." Chris said as he slowly tried to stand. He had both hands braced on the wall but his legs still trembled. Charlotte looked down at her damp shirt and nodded, keeping her lips thinned.

"Yeah… what you smell is bourbon, rum and, if I'm not mistaken, raspberry syrup. All mixed together with the delightful scent of second hand smoke. A few of our regulars got into it… I think there's something in the water; it's getting out of hand down there lately."

Chris staggered into the room and Charlotte guided him to one of the plush chairs while she headed into her bedroom. She closed the door partway and peeled off her alcohol scented clothing and pulled on sweats and a tank top. She could still smell the alcohol on her body, but she could always shower once Chris had left. She re-emerged and found Chris curled comfortably on the couch, his eyelids heavy but he jerked awake every few moments.

"Do you need anything?" she asked softly as she padded over, her bare feet not making much noise on the hardwood floor. Chris shook his head slowly.

"No, I took some painkillers. It was just… thanks for giving me somewhere to get out of the house. I'm being watched like a hawk. My family knows something…"

Charlotte headed into the kitchen and began rummaging through her cupboards and setting out various ingredients on the countertop, occasionally casting an eye over at the young man on her couch.

"You know you're always welcome to come here. Just orb in, and if you're afraid you're going to disturb me, knock or something; but really, anytime."

She saw a soft smile flicker on Chris' lips and she smiled to herself as she busied herself with the ingredients.

"You want to talk about the dream?"

There was movement from the couch but no reply, so Charlotte silently spooned everything together before setting everything on the heated burner, stirring slowly.

"I found a few more things in the journal. Nothing much but, the pages in this section have been taken out in huge chunks. Whatever you were trying to hide… or whatever the demon took, it was a lot. I'm talking, 'entire parts of your life totally erased' kind of missing."

Chris sighed heavily from his position and frowned, letting one hand drop down over his eyes, "I don't understand. I get that how I got into the past must have been dangerous and probably top secret, but why would past me give the diary to my parents and not include the missing pages? If a demon took them, I assume he would have gone and found him. So it had to be me that removed them…. But why? And why did I leave them out?"

Charlotte set two mugs on the countertop and gently poured her creation into them, letting it steam as she dropped a handful of marshmallows into each mug.

"Well, I agree that it must have been you who took the pages out, but I'm sure it has to do with how you got to the past. Your time travel experience was different to the others, right? Yours was done in a way that meant you could change the past without being changed yourself. That kind of power would have to be dangerous in the hands of the wrong person. As for why you left out the pages when you gave the journal to your parents, I have no idea. You did it…. Why would you not include pages?"

Charlotte pressed the warm mug into Chris's hands and he breathed deep as the tempting chocolatey scent wafted towards him. He took a cautious sip and closed his eyes.

"…wow."

"My mother's recipe," Charlie said with a knowing smile, "She'd always make it for me when I couldn't sleep. Sometimes I'd pretend I was wide awake just so she'd make it for me."

Charlotte was curled up on the couch was her bare feet nestled under her body. She cradled the mug between two hands for warmth as she took several slow sips and smiled, clearly lost in a daydream of some kind. Chris wasn't sure if he should interrupt, but the curiosity was nagging at his mind. He knew he and Charlotte had not known each other very long, but he felt like they had been friends for years.

"Why don't you talk about them?"

Charlotte looked up from her mug and watched Chris closely. There was a pregnant pause before she finally answered, her words slow and calculating as though she was afraid she would say the wrong thing.

"When I came to San Francisco, I knew what I was leaving behind."

"Or what you were running from."

It was a theory he had been nursing in the back of his mind for a long time now. That Charlotte was running from something in Salem and had found haven in San Francisco for the time being. The only part of the theory that had holes was what she could have done that would have been so bad.

Charlotte clearly had caught his train of thought and she smirked humourlessly, "Or maybe I was running to my destiny as a witch without even knowing it," she teased coyly, "Did you ever think of that."

"I have," he replied honestly, "I mean, there's a lot of theories I have about you. I'm just waiting in the hope that one of them will pan out."

Charlotte chuckled and raised the mug to her lips, prompting Chris to do the same.

"Well, Chris… I have to admit I feel the same about you. I have so many questions and loose ends and clues that go nowhere… it's like doing a puzzle but the most necessary piece is missing and you just can't figure out the big picture without it."

The two settled into silence, thought it didn't last long. Chris had his eyes focused on Charlotte, grateful that the change of scenery and discussion was helping to ebb away the aching behind his eyes.

"Would you like to try something?" he asked quietly, draining his mug in two determined gulps. Charlotte raised one eyebrow and set her mug on a small coaster.

"Like what?"

"I found some whitelighter tips in the Book of Shadows. One was about how to help a witch with power anxiety and I think it might work for you. We can try and make your powers work."

Though she had been sleepy and comfortable in her position on the couch, Charlotte felt a new excitement burst from within her. A chance to test her powers was a chance she wasn't going to waste. Every night she dreamed she had a new power, each one greater than the last. Her inner rationality was telling her that she shouldn't get her hopes up when it was fairly obvious she was only in possession of a passive power she couldn't control, but the excited young girl inside her squashed those thoughts in her stride.

Chris smiled and gestured to her posture, "Cross your legs. Relax out. Kind of like yoga, I guess."

Charlotte complied without complaint, settling on the couch with her legs folded underneath her and her eyes closed. She felt a weight dip the cushion beside her and a warm hand ghosted over her shoulder.

"Loosen your shoulders," he instructed quietly, letting his hands settle on the hunch of her back and slowly working out the tension. "If you tense, it'll be harder. Passive powers aren't like active ones. Active powers respond to emotions; fear, pain… anger. Active powers are easier to use. Passive powers can take time."

Charlotte relaxed her shoulders and Chris smiled a little to himself, "And you don't need to make that face."

"What face?"

Charlotte opened her eyes to find Chris making an exaggerated impression of her face and she slapped his arm, "Right, okay. No faces. Well what can I do?"

Chris shifted his weight and smiled warmly.

"Get comfortable. This might take a while. Find a position you feel at peace in. Close your eyes and focus on your breathing. Forget about everything else and focus on your breathing, your body and my voice."

Charlotte shuffled around and punched several cushions into position before she folded her legs into a simple pose. She kept her arms loose in front of her, peeking one eye open to look at Chris before snapping it closed.

"Ready."

"Now image something bubbling inside you. Picture it as anything you like… waves on the beach, wisps of air, bubbling liquid.. whatever works for you. Feel it building from a place of power. Focus on your magic, feel it building. Let everything else fall away as you let that bubbling fill your body."

Charlotte wasn't sure how it would help her, especially considering she didn't even know if she had a place of power, but she finally settled on imagining her magic as small sparkles, much like the ones from the fireworks she and her family would see each year. The though made her chest pang and her grip on the mental image slipped, apparently noticeably. Warm hands curled over her own and Charlotte opened her eyes to find Chris looking at her worriedly.

"Are you okay?"

"Fine," she said stiffly before giving her shoulders and experimental roll, "Just let me try again. Sparks. Building. Magic."

Her eyes fell closed again and she took several deep breaths, not focusing on the memories behind her decision. The sparks flickered and her breaths became slow and even. She didn't know how long she sat there for, but the small sparks began to build, bubbling and flickering into a roaring inferno. Charlotte kept her breathing steady before a strange sensation gripped at her chest.

Charlotte's eyes snapped open and Chris saw something in her eyes shimmer before disappearing back into the blue. He was about to comment when her hand gripped his and she all but hauled him to his feet.

"Go. Go back to the manor and get into bed."

"What?"

"GO!"

Chris heard the panic and urgency in her voice and his eyes widened as he orbed away without being told twice. His cold blankets appeared around him and he had curled up just as his bedroom door swung open and light poured into the room.

"See, Piper?" came the hiss he recognised as his Aunt Phoebe, "I told you there was nothing to worry about."

"I just felt like…"

"Piper,"

It was his aunt Paige this time and he screwed his eyes closed, but kept listening. His mother had long ago stopped checking on him and Wyatt in the middle of the night. If he hadn't been in bed when she came in…

"Piper, he's fine. We'll sort this out now let's get out of here before we wake him up and he starts asking questions."

"I suppose," Piper whispered again, "Sorry for calling you both so late, I just had this feeling in my gut…"

"We know."

His position was making it hard to hear and he was hoping this would be the perfect opportunity to find out what his mother and aunts had been keeping from him. Chris rolled over, feigning sleep and curling deeper into his pillow. The movement startled his aunts and his door closed silently as the steady thud of three sets of feet made their way back down the hall. Their departure made him open one eye and sigh heavily; hating that he had missed his chance. Despite his disappointment, he reached for his phone and began typing.

Chris: How did you know? Did you have a vision?

Charlotte: I felt it. I didn't see anything in my head but I just… knew. Is that normal?

Across town, the brunette was sitting up in bed, several pillows cushioned around her comfortably. She didn't know how to explain what she had experienced, but she knew it was nothing like the visions Chris had described. A feeling had seized her out of nowhere and that was all she knew.

Chris: That's okay. We'll try again soon, your powers are only just starting to work, and visions might be too much for the moment.

In all honesty, he had no idea how to explain what had happened. What she was describing was intuition, not precognition. As far as he knew, his aunt nor his cousin had ever experienced anything like that. He rubbed his eyes tiredly when Charlotte's reply lit up his screen.

Charlotte: Get some sleep. I'll see you sometime soon, okay?

Chris: Maybe later this week? I think I'm going to do some searching as to why everyone in my family is on eggshells around me.

Charlotte: Sounds good. Goodnight, Chris.

Chris: Goodnight Charlie.

Chris let his phone drop down onto the bed beside him and he sighed as his head dropped back onto the pillows. This whole thing was so confusing and complicated, but he needed this to work out. He needed to know why these memories were causing him so much pain. He needed to know what had happened in his past life that caused him to tear several dozen parts of his life out of a journal meant for him.

He needed to know why, of all the people in the world, magic brought him to Charlotte.

And he couldn't stop the bagging feeling that everything that was happening was all connected in a way that was so much larger than him.

Chris curled up in his blankets and rubbed at his burning eyes as sleep began to ebb at his brain. Maybe when he woke up he could go into Magic School and do more research about Seers. He had no doubts now that Charlotte could see the future, but she was nothing like he had ever seen before. Powers manifested differently in everyone… but there was something about her that wasn't what he expected and he was determined to figure out what it was.

"Please…" he mumbled to himself as he buried his face into the cold fabric of his pillowcase, "Let me sleep."

The darkness of his room seemed to enclose over him and he let himself relax, falling blissfully into an uninterrupted sleep.


The fuzzy yellow ball hit Charlotte's bedroom wall with a low thud, bouncing back into her palm before she threw it again. The chocolate brown cat perched on her dresser eyed the ball hungrily, but did not move.

"What do you think, Cookie?" Charlotte asked as she caught the ball again, tossing it into the air before resuming her previous actions. The cat's ears perked and he yawned widely, prompting Charlotte to roll her eyes.

"Maybe my powers are broken? Can that happen? I mean… can they be damaged if you… fall out of a tree?"

Cookie made a soft sound that Charlotte was sure could pass as a snort and she sighed, flopping back onto her bed and screwing her eyes closed.

"I'm going to work this out," she whispered to herself. A soft mewl from her dresser made her lips quirk and she rolled off the bed to crack the window, watching as the cat slinked under the frame and perched on the fire escape.

"I thought familiars were supposed to help new witches, huh? All you ever did was claw up my furniture and leave me dead birds."

Cookie raised his tail and turned away, leaving Charlotte alone in her apartment. It was already close to four in the morning and she still hadn't been able to coax herself to sleep. The thrill of magic was still pumping through her veins, yet she had done everything she could to try and summon another feeling like she had before. The window slid closed under her fingers as she pressed her forehead to the cold glass.

"Give. Me. A sign." She pleaded. Her head hit the window with each pause in the blind hope that maybe it would emphasise her point. Her apartment stayed empty, only the muffle sounds of the couple above her having sex breaking the silence. Charlotte's teeth caught her bottom lip as she crawled into bed and reached for the switch of her bedside lamp, pulling back when an odd sensation tickled at the pads of her fingers. Charlotte rubbed her fingers together and frowned when something drifted down onto her bedside table. Upon closer inspection, several grains of sand were now piled on the wood, several more clinging to the underside of her fingers. Cookie must have dragged something in from god only knows where. With her luck, she'd be finding sand all over her apartment for the next week.

Charlie switched off the light without a second thought, instead choosing to burrow down as far into her blankets as she could in the hope that maybe something would come to her in a dream.


Across magical planes, a woman encased in flames bit off a scream as she pulled uselessly at the tight rope bonds around her wrists. Almost nineteen years of endless torture, death ripped from her grasp and her body forced to live no matter what she had been put though. They had left her to burn, taking turns watching as her body blistered and blackened before bursting back to life, only to be claimed by the flames.

The veil was weakening around them. If the veil collapsed and this world was given even the slightest chance to spill over into the next, her hard efforts and sacrifices would be for nothing. She needed to stop it for the sake of everything she and so many others had fought hard to create. She felt the burning tingle of her skin repairing and she knew this might be her only chance. The woman rubbed her forefinger and thumb together, focusing as hard as she could and feeling her magic flare for a moment before it was sucked out of her and the flames claimed her body and she screamed in agony.

Unnoticed amid the roaring fire… several grains of sand scattered into the air and abruptly disappeared.


It had been four days since her first brush with magic and Charlotte had yet to recreate the intuition she had managed. Chris had been back to her apartment twice, the pair staying awake to all hours of the morning working on her magic. Chris had created a spell outside his bedroom door that alerted him when someone came too close. He hadn't been forced to orb away yet, but he had told Charlotte he wanted to keep this from his parents for as long as possible and not being in bed in the middle of the night was a good way to send them into a panic.

Charlotte was buried under a mound of pillows and blankets when her eyes snapped open and her body jerked, falling ungracefully into a heap on the floor. Chris' journal tipped from her bedside table and landed in front of her, spread open and waiting. Charlotte grunted and rubbed the sleep from her eyes and reached for the book, retracting her hand when the gritty texture of sand coated her fingers. She squinted down at the pages before groping for her light, hissing unhappily when the sudden light dazzled her eyes. She scanned the page out of habit, rubbing the sand between her fingers out of boredom when a thought struck her like a bolt of lightning, her eyes going wide.

"Oh… you're a genius."


It was well past midnight in the Halliwell Manor, the moonlight that filtered through the branches of an old oak tree outside Chris' window cast intricate patterns on the floor and bedspread. Beneath the heavy covers, Chris rolled in his sleep and grumbled into the pillow.

He rushed into the attic, slamming the door and shoving a heavy wooden chest of drawers across the opening in the hope it would hold off the demons. He scrambled for the Book of Shadows, flipping open the heavy cover to find page after page blank and useless. Rapid footsteps were approaching, thundering down the hall and Chris braced for the attic door to go flying open….

Taptaptap

He frowned. They were… knocking?

Taptaptaptaptaptap

He crept towards the door, hands raised for an attack

Taptaptap "…Chris…."

The boy in question opened one bleary eye, finding himself in his room and safe from any onslaught. A soft tapping met his ears again and he frowned as he sat up and ran a hand through his messy hair. A shadow cast along the floor and he turned his head to the window, seeing a figure perched on the branch outside. He set his feet on the cold floor and opened the window, stepping back when the figure jumped forward immediately. When the bleary vision finally cleared, Chris saw Charlotte standing in the middle of his room, her eyes alight and a strange look on her face.

"Charlie?" he rasped, his voice thick from sleep, "It's three in the morning. My parents are sleeping, what are you-"

"I think I know where the pages are."

Any trace of weariness disappeared at those words and Chris pulled Charlotte to the bed. He raised one finger to silence her and whispered a quick spell that would temporarily block any sounds from leaving his room. He'd only used it a handful of times in the past, usually when he needed to scream out his frustrations with one thing or another. Charlotte was rummaging through her bag and Chris took note that she was only wearing her sweatpants and a grey hoodie. The familiar scent of secondhand smoke and spiced rum lingered in the air and he noted that it wasn't all that unpleasant; it seemed to be woven into almost everything she owned, much to her dismay.

If Charlotte had come to the manor at this time of the morning and risked being discovered, he should have known it would only be something truly important. Charlotte pulled the journal from the depths of her bag and she flipped to a page near the end of the book.

"It seems as though my time in the past might be up. I don't know what is going to happen to me, but I am almost sure my life and timeline will be written out of history. Despite all of this, I want to leave something for my new self. I don't know how my timetravel will influence him, but I want him to know about everything. I'll leave this journal in the past with Piper and Leo and they can give it to me when I am ready. With everything that has happened in the past though, I know that if this journal fell into the wrong hands, things could go horribly wrong. I need to protect my secrets. I can only imagine what kind of sick, twisted things could happen if things were discovered. I just hope my new self is enough like me to uncover the truth. Sometimes you need to make your bed and sleep in it too."

Chris nodded, remembering that passage well. He had always found it curious, but nothing overly strange. Charlotte, almost bouncing on the bed with excitement, rolled her eyes at him and gestured to the passage.

"Chris, you say right here that you have to protect your secrets. You tore out the pages to hide something that you were afraid of falling into the wrong hands, but you made sure this journal would be given to yourself. Do you think your past self would have wanted you to not know something important? You tore out the pages…"

Charlotte's eyes shone as she grinned and caught his arm, "But you would make sure they were somewhere you could find. Right here, I think this last line was a clue. If you were enough like him, you would be able to figure out where he would stash the pages. But I also figured," she continued, clearly on a roll, "that you wouldn't make it too hard. I mean, he had no idea how things would go down. I think maybe the pages have been under our noses the whole time."

"Under our noses where?"

"You would never hide something in the Underworld. Too risky. The manor is so often under attack that anything serious would possibly get found- maybe by YOU before you were ready. Magic School has way too many nosey people the way you put it… which means there's really only one place I can think of that the other you would have had access to that maybe nobody else would even think about… where did you stay when you came back from the future?"

Chris frowned for a moment before the revelation came crashing down on him and he turned to look into Charlotte's eyes.

"P3."


"Isn't there some kind of alarm system?" Charlotte whispered as the pair crept through P3. The club has been closed down for the week after a particularly violent brawl left a wall broken and several areas damaged. Chris had never seen his mother so furious since the time Wyatt had orbed him to the top of Mt. Rushmore because Chris stole the blue crayon during craft hour.

"I have the override codes," Chris replied as he shoved the door to the back room open unceremoniously. This room had been redone at least twice since he could remember and nothing had been recovered, but if the papers weren't here, he had no idea where else they could be.

"Make your bed and sleep in it…" he murmured, "It has to be here. I mean, where else?"

The two crept across the room, Chris fumbling for the light switch to bathe it in a fluorescent white glow. Charlotte stepped slowly across the floor and Chris cocked an eyebrow.

"What are you doing?"

Charlotte smiled, "You said this whole room has been redone. But this floor looks like it hasn't been touched in a long time…. Didn't you ever hide anything in the floorboards as a kid?"

A floorboard groaned softly under Charlotte's feet and she dropped to her knees, fingers smoothing along one of the cracks as Chris kneeled beside her. Charlotte caught an edge and pried the floorboard loose with a soft huff as it clattered up and dust bust into the air. There, nestled on several scraps of fabric, was a thick roll of papers, tied together with a ragged piece of string. Chris felt his heart skip a beat as he reached in and tentatively picked them up, catching sight of the date scrawled on the top of one loose page.

"This is it." He said, unable to wipe the happiness from his face.

The two sat on the floor, Chris carefully removing the bindings and letting the pages come free. His eyes scanned the pages greedily, wanting to drink in all of the information. There had to be hundreds of pages here, so much information torn away and hidden.

"What was so important? What did I need to hide so badly? How did I get here back then and why did I go through so many lengths to keep it secret?"

Charlotte held a few pages of her own, eyes darting across the page as she took in the new information. Chris was busy babbling to himself, excited to know that this information could be the key to discovering what his flashbacks were all about. He didn't notice the way Charlotte paled and her lips parted as she switched from page to page, her frown growing deeper. When Chris did look up, he paused in his glee, smile falling from his face.

"What is it? Charlie…. What?"

" July 10th, 2024. I saved a girl from Wyatt today. I knew he was going to attack the Elders and I orbed up to warn them, but they dismissed me. I was so angry but I left them to their work, at least until the sky started to burn. Whatever Wyatt was doing, it was powerful enough to impact the world down here. There were balls of fire raining from the sky and I orbed up to find total carnage. Leo was there, behind a pillar. He and four other Elders were holding a girl down and she was screaming. One of the Elders had his hands on her heads and was pushing magic inside in a bright, white stream. She was thrashing and begging them to stop but they didn't. Just as they finished, Wyatt found them and killed three at once. Leo escaped and dragged me away, but Wyatt had stopped the Elders from leaving somehow. Leo told me I needed to take the girl, that she would help me. She was a gift from the Elders. I tried to ask more, but Wyatt grabbed him and threw him across the room. The girl was moving so I went over to try and orb us out, but Wyatt started attacking me. I managed to grab her and get out, apparently Wyatt hadn't planned on me being there and I was able to get free. The girl hasn't woken up yet but we have her shackled to a bed in the underground of the Resistance. I don't know if I should trust anything from the Elders, and Bianca agrees."

Charlotte finished reading and Chris took his moment to jump in, "Well that's what you were seeing, right? Maybe you can have visions of the past life and my magic brought me to you so you can show me more about my life?"

Charlotte held up a finger, not saying anything but continuing to read.

"July 13th, 2024. She woke up today. We were worried whatever the Elders had done to her might have caused serious damage, but she was coherent enough to give us her name and location. She was a survivor of the Salem massacre. Wyatt had taken pleasure in setting fire to the area, killing most of the occupants, her family included. She and a group of survivors had been making their way to Boston when she told us she had been grabbed from behind and it all went dark. She doesn't seem to trust us, and we don't trust her. It's safer to be suspicious in this kind of world. She said she doesn't know what the Elders did to her, but I can see the lie in her eyes. I don't know if she is waiting to see if we are people she can trust, or if she has an agenda. Its times like this I wish my mother was alive, she'd know what to do. For now, all I know is that Charlotte Perry could be Wyatt's adversary and I won't risk losing more innocents to him."

Charlotte lowered the papers and looked up at Chris, her face now an unreadable mask. Chris's mouth felt dry and he shook his head slowly, unsure how to process the news.

"So… what now?"


A/N: Abigail: You didn't leave an email for me to contact you so I just put the reply here; I hope you took the time to continue Ripples even though you're disappointed. I do have more of reasoning for Chris not having as many powers and one of those is that Chris came back from the future with telekinesis and orbing… and he saved the world. He didn't need any flashy this or super that, he kicked ass using his knowledge and wits and I always felt that was what separated him from his brother. He wasn't gung-ho powerful, he had regular powers and I never saw anything wrong with that. Secondly, Wyatt was explained as some big prophecy and it was "meant to be" and I was under the impression that Wyatt's powers were less parent-based and more prophecy-based. Leo had nothing to do with it in Wyatt's case apart from the orbing and the healing, which is what Chris can do. I feel as though my explanation of why Chris is not as powerful as his brother makes perfect sense, and I'm sorry you don't agree.

Will Chris in this fic only have telekinesis and orbing? No. His powers WILL evolve and there will be an addition or two, BUT they don't be super flashy like Wyatt's. I always felt that Chris' personality in the show wasn't suited for a "Mr. Twice Blessed" kind of thing and I wanted to stick with that. I'm sorry you're disappointed about the route I chose to take, but I did have my reasons other than "just because it's canon" and there WILL be some development.