Disclaimer: I do not own W.I.T.C.H. or any of its characters in any way, shape or form.

Note: Based on the cartoon, not the comics.

This one is a day after the events of the last one (or around there). I apologise in advance if the quality is not great, I was playing around with an idea (see the end for further explanation).

The youth stood at the entrance to the section that held the palace's prison. He had compromised with Elyon, promising to accompany her to whatever 'relaxing' activity she chose – so long as it did not involve ice or skates or a combination of the two – in several days time if she allowed him today to catch up on his duties. The young commander's argument had been solidified when, in refute to her complaining he did too much, he had pointed out he would not have had so much to do had she not confined him to his room the day before.

Caleb had been ridiculously proud of his victory. Sometimes it was good to know one could still outdebate the all-powerful Queen of Meridian. He would never admit, however, how much good the day of rest had done him. Not to Elyon's face in any case. Or Vathek's. Or his father's. But Blunk was a possibility, if the passling prodded him just the right way…

The young commander stared down the passageway and tried to still his thudding heart. He was stalling. He knew it.

"This is ridiculous," Caleb muttered to himself. I've been here before plenty of times. I was there when we confronted… her and when we struck that 'deal' with Phobos. I've been here after as well. More than once!

Because two is such a large number in comparison to one.

Caleb did not like the mocking voice in his head. It sounded too much like another power-hungry voice that he would rather forget.

So that is why you have been avoiding this trip.

I'm not avoiding it! I've been here before.

And yet that was always because your Queen asked you. It was always because you had too. If imaginary voices could laugh, this one would win the prize for the most derisive one. Fear is a terrible thing.

"Damn you! I am not afraid!" Perhaps cursing himself aloud did not make such a good case for his argument. Now that he thought about it, talking to himself did not make such a good case for his sanity either. At least he had still possessed enough sense not to shout the words.

Caleb rubbed his hand over his pounding heart once more, swallowing dryly. It was not like he had never faced the foes before, and once again they would be locked in cells. They would be unable to harm him, unable to eat him.

The young commander shuddered as the thought dredged up the remains of his nightmare the night before. The snake-like beast had been more appealing when he had been made puny by Phobos in a fit of rage. Caleb certainly had not missed Cedric's ability to all but crush a man with his hands and tail. Or his ability to swallow said man whole.

"He will be in a cell." There was that muttering again. It was not reassuring in any aspect. He was in a cell before. They all were. And they got free.

A slithering 'Lord' slithered circles in his head, swallowing up all in his path. Caleb closed his eyes. He imagined the vibrant flowers that still bloomed on his windowsill, framing it in an explosion of colour. It was just a dream.

He could do this.

"Get rid of them permanently."

He could do this.

A giant snake-man filled his vision, swallowing up petty tyrants in a single gulp.

He couldn't-

"Caleb! I was not expecting you now." Vathek's voice rang loud and clear. "Later in the day, perhaps…"

The young commander stared up at the jail warden. "And why is now not a good time?"

Vathek grinned. "I thought you would have been longer with your father, Drake and the Queen chewing them out for keeping you out of the scuffle yesterday."

"That was no small scuffle," Caleb frowned darkly. "If the Guardians hadn't been there, that thing would have leveled the entire portion of the city next to the lake."

"Nevertheless, it was handled, and you did not even have to wake from your slumbering for us to do so."

"And if there are more of them, whatever they were?" the young commander asked incredulously. "Better for me to have been there and seen it so that I could better deal with it if it comes back."

The jail warden shook his head. "It is the duty of the others, as commanders of the guard, to protect Meridian as well."

"And I am the head of them!"

"Well, no harm was done," Vathek placated. "So, let us go and pay those fiends that it is my duty to guard a visit."

Caleb swallowed. His heart pounded. Tyrants and snakes still screamed in his head. Yet, there was no way he could get out of it. It had to be done. Still –

"I'm here to see the prison, not the prisoners."

His old friend shot him a look. "And you will find that you cannot get one without the other."

It was a fact that Caleb, reluctantly, knew.

"After you." Vathek gestured for the young commander to make his way through the door that would lead to the heart of the prison where the worst of the worst were kept. The youth swallowed dryly and followed.

The pair soon emerged into the main chamber, if it could be called such. The roof was high and the bottom so far down that it was hard to discern where the columns of cells ended. Rows of eyes glinted in the shadowy depths of the walls, row upon row of hatred spilling out onto the two figures that stood freely upon the center platform.

Caleb looked around, blood rushing in his ears. The pale face of Cedric was visible through the bars of his cell – a human face, which gave Caleb no small amount of relief. The beast was also silent, unbridled rage racing across his face as his eyes met with the former rebel leader who suppressed a shiver. It was just a dream…

Miranda was nowhere to be seen, although the youth knew she lurked somewhere in the confines of the cell directly below Cedric's. Her lack of presence, however, was made up by another who drifted elegantly behind the bars.

"Ah, the rebel leader." Caleb loathed that sneer. "Come to gloat, have you? I have noticed your remarkable absence I the past weeks. Not counting, of course, the times you have accompanied my delightful sister down like the obedient mindless slave you are."

Caleb ignored the provocative words of the beaten tyrant. He glanced at Vathek with a cocked eyebrow and then back around the room. The jail warden took the hint.

"We have not had any trouble so far," he said in a low voice.

Caleb nodded, his thoughts guarded carefully by unreadable eyes. The young commander looked around, thudding heart moving to second place as his mind went about analysing the potential of the prison to keep its occupants locked away. He stood in such a manner for a while, Vathek calmly maintaining watch beside him. This isn't so bad…

Phobos, however, would not be ignored.

"Do you think you can stop me from getting out again?"

Caleb ignored him with his head. The pounding in his chest, however, increased by a notch.

"Ignoring me? I would have thought you lacked the skill to keep your mouth shut when desired. Or at least had enough sense to know when someone spoke the truth."

The young commander swallowed, but refused to acknowledge the jibe.

The former tyrant laughed. It was a laugh that could cause the stones in the heart of a volcano to shudder. "I have gotten out before, twice before, and I can do so again, and then you will regret your role in bringing a temporary end to my reign."

"Both times you had help, and both times you ended back in here," Vathek bit back. "The end to your reign isn't so much temporary as it is lasting."

The jailer's companion swallowed again. If his heart was pounding furiously, his mind running through every possible way that what the former tyrant had said coming true, it did not show.

"Ah, yes, help." If anything, Phobos' grin increased in amusement of the sinister kind. It was telling that the other notable prisoners fell silent, as though they were about to watch a pack of starving beasts set upon an ignorant traveller.

Caleb took a casual step back to better keep all his potential enemies in view. Danger! Danger! – his instincts went on overdrive; even the faint hissing breaths of Cedric were audible to the former rebel's ears. His hands grew uncomfortably damp, but his face gave away nothing of his inner disquiet.

They cannot get out of their cells. But words could be just as harmful as action. "Get rid of them permanently…"

The young commander did his best to keep his hatred for that voice from showing. He tried even harder when it spoke aloud again.

"Perhaps that former Guardian will break free from that pretty jewel and see the benefits of partnering with me once again. Although, I admit that trust between your mother and myself would never be quite the same after our mutual betrayal of each other." The denounced prince grinned at Caleb's involuntary flinch at the mention of one person he would rather forget. "Yes, I know your little secret. I wonder what that makes you. She was a murderer, after all."

Caleb gritted his teeth. He would not flee. His heart might be trying to pound its way through his chest and the material of his gloves might be sticky unpleasantly to his sweaty palms, but he would not flee. He would not give the bastard the satisfaction.

"Not that kinship mattered much to her. She did try to kill you. Even my parents were not as awful as that."

Beside him Vathek was growing increasingly agitated as well. Caleb sent the jailer a sidelong glance, the best he could do to tell his friend that he would – that he could – handle it.

"Talk all you want, Phobos," the young commander answered at last. "You will not escape on Vathek's watch. You cannot escape on your sister's watch. You may be older, but she got the family talents and powers." He paused, glee in his tone but not his face. "That must hurt."

"I should have swung an axe through your neck when you first kneeled before me in chains," Phobos growled. "How easy my life would have been then. Then I could have strung up your lifeless body as a warning to all else who dared to even think of opposing me."

One of the two figures on the platform below snapped. "Shut your mouth! You will not threaten him on my watch."

The other figure had frozen, almost unnoticeably so, in place. His heart sped up its frantic drumming so much so that the young man feared it would burst from his chest in a bloody mess. His hands were slick. His face had defaulted into the marble mask of a rebel leader.

Phobos gave a short bark of laughter. "Well, it looks as though your fearless leader can't handle a few small words. Maybe you would have been better off letting me cut off his head."

"You would have to be able to lift an axe first, Phobos," Caleb shot back. "But we all know you can barely lift your sister's dresses no matter how much you like wearing them."

The laughter that echoed from the other cells – one disturbingly like the hissing mirth from his too recent nightmare – sent the former tyrant into a silent rage.

Caleb had regained his center well enough to fix his mask back in place, the one that he had worn whenever he had been interrogated by someone with a reputation for vile and cruel and evil. The former rebel leader sent one more glance around the tall room.

"I think that's it," he said and turned on his heel.

The young commander walked back down the passage he had come, Vathek close behind. The human struggled to keep his breathing even as he finally allowed his hands to curl into fists.

"You won't always have your Guardians to swoop in and save you at the last minute," Phobos' haughty voice followed him. "One dawn the axe will fall and you will be as dead as a-"

The door slammed shut, cutting off the last word. Vathek looked to where Caleb leant against the exit of the prison. He went to speak, but could think of nothing to say. So he closed his mouth and waited.

"It could have been worse."

Vathek raised a disbelieving eyebrow.

"Well," Caleb elaborated. "He could have said I looked as ugly as you."

The hollow tone took the humour out of the words, and Vathek was left wondering whether it had been a wise decision to let the youth into the prison after all. The prisoners, despite their lodgings and when they were not insulting each other, liked meat to cut and slice with the only weapons they had available to them – words. Vathek was old meat, so to speak; they saw him so often that their words slide off his skin like gravy on ice and the game had lost its amusing appeal. Caleb though – what most of them would not give to see Caleb fall in one way or another. To have the former rebel leader all to their wordy selves…

The young commander had visited the prison twice since their second victory of Meridian. Yet, each time had been at the behest and in the company of Elyon – a far more juicy target, not in the least because her tongue did not quite have the same ability as Caleb's barbed one. Besides, she was Meridian's Queen and Heart, and so the focus had been on her. Nor could she hide so well her distress like her most loyal guard.

Vathek regarded Caleb with a long and discreet look. The boy had been avoiding the prison as much as possible. Wherever possible he had simply talked to Vathek wherever possible; the food hall, the main hall, his chambers, Vathek's chambers, the gardens – the furthest the young human had made it was the jail warden's working quarters. Until now.

They each had their own way, the rebels who had found themselves almost surprisingly in a new and better world, of dealing with their nightmares – both in memory and dreams. Drake was attempting to learn the lute. Julian focused on the present. Vathek had found simply seeing the ones responsible for Meridian's suffering in a cell each day was enough to make all the horrors he had faced seem worth it. The look of pure hatred of Phobos' face in particular gave him distinct pleasure.

The blue Meridian looked Caleb over once more. How the youth dealt with it, if the efforts of himself and others the prior day to keep him from working were any indication, was by throwing himself into his duties. It worked, Vathek could not argue otherwise, but the boy also seemed to have another unconscious way of getting past his own too real nightmares. It was a concern of the former spy that one day Caleb would be unable to continue his dodging of the issue any longer. No one could dodge forever. They eventually had to take a hit.

That type of thinking was not something Vathek wished to apply to his friend. It had served well enough, however, in providing hope during the Rebellion.

Still leaning against the door, Caleb shifted. He had caught the jail warden staring and was now rendered both self-conscious and curious as to why.

Vathek straightened unconsciously. "You seem… shaken."

Caleb closed his eyes. For a while it appeared as though the youth would stay silent or else walk away, but he eventually conceded to words.

"The last time I saw Phobos in a prison setting I was hours away from being executed."

The jailer was caught off guard. He had heard as much at the time, had even tried to offer some semblance of reassurance to Julian that his son, against all the odds, would make it through. The big blue Meridian remembered his worry well, his own fear that they would, for once, be too late. It was a thought that haunted both him and Julian – and the others too – and often many a night for weeks after were spent with the company of friends and drink ended with them discussing the prospect of imminent death.

For all their talk, however, he had never heard Caleb utter one word about the incident. It was a fact that concerned Julian to no end.

Phobos, on the other hand, had possessed no such qualms of keeping the details of what could have happened quiet.

Vathek realised he still had not responded. He did not know whether his friend wanted him to, but it could not do any harm to try. Whether or not Caleb wanted to confide, Vathek would assure him that he could confide in his friend all the same. As it was, he had his own experiences he could use to meet the younger being at a mutual level.

Hurriedly drawing phrases together in his head, the jail warden finally broke the strenuous silence. "I remember when they were going to push me into the Abyss before you and those Guardians came along. I don't think I have ever felt that much fear for myself before or since."

Caleb took the subtle invitation. "I was more concerned about Blunk. I couldn't figure a way out of there, at least not without blowing Raythor's cover, and he was going to be killed alongside me." The former rebel leader crossed his arms and lowered his head. "He might be a smelly thief, but he's a good friend with a good heart. He didn't deserve to die."

"And what about you?" Vathek asked.

Caleb shrugged, his face unreadable. "I had already made my peace with dying."

He did not elaborate. The ugly thing was that Vathek did not need him to. They had all been faced with death during the Rebellion. They had all had to make peace with it somehow. It was that or crack. So, as much as he did not want to, Vathek understood Caleb's words all too well.

"The cells seem to keep well enough, and the drop certainly deters escape, but what are we going to do should that fail?" the young commander spoke up suddenly. "Miranda, at least, can climb. We cannot simply rely on the power of Elyon or the Guardians to contain potential escapees either."

His friend noted just how fast it had taken for the youth's voice to revert back to the authoritative tones of a leader. "Perhaps the Council of Kandraka would know of something. Stopping the likes of Cedric or Miranda would pose a challenge for mere guards to handle, although Phobos seems powerless enough."

Not that one would know it from his mouth.

Vathek's blood boiled with indignant rage once more at the former tyrant's words to Caleb. It was the same rage that he felt every time he looked at Phobos' face. Only this time round the usual smug satisfaction that came from seeing the would-be ruler of Meridian in his rightful place had not made an appearance to temper it.

"And what is the likelihood of the veil ripping in any cell?"

Vathek winced internally at the question. The young human's parenthood was still a delicate subject. "Kandraka."

"Is that your solution to everything?" Caleb asked, raising one eyebrow in amusement.

"They are the best source of information we currently have for such issues," the jailer defended. Now that the Mage is gone… He frowned at his friend good-naturedly. "Have you not got other business to attend to other than irritating me?"

That drew a groan from the young commander.

"I've still got to see what is making everyone who passes Blunk's room gag more so than usual." Caleb rubbed a hand down his face. For the first time since setting foot in the prison he grinned. "Unless, of course, you would like to take over that duty."

Vathek's brow furrowed darkly as he remembered his less than satisfactory meal the day before. "And deal with that thief? He is your friend and that makes him your problem." He shot a sidelong glance to his own good friend. "So long as you do not hide behind any suits of armour, you should be fine."

"Ha ha," Caleb snarked back. "Maybe I should make you come with me. I could always use someone to distract him should I need to remove any of his precious 'treasures'…"

"Get out of here," Vathek growled back, pushing the young human towards the door. "The day I will voluntarily go near that passling is the day that you settle down with that Earthling girl of yours."

"You never know, my friend. Those words may come back to haunt you."

The Meridian jail warden humpfred as the door to the prison's main hall swung shut. He folded his massive arms as he grumbled about humans in general and one boy in particular. A ghostly tweaking of the corners of his lips gave him away, however, as he listened to Caleb's laughter reverberate through the door. The former spy closed his eyes.

Laughter like that was good. It meant that the worst was over. It meant that they could finally start to heal.

I hoped you enjoyed this chapter as well, despite the probably poor quality. I admit I did rush it a tad (I have exams starting tomorrow and I was doing this in my study break), but I wanted to get the idea done before I moved onto the next chapter (and continued studying; but the next chapter more which I am sure you will really like). In any case, some aspects of PTSD are avoidance of people/places/events/discussion that remind the person of the traumatic events and physical reactions when faced with reminders. I wanted to try this with Caleb avoiding the prison where Phobos and the like is except where absolutely necessary; I was going off the fact that his last real encounter with Phobos (as well as prison) was not entirely pleasant what with his head about to be cut off, coupled with Cedric's strange appetite, and Miranda almost killing him and Blunk. It is also hard to try and get them to talk about what business they would be conducting when I've got no real idea of what exactly they would be talking about... -_-

Anyway... I tried. Hopefully I kept everyone in character, and as I said, hopefully the next chapter will be better. Anyway, please review if you would like to - it would be much appreciated. And thanks for reading.

Also, I was asked this by a reviewer - yes, I will take suggestions for chapters, etc. There is no guarantee I will use them or the time it will take for me to put them up (I have a loose timeline I would need to fit them in in; also some ideas might be mushed together depending), but I am happy enough to hear them out. The only rules - the romantic pairing will remain between Cornelia and Caleb (no diversions from that, although mentions of other canon pairings from the animation - I haven't read the comics - is fine) and it needs to fit with the story topic (i.e. PTSD). Preferably something I can cover in one chapter, and preferably something I haven't already covered (although new ideas for broad ideas like his nightmares is fine).