Chapter Three
A/N: I do not own any of the characters with the exception of Jake and Emily.
Thank you so much for everyone who's been enjoying this story and a special thank you to Swt Charmed Fan for their great work in Betaing this story!
Hope you all enjoy and please feel free to leave a review!
The underworld was the same as how Mel remembered it from the few times she ventured down there as a teen—hot, rock-filled and just oozing the feeling of evilness everywhere you went. It honestly made her skin crawl at times but for right now, Mel was content to ignore the feelings. She was demon hunting with her brother again. There was nothing in the world that could make that feel wrong. Except five hours of non-stop walking through the underworld when you were pretty much running on empty.
"So do you know where we'll find her?" Mel asked after a while, using conversation to ignore the feeling of hunger coursing through her body. There was only so much rocky terrain one could look at before getting bored out of their minds.
"I've got a demonic contact close by," Chris told her, ducking to avoid getting his head impaled on a stalagmite. "Unfortunately, with such a big target, I might have to promise something I won't be able to keep."
"What's that?"
"Immunity from the Charmed Ones," he told her and Mel couldn't find it in her to care that her brother was making deals with demons. It's what they'd been doing since the Rebellion began honestly. Anyone who thought it was a bad idea hadn't lived in the hellscape that San Fransisco would become in about twenty years. Either that, or they were some holier-than-thou Elder who just had to be right all the time.
"How often have you promised that?" she whispered as they ducked down to avoid being spotted.
"Not too often," he told her, smirking as they slunk past two demons and took a left. Mel hoped the walking would end soon—it hadn't been too long since she'd gotten hit by a demonic energy ball and although the wound was healed, it still took a lot out of her physically. Plus, Chris had the benefit of being in this time longer. Even as food deprived as he was, Chris had at least regained some of his muscle mass and endurance.
I've got to get back into shape, Mel thought as she hopped over a stray boulder only to run straight into Chris. Her brother had stopped without any warning; something that would have been appreciated about five minutes ago.
"Well, well," a feminine voice called out and Mel understood now why Chris had stopped. There was no point in continuing the hunt for the demonic contact when Klea had already killed him. Well, Mel assumed it was him. Honestly, it was pure luck they'd stumbled upon her. "The Seer was right. I am next on the list of the Charmed One's Whitelighter."
"Something tells me you're not going to go quietly," Chris said, swiftly slipping into his fighting stance. Klea laughed and it was enough to send shivers running down Mel's spine.
"What demon would welcome their own death?" she asked, pulling an athame out of seemingly nowhere.
"Why the blade?" Mel called out, slipping into her own stance. "We both know you could kill us just by touching us."
"Where's the fun in that?" Klea asked, giving an evil smile in Mel's direction. "Once I kill the Charmed One's Whitelighter, that will elevate my rank in the Underworld. But I'll need to show that I've actually taken him down."
"Chris, watch out!" Mel called out as Klea swung, almost gutting Chris with the athame. Chris responded in kind, using his telekinesis to knock Klea into the nearby wall. She shimmered off, only to return toward Chris' right and tried to stab the younger man with the athame. Mel deflected the attack by orbing the athame away from Klea and into her own hand. Jabbing it at the demon, Mel growled as Klea shimmered out of reach. However, the brief moment of distraction was all that the demon needed as Mel was met with a knee to the midsection and winced as Klea sliced her arm with the athame. Mel twisted out of the demon's grasp, causing the athame to fall out of Klea's hands and to the ground. Klea, in turn, attempted to turn the attack on Mel by summoning a new athame and swinging it toward Mel's stomach. Thankfully though, Mel deflected by levitating up into the air.
Had her reflexes been a second off, Mel probably would have seen her insides sprawling all over the floor along with a pissed off older brother.
"So you won't fight back?" Klea asked, staring at Mel intently as if she had never seen someone like her before.
"This isn't my fight," Mel told her, hoping to keep the demon distracted so Chris could grab the athame that was on the ground and they could vanquish her. Then, hopefully, they could make it home before anyone realized what they snuck away to do.
"Oh? Not even to save your mate?" Klea snarled and then shimmered away. Mel scanned her surroundings, desperately trying to search for her in order to get a warning to Chris—and ignoring the feeling of disgust coming from the idea of mating with her own brother. It wasn't until she heard a sharp gasp of pain that she found the demon in question—just as she was pulling the athame out of Chris's side.
"CHRIS!" Mel shouted, anger toward the demon and fear for her brother overtaking her. She landed and lashed out toward Klea, using her own telekinesis to stun the demon in order for the two siblings to orb out and back to the manor. Once there, Mel was very happy to see that the attic was as they had left it—empty of all Halliwells and whitelighters.
"M-Mel, leave it," Chris told her, wincing as he tried to stand up straight. Mel could see his light blue shirt quickly gain a reddish-brown stain that just seemed to keep growing. "I'll deal with it later. R-right now, we need to see what can be done so we can launch another attack against Klea."
"No, what you need to do is sit down and let me take care of that," Mel told him, using the brief moment he took to straighten himself to force him on to a nearby couch. "The last thing the resistance needs is for you to bleed out. You might be a fast healer but if we don't get that wound taken care of fast, you'll die of blood loss."
Chris sighed but as there were no more arguments coming from her brother, Mel took that as a sign to begin. Tearing the shirt off, she couldn't help but be envious of the minimal scaring on her brother's torso. Wyatt had instructed his demons to never harm Chris, that the honor should be left up to him. Honestly, it was almost like Voldemort and Harry Potter with them.
Of course, sometimes the demons didn't listen but that was fine because Chris would just stitch himself up once he got back to headquarters. Most of his scars were on his legs or arms anyway so they were easy to reach. Not so with this one today.
"This may sting a little," Mel muttered as she quickly hunted for a needle and thread in her great-grandmother's old sewing things. She could hear Leo downstairs and she knew the sooner she got this done, the sooner they could leave. "Ah-ha!"
Fishing the thread through the needle as swiftly as she could, Mel pinched together Chris' skin to allow for an easier time sewing the wound up. Breathing in quickly, she poked the needle through as quickly as she could. Thankfully, the only sound was a brief moan from Chris that she knew couldn't have been loud enough to reach Leo's ears. How very wrong she was.
"What are you doing?" a voice called from behind as she was about four or five loops in. Thankfully, Mel didn't jump or do any jerky movements. That might have resulted in a very interesting scar for Chris. Besides, she knew that voice anywhere. She didn't need to look to see that it was her father standing in the doorway.
"Stitching this moron up," she told him, still stitching up the wound. The last thing she wanted was for something to go wrong. They needed Chris. "Demon hunt went awry."
"Why didn't you call out?" Leo asked, walking in closer and setting Wyatt down in a playpen that was protected by a circle of crystals. A pointless waste of crystals as Wyatt could shield himself but Mel honestly wasn't going to fault first time parents for being a little overprotective. It was strange but Mel honestly hoped in that moment that Leo would recognize her as his daughter. She looked like an honest combination of the two of them, with Leo's light brown hair and Piper's long slender frame, but knew it was probably impossible. They hadn't recognized Chris yet and he was practically Piper with Leo's eyes.
"Just one more," Mel muttered, ignoring Leo's question. There were so many different reasons why she didn't call him and she didn't have time to go into them all. Looking down at her handiwork, Mel frowned. Chris would have to be extremely careful for the next few days—the stitches wouldn't be as strong as ones with medical thread but this was the best she had on such short notice. Now all she needed was some gauze and some tape and she'd be set.
"Where do you guys keep your first aid supplies?" she turned and asked Leo, who seemed almost shocked by the treatment she'd given Chris. What, did he expect her to just let him bleed out? Maybe it would have been better if he could have passed on the healing power to her as well as Wyatt so that way there wouldn't be this problem!
Shaking her head, Mel sighed. She knew it wasn't right to hold a grudge against Leo—after all, he couldn't control which sibling got which power.
"Leo?" she prompted after a few minutes of silence where the Elder had not answered her question. "First aid supplies?"
"Oh!" Leo jolted back to attention and Mel followed her father's gaze to see just what he was looking at. Any hostility she had toward the Elder vanished when she saw the slight scaring on Chris' chest, right by his heart. Bianca normally had no problem stripping someone's powers and leaving no trace of her action—unless the victim was someone she cared about. In that case, the action the Phoenix would take would be more stiff. Almost as if she was fighting against her own powers.
That act would always leave a scar on the victims body—even if they managed to get their powers back as Chris had. Though, she'd have to remember to ask her brother why the scar would cause that reaction in Leo.
Mel was so deep in thought that she hadn't even noticed the blue and white orbs signaling Leo's departure and return. In his hands, he held multiple packs of gauze and tape, along with neosporin. The arrival of the miracle drug, as Mel liked to call it, was something that she hadn't expected but greatly welcomed. It would help to avoid a more noticeable scar.
"Thanks," Mel said, taking the items and quickly got to work dressing the wound. Even though she'd closed it, Mel knew that she had to work fast to dress the wound. Chris had become unconscious due to the combination of blood loss and exhaustion hence why she was able to stitch him up with little trouble. The problem would come when he started dreaming. You didn't get far in their rebellion without gaining a few nightmares.
One wrong movement though and Chris could tear his stitches. The last thing Mel needed was for her brother to bleed out in his sleep.
Silence filled the room as Mel continued to work on dressing her brother's wound. While her supplies weren't limitless, there were more than she had to work with in the future so Mel was going to make the most of what she got.
"There," she muttered, taping the last piece of gauze to Chris. "At least this way, he'll have a bit of a challenge tearing this off."
Leaning back, Mel didn't even notice the blood covering her shirt or the sweat covering her brow. All she knew was the complete exhaustion she felt and she quickly changed directions so that her back was against the sofa Chris was currently passed out on. Leaning her head back so that it touched the cushioned part, Mel swore that she'd not be moved until at least an hour had passed.
Her friends, of course, didn't get the memo for as soon as she made that mental declaration, Mel heard the dulcet tones of Jake and Emily calling for her. Normally, she wouldn't care but with Leo in the room, she couldn't risk Jake shimmering in and blowing that part of the secret.
She could always ask Leo to go get them but there was no way he'd leave his precious first born here with a stranger and the Charmed One's passed out whitelighter—both of whom he probably didn't trust. Chris had filled her in during their five hour trek through the underworld.
"So anything I should know?" Mel asked around their third hour of traipsing through the underworld. She just couldn't understand the appeal her brothers found by being here. Give her a nice sunny day and a cauldron full of ingredients to build a vanquishing potion any day. "You know, just so I don't make a massive faux-pax and say something stupid."
"Leo doesn't trust me," Chris told her, hopping over a fallen boulder. "I think the sisters are slowly coming around but you can never tell with them."
"Oh? And why does Leo not trust you?"
"Cause I won't tell him or the sisters what happens to Wyatt in the future ," Chris told her and Mel actually snorted in amusement.
"How many times have the sisters time traveled? They should know better than anyone that there are things you just don't tell people when you travel through time!"
"Yeah," Chris smirked. "Just don't say something like that in front of them. They're not stupid and something like that would definitely get one of the sisters' attention."
"Can't I just claim that we learned it in Magic School?" Mel asked, groaning as she tripped over a crack in the ground. Chris, shaking his head in amusement, stopped to offer her a hand up. Once up, he steadied her with his other hand grasping her arm in a way that had been done many times before.
"You know, if you'd pick up your feet when you walked, stuff like that wouldn't happen," he told her and Mel rolled her eyes at his retreating form.
Jake's call dragged her out from her memories and Mel groaned at the thought of getting up. Of course, that wouldn't actually stop her from seeing what her boyfriend and best friend wanted.
"You okay?" Leo asked, looking over at her with a hint of concern in his eyes. Then again, he did walk in on her stitching up Chris from a failed demon hunt so maybe it wouldn't be out of the norm for him to care. Now that he asked, Mel realized that the pain from the fight was coming back. Hard.
"I hate adrenaline rushes," she muttered, tearing off a bit of her own shirt to tend to the injury to her arm that Klea had so kindly given to her. The pain to her abdomen was something she'd just have to ignore, unless it grew to be something serious. She'd address it then.
"Mel?" Leo asked and Melinda realized she had never answered Leo's question. Huh, that seemed to be a pattern with her.
"Jake and Emily keep calling but I barely have the energy to stand up to pee, let alone orb," she told him in a rather manner of fact tone. It was funny how in some ways, she and Chris were polar opposites—when she got tired, Mel became an open book. It's no wonder why so many of Wyatt's attempt to break her for information on the rebellion included some form of sleep deprivation.
"Do you have to pee?" Leo asked in a way that told Mel that her future father really didn't want to know the answer.
"No," Mel picked up her head and looked at him. "Look, I'd normally never ask this since you know, future won't save itself if I'm sitting on my butt all day. But someone has to make sure Chris doesn't do anything stupid when he wakes up so could you orb Jake and Emily here?"
Leo paused for a moment and Mel followed his gaze toward Wyatt. Sighing, she pushed up off the floor to sit up a bit. Maybe she could present a better argument if she didn't look like she was ready to pass out at a moment's notice.
"I'll look after Wyatt," she said and despite how she felt about the man Mel couldn't help but feel a twinge of sadness as Leo shot her a skeptical look. Did the man really think that she would let something happen to the infant version of her eldest brother? "Look at me Leo! Even if you don't trust me, surely you could see that I'm barely in any shape to do anything other than look after the toddler surrounded by crystals."
Leo did have the decency to look slightly abashed after she said that and quickly orbed out. Three seconds later, the blue and white orbs were back—and not a moment too soon as Mel could smell a growing stench coming from Wyatt's direction. After they cleared, Jake stepped back from Leo and bent down—his hands on his thighs and his head facing the floor, almost as if he was trying to stop himself from throwing up.
"How is it you're dating a half-whitelighter and yet orbing makes you nauseous?" Emily asked, shaking her head in amusement until the smell of Wyatt's soiled diaper reached her nose. "Ugh! What is that?"
"Will someone please change the Twice Blessed?" Mel groaned. "Cause it's not going to be me."
"At least it's not so bad with my head down here," Jake told them, his head still down near his knees.
Leo shook his head at their antics and walked over to his son's playpen. Clearing the crystals, he picked up his firstborn and walked out of the room. Once she was sure he was gone, Mel sighed in relief.
"So what'd you find out?" she asked Emily and Jake, who had straightened up. "I assume that's the reason why you called right? Because you found out what turned Wyatt or at least have a lead?"
"No we were calling because we hadn't heard from you in five hours," Emily said, folding her arms over her chest. "Why are you sitting on the floor? Why is your shirt torn and why is a piece wrapped around your arm? Also, why does Chris have a mountain of gauze taped to him?"
"Mel, please tell me you didn't go demon hunting alone," Jake groaned. His girlfriend was first and foremost a Halliwell and demon vanquishes were like catnip to them. Somehow, he wondered how she agreed to date him in the first place.
"Of course not," Mel shook her head, almost offended that Jake had so little faith in her. "I was with Chris."
"That does not make me feel better!"
Emily snorted in amusement and then gestured to the stitched up and dressed wound on Chris' abdomen. "So, how'd he get the war wound?"
"Botched vanquish," Mel told them, hoping the two of them would get the memo and leave well enough alone. Alas, that was not the case.
"Who was the lucky demon?" Jake asked. Mel sighed but knew there was no way to prevent them from knowing. Chris would probably tell them as soon as he woke up and the last thing Mel needed was for Jake and Emily to be mad at her for not telling them about this demon.
"Klea."
There was a sudden silence and Mel knew without even looking at her friends that they were looking right at her.
"I'm sorry. Who was it you tried to vanquish by yourself after spending years sleep and nutrient deprived?" Emily asked even though Mel knew she heard her. "Melinda, is your brother hormonal or just plain crazy? You don't go after the last living member of the Brotherhood of the Thorn half cocked!"
"I know, trust me I know," Mel sighed and leaned her head back again—ready for whatever lecture the older girl had for her. If push came to shove, she could just direct the ire of her best friend toward her big brother. Odds are that wouldn't work but it was worth a try.
