"I'm going to miss you so much," Phoebe mumbled into Chris' shoulder. He patted her on the back, grinning at Wyatt over his aunt's shoulder.
"It's college all over again," Chris said to his brother.
Wyatt, busy hugging his Aunt Paige, grinned back. "Nah, not until Aunt Phoebe bursts into tears and Aunt Paige grabs the video camera."
"Okay, okay, Paige move," Piper commanded, waving her arms erratically at her sister. "I want a hug."
Sniffling slightly, Paige moved, replacing Phoebe in Chris' arms as her other sister went to stand next to Leo, who was watching the scene with a fond expression having already said his goodbyes.
Wyatt wrapped his arms around his mother, remembering how tiny she was. He breathed in the scent of her shampoo, it's familiarity causing tears to spring to his eyes.
"I'm glad you're not evil anymore," Piper murmured into his shoulder, a hint of humour in her voice.
Wyatt barked out a choked laugh, his eyes full of unshed tears. "Well, I'm glad about that too."
Piper leaned back to look at him, soaking in the sight of her first-born child all grown-up. "I love you so much, honey. God, you get so big." Phoebe giggled from where she was stood with an arm slung around Paige and Piper shot her a mock glare over her shoulder. "I know that's obvious! But still, this is my baby boy." She raised a hand to Wyatt's cheek, tracing the contours of his face. "Have a good life, okay." She turned to Chris and then seemingly remembering something span back to Wyatt. "Oh, and propose to Bianca."
Wyatt blanched at the idea as Chris laughed.
"Don't laugh at your brother," Piper said smiling as she reached up to hug her youngest son.
"God, you have no idea how good it is to hear those familiar words," Chris whispered, wrapping his arms tightly around Piper's small frame.
"Chris," said Piper suddenly serious, she leaned back a few inches to look up at him closely. "I've lost you before and I love you far too much to want to lose you again, okay?"
"I don't understand," Chris said, his face wrinkled in confusion.
"Whatever happens when you get back to your time, and I mean whatever, you have to promise me you won't try and come back and change things again," Piper said, her voice pleading.
"You mean if you're still dead you don't want me to come back and save you," Chris said, with tears in his eyes.
"Yeah," said Piper, tears brimming in her eyes as well.
"But I came back before and everything is better now!" Chris said loudly, trying to break Piper's embrace.
She just held tighter, forcing him to look at her. "You came back to make the world better, Chris. And okay, a lot of it was to do with saving your brother, but that wasn't your big goal. And I don't want you to destroy something just for me. Promise me?"
Chris stared at her, refusing to speak. "Promise me?" Piper repeated, more insistent.
"I promise," he said, his voice low and choked.
Piper burst into tears then and hugged Chris tight, gesturing for Wyatt to join the hug. She grabbed her oldest son the instant he came near and the three stood, arms wrapped around each other, tears streaming down their faces.
"Okay, okay," Piper said through her tears disentangling herself from the embrace. She wiped hastily at her face and groped blindly behind her for Leo's comforting presence. "Go before I change my mind and keep you here."
The brothers stared for one more moment at their family, and their mother in particular, before turning towards the attic wall.
Grabbing each other's hands they stood and began to recite;
This Twice-Blessed child and younger be,
Pray that this rhyme shall be our key,
To invoke the power of the Halliwell line,
To send us forward through space and time.
A purple mist began to glow around the two boys until all that their family could see were two hazy silhouettes and then suddenly they just weren't there anymore.
"Damn, they really were powerful," Paige remarked to no-one in particular.
"You know, maybe we should redecorate the attic," Wyatt said, peering around the room and finding it frighteningly similar as the purple haze around them disappeared. "Chris?"
He turned to find his brother staring at the door with an odd expression on his face. Feeling a burst of hope Wyatt span towards the entrance to find nothing more than his aunts stood in the doorway.
"Hey guys," Phoebe said, smiling sympathetically at them as she walked inside.
"Nice trip?" Paige added with a pointed look.
"Hey Aunt Paige," Wyatt said, his tone suffused with forced cheerfulness. "How's the headache?"
Chris didn't even bother trying to be cheerful. "She's still dead, isn't she?"
His voice told them all that he already knew the answer.
"I'm sorry honey," Phoebe said, walking towards him. Chris jerked out of her reach and squeezed his eyes shut. Wyatt cursed under his breath and kicked the nearest table.
"How?" Wyatt asked angrily. Paige stared at him, concerned. Both she and Phoebe knew from experience that however good the control their two nephews had it didn't mean they weren't two very powerful witches.
"There were too many demons there, right?" Chris answered bitterly. Phoebe silently nodded her head to the positive. "So, it didn't matter what I did, she was always going to die?"
"It was her time," Phoebe said slowly, the words sounding weak even to her own ears.
Wyatt cursed again as Chris laughed bitterly ignoring everyone in the attic as he once again stormed out of the room.
Blinking back furious tears, Chris stumbled on the stairs, reaching blinding for the banister to halt his fall.
"Whoa there," said a voice from the bottom of the stairs, "Where's the fire?"
Chris opened his eyes to see Melinda stood at the bottom of the stairs, her eyes wide. She suddenly looked really worried.
"Oh God, there isn't actually a fire, is there?" She then suddenly looked really angry. "How many household infernos can you and Wyatt have before you realise that some ingredients just aren't supposed to be mixed?"
Her familiarly caustic tones made Chris sigh wearily and sink onto the step, leaning on the banister the whole time. "No, Mel, there's no fire."
"Well, that's good," she said, joining him on the step, "because I accidentally left a sweater in the attic and really don't want to see another one reduced to ashes."
"You know there's only so many times we can apologise for the purple one."
Mel nudged him slightly, grinning. "I'm kidding. Now why don't you tell me what's wrong?"
Chris jerked his head a little to look at her, her face so like her mother's, though her thick blonde hair was unquestionably from the paternal side of the family. "What are you doing here anyway, Mel?"
"Mom had a premonition and went all frantic grabbing me and heading over to Aunt Paige's for her and Alex. Then we came over here," she slung an arm around his shoulders. "I'm guessing your hangdog expression has something to do with it."
"It's just been a long day, that's all."
"I'll say, you look like you slept in those clothes," she wrinkled her face at him, "though I know you weren't wearing them last night." Realization suddenly dawned on her face. "You time-travelled again, didn't you?"
Before Chris could answer a loud voice interrupted them. "Chris!" He looked up barely in time to stop himself being barrelled over by the hyperactive eight year old.
"Hey, Alex," Chris said ruefully, rubbing the boy's dark hair into a messy pile.
"Where'd you time-travel?" Alex said, positioning himself more comfortably in Chris' lap.
Mel laughed at the expression on Chris' face. Chris was interrupted from answering by another, eminently more calm voice.
"He came to visit us," Leo stood in the doorway of the kitchen, looking just the same as he had when Chris had last seen him in the attic.
"Oh," said Mel, realising what that meant as her eyes darted to the picture of her Aunt Piper on the wall.
"Hey, Alex, I made muffins," Leo said, striding towards them.
Alex immediately lit up. "Muffins!" He yelled, grabbing Mel's hand and yanking her towards the kitchen.
Leo smiled after them and then came to sit by Chris.
"Hey, Dad."
"Hey," Leo answered. "You want to talk about it?"
"No," Chris paused, "Do you think I should?"
"Might help you deal with effectively losing your mother twice."
Chris shook his head. "Nah, I didn't lose her again." He smiled down at his hands. "It was actually pretty great just to see her again." Leo smiled at this and Chris glanced up at father. "You watched me die." Leo stiffened and looked away, the hand he had been using to rub consoling circles on Chris' back stilling abruptly. "How'd you deal with that?"
Leo turned to look at him, his smile wry. "I watched you grow up."
Wyatt was exactly where Chris thought he would be.
Perched on top of the Golden Gate Bridge.
"You couldn't have gone to sit in a nice park?" Chris asked as he carefully negotiated the bridge with the wind howling around him.
Wyatt grinned at him. "You always come up here."
"Not in the wind."
"I've found you up here in the snow before."
"I was drunk," Chris said resentfully. "How many times do we have to have the discussion about how my drunken exploits can not be used as evidence for my normal behaviour?"
"I'd listen to the discussion if your drunken exploits weren't your normal behaviour. But they totally are."
Chris harrumphed and dropped down next to his brother, staring out over the bright lights of the city. He remembered when their father had first shown them this spot, saying that someone he used to know had loved it.
Wyatt had been so excited he'd 'accidentally' pushed Chris off the bridge, making the younger boy have to orb himself home. Chris allowed himself a grin at the memory. Wyatt had been in so much trouble over that. Or at least he had until Chris accidentally TKed a pot of spaghetti all over his new uncle.
"What are you grinning at?" Wyatt asked, nudging Chris with his shoulder.
"Just thinking of when Dad showed us this spot."
Wyatt chuckled. "God, Mom was so mad. Yelling about how we were too young to be that high up."
Laughing, Chris said; "Yeah, imagine if we'd told her about the time we accidentally orbed ourselves onto the wings of that passenger jet."
Wyatt suddenly became sombre. "I wish we'd told her."
"Are you insane? She would have grounded us for, like, ever."
Wyatt shrugged. "I just forgot how much I wanted her to know stuff, you know?" He watched Chris kick his feet back and forth against the metal strut. "I'm not even that mad you weren't able to save her because however much you seem to be the one with all the personal gain issues I seem to be the brother who understands the intricacies of time travel."
Chris coughed, a sound that sounded suspiciously like; "Shakespeare.""Whatever," Wyatt continued. "It was just that seeing her reminded me how much I missed her."
"Well, yeah," Chris shrugged. "She's our Mom."
Wyatt laughed. "Trust you to break it down so simply."
"Well that's pretty much all there is to it," Chris smiled. "But you know what we do have?"
"What?"
"A Dad who just made muffins, two Aunts who are probably really worried, a cousin who is probably just as worried and wanting to tell us about her latest boyfriend crisis and another cousin whose hyperactive tendencies always provide some amusement."
Wyatt smiled. "Not forgetting the two Uncles who keep trying to set you up with girls they work with."
"Yeah," Chris paused and then continued thoughtfully, "really wish they'd stop doing that."
Wyatt stood, holding out a hand to Chris. "Let's go home."
"Sounds good."
Wyatt stopped Chris orbing away with a hand to the shoulder. "I'm going to propose to Bianca."
"Cool."
"Want to be best man?"
"Even cooler."
THE END
A/N: Okay, I know people are going to yell about me killing Piper off anyway but this was the way I always saw the story going because otherwise what's stopping Chris and Wyatt from going back and saving Prue or Andy or making Cole not evil etc., etc. See what I mean?
Anyway, thank you so much to everyone who reviewed; it really makes the difference in how much I feel like writing. And I also like to thank you for sticking with the story through the sporadic updates. If you read any of my other fic you'll be happy to know that I'm making a conscious effort to really just get the majority of them finished.
Thank you and good night.