The Next 24 Hours

Save his fourteenth, Chris had never hated his birthday perhaps more miserably than he did his eighteenth, stuck in the past surrounded by those who were unknowingly his family. But all in just twenty four hours, two visitors the world he left behind and a wild chase through time to save the future will reveal everything and change more than he could have imagined, but will it be for better or worse?

Disclaimer: No ownership of Charmed or any of its characters of any kind, purely written for fun.

AU—The story deviates largely from season six, and many cannon elements are different including but not limited to, ages of characters, powers of characters, and past and future events that were in cannon. So just go with it as most of cannon will be different.

Chris looked around the light blue in the nursery walls and remembered how they had looked in his own time when this would become his room and he would eventually repaint over the baby blue.

Wyatt gurgled happily, smiling at him without any inhibition at all, the way only children ever really smiled. Chris grinned back weakly; it was all he could manage.

He reached out a hand to Wyatt which the toddler quickly grasped, he had become quite fond of Chris in the couple of months since he had quit raising his shield every time his little brother was near.

Chris looked down at the two pudgy hands grasping his own. It was hard to believe looking at them now how much trouble they would cause someday if he didn't succeed.

Chris let his hand fall away as he sighed, feeling overwhelmed as the fate of the world seemed to fall upon him.

Toddler Wyatt was looking at him curiously and his lower lip began to tremble as he sat there confused by Chris's abrupt withdrawal. Chris stared at his brother's hand where they were curled near his sides, so little and weak with nothing on them. He swallowed and tried forget the image in his mind of what they would become if he failed—too strong and covered in blood.

His mother's face flashed in front of his mind, far too pale and with a sheen of sweat lining her forehead while she gasped for breath. How she had reached at his shirt but hadn't had the strength to clutch it as she laid there with her brow furrowed in pain and her fingers too covered with blood like her oldest son's would be but her own instead of anyone else's.

"Chris..it's okay…Chris…you'll okay Chris…baby I'm so sorry..."

Chris closed his eyes and exhaled sharply.

'Focus!' He commanded himself, now was not the time to mourn a future that didn't have to be.

Opening his eyes Chris saw that Wyatt was about to cry and he reached out to him, smoothing his hair a little and mumbling.

Sometimes he thought the entire notion of time travel had driven him insane and he had imagined this whole thing. He was probably in a coma somewhere in the palace after finally pushing Wyatt too far and this was all some strange dream world he had created. He snorted at the notion, he wished his entire life had all been a dream but somehow he didn't think he had that kind of luck.

"It's okay...you didn't...you haven't done anything wrong Wy...it's okay—you're okay." He kept mumbling to Wyatt until they both calmed down.

"You're okay right now Wyatt. I'll make sure it stays that way." He promised.

Wyatt leaned back in his crib and fell asleep, his eyes slowly sliding shut to hide the bright blue irises and his little hands falling down to rest by his side. He seemed to be the perfect picture of an angel with his blonde curls and ruddy cheeks and Chris couldn't help but sigh at the irony of it all as he watched him.

Feeling a prickling on the back of his neck Chris tensed, he hated the feeling when he suddenly knew he wasn't alone but yet also knew they had been there for a while without him noticing. It wasn't a feeling he had often in his adult life, constantly trying to thwart the most powerful being in the world without him knowing hadn't left him a lot of room to be caught unawares in the future.

The air went out of him all at once, it could almost be called a sigh but it was too tired, too quick and too stressed to fall into that category. It was more as if he was deflating, his shoulders even slumped the slightest although it was in such a small degree that no one save those who really knew him could have noticed.

'And there's no danger here of that,' Chris thought bitterly to himself. It was true after-all, none of them were there, just a few people who looked like them.

Closing his eyes for a moment he opened them again and finally turned around.

Leo stood by the door, leaning back against the frame in what could be a casual stance if it wasn't for the hard line of his mouth and the way he crossed he arms across his chest as if he was ready to threaten with them.

Chris waited for him to speak and he obliged.

"What are you doing here?"

"A little hostile for a so called pacifist aren't we?" Chris asked churlishly, doing his best to project an arrogance he wasn't sure he had anymore. It was hard after-all to stay so self assured when your whole world is turned on it's side on your watch, and by your own brother no less.

"How'd you become so mouthy as a white-lighter?" Leo asked, and although it was meant as a rhetorical jab Chris could hear the small amount of curiosity lurking underneath it.

'One day Chris you're gonna learn not to be such a cocky ass and I just hope I'm around to see it.' He flinched just slightly, Penny's light joking tone echoing in his mind. He missed her so much, somewhere nearly two decades in the future she was probably cursing his name.

"Future consequences." He said in reply to Leo, not even really hearing himself but simply replying in habit.

Leo ignored the statement, and looked over at Wyatt who sat, still sleeping peacefully in the crib behind Chris.

"I don't like you coming here."

"I was just—"

"Look Chris, stay out of here unless there's an attack or the sisters are with you. Okay?" Leo asked tiredly, the distrust clear as he looked on the whitelighter in front of him.

Chris just stared back, and finally gave a weak shrug to appear nonchalant before he left in a swirl of orbs. He normally could deal with Leo, but not today, today of all days was not the day for it.

The crisp fall air whipped around his face as he materialized on the bridge, looking out over the bay, it was strange he thought that first time he had been brought there had been with Leo and now he was using it to escape from the man.

He stumbled back ungracefully and sunk against the beams until he was sitting with his back against the cold metal and his knees curled in front of him. It was too cold up in the air to stretch out completely.

The sun was just beginning to rise and it created a beautiful sparkling surface on the bay as the sky behind it was dyed pink by the morning light.

Chris however wasn't really seeing it, he mind was going in circles faster than he could keep up with as he hunched in the cold morning on-top of the bridge wishing he had a room in the manor he could go back to. That of course didn't exist yet and wasn't an option.

'Happy eighteenth to me,' He thought darkly, wondering what the sisters would think if they knew their 'bitchy whitelighter' wasn't actually twenty two and that they had been under the guidance of a minor the entire time. Then again they were currently under the impression he was a true whitelighter and therefore actually dead anyways.

He snorted, a half grin quirking the corner of his mouth before it fell again. He supposed he was at least an adult now.

'Or am I? Technically I haven't actually been born yet.' He furrowed his brow for a moment thinking about it. He had really come to hate time travel.

He wondered if his Mom would have thrown him a party for his eighteenth. He wondered if Leo would have even bothered to show up—probably not. He wondered if Penny would have tried to surprise him again only to have it blurted out by Prue before she could.

He wasn't sure. He was the first in his generation other than Wyatt to turn eighteen, and Wyatt had long been past the stage of birthday parties on his eighteenth. And even if he hadn't, nearly Mom had been dead by then anyways.

It had just been himself and Wyatt, eating dinner together in Wyatt's ridiculously styled palace that looked like a grand hotel. Wyatt had been in a good mood, bantering and acting almost as if the past two years hadn't happened. Overall it had been one of the better memories Chris had of the time after Wyatt took the world.

He wondered what Wyatt had done for his nineteenth without him there, Chris had been the only person Wyatt had left.

Perhaps the demons had thrown him a party though.

The thought irrationally made Chris laugh, he knew it really shouldn't have, it shouldn't have been funny that his brother, the killer who had seen to destruction that made WWII look like child's play, had already been the devil himself by his eighteenth.

But when he pictured Wyatt sitting on his thrown with one of those childish party hats on his head and with his favorite personal killers offering their king a slice of cake, he couldn't help but laugh.

He wondered if being in the past was making him insane. He swallowed, wishing he still felt the irrational, disproportionate amusement he had felt from the thought, but it had left him and now all he had in his mind were the cold hard, sobering thoughts of what the future was really like.

It didn't involve party hats.

The weight of the world pressed into his shoulders as he shifted a little on the bridge. He had never wished more that he could ask his mother for advice, but then again she didn't exist yet, not really.

Yes Piper looked and talked like his Mother, and at times she reminded him of her so much that it hurt. But she didn't yet have his mother's wisdom, her strength. She hadn't lived the years yet that had made her into his mother and she had none of her love for him. Chris separated them in his thoughts as much as he did aloud.

Clenching his fists and straightening his back Chris glared, just because he was technically just today becoming an adult didn't mean that he hadn't long ago stopped being a child.

He pushed himself to his feet and took one more moment to look out over the bay. An image of Penny and Wyatt with an icing covered spoon eating it straight from the bowl before it could be put on the cake came to his mind.

He smiled for a moment remembering the patchy cake that had had such a thin layer of icing it was transparent and even missing in big thunks leaving the yellow cake underneath plainly visible.

Mom had been so mad with them both. Penny had both looked at the floor so sheepishly while Wyatt had just shrugged. Penny's face had made him laugh so hard that he had asked Mom to just let them be about it.

She had reluctantly agreed and they had sat down to eat the cake after pulling some whip cream out of the fridge to make up for the lack of icing. They had eaten it though, just the four of them together.

The Aunts had been too busy to come and the other cousins busy with one thing or another so Chris hadn't insisted and at this point no one brought up Leo's absence as it had become the usual. But Chris hadn't minded, he had after had all of his favorite people there.

Then Leo had shown up, not even realizing what day it was to take Wyatt to practice his powers. He had apologized and promised to make it up to Chris but he had just shrugged it off. By that point he was numb to it, Wyatt however was furious and had refused to go until Chris had asked him to just so the whole situation could blow over already.

Penny had accidently dropped her piece of cake on the floor and Mom had gotten her to go get a rag and get it cleaned up. How could any of them had known that not even twenty minutes later blood would be soaking the carpet there anyways.

He blinked back a few tears, swiping angrily at his face. Now was not the time, he could cry about it if he wanted when there was no reason to mourn—when he had fixed things, until then he wouldn't rest.

'Chris...Chris...CHRIS,' He growled slightly tracing his fingers around his temple where a headache was already growing, and closing his eyes, he orbed away.

"What Phoebe?" He asked irritably when he opened his eyes again. He was standing in the attic beside the book and all three charmed ones were there.

Phoebe at the book while Paige and Piper sat on the old couch with Wyatt. Wyatt was being bounced on his youngest Aunt's knee as Piper smiled at the scene.

Of course when she turned to Chris the smile slid off and became more of a grimace, the distaste there clear as she frowned slightly at him. It was hard to reconcile the identical features with the woman who would someday wear them so differently when she called him her 'peanut.'

He had always liked that nickname, far longer then most boys did but Wyatt had been right when he had teased Chris throughout their childhood about being a 'momma's boy.' By the time he was ten though he had started telling her to stop calling him that, she never though.

Realizing he had been staring too long, Chris turned slightly away to look at Phoebe, that particular look from Piper always left something bitter in the back of his throat.

Penny would've said that the feeling got stuck there on the way to his heart, she had always had a funny way of thinking about things. But he didn't like to think about Penny anymore, at least not more than he could help it.

He had never thought the past would be quite like this. While he hadn't planned on telling them, it was just something that was too bizarre to announce to someone, he had still honestly thought that after a while they would realize who he was. The resemblance was so obvious after-all.

He had never expected them to not even remotely like him enough to the point that they would never consider that he might be family or question why he in particular would come back to save them.

No, Chris felt safe at least with his secret now knowing that their opinion of him would keep them from ever seeing the resemblance between he and Piper.

It still didn't make their cold shoulders any easier to deal with, although he had finally grown used to it. This was a mission he reminded himself, and not the time to be overly sentimental about relationships that didn't exist yet.

Time travel to change the fate of the world wasn't for the tender hearted anyways.

Realizing he had gotten lost in thought again he looked back at Phoebe who was staring at him with a raised eyebrow. He waived her on.

"There were demons here." Phoebe said simply, looking back down at the book just as quickly as she had glanced up.

Chris moved toward the book pushing birthday candles, icing, and blood stained carpets to the back of his mind. He scrunched his brow and jutted out his chin in a look that his Piper had once said was purely Prue, but of course this Piper didn't seem to notice that.

"Do you know who it was?" He asked.

"Obviously not or we wouldn't be looking." Piper snapped. He nodded at her and a moment later she looked at him slightly apologetically but he didn't acknowledge it.

They were not family and they didn't need to apologize to him for snapping. They were the Charmed Ones, nothing else to him.

"What did they look like?" He asked instead.

"Normal. Well as far as demons go, anyways. The whole black leather gig of course but other than that they looked human," Paige answered absently as she smiled at Wyatt when he giggled at something she did.

"How many were there?"

"Ugh it's too early for this! I thought demons liked night time, y'know all dark and mysterious or whatever. Are they forming a breakfast club now or something? I haven't even had my coffee yet." Paige groaned.

Chris bit his tongue, living with Wyatt he had seen people dragged from their homes at all hours of the night to be brought to the palace for containment or execution. But, he reminded himself, this wasn't the future yet and no one save him really understood the gravity of what was at stake.

"Two, a man and a woman." Phoebe answered his question after giving Paige a sympathetic look.

"What did they do?" Chris asked, pacing around the book something which he knew annoyed the sisters but was a quirk he couldn't help when he was on edge.

"Just threw me against the wall and shimmered out. It was strange, they didn't try to attack us really, they just seemed to want to leave without getting vanquished. But why did they even come here in the first place then?" Paige asked.

Phoebe looked over at her with a resigned frown, and her arms crossed. "And to think I actually thought I would make my date with Jason tonight."

"Sorry sweetie," Paige put a hand on her shoulder. Chris only saw all the good witches and mortals willing to stand with them that had been slaughtered in an underground resistance when it was discovered by Wyatt, he remembered how burnt most of their bodies had been. The thought didn't lend him to being sympathetic towards dinner dates.

"Can we focus here?" He asked snappily. The sisters glared at him, Paige rolled her eyes to top it off.

Chris had to forcibly stop himself from groaning. He had never expected the charmed ones to be so caught up in their 'personal' lives that vanquishing evil and saving the future would be a second priority.

But then again they had no idea what the world was like where he came from, how much death and sorrow there was. And he supposed that as much as he wanted to he couldn't really blame for them for that, if he were living in this time and had no idea of the future, he thought he might have a hard time understanding just what it was really like too.

Piper looked thoughtful, "It was strange though how they—"

A twinkle of orbs interrupted her statement.

"Blessed be."

Chris wanted so slam his head in the wall but he didn't think that would do anything for the 'neurotic' label the sisters had already given him.

"Leo," Piper replied shortly, and Chris held back a smirk that at least he wasn't the only one not thrilled at the interruption.

Chris looked over at him finally and the serene expression on Leo's face made his blood boil. His precious golden child, the only child he had as far as he was concerned, would destroy the world if they didn't do something and he was standing there smiling at them.

Chris forcibly unclenched his fists.

"...he had longer blonde hair, and the girl—she looked latina."

Chris straightened, catching the last part of what Phoebe had described.

"What?" He asked sharply, not caring if he sounded rude. It just couldn't be them, he prayed, because if he had heard what he thought he had, then his worst nightmare had come true.

"Phoebe was trying to tell you what the demons looked like, something that as their whitelighter you might be interested in," Leo offered unhelpfully, his expression clearly contemptuous of the obvious fact that Chris had not been listening.

The sisters looked short with him as well, then again irritation was never far from the surface when they dealt with him. He wasn't oblivious enough to not realize that he wasn't exactly their favorite person.

"Anyways, they left as soon—" Phoebe began again but Chris stepped toward her, towering over her and looking directly in her face as he demanded the answer.

"What did they look like?" He asked in an urgent tone.

Phoebe took a step back, looking over warily at her sisters but Chris didn't notice, he was too intent on the answer.

"The man was tall. He had longer blonde hair, but it was gelled back. And the girl, she was about my height and—" Phoebe began hesitantly, clearly a little disturbed by the crazed look on Chris's face.

"Dark skin and brown hair?" He finished for her, his whole posture sagging for a moment as if he had aged ten years.

He straightened immediately though and ran his hands through his hair, looking as unglued as he dared to be around the sisters but unable to help himself from reacting at this news.

His failure would doom the world and if this was true then he was doomed to fail.

"Yeah." Phoebe confirmed, biting her lip and squinting a little while she tried to get a read on him. She didn't succeed.

At her confirmation Chris wanted to punch something, wanted to hurl something across the room with his telekinesis that the sisters weren't even aware he had, weren't even aware it would be possible for him to have.

He wanted to do so many different things that he wasn't even entirely sure what he wanted, but he was certain whatever it was it wasn't to stand there horrified at the truth like he was doing.

"You know of them?" Leo asked, placing Wyatt back with Piper and Paige from where he had picked him up to hold him. Chris followed the movement with his eyes and stared at Wyatt intently, which did not go unnoticed, before turning back to Leo.

"You do too." He replied simply, lifelessly almost, his voice coming from a deep place in his throat making it sound hoarse and weak. For once in his life he decided on the truth, or part of it anyways. He wasn't sure he had any other options.

"What?" Piper asked, her face scrunched in confusion as she tried to place the demons from an hour before in her mind, but she was certain she had never seen them.

Chris sighed and started pacing again before he answered, looking at Wyatt again to make the point clear. His voice was quiet and for some reason he found he couldn't bring himself to make it any louder right then, but everyone heard him clearly regardless.

"He's sitting right there, just about nineteen years younger."