“Of course he was you can’t possibly think my baby-“

“Your baby Piper,” older Paige said coldly, “Killed my babies, Phoebe’s babies, my sister, my husband, my brother in law and tortured his brother because he dared save me and Prue, and that’s not counting the thousand’s of innocents he has killed. She needs to know,” she told Chris who had been on the verge of scolding her, “you can’t protect her, she needs to know what he becomes so if you fail to save Wyatt she can do what’s needed.”

“And that would be?” Piper asked heatedly standing up. Older Paige matched her glare and posture.

“Strip him of his powers before he can wreck the damage he has,” she stated

“Strip him-“ Leo stammered.

“Yes, strip not bind, strip. That is the only way to save him if he wasn’t turned. I this is who he is because the alternative is for his brother, who is the only one that can match him in power, to kill him, and then we’ll loose them both. And right now, I don’t give a shit about Wyatt but I do not want to lose my nephew.”

---

Leo couldn’t stop the rushing in his ears, he knew in theory that his baby was going to go evil but this, this. Paige was so, so not Paige, but if what she said was true he could understand why. His baby would turn on his own family, on his own brother, he would torture his brother. His brother. He had teased Piper when she said this time they would have a girl.

“I don’t know, the Wyatt propensity for boys has overcome the Halliwell’s for girls once already,” he had said and once again he had been right. His son. The son he almost left. When he had gone to inform Chris he was going Up There for good Chris had eyed him with so much disdain and sneered:

“So you’re bailing out on your family? Yeah, that would be right on schedule.”

That had Leo thinking. He obviously had done the same in Chris’s future and what if that was what helped Wyatt turn? What if his family had needed him and he hadn’t been there for them? And then Piper found out she was pregnant and Leo had been torn. He had been happy at being a father again but shouldn’t they be focusing on Wyatt? Didn’t he need them more?

And now, now the world would come to a place where his boys where on opposite sides and Chris of all people was the only one who seemed to believe in Wyatt, that they could save Wyatt. Paige certainly didn’t and Prue, Prue looked like she agreed with Paige if the apologetic looks she was giving Chris was anything to go by.

“That’s not a choice!” Chris said heatedly. “I already said we can’t do that! He’ll be a sitting duck without powers!”

“Chris is right!” Piper yelled.

“This family can protect him! His brother will protect him! No matter what!”

“His younger brother!” Phoebe remarked, “His almost two years younger brother, who doesn’t have a shield as we’ve already noticed.”

Paige snorted, “Just because he doesn’t have the same powers as Wyatt doesn’t mean he is defenseless. Haven’t you noticed anything different about your powers Piper?”

“No,” Piper answered snottily.

“Really?” Paige asked, “Haven’t blown up more than what you expected? Haven’t frozen the whole block when trying to freeze just Leo over there because he was annoying you?”

“Hey Piper doesn’t fre- oh, okay she does!” Leo conceded at the raised eyebrows.

“Well, that- my powers are evolving.”

“Well, they’ll go back to normal once the baby is born, and you’ll figure out why they had been doubled the first time the baby follows your lead and freezes his father when you two where fighting. If I recall correctly, he was three months old and not happy at having his nap disturbed,” Prue smirked. “Among the many powers he has the two that manifested from the womb were just like yours Piper, that’s why they went unnoticed, and when you figured out the Elders had ruled that he wasn’t as powerful as Wyatt and therefore didn’t need the special attention Wyatt needed and well, that suited you so you just let them think that.”

“Why?” Phoebe asked.

“To give him a normal life,” Piper answered.

Prue smiled, “Yeah. When he got a whitelighter and Wyatt didn’t most of the magical community just assumed that Wyatt was more powerful and could defend himself so he wasn’t assigned one but recently I met up with Andy.”

“Andy, as in our Andy, your Andy?” Phoebe asked.

“Yes, he is a whitelighter too. And he was the one assigned for Wyatt which proves Chris’s theory,” she continued.

“Why?”

“Only good souls get whitelighters,” Leo stated.

“Yes, well he was supposed to go to Wyatt when he was eight to start guiding him into his powers. That age had already been changed when Piper got pregnant again because right now Andy must be in training since Wyatt was born and the initial age was six.”

“But when Piper got pregnant the Elder Council must have decided for the two whitelighters to reveal themselves together, makes sense.”

“One whitelighter each?” Piper asked. “We got one between all of us.”

“Yes, but these boys are extremely powerful, they need one each,” Prue explained. “But the point is that whatever turned Wyatt turned him slowly because; first we never noticed second, Andy was pulled away weeks before Wyatt turned eight. And we surmised that whatever happened has to have happened around the time his brother was born.”

“How?” Leo asked.

“Piper’s journals,” Chris answered, “and Paige’s memories.”

“Someone messed with our memories and must have put a spell for us not to think much on the subject. I only started thinking on that when Chris brought that up because of Piper’s journals.”

“You read my journals? They’re personal!” Piper cried indignantly. Chris shrugged not a little bit guilty.

“I needed to find out what happened,” he said. “They were there and contained information. And I did. Unlike Paige and possibly Phoebe you had questioned yourself because you didn’t remember details from your second’s son birth. And you wanted to know why, all you could remember was that there had been complications that made you go into premature labor and he almost died.”

Leo’s blood froze and he pulled Piper to him putting a protective hand over her stomach right over where her hand had flown to.

“We figured that whoever attacked Wyatt made you go into premature labor as a distraction to get to him,” Chris continued.

“Yes, that was the theory, until Andy,” Paige said. “Now we don’t think someone turned Wyatt but they tried to get rid of both boys and didn’t get what they wanted but instead they did something to Wyatt that made him crave power.”

“What?” Chris asked.

“Think about that?” Prue said. “Wyatt isn’t your usual sadistic bastard. Every death had a purpose; get rid of the Halliwells who in his eyes could challenge him, punish his brother who went against him. He likes power and he kill for power but he doesn’t kill for fun.”

Chris nodded a little startled and Leo had the impression he never thought of that.

“We think someone didn’t like the idea of having two witches with so much power and tried to get rid of them both and whoever did this might not actually be evil,” Paige said.

“Whoever tries to kill babies has to be evil,” young Paige stated.

“No, not if they think they are working for the greater good,” Leo said. “You said Andy and my second’s son whitelighter where trained together, then how come you never knew Wyatt had been assigned a whitelighter?”

“Because the whitelighter’s memories had been modified but Andy’s couldn’t because Wyatt was his charge,” Prue said.

“Uh?” Phoebe asked.

“A whitelighter’s bond to their charge can’t be erased even if the charge doesn’t qualify anymore. His brother’s whitelighter’s memories could be changed because Wyatt wasn’t their charge. But to change the memory of a whitelighter while they were still in training had to be either a High Council Elder or a Cleaner and that can’t be-“

“No? There is no Elder up there that thought a baby so powerful as Wyatt was a bad idea?” older Paige asked Leo. “I’m not the one that came to this conclusion in the future Leo, you where.”

“You thought we had this all wrong. No one tried to turn Wyatt, they tried to get rid of him, messed up and then tried to cover up their screw up,” Prue said.

Chris had sat down again, “That’s, that’s- oh god-“ he grabbed his hair desperately, “so messed up”, he whispered.

“Yes, we know,” Prue said quietly sitting down. “That’s why we came. You couldn’t keep looking in the wrong place while-“

“Giving the enemy a play by play of our steps,” young Paige finished for her and Prue gave her a proud smile. Leo saw Paige blush a little.

“The Darklighter,” Chris muttered.

“What?” Piper asked.

“The Darklighter,” he said raising his head. “The Darklighter must have been sent to convince Leo to go back Up There for good not to get rid of Leo as we thought. Whoever this is must be one of those fanatics who doesn’t like the balance disturbed, like having and Elder down here. We need to find out who, and if we’re dealing with an Elder or a Cleaner.”

“That’s actually logic,” older Paige said. “That happened both times- we put a spell on ourselves when Chris left so we’d know what was new memories from changes Chris made and what was the old timeline. Unfortunately up until now the changes have been minor,” she explained at the looks she got.

“So you where all in the plan?” Leo asked he couldn’t believe he would have sent himself to a place like Valhalla but Prue shot his lingering suspicions of Chris down.

“Yeah. Valhalla- your idea. And stop whining because of one lousy day of fighting!”

“What?” Piper’s head snapped and she glared at him. Leo gave her a sheepish smile and saw from the corner of his eyes that Chris was uncomfortably being glared by the two future visitors.

“So, er, I should go investigate the Dark-“

“Actually, I think you should explain. Leo was quite angry when he got that particular new memory of you disobeying his orders,” Paige said.

“He’s a whiner!” Chris cried standing up. “He’s being whining because of one lousy day can you imagine what he would do if he had had actually to fight the whole time he was there?”

“He, unlike you can’t be killed!” Paige hissed.

“I had time to kill.”

“That you were supposed to use by resting before your mission,” she shot back. “Your orders were clear, banish Leo to Valhalla so he would be out of the day for long enough to a) give you time to establish yourself as our Whitelighter, b) to get him suspicious  enough to stick around. And instead-”

“I did! I did just that! And he was, see? See? No harm done.”

“Can someone explain the yelling please?” Piper snapped annoyed.

“He,” Prue pointed at Chris, “Made some kind of deal with the Valkeries different than the one we had planned. He was supposed to go there and ask them to keep Leo for a few months and in exchange they would have an elder to fight for them for a few months. This way Leo would be at the same time out of the way and safe. But suspicious-“

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. We got that,” Phoebe said. “And?”

“And well, first the plan was ruined by you looking for Leo. The Valkeries were just going to let him go after a certain date. The Valkeries in the future gave us a token that would prove that we had struck the deal with them. They want Wyatt stopped too you know. He’s been attacking them,” Prue continued.

“But they were always neutral-“ Leo started to lecture.

“Not anymore,” older Paige said.

“Well, Leo was kept there, yes. But as I said he only fought that last day and there is no way the Valkeries would just wait hand and foot on him like that unless Chris traded,” Prue explained.

“Traded what exactly?” young Paige asked and Chris mumbled something. “Come again.”

“For every day I fought for them was one day they would keep Leo out of the arena,” Chris said. “They gave me a special amulet in the future so I could go to Valhalla to talk to them and I used the amulet to stay there since I had to come early because the portal can’t be set to a specific date but to years back. That’s why time passed by between me coming, and Bianca and them.” He looked for all purposes like a naughty boy awaiting punishment, punishment for taking the pain for Leo, when with a cold shiver Leo though that the girls were right, he couldn’t die but Chris could. Why would he do that when he always held Leo in so much contempt?

“That was-“ older Paige started scolding.

“Done and gone and way too much in the past for us to worry about when we have more pressing matters,” Piper said assuming command and Leo noticed the satisfied and warm smile Chris had on him. He frowned, he had noticed Piper was a bit of Chris’s favorite and at first he had been jealous thinking the young whitelighter had a crush on the older than him witch but the reaction he got when he confronted Chris was enough to quench that.

“Uh, ugh, eeeeeeewwwwwww, you are a sick sick man Leo, sick!” Chris had cried and gagged and left and he was almost sure he heard retching coming from the bathroom. At the time he didn’t understand but now he could. Piper had to be in her fifties if she was alive in Chris’s time. More so, for Chris to believe in Wyatt when his own family didn’t he had to be his friend and a friend’s mother is definitely eeww material.