Paige was loving her new job, granted she had a little nervous breakdown at first when her rebellious students were too, well, rebellious. But as soon as she asserted her authority with them she began to really enjoy this new life full of magic. Chris had gone with her that first day to do some research in the library and it hadn’t been easy to roam those halls again. At first he kept having flashbacks to the hell that had happened when Wyatt’s troops invaded the school but if there was one thing to be said about Christopher Perry Halliwell was that he was strong and would not let anything stop his mission. He managed to overcome that in order to look for information and started going there more frequently.

Leo and the other Elders were still trying to figure out a way to channel Wyatt’s and the baby’s inside of Piper magic so that they could boost up the vanquishing spell.

Phoebe had started helping Chris on his research because she had to admit that to Cole she was a possession. She had taken Elise’s offer and had been sending in the column from home so she could help out more in the research.

Piper on the other hand was modifying the potion and spell used to vanquish Cole the first time to erase him completely. At first she had suggested erasing him from existence, going back in time but she had to concede the point that going back over a hundred years to erase someone could change history too much. Even their own personal history had been too attached to Cole and could be changed in too many ways. So they couldn’t stop him from existing from the start but they had to make him stop existing from now on, so he couldn’t ever come back.

Their investigations  and research paid off a little over a month afterwards.

Chris stared at Leo as he had finished explaining what the other Elders had come up with. They were all once again seated at the dining room table that was covered in books as Leo, who was standing kept showing them a passage after another that backed their theory.

“That actually makes sense,” Chris said. “That could very well work. Good work dad,” Chris smiled.

Leo who had been nodding with Chris stopped his head motion abruptly and stared at Chris who had gotten the last book to read the passage over again. He wasn’t the only one staring shamelessly at the boy. When Chris brought his head up he looked at his parent’s and Aunts’ goggling and asked innocently:

“What?”

“You called Leo dad,” Paige offered.

“I know,” Chris said simply and went back to reading as if nothing had happened. Leo couldn’t help himself, he went towards Chris and pulled him up into a hug.

“Dad! You’re ruining the book,” Chris protested but made no move to leave the hug. After a while Leo let him go and awkwardly tried to change the subject.

“So, we think that if we- what Piper?” he asked a little fearfully seeing as his hormonal wife was glaring daggers at him with her arms crossed.

“Nothing, dad,” she hissed.

Leo was sympathetic, she was jealous! But that didn’t wipe the smile off his face and she just glared more fiercely.

Chris looked at her innocently and added, “I had been planning on calling you mom too but if you don’t want- humph- choking here- need air!” he cried as Piper, who had been on the seat next to him all along, pulled him into a crushing hug.

---

“They were all in the attic having prepared all necessary and some unnecessary (except to appease Piper) potions. Chris had Wyatt strapped to his chest in one of those baby carriers and they were all forming a circle. Leo took Piper’s hand who took Chris free hand. Paige, grabbed Chris’s arm since even though Wyatt was strapped to him he was holding the boy’s hand, they had to be touching skin, and with her other hand took Phoebe’s who closed the circle by taking Leo’s free hand.

“So,” Piper asked, “are we ready?” Everyone nodded. “Now, don’t forget Chris, if this doesn’t work you orb Up There with Wyatt immediately. I know that right now you are the most powerful here but Wyatt’s and yours safety,” she added with a firm look at her kamikaze son, “is more important.”

Chris rolled his eyes, “Yeah, yeah, you’ve only been repeating that every second since we started planning mom.”

“And yet, why do I have the feeling that it wasn’t enough?” she sighed.

“It will be,” Leo said calmly squeezing her hand. He knew why she was worried. Chris had the tendency to not care for his own safety, but Leo knew he would never let Wyatt get hurt.

“Okay then,” Phoebe said in a nervous voice that was trying to sound brave. “So, we are ready?”

“Yes,” Paige answered for everyone.

Phoebe started chanting the modified summoning spell that would take her to Cole. By having everyone linked they were hoping, after a lot and a lot of research, that the others would be taken with her. They felt themselves fading in that same familiar way as when they were orbing and yet slightly different.

They reappeared on a cave without a sound. The cave looked nothing like your normal demon lair. As a matter of fact, apart from the stone walls you’d swear you were in some kind of luxury apartment, there was something to be said about Cole liking his comfort.

Sure enough he was there, sitting at a huge wooden table that must have had the purpose of being a dinner table, bending over papers and books. Phoebe let go of Paige’s and Leo’s hand and stumbled forward, “Why couldn’t you just let me be?” she asked, her voice coming out choked.

Cole’s head went up at the sound and he turned around on the chair to look at her. He stood up abruptly letting the chair fall down as he moved forward. A jet of lightning coming from Chris’s hand and hitting right next to his foot stopped him, “Na,na,ni,na,na,” Chris shook his finger. “You keep away from my aunt.”

Cole smirked at Chris, “So you’re the Whitelighter from the future every demon is afraid of? Should have guessed that only a Halliwell would break the rules of time that way,” he studied Chris up and down, “Elder powers, you’re obviously Piper’s. Maybe I chose the wrong brother.”

Chris was the one smirking now, “Then Wyatt would have been the one here stopping you. You didn’t chose the wrong brother, you forgot that we are brothers and  that will be your downfall.”

“I heard that before, and yet, here I am,” Cole said in a confident tone.

“Not for long,” Piper sneered with all her hatred at him.

“NOW!”

Phoebe quickly grabbed Paige’s hand who had never let go of Chris’s.

“You can’t vanquish me,” Cole sneered and held his hand up to send a fireball at them to break the link when another lightning bolt pulverized his hand. He yelled in anguish and stared at Leo.

“Who said anything about vanquishing?” Leo said lifting his hand again.

“You’re a pacifist!” Cole cried.

“Not when you’re the subject,” Leo said keeping Cole busy as Chris managed to get ready. “You’re right Cole, we are going to be One Big Happy family, and you’re not part of it.”

Chris had his eyes closed and was focusing with all his might in his bond with his brother and trying to go through the one that Wyatt had with his baby self. He had practiced this before in the manor but what he would do next couldn’t be practiced as a one time event was already dangerous. He let his brother and his baby self know what he needed and soon enough he felt their power rush through him, he felt their magic coming from the bond into him. He opened his eyes and they were glowing, he was glowing with the amount of magic he had in him. His hands felt hot, burning but neither Piper nor Paige let go. Piper and Phoebe threw the potions at Cole and they all started chanting. Chris channeling Wyatt’s and the baby’s magic.

Cole started crying in pain as his skin and flesh turned slowly into sand, the sand started flying around him in a whirlwind until there was nothing left of him. And when there was nothing left, the sand burst into a million different colors and disappeared, not a grain left behind.

Piper and Paige let go of Chris, their hands in blisters. Leo ran to them as Chris fell on his knees with his eyes closed in pain.

“Give the power back Chris,” Leo instructed. “Make it flow back through the bond before it burns you.”

Chris heard his father’s words but the power was consuming him. He was in so much pain, he didn’t want it but he didn’t know how to return it.

His skin was reddening up and breaking in blisters when he felt it, he felt Wyatt calling for him calling for his power, and he felt a second presence and recognized it as himself. He let go, he just let go and on instinct both babies took back what was rightfully theirs. Chris couldn’t support himself any longer and Leo helped him lie down while Phoebe unstrapped Wyatt. Chris was unaware of the soft glow of healing as he drifted into darkness.  

---

The next time he woke was to his Aunt’s smiling face. She had been sitting next to him in his bed waiting for him to wake up.

“You do realize how disturbing this is, don’t you?”

“I wanted to thank you,” she said and hugged him. “You were very brave.”

“It was nothing,” he mumbled embarrassed.

“You were,” Phoebe said and there was a definite proud tone in her voice. “And you have no idea how much you saved me.”

“Well, yeah, that was the whole point of travelling back in time,” he shrugged. “To save you all.”

“No, I mean how much you saved me,” she emphasized. “I don’t know how my relationship with your Uncle was or is going to be,” she wrinkled her nose. “But I’m sure that whatever relation I have with him now will be better. More free, because I only noticed until today when I saw him, but I had been clinging to that relationship. To the illusion that maybe if I had done something different, that maybe if I had saved him. But today, when I saw him, I realized that was all it was, an illusion. There was no saving him, there was no changing him. And now I’m free of him forever. Here,” she said waving her hand around as if to indicate the world, “and here,” she put her hand on her chest.

Chris smiled. He was glad he helped his aunt. He didn’t know if Cole had  ever been an issue between her  and Coop. He had been too young to notice these details but if she was feeling better now and if he helped her he was happy.

“I’m  hungry,” he declared trying to change the mushy subject.

“Oh, yes, Leo said you might be. You expended a lot of energy containing all that magic. Piper left a lot of food ready,” she said pulling him up.

“Where did she go?”

“To the doctor with Leo. They wanted to make sure that what we did didn’t hurt little you. Though Leo sensed the baby and said he was fine, but you know your mother…” Phoebe trailed off rolling her eyes. Chris laughed. Yes he did.

---

Chris approached his parents wearily. They had been lounging in the garden stargazing and cuddling together on one of the recliners.

“Hum, er,” he cleared his throat.

“Chris,” Piper smiled. There seemed to be a general lighter air now that the threat was gone.

“Hi,” he smiled nervously. “Hum, we kind of have a problem, “he flinched.

“What problem?” Piper was quickly alert sitting up. “Can’t we get a break?”

“No, this isn’t magical,” he said nervously. “I mean this is magical but er –theportalthatbroughtmebackwasonewayonly.” He blurted, “I had already told dad that though,” he added helpfully and hopefully.

“Can you say that again slowly please?” Piper asked calmly and Leo was bighting back a laugh as he was reminded from Chris’s memories of all the times she said that to either Chris or Wyatt with the exact same tone when they were confessing to some misbehavior.

“The portal that brought me back was one way only, kind of, can’t use it to go back. So I kind of don’t know how to get back to my time,” he said quickly. “Well loved talking to you, see yah!” he tried to run away but he was quickly stopped.

“Stop right there Mister. Do you mean to tell me you jumped through a portal with no way back?” his mother’s stern voice asked.

“Yeaaaaah,” he said painfully.

“What the hell were you thinking? What if you had ended in the wrong time?” she yelled at him.

“I was trying to save you all!” he yelled back. Not a good strategy with Piper.

“That was still too risky no matter how noble the goal! What if you’d ended up eaten by a dinosaur?” she snapped and Leo flinched remembering the close call he and Chris had back when he didn’t trust Chris.

“Then I would have been,” Chris said his jaw trembling. “It’s not like I had anything else left to lose.”

That simple strained phrase deflated all of Piper’s righteous anger. She just stood there staring at Chris trying to keep his cool and impersonal façade. Leo stood quietly by her side because he knew that both of them needed this. This had to come from Piper. Leo had known Chris came on a one way portal. As Chris had said, Chris himself had told him the portal was one way that time that he was trying to see if he had changed the future. And then Leo had Chris’s memories and he knew exactly why Chris left not knowing if he’d ever be able to get back home. He had nothing left back home. But to Piper, all of this was theoretical. All of this was something they told her. She didn’t see or know what Chris was thinking when he made the decision. Leo didn’t have to wait long though. Piper launched herself forward and involved Chris in a hug.

“I’m sorry Peanut,” she said softly and Leo smiled as Piper unknowingly started using the same nickname she had given Chris in the future making her son smile sadly. “But you have us now. We’ll all be there when you go back.”

Chris hugged her back but said nothing he just nodded into her hair. After a while Leo cleared his throat.

“Well, seeing as I knew the portal was one way I had asked Gideon and the other Elders help,” he said quickly to not incur Piper’s wrath. “And they do know a way back. It’s not a portal, because this time your future self won’t have left. We have to send you back to merge with him. It’s a power of 3 spell though.”

Chris nodded nervously and Leo continued. “I’d love to keep you here Chris, and I’ll miss you. But you deserve to enjoy the life you fought for.”

“I know. But I’m scared of what I’ll find,” Chris said quietly.

“You saved us. Everything will be fine,” Piper said firmly. Inside she was breaking at having to let go of her son so quickly. “And if you get there and the world didn’t change. You come right back.”

---

There had been teary goodbyes and promises. Piper had made one last dinner with the whole family and even Gideon had been invited. Now they were chanting the spell and Chris had just disappeared in a flurry of lights. Piper was crying and hugging her stomach. Leo came and hugged her. After a few months, a healthy baby boy entered the world to his family utter joy.