Author's Notes:

I know updates are slow, but please rest assured that I will never abandon this story.

We Are Raw

Chapter 9: Scars of Time

xXxXx

"I'm still the same, pursuing pain.

Is it worth all that I've gained?

We both know how this will end,

But I'd do it again."

RED, "Fight Inside"

In another life many years ago, in a kinder and easier world, there once was a little boy. This young boy adored his mother and his brother, and all of his aunts and uncles and cousins; he looked forward to seeing them every day and playing with them all weekend, enjoyed their stories and their laughter and watching them fight demons like the heroes from his favorite comic books.

But despite the immense love and joy that filled his life, sometimes there was still an aching, yawning hole inside him; filled with a broken loneliness that could never be soothed or ignored. It throbbed when he saw his friends at school getting picked up at the end of the day, and when they took family trips to the park or the movies; it ached when he watched movies and television shows, pierced on holidays, and burned with molten fire on his birthday.

Because this little boy had no father.

Just an endless supply of letters.

xXxXx

"I still say someone should have gone after him," Paige grumbled as they exited the dining hall, heading for their bedrooms in order to prepare everything they would need to take for their nightly bath. Dinner had been a somewhat awkward affair, with Erica sitting next to them and glowering at anyone who dared come close in an attempt to speak with the famous Charmed Ones, chaperoning them in place of their absent whitelighter. She trailed beside them now, seemingly resigned to her fate as temporary babysitter.

Leo heaved a weary sigh and repeated himself once more (likely not for the last time, either). "If Chris doesn't want to be found, I can't exactly force my sensing ability to miraculously find him. You know that, Paige."

"Oh come on, you mean you don't have even a little bit more juice now that you're an Elder?"

"The strength of an Elder's sensing ability is only as mighty as that of the heavens from whence they came," Erica corrected with a frown. "He is the last, and the realm of the whitelighters was destroyed many years ago. Therefore, he has no resources to tap into that could bolster his power."

The sisters exchanged a puzzled glance, then turned to their former whitelighter expectantly. "In English, please?" went unspoken, but was obvious in the slant of their raised eyebrows and blank expressions.

Leo eyed them out of the corner of his eyes, then sighed again. "Without other Elders to support me, my sensing isn't any more powerful than the average whitelighter."

"Oh. Bummer."

"Well, that sucks."

"Yes, it does," agreed the Elder wryly.

They shuffled along quietly after this, occasionally exchanging smiles or waves with residents as they passed by. Despite Chris' previous reassurances that they were held in high esteem for their long history of fighting evil, there were a few members of the local population that glared resentfully at them as they passed by. Though they were rare, each one sent a spike of raw guilt into Piper and Leo's hearts. After a week of reflection and shame, they were still nowhere near the point where they'd come to grips with the reality of their beloved child's twisted future. It seemed so hopeless to think that all of this might somehow be fated to occur, since all of their love and protection hadn't prevented it in the first place. Despite their agreed-upon separation in the past, here they clung to each other in overwhelmed desperation, scrambling to understand how their son had gone down such a dark path. The two extremes were impossible to reconcile inside their head; how on earth had such an innocent child become that?

"I don't understand," Phoebe said suddenly as they passed another sullen local, who stared balefully at their group. "I thought Chris said no one blamed us for Wyatt turning evil?"

Erica gave a soft and nearly imperceptible sigh, closing her eyes as though praying for patience. "Chris is...ever an optimist."

"Wait, are we talking about the same Chris here?" Piper snorted, laughing openly in response to this ridiculous statement.

"Um, yeah," agreed Paige with evident disbelief. "Mr. Chris 'Doom-and-gloom, get-your-lives-together' Perry is so far from being that positive."

The Valkyrie's lips quirked up in obvious amusement, which she made no attempt to suppress. "While that is certainly true, Chris does have a stubborn streak of optimism he can never let go of. Despite all evidence to the contrary, he still believes that Wyatt can be saved, that he was meant for good instead of such great evil. He also believes that all people have an inherent source of good in them, even those that perhaps he should not extend such trust to."

"You're crazy!" Piper insisted with a sarcastic chortle of laughter. From what she had witnessed, Chris was far more like her late sister Prue - stubborn, paranoid, and always ready for the other proverbial shoe to drop in every situation.

Erica raised an eyebrow at them. "How then do you explain Bianca?"

The sisters stared at each other for a moment in disbelief, then turned back to the Valkyrie warrior and replied in unison: "Love."

"There is that, yes, but that came much later. When she first defected to our side, there was a great uproar over her presence. No one wanted her here, thinking she was a spy of the Regime. But Chris stood up for her, stubbornly allowing her the chance to be good and fight on the Resistance's side, despite her history and her family. Said that he would have never made it out of Wyatt's castle without her." Erica paused for a moment and shrugged. "Yes, he is cautious and extremely paranoid. But he also believes in giving everyone a chance...even if that chance is given under very watchful guard."

"Wait," Piper said suddenly. Her eyebrows furrowed as she replayed the last few sentences in her mind. "What do you mean, he would've never made it out of Wyatt's castle? I thought they were friends before he came to the past. In that...broadcast, Wyatt was angry about his betrayal."

Erica inclined her head in agreement before the eldest Halliwell had even finished speaking, her braids sliding forward over her shoulders. "This is true. I do not know the full story, but sometime after Chris convinced Wyatt he was on his side and infiltrated the Regime, Bianca was assigned to guard him and keep him from harm; he saved her from death, earning her loyalty and love. She assisted him in escaping the castle many, many times for his missions. It was her idea to travel to the past and fix everything before the destruction could happen. Partly because we are fighting a losing battle, but also because it became too dangerous to continue his double life as Perry Falcon, leader of the Resistance, and Lord Christopher, of Wyatt's Regime."

The sisters froze immediately and stared at Erica in naked horror.

"Lord Christopher?" Piper choked out, her voice sounding slightly strangled.

Erica stopped walking as she noticed their disappearance from her side. She turned to them in mild surprise, dark eyebrows furrowed to show her puzzlement. "I thought you were aware of his time as a spy?"

"Well, yeah, but- Lord Christopher?!" Paige cried indignantly, wide eyes focused on the warrior.

The Valkyrie frowned slightly at the mingled outrage and horror on their faces, then she glanced at Leo in curiosity to see his reaction to this news. His skin had paled visibly, but the expression on his face was more one of resignation rather than surprise.

"He was Wyatt's right hand, wasn't he?" the Elder questioned with a soft tone.

Erica tilted her head to the side as she considered his statement. "Not exactly. Lord Wyatt is fiercely possessive and keeps a firm hand on that which he considers 'his.' Though the demons referred to Chris as 'Lord' as with Wyatt, in truth he was more of an unnaturally valued pet. He was untouchable - anyone who harmed him would merit instant torture and death. But he was not allowed to leave Wyatt's castle without a guard or small army to keep an eye on him. Though given freedom to practice magic openly and walk around, he was still just as much a prisoner as the people in Wyatt's dungeons. The golden swan in a gilded cage, if you will."

Phoebe exchanged another puzzled glance with her sisters. "Okay, I'm still not understanding you here. How did he and Bianca leave all the time without someone suspecting?"

A spark of fierce pride flared within Erika's dark eyes. "Chris is one of the most resourceful witches I have ever met. They worked secretly at night and slipped away during the times when Wyatt was otherwise occupied. He spirited away a few prisoners almost every night."

"And no one noticed?!" Paige gasped incredulously. It seemed unbelievable to think their young whitelighter could have managed such extreme subterfuge, even with the assistance of a trained assassin. They'd been suspicious of his motives and actions for so long, it seemed impossible that such a powerful witch and his army would miss something so obvious.

Erica's enthusiasm dimmed visibly at this question. "Well...for every one he saved, ten more took their place. Lord Wyatt had better things to do than take inventory of the cattle in his cellar."

Piper lifted a hand and placed it on her chest, pressing against the throbbing ache hidden within. No matter how much she learned about this desolate world, it was still devastating to hear of her beautiful child becoming such a monster. How did they let things become this way?

"I just can't believe that Wyatt didn't at least, y'know...suspect something," Phoebe insisted with a baffled frown.

Shrugging, Erica replied: "Wyatt has always believed that Chris is on his side. It never occurred to him that they might disagree on his plans for the world, not until Chris was already gone and out of reach in the past."

They walked in silence for several minutes, each of them reflecting on this new knowledge and trying to fit it into their mental view of the witch hybrid. The orb lights mounted upon the stone walls began to dim as they continued onward, signaling the beginning of the night hours and the approaching curfew for citizens. As the shadows beneath their feet lengthened, Leo suddenly realized something rather specific about Erica's explanation; something that, in hindsight, should have been obvious from the start.

"Chris Perry isn't his real name."

It couldn't be, not if he had been using 'Perry' as his Resistance moniker. The similarities would have been too obvious to the demonic army, not to mention Wyatt himself.

The sisters turned to look at him immediately, startled once more. Erica simply laughed at him in derision. "Well of course it isn't. Would you make your identity obvious, in his place?"

The time-travelers exchanged loaded, uneasy glances. "Well..." Phoebe said uneasily. "She does have a point."

By this time they had finally made it back to their assigned rooms, and here Erica inclined her head toward them respectfully before abruptly walking away in silence, presumably to her own room.

In the awkward, quiet atmosphere left behind by their startling discoveries, Paige decided to voice what had been on her mind for the entirety of their trek through the winding, cavernous tunnel systems of the Resistance.

"Hey guys? Just wondering here...um, why didn't we just orb back to our rooms?"

xXxXx

Chris was 7 years old when he and his brother saw their mother crying for the first time.

Intending to surprise her with breakfast for Valentine's Day, he had gleefully used his telekinesis to nudge open her bedroom door, tray of lopsided pancakes and runny eggs clutched eagerly in his tiny hands, while Wyatt carried a large glass of orange juice and a vase of hastily picked flowers from the yard. He had opened his mouth, intending to announce their presence with a loudly shouted "Good morning!" only to freeze in the doorway as he caught sight of her sitting on the edge of the bed, clutching a picture frame and facing away from the door. Her shoulders were hunched and shaking as though with uncontrollable laughter, but the quiet sobs emanating from her throat told him otherwise. Tears fell freely from her eyes, dripping so swiftly they hit the picture frame directly instead of rolling down her cheeks.

With a sinking heart, he realized there was absolutely nothing they could do to help; they couldn't make the man in the picture frame magically appear to chase away her sadness, and there was no spell he could think of that would force him to stay.

Their father had more important things to do "Up There," after all.

Chris breathed a weary sigh and rubbed his forehead, hoping to chase away the old memories. Being around his family, here in his original timeline, was somehow infinitely harder to endure than the time spent around them in the past. Whether that was because of their prolonged contact or the proximity to his real life here in the Resistance, he still wasn't quite certain; but it was chipping away at all of his usual defenses at an alarming rate.

"You're right, Chris. I chose the Elders over my family. Maybe if I hadn't, this war wouldn't even exist."

Growling under his breath, Chris ripped his gear off and flung it savagely at the wall. Remembering his father's earnest words still filled him with an incomprehensible mix of rage, sorrow, resentment, and (oddly) guilt. It made no sense; why was the man so unbelievably different from his memories? The Leo he'd known all his life did not match the Leo from the past in any recognizable way, save for physical appearance. He was so incredibly devoted to his family; when Chris structured the disastrous encounter with the Titans the way he had, he'd expected Leo to sever all ties with the family upon his ascension to Elder status - the way he had in Chris' lifetime. But even after becoming an Elder, the man still refused to stay away, breaking the most sacred rules of the heavens just to remain close somehow even though Piper continued pushing him away. How could sending him to Valhalla cause such an immense change in his father's natural character? Why would the act of driving him away instead cause him to fight harder to stay with the family? It just didn't make sense.

He stopped suddenly in the act of gathering clean clothes, eyes staring unseeing at the messy contents of his room. What if his father hadn't changed because of Valhalla? Rather, what if Leo had always been as he was now, and the event that changed him so drastically in the timeline he knew was actually the same thing that had set Wyatt on the path of evil?

If something tragic and irreversible had happened when Leo was close to the family, how incredibly guilty would he feel for being unable to prevent it? Would it drive him away, thinking that his presence was somehow the catalyst or driving force behind the attack? Would the shame overwhelm him every time he looked at his two infant sons?

Or, was it something simpler, like a fear of getting too close to his second son, lest the same thing befall him?

Groaning to himself, Chris raked a hand wildly through his hair and tossed his shoes with careless disregard into the nearest corner. It was utterly pointless to dwell on this, on maybes and what-ifs, with only guesses and supposed facts as fuel for his assumptions. Whatever the reason, Leo was clearly a different sort of person than the father he had known or built up in his mind, and he needed to shape up and stop letting those differences get in the way of his mission and ability to handle unexpected situations. If he didn't get it together, a lot of people could die from his inattention and distracted focus preventing a calm mind during a disaster situation.

He heaved a weary sigh at himself. "Come on, Chris. You need to get your head in the game."

Shrugging off the memories and anxious musings, he clutched his bundle of fresh clothes and strode towards the door of his room. He shoved it open carelessly with one shoulder and passed through the faintly shimmering ward, intending to walk the entire way to the bath house to give himself something else to focus on; but he froze in the doorway as he caught sight of the exact subject of his thoughts, standing with the sisters in the middle of the hall at the entrance to their rooms. They turned at the sound of his door opening, and honed their gazes directly upon him as if driven by a magnetic pull.

He could see it in their faces the moment they noticed the blood and black ichor coating his entire body. Their eyes widened, mouths dropped open in shock, and then Leo leaned forward as if he were about to orb straight over to him, hands already beginning to glow with a bright, healing light.

Yeah, not happening.

With narrowed eyes, the witchlighter quickly orbed away, aiming for the shadows of an intersecting passage close to the entrance of the bath houses. He waited there for several tense minutes, waiting to see if they would follow him, then eventually relaxed his muscles and entered the men's bath.

It would be good to finally get a quiet reprieve from his family's presence.

xXxXx

Late that night, Piper sighed wearily and flipped onto her back to stare at the natural grooves in the stone ceiling above her. So far she had been completely unable to sleep, tossing and turning throughout the night as though her pregnancy were already in third trimester. With a grumpy huff, she maneuvered out from under Leo's heavy arm and slipped her feet into the comfortable slippers that had materialized in her room a few days ago. Suspiciously, they had appeared right after a conversation with their resident witchlighter about how ridiculously cold the stone floors in their room were.

In fact, it was thoughts of the whitelighter himself currently keeping her awake. She just couldn't seem to stop worrying about the way he had looked earlier, drenched in blood from both humans and demons, looking so exhausted a wayward breeze might have sent him to the floor. They had all argued for nearly twenty minutes after his disappearance, debating whether to go after him with the intent to interrogate and heal his wounds, or whether they should just leave him alone. Eventually they had decided he would have come to them directly if he actually wanted their help, and it would be best to not stir up anymore discord between the five of them. (After all, it's not like any of their previous interrogation attempts ever actually succeeded.)

Despite this, she couldn't seem to shake the urge to check on him and make sure he wasn't in pain or desperate need somehow. There were so many times in the past year when he'd been in obvious pain, clearly suffering, and they'd done nothing; or worse, pounced on the weakness and lashed out at him. With an irritated roll of her eyes, Piper sighed and shuffled to the door leading to the hallway, shaking her head at herself.

You're being silly, Piper, she told herself firmly. What are you, his mother? He's probably fine; sleeping the night away - like you should be. Stupid.

She quietly opened the door and squeezed through it, shutting it behind her with a faint latching sound. The orb lights attached to the walls in the hallway were considerably dimmed, barely giving her enough light to see by as she walked toward Chris' room. Not for the first time, she marveled at the magic involved in crafting the systems that helped run the daily lives and functions of everyone living here. It was truly an incredible design, with simple necessities of life realized through complex spell-craft and sheer magical ingenuity. Despite her longing for a normal, peaceful life, she couldn't help but wish for a similar magical community back home in their time, where they could reach out for assistance or connect with others that had gone through the same issues they faced time after time. There was Magic School of course, though that was aimed more at children rather than adults.

Her musings faded away as she reached the door to Chris' suite. She lifted a hand to knock, then paused uncertainly. What if he was sleeping, and she would be interrupting his desperately needed rest? What if he-

The door cracked open suddenly, causing her to flinch back in surprise. A weary green eyeball peered through the crack between the door and the wall, focusing on her with resigned curiosity.

"Piper? What's wrong?"

"Ah-" she stuttered, rather unprepared for the abrupt conversation. She fumbled for an explanation that wouldn't make her seem just as neurotic as their whitelighter. "I, uh...just wanted to...make sure you were okay."

The green eye peeking out from the door frame blinked at her for a few moments, and then the door swung open wider to reveal the young man, looking rumpled and absolutely exhausted. His eyebrows furrowed in puzzlement as he stared at her, expression clearly communicating his disbelief of her reasoning.

"To make sure I'm okay, huh?" he muttered, scrutinizing her sharply. She plastered a smile onto her face, at a loss for words. How was she supposed to explain her ridiculous thoughts about a man whom had already proven able to take care of himself a million times over?

One of his dark eyebrows raised in question. "Can't sleep, huh?"

She grimaced; he clearly knew her far too well. "Nope."

Chris chuckled at her curt reply and opened his mouth to respond, then paused and glanced over his shoulder into the room. "Would you like to go for a walk?"

"After all the walking we did today? Are you crazy?"

Chris' expression turned rueful at her sarcasm. With a pained little smile, he stepped out of her way and gestured at her with one arm. "Make yourself at home, then."

She stepped over the threshold into his room and found it (unsurprisingly) as trashed as his little room in P3. Clothes were in haphazard piles on the floor, strange artifacts littered what little desk and chair space there were, and books and stacks of yellowed paper were laid out in an oddly precise circle around his bed, as if he were conducting some sort of strange studying ritual.

"What's all this?"

"Just more research for the wards," Chris answered quickly. He twisted his wrist in an awkward sort of flicking motion, then all of the books and papers shot up into the air and zoomed over to his desk. With a smaller gesture, the existing objects already strewn across the wooden frame scrunched up together on one side in order to make room for the new additions.

Piper clucked her tongue at him, choosing to ignore his suspicious reaction in favor of the astounding pig sty she had walked into. "This place is a mess, Chris! You need to learn how to pick up after yourself."

This seemed an innocent enough statement to her, but somehow these casual words immediately leeched the color from her whitelighter's face. His throat convulsed as he swallowed hard in response, and his voice, when it emerged, was strangled with an indefinable emotion. "Yeah...my mom used to say that too."

He clammed up immediately, clenching his jaw tight and moving over to the hastily cleared bed. Piper watched him sit down and glare at the wall ferociously, as though it were somehow to blame for whatever had happened to his late mother.

Feeling rather sorry for him (she knew all too well what it was like to lose a mom, after all), she decided to give him some momentary space to regain his composure and set about tidying up his room. Mindful of the life growing inside her, she made sure not to pick up anything that seemed heavy, and instead focused on the clothes, papers, shoes, and other various items thrown about like a hurricane had come through. After a few quiet minutes of this, Piper realized suddenly that some of the clothes weren't even for a male.

She snorted softly in amusement and raised her head to tease him with her discovery, only to freeze as she caught sight of the desperately lost, yearning expression on the whitelighter's face. He glanced away immediately when their eyes met, visibly struggling to maintain his normal neutral expression.

With a jolt of horror, Piper abruptly understood where the clothes had come from - Bianca.

She quickly finished grabbing all of the clothes off the floor and tossed them into a nearby basket (was that hand-woven?), internally berating herself for what she'd been so close to saying. Over the last week she had grown so comfortable in his presence that it felt natural to tease him as if he were one of her close friends. It had been easy to forget that this was a person who had suffered a life far more terrible than hers, filled with commonplace death, betrayal, and a constant struggle for food and safety. He wasn't the type to go for a casual fling, not with the situation here and everything riding on his shoulders, and certainly not after losing his fiancee.

When Piper had finished tidying up the worst of the offending mess in the room, she tentatively glanced back at the whitelighter sitting on the bed. His green eyes were fastened on her once more, clouded with a desperate, aching sadness as he watched her shuffle around the room like-

...like a mother.

Oh. Oh, Chris...I'm so sorry.

How often had she watched mothers in the aisles and waiting lines, when Grams took them to a nearby store or park? How many times had she stared openly, hungry for the gentle love and affection of those women with their bright-eyed newborns? How much had she yearned to have her injuries and emotional wounds patched up and gently kissed by the mom that had been robbed from her early life?

"Chris..." she murmured, heartbroken for his tangible pain. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to-"

"It's fine, Piper," he cut her off stiffly, glancing away once again. "Thank you for cleaning up. You...you didn't have to."

She forced a bright smile to her lips, pretending a cheerfulness she didn't feel. "Don't be silly. It's the least I could do, with everything you do for us."

His face twisted with a strange kind of bitter sorrow, and then smoothed back into the usual guarded expression. "I just do what needs to be done."

"That's not true," she insisted firmly. "You go way beyond what 'needs' to be done. And we're grateful for everything you've done for us."

He stared at her from the corners of his eyes, one edge of his mouth curling up into a sardonic smirk. "Everything?"

"Well..." She frowned. "Maybe not. But I do appreciate your reasons, Chris. To you, it may just be a friend you're trying to save, but Wyatt is my son. Family is everything to me."

In the quiet stillness after this statement, Chris gave her a tiny, sad smile. "I know."

After the heavy beginning to their discussion, Piper made a point of chatting only about light-hearted things – asking him if he had a favorite color (green), when his birthday was (November), what kinds of foods were grown in the underground Garden (mostly vegetables and grains), how the magical system worked for the orb lights on every wall (he and a team of the last whitelighters had apparently molded it together, layered with several conditional spells based on time of day and proximity of living people passing by), and various other inconsequential questions that she had wondered during their time here. Chris was stiff at first, then slowly loosened up as he sensed her intent to avoid any sensitive or invasive topics. The more comfortable he grew in her presence, the more his eyes began to droop and his body eased into the lumpy mattress beneath him.

Eventually he drifted off into an exhausted slumber, twisted awkwardly against the wall behind his back with his head turned toward her. She had moved to the other edge of his bed at some point during their conversation, and now she gently eased off of it, moving around to stand in front of him. Gently, she reached out to touch his shoulder, then paused and considered the way he was always tense and guarded, ready for action at a moment's notice.

"Chris?" she murmured softly. As expected, his body flinched and his eyes shot open and darted wildly around the room. Once he had analyzed the lack of threats, his eyes drooped once more as they lazily focused on her.

"Mm?"

"You shouldn't sleep against the wall like that. Come on, I'll help you lay down."

He hummed in drowsy agreement, his eyelids already closing. Piper smiled softly and gently grasped his shoulders, tilting his lanky frame away from the wall and lowering him to the bed. The witchlighter made a quiet noise of gratitude, then drifted back to sleep. Slightly amused by the transformation from stern, focused warrior to this child-like, easygoing young man, she chuckled quietly and pulled a thick patchwork quilt over his body (apparently she wasn't the only one who froze in these ridiculous cave temperatures).

As she tucked the covers up under his chin, Chris hummed again, so soft she almost missed the sound. "...mm...thanks, Mom..."

She froze; and then her heart sank, once again burdened by the enduring sadness of this future world. How awful it must have been for him, to lose his mother and his best friend, along with everyone else he cared about, in such a short span of time. And here she was, mothering him like a substitute for her own children, both of whom were out of reach, reminding him of the woman he'd lost.

You're being silly. She rolled her eyes at herself. He's a grown man, he doesn't need a babysitter. You'll just bring up bad memories.

Still...watching him now, mostly oblivious to his surroundings, with the solemn lines of his face smoothed out and relaxed in sleep, it was hard to deny the urge to take care of him. He seemed so vulnerable, and so incredibly young; how devastating to think that this young man had to bear the weight of a global war on his back, instead of enjoying his youth and pursuing his dreams. That carefree life had been robbed from him, because she had been too powerless to stop whatever was to come.

Not this time. I'll do whatever it takes to stop all of this from happening.

Resolved and steady once more, Piper quietly slipped out of the room and headed back to her own.

xXxXx

When they orbed to the dining hall the next morning, (and it would forever be this to Piper, because she just couldn't refer to such a foreign place as her kitchen, even in her mind), they were greeted with the sight of several people and magical folk swarming the furthest side of a table in the center of the room. Everyone was clamoring to be heard over the din, which of course made it completely impossible to hear what anyone was actually saying.

They ignored the throng for the time being and made their way to the food counter, where a distracted volunteer brought them four trays and then promptly returned to craning his neck in an attempt to see through the mass of excited residents. Somewhat baffled, the four time-travelers accepted their breakfast and carefully selected a table far away from the loud activity.

"I wonder what's going on?" Phoebe mused, stretching her neck and leaning to one side to try and see through the group.

Paige grunted with an irritable scowl and stared down at her food with sleepy eyes. "Who cares."

Piper hid a smile at her sister's sleepy grumpiness by turning her head towards the chattering group as well. A thin figure turned and caught sight of them, then casually sauntered over. With a lopsided grin, Aidan greeted them warmly with a jaunty little wave above his head.

"Mornin', Halliwells!"

Amused by his sassy attitude, Piper raised her eyebrows and returned the smirk. "Good morning. What's all the excitement about?"

His golden eyes lit up with an eager energy. "You haven't heard?!"

"No, what-"

"It's Chris!" Aidan's smile widened into a full, toothy grin. "Remember that group that got captured yesterday? He led a special team through the San Fran' sewers and got them out before lockdown! It was the fastest rescue mission in the history of the raw! It was awesome."

Piper exchanged a startled look with Leo, who appeared to be stunned into silence, his mouth hanging slightly open.

"Wait- back up a sec here." Paige waved one hand irritably at the teen, looking marginally more awake after this surprising news. "Chris did what for who now?"

Aidan beamed at them with a joy so palpable, his entire face lit up like a child on Christmas morning as he bounced in place. His hyper excitement made him seem infinitely younger than his true age. "Chris launched a rescue mission for the guys that got nabbed by the Regime! No casualties at all! We've never had a mission go down without deaths or severe injuries; I can't even begin to talk about how awesome this is!"

There was a slight pause, and then Phoebe turned to face her sisters. "Okay, am I missing something here? 'Cause I could've sworn he was talking about leaving them to die last night."

Aidan shook his head impatiently at her. "Chris rarely ever says what he actually means; seriously, how long have you known him?"

They all collectively paused, reviewing his words in their minds, and then grimaced as they realized its truth.

"Figures," Paige grumbled. "Guess that explains the blood, at least..."

Before the words had finished leaving her mouth, a startlingly loud crack shot through the noise of hundreds of conversations, reverberating through the cavernous hall.

Startled, the time travelers flinched as one and then turned toward the epicenter of the room, where the noise had originated from. The throng of fans had dissipated somewhat, many taking a few steps away from the scene within, leaving a hole through which they could make out the forms of Chris and Erica. Their whitelighter was seated at the table, his face turned away at a sharp angle, while the Valkyrie loomed over him with one arm thrown perpendicular across her chest. It was evident at a glance that the warrior had just slapped him with all of her unreserved strength.

The witchlighter slowly turned his head back toward his fellow resistance fighter, expression stony and eyes glittering like hard marbles from tightly restrained anger. One side of his face was flushed with a large, bright red mark.

"Is there a problem here?"

"Yes," she snapped. "You are the problem! What the hell were you thinking?!"

Chris slowly responded with a measured and rigidly controlled tone. "Obviously, I was thinking that we couldn't leave our people to be tortured and slaughtered."

"And what about our people here? What if you had been captured? Did it ever occur to you just how vulnerable you would be leaving us?!"

"Of course it did," he replied, his mouth curling into a irritable frown. "That's why we took extra precaution and stealth when-"

"I don't care if you had Wyatt's thrice-bedamned force field around you the whole time! You don't just leave your people, Chris - and especially not with the wards and the Charmed Ones' return entirely dependent upon you!" Erica tossed one arm wildly through the air in sheer frustration, as if wanting to hit him again. "This is completely unlike you. I have half a mind to lock you up for a Magic Influence EVAL."

He stared at her calmly for a few moments, and then asked, "Are you done?"

"Are you?!" she snarled, absolutely livid and trembling with the force of her rage. "Do I need to remind you what's at stake here?! If you'd been taken and forced to spill our secrets, this war would be lost!"

Chris finally snapped, releasing his frustration and ignoring the large crowd staring at them. "What does it matter if we win this war but lose everything that made us good in the process?!"

A ringing silence ensued after this shout, with every soul in the room gazing open-mouthed at the intense verbal battle that had broken out right in front of them.

Harsh, derisive laughter broke through the quiet hall, emanating from the cynical Valkyrie at the center. "Ohhh...I see what this is about." She sneered at him, her features contorting with malice. "You just couldn't bear their disappointment, could you?"

The stoic witch flinched visibly, the motion clear even from a distance. "That's not-"

"Just couldn't take them seeing what you've become, huh?" the Valkyrie continued mercilessly. "Well, I have news for you, Chris. This kind of reckless, self-righteous behavior is exactly what got your family killed."

Chris surged upwards, slamming his hands down onto the surface of the table with an intensely loud crack. He leaned forward, eyes glinting with a deadly fury, his features stiff and hard. His voice, when he spoke, trembled with the force of his rage.

"Do not...talk about my family."

Erica sent him an ugly, spiteful smirk. "They aren't your family anymore. Now they're just bodies in the ground."

The color drained instantly from Chris' face, but the female warrior continued before he could respond.

"I suggest you get it together...or you're going to join them."

She whirled instantly on the spot and stalked away. Every person and creature in her wake backed up to clear a wide path between her and the door, staring in gobsmacked silence.

As the wide doors banged shut behind her, Leo and the sisters looked at each other in mute astonishment, then turned as one to fix their eyes upon their frozen whitelighter. He stood rooted to the spot in utter stillness, gazing at the place where Erica had launched her verbal assault, his face stark white as though he might be ill. Only the minute rise and fall of his chest gave his body any evidence of life.

Tentatively, one of his nearby admirers stepped forward. "Hey man, don't listen to her. She just-"

"Don't-!" Chris began to snap, then reigned in his emotions and continued in a slightly more neutral tone. "Don't talk to me right now. Please."

The witch quickly dissolved into orbs that jingled jarringly through the quiet hall. Everyone silently watched the orbs leave through the ceiling, and for a moment no one in the hall moved or spoke.

"And Elvis has left the building," muttered Paige.

Phoebe and Piper received several disapproving looks upon their subsequent snort of laughter.

xXxXx

They spent the rest of the day without a chaperone for the first time since their arrival to this future world. Knowing how Chris was with projects, Piper had no doubt that he'd holed himself up in his bedroom, consumed by plans and research. She was much the same way when dealing with emotional struggles, only she would bury herself in cooking or baking rather than investigating the latest magical catastrophe. Even so, it was still surprising that their neurotic whitelighter had left them alone for such an extended time.

Left to their own devices, their intensely curious personalities had naturally taken over, and they decided to explore. Their wanderings took them through endless hallways and twisting paths forged from solid rock, filled with countless rooms for refugees and soldiers from the last dredges of the magical world. Sometimes it was obvious what kind of creature lived in each room; they passed through tiny doors half their height, defiantly painted green by their undoubtedly Leprechaun inhabitants, and also doors that had been widened or vertically extended, as if to accommodate tall creatures such as ogres or centaurs.

They stumbled across rooms they'd been shown before during their stay, such as the war room and the arena, and then found new places that both delighted and intrigued each of them in turn; Paige hummed in interest when they happened upon some sort of alchemy lab, while Phoebe crooned with delight over what appeared to be a daycare manned by kindhearted volunteers, occupied by rambunctious children of varying races from within the Resistance. Even Leo found a room to suit his personality; being the compassionate whitelighter he was, he couldn't seem to resist the pull of the infirmary when they passed by. The room had been filled with injured soldiers from Chris' rescue mission the night before, but his healing hands made short work of their stay. The sheer, unabashed awe on the renegades' faces was disconcerting, but Leo resolutely ignored their amazement over healing powers they no longer had access to in favor of easing their pain.

After extricating themselves from Leo's sudden fan club, they continued exploring until they somehow managed to make it back to the library. Piper was somewhat disappointed that they had yet to come across the "Garden" that Chris had mentioned before, but they quickly settled back into their usual routine of researching time travel and, in Paige's case, defensive ward theory. Shortly thereafter, their absent whitelighter finally orbed into their presence.

His expression was carefully neutral as he greeted them, as if their shouting match from the previous night had never happened at all. "Hey."

"Hey, stranger," Piper snorted. His cheeks colored slightly at her subtle admonishment.

"Listen...about last night. I-"

Leo quickly cut off his words, smiling uncertainly. "It's okay, Chris. We don't have to agree on everything, and...your situation is a lot different than what we're used to."

For a brief moment, a vulnerable sort of disbelief crept into the witch's eyes as he stared at the Elder, as if he just couldn't fathom being forgiven so easily. But then Chris blinked and his features relaxed into a half-smile. "Uh...thanks, I guess."

They descended into an awkward silence for a few seconds, so Piper helpfully volunteered a subject change. "We've come up with a few ideas for the time travel spell. Here, take a look."

She indicated the scraps of paper and parchment they'd scrounged up, scattered across the table they usually claimed as their own workspace. The witchlighter gratefully accepted the new topic and immediately snatched up their completed spell wordings. His eyes darted across the pages, swiftly reading through the various spells, and then he froze. Carefully, he separated one page from the rest and turned it around to face the sisters.

"Where did you get this?" he asked shakily.

Perplexed, Piper exchanged a puzzled glance with her siblings and then glanced back to the paper. "Um, we wrote it?"

"Yeah, like, not even ten minutes ago," Phoebe contributed with a baffled smile.

Chris' fingers shook as he placed the other pages back onto the table, clutching the last in his hands with a vaguely resigned look on his face. "Oh."

"What's wrong?" Paige demanded, worried by his unusual reaction.

"It's just...this is the same spell I used to get back to the past. Both times." He exhaled audibly, looking rather overwhelmed. "And last time...I ripped it out of the book and destroyed it, so no one could follow me back."

"So..." Leo began slowly, his eyebrows furrowed in thought. "You're saying that this might be-"

"The same one. Yes."

Paige shook her head. "Wait, I'm confused. What are you talking about?"

"This could be how the spell I used got into the book in the first place," Chris answered, his tone sounding almost defeated. "And if that's true..."

Piper was the first of the sisters to make the connection, horrified. "Then we're in a time loop."

He closed his eyes as if to block out the truth, placing the paper on top of their other spells and sinking into the nearest chair as though his legs could no longer support him. "Yes."

"Okay, I'm still not getting it here." Phoebe frowned at her companions. "Why would this spell cause a loop?"

"It's not the spell itself that would cause the loop," Leo explained, gesturing to the words written on the paper. "But its existence. See, if this page isn't in the book during our time, but we write it here in the future and then bring it back with us to put in the book, and then Chris uses it years later to come to the past the first time...well. Then we would be stuck in an infinite loop where Chris endlessly uses the spell we write in this time to go back to our time."

Phoebe and Paige stared at him in horror, open-mouthed.

"In other words, we've already done this before," Piper joined in, feeling rather close to tears. "And there's no hope to change anything."

"No!" Chris punched the armrests of his chair viciously. "I won't believe that! There has to be a way!"

Thinking of the complexities of a time loop, Paige picked up the piece of paper with their incriminating spell and scrutinized it carefully. "Are you sure this is the exact wording?"

"Send me back to where I'll find what I wish in place and time," Chris replied miserably. "Yes. It's the same."

"Well then, why don't we change it?" Phoebe asked cheerfully, already snatching a pen from their cluttered workspace.

Leo grimaced. "If this is a loop, then changing the spell would keep Chris from coming back to warn us about Wyatt."

"But we have to do something," Paige insisted. "And we don't know if this is really a loop anyway. For all we know, we might have needed to write this spell for a different reason later on in the original timeline, and Chris used that spell rather than this one."

Phoebe turned to their whitelighter, leaning forward to gaze at him earnestly. "Chris, you knew us; you grew up with us. Did we ever mention anything like this to you? Did we ever act like we'd met you before, or knew things about you we shouldn't?"

"I don't know," he answered wearily, burying his face into his hands. "I was too young, I don't remember."

A defeated aura of gloom settled over them, lapsing into an extended silence as they each scoured their brains, hunting for some way to fix this latest discovery.

"Falcon!"

All five of them twitched in surprise at the sudden loud voice calling across the library. They turned as one to watch as a frantic resistance fighter jogged into the room, clutching a small device in his white-knuckled fist.

"Falcon, you need to see this!"

"Jerek," Chris began helplessly. "This isn't really the best time-"

The man skidded to an abrupt halt and thrust the device toward him, panting. "It's Wyatt...broadcasting...asking for you."

Their whitelighter swallowed visibly, paling in fear. He slowly raised a trembling hand and reluctantly took the device from the newcomer. For a long moment, he simply held the object in his lap, staring at it as though it were a bomb about to explode in his palms.

"It's set up so he can't track our location, right?" Chris asked finally, glancing up at Jerek. The man nodded several times, still winded from running through long tunnels. Phoebe quickly jumped up from her armchair and ushered him into it, gazing at him with overly bright eyes. Piper quirked an eyebrow at her sister's obvious attraction, then turned back to focus on Chris.

His thumb hovered above a button on top of the strange device, hesitation obvious in every line of his tense posture. After a long moment, he pressed down and a screen made of light shot up into the air, hovering over their table.

Wyatt's face filled the screen.

"Chris."

"Hello, Wyatt."

"I seem to be missing several prisoners. I don't suppose you plan on returning that which is mine?"

"They don't belong to you," Chris said tersely.

Wyatt smirked confidently in the face of his adversary's irritation. "I own the world, Chris. Everyone and everything in it is mine."

Piper slid her eyes away from the terrible image of her evil son, and instead watched as their whitelighter visibly struggled to contain his emotions.

"Get to the point, Wyatt. What do you want?"

"Well..." Her tyrant son smiled widely, closing his eyes for a brief moment before focusing once more on his enemy. "I thought you might like to know that I won't hold your theft against you."

"And why not?" Chris asked warily.

Blue eyes clouded with a dangerous glee. "Why, because I've already received recompense. You stole my prisoners and the lives of my soldiers...so I stole the lives of yours."

The witchlighter's face paled. "What?"

"Did you really think I wouldn't discover your little spies, Chris?"

Wyatt adjusted something on his end, and the screen zoomed out and panned to the side, revealing several men and women impaled grotesquely and arranged like gory artwork on a wall. Chris made a distressed noise of horror, recoiling from the screen and turning his face away with closed eyes, unable to bear the sight. Everyone in the room, including eavesdroppers from the library who had been quietly moving closer, echoed his disgust and averted their eyes. One teenager a few yards away from their group dropped to the floor and vomited.

The screen moved once more and refocused upon the face of the future world's tyrant king. "I must say, I was rather impressed with their loyalty. No matter how they suffered, still none of them would betray your little resistance group. I was quite fascinated."

Several objects in their vicinity began to shake. Chris' expression was a deadly thing, an intense visage of absolute fury, reflected further by the power of the nearly-visible wisps of magic that rose from his form.

"You...you son of a-"

"Come now, Chris, you'll want to be careful with that phrase."

"I will stop you. I swear to God, I will stop you, Wyatt."

The blond hummed with faint amusement. "You know you can never beat me, Chris. You should have accepted my offer of forgiveness last time."

Then all traces of humor and friendliness faded away from the face on the screen, leaving behind only a dangerous evil. "You will regret betraying me. And after I have killed everyone you have ever loved, then...then, you will know your place."

"The only thing I know is that I will never join you."

"We shall see." Wyatt's mouth curved into a cruel smile. "Oh...and give my regards to the family. I will be seeing you all very, very soon."

Chris jabbed his finger at the device, cutting off the feed instantly. He glared down at it for several moments, his face twisted with a mix of disgust and sorrow.

"Remind me never to have kids."

Everyone within earshot blinked, and slowly turned to stare at Paige blankly.

"What? Can you blame me?"

Chris snorted with morbid amusement, then covered his face with a hand that shook. "We have to get back as soon as possible. We have to stop him."

"No arguments here," Phoebe said, staring at the device in Chris' hand while absently massaging her chest, still reeling from the torrential influx of emotion from the room's occupants.

Overwhelmed, Piper inched closer to Leo beside her on the couch and buried her tear-streaked face in his chest, desperately seeking comfort. Leo opened his arms obligingly, drawing her close and dropping a kiss on the top of her head. They both trembled in each others' arms and proceeded to ignore the rest of the world for a few moments, united in parental agony.

Jerek, meanwhile, looked rather uncomfortable to be somehow included in their emotional circle. "Um...I'm sorry, Falcon. Is there anything you need?"

Sighing, Chris waved a hand dismissively at him. "It's not your fault. Does the Council know what happened yet?"

The resistance fighter shook his head in response. "The call came through our main feed; bypassed all of our firewalls and security measures. He refused to speak with anyone but you."

"Typical," muttered Chris darkly. "He always did love a show."

Jerek glanced at the papers and open books strewn across their table. He frowned momentarily, and then pointed at a large map detailing the global Nexus locations. "Sir...forgive me, but I think you've forgotten one of these."

Chris' eyebrows furrowed immediately. He leaned forward with a frown, staring down at the map with focused scrutiny. "What do you mean? This should be all of the known locations."

"One of our scouting missions during your absence uncovered an abandoned ritual site, left over from the fall of Atlantis." The man extended his arm further and pointed at a tiny grouping of islands off the western coast of Portugal, pointing to one island in particular. "The Nexus is located here, on Terceira Island."

Chris, Phoebe and Paige all stared with keen interest at the island, which appeared rather tiny on their giant map. Paige hurriedly snatched the pen off their table and drew a circle around the small land mass, while Chris leapt to his feet and strode to the bookshelf containing maps of the world. Phoebe watched as he hastily flipped through the available maps until he found what he was looking for, and then he rushed back to their table with a map of Portugal. Throwing it down unceremoniously on top of their workspace, he quickly opened it up to its full size and turned back to Jerek, gesturing impatiently.

"Show me."

Jerek held his hand out for the pen in Paige's hand, then carefully drew a pentagram on the map over Terceira. "Starting from Algar do Carvão, a volcanic vent, it goes like this...and then here..."

His words trailed off as he concentrated on drawing the shape as even and accurate as possible, then he marked a small X at the center of the completed pentagram.

"It's in a forest?" Chris asked, surprised. Jerek nodded at him silently in answer, and Chris thoughtfully chewed on his thumbnail for a few moments before refocusing on the man. "And this was just recently discovered? Wyatt doesn't know about it?"

Jerek hesitated, then replied uncertainly: "We don't know. But yes, it was only found a few months ago by the central scout team."

The witchlighter frowned thoughtfully, then sighed. "It's our best shot. Thank you for your help."

"You're welcome, sir."

Chris leaned forward to hand the holograph device back to the man. After Jerek had accepted it from his leader's hand, Phoebe turned to him with a beaming smile. "So, Jerek, right?"

The black-haired man blinked and glanced nervously at Chris, as though asking for permission to interact with one of the Charmed Ones. The whitelighter raised his eyebrows in response, the beginnings of a tiny smirk pulling at one edge of his lips.

"Um...yes, that's my name."

"I like it. So, tell me about yourself?"

Chris chuckled helplessly, unable to remain solemn in the face of his aunt's ridiculous guy craze. He turned to Leo, ignoring the conversation happening to his right (and very determinedly ignoring the odd and thoroughly unfamiliar sight of his parents cuddling). "Even if we are in a loop, we should be able to change things if we make different choices this time...right?"

The Elder hesitated, and then nodded. "In theory, yes. It's entirely possible that we're not in a loop, and whatever we change after going back will cause a break in the timeline and send us into an alternate path, destroying this timeline and erasing it completely."

Chris heaved a deep sigh. "Good. We'll just have to aim for that...and hope."

"Well, look on the bright side," Paige interjected, trying to remain optimistic. "We're basically done - we got the spell, we've got a Nexus location; now we just need to plan our trip. Right?"

"That's right." He nodded. "And hopefully I can finish these wards before we go."

"What's taking so long?" Leo inquired curiously. Realizing immediately how that question sounded, he hastily added: "Not that you're slow, it's just that you said before it would only take a few hours."

Choosing to ignore his father's abysmal wording, Chris shrugged in response. "Redesigning the framework isn't the hard part. Finding a way to power the spell is the main thing. I need a large amount of magical power generated together, and I'll have to redirect it through portals to access all of our branches across the world. We did it one at a time originally, over the span of several months...which, obviously, we don't have that kind of time right now."

"Well, what if we-"

"Awww, come ON! Why does this always happen to me!?"

Startled, the two men turned to stare at Phoebe, who had thrown her hands up in the air and appeared to be raging at the ceiling. Piper raised her head from Leo's chest to gaze at Paige, bewildered, before focusing once more on her sister.

"Phoebe, what in the world...?"

"He disappeared!" Phoebe gestured wildly in frustration the empty armchair beside her. "I mean, come on, am I really that bad?"

"Welllll..." Paige drawled, delighted with the opportunity to tease her sibling. Phoebe huffed irritably at her.

Chris, meanwhile, was staring at her in utter confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"Jerek!" Phoebe replied, exasperated. "He just left in the middle of our conversation; didn't say bye, gotta go, or anything!"

Dark eyebrows furrowed over narrowed emerald eyes. "Phoebe...who's Jerek?"

There was a moment of absolute silence, and then the time travelers all turned to stare at Chris in wary alarm.

"The guy she was just talking to...?" Piper offered slowly, a creeping sense of dread stealing up her spine.

Their whitelighter shook his head, staring at them as though they had all grown three new limbs. "What guy? She wasn't talking to anyone."

"Yes...she was," Leo intoned slowly, his eyes widening with fear.

"Check that light-screen device," Paige suggested sharply, casting her eyes across the floor. "Maybe he put some kind of spell on it to tamper with memories?"

"Guys, what- this is crazy, there was no one here-"

"Yes there was, Chris!" Phoebe insisted, her worry rapidly increasing and prompting her to babble. "He called you Falcon, and you called him Jerek, and he's the one who gave you that thing to talk to Wyatt, and then-"

Chris held up a hand to stop her tirade. "Hang on a sec - the one who gave me the holograph was Jenna. She brought it to me, like...fifteen minutes ago, and then left when we were done."

"That is not what happened," Piper said sharply.

Leo quickly pointed to the map of Portugal sitting on their table. "If Jenna is the one who brought the holograph, then who told you about the Atlantis Nexus?"

Chris rolled his eyes at them. "Jenna, of course. Then she left."

The four of them exchanged alarmed glances, but before they could say anything else, Chris continued. His face had suddenly grown pale and thoughtful. "Wait. Wait...you said...you said he just disappeared when you were...talking to him, right?"

"Yes," Phoebe insisted.

"And I seemed to know him, before?"

"Yes!"

"And everything that I remember Jenna doing, you remember a man named Jerek doing instead?"

"YES!"

Chris slowly shook his head and stared at the empty armchair in a sort of resigned horror. "Someone's changing things in the past."

Paige wrinkled her nose in confusion. "What do you mean?"

The witchlighter inhaled shakily. "I'd hoped that we were the only ones who knew what really happens to Wyatt in this future...but I was wrong."

"Wrong, how?" Piper demanded.

"Whoever goes after Wyatt...they know we're here. They're changing things in the past while we're gone; testing how much they can mess with."

He turned his eyes to focus on them with a look of abject terror.

"We're running out of time."

UPDATE 9/23/2018: I know it's been years since this was updated, and I do apologize for the delay. It's been a...really awful couple of years. But I am 100% dedicated to finishing this story, and I will not abandon this fic. It is not on hiatus. I'm still working on the next chapter, even if I only get 5 minutes per day to do so. Thank you for your patience.