Chapter One

A/N: I do not own any of the characters from Charmed. The only ones I own are Jake and Emily-jury's out on Melinda/Mel as she is not canon in the show but she does appear in the Charmed comics.

I'd like to give a shout out to Swt Charmed Fan for agreeing to Beta this story! I can't wait to continue to work with them as I write more chapters.

Let me know what you think and please be sure to leave a review!

It was a quiet day in the Halliwell manor and for once, the three sisters seemed to be having a normal day. The three of them were lounging in the sun room, sipping on iced tea and smiling at the almost one year old playing on the ground. Phoebe was even using this time to catch up on some work that had fallen to the wayside as her column had increased in reader popularity.

Paige and Phoebe, both of whom had briefly moved out of the manor during the incident with Bianca and Chris, had decided to move back home. Phoebe said it was because she couldn't let Piper handle everything by herself with running the club and taking care of Wyatt, on top of dealing with their neurotic whitelighter. Paige on the other hand couldn't help but feel stifled at Richard's since her self-inflicted magic ban. Don't get me wrong, she still loved him—it was hard though finding a balance between spending time with the man she loved and the talents she was born with.

One would think they'd be enjoying the down time, especially as their new whitelighter had been driving them on a demon vanquish hunt almost since he arrived in their lives. In fact, one would think they'd be happy to not see said whitelighter due to all the secrets he kept and the lies he had spun. Alas, one would find that was not the case.

"I know I'm basically cursing our very rare downtime," Paige said, looking up from her sketch pad and looking at her older sisters, "but does anyone else feel concerned about Chris? He hasn't been the same since he came back from the future."

Indeed, Chris had been more abrupt and closed off since the incident two weeks ago. Any attempts to talk to him had been met with either a lengthy conversation about the demon de jour or blue and white orbs glaring in your eyes as the younger man left to go Elders know where.

"Well do you blame him, Paige?" Phoebe asked as she set down one of the many letters she was trying to respond to. Chris puzzled her as well, especially since she hadn't gotten a reading off of his emotions since the incident with Bianca. Phoebe suspected that Chris may have taken another Empath blocking potion and unfortunately it wasn't entirely out of the question. "I mean he had to leave his fiancée in the future. Not to mention she betrayed him and is now realistically dead, if what he said when he came back is true."

"Good afternoon madam buzzkill," Piper looked over at her baby sister but didn't disagree. "I know we've all be enjoying these past demon few days but Phoebe's right. I mean, I don't trust Chris anymore now than I did then—especially since he lied about being just a whitelighter—"

"Hey!"

"Paige, I don't mean anything by it," Piper shook her head at her little sister. "I just mean that if he'd been honest about his witch side, we might have a better time trusting him now. What else is he hiding? Also, why couldn't he join us on these demon hunts he always sent us on?"

"That's…a good point," Paige agreed. "Still, it does explain why he couldn't heal. Remember I had trouble at first too—still do in fact. Plus, maybe he was ashamed of his witch side?"

"Anyway, shouldn't we maybe comfort Chris?" Phoebe said, steering the subject away from dangerous waters. "I mean, it's been a couple of weeks and he probably thinks we don't trust him at all. He could get hurt if he's trying to take on the demons by himself. Especially if he's trying to take on upper level demons by himself."

Piper sighed. "You're right Phoebs. Chris is at best getting over the betrayal of his fiancée, which we all know how that can sting. At worst, he's grieving and trying to suppress it. I know better than anyone how dangerous it can be to not address your grief. We don't want another fury on our hands, especially as now we don't have anything for Chris to rage at."

"So what are we waiting for?!" Paige jumped up and set her sketch pad on the side table. "We all know where he is after all—if he's not in the Underworld, he's glued to the book."

Phoebe and Piper both chuckled at their younger sister's antics and soon all three of the girls found their way up the stairs toward the attic of the Halliwell manor. It was a well known path for the three women and even with a slight detour as Piper set Wyatt down for a nap, they still made it to the attic ten minutes later.

Putting a hand on the door, Paige hoped that their neurotic whitelighter from the future was in fact there and that he'd be in the mood to talk. She couldn't admit it to Piper and Phoebe but it was nice to have another half whitelighter half witch in the manor who didn't need to have his diaper changed constantly. Even if said half witch half whitelighter was almost impossible to talk to if the subject was anything other than protecting Wyatt or demons.

"Hey Paige?" Phoebe whispered, breaking Paige out of her thoughts. "You going to open the door soon?"

"Sorry," Paige whispered back and opened the door leading to the attic, stepping aside to let her sisters pass her. To their surprise, their whitelighter was standing hunched over the Book of Shadows. Chris had been extremely difficult to track down and often only came to the Manor to look over the book or to gather the sisters if the Power of Three was needed.

It hadn't been needed much in the weeks since Bianca died.

"Chris?" Phoebe called out, walking toward him, inwardly wincing as she caught sight of bruising around his neck. It had been much more visible after he arrived from the future but you could still see a faint outline. It stood out more due to how pale the younger man had gotten over the past couple of weeks. The only thing that seemed to stand out more were the bags under his eyes from lack of sleep. "You going to look up from that book?"

"Yeah, that can't be good for your neck," Paige nodded as she walked into the attic. Chris looked up with a start and then seemed to relax upon seeing the sisters. Well, as much as Chris could relax, that was. Whatever happened to him in the future caused him to become even more alert, if such a thing was possible. Even the few times Phoebe had walked in on him crashed out on the sofa in the attic, Chris managed to stay as tense as possible—as if waiting for the next attack.

"Oh, hey," Chris nodded and then looked back up with a furrowed brow. Paige could almost see the cogs churning around in his brain. Ever since he came back from the future, he was extremely attentive to where Wyatt was—it almost rivaled Piper at times. "What's going on? Where's Wyatt?"

"Taking a nap," Piper said, sitting down on one of the many odd chairs the Halliwells had up in their attic that hadn't been destroyed by demon attacks or Piper's powers going haywire, and held up a small baby monitor to try to let Chris know that Wyatt was still being looked after. "You know Chris, all work and no play makes you a dull witch. You want to take a break?"

Chris sighed and ran a hand through his hair, which was lying rather limp on his head. Almost as if he hadn't washed it for a few days—and Phoebe would be surprised if he had. The Underworld wasn't known for its running water.

Neither was the office in P3, she thought with a frown. That tiny office barely counted as a bedroom.

"I'm fine Piper," he said, his emotionless mask firmly in place. "Look, I'm no closer to figuring out how to save the future than I was a couple weeks ago."

"Yeah but a couple weeks ago you were coming to us for help," Paige pointed out. Phoebe bit back a smile at Chris' expression as he heard that.

"Unbelievable! I can't win," he shook his head in disbelief. "First you complain about all the demon hunts and vanquishes, telling me that you want separate lives from your duties as the Charmed Ones. Now when I decide to grant your request, you're coming to me not happy about the fact that I'm not coming to you with demon hunts and vanquishes."

"Well when you put it that way," Phoebe chuckled causing Chris to sigh once more and drop his head back into his reading. The sisters were at a loss, unsure of their next move. The silence was almost suffocating as the only sound came from the scratch of Chris' pen on paper. As he looked back up, his look of shock almost made Phoebe burst out laughing—almost. It was rare to shock their bitchy whitelighter, let alone for him to actually show it.

"Was there something you guys needed?" Chris asked, as he tore a page out of his notebook and crammed it into his pocket, which looked filled to the brim with pieces from his spiral notebook. "Cause I've got to go…"

They never found out what it was that Chris was going to do because all of a sudden, the wall to his right began to glow blue. Phoebe backed up and subconsciously placed a hand on the Book of Shadows. She had seen this before—granted she had also seen it when Bianca took Chris back to the future but she also saw it when a demon stole the Book of Shadows four years ago. If it was the latter, she'd like to be prepared.

"What's going on?" Paige asked but before anyone had the chance to answer, three young looking people jumped through the portal. Thankfully, it closed up after the three of them landed on the attic's floor because otherwise the sisters might have prepared themselves for a fight.

"Okay, who are they?" Piper turned and asked Chris but stopped as a look of unfamiliar fury broke through her normally unemotional whitelighter. He stormed over to the group and grabbed the lone male by the collar.

"What the hell?" the young man exclaimed and tried to wriggle free but Chris had a vice like grip on his collar and had now pinned him to the wall. "Chris, come on! Let me go!"

"What are you doing here?!" Chris growled, his body tensed and it was clear that if this stranger wasn't careful, he could end up on Chris' vanquish list. If he wasn't already on it, that is.

"Saving your sister's ass, you jerk! Now let me go!" the younger man exclaimed, motioning to one of the girls lying motionless on the floor. Phoebe gasped upon seeing the state of the young girl, no, woman. Her light brown hair lay limp and draped over her face like a curtain, with small cuts littering her face and arms. Her pinched face and skinny body suggested, like the other time travelers, that she had lost a lot of weight in a rapid amount of time. However, the gaping hole in her abdomen concerned the middle Halliwell witch more.

Piper and Paige exchanged shocked looks—they had never thought of Chris having a sibling before. He just seemed like the loner type, and with his no nonsense attitude the sisters ended up treating him the way they did the Elders sometimes—simply ignoring the request. However, the mixed look of shock and pain on Chris' face destroyed that image in Piper's head. It was clear that Chris couldn't have been more than 20—far too young to have all this happen to him.

"Mel?" Chris gasped, dropping the younger man and knelt down next to the woman. He gently brushed some of her hair out of her face, unaware of the sisters' presence in the attic."Mel, what are you doing here?"

"H-helping you," Mel gasped out and Phoebe winced as the unfettered emotions of the new time travelers seemed to hit her at once. The constant stream of pain, fear, shock, anger, and love was so intense that it almost knocked her over."Demon energy balls hurt like a b-bitch though."

"Language," Chris warned but the light smile killed any sense of reprimand he was going for.

"Y-yes mom," Mel said, wincing as a bolt of pain shot up her body. Chris quickly grabbed her hand and gave it a quick squeeze, as if reassuring her that he was still there.

"So before we get this lovely reunion underway," the last remaining member of the group piped up, "think we could call Leo and get him to heal so we don't have to worry about Chris beating the hell out of Jake here for his little sister being injured? Cause um…none of us can heal."

Piper shook her head as if to clear out of the cobwebs and nodded, not questioning how they knew about her ex-husband. If they really were from the future, it would be natural that they'd know about him."LEO!"

Blue and white lights filled the room and as they cleared, the image of their former whitelighter turned Elder greeted them. An odd combination of worry and curiousness found its way onto his face as he realized that he was in the attic and not where ever it was that the Elders met. "Piper, what's wrong?"

"Heal please!" Piper said, gesturing to the wounded Mel. Leo, shooting Chris a questioning look, knelt down beside the younger girl and placed his hands above the wound. A bright yellow light began to glow out of his hands and a few minutes later, Mel was sitting up—no sign of the wound evident on her body. Phoebe wished the same could be said for the few scars she could see as the slightly small shirt lifted up but the younger girl pulled it down before anyone could comment.

"Now that's more like it!" Mel grinned and hopped up on to her feet. "Now, Chris I do believe you owe me a hug because I did not get blasted by a demon and travel through time for you to just stand there like a big doofus!"

Chris chuckled but wrapped her into his arms. To Phoebe, it almost looked as though he was using her the way a drowning man would use a life raft. Though to be fair, Mel's grip seemed to equal that of her brother's. How long had it been since the siblings had seen each other?

"Wait," Chris said and Mel groaned as he broke up the hug. "What are you doing here Mel? How are you here? I thought I took the spell with me when I came back so no one could follow me."

"You did," the other girl nodded and pushed off the wall to approach the pair. "But we heard about what happened to Bianca and your aunt had memorized the spell. Plus we wanted to make sure you were okay."

"By traveling back in time?"

"Hey, I didn't say it was a particularly smart plan!"

"When are your plans ever smart, Emily?" Chris asked with a smirk. It had almost seemed as if the four of them had forgotten that the sisters and Leo were in the room. Not that they were complaining or anything—this was one of the few times they got to see an unguarded Chris.

"Nice to see you too," Emily chuckled and pulled her blonde hair into a pony tail. "Man it's bright around here."

"Question," Phoebe piped up, unable to resist speaking, even if it did run the risk of bringing Chris back to the present. "But who are you?"

The three newbies looked over at her with looks of shock visible,while Chris seemed to slip back into his emotionless mask he had been wearing ever since he came back from the future. It really was a little disturbing watching him do that. It just served to remind Phoebe that Chris didn't really have anyone to talk to in their time period. Hopefully, that would change with the arrival of the new time travelers.

"I swear to god Chris if you utter 'future consequences', I will orb you out that window!" Mel growled as Chris was about to open his mouth. " We had to deal with you saying that for three months before you left us! They saw us come through the portal and besides that, Jake already revealed I'm related to you!"

"Yeah why are you with Jake anyway?" Chris raised an eyebrow as he crossed his arms over his chest. "I thought we had 'vanquish on sight' orders when it came to him ever since he changed sides."

Mel chuckled nervously. "Yeah, um… about that—"

"Your sister's dating him," Emily said as bluntly as possible and walked over to the Book of Shadows to flip through it. Piper couldn't help but be reminded of Chris' actions the first time she met him—back during the Titan incident when Paige had been turned to stone. "But then again Jake did save her from getting captured and sent to the dungeons, thereby avoiding torture at the Dark Lord's demons; hence the temporary non-vanquished state he's currently in."

Chris blew out an irritated sigh, one the girls and Leo were very familiar with. Though none of them missed the slight pause Chris took when Emily mentioned the 'Dark Lord', whoever he was. It was clear that no matter what was going on, Chris was going to care more about his sister's safety before petty things like who she was dating. "You're dating him?"

"Did you miss the part where he saved my life?!" Mel shouted back. "I swear to god Chris, I do not need your overprotective crap right now! I've already heard about it from almost everyone back home. I'm sixteen— I think I can make decisions about my life by now!"

"Oh really? Because you could have seriously screwed up the future by just being here! I was doing just fine!"

"Really? Then how was Bianca able to bring you back to the future without your powers? Shouldn't you have fought her off? Or did the big bad overly prepared witchlighter get caught off guard by his fiancée?!" Mel shot back and as soon as the words left her lips, she looked as if she instantly regretted them, if the widening of her eyes and the slight bite of her lip held any indication. "Oh Chris, that wasn't what I meant."

"Don't worry about it," Chris muttered and then sighed. Phoebe and Paige inwardly pouted as they watched Chris wall himself back up. It was interesting to see the more emotional side of him. Too bad it only seemed to appear when people came back from the future though. "What are we going to do? There's no spell to get you back and I'm not about to send you to the future if he's on your tail."

"They could just stay here," Paige suggested. "I mean, if you're going to go on demon hunts by yourself, it couldn't hurt to have a little backup, could it?"

Three pairs of eyes landed on Chris and the sisters felt very amused at the looks of disbelief that were on the time traveler's faces. It was if they didn't know what the whitelighter was doing in his spare time. To be fair though, it was entirely possible that they didn't but as they knew Chris, it shouldn't be too much to ask that they'd have a hint of his plan right?

"Demon hunts?" Jake hissed, one eyebrow raised and his arms crossed in a rather brave stance for someone on Chris' vanquish on sight list. "You're supposed to be protecting the sisters, not wiping out the entire demon population."

"Yeah, when's the last time you took a break?" Emily asked, leaning against the stand which held the Book of Shadows. "Cause no offense but you look and smell like shit."

"How is that not offensive?" Chris asked, slightly amused but anyone with eyes could see that Chris was still incredibly tense. Then again, it could have had something to do with the now combination of both Jake and Leo and not the ever deteriorating nature of his health.

"Chris," Mel warned and Chris rolled his eyes. "Chris, we need to talk. In private."

This got Chris' attention but unfortunately it also captured the attention of the sisters.

"What about?" Phoebe asked and Mel donned the same emotionless mask as her brother. Despite being used to it from Chris, seeing the normally animated girl do it was particularly freaky. Especially as Phoebe could still feel the pain, anger and love that was coming from the younger girl.

"Future consequences," Mel told her and orbed herself and Chris out of the room—leaving her two compatriots in the attic.

"OH REAL NICE!" Jake shouted. " YOU KNOW WE CAN'T ORB, MEL!"

A shower of blue and white orbs lit up the room and as they cleared, Mel was shaking her head at him in amusement.

"You really think I'd leave you here to the sharks?" the younger girl asked and raised an eyebrow as Jake seemed to need time to think it over. "Never mind. Come on, we've got three seconds to talk to Chris before he disappears on us."

"Okay we do not want that to happen. Last time we ended up in Australia and Emily ended up spending five minutes wrestling a much needed vanquishing potion away from a kangaroo," Jake sighed. Mel chuckled but grabbed the other two and left in a shower of blue and white orbs before the others in the room could ask any questions.

The room was silent for a few minutes as everyone took the time to process what had just occurred.

"What the hell just happened?" Piper asked the question that was going through everyone's head.