Charlie's eyes snap open and he immediately jerks back a bit his hands coming up as he feels the power of his lightning crackle around his eyes. He blinks once, hoping to focus his vision on the person who had entered his personal space only to realize that it was Antonio who had also jumped back in shock. It takes him a moment to realize that Antonio was holding his blanket up, "Antonio? What are you doing here?"
Antonio bit his lip watching as the lightning dissipated, "Mom said she felt safer here with you around so she's on the couch and your blanket fell off so I was just trying to help!" He immediately gets out watching as Charlie sits up and rubs his eyes. "She said it was so that Rachel wouldn't show up again but I think she's still super worried."
Charlie studies Antonio for a moment, before swinging his legs off his bed and stretching, feeling his muscles and ligaments pop and crack with the effort. "Don't worry this will all be over soon. No one is going to hurt your mother like that ever again."
Antonio nods and lets go of Charlie's blanket, "After you're done can you keep teaching me magic? So I can protect my mom too?" He asks watching as Charlie opens a drawer and begins to look for a shirt.
Charlie stops and turns to look at Antonio again, there was an earnest look in his eyes. "Well—"
"I can almost draw a perfect circle now! I've been practicing every day. I promise," Antonio insists.
"Antonio—"
"Please Mr. Charlie? You said you'd teach me how to protect mom and I can't depend on Spot all the time, she's just a baby."
Charlie scratched his cheek as he grabs a shirt and pulls it on, "If I'm going to teach you magic, which I will—then we're going to have to start at the beginning. I'm not going to teach you any short cuts, you will have to work very hard to become a decent magician and even then, without me knowing exactly which discipline you have a talent in, and you still don't have your magic. I'm unsure your mother will allow me to simply let you play with my magic, so we'll see."
"But that's not good enough. What if my mom needs me?" Antonio worried.
Charlie frowns. "Well that would mean that I failed, I wasn't this good with magic overnight—" As far as he was concerned that was a lie, but Antonio wasn't a Fabray. He wasn't a pure-blooded Magician. To some people such as his father, it mattered. He personally couldn't care less about Antonio's blood status. But Magic would be harder, he would need to work twice as hard to be a decent Magician and as far as Charlie was concerned that was unacceptable. Antonio needed to be a great Magician. "Don't worry about protecting your mother Antonio, I promise that I'll keep her safe. I'll keep the both of you safe."
Antonio frowns, that wasn't the answer that he wanted to hear. But it would have to do for now. "Does that mean that you're going to marry my mom?"
"Marry her? Why on earth would I do that?"
"To protect her." Antonio rolls his eyes as if it's the most obvious explanation in the world.
Charlie frowns and rubs his chin thoughtfully. "I don't have to marry her to protect her. Magic doesn't work that way. But she is my assistant and I'll do everything in my power to make sure she's safe. She's my assistant and she's too good at it for me to ever let her go easily." He nudges Antonio at the end of his statement, hoping a little playful light-heartedness will keep Antonio from worrying about this too much.
Antonio isn't going to be dissuaded so easily. "Rachel was your assistant. So was Mike. And they left. If you married my mom, you could protect her forever, and she couldn't leave even if she wanted to."
Charlie lifts up his finger, about to respond when he really thinks over Antonio's suggestion. Is that really such a bad idea? Surely Rachel would never leave Quinn. "Antonio, your mother is—I'm not quite sure—I don't think I can just ask her to marry me. And even if I could, I'm sure that as her boss it would be extremely improper for me to ask such a thing. Then your mom will leave anyway."
"Oh," Antonio frowned. He hadn't thought of that and he scratches his head. "So that's why you have to teach me magic!"
"Antonio, even if I had the time right now to teach you magic, it's still going to take years. Do you think you'd be able to beat me if I started teaching you tomorrow?"
Antonio shakes his head his frown deepens. "But—"
"Antonio, I give you my word that I will keep your mother safe and do everything in my power to keep her employed as my assistant. But to do that I need to focus on this threat. I need to make sure that Noah never gets to her again." Charlie pats Antonio's head stopping when Antonio scowls at him. If he remembered correctly he had never liked it when his father had done the same thing to him multiple times. "Now, speaking of your mother—where is she?"
"Sleeping on the couch, I got bored of reading—and mom said I wasn't allowed to touch anything and you don't even have a television! You should get one Mr. Charlie."
Charlie finished pulling on his shirt and buttoning it up. "No. This place need to remain distraction free."
"But that's boring."
"It's efficient." Charlie corrects, narrowing his eyes. "What do you know anyway?"
"I know lots of things." Antonio reminds him. "Lots of thing that you don't know," he mutters the last part and smiles when Charlie shoots him a look. "It's true."
Charlie grunts at this insult and heads over to his couch and frowns and leans down so he can gently shake her awake. He waits until her eyes are open before finally saying something, "Next time, I'll take the couch and you can have the bed."
Santana immediately pushed herself up, flushing, "Sorry, I just—"
"It's fine. Just let me know next time, my bed is considerably more comfortable than that couch," Charlie informs her, patting her shoulder. "Now, would you like me to call Brittany over to watch over you and Antonio while I go after Noah? Or would you feel more comfortable with my mother? My father is absolutely useless to you even though he is a strong magician, it's like a muscle if you don't use it—" Charlie trails off.
"What about Quinn?" Santana presses.
Charlie is quiet for a moment, "You think I'm being cruel to her as well?"
"I don't know if you're being cruel to her, I thought you said that Quinn is a decent Magician—"
"Raw strength and being a decent Magician are two separate things. Quinn has power in spades, but doing spells is no longer a strength of hers. She barely passed—"
"Because of what you and Brittany did to her?" Santana presses.
Charlie stares at Santana and makes a face, "We only did—what she asked. Magic has consequences. We know this. We just never predicted that would be the consequence. In hindsight and given everything I know now, I can see it now, and perhaps Quinn wouldn't have made the decision, if she had all the facts, but there is nothing we can do about it now."
"Really? Nothing at all?"
"Apart from undoing what we did and even then, it's not a guarantee. Magic is odd like that," Charlie frowns, "But that doesn't matter, what matters is that I'm going to find him. I'm going to find Noah and bring him in—as you wished without putting him in traction. Though if you've changed your mind—"
"What does that mean?" Antonio asked as he flopped onto the couch beside his mom and curled in.
"What it means is that Charlie is going to keep his promise and not hurt Noah, he has a daughter and he's the only one that Beth has." Santana turns to Charlie. "You promised. And I'm going with you."
"No you're not, you have a choice of protection but I can't keep you safe and go after Noah. Even with the blocks that Brittany put in place I have no idea how strong he is, I have no idea if he can force his way through and I need to focus." Charlie frowned.
Santana gritted her teeth, she loathed feeling helpless and even though she understood his reasoning it didn't make it any better. At least he wasn't going alone. "Fine—how about Brittany?" She says finally. She doesn't want to explain everything to Charlie's mother or anyone else for that matter and perhaps Brittany would be able to continue their psychic lessons.
"Can she bring over—?"
"No," Charlie cuts Antonio off. "The last time she brought over a creature, Rachel spent weeks cleaning up," Charlie informs him. "I don't think your mother wants to clean up after Brittany."
"What makes you think I'll be cleaning up after her?" Santana asks raising a brow. "Antonio can do it."
"What?"
Charlie smiles. "I suppose he could. I wouldn't have to pay him right?"
"No—"
"Hey!" Antonio scowled at his mother and then Charlie. "That's not nice!"
"Neither is volunteering me for more work than I want to do. Why in the world do you think I never joined your silly PTA events?"
"Because you said that the only people who do that are people who have plenty of time on their hands and like to boss other people around so they feel better about their miserable lives?" Antonio answers.
Santana flushes and looks over at Charlie who looks confused, he probably didn't even know what they were talking about. "I'm guessing your mother never had to bake cookies for a bake sale or anything like that?"
"My mother stopped baking cookies the moment that she shipped us off to boarding school. In fact I don't think my parents cared at all about what happened afterwards just that they were free." Charlie muses as he stands up. "Though if you want to talk about raising a young magician I imagine my mother has some advice that can help. I'll call Brittany and wait for her to come, before I leave."
Santana nods before pausing for a moment. Noah hated Charlie, she didn't really understand why. Not when Noah was in the wrong. But she didn't think that Noah would come easily, and she didn't want Charlie getting hurt because of her silly request. "If he attacks Charlie—I know you well enough to know that you'll still try and take him in peacefully—but I don't want him to kill you or anything. You're allowed to defend yourself."
Charlie studies her for a moment and nods. "Hopefully I'll be back tonight." Charlie glances at Antonio who was giving him a strange look, perhaps he would look into his idea. He'd have to ask his mother, or maybe Quinn.
