Bianca watched Chris disappear through the portal, and exhaled.

A calm settled over her now that he was safe, and she spun, running the athame across the neck of the demon on one side of her and the pressing it into the chest of the one on the other side. She was just starting for the door to try and make her way out of the wards when thirty demons shimmered in.

There were so many packed in around her that she could barely move. They grabbed at her from all sides, prying the athame from her fingers. She screamed as she kicked out, but there were too many of them.

"My brother would have surrendered gracefully," a silky, malevolent voice told her, as Wyatt came out of the shadows to appear in front of her.

She went still, breathing heavily in the grasp of the demons. Wyatt looked different. He'd changed his shirt to hide his wound, but she could still see the edges of pink skin beneath the sleeve. His eyes were what made the real difference.

As much as she despised Wyatt, as much as she knew he was evil and had to be stopped, she had known there was something there. There was something in him that had been good once, because Chris could see it, and Chris was the only person she trusted at all.

But whatever may have been there before, she could see that now it was gone.

"Chris wouldn't have left you behind," Wyatt said, reaching out to tightly grip her chin. "Where is he?"

"Somewhere you can't touch him," she said.

Wyatt rolled his eyes, letting her go with disgust. "Take her the dungeons," he said.

Bianca was shimmered out by his demons, and Wyatt wandered over to the book. It was sitting on the podium as though it had never left—which, of course, made no sense, if getting the book had been the whole point. Bianca was too calm for this plan to have fallen through. He was missing something.

He waved his hand over the book. "Show me the spell that was last used," he commanded, and the book spun to fall open on the page that held a time travel spell. He looked up, eyes falling on the triquetra that had been drawn on the wall. "Oh, Chris, you little fool," he cursed, realizing what he had done.

He shimmered out, appearing in his dungeons. Bianca had not been treated as kindly as his brother would have been. She looked dazed as she hung from the ceiling in her cell, blood building up at a cut around her eye and smeared around her nose.

"I hate to see you this way, Bianca," he told her, as he mentally called for his favorite interrogator. "Things don't have to end so badly, if you'd only cooperate."

"Go to hell," she told him, forcing her head up to glare back at him. "I'm not telling you anything."

"I already know he went to the past," Wyatt told her, shrugging. "I know he did it because he thinks he can save me. I just need to know exactly when."

"I don't care what you do to me," Bianca told him. "None of this matters anymore."

"You don't have to tell me," Wyatt said, as Alec strolled into the cell behind him. "It just would have hurt a little less if you had." He turned to look at Alec. "Find out what I want to know."

Alec stepped forward warily, and Bianca grinned at him. "Give it your best shot," she said.

Alec reached out, framing her face. "When did Christopher go?" he asked, before stilling as he began his search.

Bianca let out a pained scream, adjusting her hands against the chains to try and get herself some leverage. She could feel him digging through her mind, and she didn't have any time. They never had any time.

"Before the Tit—" Alec started, and then cut off abruptly as Bianca threw one leg up and knocked it against his back. She pulled it away again, revealing a stiletto dagger that was sticking out the heel of her shoe. Her strike had pushed straight through to his heart.

Wyatt sighed as Alec crumbled to the floor, dead before he hit the ground. "I had plans for him," he said. "I really wish everyone would stop killing him." He turned back to Bianca. "But that's my fault. It was a reckless oversight, not to make sure you were fully tied down."

He motioned for chains to appear, and they snaked up around her ankles, pulling her straight. She coughed weakly, trying to adjust to the strain, but managed to raise her head defiantly. "You getting off on this?" she asked. "Enjoying the show?"

"No," Wyatt said calmly. "There's nothing about this that I find entertaining. I am interested, however, to learn the time Chris has traveled. I suspect Alec was going to say the Titans. I'm not surprised. That makes sense. It would be after my birth, but before Chris's."

Bianca paused, but she looked caught off guard. Wyatt grinned. "You're wondering how I know that?"

"You must remember what happened to you," she said.

"Nothing happened to me," Wyatt snapped. "It's the prophecy. Did you think I wouldn't figure it out?"

Bianca just stared back at him, expressionless, trying not to give anything away. It was what made Wyatt realize she didn't know. "He didn't tell you," he realized. "Of course he didn't tell you. You never would have let him go."

Wyatt stepped closer, circling around her. The way she was tied, Bianca couldn't keep him in sight, and her skin tingled at having him at her back.

"You see, there is a prophecy for my brother as well," he explained. "He will receive a fatal wound, beside a child. Beside an Elder. I didn't understand how it could be true, how it could happen. I'd already taken measures at that time to ensure the Elders were well out of anyone's reach."

"No," Bianca whispered, but she knew with a bone-deep dread that Wyatt wasn't lying to her. This explained so much: the careful way that Chris had set the scene of his fake death, his confidence that Wyatt would believe it. He'd known exactly what he was doing. A self-fulfilling prophecy, he'd said, but she hadn't realized what it meant at the time. She'd been too distracted and worried about saving their lives to wonder about it too long.

"Now do you understand?" Wyatt asked dangerously, leaning up against her from behind. "Now do you see what you have done?" His breath tickled against the back of her neck. "You've killed him."

Chris had gone back to save Wyatt as a child, to when the Elders still lived. He'd known exactly what he was doing this time, too.

"You know I'm not lying to you," he told her. "I have no reason to. Chris is the one that lied. He lied to both of us. It's what he always does."

Bianca believed him, but just because it was the truth didn't mean Wyatt's motivations were altruistic. "What do you want from me?" she demanded. He already had all the information he needed to track Chris down in the past. There was no reason to keep playing with her.

He slipped up closer behind her, close enough it felt uncomfortably intimate, like he was a partner in a dance. "I once asked if you'd die for my brother," he said. "Now, we both know that you would. So here's another question: would you live for him?"

"Yes," she answered, because she wasn't like Chris. She could never lie about something like this.

"I can't go after him myself, not this time," Wyatt told her, as he stepped back, and circled around to meet her eyes. "Too much here depends upon me, I can't be out of time. There are plenty I can send in my place, but none that I would trust not to hurt him."

He gently moved her hair out of her face, tucking it back behind her ear in a parody of a caress. Her skin chilled where he'd touched her, and she pressed her eyes shut.

"But you won't hurt him," he continued. "Not any more than you have to."

"Please," Bianca said, keeping her eyes closed, a tear escaping even as she fought to keep it all inside. She wasn't quite sure what she was pleading for. "Please, don't—"

"I want you to go there, and I want you to bring him back to me," Wyatt told her. "If you refuse, I'll just kill you, and send someone else. Someone that doesn't have as much stake in my little brother's safety as the two of us. Is that what you want? To leave his life in the hands of some demon we can't trust?"

Bianca knew she was going to agree, even as her mind rebelled. The truth was that Wyatt had her at you've killed him.

Bianca had given up a lot to save this world. She'd given up her place in Wyatt's court, she'd given the lives of her family, she'd given up her own freedom.

And it was all going to be worth it in the end, because the one thing she didn't have to give up was Chris. He was going to save them, and he was going to come back.

He was her only reason for fighting. If she had to choose between him and the world, she would choose him every time. It was the one thing she and Wyatt had in common.

"I can get him back," she said, devastated and determined, as she wrapped her bloodied hands around the chains to keep herself steady.

"And why should I trust you?" he asked, as though she weren't playing exactly into his hands. "Maybe you'll stay there. Play house with my impressionable baby brother. How do I know you'll come back with him, once you have him?"

"Because I know you," she said. "And I know if I don't bring him back, you'll send someone else. So I'll do it. I'll find him, and bring him back, and turn him again. You win, my lord, just like you always do."

"It's been a long time since you've addressed me like that," Wyatt said, stepping forward until he came to a stop just inches in front of her. "I'm not quite sure I can believe it so easily, now. Look me in the eyes. Say it again."

"My lord," she said, meeting his cold, barren blue eyes, and there were no longer any tears in hers, "you win."

"Of course I do." Wyatt's lips stretched into a grin. "As if it was ever in any doubt."

X

Wyatt wasn't used to his plans going this wrong, but he supposed at this point he should be. Chris was the only that could defy him this way, and get away with it. It couldn't all be blamed on Wyatt's lenience with him, either. He wouldn't have allowed this if he could have prevented it.

He walked around Bianca's body, before glancing back at the closed portal. The energy ball he'd sent after his brother hadn't been enough to kill him, even if it did hit its mark.

And he knew that had been his fatal mistake.

Because time travel worked better in one direction than in the other—in the brief moments it took for the portal to finish closing, Chris could have already had years on the other side of it.

Wyatt moved to the Book of Shadows, but the spell was gone, ripped out by Chris. Wyatt had a wonderful memory, but he hadn't bothered to memorize half the book the way his brother had. That had been a mistake too, it seemed.

He was about turn away in frustration, to check into his options for making a potion, when he noticed the blank page the book had been left on. He frowned as he stepped closer and looked down at it. All of these pages had been filled. There had never been a blank page right in the middle of the book.

At least, there hadn't been in the book that he'd grown up with, but Chris was in the past, which meant he was part of its history now. He could have changed anything about it that he wanted to.

Wyatt reached out, and the moment that he touched the paper words began to spread out from beneath his fingers like they were being written by spilled ink:

Wyatt,

By the time you read this, it will be too late for us both.

But guess what? I managed to keep my identity secret for nearly a year, before Phoebe found me out. I think it's a Halliwell record, but I'm sure it won't surprise you. I've kept things from you for longer.

They all know who I am now, which was inconvenient at first, but now means that at least they're helping me. You can't win against all of us. Whoever turned you won't win, either.

Even Leo's actually helping me, if you can believe it. He isn't anything like I remember. Maybe this time, he'll never end up that way.
M̶a̶y̶b̶e̶ ̶m̶o̶m̶ ̶w̶i̶l̶l̶ ̶e̶v̶e̶n̶—̶

But that's not the point. The point is, I'm going to save you. I know I will, because your prophetess told me I would. We're already so close. I know it will be soon.

I don't know why I'm writing this to you, except that I guess I wanted a better goodbye than the one we got. You're still my brother, and even if I succeed, you always will be. You were right about that much, at least. That's not something I can wish away. I'm not sure I would do it, even if I could.

I can never forgive you, though. For Bianca. For Paige and Henry. For Daniel and Gracie and all of the countless others. But I can forgive the Wyatt that's with me here.

He's so pure and good. I never imagined you could be this innocent. This time, I'm going to make sure you stay that way.

I am sorry it ended like this, for all of us. But then, it's not really an end, is it?

It's a new beginning.

Your brother, always

Wyatt closed the book, and turned to look out the window. He could see the horizon disappearing, one building at a time. It was all fading away, and it was coming closer so quickly. It was destroying everything he'd built, and everything in its path.

We're all going to die for you, his prophetess had told him, and so had Sabine. But he'd never truly grasped what it had meant.

His brother had unwritten this entire world.

"Goodbye, Christopher," Wyatt whispered, and as the nothingness rolled over him like a wave, he gave one last slow grin.

It was time to start again.