Chapter Seven: Desperate Measures

"Where are you? Answer me! I know you can hear me, you son of a bitch!" Piper spat, picking up the nearest object – a vase – and throwing it at the wall. It shattered into pieces, but she didn't even flinch. In fact, she barely noticed. Destroying the ceramic object had done nothing to ease the pain and guilt and rage building up inside of her and she desperately wanted to hurt something.

Or someone.

"Don't pretend you're not watching. Don't pretend you haven't been watching all along, gloating as I put the pieces together! You knew this was going to happen. You knew I would figure it out. So show yourself! Answer me!"

"Piper, honey…?" Phoebe poked her head into the attic, eyes wide and filled with unspoken questions. "What are you doing?" Paige and Leo stood behind her, all three clearly afraid to venture into the room while Piper was experiencing what appeared to be a nervous breakdown.

"Show yourself!" Piper snarled again, ignoring them. "Now!" She seemed to be yelling at nothing.

Leo edged forward into the room. "Piper… who are you talking to?"

"Come and face me, you coward!" Piper snapped. "Come and face me, you lying, no-good, pathetic excuse for a…"

"Coward?" a voice interrupted coolly, and then Lucifer appeared, reclining easily on the worn sofa opposite Piper. "Oh, now that just hurts."

"What are you doing here?" Leo demanded, his voice tense and apprehensive.

"Isn't it obvious?" Lucifer replied, switching his gaze from Piper to Leo and smirking slightly. "Your slightly hysterical ex-wife has been calling for me, and I am merely answering the summons." He rose gracefully to his feet and bowed his head at Piper, mocking laughter in his eyes. "And what do you desire from me, my lady?"

Piper stood frozen. She hadn't really expected Lucifer to appear, and now that he was standing in front of her, she had no idea what to say. "I… how could you…?" she stammered, trying to organize bewildered and furious thoughts.

Lucifer didn't pretend to misunderstand. "It's what I do," he said simply.

"Piper, what is he talking about?" Paige demanded, a hint of uncertainty in her voice.

"So it's true?" Piper said numbly, her voice hollow. She needed the confirmation even though she had accepted the facts already. She needed to hear Lucifer say it. "Chris is my son."

"He is," Lucifer agreed, inclining his head once more.

"Wh-what? No. No!" It was Leo's voice, filled with disbelief, that echoed in the room. "No. You're lying. You… that's not… no… it can't…" His words trailed off, became jumbled and incoherent, and he slowly backed away from Lucifer with a look of indescribable horror on his face.

Piper felt something settle heavily onto her chest. She couldn't breath. The truth was slowly suffocating her, stealing away her oxygen and leaving her desperately gasping for air.

"You know better than that, Elder," Lucifer said softly. "I don't lie."

"No…" Piper whispered faintly.

But it was true. Of course it was true. Hadn't she known that already?

She took a step backwards, sinking against the wall. She wanted to disappear, wanted to sink into the ground. She knew Paige and Phoebe were staring at her, and she knew intellectually that even if she turned to look at them, she wouldn't see condemnation in their eyes. They wouldn't think less of her for what she had unwittingly done.

But she did think less of herself. What kind of mother allows her son to sell his soul to the devil?

What kind of mother hears that her son is planning to do this and feels relief because at least it means that another son will be safe?

She'd chosen Wyatt over Chris. And every logical, rational part of her mind kept pointing out that she hadn't known and wasn't playing favorites with her own children, but that didn't stop the guilt that threatened to overwhelm her.

How had she let this happen?

"Why? Why?" Leo asked in a shaky voice. "Why would he do this?" His eyes focused on Lucifer with a look of complete rage. "How dare you do this to him?"

Lucifer smiled benevolently. "I didn't do anything to him," he said, and his tone would have been gentle and kind if not for the fact that his eyes were glittering with triumph. "He made the deal of his own volition, Elder. And I did not take anything from him that he was not already more than willing to part with in order to save his brother."

"You took my son!" Piper spat.

Lucifer shrugged casually. "And I gave you back your other son. Do not forget, Charmed One, that your precious Wyatt was on his way to darkness. You would have lost him soon enough."

"We could have saved him," Piper argued vehemently, tears pricking at her eyes.

"If you had been able to save him," Lucifer said in the same soft tone, "your younger son would not have grown up in a hellish world ruled by a twisted version of his own brother. If you had been able to save him, young Christopher would not have needed to come to the past." He paused, then in a far harsher tone, one that left no room for argument or compromise, he said, "If you had been able to save him, you would have. But you didn't."

Piper closed her eyes as the weight of those words fell onto her shoulders. He was right, of course. She had already failed to protect Wyatt once – Chris coming back to the past was proof of that. She had been unable to save Wyatt from the monster he had become, and as a result, Chris had been forced to do her job for her.

And now she had failed to save Chris.

She'd failed both her sons.

What kind of mother was she?

She opened her eyes and gave Lucifer a hard look. "I will get Chris back," she vowed. "I promise you; one way or another, I will get my son back."

Lucifer smiled pityingly. "You can't. Not without undoing the deal Chris made with me. And if you do that… well, your precious Wyatt will be in for a rather nasty surprise."

Piper's eyes narrowed and before she could fully register what she was doing, she had stormed across the room and dug her fingers into the collar of Lucifer's shirt. He was taller than her, but she still succeeded in almost looming over him as she pushed him backwards, shoving his feet and lower legs against the sofa.

"You stay the hell away from Wyatt," she snarled in a low voice. "Do you hear me? You stay away from him!"

Lucifer caught her wrists in his own hands and carefully detached her fingers from his shirt. "I have no intention of doing anything to Wyatt," he said simply. "I am merely telling you about the terms of the deal. If anything happens to him, it will be because of your actions. It is your choice, Charmed One. Not mine."

He was gloating. That much was obvious, but he was doing it in such a way that it was nearly impossible to call him out on it. His tone was gentle, his words nothing but the honest truth, and there was a hint of compassion and pity in his eyes.

"I gave Christopher what he wanted," Lucifer said softly. "I gave him the answers he sought. That is all."

Piper turned away from him, trying to control her fury. She couldn't let it consume her, couldn't let it cloud her judgment or her thoughts.

And yet… her heart and her mind hurt.

"You took his soul," Paige said hotly. "You stole it…"

"I didn't steal anything," Lucifer replied calmly. "He traded it to me, and he knew full well what he was doing when he did it."

Piper shook her head slowly. How could Chris have done something like this? How could he have felt so desperate that he would willingly sacrifice his soul?

How bad was the future?

How much was he willing to give up for his brother?

And how could he have felt so helpless, so alone, so unwanted in the Manor that he would turn to Lucifer for assistance? How could Piper have allowed him to feel that way? How could she have not seen that he was family, that he was her son? How could she have pushed him away so much, so hard? How could she have driven him to the devil?

"That's not… that's not right…"

It was Leo's weary, tired voice that cut into the stillness of the room and into Piper's tormented thoughts. His haunted blue eyes were fixed on Lucifer, and his skin was devoid of all color. It was clear that he was hurting just as much as Piper was, that his own guilt and horror were overwhelming him, but Piper couldn't bring herself to care. He didn't matter. None of them mattered.

The only thing that mattered was finding Chris. Saving Chris.

They could deal with everything else afterwards.

"We're going to fix this," Phoebe said gently, glancing at Leo. She was rubbing at her forehead, an obvious sign of an empathy-induced headache. The tension and emotional turmoil in the room was far too strong to be blocked by the potion they had all taken months ago.

Piper nodded at Phoebe's words. "We are," she agreed, though she knew her voice lacked the confidence that she desperately wanted.

Lucifer gave Piper a long look, then said, "It's over, Charmed One. Give up."

Piper looked at him, her self-recriminations and grief giving way to stubborn resolve. "I can't give up," she said simply, her quiet tone underlined with steel, "I don't know how."

Phoebe stared thoughtfully at her mug of coffee and listened to the sounds of Piper pacing on the floor above her. It had been two days since Lucifer's appearance and revelations, and the eldest Charmed One had spent every waking second looking for an answer. She'd consulted the Book and a few of their friends in the magical world, but no one had been able to offer any answers. She had tried writing spells, but they never worked. And still she refused to give up.

Leo had been the same way, though his actions had been a bit more dangerous. He'd gone to the Underworld several times, meeting with demons. They'd almost all uniformly refused to talk to him even after he'd used his Elder powers to violently… encourage… them to share any information they might have.

That was troubling. The vast majority of demons had survival instincts that vast outweighed their loyalty to authority figures. When faced by certain death at the hands of an Elder, they should have capitulated. The fact that they didn't meant that they were either more loyal to or more afraid of Lucifer than they had been of even the Source.

Phoebe sighed and took a sip from her cup.

Paige entered the kitchen, freshly showered and toweling water from her damp hair. She paused at the expression on Phoebe's face and raised an eyebrow.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Phoebe shrugged. "I'm just… worried," she said vaguely, waving a hand.

Paige rolled her eyes. "Ah, well. That clears it up." She walked over to the table and pulled out the chair opposite Phoebe, then sat down. "About Chris, Piper, or Leo?"

"All of them," Phoebe answered. "Piper's driving herself mad…"

"Can you blame her?" Paige asked sharply.

"Of course not," Phoebe replied, quickly defending herself against the implied accusation. "And I want to help her, I do. I would do anything I could to save Chris. I just… I'm worried about Piper. I'm worried about how far she'll go. We're already losing Leo…"

"What do you mean?" Paige demanded.

Phoebe blinked, then asked skeptically, "You really don't see it?"

Paige hesitated, then said a bit too firmly, as though she was trying to convince herself, "He's on edge. Lucifer has his son's soul, you can hardly blame him for being tense."

Phoebe exhaled slowly. "He comes back from the Underworld and I don't even recognize him."

"It's been two days, Phoebe. He hasn't changed that much."

Phoebe chewed her lip worriedly, wondering how to explain what she meant, then said, "Leo never took the empathy-blocking potion." At Paige's bewildered look, she elaborated, "The one that Chr-Chris got for us. You and Piper drank it, but he didn't."

If Paige noticed the way Phoebe's voice broke over Chris' name, she didn't comment on it. Instead, she asked, "So you can sense him still? So what?"

"I could always sense him when he was here. It wasn't a problem, though. I mean, first of all, he really wasn't around much. But even when he was around, he was always so… calm. Even when he was worried, even when he was upset, even when he was furious… there was this feeling of calm that sort of… blanketed his emotions. I figured it had something to do with the fact that he was a white-lighter turned Elder and they probably meditate all the time."

Paige cracked a slight smile at that.

"The only time I really felt anything big from him was when he first got back from Valhalla and attacked Chris," and this time she managed to say Chris' name without stumbling over the word, "or once or twice when Wyatt was in danger. And when Lucifer told us that Gideon was the one to turn Wyatt. Those were the only times his emotions felt… real."

"So he's really good at staying calm," Paige said with a shrug. "That's not actually a surprise, all things considered."

"But now…" Phoebe paused, frowning as she tried to choose her words carefully, "when he comes back from the Underworld, his feelings aren't like that anymore. The couple times I've been in the same room as him… there is no calm. There's just desperation and anger. So much anger. At Lucifer, at Gideon… at himself. He doesn't feel like Leo anymore."

She closed her eyes and thought about the last time she had seen her ex-brother-in-law. He'd orbed into the attic to look at the Book quickly, and the wave of emotions radiating from him had nearly taken her breath away. She'd tried to talk to him then, just to ask him how he was feeling and if he needed any help, but he'd ignored her, gotten the information he needed, and orbed out.

He wasn't acting like Leo.

But maybe, she mused, he hadn't been acting like Leo for a while. Maybe the change had started before Lucifer's reappearance. Maybe it had begun weeks ago, with Gideon's betrayal. Maybe Leo had started drifting away from himself then, and Lucifer's revelations didn't so much change him as they made him finally snap.

It was a worrisome thought.

"It will all work out," Paige said finally.

"But what if it doesn't?" Phoebe asked pointedly. "We keep acting like there is a way to fix everything…"

"There is!" Paige interrupted immediately. "Just because things are difficult right now…"

"What happens if we get Chris back and lose Piper or Leo in the process? What if one of them gets killed or worse…? Leo's dangerously close to losing it," Phoebe argued. She didn't say it, didn't even mention the possibility that they would get Chris back and end up losing Wyatt, but she knew that she and Paige were both thinking of it.

She didn't trust Lucifer, and she was well aware of the fact that he had been undoubtedly playing them from the very beginning. But some part of her still wondered… Lucifer couldn't lie, and he'd told them multiple times that Chris had made this deal willingly.

Did he even want to be saved? If the cost was one of his parents, or Wyatt…?

Would he thank them for interfering then?

Paige must have followed at least some of Phoebe's train of thought because she sighed heavily and said, "I know it's hard right now. And… I am worried. I just don't know what else we can do. We can't give up on Chris."

Phoebe accepted that with a nod of agreement. "True. I'd just like us not to give up on Piper or Leo, either."

"Leo, you need to listen to reason."

Blue eyes narrowed dangerously. "Get out of my way, Zola."

"What you are doing is dangerous. I only want to help," Zola said patiently, lifting his hands. To the casual observer, it might have been a placating motion, but Leo knew better. Zola wasn't just trying to mollify him, he was also preparing himself for the possibility that this confrontation would turn ugly.

He'd lifted his hands so that he would be better prepared to strike out at Leo should he feel the need to do so.

"If you want to help me," Leo said angrily, "you will tell me how to save my son."

He'd gone to the Elders almost immediately after Lucifer had departed from their attic two days earlier, begging them for help. He had still been unable to access Up There due to their ridiculous suspicions that he would turn against them all, but he had managed to get their attention and summon a few of them down to the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge.

It had taken hours, though, for any of them to show up, and when they had, they'd uniformly refused to help. It was too dangerous, they had said, to get involved in anything Lucifer did. Chris had made the deal, they had explained, and so he had to pay the consequences of it.

For all their talk of referring to witches and nonmagical innocents and their sons and daughter, the Elders had absolutely no idea what it meant to be a parent.

Zola sighed. "The other Elders are worried, Leo, and I cannot help but agree with their concerns. You are meddling in matters that you do not fully understand. You have spent a significant amount of time in the Underworld…"

"It seemed a good place to find demons," Leo snapped, "and they are the only ones who can help me."

"Help you?" Zola countered. "Do you really think they are helping you? Look at yourself, Leo. Look at what you have become. You are no longer behaving like an Elder…"

"I stopped thinking of myself as an Elder the moment Gideon turned on my family," Leo snarled. "And can you blame me? One of you tries to murder my son, you nearly accuse me of treason when I defend my family against him, you ban me from the Heavens, and now you can't be bothered to list a finger to save my other son. Why would I want to be one of you?"

Zola didn't answer the question. Instead, he said, "Sigmund is agitating against you."

Leo curled his lips into a bitter smirk. "Gideon's assistant doesn't like me? What a surprise," he said mockingly. He turned away from Zola, running a hand through his hair. Chris had said nothing about Sigmund, and neither had Lucifer, so that at least meant that the Elder was not a threat to Wyatt. But had he known of Gideon's plans? Had he supported them?

Leo didn't trust Sigmund, and he doubted he ever would. The man was far too much of a coward to physically attack the Charmed Ones or Wyatt, but even cowards could cause trouble easily enough. A few whispered words into the right ear, a vague accusation that could never be traced back to the source… Demons did it well enough, and even Lucifer had employed those tactics before. So it wasn't really a surprise that an Elder would do it as well.

Sigmund was certainly going out of his way to get the other Elders to turn on Leo.

And despite all this, he'd had the gall to ask the Charmed Ones for help with the Headless Horseman incident.

And despite all this, the Charmed Ones had helped him, even if it was done rather reluctantly on Piper's part.

With that thought in mind, Leo said, "You still come to the Charmed Ones for help. Even Sigmund did, when things got out of hand at Magic School. You trust them."

"You are not a Charmed One, Leo," Zola replied, "and you are not their white-lighter."

"They don't have a white-lighter because the one you all assigned to them was forced to sacrifice his own soul to stop a threat that originated from one of you!" Leo practically shouted.

Zola took a step back, his body still tensed, ready for a fight. There was a wariness in his eyes, and Leo realized with a start that even Zola – one of the few Elders he thought was still at least a little bit on his side – was terrified of him.

He knew he looked disheveled and exhausted. He had spent a lot of time resting or taking care of himself in the past two days. His eyes were rimmed with red and there was dirt and grime from the Underworld on his shoes and the bottom hem of his pants.

He was falling apart… and the Elders were worried he was going to crack.

He considered that for a moment, then shrugged it off. The only thing that mattered to him was finding a way to save Chris.

"You must stop this," Zola said softly, his voice filled with warning. "You must stop yourself, or the other Elders will stop you. If you cannot show that you are not a threat to all of us… and to this world… we will have no choice but to recycle you. And we both don't want that to happen. You're better than this, Leo."

"Stop me?" Leo asked icily. "From what?"

"From this obsession."

"Chris is my son! Wanting to save him is not an obsession, Zola. It's called being a father."

"It is an obsession, Leo," Zola argued, "and it is blinding you to reason, driving you over the edge. You are reacting to pain and grief and betrayal, but getting involved with Lucifer will not protect your family. And it will not heal your heart."

"I don't care about my heart," Leo replied stubbornly. "I only want to save my son."

"Leo, listen to me. The Elders are questioning what side you are really on and you cannot afford…"

"I don't care!" Leo spat. "Do you understand, Zola? I don't care."

"There is a great power coming," Zola protested. "One unlike anything we have seen in a very long time. We need you for the coming battles, Leo. But, more than that, we need to know that every Elder is on our side. We need to present a united front against this foe, and as long as you remain separated from us, you put yourself and all of us in danger."

"I don't care," Leo repeated through clenched teeth.

"If we recycle you, you will lose far more than Christopher," Zola murmured. "You will lose your memories, your sense of self… everything that makes you the person you are now will be erased. And that includes your love for your sons and your memories of the Halliwell sisters. Will you really sacrifice all that for nothing?"

"Chris isn't nothing!"

"Lucifer is manipulating you. He's preying on your grief and pain," Zola said. "Think, Leo. Think rationally for a moment. This is what Lucifer does. This is what he excels at. Turning people. Making them act against their morals and their better judgment. Making them turn against their family."

"You are not family," Leo retorted. "None of the Elders are my family."

"He knows that you are looking for him and he isn't bothering to stop you. He wants you to do this, Leo. He wants you to lose yourself in this obsession, to become something you were never supposed to be. Don't make this easy for him. Don't give into him. Don't let him win."

"I am going to get my son back…"

"There is no way to undo a deal once it has been made," Zola murmured. "Not without Lucifer's permission. Please don't do this, Leo. Don't walk down this path."

"I'm already on the path," Leo muttered grimly.

"There is still time to turn aside," Zola pleaded.

Leo stared at him for a long moment, then said flatly, "But I don't want to turn aside. I'm going to see this through to the end. I am going to get my son back, no matter what it takes."

And he orbed away.

Zola had been right about one thing; the only way to undo a deal was with Lucifer's permission. Everything else had reached a dead end, and even the demons were choosing to be vanquished rather than help.

Leo reappeared in the back room of P3. Over the intervening weeks since Chris' sacrifice, all mementos of his time here had been removed. The notebooks he had filled with lists of demons to be vanquished had been tossed out, the few spare changes of clothing he'd kept had been washed and folded and stored in the attic of the Manor for no real reason other than Piper felt bag getting rid of them, and the entire room had been cleaned.

But even if the room no longer felt like Chris' makeshift home, it had once served as his bedroom and office, and it was the only place Leo could go to feel close to his son.

He looked around once, reminding himself of all the accusations he had thrown at Chris, all the sharp words and angry glares. Even if they had been justified in the beginning – Chris had sent him to Valhalla, after all – his suspicions had continued far longer than they should have, and he regretted them all now.

"I'm sorry," he murmured. Then he raised his voice and shouted, "You're watching this, aren't you? Just like you've been watching us for weeks. Laughing at us, mocking us. Manipulating us."

"You know," a voice said casually, "that other Elder was correct. This path you are on will not give you the outcome you want. I have no intention of allowing you to merely take back young Christopher's soul."

Leo turned around slowly. "Lucifer," he said, eyeing the devil warily.

"I have been watching you," Lucifer said. He walked over to the lumpy sofa and sat down. "I must admit… I find your pain rather… exquisite. I imagined some of the grief and guilt, of course, but I had no idea just how much of it you would all have."

"I've been looking for you," Leo said.

"I know. A waste of time." Lucifer took off the sunglasses he was wearing and gazed at them thoughtfully. "You should give up. It will be easier for you if you stop now. The longer you continue this, the longer you allow yourself to become… corrupted… the harder it will be for you to find your way back."

"I'm not going back without Chris," Leo said.

Lucifer glanced up at him with an amused smile, then rose to his feet to face Leo squarely. "Then you aren't going back at all. Christopher is mine."

Leo didn't think. He merely charged forward and drew his right arm back, his hand curling into a fist. Without hesitation, he brought his fist flying forward and slammed it into Lucifer's jaw. The devil's head snapped back and the force of the blow knocked him into the sofa again. He collapsed into a sitting position there, with Leo looming over him and shaking with barely contained rage.

The devil lifted sparkling blue eyes towards the Elder. "Ow," he deadpanned, reaching up to touch his jaw gingerly with two fingers.

"Chris is not yours," Leo snapped.

"But he is," Lucifer said calmly, not intimidated by Leo in the slightest. "You cannot steal him from me."

"How about a new deal, then?" Leo said, folding his arms across his chest and refusing to back down. "Set Chris' soul free and you can have mine."