The Snow Gardens

by That Girl Six

Three weeks after Chris's death, the family is in pieces trying to find their way back to one another in all the wrong ways. As each deal with their grief, the future, past, and present all come into question while they try to save their broken family.

8. On a Bad Day

Chapter Eight
On a Bad Day

I.

Both Wyatt and Leo gaped wide-eyed at Christopher, caught off guard by his question. It had been obvious that he'd intended the question for them, but it was Piper instead who addressed the younger son first.

"Clyde? You mean the guy with the door?"

Excitedly, Christopher chirped, "If that's how he does it, then, yeah, that guy."

"Oh, no," warned Piper almost immediately. "No, no, no. No way. The last time we let him loose on this family, he almost got Phoebe and Cole both married and killed. I will not have that lunatic in my house again."

"How do you even know about him," asked Leo, skipping over Piper's objection for the moment until Christopher had had time to work his idea out with them. At least, he couldn't entirely discount the idea yet; he just didn't have to like it. "Clyde isn't exactly someone you look up in the magical yellow pages."

Christopher focused on his father, hoping that he could keep his idea as vague as possible to everyone else but Leo and Victor. He didn't want any more questions than necessary as he began to explain, "When she had the vision that I told you about, the one she got from the baby that started this whole thing, we did some asking around. We even went to the Underworld to find a Seer to find out if there was any way of knowing what it was. No one would help us since they were all . . ." Christopher sheepishly looked at his brother, avoiding his eyes but seeing his general direction. "Well, they all had contracts with another employer, shall we say. But there was one who suggested that we get in touch with Clyde, that he was the only one with power enough to move through time the way we needed him to besides Tempus. We never were able to find him, though." Stealing a glance this time at his grandfather, he said sadly, "Something else came up."

Paige, too, remembered the hulking guardian of the past, not exactly fondly. If she thought about it, the smell of him never really left her memory. Still, if it could help them out . . . "That doesn't explain what he could do for us now, though. He can only show us the past, anyway. What made you think of him?"

Christopher gulped, trying to settle himself long enough to get his thoughts out. Thinking out loud, he told them, "Like I said, we were talking downstairs and trying to fill in some of the gaps of the last year and all that. I thought we'd have more luck figuring today out if we started back a little further. When Wyatt asked how we got the idea to come back here, I told him about the vision." He turned to his older brother and said, "You said, 'If that ever happened, that would be the worst day of my life'. You see now?"

Wyatt looked confused for a moment, but the lights went on for him at the same time as they did for Leo. "That's what she said! Lucy said that 'it was the worst day of his life'!"

"Exactly," Christopher said excitedly. "I know she didn't mean me, or she would have said 'your life'. She had to mean you. But that day hasn't happened yet, not from here. So we need to get to that day, to find that thing she said we missed that day. I don't trust the Elders to get us there, and we definitely can't trust Tempus. That leaves Clyde. He's the only one with that kind of power. Even though we're here, our past has still happened for us. If he can only show his clients their pasts, well — I mean, if I got the story right, he truly was the ghost of Christmas past, so to speak, which means that if he is real, then so are the ghosts of Christmas present and future, right? So if Clyde himself can't do it for us, he has to know the ghost who can. It's worth a shot, isn't it? It's the only one I think we have right now." Again he faced his father and brother, this time much more sure of himself as he asked, "So how do I find him?"

"You mean 'we'," Wyatt corrected his brother.

"No, I don't," argued Christopher. "I need you to stay here. I don't know what I'm going to end up seeing if this works, and I'm not going to risk you losing it on me." The man's voice was barely audible, but definitely unsure of whether or not he even believed what he was about to say, but he was saying it anyway. "I just got you back, at least, I think I did. I'm not risking you, not after everything we went through to get you back. I can't take that chance. We don't know what made you go away. All we know, if she was right, is the day."

Wyatt crossed his arms over his chest automatically, the stance he usually found himself in whenever someone had the gall to argue with him. He saw Christopher's face flicker for a moment, as if his kid brother had been afraid but reminded himself that he didn't have to be. Wyatt knew that that look was going to be in Christopher's eyes for a long, long time to come, but that didn't mean that it hurt any less to see it there. He dropped his hands back down and jammed them so deep into his pockets that he was slouching. He looked hard at his brother and said, "I need to do this with you. I know you don't need me there because you 'need' me. You've more than proven that you don't need me. But I need this, Chris, me. So much is a big black hole right now. I need to know."

"Seriously, I don't think that's a very good idea." Christopher thought on the stricken look on his brother's face when the strange pop-up-clones of Wyatt had appeared in front of them, the things that they had heard him saying. Wyatt had been so sick with what they'd seen, even when none of that had really happened between the two of them. To watch what was probably going to be a replay of similar moments and still focus enough to figure out what they could do next was not going to be easy in the least. He couldn't ask Wyatt to do that. His mind quickly made up, Christopher adamantly said, "I'm doing this alone."

"No, you aren't," said Leo. "I'm going with you."

Christopher immediately shook his head. "Dad, I hate to say it, but — "

"Future consequences, I know," Leo rolled his eyes. "But think about it: if this works, whatever we see won't happen. We may be able to strike that day from your lives forever. Clyde is, among other things, a really antsy guy. He isn't going to have the patience to deal with you. He isn't going to jump back and forth as many times as you need so that you can be sure of what you're seeing. At the very least, you're going to need another set of eyes."

"Whoa," Piper interrupted. "Before any of you decide to go traipsing off to the past or the future or whatever it is to you, we have other problems to deal with here." She directed their attention to the still form of her sister. "None of you are going anywhere until we fix this." To Leo and Christopher, she said, "Wyatt is safe for now, as long as he's here with us, right? Whatever happened to him, it seems to be fixed. I realize that it isn't a total fix. It still happened, and we need to find a way to stop it for good, but it isn't Life or Death anymore. Phoebe's situation is."

Christopher glanced over at Phoebe, understanding his mother's predicament. He tried to be as diplomatic as possible and said gently to her, "Look, Mom, I know you're scared. I am, too. We have too many people to save at once and not a clue how to do it. But I still think what I've been thinking all week. I am part of the problem."

"Christopher, no," Piper argued.

"Yes, I am. My being here is making it harder for all of you. If you're honest about it, you know I'm right. Dad's right; I should probably have another set of eyes to help me, but if I'm taking anyone, it's going to be Wyatt. I don't think it's a good idea for Dad to be in the future. He's seen too much as it is. So I think we need to split up. If you and Dad and Paige take care of Phoebe, Wyatt and I can work on Little Wyatt and try to sort the future out for all of us. The more Wyatt and I can do on our own, the easier it will be for all of you." With a pointed look at his parents, Christopher added, "And I think it would be better for Wyatt if he was as little a part of Phoebe's problem as possible, too."

Wyatt had been listening quietly to his brother talk fairly confidently to his parents, but he quickly joined in when it was suggested that he was one of the parties that needed some sort of protection from his own past. It was his past, after all. Before he even realized he was doing it, he invoked a voice that he didn't know he really even had. "And do I get a say in what I'm supposed to be doing here, Christopher?"

"NO," Leo, Piper, and Christopher all answered at once, shouting down the eldest son's potential argument. Piper didn't like what Christopher had been saying, but she had to admit that, in this circumstance, he was probably right. The last thing that Phoebe needed at the moment, if she chose to wake up, was to see him or Wyatt standing there in some position that reminded Chris's memory of some random event and sent her off on another mnemonic tantrum. She sighed heavily and finished to Wyatt for all of them. "Your brother is right. It isn't really safe for either of you to be around Phoebe right now. But you aren't going without your father. No arguments on that one."

Victor, too, had been quietly dividing his attention between his baby girl and the rest of his family. He had learned long ago not to bother trying to interject ideas unless he was sure that he could help out in some way. The mortals belonged at the Kids' Table, after all. This time, he was pretty sure he was going to be right when he piped up, "Um, excuse me, but maybe it would be a good idea to see if your ghost or whatever can actually help you before you fight over who is doing what when and how? Phoebe seems caught in time for the moment, but I'm guessing that once time starts moving for her again, she doesn't have much time left. Considering that we don't know when that's going to happen, perhaps you should find out if this is an option before you bother trying to figure out what to do next."

Properly admonished, Christopher backed off for the moment, as did Wyatt. Piper obviously had no intention of backing off, but Victor silenced her with a look. Leo gave his wife and sons a quick look-over then made up his mind. Without any further fuss, he backed up from the group, leaving a nice wide space in the middle of the room for their guest. He stretched his arms out in front of him, fingers laced and cracked. A quick smile flashed over his tired features as he poured all of his frustration into the call for the temperamental (at best) spirit guide.

Even Wyatt flushed with embarrassment at the foul words that came from his father's mouth. He whistled a low, "Wow."

"The only way to get him to appear is to make him mad," Leo shrugged.

"I didn't know you knew words like that," Wyatt continued to marvel.

The two small children in the makeshift playpen didn't seem to know that their father knew those kinds of words either, because as soon as the yelling started, both of the children started to cry. Little Wyatt immediately stepped closer to his little brother and threw up his protective bubble, even as the tears started to come. The screaming only grew as Leo cursed louder from the lack of response.

Then, out of the sky, a whirlwind tore into the attic, sending the two little boys into a complete panic. As the twister drew closer to them, Little Wyatt blinked hard. Vials of potions exploded on the potions table. The door to the attic slammed shut. Just as he had been all week, Christopher was suddenly swept off his feet into a cloud of orbs that threatened to take him away until he felt his mother reach up and grab him before he could get away.

As the twister settled, Piper turned on her toddler with a stern look. "Wyatt, stop that. Not nice. Not. Nice."

Little Wyatt's only reply was a pouty, "No 'ad. 'Ad 'ad 'ad 'ad. . ."

Piper sighed, finally at a loss as to why little Wyatt was trying so hard to get rid of Christopher. Even when Wyatt hadn't trusted Chris, he still hadn't tried to orb him away. He'd put up his shield, sure, but he'd never tried to hurt his little brother. She ran a hand through her hair and took a deep breath to blow out the frustration before she got a tone that she didn't want with any of her kids. "Look, Christopher, maybe it would be a good idea if we just kept you away from him for a while this afternoon. He actually seems more agitated with you today than he has all week, if that's possible. There aren't any knives for him to try to skewer you with, but E-X-C-A-L-I-B-U-Ris, and I don't want to take any chances."

Almost comically, Leo said from the middle of the room where he was talking with a typically angry-looking Clyde, "Christopher, come over here. Wyatt, stop trying to kill your brother."

Christopher shrugged but obeyed, stopping along the way only long enough to tap his big brother on the shoulder. He hooked a thumb at the playpen and told Wyatt, "Have a little talk with yourself, will you, and get him to stop trying to kill me? I can only handle one of you doing that at a time."

"Right," Wyatt scoffed. "And what exactly am I supposed to tell myself?"

A mischievous smile graced Christopher's features, but their mother had been paying too much attention to their conversation to let it get any further than that. "You better watch that mouth, Mister," she warned.

After another smart-alecky grin in his adult brother's direction and a wary look at his toddler brother's direction, Christopher left the group to join his father and Clyde. Ten minutes of begging and negotiating later, Christopher sidled quietly up to his brother, tugging on his shirt sleeve.

"It's a go," he told Wyatt. "Dad's talking to him downstairs alone for a few minutes, but we have a deal."

"How many first-born children did you have to promise him?"

"There's 'highway robbery' and then there's Clyde," said Christopher ruefully. "But at least it's a start. I've got to do something he hadn't tried yet."

Wyatt looked quizzically at his brother. "Who 'he' hadn't tried what?"

"Nevermind. It isn't important, not to us. Until this is all done, I'd rather you didn't know." In dire need of distraction, Christopher walked away from his brother, fast. He joined his mother and Paige, who were both standing over Phoebe while Victor took a much needed break. "How is she?"

"No change," said Piper. "The only good news here is that the bleeding seems to have stopped when she stopped breathing. We can't heal her, but at least she isn't getting any worse."

Wyatt came up behind them, his conversation with his brother not as finished as Christopher would have liked. Things had been progressively clearer to him over the last few hours since their fight, but he was still struggling to place everything that was going on around them. To his brother, he said jokingly (although Christopher's reaction didn't seem to take it as a joke), "Yeah, we weren't done. But . . . " A little more gently, he asked, "So Phoebe's still out of commission?"

Piper didn't even look up at her son as she sighed, "Yeah, and unless we find a spell to help us come up with a plan to help her, she's going to stay that way for a while. Christopher is right. We need to split up. So, as much as I hate to say it, why don't we get you three on the road? Don't worry about Phoebe. Paige and I will take care of it. You guys need to take care of you."

From the chair near Phoebe's head, Paige squirmed uncomfortably. "I don't mean to be the bad aunt or anything — and no offense, Kiddo — but are we sure we can trust Wyatt to go along? I mean, I know we can't trust him to stay here either, but . . . "

"You're worried about trusting me," Wyatt tried to joke to cover up his admittedly hurt (but understanding) feelings. "From the looks of it, it's Little Me over there that needs to be sent to his room before he tries to kill Chris one more time, not me."

Piper and Paige both made small whimpering noises in the backs of their throats that made Christopher cringe. He gave his brother a strong punch on the arm and a warning without explanation. "Shut up. Open mouth. Insert foot."

Their mother quickly recovered and growled first at Christopher, then at Wyatt. "You, play nice with your brother. I don't have any more ice left as it is. And you, stop being such a jackass. This family has enough issues to deal with today."

Christopher smirked and had to look down at his toes to hide it. In his head, he could hear Lucy's voice, getting mad at the guy she'd been dating before Charlie because he'd done the same and called Wyatt a 'colossal jackass'. Christopher had had to hold Wyatt back until Lucy had stepped away from her boyfriend, joining her brothers opposite him. Her voice had been so protective, so defiant, as she'd told him off.

Under his breath, Christopher said to himself, "He may be a jackass . . . "

Wyatt must have known exactly what Christopher was thinking, because he, too, sadly smiled and said with his laughing brother, " — But he's our jackass."

"Pardon me," Piper snapped.

"Nothing," the brothers said together, eyes snapping forward and smiles quickly wiped from their faces.

Paige looked at the expressions on her nephews' faces and grumped, "I think I like it better when you two are beating each other to a pulp. At least then we know what's going on."

"Sorry, guys. Future consequences." When his aunt glared at him, Christopher rapidly changed the subject, not wanting to live under that stare for too long. He'd had enough of the staring of all kinds for a week now. "Nevermind. Look, I hate to admit it, but Wyatt's probably right: he needs to be there. I know there's no talking Dad out of coming, but he's going to be so distracted by what we're seeing that he isn't going to be of much use to me. Having a set of eyes that's seen it all before is probably going to be more help than hurt at this point. Besides, we're aiming for the worst day of his life. I'm guessing I was there, but still, he's going to know what happened better than me."

"Not to be rude, but that still doesn't answer my question. Can we trust him?"

Christopher looked at Wyatt, who walked away and didn't bother to meet anyone's eyes. He was suddenly fascinated with a squeaky floorboard he found under his shoe. The younger of the brothers watched his big brother only long enough to see that he didn't have an answer to the question himself. It had been so long that he wasn't sure where to find his brother in there, not for sure. He knew that Wyatt was back to them for the most part, but whatever had happened to him, that much evil in his mind for that long wasn't going to just go away without leaving a mark. It was probably the reason Wyatt had been able to say the things he'd said and been able to bring himself to hurt Christopher the way he had. No matter what, Wyatt would always be scarred by his time away from them. That wasn't something that was going to get the trust of his family back right away, even from Christopher. Still, it was Wyatt there in front of him. Scarred or not, he was still Wyatt and he was seemingly good again. That had to count for something, at least until they knew better.

Softly, Christopher answered all of their waiting faces, "We're working on it."

As Wyatt nodded his Thanks at his brother, their father came back into the attic looking like he'd had a successful negotiation with their spirit guide. Leo spotted his eldest and waved him over. "Wyatt, we're going to need to go over a few details here before Clyde can open the door if we're going to get to the right day."

Wyatt turned to his brother for one last reassurance before this plan of his quite possibly dragged them both down into the dregs again. "You're sure about this? Because you know what day it's probably going to need to be, and — "

"As sure as I'm going to get. Go."

As Leo, Wyatt, and Clyde all gathered in the corner of the attic to discuss the details of the day that they needed to find in the younger man's past, Christopher walked over to the playpen where the two boys were back to sleep. Little Wyatt's hand was protectively close to his baby brother, the crusty old teddybear he hated discarded. Even in sleep, however, Little Wyatt was apparently aware of what was going on around him because just as Christopher's eyes peeked over the edge of the makeshift playpen, his warbly blue bubble appeared to shelter himself and his brother without him even opening his eyes.

For the first time, Christopher wasn't hurt by the action. Instead, he smiled and whispered down to the kids, "We're going to be you guys again real soon. I promise you. You won't have to worry about him anymore."

"Getting any good ideas," asked Piper as she came up next to him and put her arm around his shoulders.

"Just trying to remember what that was like. It's been a long time since we were them."

"Would it help if I remind you right now that he's here and he seems to be saved?" Piper shrugged, as if saying what she was about to say was going to be easier to get out if she treated it like it was nothing. It didn't work, but she tried. "If nothing else, at least you have that knowledge that he can be saved. That was something that Chris never had. When he died, Wyatt had been kidnapped and he knew that I was in trouble with his labor. He . . . He died without knowing if he had even come close. You know. You did it. Your brother was saved, at least from your point in time. You have your brother back."

Christopher digested what she said and knew she was right. He had that much. Still, they still had a long, long way to go. "It'll be better if he never leaves at all."

"And you'll see to it that he doesn't."

"Everyone seems to think so."

Seeing the weight in her son's shoulders, something she had recognized too late in the other Chris, she tried to encourage him. After all, if they knew they had put their trust in the right person, maybe he should be willing to trust their judgement. Confidently, she suggested, "Well, if everyone thinks so, maybe you should, too."

"I'll work on it."

"It looks like they're wrapping things up over there, so, before you go," started Piper, taking both of Christopher's hands in hers. "I don't know exactly what's happening here. I don't understand how he got here or what you're doing now or any of it. But I want you to know, I do know that you are you, not him. You didn't exactly let me finish last night, and you left before I got to make my point. Feelings of pride aside, bad word choices aside, I trust you to do the right thing. That was what I was going for last night. Chris may have made the road a lot easier for you with us in the Here and Now, but I do know that you're you and you still have a job to do. I trust you. So go, do a job. We'll figure the rest out when you get back."

Christopher didn't know what to say. Part of him was grateful to hear the words, but he was a little jealous, too. She said she knew the difference, but sometimes he wondered if she was just saying what she was to make up for what she didn't say with the other version of himself. He supposed that it didn't really matter. She was saying it, wasn't she? That had to count for something. Of all the things in this world he had to be mad at her for, this really wasn't one of them. If it made her feel better to say it amidst all of this chaos, he supposed he could give her this. She may have been missing from his life for a long time now, but she was still his mom. He could give her something. That was a chance no one else ever really got. Giving her the best smile he could give her under the circumstances, he bent over and kissed her forehead. "Love you, Mom. I'll get him back for us. Trust me."

"I do, Sweetie. Now go. I'll see you when you get back." With a reassuring smile, Christopher went off as he was told, needing to go over a few last minute things with his father anyway. Seeing Christopher occupied, Piper called Wyatt over to her, needing to say a few things to him as well.

The man looked almost sheepish as he approached his mother, not entirely sure where it was that they stood at the moment. They'd all said a lot of things that could be taken so many different ways in the last few hours that none of them were probably in control of a whole lot. All Wyatt knew was that he didn't think, on top of everything else, that he could handle having her say anything condemning of him right now. He was beating himself up as it was. Still, he tried to be hopeful as he greeted her. "Hey."

Piper reached a hand up, moving through his flinch away, to wipe a smudge of blood from his cheek. She smiled up at him with a tight, business end smile. "You're your brother's keeper, you know that, right?"

Wyatt was caught slightly off guard by the question, but he answered honestly, "Every minute of every day. That has never and will never change."

"So I can trust you to look out for him while you're gone?"

The man bit back a laugh, falling into the old position he'd once held as Son and Brother. He'd heard her say this to him so many times when they were kids that it seemed so natural, but he knew that it couldn't have been. She hadn't been there yet. She had no idea. Still, it was so routine for him that the answer came out the way it always had, oddly reassuring and independent at the same time. "We aren't going to get into trouble, I swear. Dad will be with us and there isn't anything there that can hurt us. It's memory, nothing more."

"That's what I'm afraid of," said Piper, glancing over her shoulder at her ailing sister. "It can hurt a lot more than I think you're prepared for."

"We'll be fine."

The subject took a swift but related change as Piper told her son, "I'm trying, you know? I'm trying to put aside everything we've heard and seen because Christopher seems to think we should. I'm trusting you here to prove him right." She sighed then smiled gently at him. "I know that we have a lot to explain to each other about what's going on here today. Once we can work through what's going on with you, we might be able to explain what's happening with Phoebe. But for now, I guess I just need to say that you can't imagine what this family has been through in the last few months. We're getting through it, but it would make things a lot easier on us if you . . . You just need to find a way, okay? I need you to be safe."

From the center of the room, Leo called out to his son. "Wyatt, we need to go."

Wyatt looked down at his mother and told her reassuringly, "Safe as houses, Piper, I promise."

As her son walked away, Piper called out to him one more time. She wasn't sure if what she was going to say was one last guilt trip that he should look out for his brother or if it was a reminder to herself that she was talking to her son and he was okay. Whatever it meant, she still said, "Wyatt?"

"Hmm?"

"It's nice to meet you."

Christopher's head cocked to the side as his mother smiled at the two of them. His eyes squinted at her, studying her until he could figure out what she was trying to say. After a beat, he decided that it didn't really matter. His mother was trying to understand the thing that he'd been trying to understand for the last seven years, how his brother could still be in there somewhere and what he was going to be when he came back out. He looked at his brother, who looked back in confusion. Wyatt definitely had no idea what was going on. In that, Christopher found his answer and nodded to his mother. It was definitely their boy. He then took his brother's shoulder and turned him toward the door. To Wyatt he shrugged. "Tell you later."

"Let's get this show on the road, kiddies," Clyde growled impatiently. With that, he opened the door and waved them all inside. The remaining family in the attic heard him grumble about forgetting the popcorn as the door closed behind him.

II.

When they all tumbled out of the door, Christopher and Wyatt both spread out through what they knew to be Wyatt's old bedroom. They both looked for any sign that they had ended up on the correct day when they heard a crash from upstairs. As young Wyatt looked up at the ceiling in response, they all heard a scream. Without a further thought, they were all orbed up into the attic. As the orbs fell away to reveal a crumpled teenaged Christopher, Wyatt let out a painful sigh. Christopher didn't say anything, but the look he gave his brother was all he needed to say. Bringing Wyatt along was absolutely a very bad idea.

Christopher vividly remembered the hand that Wyatt had stretched down to him to help him up after the demon had been quickly dispensed with. In his mind, it had been the last time he'd been able to look into his brother's eyes and see Wyatt there, not whatever it was that had set up shop in his body. He saw that look in Wyatt's eyes again for what he knew was going to be the last time as that hand came down and his past self grabbed it gratefully. Christopher watched as he'd seen his brother look at his teenaged self for the last time in true concern, with love, and with fear. He wanted to freeze the moment that he had replayed so many times in his mind as his brother asked his past, "Are you okay?"

"Ask me again in a couple of minutes," they all heard the past Christopher say ruefully, gingerly making sure his ribs were still there and in only a few pieces instead of the hundred they felt like. "Oooww."

"Let me look."

"Nah, I'm okay," the young Christopher said, swiping blood away from his busted lip. "I'll ice it later. Right now I just want to find out who that guy was before Mom sees this mess and freaks out that anything got this close to us today. She's had enough to worry about this week."

"And she doesn't need to see you broken," young Wyatt countered with his Big Brother voice. "Now let me at least fix your side. I'm not going to let you walk around all day like an old grandma when I can do something about it."

"Do you kids know what day this is," asked Leo as he took in the sights, his head craning around to see what changes he could find in the attic. The furniture was different from what it had been the day he'd been to the future. He could see The Book not too far away from them, and from what he could see of the cover through the slats on the podium, the triquetra was still intact. Nothing seemed too out of the ordinary, or at least, as out of the ordinary as their lives would one day get. When neither of his sons responded, he asked, "Wyatt? This is supposed to be your past. Do you know where we are?"

"Exactly where we need to be. Exactly where we don't want to be. Take your pick."

"He means 'yes'," said Christopher, looking to the door expectantly. As a very young, pre-growth spurt Lucy came into the room, he smiled at her. As she excitedly started for Wyatt, Christopher explained, "We were supposed to orb out into the middle of nowhere, rent a car, and just hang out that day. Mom offered to spend some time with her, but she wanted Wyatt and me. She and Mom weren't getting along so well at this time in their lives. Lucy refused to unbind her powers, still, and it was getting harder to keep her out of trouble at the time. Mom was afraid she wouldn't be able to defend herself and get herself killed. There were a lot of fights, a lot, and some of them got really ugly."

"Sorry, Lulabelle," young Wyatt said, calling their sister by a long-forgotten nickname. "Something came up." The girl didn't say anything, but the disappointment glistened in her eyes. It was clear that she had heard that one a few times too many that day. Immediately young Wyatt tried to cheer her up with a negotiation. "Tell you what. I know I'm already late for our —"

"It's okay," she said before he could finish his thought, taking in the mess that littered the attic. "I didn't actually expect us to get away anyway. Can I at least stay at your place tonight? I really don't want to talk to Mom right now. It would be better if I could be a somewhere that's else tonight. I'll help you clean up if you bust me outta here."

From around the corner, Piper turned into the doorway, arms crossed over her chest like she had been listening unhappily the entire time. "No, you cannot stay with your brother this evening. We're going to settle this." Piper looked at her two boys with her Mom Face, the one that warned them against arguing with her in the least. "Boys, we need the room."

"Mom — " Wyatt started peaceably, his pacifist half kicking in immediately, only to be cut off by his mother again.

"Christopher, why are you bleeding?"

Both boys groaned, obviously caught without having formulated a plan or explanation. They glanced at one another, silently fighting over which one of them was going to have to explain what happened. They were both good at coming up with the right cover story when it came to anyone but their mother, but neither of them was very good at lying to her in the least. Still, Christopher was better at it. When he knew he'd lost, the young Christopher stepped forward with a calm that seemed to take hold of them all. "It's just a scrape. I would have told you if it were more. I didn't think it was worth mentioning."

"So, apparently, is the answer to the question I asked you," said Piper, not fooled by her son's evasion attempt. "I didn't ask you if you were hurt. I asked you why you're hurt."

"Seriously, Mom, it was nothing. If I was in real trouble, I would have told you right away."

Piper apparently wasn't at all convinced because her glare darkened, even for her. She gestured widely at the damage done to the attic and sarcastically smiled. "Really? Then where did this mess come from, if it was nothing?"

"I kind of panicked and didn't want to wait for Wyatt," teenaged Chris said, shrugging sheepishly. "There were three of them. I didn't know what else to do. I didn't mean to. I just sort of did it."

Concerned now, young Wyatt asked, "What did you do?"

"I kind of used a power that I don't use — ever."

Understanding immediately, young Wyatt nodded sadly. "Something from Dad."

"Yeah." Young Christopher looked at his brother, knowing he understood immediately. The boy's face changed a little, crinkling in confusion as he addressed both his mother and brother. "The thing is, they seemed to expect me to do it. It was almost like they wanted me to. After the first one was gone, the other two shimmered out before I could take them out, too. The one even said, 'They told us he would demonstrate', like it was just a test."

The elder of the brothers clenched his fists, something that Christopher noticed this time around that he hadn't noticed before. He really didn't like the look on the face of the echo of his brother as his entire body seemed to tense for a battle. "They?"

At the same time, Piper fumed at her son. "And you didn't think I should know about this?"

"It just happened."

"Nothing 'just happens' in this household, Christopher, you know that," said the past Piper, not understanding her son's meaning. "Do you have any idea what it would do to me if anything happened to you? To any of you? You have to tell me these things. It's hard enough that I have to deal with your sister and her temporary insanity over her powers. I can't have you keeping secrets from me. If your father was here — "

"Mom, it wasn't like that," young Christopher started.

At the same time, their very young sister defensively said, "Don't yell at him because you're mad at me."

Apparently fed up with all of her children for the moment, Piper put her foot down. "Clean this mess up, Christopher. No magic to do it, either. We will discuss this when Paige and Phoebe get home tonight. We're going to figure out who these demons were. Wyatt, I want you to stay here tonight instead of going back to your place. These demons seemed to know a lot about your brother. I'm not taking any chances that they know as much about you. The two of you are not to go anywhere without each other until this is cleared up. Questions? Comments? Criticisms? No? Excellent" The toughest of Piper's words were reserved for her youngest and only daughter. She turned on Lucy, none too happy. "And you, little girl . . ."

As Piper started to tear into their little sister for the umpteenth time that week after threat of attack, Young Wyatt leaned in and said in a low voice, "Don't let them yell at each other too long. Phoebe will be home from work soon."

Leo watched Piper and Lucy go at it out of the corner of one eye while listening and watching his younger sons with the other. He'd been trying to be good and not ask too many questions, as Christopher had asked of him, but that certainly seemed like something he should know. "Why would Phoebe coming home matter?"

"The one concession the sisters made after Lucy took the binding potion was that she wouldn't take an empathic blocking potion so that Phoebe would always be able to tell how she was feeling in case there was any trouble. When Mom and Lucy were fighting, it made Phoebe sick, it got so bad there. The fighting got especially bad after Wyatt moved out to go to college. Mom was worried all the time, Lu was going through a lot, and they kind of took it out on each other."

As Christopher explained to his father what was going on, the younger version of himself questioned the witch at his side. "Where are you going?"

"I need to take care of something," young Wyatt said, the anger in his voice a shadow of the darkness that was to set up shop in his words for years to come. "I won't be long."

Christopher shrugged at his brother, recognizing the tone of Wyatt's voice; there was no changing his big brother's mind when he sounded like that. Casual as can be, he said, "Be careful."

"Will do." With that, the world that they were all in turned into the white, tingly world of an orb.

When the orbs pulled away from them, Christopher looked around in amazement when he realized where they were. He'd never been Up There; he'd never had a reason to be there. Without their father, they were just a couple of kids who needed guidance themselves before they would ever be prepared to give guidance to others. Of course, neither of them ever intended to help Them and embrace their angelic halves doing odd jobs for the Elders. They had heard far too much from their father (when he was alive) and mother to ever want to have anything to do with the Elders. The Elders had ruined a good portion of their lives and would get no help from the Halliwell family ever again. Secretly he wondered how Wyatt even knew how to get There because they suddenly were just there, as if he'd done it a million times before. It's not like it was just an orb over to the other side of the world; this was Up There. Christopher didn't like it, not one bit. From the look on his brother's face, he wasn't all that happy about it either.

"What are we doing here," asked Christopher.

"Making trouble for Moose and Squirrel," Wyatt replied, only to get a dark look from his brother. Defensively, he said, "You'll see. And believe me, you'll like it about as much as I did."

"I thought you didn't have any contact with the Elders besides Charlie," asked Leo.

"We didn't," said Christopher, who was still staring at his brother in disbelief. "Did we?"

Wyatt gestured toward where his younger self was angrily storming into a sort of meeting or meditation room. "Watch and learn."

Young Wyatt looked around at the seemingly faceless robes milling around without purpose, looking more than a little out of place in his jeans and hooded sweatshirt. He opened his mouth several times to say something, closing it before the words could form. He looked down at his hands, though, and saw what Christopher assumed must have been his blood from a few moments ago and cringed. An anger came over the young man's face as he called, "I need to talk to somebody."

Several hoods turned toward him, but only one stepped closer to the witch. "What are you doing here, Wyatt? You haven't been summoned."

"I need to talk to somebody in charge. Who do I talk to?"

The hood fell to the Elder's shoulders, revealing the kindly face of an old man of (at least cosmetically) around seventy. The smile did not reach his eyes, however, as he asked, "What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me why you sent a demon after my brother this afternoon, for starters," young Wyatt accused without hesitation. "And then you can tell me why, if you weren't going to uphold your end of the deal, I shouldn't have just destroyed all of you twelve years ago for contracting the Darklighters that killed my father."

As Leo gasped in surprise at his son's future accusations, Wyatt harrumphed in disgust.

"Wyatt, I am sure — "

"WE HAD A DEAL!"

The Elder Leo knew as Octavius didn't deny young Wyatt's accusation. Instead, his face remained impassive as the past Wyatt took a step back from the angel. "The only thing you need to know is that your brother needed reminding where he comes from. An issue about his safety was brought to Our attention. The two of you boys, you're of great concern to Us all. The service of Good needs the both of you together, not just you. That is all I can tell you. For the record, We never intended for your father to die. He was supposed to come back to Us. He is a part of Us, Wyatt. When he was merely a Whitelighter, it might have been possible to let him go, but he chose to become that part of Us. To leave was out of the question."

Young Wyatt's face twisted into a deer in headlights look, completely taken off guard by the conclusion his mind was quickly coming to. "His death actually worked out for you, then, didn't it? But you weren't counting on me. You knew you would have to come after Christopher one day. You want my brother. You want him dead because You screwed up in ever letting him be born. You're afraid of him. You can't control him, just like You couldn't control our father. He can know things, see things that only You can see, because of Dad. He's has too much power over You. He knows something You don't want him to know. He maybe doesn't know it yet, but he knows something."

Octavius smiled oddly patient at the young witch as he explained, "With you, We at least had a prophecy foretelling of your arrival. You were to be the twice-blessed, a child of such concentration of magical power, even more powerful than the foretold Charmed Ones. You were to bring chaos into the magical world and only a great battle would decide your fate, whether you would be a force for Good or Evil."

"Yeah, I know that," young Wyatt snapped in irritation. "Everybody does."

"So then you understand why We fear your existence at all."

The past Wyatt's eyes narrowed angrily into slits so tight that it made him look like he was going to blow up every single Elder in the heavens if any of Them looked at him cross-eyed. "Not really, but that's not really why I'm here. Christopher — "

"— is of even greater concern. There was no warning. Such a concentration of power, even more than in you, should never have been allowed to be brought into this world. If certain individuals had understood that . . . "

"What individuals?"

"It doesn't matter now. We believe that he tried to do what was right for everyone. He failed."

"Who tried what? What the hell are you talking about?"

The calm of Octavius's voice was enough to grate all of the observers' nerves. He was frustratingly serene as he continued to present the Elders' side, visibly annoying the young Wyatt. "Mistakes have been made. If your father had only agreed to stay with Us after the event, we might have been able to place the two of you under Our protection. As it is, Leo refused to cooperate. We thought that the attack on your home would have convinced him to return home to Us, but the mercenaries chosen were unreliable and We lost a good force for the world. I am sorry, my son, but We cannot make that mistake again."

Young Wyatt started to pace in front of the Elder, addressing the angel with a certain confidence that Christopher didn't recognize as belonging to his brother at the time. "When I came to you after my father died, you told me that my brother would be safe. You told me that you would never come after him the way you had my father. You swore to me! You all disgust me. I will never forgive the hell you put my parents through. To protect my family from You ever meddling in our lives ever again, I agreed to fulfill my Whitelighter duties. You had one condition. One. Why was it acceptable then and not now?"

"You were a child," the Elder scoffed.

"How does that change anything? Where I come from, a deal is still a deal, no matter how old a guy is."

"Where We come from, young man, Whitelighters don't have the option of whether or not to do their jobs."

Christopher recognized the vein that throbbed in the young Wyatt's temple, signifying the very end of his patience. He'd been on the instigating end of that pulsating thread on more than a few occasions. Still, he would never get used to it, and as young Wyatt blew his stack, Christopher flinched at the voice. Young Wyatt seethed, "My family is off-limits. I will not tell You again."

"We cannot answer to threats, Wyatt, not even from an abomination such as yourself."

"Yeah? Then don't worry about it because the abomination just quit."

Before any of the Elders could react to Wyatt's rather loud and vehement pronouncement, a hand grabbed the witch at the elbow and pulled him away with a sharp tug. Young Wyatt whipped around to see his attacker, only to find a troubled-looking Charlie.

When Christopher saw his Whitelighter and former future brother-in-law, he sucked in a surprised breath. "Charlie?" He glanced sideways at his brother in confusion. "You knew Charlie?"

Wyatt shrugged at his brother, knowing fully well that Christopher was going to get his answer in a moment anyway. Instead of bothering to offer anything else, Wyatt just gestured toward the scene in front of them with a smile of Watch and find out.

Charlie stood planted in front of Wyatt with his arms crossed over his chest, watching the boy pacing furiously in front of him. His voice was just as Christopher remembered, calm and patient with complete understanding, as if he knew what a guy was thinking even before he did. With that voice, he told his friend, "Wyatt, you have to calm down. Coming up here and busting heads isn't going to help anyone, especially Christopher."

"Calm down? They just tried to kill my brother, Charlie!"

Softly, Charlie laid a hand on each of young Wyatt's shoulders and anchored him to the spot. His voice commanded the witch's attention as he reminded his friend, "And They were unsuccessful. Christopher is okay, Wyatt. And now you'll be prepared for the next time. You need to settle down or you're going to be useless to him and to yourself."

Young Wyatt raked a hand through his hair and huffed out a rather angry air, but he was visibly starting to calm down just enough to at least lower his voice and not spit out every word. "That's a great bunch of guys you work for, Man. Seriously."

"I don't work for Them. I work for the Good Guys. These guys are just a means for me, same as They are for you. They have information we can't get anywhere else. That doesn't mean I like it. You know we need to know what They know. We don't know what kind of powers Christopher has. For all we know, he is even more powerful than you. We know he has powers that he has yet to access. I doubt he knows that he has them, but if he finds them in the wrong way, he could very well be completely unstoppable. I know you want to protect him from that. I want to protect him, too. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. I made a promise to your father a long time ago that I would take care of you three."

For a moment, young Wyatt seemed to forget where he was and started to talk to Charlie as if they were just as comfortable sitting in a bar somewhere, planning strategy for a coming boardroom war instead of the one that they all knew had eventually come between the brothers. Friend to friend, young Wyatt confided, "This is going to get ugly, Charlie. I can feel it. They are never going to let us go, just like They wouldn't let Dad just be with us. I don't know what it is, but I know They want Chris for something special. It isn't just his power, either. It's . . . I know it's just a feeling, but I swear it's something. I mean, am I wrong?"

"You're not. And you know whose side I'm on when it goes down."

Both of the Wyatts smiled at the Whitelighter gratefully. "You're the only friend I've got up here. I can't — there's no one else. It's just us and Them. If anything happens, I need your word that you'll protect my family. If I can't get there or — I can't lose him. I can't."

"You don't even have to ask. No matter what, your family will be safe with me." The two shared a nod, then Charlie nodded toward the buzzing Elders. "Go. I'll talk Them down. We're going to be okay."

"Promise?"

Young Wyatt obviously hadn't waited for a reply other than a quick laugh from Charlie because they were all orbed out of the heavens without any delay.

Teenaged Christopher was pacing as they orbed in, and it looked like he had been worrying a hole in the floorboards for quite a while. The boy's head snapped up when he saw his brother, very unhappy. "Where have you been?"

"Taking care of business," young Wyatt replied distractedly. He looked his brother up and down, obviously still very much concerned and more than a little on edge from his meeting. "Are you okay? Did anything happen while I was gone?"

The younger of the brothers was apparently just as concerned about his big brother because he completely ignored Wyatt's concern and continued with his line of thinking. "That doesn't sound good."

"You worry too much," young Wyatt smiled uneasily at his brother, visibly uncomfortable with the lie.From the look on his face, his brother didn't believe him, either. "What?"

"I don't think I've ever seen you this mad over a little attack and a split lip. I got a little roughed up, sure, but it's not this bad. What's going on?"

"Let's just say that I'm starting to wonder who the Good Guys are or who is even on our side anymore. But I don't want you to worry about it, okay? You have enough to worry about right now. You should be working, not having to deal with kamikaze demons. All you need to know is that I'm taking care of it."

Leo glanced at his sons, who were quietly circling around their past selves as their lives played out in front of them like a weird simulation like the ones on the old Star Trek shows their uncle Henry liked. Worriedly, Leo asked, "What is he talking about?"

"I was supposed to graduate from high school a few weeks after this," Christopher explained without even a hint of sadness or regret. "I was supposed to be writing my Valedictory speech that day."

"'Supposed to'? What happened," asked Leo, not knowing what was ahead for them.

Christopher answered blankly, "My life."

"Kamikaze," asked teenaged Christopher, no more deterred from his brother's furious features than he had been before. "Wyatt, come on. He was trying to kill me. I think I have a right to know why."

"Let's just say that I have it on pretty good authority that the guy sent here to kill you this afternoon knew he wasn't getting out of this one alive. It was a message, for me, not a — "

Everyone turned toward the attic door as a breathless child of about ten came bursting through the door. "De-demons. Downstairs. They took Jack and Sam."

A crash from downstairs announced the arrivals of at least one more threat into the house. The pasts of Wyatt and Christopher looked at each other once, silently communicating a plan to one another without much of a look at all. Christopher quickly orbed out while Wyatt crossed to the child. He knelt down at eye level of the little boy and offered a reassuring smile. "It's going to be okay. Find the others then say the spell together. Stay together and do not so much as think about leaving sanctuary until either Christopher or I come for you. Understand?" The little boy nodded, even though he looked terrified. "Good job. Now go."

With that, they all orbed downstairs to where Christopher and Piper were both making a mad dash to the center of the room. Completely out in the open, Lucy was staring wide-eyed and open-mouthed at the demon in front of her. It was only as the fireball in his hand was deployed that she seemed to realize the danger. She dropped her shoulders and covered her head with her hands, trying to make herself as small as possible. When the ball was just barely an inch from her, past Wyatt pulled her close to him and orbed them back out.

Piper and her children regrouped in the corner near the fireplace, the three of them pushing Lucy down to the floor hard. Wyatt stormed to the front of the group, energy balls blazing in each hand. At the demon's side, two completely identical demons shimmered in on either side of him, flaming crossbows armed and ready.

Excitedly, young Christopher told his brother, "Watch out. Those are the guys from this morning."

"This time, I won't miss," said the demon on the right with a very deliciously dark look at the younger of the brothers.

"Look at him like that again and his face will be the last thing you see," threatened young Wyatt.

None of the trio bothered to reply to the witch's threat. Instead, they all released their weapons of choice on the family. Wyatt easily deflected the fireball and one of the flaming arrows, but one was able sneak past him.

Behind him, Lucy growled as both her mother and brother shoved her face into the floor with Christopher pretty much throwing his body over her. Practically suffocating, the girl screamed a muffled, "OW! There's a head attached under there, you know."

The demons shimmered out of the living room as Wyatt took a good chunk out of the arm of one of them with a well-aimed energy ball. Wyatt immediately crossed the space between himself and his family, took his mother's hand, and ordered Christopher, "Follow close."

"Right behind you," Christopher said as he hauled himself to his feet.

"We are definitely finishing this discussion when I get home," Piper told Lucy as she and Wyatt orbed out.

When the orbs settled around the past Wyatt and the travelers attached to him, they discovered that they were in a maze of caves. There was little light to see by, making their job even harder.

"What is this place," asked Leo.

"A trap," Christopher laughed blackly without meaning to. At the same time, the past Christopher was looking at his mother and brother, asking, "You know this is a trap, right?"

Fireballs lit up in the palms of each of the three demons, lighting the cave so that they could all see what was going on. The one in the middle sneered the answer to teenaged Christopher's question, "Of course it is. That's what we brought the bait for. The question is, which one of you is this a trap for? Hmm?"

Christopher saw something flicker on his brother's face that he hadn't seen the first time he'd lived this day. Seeing it in the context of what had transpired for Wyatt Up There, Christopher felt so sorry for his brother. That wasn't anger on Wyatt's face like he'd thought ever since. That was fear. That was panic. Wyatt had known before anything was even said that his meeting with the Elders hadn't gone all that well. If anything, Christopher could see now that Wyatt's visit had merely provided Them with the distraction that They had needed.

"God, I was so stupid," Wyatt said next to Christopher, as if he could hear what his little brother was thinking.

Trying to be reassuring, Christopher offered, "We were still kids, Wyatt. You couldn't have known. We were both still kids, and you did what you thought was best in Dad's place. I know that. We all knew that. There is no way you could have known."

"Couldn't have known what," asked Leo.

Neither son answered their father as the memory of their mother stared down the trio of demons while an identical four more shimmered in behind them, ready and able. Piper had remained calm, though, merely ordering her younger son to find his cousins as she closed ranks with her oldest.

"Go ahead and look," the leader taunted. "Find them even. It doesn't mean that you're going to leave with them."

"Let them go," Piper commanded.

The leader ignored her and grinned at Wyatt, saliva dripping out the sides of his mouth in wicked pleasure. He laughed at the young man as he said, "I bring a message from your employers. They do not tolerate ultimatums."

Leo lost his voice for a moment, unable to comprehend what he had just heard. Christopher, on the other hand, was a little more prepared for what he had heard. His mind stumbled over the idea as he tried to find its logical conclusion. "They did this? They sent . . . The Elders . . ."

Wyatt seemed to put another piece of the puzzle together and finished Christopher's thought for him. "They had the wrong threat. They thought it was going to be you, but instead They created me."

"And we don't tolerate threats, so I guess that makes your job a little obsolete now, doesn't it," said Piper as she flicked her wrists at the demon to pull its attention to her and away from her kids. She also had spared the split second it took to give her eldest the EvilMom Eye to let him know that she was going to want to know who exactly these 'employers' were.

While the memory moved forward, Clyde blew a raspberry at the two witches in his charge. He was clearly amused with them so far. He was actually starting to like them, even if they were Leo's kids. Then again, he liked Leo, but if anyone ever asked him that, he'd deny it to the grave. He couldn't help but give the kids a hint. Casually crossing his arms over his chest, he told them, "Who did or didn't do what is the least of your worries right now."

"Then what is," asked Leo.

"Couldn't tell ya," shrugged Clyde. "You know the deal, Leo. I just open the door. I don't answer questions, especially when the answers are so damned obvious. But your kids could answer you just fine if they would just open their eyes."

The Halliwell boys would have had something to say to that if they weren't so busy trying to watch what was still playing out in front of them. In the backs of their minds, they both knew that this little trip to their past was probably going to play out just right for them and get them the answers that they needed, but at the same time, neither one of them was very good at sitting still when they were surrounded by battle. It was not in the nature of either of them to watch as innocents (particularly family) were under attack. Being forced to sit on their hands and just watch, so to speak, was clearly getting to them both. They took turns flinching and starting as punches were thrown, energy balls were deployed, and the younger children screamed. None of what they were seeing was currently real, but it would never feel that way to either man, no matter how many times they were forced to relive this part of their lives. It would always be real and they would always want to help, simple as that.

As it was, they were both trying to keep from jumping in to rescue the two kids, even as they saw the young Christopher tiptoeing over to where Jack and Sam were cowering behind a jutting rock formation. They watched him check the two smaller boys over for injuries, give each of them a reassuring rumple of the hair, then orb the two kids out of the Underworld with a synchronized wave of his hands. They were almost rooting for Christopher's counterpart, as if watching a movie, when they were both painfully reminded of what was standing directly behind the boy.

Claws that Christopher to this day thought reminded him of Freddy Krueger's glove sliced into his younger self's back with one hand as the demon reached with his other to pull Christopher back by the scruff of his neck. Absently, Christopher reached behind him, rubbing his neck as he recalled the pain. He focused his attention then on the memory of his brother, knowing that it was entirely possible that the moment of Wyatt's loss could be coming when the younger man would hear his kid brother's screams of agony. For the half second remaining, Wyatt was engrossed in his battle with the demon who appeared to be heading up the operation. Their mother was taking on two at a time, flicking her wrists left and right, vanquishing as many as she could and still keep an eye on her kids.

At the sound of Christopher's scream, Wyatt's attention had immediately been split. It had been just long enough for the demon to get a good lick in with a fireball. Furious, Wyatt had simply swung Excalibur without thinking about it, letting the weapon think for him. The demon's head had fallen to an enthusiastic "YES" from Leo's little corner of the past.

From either side of the cave came thunderous screams, bouncing off one another and the walls. Two distinct voices — his mother and his brother. Wyatt looked between them, torn, but his face quickly settled in determination. He only had time to help one of them, and his brother was smaller and less experienced. Their mother was one of the Charmed Ones. She would have to handle herself. His brother needed him more.

Seeing himself storm off toward the other end of the cave, Wyatt said as if he needed to defend himself, "I made a choice. I made the only decision I could make."

Leo placed a hand on his son's shoulder to get his attention, confused and dreading what was coming, judging from what he was seeing in his boy's eyes. "Wyatt?"

As young Wyatt charged the demon that had cornered his brother, the elder Christopher closed his eyes with a low moan. He swallowed hard, unable to watch what, if he counted the seconds off in his head, would be happening in exactly fourteen seconds from now. He'd replayed this scene enough in his head; he should know. He held his breath, the Mississippis heading into the single digits as the event got closer. Helpless to do anything else, he whispered the answer his father was looking for.

"Here it comes."

Both Christopher and Wyatt turned their heads away from the battle around them just half a second before the blow came that had ended so much of their lives. Neither of them needed to have looked to know what their father was talking about when he started swearing a blue streak under his breath. Even Clyde turned a little green at the sight and uttered a grunt of disgust.

When the Wyatt from their past furiously unleashed the full glory of Excalibur to vanquish the demon that had been attacking his brother, the younger Christopher had had to roll away from the flames before they caught his own clothing on fire. He'd flopped breathlessly onto his back, did the requisite check to make sure all of the parts were still attached, then just lay there, enjoying the fact that he was still alive. He clutched his side, sinking his fingers into the sticky mess that remained of his shirt. Wyatt had quickly dashed to his side, looking his brother over from head to toe to do the same check. His hands glowed so brightly that they could actually see around them in the cave for the few seconds needed to patch young Christopher up. As the light died down and they both saw that the other was safe, the two unaware boys heaved in relief. Young Wyatt stood and reached his arm down to the past Christopher with a sarcastic but obviously loving grin. "That's twice in one day, little brother. One of these times, you're going to owe me."

The past Christopher had started to smile, but it had dropped off his face in a hurry. The sarcastic comment he'd prepared hung in the air, unspoken, as his eyes and ears had started a wild, panicked search. Christopher remembered thinking that he already knew the answer to his question even before he'd asked it. Seeing the look on his past self's face, he knew that he was right. There was a look of such defeat on his face as his younger self asked the question Christopher had heard a million times in his mind since. "Wyatt, wh-where's Mom?"

Christopher carefully watched the expression on his past brother's face at the moment he saw their mother. He had always thought that her death had been the trigger (or whatever he was supposed to call it) that had changed his brother forever. Whenever he tried to figure out how and when they had lost Wyatt, this was always the moment he would come back to. With any luck, if he watched carefully enough, he would see it now. He could see how it happened and find a way to stop it.

Wyatt, on the other hand, was backing away from his brother, watching the past Christopher's face instead. He had seen these moments in his head so many times that it was like a needle stuck at the blank end of a record. Over and over, he saw them happen in exactly the same way. The problem was, Christopher had been standing behind him that day. He had never seen what had happened, never saw what this moment had done to Christopher. Wyatt knew he wasn't going to like it, but he needed to see the light go out of his brother's eye, like it had that morning when they'd lost their sister and like they had when they'd lost their father. Every time one of them left, another piece of Christopher had gone with them. This time, Wyatt needed to see it happen. Maybe then he could understand . . .

When it happened, when the past echoes of the brothers found their mother gutted and discarded on the cave floor like a piece of rotten meat, it took everything either of their present counterparts had to keep standing. Christopher kept trying to remind himself that this had happened a long time ago, that it wasn't real, and that he was there to do a job. And miles to go before I sleep, he told himself, over and over, as if he could actually believe that that would make it better. Wyatt bent over at the waist, hands on his knees, and spit out what little bile was left in his stomach from before he'd arrived in the past. Either way, they were both too wrapped up in the moment to notice that their father wasn't faring much better than them.

Leo drew blood from his lip as he bit down hard to keep from swearing in front of his kids. He knew it was a silly concern, but it was such a habit with the younger versions of the two of them that he forgot that it wasn't something he had to do with them at this stage in their lives. It would have been comical (in his mind, anyway) if he wasn't trying to block the pain with the pain. Two days ago, when he'd had some alone time with Christopher, they had agreed to talk about things so that they could figure out a way to talk about things in front of his wife without actually talking about them. In their conversation, Christopher had vaguely told him about what had happened to his mother, about the circumstances surrounding her death. What Christopher had failed to mention was what Leo was seeing now, how decimated her body had been. He couldn't imagine how the two boys had managed to work through the horror of having to find a way to bring their mother's body home.

In the midst of renewed grief and terror, the two sobbing teenagers found their new grief, hugged each other tight and dropped to the floor. They all watched as young Christopher's hand reached out, trembling, for his mother's foot, but pulled away. They all saw young Wyatt take that hand in his and pull it between them, closing his little brother in a cocoon of his arms, shielding him from the horror for as long as he could. Both the adult Christopher and Wyatt knew, though, that the gesture couldn't protect either of them from the young Christopher's soft, weeping question: "What do we do? I don't know what to do."

Then, in the moment that young Wyatt looked at his mother's body for the first time without blinders, truly seeing it, the world seemed to lurch. Before they heard the answer to teenaged Christopher's question, the world blinked black. Suddenly they had the answer to the question in the form of a mausoleum filled with mourners, including a red-eyed Christopher and a steely Wyatt.

Confused as to how they had jumped nearly three days ahead in time, Christopher turned toward their guide to get an answer, but before he could the world fell out from beneath him again. In the black, he could hear whispers but couldn't quite discern the words. A blink of an eye later, they were in the attic, Wyatt huddled alone in a corner, muttering at the stand where The Book rested. The Book lay in the middle of the attic floor as if it had been repelled by an evil force, but as Christopher looked around the room for one, he couldn't see anything other than Wyatt. He couldn't quite hear what the young Wyatt was saying, but certain words popped out at him.

Protect. Can't. Never. You will. Won't.

Forgetting Clyde for the moment, Christopher tried to turn to Wyatt to ask him about what they had just seen, but again the world turned to blackness. When reality settled in around them again, he found that they were back in the cave again, with young Wyatt reaching a hand down to him to pull him from the ground. Twice in one day, it was all over again.

Leo was the first to voice his confusion even though he was pretty much doing it for all of them. "What the — ?"

They flashed into the black again before receiving an answer, only to flash to earlier in the day when Wyatt had found his brother bloodied in the attic. The moment didn't last long, though. This time, no one even had time to question their situation before they roared forward into the darkness. Snippets of conversation forced their way into the darkness, but not for long. The black seemed to lighten then blacken every few split seconds, with no real consistency. Voices would fade in and out, nothing concrete at all. And then, clear as a bell, three little words pulled out of the darkness that chilled Wyatt to the bone.

You did this.

The black flew away from their eyes as if forced by a great wind to reveal total destruction at their feet. They could see a very tired, worn looking Wyatt standing in the middle of an alley, ash and burning bodies scattered to either side of him. A bright cluster of orbs was floating away as Wyatt looked up from his bloodied hands and groaned miserably, "What have you done?"

His past question would go unanswered at the moment as again the darkness took over, black and cold. This time, though, is was much longer and stronger than before. It held onto each of them, plunging their hearts into a coldness that none of them but Wyatt had ever felt before. It penetrated nearly every cell of their collective being, blocking out any signal of the reality. The only thing that connected them at all to the outside world was that voice, small and barely audible. If they could actually see each other, they would know that none of them could tell where the voice was coming from or where they were or what was going on. It was only when Leo called worriedly out to his sons that they even knew that they still were.

"Here," Christopher said reassuringly, even though Here was probably a relative concept at the moment.

"Here," called Wyatt as well.

Somewhere in all of the dark, Leo sighed in cautious relief. His voice made a rapid turn, however, as he turned the only weapon he had on their guide. There was danger in his voice as he asked, "Clyde? What in the hell have you done?"

"Don't ask me," the spirit claimed innocently and with more than just a little irritation. "Ask your kid. This is his life, not mine. I just open the door, People. I don't control where we end up. This is his doing."

Before Wyatt could speak up, his past did the answering for him. The blackness seemed to dim just a little bit, almost like the reverse of the way he remembered the old Warner Brothers cartoons ending with the collapsing circle in the middle of the screen. A small field of vision — his original field of vision, if that was how he could manage to put it to words — let the light in long enough for the searing pain of reality to give him a good sock in the stomach. He could see his father, brother, and Clyde, looking around them and trying to figure out where they were. Wyatt reeled back just a little, remembering very clearly where they were. He supposed it was days apart from where they had been for Christopher, but to him, it was all the same day, the same hell, the same moment trapped in time for him. It was a moment he wished he could take back.

As the fog lifted, so to speak, they were all suddenly very aware of where they were. Christopher looked over at his brother, seeing the sickness flush the man's face. He made to go to Wyatt's side, but the man held his hand out in warning. The younger brother crinkled his eyes at him in question, but Wyatt held his ground and backed away. Unable to understand why, Christopher turned his attention back to the center of the dance floor of their mother's club where a stony looking Wyatt was standing over the body of their cousin Jack.

A flurry of orbs appeared at Wyatt's side with the past Christopher nearly running out of them. He dropped to his knees at Jack's side, hands shaking even though he didn't know what he was doing. Christopher remembered wanting to scream at his brother for his inaction, before the ugly truth would come to him moments from then. He remembered thinking that Wyatt had looked nearly catatonic to him at the time, like he was shocked beyond all belief. He hadn't known what had happened there, only that he'd heard Jack scream Wyatt's name before weakly calling his. He'd come immediately, not liking the fear he'd heard in his cousin's voice.

As the past Christopher's frustration planted itself on his face, Christopher's understanding of the moment shifted dramatically. He knew that in a moment, his past was going to accuse his brother of waiting too long to help or at least call for him. This moment in his life had seemed so clear before. It was the first time that he'd truly realized that they had lost his brother to Evil. Wyatt had seemed strange to him over the last few days — their mother had been gone only three weeks — but they had assumed he was just grieving a little harder than the rest of them. But now . . . He was there to watch, to see through Wyatt's eyes. He understood that. The problem was starting to become a bit clearer to him, though. Seeing, reliving their 100 Most Horrible Moments countdown wasn't going to be helpful if Wyatt hadn't seen them as clearly as he himself had.

"What did I do," asked Wyatt as he backed even further away from his brother and father.

"Wyatt," Christopher started, but he was cut off by his own past yelling at them all.

"What's going on? Why aren't you trying to heal him? Wyatt, help me!"

"Christopher? Chris, I — "

"Would you get off your ass and help me? He's — "

The look of horror on the past Wyatt's face seemed to fill the entire room with despair. Even Clyde appeared to shy away from the scene in front of him. Leo sickly gave voice to the feeling, asking, "What's happening here? We must be seeing it for a reason."

Christopher glanced at Wyatt, who looked almost as lost as his past counterpart, and offered up in explanation, "He's our cousin. This is the first time Wyatt . . ." He took a deep breath, trying to spare his brother's feelings, even though he had to make himself do so. He was so used to just saying what he felt about Wyatt that to be considerate was going to take some work. He winced in Wyatt's direction as he said as kindly as he could without hiding the truth, "We didn't know it until a few weeks later what had happened, but this is the first time that Wyatt killed. It was then that we knew we'd lost him."

"Chris, get out."

"What are you talking about? I can't just leave"

The look that Christopher had always thought was pure hatred returned to the past Wyatt's face as the man hauled his brother up off the floor by the scruff of his neck. Christopher now saw the look was one of pure terror, even as the energy ball formed in the man's hand. The voice was a combination of threat and fear as Wyatt had shouted in Christopher's ear, "GET OUT NOW!"

Helpless to do anything else, the newly orphaned Christopher orbed out in front of them, leaving a sobbing Wyatt to collapse next to the body of their lost cousin. The man's teeth clenched together so tightly that they probably could have broken as Wyatt savagely growled, "I will protect them. You will never get him, do you hear me? You can do your worst, but you will never —"

When Wyatt's threat to Jack's body cut off, so did all sense of space and time once again. In the blink of an eye, they were plunged into that same damned total vacuum, unaware of anything but the low whispering buzz that they had all heard before. This time, though, they came out it much faster, a tiny moment of dark chaos that, once Christopher realized where they were, he knew was going to be replaced by a moment of white chaos.

"Now where are we," Leo marveled, looking around. The angel was obviously taken aback by the thing he had only briefly heard described as a beautiful moment that he had thought locked only in his memory. Everywhere he looked, snowy magic fell around them. The ice road they stood upon led his eyes to a magnificent castle of ice that somehow glowed with such warmth and care that he could hardly take his eyes off it. Between where Wyatt and Christopher stood, an old fashioned lamp post lit the path that led onto what appeared to be a snow covered golf course. Next to Clyde, a carriage of shaped snow, covered with blankets for wherever the ride was to take the passenger. It was everything Leo remembered and more. Softly, he whispered the answer to his own question, "It's the snow gardens."

"And me," Wyatt said painfully. He nodded his head ten feet behind him toward where his past was standing, shivering in obvious pain. Beyond him, the beauty was marred with the beginning of what he knew was going to be total destruction. Every magical place that they had hid and played in as children would soon lay in ruin at the eldest Halliwell's feet. In the middle of it, running at top speed toward them, was Christopher.

"And apparently me," said a very confused Christopher. "But I . . . I don't remember this." He looked at Clyde suspiciously. "What gives? I thought you couldn't manipulate what we see."

"I can't," growled the spirit. "And you just better watch that attitude, Mister, or I'm going to turn this car around and take you straight home."

"Then how do you explain him," asked Christopher, still heavy on attitude and not caring. Their mission here was a lot more important than one ghost's over-inflated ego. They had his brother's over-inflated ego to cure first. He gestured almost angrily at his past self. "I wasn't here for this. I only found out about it after it happened."

Confused, Wyatt turned on the two of them. "What are you talking about? You're right there, Christopher. I talked to you. I saw you. How do you not remember? You followed me here and tried to stop me, but I — You left. You were mad as hell about it, but you left. You were gone for maybe five minutes, but then you came back. You have to remember. How can you not remember, after all the things I said to you?"

"Seriously, Wyatt, it wasn't me. I didn't know about any of this."

"Christopher, I talked to you."

Curiously, Leo pointed toward the young man running in their general direction. "I think he's right," he offered.

As the past Christopher approached, he looked winded. "W-Wyatt," he puffed and swallowed hard from the jog. "What are you doing?"

"Go home, Christopher."

"N-no. I'm not going anywhere until you tell me what's going on."

"You know what's going on. I have to do this."

The past Christopher started in on his brother, but there was something very strange about it. His words were plain; they begged Wyatt not to destroy their second home. But the tone, the tone said something very different, almost as if Christopher was actually trying to goad Wyatt into destroying every single molecule of ice and then some. "And then what? Where am I going to go? What about the rest of us? We aren't you. We can't just blow somebody up with the blink of an eye or take out entire demonic clans with a swing of a sword. We need this place. I need this place."

"I can protect you, Christopher."

"You couldn't before. What makes you think you can now?" There was just a flicker, but Christopher was pretty sure he saw his other self sneer at his big brother. He almost looked like he was enjoying himself as he said, "You're killing me if you do this."

"Go home. Now."

The past Christopher snipped an almost inaudible "Fine" before orbing away with a dark look at his brother. The look chilled Christopher to the bone. He knew fully well that he had never looked at his brother like that. He could never look at Wyatt like that. He just didn't have that kind of darkness in him. He glanced at Wyatt, who shivered as the past Christopher orbed away. He hadn't liked seeing that any more than Christopher had. He was still confused over how that conversation had even happened, considering that he hadn't seen Wyatt at all that day, but he promised himself anyway that he would apologize to his brother for that look when this was all over. He also promised himself that, if they were successful, he would never look at his brother like that ever again. He never wanted to be that cold. Ever.

"That was not me," said Christopher adamantly. To Wyatt, he said, "I would never guilt you like that."

"What are you talking about," scoffed the elder brother. "We all just saw you. You say stuff like that to me all the time."

Before their father could interject, Christopher turned angrily on his brother. His outburst was horribly punctuated by explosion after explosion of ice and snow, their beloved sanctuary starting to crumble around them as the man half cried, half growled at his brother. "You honestly think I would do that to you? How can you even think that I would — That's not fair and you know it. Our family has been picked off, one by one, starting with Dad. We have enough guilt to carry around with us. You think I don't know what you went through? I mean, Coop and Henry could only do so much. They could never replace our own father. They could never be Dad. You had to be the father. You were the one responsible for me and Mom and Lucy. After everything we went through, did you honestly think I didn't know that, that I didn't carry that around with me, too? I would never guilt you."

Although both Leo and Wyatt opened their mouths to respond, it was Clyde who beat them both to the punch. "Not to trip over my own job or anything, but maybe you ladies should hold off on the wall to wall counseling until later and keep your eyes on your job." The spirit guide pointed at the past Christopher, who was once again running toward his brother in almost the exact same way as he had before.

"Just to be clear," Christopher snapped. "That's not me either. You know, just in case he says something that makes anyone here feel guilty."

This time, Leo did jump in, agitated. "Christopher, this isn't helping."

"Sorry," the witch said quickly, not exactly sounding like he meant it. When he got a look from his father that said that Leo was thinking the same thing, Christopher nodded, properly admonished. "You're right. Sorry."

Wyatt ignored his father and brother, more interested in the past echo of his brother as he skidded to a stop, winded and worried. Even as his own past waved an arm at the drawbridge of the castle, Christopher didn't raise his voice at his brother. It made Wyatt a little sad, seeing that his brother hadn't even lost his temper. He missed those days, when Christopher's pacifist nature had kept him from even raising his voice. He missed a lot of things about his brother.

The past Christopher was far from angry as he tried to get his brother's attention. If anything, he was concerned as he said, "Wyatt, stop. What's going on? What happened?"

Young Wyatt didn't even seem to see his brother as he waved his arm in another direction, demolishing in one swoop half a forest of snow covered pine trees as if they had been bombed for weeks on end. His eyes were stone cold as he said evenly, "You can't fool me. I already sent my brother away."

"What are you talking about?"

Young Wyatt turned to who he was sure wasn't his brother, drawn to his full height. His jaw tightened, every muscle in his body tensed to portray strength beyond imagining. The witch's voice was remarkably calm as he informed his company, "You're going to be the new message to anyone who tries to pull what you've pulled. No one will ever come at me through my family again. Never."

The past Christopher looked on his brother with such sadness, as if he already knew what was happening to his big brother, as if it was all routine. Seeing that look, Christopher was hit with an entire wave of realizations that he couldn't believe he had never seen before. His anger at his brother forgotten, sidestepped away from Wyatt and grabbed his father by the sleeve. "Dad," asked Christopher urgently, hoping to get his question answered before the chaos would come again. "Is that who I think it is? Is there any way you can tell us apart?"

Leo looked into the eyes of the son who could not see him. The only way he had learned to remind himself that the Chris at his side wasn't the one who had died in his arms three weeks before was to look at his son's eyes. While this Christopher had seen terrible tragedy in his life, without doubt, his first son had seen so much more. The first Chris had such a haunted look in his eyes that Leo had been grateful to notice this Christopher hadn't achieved. As soon as Leo looked at the past Chris's eyes, he knew. The pieces fell into place so quickly that he actually gasped. The guardian Christopher had told them about that morning had been his son. And why not? Who would protect Wyatt better than Chris?

The past Chris didn't seem to be afraid of Wyatt. Instead, he walked right up to the man, put both hands on his shoulders, and tried to make the witch focus. "Okay, Wyatt, look . . . I am your brother and I am on your side, I'm always on your side. There are things that you don't understand. Dad always intended to explain this to you when the time was right, but he — "

"It is," Leo confirmed. "No doubt."

"But how?"

"I don't know. I guess I'm more curious how you didn't see it in all the years you came here."

Young Wyatt merely glanced at Chris and sent him crashing hard to the ground. The guardian took a very long time to get up as Wyatt spat at Chris, "You leave my father out of this! Don't you even speak his name! I don't know how you did it, but I know you aren't my brother. Whatever you've done with him, I swear, I will make you pay. You will never hurt my brother again. I don't care if I have to bring the world down around me to do it, but I will keep you from him."

Christopher tried to both listen to Chris and talk to his father at the same time, even though he was still a little shocked. How could he not have seen it? That was easy. He explained, "You always told me I looked a lot like your father. And since that was his name, I guess I figured . . ." Curiously, he looked at his father. "He always told us he was your father. Do you think maybe you told him to tell us that as I started getting older?"

"Wait," Wyatt interrupted with a strange sickness in his voice. "It was a demon. It was a thing with Christopher's face. I thought it — Are you telling me that that guy was Chris? Are you saying I — "

"What do you mean, 'was'," Leo asked, getting a ghastly feeling in his stomach.

Knowing immediately why his brother had gone a pale shade of green, Christopher put the pieces together for his father as gently as he could. "I told you this morning, he destroyed the snow gardens and everything — and everyone — in them. By the time I saw him at the house, there was nothing left." He looked at Wyatt, other things becoming clear to himself as well. "You destroyed this place because of me?"

"For you," confirmed Wyatt. "To keep you safe."

"I never knew," Christopher whispered.

Even as things continued to fall apart around them, Leo still couldn't believe that, after watching his sons interact the way that they had been, that Wyatt could kill his own brother. Of all the things that Wyatt would do, hadn't they all agreed that Christopher's death was the one line that Wyatt wouldn't cross? Leo spattered a sickly, "You killed Chris?"

"He didn't know," Christopher all but confirmed. In an attempt to move his father past the thoughts that were sure to start forming, he offered up a different and somewhat more important question. "But I guess my question is, if this guy here is Chris, then who was the other guy? Because I know for a fact that it wasn't me."

Looking at his brother like he was loosing his mind, Wyatt argued, "Christopher, I just saw you. We all saw you."

"Maybe not," said Leo, not entirely sure what other explanation there could be, but he knew that if Christopher was telling him that the person they had seen wasn't him, then he had no other choice but to believe him. Frustrated at his inability to help his sons as they went through these moments in their lives with any kind of guidance whatsoever, Leo finally snapped, "I don't have a goddamned clue in hell what it could have been, of course, but that's just par for the course today, isn't it?"

"Dad," Christopher said soothingly, immediately sorry for getting his father riled up. They didn't need that at the moment. None of them did. He needed all of them to be on the ball, not worrying about things that they couldn't fix in the past so that they could fix their present and future. "Don't lose it on me now, okay? I need you here."

"Damn it, what is this," demanded Wyatt, finally fed up entirely with the inability of any of them to give him a straight answer. The code-speak was getting to be so ridiculous, not that there was any code. He wished that they would just come right out and say what it was that they needed to say so that they could move on. "What aren't you people telling me? Anybody?"

"We don't have time — " Christopher started, but Leo jumped in at the same time.

"He's from another timeline," Leo blurted before he could stop himself. This wasn't the way he'd wanted to do it, but he needed to get it all out before they lost track of time again. He glanced at Christopher then went on, spewing it all out as fast as he could. "That boy — man — is your brother. He came back from a future even worse than the one that the two of you have been living with in order to save you from destroying the world. The day I arrived in the future to see you boys, I was there to see if he had been successful. Obviously, the job wasn't completed."

Wyatt was blown away by the revelation, even though he'd known something was going on. He didn't know how to describe it. Before he could say anything at all, things started exploding all around them. Shards of ice flew left and right like projectile missiles, blowing through anything and everything in sight. Wyatt's mind jumped ahead to what was about to happen, widening his eyes in sickness. "Oh, no."

Concerned, Christopher grabbed his brother's arm. "What's wrong?"

Wyatt didn't say anything, but gestured behind him. His past was gearing up for a big display of power as the guardian Chris struggled to get to his feet after being knocked over by an energy ball. "Wyatt, you have to stop this before you lose control. Please. Talk to me."

The only response the guardian received was a twist of past Wyatt's fist, closing telekinetically on his lungs. Seconds later, a plank of ice speared through the guardian's gut, dropping him to the ground and essentially nailing him to the ice below him. He sputtered to catch air once Wyatt's hand released him, watching with a mixture of fear and peace as the man came to stand over him.

"I won't let you take me," said the past Wyatt, his voice nearing panicked levels, it was so high and fast. There was a brief second of doubt that flitted across his features, only to see him become visibly assured that he was doing the right thing. His twisted features said it all. The snow gardens would be destroyed and the imposter of his brother would be eliminated in order to save them all. His voice suddenly calm and cool, Wyatt told the fatally wounded guardian, "You have taken enough from me. You can't have him."

Guardian Chris tried to turn his face from the ice so that he could look up at Wyatt, but only dropped his head back down in exhaustion. He coughed up some blood that colored his frozen lips, almost giving him the appearance of life again. Only the tears that fell down into his unruly hair gave away the remnants of the pain he was obviously in. "I'll find a way to come back for you again, big brother, I promise," the dying man coughed. "I'll try as many times as it takes."

"And I'll find a way to stop you."

Chris choked, "Don't let it destroy you. Trust Christopher to — "

Young Wyatt's hands shot out a white hot stream of lightening that Leo immediately recognized. "Do not say his name again."

"I love you," whispered Guardian Chris.

"I hate you," past Wyatt spat. "You are not my brother."

"Love . . . love you anyway," the guardian said as he closed his eyes then slowly faded away. In his place was the painful sound of shattering ice that, to Christopher, almost sounded like laughter as the light sharply pulled away from them again.

In an instant, they were back in the attic again with Christopher lying on the floor and Wyatt stretching to help him up. Then, without even the benefit of the darkness, the world changed around them so that by the time Christopher was standing, they were back in the cave just before they discovered their mother's lifeless body. Twice in one day, they all heard again as they were swooped out and so deep into the darkness that not a one of them could help but shiver in the cold. The hardness of it was relieved only long enough for three very distinct sentences to come through to their ears.

"Take them out," said the clouded but distinctly violent voice of Wyatt. "Any means necessary."

"Your brother will come at you with everything he's got if you do this."

"If you aren't up to the job, I will find another demon who is." There was a small beat, then Wyatt's voice said coldly, "You will not get a second chance. Go."

The demon disappeared, only to send the group back to the caves at the moment where Christopher and Wyatt discovered their mother's mutilated body. Even as they grasped where they were, they were once again plunged into darkness, only to pop back out into an overbright moment. As soon as that was gone, they were left in unsteady silence. There was an electricity in the air, drawing them all to the center of the space.

As they all settled into the new present of Wyatt's memory, Christopher took a step back. He knew immediately where and when they were, but it wasn't exactly the way that he remembered it. From around the corner, a lanky, dark haired boy maybe a year or so younger than Christopher crept his way into the caved space. His hands were out and at the ready, but they were shaking. Of course, Christopher knew that those hands had rarely been steady, but being pretty sure of what was about to come, he couldn't help but think that they were trembling much stronger than usual. Sadly, he cursed. "Oh, Sam."

Not a full second later, his beloved cousin was prone on the floor, eyes staring sightlessly up at a sky he would never see again.

While Christopher and Wyatt both turned their heads away, Leo watched as the past version of his son stepped from the shadows. The younger man's mouth moved soundlessly, but not from any apparent lack of words. Confused, Leo muttered, "I don't like this."

"What's to like," asked Christopher.

"Not that," said Leo, trying not to focus on the dead body of another relative that he hadn't yet known. "Where did the sound go?"

"There wasn't any," said Wyatt in a small, pained voice. He remembered this moment all too clearly. He had no explanation of the how or the why at the moment, but he knew that he hadn't been able to speak. If he'd been able to, all he would have done was scream and call for help. As it was, he had been helpless to do anything at all. "All I could do was watch. Except for one thing. I know for sure I heard one thing."

Right on cue, the past Wyatt grinned and said deliciously, "You did this."

You. Did. This.

From the shadows, a raging younger Christopher stormed in to attack what he had thought was going to be a demon, not realizing that his efforts were already too late to save his cousin. Wyatt had won. At the time, Christopher remembered thinking that Wyatt's words had been intended for him, but now he was seriously doubting that Wyatt had said them at all.

Under the sounds of his own past screams, Christopher had to fight a horrible wave of nausea as they were all overtaken again by the blackness of Wyatt's world, or at least, that was what Christopher was assuming it was. Overwhelmed by the power of the black, he felt horrible for his brother. To live in this chaos. . . Nothing would make a whole lot of sense to him, either. That confusion would make him worry for his family, too. The more they were bounced through time and place, the more a whole lot of nothing made any sense when it came to Wyatt. The only thing that made sense now was that he needed more than ever before to save his brother from having to live in this madness.

Suddenly there was a furious thunder in the silence as if Wyatt were gathering all of his strength to be heard. The only response the silence offered was a cool laugh in Wyatt's own voice. In the black, Wyatt covered his ears, not wanting to do this anymore. All he wanted now was to find another way. This was just too much. Weakly, he called out to his brother, knowing that Christopher would shut his mind up quick and definitively. "Chris?"

Hearing the I Can't Do This Anymore underneath his brother's voice, Christopher called back, resilient as expected. "Still here, Man. Gotcha covered." Silently, he added, And argument forgotten.

That was it. Leo, too, was about ready to lose his mind as the utter coldness threatened to suck all of the hope for his son's future out of him. Still, as the image of both Chris and Lucy dying at his side crossed his mind, he forced himself to make it just a little bit further. If his kids could do it, so could he. His mind made up, it was Leo's turn to question their guide, even though he knew fully well that he could trust Clyde. Clyde was a lot of things and a crabass, but he was honest and generally reliable. If there was a reason that he was taking them on this particular journey, he would tell them if they asked. That was always the key with Clyde: the right question had to be asked. Thoughtfully he asked, "How are we skipping through time like this? We were only supposed to go to one day, the worst day in my son's life."

"Maybe we are," hinted Clyde. "That's something you need to ask Junior over there."

"Wyatt," asked Leo. "Do you understand what's going on here?"

The man shrugged. Simply, he said, "This is how I remember that day. I mean, I know that it's been years, and part of the time, I can see that so clearly, but most of the time, I . . . I don't know how to explain it. I live in that day. The day Mom died is one long nightmare that didn't end for me until this morning. All these moments we've been seeing are all that I can remember clearly. I remember constantly having to battle to protect them, but beyond that, the dark is all I really know. The moment we saw Mom there, I lost everything else. I don't know how to get anywhere else. These flashes, they're the only break I have from reliving that moment otherwise. This is one day."

They all heard another snippet of conversation without being able to discern what it was that the speakers were talking about. Over the voice, Leo started throwing out ideas, trying to make at least some progress so that his boys would only have to live through this day for so long. "I hate to put it this way, but is it possible that we aren't dealing with evil here at all? There isn't a family history of it, but you said you lost it all when you first saw your mother; maybe what we're dealing with here is just a plain old, non-magical psychotic break of some kind. It would explain the blackouts and lapses in memory."

"If he's lost his mind, then I'm a monkey's uncle," Clyde guffawed at the idea without offering any change in direction. "You know, it really is a miracle any of you people are still alive."

"I'm not crazy," said Wyatt defensively, choosing to ignore their host. "I would know if I lost my mind." On an odd laugh from his brother, the man realized the ridiculous conclusion that would come from his remark. Rewording himself, Wyatt explained, "Look, all this stuff that's going on, I didn't make those decisions. It always felt like I did, but I knew I didn't. In my mind, I know that I have never been capable of doing these things, but I always believed that I was doing them for the right reasons. Never, in a million years, would I have been able to look Sam in the eye and do what I did to him. I didn't do any of these things, but it felt like I did. I can remember things as they happened, like that day that you and Charlie made a full scale assault on the Underworld, but I don't remember them. They're there, as long as I don't try too hard to be sure of anything, but as soon as I get close enough to being in control of anything, it's gone and I'm back where I started, in that cave alone with you and Mom."

"Well, we can't keep going on like this," Christopher thought out loud. "Mom's death may have been the last moment of the day you remember, but it's been seven years. We can't just wait this out until you come out of it." To Clyde he said, "There has to be some way for us to get out of here. Is there any way to get us to this morning? Er, his this morning? If we can get there, maybe we can see what we need."

"You couldn't see your own hand in front of your face," retorted Clyde, but he obliged Christopher with a snap of his fingers. A new door dropped down in the middle of their little band which the spirit promptly opened. As he gestured them through, he told the young witch, "It's about time you asked. You can't tell me you weren't bored. I like a little color in the lives of my clients, if you get what I mean."

As they stepped through the door and came out on the other side of it to stand on the flagstone patio of the manor, Christopher whistled, "I think you'll be getting plenty of color in a few minutes. Hold your horses." To his brother, he asked, "Does this look right to you?"

Wyatt didn't answer. He was too busy seeing his little sister smile at him as she disappeared through the doors into the conservatory. She had talked to her stomach when she'd turned her back on him. He remembered thinking that the kid had been acting up again, but now he wondered if she had been preparing him for what was to come. "It's gonna be okay, Baby, I promise."

The past Wyatt immediately came to the doorway, but didn't actually cross the threshold into the house. "What's wrong?"

"Baby's jumpy," she told him, sounding woozy. "And a jumpy baby means a jumpy mommy."

"Come out here and sit down," Wyatt almost commanded her. "If you fall and crack your head open, I'm not cleaning it up."

"Relax. Both of you. Let me find this stuff on Grams's list and then I'll sit. I would let you do it, but Grandpa and Christopher moved a lot of stuff around in the kitchen and you'd never find anything."

Moments later, they all heard Lucy trying to make casual conversation with her brother as if they were perfectly normal siblings without the pressure of one of them being the ruler of all evil. She sounded like she was full of sunshine as she called from the kitchen, "So Grams wanted me to tell you that she likes your haircut. She's been wanting you to shed that rat nest for years, I guess. She says you need to work on the wardrobe now. Apparently, if you're going to be all powerful, you need to look good doing it."

"And I didn't look good before," asked Wyatt, shouting through the window to be heard. "The next time you summon her, tell Grams I said, 'Thanks a lot'."

Absurdly, Christopher stared his brother up and down, noticing the change in his brother for the first time. Startled by the difference that he hadn't noticed, even as he was beating his brother's head in, he sputtered, "You cut your hair!?"

"As far as I can tell, you've been gone three months, little brother. A few things have changed without you."

"Well, then you probably don't want to know what she said about your wardrobe," the girl shouted back, sounding distracted.

Her distraction apparently hadn't gone unnoticed by Wyatt, either, because the visibly irritated witch started to make his way toward the house with a suspicious tilt of his head. "What are you doing in there?"

Before he could get too far, she popped up right in front of him, smiley as could be. "Done," she cheerfully informed him, holding up several bags of herbs and powders.

Darkly, the past Wyatt told her, "Then we can go."

"Not so fast, big brother," she sunnily said, taking his arm and guiding him toward the grime-covered table that had once been a favorite of the kids in the summertime. She brushed some of the dried leaves off a chair and directed him to sit. "You need fresh air. So do I. We stay until I say we go."

"So you're the one giving orders now?"

Lucy's face was overcome with sadness as she asked, "Please? I'll make us some tea and we can just sit for a while. You don't have to say anything. You can sit and scowl and imagine a thousand different ways to torture me when we get back to that dank little hole you call a home. I just . . . I want to remember what it was like when we were still friends. I want my baby to know that we didn't always hate each other. Just for one morning, let's pretend that we're still a family."

Finding himself more hurt than he knew he should be by what his kid sister was saying, Wyatt tried to distract himself by asking, "Is it just me, or are we more connected to the moment than the other stuff we've been seeing? I mean, shouldn't we have flashed by now?"

Thoughtfully, Leo suggested, "You're connected to the Nexus. Both of you kids are, and I'm guessing your sister is as well. If anything, you're strongest when you're here. I wouldn't be surprised if the same had been true about your sanctuary. Whatever has a hold on Wyatt the rest of the time, he's probably strongest here and able to be more in control."

"That's probably why he — you, it — moved out of the house," Christopher added, his thoughts forming with his father's. Knowing where this particular event they were witnessing was going to end, he mumbled in amazement, "Lucy must have figured that out, too. Of course she'd want to bring you here. She'd have a better chance of having the real Wyatt on her side instead of whatever it is that's in the driver's seat most of the time."

Ruefully, Wyatt pulled at the back of his neck. "Yeah, that plan didn't exactly work out for her."

"What do you mean," asked Christopher.

Wyatt gestured toward where his former self was starting to lose his temper with his sister once again. The morning's Wyatt was surprisingly vehement as he asked his sister, "You think we aren't a family? Do you have any idea the sacrifices I have made for this family?"

Tears sprang into the girl's eyes, but she was visibly working to keep them from falling. Her voice was hard and sad as she said, "I never asked you to give up your soul. All I wanted was my big brother. He was always all I ever needed."

Wyatt watched himself studying his sister, but he didn't like the look on his own face. Where affection should have been only suspicion creased his otherwise stony features. "You have something to say? Say it."

Lucy looked down at her hands as they tried to soothe the twitching baby. She let the tears come this time as she informed her brother, "After the baby is born, I'm leaving. I'm disappearing. Even you won't be able to find me."

Wyatt was clearly not having even the suggestion. "You're kidding, right?"

"Everyone I have ever loved is gone, including you. I know you have your reasons. I don't want to fight about Good and Evil and Power and all of that stuff that we've been over a million times in the last three months. That stuff really doesn't matter to me anymore. I know I can't change your mind. But you are dug in. You know, in all those years that I didn't have magic to deal with, I was free to live that normal life that Mom and the sisters always wanted. And while I was trying to be normal, I did a lot of reading. A lot. You guys used to pick on me all the time because I spent more time with books than I did with you. But in all that reading, I learned a lot. And one of the things that I learned in all that reading is that it doesn't matter how powerful you are, there will one day be someone more powerful. Power always comes down, Wyatt. Even power makes mistakes. And one day, it will be your turn. I won't be here to watch that happen. I won't stay here just to bury you with everyone else. I can't. Whatever else happens, I love you and . . . Well, I can't. Now I'm going to go make the tea. Just stay there. I need — You're upsetting Baby and I need to be alone."

With that, their little sister walked away from the past of Wyatt without even glancing back. Christopher wanted so badly to go after her, even though he knew he couldn't. It hurt his heart to see her like that. "She didn't think she could do this. She was saying 'Goodbye'."

"She's about to say a lot more than that," said Wyatt, pointing them all toward the doorway.

Lucy stood there in the doorway, her hands resting flat against the doorjamb, her head leaned against them. She looked so sad as she took what was probably supposed to be one last look at what had become of her life. Then, she finally let the tears out as she started chanting in a soft whisper.

When she finished, they could all feel a slight tug as the spell began to work. Past Wyatt's powers fought the spell for maybe half a second but gave in, pulling out of him and out into the open. The witch screamed with fury as he felt the transition with the rest of them. He tore himself from the chair, ready to charge at his sister to stop her. He was already too late, though, as her powers mingled in mid-air with his for a moment before her powers settled above him. He had just enough time to look furiously up at them before they dropped down into his being.

"NO!"

Wyatt and Christopher quickly turned their attention on their sister as she nearly collapsed under the magical weight of her brother's powers. They both glanced at his past self, who was already getting the energy back to attack her. Almost as if they were cheering on the lead in a movie, they both willed Lucy on.

"Get up, get up, get up," Wyatt said as Christopher said, "C'mon, c'mon, come on."

Before they could see what had happened next, there was a sudden surge of energy around all of them, raising the hair on the backs of their necks. Searching glances told them all that each of them was feeling it. It was hopeful and terrifying all at once. Then, just as the surge reached its peak, they were all taken over by ice. They all doubled over in pain, even Clyde. Before they had time to adjust to the cold, Leo could swear he could smell the flesh burning from everyone around him, it was so hot. Despair stabbed at him when he heard Wyatt howl in furious pain. He reached into the almost strobe-like flashes between light and darkness for his oldest, only to catch air.

And then, nothing. There was no heat, no cold, no hope, no fear. There was only the black.

"BOYS!" Leo called out immediately.

His answer came in the form of the light flashing violently back up full force, brighter than it had been since the beginning of their strange trip. Next to him, right where he'd left them, were his sons. Christopher and Wyatt were both standing there, stunned. Wyatt was the first of them to react, shaking himself back to reality. He'd lived through this already, he told himself. He needed to be more aware of what was happening, just in case his father and brother couldn't be.

Wyatt took command of the situation, directing them toward where his past self — God, that was just this morning! — was sitting nearly catatonic on the ground. Loud and clear, Lucy's voice shouted at all of them.

"You have to get up! I can't hold this thing off that long. Call Excalibur. We need it, now" They all looked to the double doors where the girl was flicking her wrists left and right, searching for something that she obviously couldn't see. When she apparently didn't see her brother doing as she'd requested, she stormed out of the house right up to her brother, reached down, and hauled the stunned man to his feet with one hand while still attempting to freeze the thing she was looking for. The realization quickly dawned on her face that she no longer had the ability to freeze. Suddenly she looked very frightened.

"Wyatt, I need you to get up. I have no idea how in the hell to work your powers. I don't know what to do. Get up."

"What — I don't understand. What happened? How are we — ?"

"Call Excalibur."

"Excalibur?"

Even though it had been a weak, confused question on Wyatt's behalf, the sword materialized in his hand, loyal to the heir. Before the man could comprehend what it was doing there, his sister yanked it out of his hand. The sword seemed to resist her pull for a moment, but it soon found a comfort in her hands. The weapon seemed to give Lucy a confidence as well. She stood stronger, prepared for what was to come.

"Wyatt, can you hear me?"

"Lucy?"

"Yeah, honey, it's me. Now listen, I need you to get up. You have to get up. I can't do this by myself." When she didn't get an answer out of her big brother, she angrily kicked at his apparently useless legs. "Get. Up."

With one hand, she struggled to hold Excalibur out and away from her in a defensive position as she dug into her pockets with the other. She pulled a crumpled piece of paper out and tried to straighten it with her thumb and index finger so that she could read whatever was on it. When it was as straight as she was going to get it, Lucy's voice rang out clearly as she recited the spell.

A shimmer of light spun around in the middle of the patio to reveal a smiling Chris. Both Leo and Christopher gaped with Lucy as she swore, "What the hell?"

"What's the matter, Lu," Chris asked with a wolfish grin. "You know we never do anything without each other."

"What are you?" asked Lucy, completely unfooled.

"Little girl, Wyatt is the big brother who is going to teach you a lesson you will never forget about what happens when you dare to challenge the Heir of Excalibur."

"My brother never referred to himself in the third person a day in his life. I never believed you were him, not for a second. You screwed up a long time ago when you forgot that he's a pacifist. Moron." Lucy didn't hesitate to level the heavy sword against the thing with her brother's face. She obviously wasn't in any way fazed by Chris's sudden appearance in front of her. Her initial shock had passed so quickly that she looked to almost have expected the man's appearance. "Whatever you are," she growled, "I want to see your real face. I want to see the face of the monster responsible for destroying my family. Show me. SHOW ME!"

The request was immediately denied as Chris turned toward his big brother. The leer on his face was wicked as he goaded the confused man, "Wyatt, look at her. She's going to kill me if you don't stop her. Please don't let me die again. Wyatt, I need you."

"Get up, Wyatt," Lucy countered, her voice remarkably steady despite the panic that seemed to come over her. Excalibur shook in her hands as she called out to the terrified looking Wyatt. "Honey, that's not Christopher. You know it isn't. You have to fight it. I can't do it for you. You have to get up and help me."

With a wave of his hand, Chris's shirt turned a bright crimson just below the ribcage. Furiously, he barked, "You did this, Wyatt. You did this to me. Now kill her before she kills me."

"Wyatt, get up!"

"You killed me."

The voice was small and almost inaudible, but the past Wyatt started chanting over and over, like a child sticking his fingers in his ears and humming as loud as he could. "Stop it, stop it, stopitstopitstopit! STOP IT!"

When his voice exploded, so did the glass table top on the patio furniture. With the next command for the yelling to stop, the glass blew out of the windows in the French doors of the conservatory. Lucy immediately dropped Excalibur, her hands reflexively covering her burgeoning stomach. The act was all that the thing with Christopher's face needed.

"Join me, my brothers!" the ChrisThing called out.

None of the bystanders noticed the other Chris for the moment. The real Wyatt was backing up and away from his companions, afraid of what he was seeing. He didn't exactly remember this moment all that well. He definitely wasn't liking what he was seeing. Timidly, he asked, "Did I do that?"

"She switched your powers," said Leo. "She had your mother's freezing power, so I suppose it's entirely possible that her powers would expand in the same way that Piper's did. Considering that Lucy had such an aversion to using her powers, it wouldn't surprise me that the trigger for them is fear. Do you remember being overly afraid at that moment?"

"Oh, yeah," Wyatt drawled. He pointed at the group of six Darklighters that black orbed in just as the glass ceiling of the conservatory exploded and sent down a torrential rain of glass on them all. "I remember hearing Chris call out. I saw the company arrive. And then I saw — "

Wyatt cut himself off as the world in his memory turned to chaos. While crossbows puffed into the hands of the Darklighters, Lucy stood back up and picked up the sword. Brandishing it like she had no idea how to do it, she sidestepped closer to Wyatt as both the Darklighters and the thing that looked like Chris moved in on them. She called for her brother once again, but he was still seemingly lost. Then, before anyone else could get their shot in, the ChrisThing took his.

The sword swung in a wide arc as the thing charged her, but it was apparently too heavy for her to get it back up again. The ChrisThing dematerialized as it ran at her, turning into the black cloud that Wyatt had described over Lucy's dying moments. Just as Wyatt had told them, the cloud slammed into her, ripping through her body in ways that immediately drew comparisons in Leo's mind to things that he would rather he had forgotten sixty years ago.

Christopher hugged himself as Lucy dropped to the cold hard flagstones of the patio, helpless to do anything to cushion her fall. A stolen glance at his brother told him that Wyatt was struggling not to run to her as well. Strangely, of all the times that it could have happened to him in the last few hours, Christopher finally saw his brother. The stricken look on Wyatt's face finally convinced him that his brother had been telling the truth. He really didn't know all of this was happening. He really had been scared and he really had been doing, for his part, what he could to keep his family safe.

Suddenly, the most random and yet fitting memory came to Christopher out of nowhere. He hadn't realized it, but he had known all along that Wyatt had been on their side, no matter what. The Wyatt that they had seen over the last few years had had so many chances to kill them, but he never had. Somehow, whatever had a hold on the eldest Halliwell didn't have enough of a hold on him that he couldn't still reign himself in enough to keep from killing his brother and sister. He had said it himself to their father that day in the attic. He won't kill her, but he will have no problem making her suffer, he'd said. He knew. Damn it, he'd known, but he hadn't known.

She had known, though. There was something in her eyes as she looked up at the sky to catch her breath from the fall. She had known all too well that Wyatt, their Wyatt, would never have killed her. She knew he was still in there, somewhere, and still a part of them. She never would have done all of this if that had been the price she would have had to pay. She had believed.

And now Christopher did, too, without a doubt.

The past Wyatt came alive at that moment, as if seeing his sister lying there dying was what had been needed to truly pull him back from the brink. Then again, as Christopher had thought, he never would have let either of his siblings die. To see it now, helpless do to anything about it, had probably been Wyatt's breaking point. His face screwed up in fury as they all saw his eyes meet his sisters. Furiously, he screamed her name.

Quickly calling for the sword that was quite possibly the bane of his existence, the past Wyatt started toward the thing that he already knew had murdered his sister. It was only when she heard him weakly call out to him that he was able to focus on anything else.

"Wyatt," Lucy gasped out to her brother. "Leave it. We have . . . We have to go."

"What's going on?" the morning's Wyatt asked urgently, still not quite sure what the circumstances were. Without even realizing that he was doing it, more glass sprinkled down on them as windows from the second story exploded outward onto the patio. "What was that thing?"

They all watched in silent anxiety as the echo of Wyatt quickly crawled on all fours to his sister's body, shielding her as soon as he was near while more Darklighters black orbed into their family's home and backyard. Oddly, they had both grinned wildly at each other as she'd reached a hand up to his shorn curls and pulled his head down to her lips. Even as a poisoned arrow flew in their direction, she took the time to plant a gentle kiss on his forehead and whispered, "Welcome back."

"I don't understand."

"You have to know what to see. I need you to remember that, okay?"

Words seemed to shoot out of the past Wyatt's mouth before his thoughts could catch up with them. His mouth raced to keep up as he fired one question after another at Lucy, looking entirely confused and lost. "What? I don't understand. How did this happen? What's happening?" Then, somewhere in the middle of his rapid fire mumbling, he must have reached some kind of grip on himself enough to realize that he really wasn't the problem at the moment. The observing Wyatt instantly remembered the feeling he'd had at the moment, the first realization of the wetness soaking his shirt. He closed his eyes in unison with his past self, terrified of everything that was about to come. Together the Wyatts groaned, "Oh, god."

"You-ou seem to have a little revo-volt on your hands," Lucy said through gritted teeth. "I th-think they already know you-you aren't in ch-charge any-anymore."

As another arrow flew overhead, Wyatt struggled to help his sister up off the flagstones. He held her close, one hand over her head to help her keep it up. He swung his arm out wide out of reflex. Observing Wyatt remembered not feeling exactly disappointed when a Darklighter merely blew up instead of all of them being flung out of the way as he'd intended. Confused why his powers were on the fritz, he panicked even more. "We have to get out of here."

"Not going to . . .not arguing w-with you there."

Lucy seemed to sink then, unable to hold her own weight any longer. Wyatt tried to hold her up, but her knees buckled so that her head was at his waist level and falling backward fast. He knelt down long enough to try to heave her back up, half dragging her further away from the house as he tried in his confusion to find a way out. Out to where, he didn't know. It was too confused for him to know for sure. He just knew they had to get out. "I-I don't know where to go," the past Wyatt whispered in fear as they both fell to the ground under her sinking weight.

A gentle brush of her fingertips over Wyatt's lips and he quieted long enough for her to tell him, "Just trust me. I'll g-get us there. It's going to take a while, but you'll understand all-all of this in time. I h-have to get you to Chris. "

"Where is he? I — "

"Tell Christopher." With that, she had started chanting the spell that had whisked them all away to safety so many times in their lives. It was obvious that she was starting to fade, even then, because her words started coming in ragged gasps. While she was chanting, Wyatt had called for Excalibur and had been fending off the arrows that were directed at the two of them since his powers seemed to be useless to him. When he hadn't heard her breathe for a moment, Wyatt had looked down and grasped her hand tightly. Their joined hands had begun to glow as he had automatically started chanting with her, not even realizing that he remembered the words.

A warm cocoon of golden orbs surrounded all of them, memory and watchers alike. They were all blinded by the glow until they suddenly fell out of them, leaving all of them in the middle of the attic at another Christopher's feet, just as Christopher now remembered them appearing to him. He saw his own reaction to them coming out, feeling more than just a little out of place. It had been one thing to watch their past, but to see this very morning was kind of weird.

Knowing what happened with all too vivid detail already locked in his mind, Christopher backed away from the others in his company. He started thinking out loud to himself, his helplessness starting to build with his words. "Useless. This was completely useless. We didn't learn a damn thing. I don't have the first idea where we needed to start or what we should have done."

Leo grabbed Christopher's arm and pulled him so that his son was standing in front of him. The strength of his grip forced his boy to look at him, even though Christopher was clearly fighting it, as if he wanted to be frustrated instead of logical. "We learned plenty."

"About the future," Christopher argued. "We never should have brought you along."

"I'm talking about Wyatt. You have your proof now. We know for a fact that he wasn't and isn't evil. We know that he wasn't in control when he did those things."

"We don't know that. There could be all kinds of reasons why we kept flashing."

"Christopher . . ."

"No. I just watched my mother, two cousins, and sister die all in the span of a few hours after having to watch her die for real this morning. All I saw was one reason after another to — "

"Don't give up on me yet," said Wyatt in a small voice, breaking into the argument that neither his father or brother was winning.

"I'm not," said Christopher, even though the frustration in his voice might have betrayed something else. "I'm not, but I'm running out of ideas here. That's all. I just . . . It's not your fault. Forget about it. I'll figure it out. Just . . . Nevermind." Even though he tried to set his shoulders and look confident again, the witch still sounded more than a little dejected as he told Clyde, "I've seen enough. There's nothing we can learn here, not now."

Clyde looked at the kid hard and scoffed, "What show were you just at?"

Leo glared at Clyde, who laughed at Christopher's mini-tirade. Obviously Clyde knew something that they didn't, and, as always, he wasn't sharing. They apparently hadn't asked the right questions. To get to those questions, they were definitely going to have to figure out everything they had just seen, without the peanut gallery laughing in the corner. Calmly, Leo told them all, "Look, we just need a break. Let's get back and recharge a little. None of us have slept. Let's just clear the cobwebs and see where we are from there."

"That's really what you want," asked Clyde of Christopher.

The witch looked at where his past had collided with his brother and sister. They were lying there on the floor once again, Wyatt near tears as Lucy was slowly fading away from them. He heard himself yelling at her to stay and wanted to be sick. The only thing that was different this time was that he noticed her powers and his switching in the air once more, returning to their rightful owners. He closed his eyes with a soft groan then nodded at their guide. Without another word, Clyde clapped his hands together, dropping the door down in front of them. He swept them all through the portal with a grand gesture, leaving a stone cold Christopher losing all hope while the Warren family line ended surrounded by a mother and uncles he would never know.

III.

Back in the attic, Paige stopped her pacing for a moment to look at the vision-o-gram that they had all been trying very hard to ignore of a very angry, evil Wyatt standing over Chris/Phoebe's deathbed with a shudder. "Is there any way we can get rid of that thing, do you think? Or would it hurt Phoebe if we did? WickedWyatt is seriously creeping me out."

"Doubtful," sighed Piper.

"Do you really think this was the last thing Chris saw," asked Paige, walking around the WyattThing to get away from her sisters for a moment. She needed air. If that was what Chris had seen, she really, really needed air. It hurt her all over again to know that she couldn't have made those last moments any easier for him. For a split second, she wished she could still be under the influence of her spell, but knowing the damage it had caused, she stuffed the notion back down quickly where it couldn't hurt anyone. "Nevermind. I don't think I want to know."

Victor glanced at his watch for probably the tenth time in as many minutes. The waiting was starting to kill him. He kept waiting for that instant when his baby girl's chest would finally drop, letting out the stale air that was trapped in her lungs, and for her to then fade away from them. That was what they were waiting for, right? It wasn't like they were going to be able to stop this when she came back to them anyway. She was still wounded, and from the way Leo told it, only this Gideon character could heal her from that point. Of course, he'd been vanquished now for three weeks. They were kind of out of luck in that department. To be honest, he was feeling like they had been out of luck now for a long time. Maybe Penny and Patty had been right all along. This family was cursed.

"Dad, I swear to God, if you don't stop looking at your watch, I'm going to blow it up and I can't promise that your arm won't go up in flames with it. Our powers are tied to our emotions. Right now, I have the feeling that if I tried to use them, they'd be a little wacky."

Frustrated beyond all belief with his daughters' chosen life, Victor ran a hand through his hair and pulled hard when he reached the back of his head. Without really meaning to, he snapped, "Well, darling daughter, let me tell you a little bit about my emotions: if the lot of you don't come up with a solution here pretty soon, I'm going to do a little exploding of my own."

Paige glanced between the two of them. "Do I have to separate the two of you, too?"

Piper dropped her head down into her hands, exhaling hard and hot. She knew, in a way, that her father was right. They couldn't just keep sitting around waiting for an answer to just appear. They needed help and they needed it fast. The waiting game was just not working anymore. It didn't help that Leo and the kids were traipsing off to the future, somewhere that was probably very hurtful and dangerous to the boys, and she had no idea what was happening to them. Still, sitting and worrying had never worked for her before. Why she was doing it now, she had no idea. She was better than this. Damn it! She cracked her neck in frustration, letting it all out with the pop. Her anger and helplessness quelled for at least a minute, Piper looked back up and at her sister. "We're good. Just give me an idea. Something. Anything. Just start talking. You're the one with the instincts around here. Start talking and maybe something will come to you."

The youngest sister rolled her eyes. "No pressure or anything."

"Would it help you if I told you that you're our best shot?"

"Funny girl," Paige griped.

"It was just an idea. Alright, start talking. There is an answer around here somewhere, right?"

"Right, but where?" Paige started to look around the contents of the attic, counting things off her list as she went. "The Book has been a bust. We've tried listening spells, spells to make things seen, reversal spells. The spell Phoebe wrote was no help. We've been through everything in the trunk, too. So that leaves potions and . . . Yeah, that doesn't work because, if she's frozen, she can't exactly swallow anything I can whip up, even if I can whip it up."

Piper offered soothingly, "Okay, so we need to look in places we don't normally look. Or maybe, the problem isn't in the solution to the problem?"

"You mean, we need to figure out what the cause of the problem itself is?" Paige quickly answered her own question before Piper could distract her train of thought. "No, we know the cause: — Phoebe's spell — but what we don't know is why."

"Personal Gain?"

Paige shook her head thoughtfully. "You know, I don't think that's why she's having the problem. Not really. I mean, it is, but it isn't. Maybe the problem is that she isn't letting the spell work in the way that the spell intended. She's just trying to make it work for the way she'd intended."

Victor looked up at his girls and asked, "And that intention was what, exactly? No one has bothered to tell me any of what's going on."

"Yeah, sorry about that, Dad," Piper apologized. "We got a little distracted, what with my kids trying to kill each other, all of them, and my sister reenacting my son's death. I really did mean to tell you what I know, which is next to nothing, I guess. It's just been happening too fast. I'm sorry."

Going on to explain and catch both Victor and Piper up, Paige said, "When you arrived last week, she was trying to tell me what she'd done, but I was a little under the influence at the time myself. If I remember right, she told me that she was trying to protect Chris's existence from The Cleaners. She thought that the Elders might try to get them to erase Future Chris so that we wouldn't abandon our posts after what Gideon did to him."

Piper unfolded the piece of paper that the spell had been written on and studied it. After a moment, she waved Paige over to her and pointed at a specific line of the spell. More than unhappy, she glared at her unconscious sister. "Yeah, she screwed that one up."

Victor asked, "So then how do we fix it?"

"You know, the person we really need to talk to in all of this is Chris," Paige said darkly. She looked over at Phoebe, and sighed. "But he doesn't seem to be doing much talking at the moment."

"Wait a minute," Piper said thoughtfully. "What's the one thing we've been assuming here in all of this?"

"What do you mean," Victor asked.

Piper gestured down toward Phoebe. "This whole time, we've been assuming that Chris was talking through Phoebe, right? What if he isn't? What if we can talk to the actual Chris, not his memory?"

Understanding, or at least thinking she was understanding where her sister was going with this, Paige countered, "But even if that's true and he is somewhere that he can be found, we couldn't summon him. They still haven't let us see Prue. What makes you think they'll let us see Chris?"

"They won't let us talk to him, but that doesn't mean we can't get someone else to do it for us," suggested Piper. Seeing the light go on behind Paige's eyes, she smiled and ordered, "You get the candles, I'll get the matches."

A few moments later, golden orbs swirled into the room then disappeared, leaving a visibly irritated Penny Halliwell standing in the middle of the circle of candles. The ghost looked around her, assessing the situation before any of them could tell her what their version of the story was. She had found, over the years, that she was a much better judge of what was going on around her girls, even better than them. There was hardly a day that went by that she didn't wish she hadn't died on them when she had. They weren't ready to be without her guidance . . . as the unconscious Phoebe was about to prove to her.

"What did you do," the ghostly woman asked as she stepped out of the circle and became corporeal once more.

"Hi, Grams," said Paige as she glided forward for a hug and temporarily ignored her grandmother's question. "It's so good to see you."

Penny was taken aback by the strength of her granddaughter's hug. She laughed into Paige's hair in confusion. "Darling, I just saw you a week ago."

"She's a little sleep deprived," Piper informed their grandmother. "Just go with it."

"Alright. So, you called?"

Piper nodded her head over toward where Victor was placing a cooled wet towel on Phoebe's forehead. Dispensing with all niceties, the eldest sister griped, "Yeah. We need a little help here."

"So I see. As I said, what have you done?"

Together, Piper and Paige sat their grandmother down and explained all that had happened since Penny had gone back to the Ghostly Plane upon Christopher's dramatic arrival. Paige withered slightly under her grandmother's gaze as the story of her part in the week's events was told. She was a little relieved, however, to see that Penny's darkest glare was reserved for Phoebe's prone form. The only people who weren't under the ghost's scrutiny by the end of the tale were (surprisingly) the grandfather and the infant. Even little Wyatt wasn't going to escape his great-grandmother's anger at the moment. Still, she listened intently, putting what they were telling her together with what she knew from spending some time in the last week with her great-grandson on the Other Side. When the picture came together for her, she didn't like what it looked like at all.

When they were finished, Piper took her grandmother's hands in hers. Softly, she said, "Last week, I asked you to help me and you told me that there really is no way to truly help me grieve for my child. I'm doing my best, but this is a situation that only you can help me with."

"What do you want me to do?"

"I — we — want you to find Chris for us. We think that maybe he's the only person who can get through to her. At the very least, he might be able to help us figure out what it is that she's doing in his head."

Penny screwed her eyes at her granddaughter. "I think what's going through his head in that moment is pretty obvious, don't you?"

"That's exactly what we want to avoid here, don't you think," retorted Paige. "If we let her finish out what's in his head, we won't be able to save her just like . . . "

"You weren't meant to save him," said Penny gently as Paige trailed off. "Without divulging my sources, I must say, I have had some very interesting conversations lately. You need to know, whatever the future holds, what happened to Chris was meant to happen. Believe me, he's made enough of a ruckus Up There since his arrival to prove that. So don't you worry yourselves with guilt for one more minute, my darlings. Paige, you, of all people, should know that everything happens for a reason. When one door closes, another opens. Chris's door was meant to close to open one for another."

"Yeah, that's great," snapped Victor from his daughter's bedside. He refused to accept that his grandson's door was meant to close, certainly not the way it had slammed shut on them all. To hear his former mother-in-law say anything else was just disturbing. And yet, that wasn't at the top of his Worry List at the moment. He was content to let that one boil over until his top priority was taken care of first. To get them all back on his track instead of theirs, he demanded, "But how does that help Phoebe? It's her problem that we're supposed to be working on here, and in case you've missed it, she isn't exactly getting any better."

"IF you don't mind, leave the — "

"For God's sakes, Penny, my daughter is dying! Just find the kid and get him back here before she has to leave with you!"

The ghostly witch didn't argue with her former son-in-law, even though she quite obviously wanted to. She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest before standing up from the sofa. Her glare remained heatedly on Victor as she stepped toward the circle of candles. It wasn't until she addressed her girls once again that she was able to let her temper cool down. "I know where he should be. If he isn't there, your sister will know where he is. They've been bonding, to say the least. I'm not making any promises that I'll be able to get him back here, mind you."

"We know," said Piper. "Just try, Grams. I'll be grateful for whatever you can do."

"Blessed be, my darlings. I shall return."

With that, Penny crossed the rug into the circle and vanished in the same hail of orbs that had brought her there.

"What now," asked Victor.

"We keep looking," Piper sighed tiredly. "And I think maybe we should try to be as normal for the moment as we can. I . . . I think I need to spend some time with my kids right now."

Paige's Sister Radar turned on, knocking her back to her senses. In all the chaos of the last few hours, she hadn't even thought about Piper and how she must be handling everything that she had seen and heard when Wyatt had arrived. "That was quite a show the two of them put on, huh? You okay?"

"I have no idea."

"Christopher told you not to worry, though, right?"

"And?" When she got a look from her sister, Piper amended her question. "I'm the mother to a future king and tyrant. If he's capable of saying the things he said to his brother when he's on our team, I'd hate to live to see what he is going to be like when he switches sides. Then again, we know I don't live that long, so it's not like I have to worry about that part." She waited for Paige to say something, but when she didn't, Piper said sadly, "I just feel like I need to hug him right now, if that's okay."

"Take a break," agreed Paige. "I can handle things. Kiss my nephews for me."

"Dad," asked Piper.

Victor smiled at his middle daughter. "She's right. The three of you should take some time alone. Go on down to the nursery or something, somewhere quiet. We'll be fine up here."

It took a little while to get them all going, but Piper took their advises and swept her boys off and away from the chaos of the attic. While they were gone, Paige and Victor spent some quality time themselves, talking in a way that they hadn't in quite a while. Resentments aside, they had formed a decent relationship over the last few years, but they didn't really know much about each other's lives before she had been brought into the family. They talked about this and that, learning about his education days, his business, where he had been in the years since he'd left the girls. They talked about her parents, about her big lifestyle turnaround after treatment, and how eerily similar her college experience had been to his. Somehow, it was a great relief to them both to think about anything but what they were supposed to be thinking about for a few minutes.

Nearly an hour later, Piper sleepily rounded the attic door and announced, "They're both asleep."

"Why don't you get some, too," suggested Paige. "You really didn't have to come back up yet."

Piper's answer was drowned out by the sound of the mystical door slamming down into the middle of the attic floor with a whoosh of air and flash of bright light. The four men tumbled out of it, her men looking the worse for wear. Leo was obviously trying to look as stoic as possible, where Christopher and Wyatt were both looking a little bloodless in the face. She was almost afraid to ask them as they spotted her, but she asked anyway. "How did it go?"

"The same as it did before," grumbled Wyatt. "It was real fun."

"I wish we had it on video," drawled Christopher. "Those were Kodak moments I want to relive over and over."

"So not so good then," Piper said. Hoping that they had still been able to salvage the day, so to speak, she asked, "But you did find the answer, right? That girl did say you would find the answer there. You did find at least something, right?"

Leo quickly glanced at his younger son's face to find the answer to that question and wasn't thrilled with the answer he got. Unhappily, he told her, "I don't think so, no."

"Not what we wanted anyway, but Dad's right: I got an answer to a different question I've had for a while," said Christopher. He looked hard at Wyatt, who immediately felt his brother's gaze. The two of them studied one another, Christopher trying to see if Wyatt finally understood where he had gone. Wyatt looked like he finally believed his brother, at any rate. It was true. He really had been gone. It wasn't just confusion or selective memory or an attempt to explain away the ugliness that his life had become. He truly had been gone, or buried deep enough that he might as well have been gone anyway. "I think we both did."

"Yeah, we did," Wyatt admitted. The sadness in his brother too much for him to take at the moment, Wyatt looked around the room for any kind of distraction. Instead, all he found was the vision cardboard cutout of himself glaring down at Phoebe. He had no idea what it was he was looking at, but he definitely didn't want to be seeing it any longer. Still, he didn't take his eyes off it as he asked, "Can we please get rid of that thing?"

His mind also locked on the image of his brother angrily standing vigil over Phoebe, Christopher slowly walked away from the group and ran both hands through his hair, grasping it tight at the top and holding on in frustration. He paced around in a small circle, mumbling the problem out to himself, oblivious to everyone else. "Find the thing he missed . . . No . . . They, find the thing they missed. Worst day, worst day . . . His life. She said 'his life'. His . . . He . . . He who? Which he?"

As Christopher tried to work the problem out in his head, Clyde, Piper, Leo, and Wyatt remained congregated just to the side of the door portal. Not really knowing what she was supposed to do with the guy, Piper sent Clyde down to the kitchen to help himself —- politely as long as he cleaned up the mess — until they could formulate a new plan. Leo was still convinced that they were on the right track, just on the wrong 'day'. If he was right, they were going to be needing Clyde's services for a while longer. In the meantime, they were going to have to deal with a few other things.

"How's Phoebe," asked Leo once Clyde had stormed in his own happy way out of the attic.

"The same," Piper said worriedly, looking over to where Victor and Paige back to sitting with her sister now that the others had dispersed. "We're running out of ideas, but I'm hoping that Grams can work . . ."

"Grams is here," Wyatt asked. "What's she doing? Can I see her?"

Piper regarded her son oddly for a moment. There seemed to be a hopeful spark in his voice, as if he were truly hoping to see his great-grandmother. Even more odd, she noticed the look that passed between her son and his father, who raised his eyebrows at the boy. "Am I missing something?"

Wyatt turned to his father, eyes downcast. "We kind of had a fight this morning. Her criticizing my wardrobe is the least of my problems with Grams. She hasn't been too happy with me lately. Anyway, you saw . . . I let her summon Grams to help us figure out what was wrong with her baby." A memory came to him that he wasn't aware he had and he had to hide a smirk while he said, "She yelled at me for something that, well, I have no idea what happened, but she yelled at me for it. My ears are still ringing. God, that was just this morning . . ." Back to his mother, he asked distractedly, "Sorry. Why did you summon her?"

"We thought she might be able to help us out and find someone for us," Piper said distractedly. When Leo asked the question with his raised eyebrows, she confirmed, "Yeah."

His head stuck in the moments after his fight with his great-grandmother when he'd watched his kid sister die, Wyatt quietly walked off from the group, needing to find a corner to hide himself in and quite possibly never come out of. It was barely an afterthought as he turned around on his way away and told his parents, "If it's okay with you, I'm going to lay down for a while. I'm still kind of sore. I — I just need to be alone for a while."

"Sure. Take Phoebe's room. She won't mind," suggested Piper.

As her son slinked away with a nodded thanks, it was Piper's turn to silently ask the question. All Leo offered her was a soft, "We'll tell you all about it when this is over. For now, let's just leave him alone for a while. He has a lot to process."

"They both look like they've gone ten rounds. Was it at least worth it? Did you learn something helpful?"

"All we really know is that he was telling the truth and lying all at the same time. Yes, it seems that he was doing everything in his power to protect his brother. For that, I'm proud of him. On the other hand, it appears he wasn't exactly doing the driving ninety-nine percent of the time, if you know what I mean. But for all intents and purposes, they were both right. Wyatt wasn't evil. Everything else about him was."

"So other than the proof that one son himself wasn't evil, we're back where we were two years ago when the other son first popped up in our attic? Yeah, there is definitely something Square One-y about this spot."

"Maybe," said Leo. He nodded his chin over toward where his younger son was still talking to himself, counting things off on his fingers and pulling on the back of his neck in concentration. "But if Christopher isn't giving up on his brother, then neither am I. How about you?"

Piper faked a smile, planted her fists on her hips and bobbed her head from side to side. "Go, Team!"

"Sarcasm, thy name is Piper." Leo pulled on Piper's hand to grab her attention, seeing a moment appear that he knew he wouldn't get back if he didn't do something about it right then and there. "Listen, it's going to be okay. We aren't going to give up. Cheer all you want, but you know we can't give up on our sons. And I won't give up on us, either. I know we have a lot to sort out in our lives and this really isn't the best time, but . . . When this is all over, I think you and I need to take the advice of our rather smart kid over there and try to fix our problems before we, one way or another, loose that opportunity."

The woman studied the look on her former husband's face, trying to see, even though she knew she couldn't, what it was that he must have seen when he was gallivanting in the future with their sons. "What you saw must have been pretty bad, huh?"

"It was."

"How bad?"

"Bad enough that I don't want to spend the next few years having to actually think about whether or not it's okay to touch you or kiss you. I don't want to wonder all the time if I'm doing too much or not enough. The place that's behind that snow globe may not exist just now, but the thought behind it does. I don't want your answer right now, but I just wanted to at least let you know that I'm thinking about it and about us."

For the first time in a long time, the smile reached Piper's eyes as she looked up at her husband. She couldn't pretend that things were any easier just yet. Leo was still an Elder, after all. That didn't mean that she had ever stopped loving him. She wasn't sure if that was going to be enough to fix their problems, but with everything going on around them, marital issues seemed a lot easier than parenting ones. At the risk of setting her heart up for failure, she said, "You're still my soul mate, Leo. You're still my friend. It's the husband part that I don't know how to get back to, but that doesn't mean I won't find my way back. If our kids can do it, though, I know we can. When this is over and we have put in place every single security mechanism and spell at our disposal in place, we'll make a getaway. We'll figure it out."

"So it's a date?"

"It's a date."

"The attic hasn't been trashed in a few hours and I think it might be good to get something going on up here. I could use the laugh, so do you want to tell your dad or should I?"

"It's probably a lot safer if I do. It doesn't matter how many grandchildren you give him, you'll never be his favorite person." Piper cringed at the idea of having to clean the place up, yet again. It was hard enough cleaning up after her kids — all of them. She needed a break more than she needed a laugh at the moment. "Some things are better left alone, don't you think?"

Leo pouted for all of a second and said, "Killjoy."

"Yeah, well, one of us has to be the grownup here, and it apparently has to be me."

"It's okay. We're all a little punchy here. Maybe it would be a good idea if we got some sleep for a while? I think Christopher is going to be at it for a few hours at least. I know we still need to solve Phoebe's problem, but you aren't going to be able to get anything done if you are falling asleep at the wheel. We still need you."

Misinterpreting the dark look on her almost husband's face when he said she was needed, Piper said suspiciously, "You know, it sucks that you and Dad get to know when I'm going to die and I don't."

Leo eyed her oddly. "What are you talking about?"

"Please, it's not like I didn't figure out where you were going even before you left. I could tell from both of the kids what they were thinking about. You're trying to sound normal, but you look about as settled as they do. So how bad was it?"

"Bad enough that we aren't going to let it even come close to happening again. But that wasn't what I was talking about anyway. I was just thinking that we are already one power down without Phoebe, conscious or not, and Paige is only a few hours away from dropping herself after the last few weeks."

Seeing the opportunity for the gallows humor that Leo was looking for, Piper smiled up at him and said melodramatically, "Oh, so you were broken up seeing me die, but not that broken up. I see. Kill me once, kill me a hundred times. They're all the same."

"Well, you have died more than a few times."

"Haven't we all," she muttered almost cheerfully. "Haven't we all . . . "

They were both startled when Paige asked from behind them, "Haven't we all what?"

"Died," said Piper simply.

"Ten or twelve times, at least, and I've only been doing this for three years," shrugged the youngest sister. "So which one of us are we killing this time?"

A swirl of golden orbs interrupted them, separating them before Victor could object to their line of joking from his post at the dying Phoebe's side. Before the orbs had even solidified into a person, Penny's voice called worriedly to them, "I couldn't find him anywhere. No one has seen him for hours."

"All puns and jokes aside," said Paige. "How does a ghost just disappear?"

"He was here a few hours ago to help collect the boys' — er — well, their girl from the future," said Penny quietly, looking to make sure neither Christopher or Wyatt within earshot. "When the three of them came back, he and Clarence went off to talk. Clarence came back without him and no one has seen him since."

Piper asked, "So now what?"

Penny didn't look in the least bit happy to say what she was about to say, but she offered, "I think you need to go see the other Elders, Leo."

"No."

"Leo."

"No. I mean it, Penny. No."

The family matriarch glared unpleasantly at her grandson-in-law, arms crossing over her chest with a huff. "When was the last time you were Up There?" She waited, but Leo refused to answer. Her glare grew even darker. "Have you at least talked to Them?"

When Leo still didn't answer, Piper looked at him sideways. "I thought we were waiting to hear from Them about your so-called 'punishment'."

"We are," he said evenly.

"Without having even talked to Them?"

Rather than wait for the couple to work out the answers they needed in an argument, Penny jumped in. "If you had talked to Them, you would know that They don't exactly have time to punish you or not at the moment. They have a much bigger problem: your son."

"What," the living three cried.

"Chris has caused quite a bit of chaos Up There, and not just by dying. He had some interesting revelations for Them that I don't think any of Them were prepared for. That's why I hadn't seen him yet when I talked to you last weekend, Piper. He had been too busy to get to see us yet. The point is, after talking to him and to the girl who joined us today, I really think you need to get Up There, Leo. Based on what she told me, you should have seen some very interesting things today. There is a deal to be made there, if you act now, a deal that may save both Phoebe and all of your kids, for good."

Leo let his guard down just a little, matching Penny's glare. "And you know what that deal should be?"

"I have an idea," she said. "It's one that I think will make all of your kids happy."

As Leo remembered sitting with Chris not too long ago while his boy asked him to consider quitting being an Elder, he smiled at her. "Let's hear it."

While the adults moved to conference over the potions table, Wyatt stalked back up the stairs, cracking all too tired bones as he got to the landing. He watched his parents, aunt, and great-grandmother hover with interest. He wanted to talk to Grams, but he didn't think this was exactly the time to do it. They looked too busy. He looked for the next best thing and quickly found his brother, still curled up in a ball in the corner, staring out into space.

Knowing the look on his kid brother's face all too well, Wyatt went over to a row of shelves, grabbed supplies, and plopped down next to Christopher almost entirely unnoticed.

"You look like you need a break," said Wyatt as he slumped down next to his brother. It wasn't until he handed a pad of paper and a pen sideways over to Christopher that the younger man even acknowledged his presence. At a questioning look, he said again, "Take a break. Or at least this. Apparently they keep things in the same drawers around here that they always have. So if the pen doesn't work, don't blame me."

"I thought you were sleeping."

"I tried. My head's too clogged."

Christopher grumbled, "Tell me about it."

"Not getting anywhere?"

"I'm running out of ideas," said Christopher tiredly. He scrubbed at his face, willing his tiredness away. "I don't know where to look next."

"You just keep thinking, Butch. It's what you're good at."

"Yeah," Christopher said gratefully, smiling at the joke that the two of them had shared since childhood. Whatever else they had been through, Wyatt still knew him better than anyone in the world. Christopher's head was always so full of thoughts that sometimes the only way around them was to write them down. Wyatt had even bought him a stack of notebooks for Christmas one year. He'd meant it as a gag, but he also knew that the gift would be put to good use. Of course, that was when Wyatt had still been home. But he is home, now, isn't he? Christopher had to remind himself that those days were, if he had anything to say about it, very much over. And he would definitely have his say. He wanted his brother back more than anything and he aimed to get what he wanted this time. He'd given up too much. It was his turn. Without meaning to say it out loud, he whispered to the Good Guys, whoever they were these days, "Thanks."

Wyatt, misinterpreting his brother's overenthusiastic gratitude, patted Christopher's knee in encouragement. He didn't look at his brother, but said the one thing that he knew Christopher needed to hear at the moment. "You'll figure it out. You always do."

"Do I?"

"I hope that was a rhetorical question," warned Wyatt.

"You aren't here because of me," Christopher said pointedly. "Don't get me wrong; I'm thrilled to have the real you here. But I didn't bring you here."

"Sure you did."

"Nope, that was all her."

"No, it was you," Wyatt said definitively in the voice that clearly said that he was winning this one, no matter what Christopher tried to say otherwise. "You and I both know that she never would have come up with something like this. Changing our lives from the past? That isn't . . . wasn't her style. She didn't like living anywhere but in the present. She always said her present baggage is heavy enough as it is without having to lug the past along with it."

Christopher knew that what he was about to say was going to sound like a guilt trip, but he didn't know any other way to say it. Trying to word himself as nicely as possible, he informed the older man, "You, uh . . . You haven't been around lately. She thought a lot more about the future and past than the present these days. I mean, I guess the mechanics of the plan weren't hers, but once she got to the same place I was, it was on her mind all of the time. Not that she had much choice. She was so scared of the future that — well, she was scared."

Wyatt looked away from his brother, not wanting to look him in the eye as he asked sadly, "What did I do?"

"Huh?"

"What did I do to scare her? That's the part you aren't saying, right? You've had this look all afternoon like you don't want to talk at all because every time you do, you end up having to tell me something I'm not going to want to hear. So what did I do? I must have done something that put all of this in motion."

"Not exactly," Christopher sighed. He didn't really want to get into this, but he knew he had to eventually. Wyatt needed the truth, no matter what it was going to do to him. After seeing the chaos and darkness that his brother had been living in, he needed honesty probably more than anything else. Even if it wasn't a lie, the slightest distortion of a fact would probably feel like that chaos again. Christopher just couldn't do that to his big brother. He had a feeling Wyatt would be punishing himself over the next few years more than enough for any of them. He needed at least one small break. Softly and as plainly as he could, Christopher asked Wyatt, "Did you know that you had powers before you were even born?"

"I've heard," said Wyatt, prodding his brother along with an impatient tone. He definitely didn't want to be hearing anything about his powers at the moment.

"Lucy's baby, he did."

"What kind of powers? I don't remember seeing anything."

"The obvious answer to that statement aside . . ." Christopher gave his brother a look, but didn't push it any further. Instead, he explained, "As far as we know, he just demonstrated the one power and he only did it the couple of times that she told me about. Before we even knew she was pregnant, he gave her a premonition."

The idea of his sister, who had been powerless for so long because of her little binding stunt, having a vision was probably a pretty scary thing for them when it happened. She had never been comfortable with the magic part of their lives. To have a vision pop out of nowhere would definitely give them all cause for worry. "That must have caused a real nutty in the house."

"Once we figured out the pregnancy part, her having a vision didn't worry us nearly as much as the content of it."

"Me?"

"You and me, fighting in the attic. You driving Excalibur through me. Pretty nasty stuff." Christopher studied his hands, unable to really look at his brother. He didn't want to see the look that must have been on Wyatt's face. He knew that Wyatt had to be imagining the mental image of what he'd just said. It was one that he knew neither one of them could really ever forget. But looking at his hands helped. At least his hands had the power to do something that the honesty couldn't do. He tried to sound at least half the way to cheerful and gave his brother a playful sideways slap on the chest. "But hey, it didn't happen, right? We stopped it from happening. That has to count for something."

Wyatt sucked in a breath then let it out in one low, long whistle. "It never gets any easier, does it?"

"No. I'd lie to you, but I make it a point not to lie to anyone if I don't have to these days. I've had enough lies to last a lifetime."

The elder of the brothers kept the guilty cringe inside and instead chuckled with a sideways glance at their parents. "Then how have you managed to talk to them at all? Lies are kind of necessary here, don't you think?"

"They probably would have been if they didn't already know who I was. I omit as much as I can to protect them, but I really try not to lie to them if I can help it. Mom said the other me lied to them all the time. I guess he was here for over a year before they even knew he was their kid. They knew a lot more than I would have expected. With everything Dad saw when he came to get me — "

Wyatt's voice was a little cloudy as he tried too hard to remember and failed. "Dad came to get you?"

"Yeah, see, I kind of figured it was a little fuzzy since you had no idea why Grams was yelling at you this morning, but you remembered one of your guys shooting Lulu with the Darklighter arrow the day I left. Look, it's okay. I figure that you being a little scattered in the memory department is going to be pretty normal for us for a while. What happened that day is a really long story, and I'll tell you all about it later, but I think — "

"Why not now?"

"Because I'm trying too hard to figure out how to save your pathetic ass at the moment." He tried to smile, but he knew Wyatt knew he wasn't in the least bit serious. As his brother set his eyes on him and refused to look away, Christopher caved, but not as much as Wyatt probably would have liked. "Haven't you had enough for one day?"

Wyatt said, "I can't help you if I can't remember anything. And yeah, hearing it second-hand probably isn't going to trigger any real memories for me, but I have to do something. This is my life we're talking about. For lack of a better way to put it, you did your job, little brother; now you need to let me do mine. You were right. It's time."

"You want to know how you can help me? Don't leave me again and we'll be just fine."

"Christopher."

"I'm done talking about this. If you really can't wait to find out what happened, ask Dad." Seeing a look on Wyatt's face, he added, "I'm sorry. I'm just a little frustrated."

"With me?"

"With the absolute lack of answers I'm getting." Christopher looked at the pad of paper on his knee and the scrawling doodles he'd made while they had been talking. He wasn't sure what it was about his drawing, but a word kept coming into his head. As non-accusatory as he could, he asked, "Can I ask you something? Why didn't you ever tell me about the Elders? I mean, I understand why you didn't tell me about the attack that killed Mom. You were gone before you got the chance. I get that. But before? Why couldn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want to worry you. You worry so much about everything, at least, you always did. I don't know about now. Anyway, once Dad was gone, it was my job to take care of you and Lucy and Mom. You already worry too much for the both of us. I wasn't going to make that any worse. I didn't know what They were going to do or when. All I knew for sure was that I couldn't let anything happen to you."

"And the thing about me having powers? You know I don't, right? Charlie would have told me if I had had enough powers that I could have brought you back"

Ignoring his brother's assumption for the moment, thoughtfully, Wyatt said, "Not if he thought he could lose you to whatever it was you lost me to. Not if he thought that using your powers would in any way compromise you. And not if he thought that they wouldn't have been of any use to you in getting me back."

They were both quiet for a moment, then Christopher asked, "It's okay if you don't remember, but . . . Do you know if he's okay? When I went through the portal — "

"I wish I knew," said Wyatt miserably. "I wish to God I knew."

"It's okay. I mean, I know it isn't okay, but I understand why you don't know. I'll . . . Well, we'll fix this and that won't have happened so it won't be anything to worry about anyway, right?" Christopher smiled what was obviously a fake smile, but it seemed to be enough to get him back on track. Business-like once again, he said, "But anyway, getting back to my question. I was sort of wondering — These powers that the two of you didn't want me to know about? What were they?"

"I know some," admitted Wyatt. "But not all. Are you looking for something in particular?"

"Was I supposed to be an empath like Phoebe?"

"I don't know. The stuff that I got the feeling They were afraid of was a lot of offensive powers. Let's just say that I think you probably could take out half the Elders just by looking at Them, if you wanted to. The day Mom . . . The thing you did to the guys that attacked you in the attic? I think that was just the start of that power developing. I'm guessing that with everything that happened afterward, you probably didn't do much with it?"

"Not really, no."

"So why do you ask?"

Christopher continued to scribble away on the pad as he talked, his mind trying to work on all of their problems at once. "The thing is, something occurred to me when we were seeing you at the snow gardens. When the other me died, he said he would find a way to come back and save you. I know it's a stretch, but I guess I'm wondering now if maybe he did get some of the powers we were supposed to have before he came here."

"How do you mean?"

"Lucy's vision — what if he was the baby? What if he was that soul? Think about it: the Elders recycle souls all the time. If he was with her, if he was the one helping her to save you . . . You and I have both said it, what happened today wasn't exactly her style. But I'm willing to bet that it was his because it is pretty close to what I would have done if I was finally backed into a corner about you. What if — what if that was their destiny all along? If they were able to save you and then get you here . . . If she hadn't brought you here . . . By the time this is over, we'll have saved you for real. It will have taken three generations, for lack of a better word, to do it, but we'll have saved you from becoming the threat that everyone was afraid of. He'll have done it."

"But how do you get that he was the baby?"

"The vision, what if it wasn't a vision? What if it was a memory? Dad has said that the Chris who came before me had it much worse than we did. What if what Lucy saw really did happen to him? If he was an empath — or maybe she was supposed to develop that power eventually — or maybe . . . I don't know. Maybe it was just a mother-baby thing, but I'm wondering if he might have been able to tap into that to give her his memories since they were already sharing a body, sort of. I mean, we saw what happened between the two of them; the Wyatt we saw looked perfectly willing to kill his own brother. She didn't see the end of the vision. What if — I just, I really am wondering if that's — You could have healed him afterwards. If you were that desperate to get him on your side, I don't know. It could have . . ."

"It is a stretch, but keep working on it. Maybe we'll find something in there we can use to our advantage." Wyatt tapped the notepad on Christopher's knee and scribbled in the air. "Write it all down. You're bound to find the patterns somewhere, right?"

He'd talked himself into so many different circles that Christopher couldn't muster the same confidence into his voice that Wyatt seemed to have. All he could offer was a confused, preoccupied, "Sure."

"If it counts for anything, I do like that idea. If our nephew in some way shared a soul with this other you, he accomplished his mission. He saved me. Maybe now, after everything, his soul will be able to rest in peace."

"I like that idea, too."

"I think I'm going to go talk to Mom," Wyatt said as he hauled himself back up off the floor. He had a haunted look on his face, one that both he and Christopher knew would be there for a long time to come. His eyes met his brother's and he knew Christopher was thinking about the same mental image. "Dad, too. I just kind of feel like I should say a few things to them or even just stand in very close proximity, you know?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Yeah. I'll, umm, I'll give you your space back."

"Yeah," Christopher muttered as Wyatt started to walk away. Unable to let the moment go without saying what he needed to, he called his brother back for a moment. He didn't care if it made him weak or sentimental or anything. If there was anything that his life had taught him, it was that when these moments passed, they didn't come back. He'd let too many people in his life leave him without him saying things he should have said. He had too many regrets. Far too many. If this moment with his brother was only a temporary fix, he definitely needed to get this out now. He called his brother's attention back to him softly, pleadingly. "Wyatt?"

"Yeah?"

"I missed you. Every day."

Not sure what to say but definitely unable to go to someplace that he wasn't ready to accept that he could go to, Wyatt instead joked in response, "Just remember you said that next week when you can't wait to get rid of me again."

They smiled at each other, but as Wyatt walked away, Christopher silently added, Never gonna happen. He let his mind and eye wander, trying to get himself back on track to figure their problem out when he settled on the small versions of himself and Wyatt. He watched while the toddler played quietly with a Leap Pad book, counting just a little too loud for the sleeping baby a foot away. This time, Christopher had much more positive thoughts about the two of them. Instead of worry for their future, he could see one. They were going to make it. He would make sure that they would. His baby self wasn't even a month old yet, but already they had seen too much. He'd find a way to take at least this problem away from —

"Wyatt!" Christopher said in surprise, as if he couldn't believe he hadn't seen things so clearly before. "His life! God, I'm so blind! I mean, she probably could have been a little more cryptic — brat —- but she handed me the damned answer on a silver platter. How could I not see that?"

Everyone jumped at the sound of Christopher's exclamation, particularly the two Wyatts. The elder of the two looked at their brother like he'd gone completely mental. "Translation, please?"

"We went to the wrong day. It was right in front of me all along." Christopher looked positively pleased with himself when he explained, "She didn't mean You-him; she meant Him-him! Little Wyatt!"

Piper stole a glance at the smallest version of her son before looking back at the larger versions of her kids. "You think he knows what turned him . . . you?"

"God, I hope not," Christopher winced. The kid may have been trying to get rid of him all week, but that didn't mean that he didn't still find something . . . albeit something small . . . endearing about him. And he was still his brother, no matter how he would one day turn out. "No, I mean that this thing that was missed, what if she meant that it happened on the worst day of his life?" He turned to his big brother so that it would be clear to them all which one he was talking to and about. "We've been assuming that the worst day of his life would be the same as the worst day of your life, but you've had worse days since this point in time. Even though he's you, you've had to see so much more than he has. Up until this point, he's only seen so much, even if it is a lot. The thing is, we've always made the assumption that whatever happened to you — " Christopher watched his brother roll his eyes, still unable to get used to the idea that something had actually happened to him, even though he was fully aware that something most definitely had. Seeing that, Christopher emphasized, " — and made you You, happened before I was born. It has always been assumed that something happened to you that at least started the process to turn you."

"We stopped that," Leo said defensively, without being specific about how and that it was a lot more I than we. He thought he knew what his son was thinking, but shook his head, uncomfortable with the idea that he still hadn't stopped the sonofabitch who had blown up their lives for so long without them even knowing it. "Gideon — "

" — had him for almost twelve hours, Dad," Christopher countered. "We don't know what happened to him in that time."

His voice struggling to find blankness, Leo asked, "You're saying we have to go back and relive that day?"

"Yeah, I think we do," Christopher said sympathetically. He saw all of the color drain from his father's handsome features and felt his stomach turn. How could he ask his father to do that? Over the last week, he had seen everyone but his mother fall apart because of what had happened on the day he was born. None of them were in any kind of shape to have to relive that, even if they had been doing it every day anyway. He knew he couldn't ask Paige to go with them, not after the madness it had caused in her before. And Phoebe was definitely out. His father had come to the future and started this whole thing because of it. It was too much to ask. He knew that. He knew first hand what reliving these moments felt like. It was just too much. His mind made up, Christopher gave his father a reassuring smile. "It's okay, Dad. We can do it ourselves. You don't have to come with."

Leo's shoulders seemed to sink with relief at the idea that he wouldn't have to go, at least for a split second. But then he looked at the less-than-confident eyes of his youngest and knew that, as good as Christopher's intentions were, they were not to be. He braced himself for what would be coming for him, straightening his shoulders and putting his own fear aside. He needed to do this, for all of his boys. "That's a great offer, Christopher," he said. "But you're going to need me on this trip. You won't know what to look for."

"Dad . . . "

"It really is okay. Let's just get it done before I change my mind."

Wyatt watched his father and brother intently, seeing a strange interaction that he didn't quite understand. He'd been seeing it ever since he'd arrived. He knew that Christopher — well, a different Chris — had been to the past to try to change things before. They'd told him that, but he could tell, there was a great big gaping hole of omission in their glances. He couldn't help but let himself wonder just exactly that was. The sooner they got going, the sooner he would know. He hooked a thumb over his shoulder and volunteered, "I'll go grab Clyde."

Once Wyatt was gone, Piper asked, "Are you sure he should see that? I thought you were trying to keep him out of the loop about that day."

"He already knows Chris was here," said Christopher. He gave his father a meaningful glance then said to his mother, "I don't think there's anything that happened that day that he can't handle, not after some of the other stuff we saw today. If he doesn't remember Chris now, I don't think it's going to make any difference. But if you think you can talk him out of it — "

"Just be careful," Piper interrupted him with a smile. "And get it done this time."

They all heard Clyde grumbling from all the way down in the kitchen, but it sounded like Wyatt was matching the spirit insult for insult as they trudged back up the staircase. Just in case, Leo made one more attempt to heal his sister-in-law before their guide could get the rest of the way up the stairs. They all knew it wouldn't work, but there wasn't anyone there who wasn't grateful for the attempt. Leo and Christopher even tried to do it together, just in case, but nothing happened. Christopher was about to ask why when Clyde arrived. Leo simply told him that he'd find out soon enough then left Phoebe to say his goodbyes again. Christopher hung back for a moment, talking to his grandfather until he and Wyatt would be called to leave once again.

Across the room, Piper looked up at Leo, a little unsure. She whispered a heartfelt "Good luck" to him. To be his wife at the moment felt so natural, but they just weren't there yet. Of course, if she just let it happen, maybe they would be. She tentatively curled her fingers into his then pulled down gently so that his upper body would have to drop down to her level. She carefully placed a light kiss on his lips, nothing and everything special. When she pulled back, she had to blink to keep the frightened tears from becoming obvious. To cover, she swallowed hard and looked at her adult boys. "I mean it: you be careful."

"It's going to be okay, Mom," said Christopher reassuringly, striding confidently to Clyde's mystical door.

"That doesn't mean you don't still have to be careful."

"We will."

Clyde reached for the knob of his door, but Christopher quickly covered the spirit's hand to keep him from actually pulling it open. He looked up at his father with a business-like hardness. "Last chance to back out."

"You two had to live through some of the most awful moments of your lives and you're still standing," Leo said almost nonchalantly, even though his eyes betrayed a deeper dread. "If you can do it, so can I. Let's go."

"If the pep talk is over, Ladies . . . " said Clyde impatiently, opening the door by force and sweeping his arm out. "Let's get a move on. Put your seats and trays in the upright and locked positions."

Annoyed with their guide's wisecracks, Wyatt glared at the spirit and barked protectively, "Stuff it, Clyde."

Clyde broke out into a huge smile and laughed. "Kid, I like your style."

Wyatt rolled his eyes as he stepped through the door, not knowing where his father and brother had planned them to land. Wherever it was, their speaking in code was getting a little ridiculous. He was definitely ready to find out what all the dropped sentences and sympathetic glances were all about.

IV.

"This seems like the best place to start," said Leo as he took in the state of the hall they had been deposited into. "We're a little early, I think, but all we have to do is wait for them to show up and we can follow the day from here."

"What is this place," Christopher asked, his eyes huge. He had no memory of the place at all, but his father seemed to know exactly where it was that they were going.

"Magic school," both Wyatt and Leo answered. Leo looked at both of his adult boys, a little surprised, and asked Christopher, "You don't know it?"

Christopher shook his head. "I've never seen this place in my whole life. We — you always had such a mistrust of the magical world that you tried to keep us away from it, at least, this part of it. We fought demons and warlocks as always, but we never had any help from Up There like they had before. You didn't want anything to do with the Elders and the school was run by Elders, so you and Mom decided that we wouldn't go there. We learned everything the way the sisters did, by figuring it all out on our own. I didn't even know a school existed until a few years ago when Mom and Paige were trying to help an innocent who was a student there. They wouldn't tell us anything other than that they didn't want us there." Slightly confused, Christopher turned on his brother. "How did you know this was it?"

"I just do."

"Wyatt?"

"I just do, Christopher. Leave it alone." Wyatt pointed down the hall toward a set of large, double doors with heavy iron handles. With a hint of sadness in his voice, he said, "We're going in there."

"How do you know that," Christopher asked his big brother again, not liking the look on Wyatt's face.

Wyatt didn't answer, but he didn't have to. As they were standing there, a very pregnant Piper came trudging down the hallway, the toddler Wyatt slumping in the soft seat of the stroller she was pushing. She didn't even notice them as she strolled in between them, separating the brothers from their father for just a moment. They all watched mother and son move by, each of them thinking something completely different from the others. Christopher had no reason to be concerned, so his attention remained pretty much focused on his brother, wondering why Wyatt was being so secretive (not that Christopher wasn't used to that). Wyatt watched his mother stop at the door and straighten herself up, smoothing the lines of her top over her hips as much as she could and tucking a strand of hair into place. He wasn't sure how he knew, but he knew she wanted to look her best. Oddly, he wondered if his past father and brother had been doing the same thing on the other side of the door for her.

Leo seemed to catch on to what Wyatt had been saying and didn't want them going through those doors until he knew for sure what his boy was going to be thinking once they went in. Softly he asked, "You remember, don't you? You remember being here."

"Bits and pieces," Wyatt confirmed, his voice regaining a little more control than it had had a moment ago. There was no way he was going to cry over something that had happened to him a quarter of a century ago. He was stronger than that, damn it. "There's a big library or something through there, right? I remember there being a lot of books and a big table."

"I'm not surprised you remember," said Leo. "You spent a lot of time here, you and your mother. The last three months of her pregnancy, actually. I came back down here because a spider demon had attacked your mother. We wanted to keep the both of you safe until the baby was born, so we brought you here." Leo pointed down the hallway toward a convergence with another hall. "The two of you had a room down there. The nursery is around the corner. You spent a lot of time there, too, with a couple of other kids. You seemed to have a lot of fun there."

"Probably," Wyatt shrugged. "I don't really remember all that much — just the way the hallways looked and a few bodies, but not their faces. Except one. There was a nice teacher with frizzy hair. She always gave me jellybeans and made me promise not to tell Mom."

"Aww, in'n't 'at sweet," cooed Clyde, reminding them all of his presence. He clapped his hands together and rubbed them together grubbily. "But we have a show to get on the road here, folks, an' it ain't on this side of the door." He threw his hands behind his back and floated them forward, back and forth, ushering the family along. "Get a move on, people. Let's go."

Christopher wrinkled his nose at the spirit. "Are you always this annoying?"

Clyde grabbed hold of Christopher's shoulder and shoved him forward, almost making him lose balance. "Get goin', Kid. I ain't got all day an' neither do you."

Leo warned their escort, "Not funny, Clyde." Then, to his sons, he added, "But he's right. We need to get in there. If we're when I think we are, Chris and I are going to be leaving soon."

"Seriously, you guys are going to have to start explaining some of this real soon, because the cryptic act got old hours ago," Wyatt grumbled, feeling once again that everyone else but him was in on something that was central to all of this. He hated how they were all trying to say something without saying it, especially in front of him. It was all about Dad and Chris and Paige and — Wait. Dad and Chris? "What do you mean, you're going to be leaving soon?"

With an over the top wave of his hand, Clyde directed the family toward the two great doors which Piper and Little Wyatt had just passed through. With a good swift kick planted on Wyatt's butt, Clyde growled, "Git yer ass in there and find out."

The laugh that Christopher struggled to hold in came out in a low whistle as he quickly darted through the doors away from Wyatt. "Wow. This place is . . . Wow."

"I remember it being a lot bigger," Wyatt said softly, looking up at the endless ceiling.

Trying to keep the boys on track, Leo gestured toward where he knew the family would be gathered for their goodbyes. "We're that way."

As the quartet made their way toward the family from the past, Wyatt started to feel a little uneasy, a feeling he was more than familiar with. He didn't know what exactly it was that he was going to see when they got to where they were going, but something in him really didn't want to see it. It felt . . . It hurt. He couldn't explain it, but something in him hurt. He actually had to stop walking, frozen in his dread of going any further. When Leo turned around to look at him, Wyatt told his father, "I can't."

"You remember something?"

"Not really, but yeah, it's just a feeling. I . . . Something is going to happen in a few minutes, something I really didn't want to happen. It's going to be my fault."

Surprised at his son's reaction, Leo said gently, "It wasn't your fault. Gideon did this, not you."

"I don't think that's it," Wyatt said slowly, the fear in his face relaxing a little. "No, it's something else, something that . . . I just really did not want it to happen."

Again, Clyde utzed them all along with a wave of his arms. "Well, it's all happening in there, so get a move on."

Reluctantly, Wyatt followed the rest of them into the room that wasn't the one he remembered. "I thought this was the library."

"That door on the other end of the room leads you into it. This is more of a study hall," explained Leo. Over his head, his own voice echoed on the walls, explaining that he was going with Chris, "Just long enough to make sure he gets to where he needs to be."

The very pregnant Piper did not look even remotely thrilled with that plan. "And when exactly were you going to tell me about this?"

"I told him he didn't have to come. I don't need him," protested the past Chris.

Christopher glanced at both is father and brother and saw that they were both starting to look a little too tense this early in their day. To try to get his father to relax, he elbowed the angel and asked, "Didn't we just have that conversation?"

Right on cue, Leo's answer came in the same parenting voice that he'd handed his boy when they'd been in the future attic. Leo tried to hide a smile at his past teasing his son. "No, it's too dangerous. Remember the last time you went through a portal? You were almost dinosaur kibble."

Both Chrises scoffed at their father's reaction, but didn't say anything else. Wyatt, ever the impatient of the brothers, couldn't wait to ask, "Please tell me something is going to happen soon."

As if on cue, the past echo of Gideon swooped into the room, telling them that he had made changes to the spell that was supposed to have been able to send Chris home. Christopher immediately recognized the man from the dreams he'd had all week. He clenched his teeth hard, feeling an odd sense of over-protectiveness toward this other version of himself and toward the toddler in the stroller at his feet. He felt a radiant heat from his father as well and said, "That's him, isn't it? That's the guy."

Leo didn't say anything, but his jaw was suddenly just as tight as his younger son's.

"I think I remember that guy," said Wyatt warily. He didn't like the reaction the man's appearance was drawing from his father and brother. He was almost afraid to ask, "Who is he?"

Clyde actually noticed the reaction from his charges and was surprised. He looked at Leo, who didn't seem to see him. "That's Gideon, the Elder," he answered the kid. Then he asked Leo, "What's going on here?"

"Nothing good," said Christopher as his aunts orbed into the room and his other self asked where they'd been.

As Paige and Phoebe explained their run-in with Darryl and Sheridan, Wyatt watched himself watching what was going on around them. He didn't like the look on his little self's face. Softly, he said, "Something's wrong."

"No, we're where we're supposed to be," argued Leo.

"I don't mean like that," explained Wyatt. "Look at Little Me. He knows something is wrong. I. . . I remember something about this. Something isn't right. He — I — know something is off." He looked oddly at his brother, as if he remembered something else. "I didn't want you to go. I didn't think you would be okay. Why would I think that?"

Leo kept his eyes on Gideon, damned near seeing red, even while he asked, "How do you know that's what you were feeling? Are you remembering something?"

"I don't know. It's just something about the way I'm looking at Chris and at Gideon. I don't know what it is. It's like . . . I don't know . . . I think I know Chris isn't supposed to go yet, so we shouldn't be letting him go." Wyatt finally just shrugged, completely unsure if he was putting things into the right words. He didn't know how he knew. It was more than a feeling, but he couldn't put it together. He listened to what was going on for a moment, hoping that he could get a better lock on it, but only ended up confused. "Why would there be a warrant out for his arrest?"

"Long, long story, unrelated," said Christopher. "I met the guy that they're talking about. He isn't worth mentioning. Forget about it."

They both laughed as Paige practically lunged forward to give her nephew a hug that Chris didn't exactly protest. Neither one of them said anything, though, as Piper hugged Chris. In a way, they were both a little jealous. Until now, that had been an opportunity that neither of them had ever had with their mother.

Almost forgetting that he had spent time with her in the last few hours, Wyatt said sadly, "She looks so happy. I forgot she could smile like that."

"Yeah," said Christopher softly.

Unaware of his present sons at the moment, Leo swore under his breath as his son thanked Gideon for his help. "Sonofabitch."

Immediately, Wyatt asked, "Dad?"

Leo didn't have time to answer as the portal opened and his past self stepped through it with his son. They all winced at the brightness of the portal, but not enough that they couldn't still see what was going on. Christopher asked, "You guys were in a parallel world after this, right?"

Wyatt was too busy focusing on the absolute hilarity of the pair in front of him that had come out of the portal. He would do just about anything for a laugh at this point after the day he was having. "Christopher, you have a mullet!"

Rather than bother to explain what their father had already told him about a week ago, Christopher just whapped his brother hard on the chest with the back of his hand. He turned to his father, trying to keep them all focused on getting this over with. He didn't want his father to go through this any longer than he had to. He'd seen what this day had done to Leo without him having to relive it. "Dad, this is your day as much as it is his. This is great and all, but is there anything we can skip through so that we can maybe not have to — "

"Your mother won't talk about that day. I know she told your grandfather and great-grandmother the barest details, but she hasn't talked about it. She hasn't told me any of the details of that day. I don't know how he got from one place to another. I wouldn't know where to begin."

Christopher clapped his father on the shoulder, reassuring as he could be. He tried to sound almost excited, like they were just going off on a road trip as he told his father, "Then we follow."

Four hours later, they had been sitting in a bedroom with Piper for far too long for the nervous Father-To-Be, Baby-To-Be-Born, and Big-Brother-To-Be to handle anymore. Leo was pacing back and forth. His sons were having to remind him every few minutes that their mother was going to be fine and that the baby was born safely. They had to remind him that yelling at Mrs. Winterbourne wasn't going to do him much good. Telling Piper to breathe wasn't going to help much, either.

"What can I say," shrugged Leo. "I missed this part."

"What were you doing, anyway," asked Wyatt casually. "I mean, your doubles weren't exactly having a good time upstairs in the crystal cage."

"We were doing what we had to do to get home," Leo said vaguely. Back to business, he announced, "Someone's coming."

Uninvited (as far as Leo and Christopher were concerned), Gideon swept into the room, feigning concern. "What happened," the past Elder asked.

Mrs. Winterbourne looked so sweet to Leo, so unaware of what was happening not only to Piper, but to her as well. The witch had called the house so many times to apologize for letting Gideon get near Wyatt that she was probably hoarse. She had been so kindly and genuinely concerned for Piper and Little Chris's safety when she told her boss, "Her waters broke. She needs to get to a hospital."

Visibly too afraid of what was happening all three of her sons, Piper had ignored the woman at her side and asked, "Did you find them?"

Leo heard a manipulation in his former mentor's voice as he spoke to his wife that he had never heard before, not in all of his years under Gideon's care. It made him sick to hear the Elder say, "No, not yet, but you cant' wait any longer. It's not safe. Go, hurry."

"Somebody has to stay with Wyatt," Piper had protested.

In that same voice, Gideon had told her, "Don't worry. I'll take care of him."

The smile on the Elder's face sent chills down the adult Wyatt's spine. He knew only the remotest details of what had happened to him the day his brother was born, but there hadn't really been a face to put to the event. Not really. Angrily, he said without realizing, "Yeah, I bet you will."

Helpless to do anything else, they all watched the bustle of getting Piper out of the magic school and back into the mortal world. Mrs. Winterbourne was more than kind as she helped Piper up out of bed, taking small steps as the laboring woman tried to walk through the contractions. They saw Piper struggle to find a comfortable position, whether standing or sitting, crying out in pain as the contractions grew much more painful than they probably should have been. When she described it as the feeling of having a butcher's knife stuck in her spine while someone twisted it, both of her adult sons cringed.

Although several immature comments lighted on their wincing faces, they were quickly quashed by Gideon as he shut the door on the leaving women. Apparently as soon as he heard the women's footsteps disappear down the hall, the soon-to-be former Elder felt behind him for the mechanism to lock the door behind them. He started to pace slowly, never coming within five feet or so of the playpen where Little Wyatt was watching him back.

The father started to match Gideon's pacing step for step, as if he could keep the fallen angel from crossing the room if he just tried hard enough. Almost forgetting where he was, he swore at Gideon, "I trusted you. Eighty damn years, I trusted you!"

"Dad, don't," said Christopher softly.

As the past Gideon slowly walked right through Leo, the father's head hung low. Neither son heard exactly what he said, but Clyde was pretty sure the man said, "This was a bad idea."

Both Wyatt and Christopher watched Little Wyatt intently while Gideon hovered over him. The toddler showed no fear, even under threat. He simply raised his shield and stared at the man he had trusted to take care of his mommy and baby.

"That won't protect you for long, my boy," Gideon said to a glare from the real Wyatt. "Not for long."

Blue retorts from both Wyatt and Leo were drowned out by the jingling sound of them all being surrounded by Gideon's pinkish orbs. The swearing rarely stopped over the next few hours as one thing or another happened, blades cursed and turned on little boys who had done nothing to deserve it and gun shots striking witches who forgot to move their cars. It wasn't until Phoebe and Paige left to check on Piper at the hospital that any of the travelers relaxed enough to just watch what was going on instead of pace or curse at things that they were all helpless to do anything about.

Oddly, it was something small that made them relax as Wyatt said softly, "I remember this."

Leo watched his sisters-in-law hurry out the door distractedly, barely hearing his son. "Hmm?"

"Chris, he . . . I really liked him," said Wyatt almost fondly, even as he struggled to find another memory in his own mind. "I didn't want him to go."

Almost to answer the Wyatt that obviously wasn't there, Chris hoisted the toddler Wyatt onto his hip, a goofy grin on his face. "Looks like you aren't getting rid of me just yet, huh?"

The small child's only response was to press his tiny index finger to his younger brother's nose. He made a small exploding sound, not unlike the one that Chris had made to him back in the magic school's hall just as he was leaving. The noise made Chris chuckle.

"Yeah." With that, they orbed up to the attic together.

Once again the observers were left with nothing much to do but wait. Leo started pacing, waiting for the moment to arrive when he knew it would all be over for them. After a while, the pacing was starting to bug even Clyde to the point that their guide was going to give the angel a good swift kick, but Wyatt came in between them as Christopher pulled his father aside.

"You're the one who wanted to come," said Christopher. "You need to keep it together, Dad. This isn't helping anyone. You can't help him, but you can help Wyatt. Please."

Leo backed off, hands in his pockets, into the far corner of the attic so that he could still fester without driving them all crazy. That was the best that they were going to get out of him at the moment. Luckily for them all, things were about to pick up.

The past Chris came over to sit on the arm of the sofa so that he could look down on Little Wyatt, turning his head this way and that, making his neck crack. "Okay, I need a break and you sound like you could use a little attention. So here's the deal: I wanted to talk to you about something before Dad gets back and we have to take you to the hospital to see Mom. I know everything is a little crazy today, and that was a really close call with Gideon. I'm so glad you're okay. I was so worried when we found the other you screaming like that. You never really like it when I worry about you. You always tell me that I worry too much. But between you and me, I'll never stop worrying about you. You're my big brother. Somebody has to take care of you. You'd get into too much trouble without me. So I know it's kind of silly to tell you this since you aren't going to really understand what it means, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Maybe some day you'll at least remember my voice or my knees or something. Sometimes that's enough to make you remember something from when you were really small. At least, it does for me. Anyway, I don't know how much time we have left. I didn't say 'Goodbye' before, but I think maybe this is my chance to."

In his corner, Leo looked positively sick as he watched Chris kneel down next to Wyatt. Still, he couldn't make himself look away.

"I know there really isn't all that much to know at your age, but I'm still glad I got to know you like this. Don't get me wrong; you're still a pain in the ass, but you're my brother. You and I haven't just sat down to talk in a really, really long time now. Until I came here, I didn't think I knew you anymore. I'd forgotten what it was like to actually have a brother. It was more just something I said but didn't really mean. I don't ever want us to be like that again, okay? I want to call you my brother and mean it, in every sense of the word."

Clyde burst out laughing and playfully punched Christopher hard on the arm (really hard), but a smile alighted his normally scowled features. "You really know how to put the schmaltz in your syrup, don'tcha, kid?"

"Shut up," Wyatt groaned.

"But it's so perty," Clyde drawled.

"Bite me."

"I left them a letter that I'm hoping you'll never see, but just in case you do, I want you to really pay attention to the last part. I told them that I don't want them to tell us about you and me when we're older. I don't want you to have to know about what happened here and now, other than to occasionally remember me. I don't want them to look at you sideways, thinking that you might be changing just because you swore at them or blew up too many demons at once or picked out a black shirt to wear two days in a row. They won't be able to help it if they do, but I still don't want that for you. It wasn't your fault. You have to know that, Wyatt. I never blamed you for any of this. I couldn't. I mean, you're my brother. How could I blame you for this? You're a Halliwell. You're a good person, now and then. You just got a little lost, that's all."

"You're a master of understatement no matter what time you live in, huh," marveled Wyatt. "A little lost?"

Christopher jumped to the defense of his other self, knowing that he was going to be grateful for the laughs now because what was coming was not going to be easy. "He had to watch his language. You're only two."

"If anything should happen . . . If things don't change now that we know that Gideon is responsible, I want you to know that it still won't be your fault, okay? It was never your fault, no matter what I might have said before, okay? Just try not to hold it against me. I think I have a little more of your temper than I would like to admit, I guess. I shouldn't have said that to you that day. Bianca dying wasn't a good enough excuse to say what I said to you that day. I would take it back if I could. I just . . . You don't have to worry about us. Okay? Whatever happens between us, you're still my big brother. I'll come back as many times as it takes."

Wyatt looked at Christopher as if seeing his brother for the first time. "I know you knew you came back here, but did you know about this part?"

Where Wyatt was feeling a strange sense of sadness watching his younger self and the other version of his brother, Christopher was watching it all with a strange feeling of reassurance and dread at the same time. He knew now, even though he'd already known it, that he had done the right thing in coming back to save Wyatt. But he also knew what Wyatt didn't; he knew what was coming up for the other Chris. Maybe it was just because it gave him such a sense of dread about what was to come for them once this little day trip was over, but it left him cold. Slowly he nodded, nearly whispering as he told Wyatt, "Dad told me the night I came back. He told me everything."

"What's wrong," Wyatt asked.

As the elder son talked to his brother, the boy's counterpart looked suspiciously around the room, calling out to some unseen something. "Hello?"

Christopher looked sideways at his father, seeing the angel turn to an ashen grey. Remembering what he'd seen Phoebe do in the attic earlier that day and what his father had told him, he gulped hard. Sadly, he whispered to his brother, "Just watch."

"Don't make me sacrifice you both."

As once again, the memory of the first Chris was thrown across the room, Wyatt's eyes pulled up to watch with a flash of anger. Forgetting that it was all in the past and that there was nothing he could do about it, Wyatt lunged forward, only to have Christopher catch his bicep. His brother's nails dug hard enough into his arm that Wyatt whipped around on Christopher, ready to snap at him when he saw his brother's face. Christopher directed his attention back to where the other Chris was making a mad dash toward his baby self, obviously terrified of what would happen if he didn't get there in time. Just as it had happened before, the Elder he now knew was Gideon puffed into sight brandishing the weapon that would plunge into his other self's gut and effectively end the younger man's life. The stunned terror that caught in the past Chris's throat was this time overshadowed by the agonized groan from their big brother.

"Dad." Wyatt stumbled backward, trying to catch his breath and keep from throwing up. "Oh, god . . It's for the best, Leo," he muttered. "He said that as he took me away. He left you lying there when took me away. I — oh god, I remember it all. You were bleeding and crying and no one was coming and Dad and — "

Leo put a steadying hand of each of Wyatt's shoulders as his eldest started to pace erratically, but the man broke out of his father's grasp easily. Worried, Leo commanded, "Wyatt, you need to calm down."

"But I — I remember all of it, Dad. I . . . Like right there, I remember him waiting for you," Wyatt heaved as the Gideon in the past started pacing in an almost identical pattern, talking down to the wounded Chris.

"I'm very sorry, but you had to know that I couldn't just let you get in my way," Gideon was saying, pacing back and forth as he awaited Leo's arrival. Leo wanted to reach right into the memory and smack that phony pitied look of the sonofabitch's face as he tortured his sons, but Gideon just went on spouting twisted sympathy at his boy. "Regardless of the outcome, I meant what I told you earlier today. You really did do an honorable thing in coming here to save your brother. I just wish that your decision to save him had been just as wise. You have to know by now that he cannot be saved. This, my work, it truly is for the greater good. One day you will see that. You all will, once the grief has passed."

"You touch one hair on his he-head, I'll kill you," the dying boy seethed, never taking his eyes off the toddler. The threat, while meant, visibly sent a current of pain through Chris's body. They could all see him have to struggle to gather the breath to call for his father one last time. Wyatt in particular watched his brother fight to keep consciousness for his younger self. He'd even tried to smile some sort of reassurance at the toddler, but he was only able to barely whisper his name.

"How could I forget," Wyatt asked himself out loud. "How could I not — " He studied the face of his little brother, seeing it as if for the first and millionth time all at once. "How did I not see you? How did I not know?"

Christopher said as evenly as he could, "That's not me. I didn't — "

Then, all of a sudden, Wyatt sat down hard on the floor. All of the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fall in place, making an almost complete picture. The only pieces missing were still the question of what had happened to him to take him away from his family. But this all was so clear now. Sickly, he said, "I killed you."

"Him," Christopher argued, knowing that Wyatt wasn't talking about what they were seeing at the moment. "And you didn't know."

"Does it matter? He maybe wasn't exactly you, but he was still my brother. Either way, I killed the man with my brother's face. Twice, I killed him."

Christopher bent down next to Wyatt and tried to be reassuring, even though he knew that Wyatt was coming to the same realization that he'd had already that day. "It wasn't like that."

"He was there to protect us. That was the perfect job for him, right? I mean, look at him! He was relentless at it. And I killed him. I . . . I told him he wasn't my brother. I told him I hated him. Oh, god. . ."

A certain understanding came to Christopher in that moment. All day in the back of his mind, he'd wondered how Wyatt would feel if he found out about the other Chris. Would Wyatt see them as the same person or give either of them a different status? Christopher knew then that part of him would always have to share his brother now, but it was okay, in a way. Christopher had been able to share the other Chris, too. He would always be guardian to them both. He was brother to them both, in a way. He could live with that. One day, Wyatt would figure that out, too. But for now, what was important was figuring out how to help Wyatt understand that the other Chris would never have blamed him for what happened. He knew he wouldn't, so he had to figure that his other self wouldn't either. "Wyatt, listen to me. He didn't blame you. You heard him. He knew you weren't you when it happened. He knew. I know. So look at me. Look at me. We both need you to pull it together here and help us find out what happened to you. We both need you. This family needs you."

Wyatt looked up at Christopher with thick tears in his eyes and asked the question that he had been wanting to ask his brother all day long. "How do you not hate me?"

Christopher actually chuckled, brushing the question off like it was the easiest thing in the world for him to answer, even though he had often wondered the same himself. With a cock-eyed grin, he said, "You're my big brother. Of course I hate you. Now get your ass off the floor so that I can finish the job he started, would you? Not that all of the touristy goodness hasn't been fun, but I want to go home, and we can't leave until we figure this out."

"Christopher . . . "

Seeing that his sarcastic weapon of choice wasn't going to get the job done, Christopher turned to flat out honesty once again, trying to make what he said make sense to himself in the process. He looked Wyatt hard in the eye and grabbed his attention the way he imagined his father had had to do with a wounded soldier or two to convince them to hold on long enough for him to do his magic. Fiercely, he said, "Listen to me. You remember what we decided earlier, about him and the baby? This had to happen so that he could be there for us when we were kids, so that he could be there that day. He had to be there so that he could be with us, to give her that vision, and to lead her to you. He got you back here to me and Mom and Dad. This had to happen. If our situations were reversed, I would have done the same. Look at what he did for you, Wyatt. I need you to get it together and do the same for yourself. You need to save yourself. He deserves that much." When Wyatt looked like he was about to say that he couldn't, Christopher went for the jugular, visibly trying not to cry in frustration and fear. "For the last seven years, I have watched you die slowly every day, leaving us behind piece by piece until you left us completely alone. You were my best friend. Hell, you were the other half of me. I'm not together, Wyatt. I can pretend all I want, but I don't know how to function without you. Have you watched those two little kids at all today? They don't do anything without each other. That baby is barely three weeks old and already they are inseparable. That used to be us. So if you don't want to pull it together for him, you need to do it for me because I am worthless without you."

Leo watched the scene that his sons were playing out with such interest that he didn't even notice that they had orbed into the Underworld. Instead, all he saw was the real reason that his son had come to the past twice. There had been a look in Chris's eye, both times, that had reminded Leo so much of the soldiers he had known after they had lost a limb in combat. Some went on through their entire lives thinking that the limb was still there, unable to fathom the idea that it was gone. He knew now that that was what Chris had been doing to himself, regardless of when he'd lost it in either timeline. Chris had lost that part of him that was Wyatt and would have spent his days just like his old buddies from the war, in pain from something that wasn't even there anymore because the alternative just wasn't possible in his mind. In that instant, his heart wept for all of his kids, all of them.

The boys continued to ignore what was going on around them, including Gideon and Barbas standing over the little boy, as they tried to figure out what was next with themselves instead of everyone else.

It wasn't until they were orbed out of that cave and into another that Clyde finally interrupted them and asked, "Shouldn't you kids be paying a little attention here?"

Surprised, Wyatt asked, "Where are we?"

In the middle of the cave, Little Wyatt was standing with a strange smile on his face. It took them all a moment to see what it was that he was seeing, but it was obvious that he was having some fun in the midst of all of the chaos of his day.

"Check it out," said a rather wasted looking demon as it looked up from the pile of bones it was fighting over with another.

"How'd he get down here," his companion asked.

"Maybe the world's finally turning back in our favor?"

With a small giggle, Little Wyatt blinked at the demon. It spontaneously combusted, disappearing into a ball of ash before it had time to scream.

"Or not," said the other demon as it looked fearfully at the toddler.

As the second of the two demons burst into flames, Christopher stared at his brother in surprise. "I don't think I've ever seen you do that, at least, not before you left us."

"I've never needed to," said Wyatt. His voice trembled a little bit as he admitted, "I don't like that I can. I don't use a lot of the powers I have. I don't like them. I don't like knowing where they come from. I don't even like knowing that I have them or what I can do. You have powers that I know you refuse to use, too. You have powers that even I don't. It's one of the reasons everyone has been so afraid of you."

Christopher eyed his brother suspiciously. "When Charlie and I talked about the possibility, he told me you were wrong about that. We talked about it a few hours ago. You didn't tell me. You said — Charlie, he said — When the Elders came to me two years ago and tried to get me to use certain powers against you, Charlie told me that They were wrong and that the powers didn't exist. He said that They were only speculating because of things They'd seen you do. He told me that I didn't have them and it wasn't necessary to know about them. He told me — "

"What do you mean? Charlie told you that?"

"Only when the Elders came to me that day. They cut off all ties to us after you went thermal Up There and killed half of Them. It took a lot of negotiating to get Them to even let Charlie stay with us as Whitelighter. They said They would recycle him before They let him stay with us. The only reason They agreed to it was so that we would have a healer available to us. Half the time, They wouldn't even give him information if we asked for it. We were actually starting to think that he'd left Them, too, and that he was on his own."

"He always said he would the second They turned on us," said Wyatt quietly. "He probably did and just made it up as he went along." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "He wasn't supposed to lie to you. He was supposed to tell you about your powers so that you wouldn't find out about them from Them. He was supposed to help you use them without Them finding out."

"You mean They were telling me the truth?"

Wyatt nodded guiltily. "Granted, after what we saw earlier, I understand why he lied. He was probably afraid of losing the both of us instead of just me. But still, if anything happened to me, you were supposed to know about the powers stuff so that you would be protected. You saw me talking to the Elders; you saw me talking to Charlie. They would have killed you, Christopher, if it meant that They could stop you from ever accessing the powers that you have. They were terrified of you. They were so sure that you were going to grow up to turn on Them. I don't know the exact details of why or what, but there was something that They were always afraid you would find out. They thought that if you knew whatever it was that you would, well, end up like me. I can't believe They came to you."

To the collective surprise of everyone watching him, Christopher's face darkened in a way that only Wyatt's had over the years. He was watching the toddler version of his brother with such anger that his face flushed, even in the light of the fires of the Underworld. Fiercely, he said through clinched teeth, "I think we just found out why." Under his breath, he added, "Sonofabitch."

Out of the darkness, a voice came to them that made the toddler jump. "Wyatt? Wyatt, you have to help me! He hurt me, Wyatt. Dad can't heal me. You have to help me. Please don't let me die."

"That isn't Chris," said Leo urgently, as if he could actually warn his toddler son. "He could hardly talk once Gideon took you. He tried, but he was too weak. I had to carry him to bed because he couldn't walk for himself."

Christopher looked to his father for confirmation. "And Paige was with him, right? That was what she was talking about last night when she was babbling about killing me. She was remembering the SWAT team and all that, right? So he couldn't be down here."

"I know it isn't him," said Wyatt softly. "I mean, Little Me knows it isn't Chris."

Leo asked, "How do you know?"

With a meaningful glance at his brother, who immediately seemed to understand what Wyatt was saying, the elder brother said sadly, "He knows Chris is gone. He can feel it. He doesn't really know why he knows, I don't think, but he knows. That's not his brother. That's not his Chris."

The voice seemed to grow angry as it went on, begging for Wyatt's help in a voice that was neither weak nor loving. The toddler showed true fear for the first time as the voice grew more agitated, bouncing off the walls as it drew closer. He drew his blue warbling bubble up around him, only to find that it was still damaged from what Gideon had done to it. The toddler started to pout, plopping down right where he was as if he had just learned to stand for the first time. His pout quickly turned to real tears, his breaths coming in small rasps and hiccups.

"iss, iss, iss, iss," he cried.

Little Wyatt's tears quickly dried when another voice called out to him. "Wyatt, can you hear me, it's Daddy."

Apparently eager to hear a familiar voice and too afraid to not answer it, they all were transported in a cloud of orbs to another cave, only to find Gideon waiting there for them. He sneered at the toddler with a satisfied greeting. "Hello, Son," he said as a crystal cage enclosed the already tremendously powerful little boy.

"I'm so sorry to lure you like this. Barbas, where are you? BARBAS!" When the demon appeared, he said, "It's time."

"Well , it took you long enough."

"Your impatience is growing tiresome." He held up the athame for the demon to see. "I blessed it already. Now it's your turn." They all saw Wyatt looking terrified for the first time, almost ready to cry. The look on the boy's face made the fear demon hesitate enough for Gideon to ask, "Is something wrong?"

"As a matter of fact . . . there is."

The boys both flinched when they saw the demon Barbas turn into their father. Leo flinched when he saw himself stab his mentor. There were still days when he couldn't believe that their friendship had come to that. Apparently, neither had Gideon.

"Why?"

"Because. You murdered my son."

They all followed the past Leo as he stalked toward the crumpled Gideon. Even as the Elder pleaded his case to the devastated father, the same look came over the present Leo's face. Three weeks later, the story was no more sensible than it had been that day.

Oddly, Christopher saw the anger in his father's face and shuddered. He finally knew how it was that his brother's features could go so dark and become unrecognizable to him. His father's had done the same thing and had fallen into the hatred once again. Softly, he told his brother, "You look like him. I never saw it before, not that much. I mean, you generally look a lot more like him than Mom, but the rest of it. I never noticed how dark the two of you could get."

"Neither one of us saw a lot of things," Wyatt shrugged. "Apparently powers come served with blindness on the side in this family."

"Not just the family," said Christopher while Gideon continued to try to scramble away and plead his case to their father.

"Leo, please, you have to understand, I am only doing this for the greater good. I swear."

Their Leo turned his back on himself and his mentor so that he wouldn't have to see the heartbreak on his own face as he realized the true depths of how far Gideon had sunk. Even more so, he didn't want to see how it had eluded him for so long that Gideon was the one after his children. Every day he had wondered how he could have been so blind to it that his son had had to die. Every day. Even as his past asked the question, he knew that he would forever regret hearing the man's answer. "How is killing a child ever for the greater good, and who the hell are you to decide that?"

"I'm an Elder, so are you, it's what We do," said Gideon to the disgust of both Leos and their sons.

Christopher and Wyatt both wanted to cheer the moment that they had always been denied hearing about, the moment when their father had returned to them fully. "I'm not one of you any more."

Wyatt, in particular, was blown away by what Gideon had to say, scared that, in some ways, maybe the crazy old man had been right. "Leo, listen to me, you know what happens, you know what Chris came here to stop. Let me finish what I started. Let me save the future, the only way it could be saved."

Leo turned back around then, wanting the satisfaction of seeing his act against Gideon one more time. It sounded awful to hear himself think so smugly about it, but there it was. He had exacted vengeance for his boy. What else was he supposed to do? He would always be a father first, never an Elder. He knew now that that was the one thing that Gideon could never have understood. None of Them could. He knew that part of him was never going to forgive any of Them for that, and certainly not Gideon.

Lightning bolts from Leo's hands illuminated the caverns as Gideon howled in his dying moments. Both boys harbored a secret pleasure in seeing their father stand up for them the way he had, never having really known their father in their lifetimes. Somehow, they both felt closer to him as this other version of Chris and Little Wyatt were avenged.

"You have no idea what you've done," gasped the dying Elder at them all, almost as if he could see them, condemning them all.

Just as past Leo reached up to destroy the mirror, Christopher wanted to stop him. He suddenly wondered if Gideon had seen them because he could swear he saw Wyatt standing there in the reflection above the disintegrating Elder's body. Christopher looked at Wyatt then, trying to hold on to the thought that hadn't really formed and was quickly running away from him. "What was it Lucy said before she brought you here?"

" 'You have to see to know' , I think, or something like that. I'm not sure."

Still grasping at the words that were slipping away from him, Christopher was surprised to hear himself humming. He had no idea why. He didn't think he could even place the song, but there was something about it that kept it in his head. The same words kept repeating, over and over, without going beyond even though he knew there had to be more to the song. What makes you think you're the one who can live without tryin'? What makes you think you're the one who can live without dyin'? Every little thing is there to see . . . God, where had he heard that before?

Damn! Suddenly it came back to him, hard. His dream. He had woken himself screaming the night before. He hadn't slept since, but the dream felt so far away. He suddenly saw it in such stark detail, even more so than he had when he'd first woken up. She had been right there. Lucy had told him exactly what she . . . She had known that she was going to try to save Wyatt. She had known she was going to die. She knew!

Those damn visions. He couldn't understand it. If his theory was correct, Chris must have done something to be able to give her those visions. But what? There were any number of explanations that — Every little thing is there to see! She had seen more than that. She had seen a lot more.

"She knew it happened when you were a kid. She tried to show me last night and I missed it."

"How could she show you anything? You were here and she was with me," asked Wyatt.

Excitedly, Christopher thought out loud, his dream playing in fast-forward in his head as his mouth tried to keep up with his thoughts. "I don't know, but she was there. I saw her just last night. She tried to tell me. She knew. She showed me the sword in her chest. She showed me you as you were and as a child, but you hadn't changed. You still talked like you did and had the same powers. You just grew up. . well, down. She knew you were hiding something from us. Now that I've seen — I think she meant the Elders. She was trying to help me. You were in a fog and talking with someone else's voice. She sang this damned song that Sam always liked. She . . . She told me she would be sitting this one out. She knew she was going to die today. And you told me that I should have listened to her more often. She showed me — Oh, man. She knew about Gideon. How did she know about Gideon?"

"Chris told her," suggested Wyatt hesitantly.

"Maybe. I guess that would explain how she was able to tell me what he looked like. But how — "

Christopher kept watching for a moment as the body continued to disintegrate into a fine powder while Leo, Wyatt, and Clyde followed Leo back out to where Little Wyatt was waiting anxiously inside the crystal cage for his father. He closed his eyes for a moment, listening to the sounds of the cave as the past Leo kicked a crystal out of his way. He cleared his thoughts before he could let them run away from him. He needed to be watching the Now, not getting lost in his head. Otherwise, what was he doing there?

Gideon's words echoed in his head as he cleared everything else out and opened his eyes again. You have no idea what you've done. He heard Gideon's voice in his dream as well. Your ears are as closed as your eyes.

Maybe.

Maybe not.

In the next room, Clyde polished his fingers on his breast, examining them with a heavy, obvious sigh. When no one responded to his efforts, the guide huffed just a little louder. He glanced at the watch he didn't own and rolled his eyes. Finally unable to contain himself any longer, he growled, "Didja get whatcha came for this time or what? I got other things I gotta be doin', ya know. And I ain't had lunch. My blood sugar can't handle these all day jobs."

Leo coughed back the lump in his throat as he watched himself scoop up the toddler version of his child. He wasn't sure why he was doing it, but he felt like setting the record straight for all three of his sons and said without looking at his eldest, "Does that look like a father who ever even considered for a moment leaving his son?"

A little disbelieving, Wyatt asked, "You want to start a fight now? Here? I said what I said to get a rise out of Christopher, not to — Damn it, Dad, why would you bring that up right now?"

Before either of them could escalate the situation further, whatever direction Leo had intended for it to go, Christopher interrupted them. As hard as it was for him to believe, a black shadow was clinging to the wall just above the cave floor and was inching closer and closer to the younger Wyatt. There was no light source that could have created it, nothing in the way between any light and the wall to be shadowed. It was just there. He wanted to just smack himself upside the head for missing it. How could he not have noticed it before? But then, any time after this, he supposed, if he were to try to find it again, it would only appear to him long enough for him to blink, something there then gone as soon as his eyes found it. It was almost . . . Wyatt had been so literal about it that afternoon, describing his life as being 'Under Shadow' or 'In the Black' or whatever. How could he not have seen it? Wryly, he groaned, "Talk about your 'something missed'."

Leo stopped short of whatever he was going to say. "What?"

Christopher pointed at the phantom blackness as it struggled most likely to take shape and remain concealed at the same time. "Tell me you see that."

"See what," asked Leo.

Wyatt, on the other hand, groaned. "You have got to be kidding me."

"This is getting ridiculous," Christopher agreed.

"That sonofabitch just won't die," marveled Wyatt.

From his exhausted perch on a boulder, Clyde clapped his hands in congratulations. "It's about time! I been waitin' on the two a'you to see that all day. You're both blind as drunken bats. All a'ya. Now can we get outta here? I'm not dressed to be down here. Damn heat . . ."

Forgetting for a moment that their father was still watching them, Wyatt turned to his little brother as he remembered always doing. It felt natural to him to turn to Christopher. He couldn't explain it, but it was always there. If he needed something in this or any other world, he needed Christopher. This was definitely one of those times. "Okay, Genius, got any idea how I'm supposed to fight that? And without powers?"

"Fight what," asked Leo. "One of you better tell me what's going on."

"Clyde's right," Christopher argued. "We need to get out of here. We need to get that thing away from Little Wyatt. God knows what he's been doing to him for the last three weeks." When Leo grabbed his arm to try to grab his son's attention, Christopher said calmly, "I'll explain everything once we get back. There's nothing more we're going to learn here. Let's go." He glanced over his shoulder at his brother. "I'm not letting that sonofabitch take you away from us again." To Clyde he said, "Get us home."

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If you had half as much fun reading this chapter as I had writing it, then I had twice as much fun writing it as you had reading it. Heh. Thanks for reading.