"I don't know if I can do this," said Kat.

"You can. You're stronger than you know."

"Not without -"

"Yes without. You're a Halliwell. You're strong. You can do this."

"Not alone," Kat argued.

"I'll be with you every step of the way."

Kat held her sister's diary tightly in her hands, focusing on it instead of the spirit before her who turned invisible but remained there. She sighed deeply. "Please forgive me," she murmured. "Ryake of the Archers, in body and escence. Come here and enter my presence."

Tam had always been the better witch. She shoved the diary into her back pocket, where it would stay safe until she needed it again.

Kat had seen a lot of disgusting things in her life, it was a natural and unfortunate part of being a witch. Demons might not always leave bodies, but they still bled and burned like humans, and they didn't have the sense to die of their wounds where a human might. Ryake was a perfect example of that.

One-armed, one-eyed, with the skin around his mouth split open, Ryake was uglier than anything that Kat had ever seen before. Maybe even uglier than the sight of her sister's body.

"Kitty-Kat," Ryake sneered. "To what do I owe the displeasure? It's rude to summon people without their permission, you know. Even your whore of a sister knew that."

Kat growled. "I'm trying to be nice to you, Ryake, but you're already testing my patience."

"You Halliwells don't know what nice is."

Kat smirked. "I'm not a Halliwell, remember? I'm a half-breed, like you. Tam told me all about you. Your mother was a witch. You're half-mortal, just like me."

"We're nothing alike," Ryake snapped.

"No," Kat agreed. "I still have a face."

Ryake snarled. "Watch it, witch!"

"Whitelighter," Kat corrected. She held up a hand, sending a swirl of orbs around it. "I could heal you, if you wanted."

Ryake frowned. "Why? What do you gain from that?"

Kat sneered again. "All my sister managed to do was betray Wyatt before she died. Now I've been kicked out of the family, and I need some way to get back in his good graces. He won't trust me after Tam got herself killed. But, if I bring him Melinda's head? And Chris' body? I'll be welcomed home with open arms. And to do that, I need you."

Ryake grinned, revealing more broken and bloodied teeth. "I always knew that you Halliwells weren't as goody-goody as you all pretended. You're all just as evil as the rest of us."

"Well?" Kat prompted. "There are plenty of other demons who would fall over themselves to help me kill the Charmed Ones."

"You need to heal me first," Ryake demanded.

"Deal," said Kat. Anything to get that disgusting excuse for a face out of her sight.

The damage to the demon's face was severe. It took several long minutes before the skin began to re-grow and cover his teeth and jaw. Based on the screaming, it was excruciatingly painful. Kat took her time.

"Kat?"

Cole and Phoebe shimmered in. Phoebe had dropped Cole's hand as soon as they arrived, but she had grabbed it again at the sight before her. Cole looked just as shocked.

"What are you doing?" He demanded.

"Fulfilling her destiny," Ryake grinned, lips covering teeth again. He grabbed her wrist, and Kat resisted the urge to pull away.

"Kat, don't do this," Phoebe pleaded. "This isn't what your sister wants."

Kat shook her head. "It's the right thing to do. I'm sorry, Phoebe. Cole. Tell Henry that I love him."

She nodded at Ryake and, still grinning widely, he shimmered away.


"No," said Cole. "No. She didn't - she can't."

"Cole," Phoebe said, quietly.

"No! She… she wants to rid the world of evil! Not to join it. She - I promised her mother, Phoebe. I promised her. I promised to keep them safe."

"Cole, you did your best. You couldn't have seen this. Losing her sister like that, watching her brother get hurt, not being able to do anything about it - it's enough to send anyone off the rails. I didn't handle my mother's death well at all, or Prue's. Grief makes people irrational, and teenagers are already pretty irrational."

"I can't believe that she would just do this. He has to be forcing her somehow, threatening her."

"Cole, you saw her. She made her choice."

"No!" Cole shouted again. "You don't know those girls, Phoebe. I do. I've watched them grow up. They're angry and reckless and naive, but they're good. They… she still deserves a chance."

"I know it's hard to accept that someone you love has turned, but you need to try, Cole," Phoebe said. "You need to focus on the others, on saving Chris and saving Wyatt."

Cole scrubbed a hand down his face. "If Wyatt gets a second chance, if I got a second chance, then why can't she? I know I didn't deserve one."

Phoebe smiled sadly. "I don't know that that's entirely true anymore. If Kat wants to change her mind, if she wants a second chance, then she can prove that she deserves one. Like you have."

"I promised to keep them safe."

"Then do it, keep the others safe. Someone needs to tell the others what happened, and you're the one that they all look up to. Show them that you're worth it."


Piper didn't look at Chris or Mel as she busied herself in the kitchen, boiling water, peeling vegetables. It was the sort of thing that didn't require too much attention, but she wanted to give the siblings a few minutes to get their stories straight. She could hear them wordlessly communicating behind her. It reminded her of how she and her sisters had behaved when Grams was getting ready to give out to them. Even though it was almost always Phoebe's fault, and Prue always took charge, and it still never worked.

Based on the expressions of their faces when she turned around, they seemed to have worked out that final point.

"Have you figured out what you're going to tell me?" She asked, leaving the soup that she had made to boil.

Neither said anything, but they shared a side-eyed look.

"Who are you claiming are your parents?" Piper wondered. As far as she knew, her and her mother were the only witches who had gotten involved with their whitelighter. It might be more likely to happen in the future, but not for a while.

"... future consequences?" Mel offered.

Chris ducked his head. He knew well enough that that hadn't been a good enough answer for a long time.

"Uh-huh. Chris, how old are you?" Piper demanded.

"Twenty-one," he answered, without looking up.

Piper stared at him until his green eyes peaked a glance up at her and he whilted.

"In October."

"So, pretty soon."

"Ten months."

"Less," Piper said. "Were you not taught how little witch-lighters come into existence? Because I've already made one so I can get your dad in here and explain to you how that happened."

Mel made a face. "No need. Aunt Phoebe's version of the Talk was very explicit."

"Mel," Chris whined.

"She already knows, Chris!"

"Not for sure!"

"So, PJ is Phoebe's daughter, and Kat and Henry are Paige's," Piper summarised.

Mel nodded. "And Tam."

"And who else?" Piper demanded.

"We can't tell you that," said Chris.

"Chris, I swear to God if you say future consequences one more time I will ground you!"

Chris shrunk back sheepishly. "It really is dangerous though, for you to know that kind of thing. But there's just the three of us - Wyatt, me, and Mel."

Piper shook her head. "Think of all the headaches we could have avoided if you had just been honest with me in the beginning. And what the hell were you thinking breaking your father and me up like that? What was your plan if you hadn't been poisoned? Wait until you - what? What would have happened?"

"He would have faded out of existence," Mel piped up. "Probably me as well. Although, I don't know that you and Leo would have been able to stay apart for that long."

"I didn't really have everything thought through all that well. I just wanted to fix things. It's - things aren't good between me and Leo in the future, and it's been a long time since we were actually a family." Chris glanced over at Mel and reached out for her hand. She took it.

"I wasn't thinking about the details," Chris admitted. "I figured that if you guys really loved each other enough to go against the Elders, then there was nothing that I could do to keep you apart. And, when it started to seem like I was wrong, I figured that maybe I just wasn't meant to be born. Maybe I wasn't needed. Maybe my only purpose was to save Wyatt, to save the future, and then cease to be. I never really meant for any of this to happen."

"That's crap," said Piper. "You're both the children of a Charmed One and an Elder, of course you're special. And, even without all that, you're my son, Chris. That automatically makes you important. I'm not letting anyone wipe you out of existence, not even you."

Chris huffed out a laugh and Mel grinned, eyes bright and wet.

"I couldn't help but notice that I didn't come up in your little speech. You mentioned your dad, but not me. What kind of mother am I that I was willing to send one son back to the past, alone, thinking that he wasn't important and that risking his existence was in any way a sensible plan? Because I need to know everything so that I don't become that woman."

"You're not," Mel swore.

"You're perfect," Chris agreed. "You were kind and understanding, and you taught us everything that we know. Wyatt adored you."

"So, I'm dead," Piper guessed.

Chris looked away, and refused to meet her eyes again.

"When I'm eleven, and Chris' fourteen," Mel said.

"Mel," Chris murmured, but it didn't sound like a warning, it just sounded sad.

"And Wyatt's fifteen," Piper counted.

"It pushed him over the edge," Mel explained. "The demon nearly killed Chris as well. He attacked you at the Manor."

"You were trying to save me," Chris said, bitterly.

"Good," said Piper. "I'm your mother. I'm not letting anyone take you away from me without a fight."

Mel grinned, but Piper frowned as a thought occurred to her.

"What happened between you and Leo?" She wondered. "Because you didn't like him from the moment that you got here. And where was he when I died? Why wasn't he around to keep you safe?"

"He was never really around," Mel explained. "And when he was… Wyatt was always his favourite."

"He was too busy when you died," Chris added.

Piper was very familiar with how busy Leo could be as an Elder, but she didn't believe that he would neglect his children to favour one over the others. Certainly not intentionally. But she had seen first-hand the resentment that Chris carried, and then she had seen it wane. It sparked up now and again whenever Leo and Wyatt were together, probably reminding him of how it had been for him growing up. It had been hard for her, growing up without her father there, she wondered how much harder it would have been if he had come back only for Prue or Phoebe.

"I'm sure that he still loves you very much," Piper said.

Chris' face darkened, but Mel nodded.

"He does," she said. "He warned us that someone had travelled to the past, before Tam could. He told me to watch out for you, Chris. He said," she shook her head. "I don't think he'd be able to keep fighting if he lost one of us."

"What about the greater good?" Chris wondered.

Piper reached out and brushed at a strand of hair that had curled up on his forehead. "The Elders might not realise, but there are definitely things that are not worth giving up. Not for the whole world. And my kids are always going to be one of them."