Chris gritted his teeth, loosing any façade of patience that he had tried to use before. "Wyatt! Get back here now!" He paused, letting his words echo and die. "Wyatt, this isn't funny!" He yelled, staring at the rock ceiling of the cave. His throat hurt from shouting for his brother and when Wyatt didn't reply, he angrily pounded the floor with his fist.
His shoulder protested immediately with a shooting pain up his neck from where he had hit the floor. As soon as he winced, he could feel some of his ribs, jealous of the time his shoulder was getting, start up their own rally to voice their objection and he took deep, shaky breaths to force himself to calm down.
He looked down at the cuts on his hand and moodily picked at a scab. He was pissed off and frustrated and... UGH! He made a sudden movement and tore the rust red mark off accidentally and fought the urge to punch the floor again, knowing it would only hurt his shoulder.
Why had Wyatt left him there? What was he thinking when he's disappeared after vanquishing Drox? Chris felt bitter pain that his family had not come to help him out of this mess. They probably hadn't even noticed he wasn't there; they would be too busy with Wyatt, helping his brother get his powers back or something like that.
Questions bounced around in his mind, all of them remaining unanswered. The only thing he could think of was that they were helping Wyatt get his powers back and then rescuing him would come later.
He would have thought that Nixa, Bridget and Ben might have come looking, though. Maybe forced them to come and find him. He knew that they couldn't get here without orbing because he'd been the one to orb them into the forest in the first place; but surely they could get someone to find him? When he didn't come back, they could have got Paige to come after him but they hadn't.
It was like they had forgotten him or didn't care. He grabbed a stone and threw it at the cage, not feeling as good as he had hoped a sudden outburst of anger would make him feel. Sparks flew in bright orange flecks and Chris was forced to hastily brush them off of the sleeve of his jacket. Frustration overwhelmed him and he slammed his hand down on the floor again, pains jangling up the nerves in his wrist. He hated being encaged like this, was that why Wyatt had done it? Was his brother playing some kind of mind game with him?
"WYATT! I know you can hear me!" Chris yelled again. His voice deadened, bouncing off of the rock walls only a couple of times before fading. He knew Wyatt could hear anyone calling him from anywhere in the world.
Unless... unless he'd gone to the Underworld. It was then that his whitelighter half became pretty much useless, save for the orbing. The only reason Wyatt would have gone to the Underworld was to vanquish demons and after having his powers drained, Chris didn't know if his brother was up to that.
He closed his eyes, putting enough pressure on them with the heels of his hands to make him see dots, trying to rub away the picture in his mind's eye of Wyatt plunging his hand into Drox's chest, squeezing the life out of him and then killing him, just as the demon had nearly done to him. Chris frowned; too busy planning an escape to work out the irony in that.
The witch-whitelighter forced himself to breathe and calm down again. This was just Wyatt being an idiot, teasing him like he had been doing all of his life. Just a prank gone wrong, that's all it was...
So why didn't that comfort him? He should be feeling better if all this was Wyatt pulling a prank on him that had gone wrong but there was a weird feeling at the top of his spine that was creeping its way down in a series of icy tingles, a feeling he got when something was up. Or maybe he was just cold. It was still dark outside and the rock seemed to be oozing cold at him, and the metallic plink, plink, plink of dripping water was setting him on edge.
Chris zipped his jacket up to his neck and huddled down into it. Sitting here doing nothing without any adrenaline pumping was making him cold, and he had no desire to get the warm rush that shocking himself on his cage made so he tucked his hands up his sleeves and hugged his knees to his chest, hoping someone would find him soon.
Last One Standing
"Piper, you're going to wear yourself into the basement," Paige joked, trying to relieve some of the tension through humour. But the fact remained that her own kid was in bed and asleep after last night and Chris and Wyatt hadn't yet come home. Megan was safe while Chris and Wyatt were still missing, and she knew that Piper was tearing herself up with worrying.
"If I could, I would have done already." Piper snapped, turning sharply on her heel and pacing across the conservatory floor again. The pacing was doing nothing to calm her nerves and all she wanted to do was get some herbal tea and maybe sleep, but she knew she couldn't, not until her children were safely in their rooms. Her nerves were on edge and she bit on a nail, eventually tearing it off.
Phoebe was chewing on her bottom lip and was sitting in one of the wicker chairs with her legs crossed, wiggling her foot and looking at her watch at periodic intervals. It was bad enough having her own fears about her nephews, let alone Piper and Paige's as well coming to her through empathy.
"Is he ok?" Piper asked eventually, forcing herself to stop pacing and look at Nixa, who was trying to bring Ben round with a damp washcloth. She had to mother someone right now or she was going to explode.
Chris was so grounded when he got back, staying away this long and scaring her this much. A nasty voice in the back of her skull reminded her 'If he got back.' She immediately forced all negative thoughts away, it would do her no good to think like that and here she was, already wondering if she would ever see either of her kids alive again. Piper quickly berated herself and looked at Nixa and at Ben, who had water running down the side of his face.
Nixa saw that the liquid was about to soak into the couch cushions and rubbed it away apologetically with her sleeve before answering, "He'll wake up soon, his eyelids are twitching."
"Ok..." Piper pulled her hair back and twisted as if she were about to put it in a French twist before letting it fall around her shoulder again and exhaling deeply. "Paige, orb to that damn cave."
"What?"
"That sparkling blue thing you do? Do it and orb us to that cave, the one where we left Chris," Piper said, motioning for her sisters to get up.
"Piper, sweetie, we don't have any potions or anything to kill him with... other than what Chris made..." Phoebe said, hesitating as she tried to be tactful while pointing out the obvious.
When loved ones were in danger, Piper got illogical, that was the way it was. She had to try and be the level-headed one, the one to cool the hot-headedness down before a plan wrought from irrationality got someone hurt. She allowed herself a small smile, this middle-sister gig she had was getting easier with every passing day.
"Well we can make a Power of Three spell. We can- I don't know! We've just got to go there!" Piper said, stamping her foot and running her fingers through her hair.
"What about the kids?"
Piper paused and licked her lips before rather hopefully looking around the room. Bridget saw that the Charmed One was trying to catch her eye and immediately became interested in the colours on the stained glass window, studying each pane. Piper felt immediately guilty at trying to force one of the two teenagers into babysitting her nieces while they went orbing off, and she could tell that Bridget was none too keen on the idea either.
Nixa looked at Bridget and frowned slightly before allowing Piper to catch her own eye. Bridget wouldn't even have to do anything, just stay here while they went and found Chris.
"Could... Would you mind...?"
"Are you going to find Chris?" Nixa asked. If they were then sitting here with the Halliwell children that weren't missing was no huge thing. If it meant that it saved Chris then who cared?
"We're going to try."
"Then I'll watch out for the kids. I've got a sister at home."
"Thanks. Do me one favour, though, ok?" Paige said, shrugging on her jacket and flipping her hair out of the collar. "Don't call Megan a kid to her face."
Nixa smiled. "I'll remember that."
"There's..." Piper paused to think. "There's probably something in the fridge, ok?" She was sure that there would be something there, there always was, even if she hadn't been shopping in a while.
"Right." Bridget said, her hands resting where the pockets on her jeans would normally be.
"Thank you." Phoebe said quickly as Paige orbed them away.
As soon as they were gone Bridget slumped down into an armchair and began to pick her nails moodily. "Why are we looking after their kids?"
"Because if we don't then they can't go and find Chris. Plus they're not really kids – they're only a little bit younger than us." Bridget looked unconvinced. "And we can't exactly leave until Ben wakes up anyway, so..." She trailed off, trying to gauge from Bridget's reaction how well this had been taken.
"But what if something happens to them? What if Drox comes for them and we can't protect them? They won't forgive us, Nix. It's like someone's pet. As soon as you look after someone's pet it dies and they never forgive you."
"They're not hamsters-" Nixa began her protest but saw that there was nothing she could do to change Bridget's mind short of revving up a bright yellow bulldozer. She sighed instead and moistened the cloth more.
Bridget was still looking at her nails. "I chipped the polish... And scratched it there..." She mumbled. Nixa looked but she was pretty sure that Bridget was talking to herself.
There was a movement behind her and Nixa turned suddenly, her senses suddenly so acute they screamed. There was nothing there and when she looked down Ben was looking straight back up at her, his forehead creased into a frown.
"What's wrong?" He murmured as she snatched the cloth off of his head and slapped his chest with it.
"You scared me. I thought you had come to kill us!"
Ben cocked an eyebrow at her and slowly sat up, feeling the blood pounding in his ears. He screwed his eyes shut until it passed and sat up some more until he was propped up against the arm of the couch.
"Are you feeling better now?"
"Ow... Yes, sorta... Where are we? And where is everyone?"
Nixa looked at Bridget, who was using the point of an athame to dig dirt out from under her nails and looking absorbed in the task. Whether she actually was or just didn't want to explain, Nixa didn't know.
"Well what's the last thing you remember?" The blonde said at last, thinking it would be quicker to fill in the blanks rather than recite the whole story over.
Ben closed his eyes; his memories were uncertain and blurred. The last thing he could remember with any clarity was the mud puddle. "That mud patch that I froze over," he said finally, looking up at her and wanting her to continue.
"Well after that we got attacked by this demon," Nixa began. "And... you just passed out. And the demon, Drox, thought you were Chris and took you to his cave-"
"It's always a cave, isn't it?" Bridget interrupted, looking up from her hands. "They never hang out at the chocolate factory, of the pillow factory or anywhere vaguely nice; it's always the sewers or a cave..."
"There was that demon in that penthouse..." Nixa reminded her.
"Wait, where was that?" Ben asked quickly, seeing that Bridget was about to speak and realizing that it would be very hard to question them if they got a conversation stared
"Oh, you didn't come." Nixa told him.
"Well, yeah... One..." Nixa opened her mouth again, perhaps to begin disproving her friend's theory again but Ben cut in.
"Whoa, wait, penthouse? What penthouse? You do vanquishes by yourselves? Without us?"
Bridget snorted. "Yeah, we don't tell you everything, Benny boy." She sat back on her chair, grinning at him scowling at the name. "Come on, lighten up! It wasn't all that long ago that you orbed off with Chris without us. Do Andura demons sound familiar?"
"So where's Chris?" Ben asked, looking around the room, knowing that his subject change was about as smooth as
"Uh..." Nixa looked at Bridget again but she just shrugged. Nixa decided that she was bring deliberately annoying now and admonished her with a glare, which was wasted because Bridget was digging at her nails again.
"The demon got him, didn't he?"
"Wyatt was nuts. He orbed us out of the cave and we didn't see what happened to him, or Chris, or the demon." Nixa told him apologetically, as if it was her fault.
Ben got up suddenly, relieved that there was no pain or dizziness. Nixa tried to get him to lie back down but he wouldn't, and then got up off of the seat.
"So why aren't you looking for him?" He demanded, confusion etched on his face. Why were they sat here when Chris was missing?
"Because the Charmed Ones just orbed off to do that," Bridget said, setting down her dagger. "What's wrong with you?"
Ben paused. "You know what? I don't know what's wrong with me. I just wanna be doing something." Nixa saw him deflating and he sighed, sitting back down.
"Look, he's our friend and he's missing, right?" Bridget said. "It's natural that you want to do something, but the Charmed Ones have gone to kick ass, so how are we gonna compare to that? I don't even have all the weapons I went with. Just chill and let them do their job."
Ben put his head in his hands, rubbing the prickles of sleep from his eyes. "You're right..." He mumbled, his head suddenly dropping.
"Did he just go unconscious again?" Bridget asked, fingering the steel blade.
"I don't know..." Nixa said slowly, her voice tinged with suspicion, fully aware that the sleeping teen in front of her could project at will. "I don't know."
Last One Standing
"Ben?" Chris asked before the red blur had fully materialized. Of course it was - how many witches did he know that could astral project? Scrap that, how many witches did he know period?
"That's me."
"What are you doing here?" Chris asked, shifting closer to the edge of the cage, casting wary eyes at the crackling energy lest he get shocked again.
"Saving you?" Ben supplied as his friend struggled to stand on a foot full of pins and needles.
"Yeah... But where's my Mom and my aunts? Did they not bother or something?" Chris winced slightly and the blood flooded back through his ankle. He looked at Ben, wanting his answer. What had happened to his family?
"They went to look for you. They haven't come here?" Ben asked, and Chris could tell by his surprise that it was genuine. He looked confused as well.
"No..." Chris rubbed his eyes. "Wyatt's gone completely nuts. He put me in here and orbed Bridget and Nixa away and then... I don't know I think sucked the power out of the demon before disappearing... But I really, really hope he didn't go that far... Maybe they found him and he needs more help then me... He was pretty off the rails..."
That fitted, Chris thought. If Wyatt was hurt or something else was wrong with him then they would go to him first, especially if they knew that Chris wasn't in direct danger.
Ben made a non-committing noise and kicked away the crystals. They went skittering across the floor and Chris rolled his eyes, knowing that Ben had never been Wyatt's number one fan. He said that it wasn't his fault, and that Wyatt didn't like him, but Chris knew that if they just tried it would work out between them. His brother was cool, and he wished Ben could see that.
"You ok to orb?" Chris stood up, ignoring most of his muscles cramping as he stretched. When he nodded Ben disappeared in the same blur that he arrived in.
Out of the cage the air tasted different. He knew it was stupid but it was different when he was caught, like the air was stale or something. Now he was free he appreciated it so much, and he grinned as he orbed out, relishing his particles stretching out into thousands of shining blue orbs as he left the cave, hoping never to come back.
Last One Standing
Just the epilogue left now, where all the loose ends will be tied into one big knot. Thanks for all your reviews last chapter.
Pixie Wildfire: - Happy beta is good... Very good...
NoAlias: - Heh, sarcasm. Yeah, that's how I get through my life. It makes me own little tiny world spin round. Thanks for your review and Wyatt and evil? Psst, Wyatt's evil...
princesscatie21: - Interesting... Lol, thanks for reviewing.
Stony Angel: - Thanks. The way it's going it looks like it will expand into more of a season than a series. These characters attack me with vicious plot bunnies... All of which have big teeth...
As Always: - We shall see... We shall see... Heh, yeah... Thanks for reviewing.
Crimson Amber: - Drox is dead... Wyatt? Well he's a mystery. Thanks for your review.
Claddagh Ring: - If we're on the topic on answered questions has yours been answered now? Heh. Thanks for reviewing.
Zoned-out: - Nuh-uh, not the end. Well... Nearly but not quite.
Charmed Amber: - He should be fighting but I hate the family I created in this fic... That is why there is a different one in Flames, and Alex is not in this fic...
Deranged black kitten of doom: - No, not the end. I'm not that evil. Well, sometimes. Heh.