This babysitting stuff was harder than you would think, Chris thought, making his way to the bottom of the stairs. He paused before ascending, putting a hand on the banister and checking the sunroom one more time. Kaden was sitting on the edge of one of the wicker chairs watching some more cartoons. He could just about see Wyatt's foot, but the rest of the view of his brother was blocked by the sunroom wall.

He remembered that he had been going to look for information on Kaden in the Book of Shadows and looked up at the ceiling, starting up the stairs. He'd go and see if Leo had had any luck finding the Charmed Ones, then go and finish looking in the Book. Hopefully, the tome would reveal something that would solve both the sisters' disappearance and Kaden's appearance all at once.

Just as he was dutifully clipping the baby monitor to his waistband, there was a crunch behind him and he whipped around, seeing a demon standing in the foyer. It had been revealed by standing on a piece of broken lamp from the happy smashing session that had been the bulk of today. Chris's arm shot out, sending it catapulting back into the wall. The demon grunted as it hit, its fire-like eyes wide with surprise.

"What do you want?" Chris asked, his eyes cold, snapped instantly to battle mode. "Who sent you?"

The demon sneered, forming an energy ball. "Die, witch," it growled, before throwing it at Chris.

Chris held out his hand and the ball reversed direction, crashing into the wall and forming a scorch mark just above the demon's head. "I asked who you were sent by," the witch-whitelighter demanded again, his tone dangerous, not lowering his arm, letting the demon see the power at his command. Sometimes, just sometimes, having a tyrant for a brother was a good thing. You got to learn how to deal with demons, for one thing.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" the demon mocked, straightening up and throwing another energy ball at Chris.

The witch-whitelighter raised an arm, but felt a weird tugging at his heart and his power never left his outstretched hand. Sudden lethargy rooted him to the spot and the energy ball crashed into his abdomen, the force sending him flying into the wall above the half-landing. He fell onto the stairs and then limply rolled down the two steps into the foyer and lay there, stunned, staring at the ceiling and groaning.

Kaden…

The young boy was standing in the doorway of the conservatory staring at Chris, his eyes glazed over green. Chris tried to call out, but no sound would leave his body. He could practically see the dark vortex he was teetering on the edge of, and between the draining effect of Kaden's power and the force he had been slammed into the wall he didn't know how much longer it would be before he had to give in and just go round and round and round…

But then he felt a tiny warm tide of strength run through him and he raised his head, squinting. Kaden was standing in the doorway still, but this time the child's eyes were burning an orangey-red and fixed on the demon, which was on its knees. Chris held out a trembling hand and made a fist, feeling the demon's life-force drain from it as its heart crumbled. Eventually, the demon burst into flames and Chris's hand slammed back to the floor. The brunette was breathing heavily and he rolled back onto his back to look at the ceiling again, swallowing hard. They should think about blindfolding the kid, Chris through bitterly, just about managing to breathe normally again. He sat up and patted himself down, finding out that there were no grievous injuries for now. He had probably fractured a couple of ribs and most definitely would have bruises, but he knew that there was nothing to do for those but rest. Unless…

He didn't like asking for favours. Not from anyone and especially not from Leo, but considering his father seemed to be trying to start things again with the right foot forward, maybe Chris should do the same by going to his father now he was hurt. Leo could heal him betimes his injuries healed themselves wonky again. It would be the responsible, mature thing to do, although he'd never been good at that and had been told so often when he was a teenager. Not recently, though. Recently he had been told that he was too mature. That he didn't act like his twenty-two years. Ironic, really, in a way Chris's brain, too busy running demonic facts and connections through, did not have the time to comprehend.

Chris pulled a face and sat up, wincing, not daring to look back at Kaden and willing the kid with all of the power he had in his mind not to look at him, because he now had to haul himself up the stairs and he could really do with not falling down them again. "Aren't you missing cartoons?" Chris asked of Kaden, keeping his eyes on the floor.

Kaden didn't say anything and Chris grimaced before risking a glance up at the kid. Kaden was looking at his shoe, which he was scuffing on a shard of broken glass from the sunroom doors.

"What's the matter?" Chris asked a little snappishly, and Kaden only bowed his head further. Chris bit his tongue to stop another retort coming out. He was feeling bad and it was partly the kid's fault, but he shouldn't take out on him. It wasn't fair. The witch-whitelighter rubbed a weary hand across weary eyes and twisted his mouth in thought, watching the kid inspect his shoe. "Hungry? Thirsty?"

Kaden nodded and muttered, "Hungry."

Chris sighed with slight annoyance and remembered this morning, when the only thing he'd found to eat in the entire Manor were some kind of sugar lumps masquerading as a breakfast cereal. No milk, either, but that wasn't too troubling. The cereal, however, was. It was something of his Aunt Phoebe's, by the taste of it, and had had enough E-numbers and preservatives in it to survive a nuclear holocaust. He didn't know what was up with her sweet tooth. It must be permanently on overdrive or something. He rolled his eyes skyward and supposed he could always pay Paige back later for use of her 'secret' goodie tin. With what money he had no idea, but he'd think of something.

"Okay, sure. I'll be back in a second," Chris said, turning towards the stairs and going up them in bounds. While he was there, he could check on Leo and see if his dad had had any progress in finding the sisters. Then, when he'd delivered Kaden something good to eat, he'd go and hit the Book of Shadows some more and see what they could turn up about the Charmed Ones' disappearance. Having a plan was something his mother had most definitely instilled on him, he thought wryly as he reached the upper hallway. Even with things that weren't in any way numinous, like a pile of homework, should always be tackled with some kind of plan in Piper's view. It was just part of her rigid structures that were more of a support system than anything. He came to realise this as he got older; that they were not an annoyance and that they came in handy as crutches more often than not, especially when leading a life as he had in the future. If you planned ahead, if you knew what you were going to do next, it made everything so much easier. "Dad?" he called to the first floor, cocking his head to one side in order to capture any answer, however small. "Leo?" he tried, just in case his first shout had come as of much as a shock to Leo as it had to him.

Floorboards creaked and Chris spun on his heel, pain shooting from his ribs and spine like white-hot knife points. He allowed himself a moment to stand still and wince before determining that no one was behind him and that the sound had been coming from one of the bedrooms. He instinctively knew that it was Paige's bedroom and, seeing as that was where he was heading anyway he walked purposefully towards it, swallowing his fear. "Leo?" he called again, lightly pushing on the dark wood of the ajar door. It swung into Paige's bedroom and the witch-whitelighter looked around the room to see Leo on his knees, his head under the bed. "D-dad?"

Leo actually cracked his head on the underside of the bed with the speed that he yanked himself back into the room, his eye feral, searching for the source of the sound that had distracted him. He snarled and got to his feet, his fists balling by his sides.

Chris frowned a little, a question forming on his lips as Leo was suddenly surrounded completely by orbing lights. The mass of clamouring lights leapt from the floor and shot across the room at him, the blue and white, shrieking cloud closing the gap between them in a second. It was all Chris could do to put an arm over his face before Leo hit him with what had to be the loudest thump he had ever heard. He felt his ribcage buckle under the sledgehammer blow and the air was punched out of his lungs as he was slammed back against the door, which slammed closed behind him before bursting outwards in a torrent of splinters, the blow knocking him right through it to crash into the opposite wall of the corridor outside Paige's room.

He screwed his eyes shut, wanting to vomit, and curled into a foetal position on the floor. He wasn't aware of the sounds of Leo stepping on stakes of wood and snapping them, all he could think of was the way his vision was still reeling from the blow. Air was finally drawn into his lungs and the mere inflation of the organs caused stabs of pain in his ribcage and he winced, convinced his bruises had spawned little baby bruises of their own.

There was suddenly even more pressure around his back and under his arms and he blinked, forcing what was happening to enter his brain. Leo had grabbed two fistfuls of his jacket and was pulling him to his feet. Chris stood with some effort, using the wall for the majority of his support, but still well aware that should his father choose to let go of him, he'd fall back down into a heap. The witch-whitelighter closed his eyes in a grimace and then opened them again to find himself staring back into eyes identical to his own. His father's eyes had always been a slightly different shade to his — Leo's were a little browner, more olive — but now they were mirroring his own irises exactly. It was then he was hit with a sudden bout of dizziness strong enough to force his eyes to roll back into his head and his muscles to give in totally. Leo couldn't hold a sudden dead weight and his father's arms gave out, dropping Chris back onto the floor.

The witch-whitelighter's head cracked against the skirting board and the sudden sharp pain snapped him out of the trance-like state he had been in. As the pain began to recede, the dizziness threatened to trammel him again and he decided he had to act. Coiling and then releasing an aching leg muscle, he kicked out at Leo's ankle, unbalancing the Elder so that he fell awkwardly onto one knee, which then dragged the other down after it. Chris immediately summoned what felt like the last of his strength and dissolved into evanescent blue orbs just in time to evade his father's grasps, and slipped through Leo's fingers like shimmering smoke.

Learning to Tango

Chris rematerialized slowly in the backroom of P3. As soon as he was done orbing and had done the customary check to make sure that no parts of him had been left behind due to his exhaustion, he collapsed face first onto the small bed, breathing hard despite the pain it caused. He knew that to breathe shallowly in a situation like this would only serve to inflate his stomach — painfully — with air, which would have to be released somehow, more often than not with a tube up his nose. He'd seen it happen.

Leo had attacked him. He had actually attacked him. He finally felt like he was going to suffocate and turned his head to one side, letting the cool air of the room onto his face and into his lungs. A spell. That had to be it. Leo had to be under a spell of some sort; that was the only explanation. Leo had let him down a lot in his life — what busy parent hadn't let their child down at some point or the other? — but the Elder had never been violent. Never, not once. Chris was so sure that Leo couldn't be violent. He always thought of it as some kind of computer chip embedded into his father that carried the whole Elder programme thing.

It had to be the same spell as Kaden as well. Kaden's eyes changed depending on the person he was looking at or, more accurately, draining. And Leo's eyes had been green, like his. Where had the spell come from, though? He had hardly left Leo alone for long enough, and the Elder had been fine before he had left for Paige's room. So, something in Paige's room? He sighed. That made no sense. The thing in Paige's room had apparently taken his mother and aunts somehow, so why would it simply put a spell on Leo to make him violent instead of taking him as well? He rubbed his eyes and looked at the ceiling. The Book of Shadows would be his next stop. He was surprised he didn't know the bloody thing off by heart, the amount of times he had looked through it trying to save—

Wyatt.

His heart thumping away in his mouth, he pushed himself up from his bed and immediately broke into a cloud of orbs that pressed closer to him like the heads of a cabal before whisking him away.

Don't Look Under the Bed

It took longer than it had done for a long time for him to appear. He was in the sunroom, but the walls rapidly tilted and his legs gave way, hit body thudding to the tiles. It hurt all over. It hurt to breathe and it most definitely hurt to exert the energy needed to make orbing work, and yet here he was. The sound of his brother wailing reached his ears, penetrating into his head and giving him something to grip onto to stop himself succumbing to unconsciousness. He gave a small groan and lifted his head a little, forcing his vision into focus. Wyatt was sitting up in his playpen, his face red with the crying. His bubble was up, forming the shimmering blue shield. Leo and Kaden where standing around the playpen, their eyes blue. They were holding their hands centimetres from the force field, but didn't seem to be able to penetrate it. Yet.

Chris sucked a deep breath in despite the pain and launched himself from the floor, tackling Leo bodily to the ground. His father's head bounced against the floor and Chris used the edge of the playpen to pull himself up. Kaden turned his head, but Chris raised an arm that felt as if it were sculpted from lead and flung the kid into an open toy chest. Kaden landed relatively safely on the collection of stuffed toys just as Leo grabbed Chris's ankle and flipped him to the ground. The witch-whitelighter screamed soundlessly at the pain hitting the floor caused and had to fight not to pass out. Black spots crossed across his vision for a second, but, again, it was Wyatt's cries that kept him from going over that particular precipice.

The black spots in front of his vision suddenly increased tenfold as Leo looked down at him, his irises swirling slightly to become green. His lungs were being crushed by a frigid iron fist; the same iron fingers that were closing around his heart. He moaned as much as his rapid breathing would allow and struggled vainly as Leo grabbed a fistful of his jacket for the second time that day and began dragging him across the tiled floor by his arm.

There was a crack from across the room as the side of the box snapped, sending a slew of toys and Kaden tumbling to the floor. The child gathered himself up from the floor just as Leo turned away from Chris to drag him out the door. Immediately, warm relief flooded Chris's head long enough for him to lever himself onto his shoulder blades and use both feet to kick backwards over his head at Leo. The Elder fell over backwards, letting go of Chris and the brunette managed to half-crawl, half drag himself back across the room towards Wyatt's playpen, sending a wicker chair into Kaden to distract the kid long enough for him to clench a fist around the leg of Wyatt's playpen and orb away.

The attic was lit momentarily by his orbing lights. Chris knew he was running on a vicious cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins and didn't have long before they stopped working and he dropped. His mind already buzzing a little with tiredness, he waved an arm. The attic door clicked quietly shut and the lock turned. Then the lights snapped on, and Wyatt was shocked so that he forgot to cry when he next inhaled.

Taking advantage of this, Chris knelt on the floor beside the playpen, grabbing a bear from the padded floor and waving it at Wyatt in a peace offering. The toddler's eyes were shining and as red as his face from the screaming he had been doing, and he turned them on the bear. Chris was making it dance tiredly and Wyatt retracted his shield to reach out for the toy. The blonde toddler took the bear's neck into a death grip in the crook of his arm and stuck the thumb on the same hand into his mouth, looking reproachfully at Chris.

"Don't blame me for this," the brunette said sourly. "Don't even think about it." Wyatt's lip began to tremble again and Chris swallowed an angry noise and rolled his eyes. "Okay. Okay, you're okay…" He reached into the playpen and balanced his brother on his hip. Wyatt clung to him with his legs and Chris held the toddler in place with an arm around his waist. "Shall we go look at the book? Yeah, we'll go look at the book. See how to kill all of the scary monsters. Good idea, right?" When Wyatt stuck the bear's ear in his mouth Chris took that as a yes and crossed the boarded floor quietly, pushing Wyatt into a more secure position as he reached the Book's pedestal.

There was a loud crash downstairs and Wyatt took the bear out of his mouth and opened it as if to cry again, but Chris, wide-eyed with panic, jiggled his brother up and down, biting the inside of his cheek and searing pains spread across his back and chest. He made absent shushing noises as he awkwardly turned the thick pages with one hand.

Wyatt was making the bear punch him and he grimaced, shifting him up again. As long as he didn't think about how he was holding his future overlord, abuser, torturer, kidnapper and superior in his arms, it would be okay. He kept repeating that to himself, determined not to let himself feel weird about it. He needed to get over that if he was going to save his brother. But, well, still…

What was he looking for? There was another crash, followed by the sound of splintering wood, and he flipped faster. Demons, obviously. Demons that… did something — drained you through your eyes. Okay, good. Demons that possessed people to drain you through your eyes. Unless Kaden wasn't possessed, just a demon. Ugh… Were these the same demons responsible for the kidnapping of his mother and aunts? Why couldn't someone put this stupid book on a CDROM, for Heaven's sake! CDs were the thing of this time, right? It would still work — CDs were ancient as far as he was concerned, so looking up demons would still be a historical process — so why had no one done it yet? As much as he would hate to see all of these generations of history condensed into something as clinical as a CD, surely it would be better? Faster, and without the truckload of circumlocution his ancestors seemed to adore.

Glass shattered downstairs and Chris tensed, immediately wishing he hadn't when he felt two pieces of a rib grate together. The black spots were back and his knuckles whitened as he tightened his grip on the wooden stand of the Book. He must have inadvertently squeezed Wyatt as well, because the child let out a pained yelp and began crying again, squirming to try and get out of Chris's arms and then crying when Chris wouldn't put him down.

The witch-whitelighter was jiggling Wyatt up and down again, trying to pacify his brother. "Oh, no, come on. Shush, shush, shush. You'll be okay. Look, Chris is sorry. Really sorry." Wyatt dropped his teddy to the floor with a thud, which only served to make him cry louder. The destruction downstairs stopped abruptly and Chris looked with wide eyes at the door, putting Wyatt on the floor next to his bear and going back to the Book, frantically turning pages. "Please, please, please… Grams? Anyone?"

The pages didn't turn and Chris cursed, slicing open his fingers with paper cuts in his haste. Wyatt was still crying on the floor, more out of abandonment this time, but Chris tuned him out. Hurry, hurry. He had to hurry… "Come on, Grams. You're not going deaf yet. You're, what, like, sixty? Way to young for deafness." Chris paused. Nothing. He bit his bottom lip and then rolled his eyes ceilingwards. "Grams… You know that you didn't look a day over forty-five last time I saw you, right?"

The pages flipped as if in a sudden breeze and Chris grinned, muttering his thanks under his breath and smoothed out the slightly-creased page the Book had stopped on. His brain was in no mood for speed-reading but he tried to cram the information into his brain anyway, scanning the text. There were footsteps on the stairs and then a small, tense moment of silence before something heavy crashed against the door, rattling it in its frame. Chris tried to read faster. It door rattled again and this time there was the sound of cracking to go with it. As much as he wanted to, Chris didn't look up, his lips moving as he read the words on the page.

Wyatt suddenly gave an extra-large wail and put up his shield. Chris, probably for his earlier treatment of his brother, was excluded from the blue bubble. When it extended, it knocked over the stand and sent the Book of Shadows flying across the room, closing it with a thud. Chris skidded on his knees towards the ancient tome just as the room was filled with a crack like a gunshot and the door split around the look, slamming against the attic wall and allowing Leo to spill into the room, followed by Kaden.

Don't Look Under the Bed

Piper was getting desperate now, and it showed in her voice. Paige could hear the strain in it as she shook Phoebe's shoulders again, calling the middle sister's name. "Phoebe, come on, focus, dammit. We're gonna need the Power of Three, here."

Piper's voice was doing nothing for the headache that was worming its way through Paige's skull. She kept rubbing her forehead angrily, willing the ache from her brain, but nothing was happening. It came with a sudden stab and then eased off again and she huffed and paced, constantly pushing hair out of face irritably.

She had been sitting dejectedly on her mascara whilst Piper fruitlessly tried to blast her way through the force field surrounded them with miniscule orange explosions that sounded like firecrackers when she thought she had heard something behind her. She had turned to see nothing there but darkness and shadows and swirling dust, but still chills crept up and down her spine and she shivered, rubbing her arms and watching Piper's progress.

The Charmed One had been about to tell her sister that it was useless, and that she should save her energy for when it was needed when it had happened. Piper let out a scream and sent her next explosion wide, mainly scorching the floor a little. There was a demon behind her as if it had appeared out of nowhere, pinning her wrists behind her and coiling an arm around her neck in the blink of the eye. Where the demon's eyes should have been, all that was there were bloody sockets encrusted with dried blood, dark red holes leading to nowhere.

Piper had been calling for her help and Paige had been looking around frantically for something to use as a weapon when a demon of her own pounced and knocked her to the floor, where she was immediately choked and blinded by the dust. With startling speed for blinded demons, she had had her wrists pinned in the same manner as Piper's.

The demons had told them that, if they wished to see Phoebe alive again, they would not struggle, because they had other demon buddies who could easily kill Phoebe should they take it into their heads. So Piper and Paige had followed them dutifully — not that they had had much of a choice the way they were being handled — hoping to be reunited with Phoebe and have the Power of Three unbroken, so they at least had some kind of chance. When they set off, however, they didn't realise that it was going to be a trek that seemed like a mile-long hike. Paige guiltily noticed so much of her stuff shoved under here. Paintbrushes and pallets and a couple of (odd) shoes; mismatched socks and cardboard boxes whose contents she couldn't recall; batteries that had rolled underneath here to evade her and headphones to her old Walkman… The list went on. And on. She couldn't help but think that, if she'd actually cleaned under here, then this wouldn't have happened.

They had finally come to a halt in front of a seemingly towering object. Paige frowned at the cylindrical shape and, when she cocked her head, noticed the handle on the side. It was a mug. She'd bought a personalised mug with her name hand-painted on it on a whim, and it had ended up under here. She hadn't even known where it had got to. The letters had been in garish colours, she remembered, and the mug had been a light purple. It was upturned. Not that that was of particular importance, of course, because at the moment a dozen or so demons appeared from the gloom and grime, slipping silently into view from the shadows.

The demons quickly gathered around the handle of the mug and clung to it, their weight tilting the vessel towards them so that the gap between the rim and the floor yawned like a gaping mouth. When the handle of the mug was resting on the floor, Piper and Paige had been able to see a figure as small as them lying prone on the floor. Piper, recognising her sister at once, had managed to break free of the demon's hold on her and run across the floor, falling to her knees beside Phoebe.

Paige had warned her that it was a trap, but she was being manhandled towards the mug anyway, and all too soon she had been underneath it, looking up at the white bottom of the mug that was now a ceiling metres above her, before the demons clinging to the handle had let go, slamming the thick ceramic rim to the floor and imprisoning them.

The seemingly-thunderous sound of china hitting the floorboards was still ringing in Paige's head as she paced, chewing on a strand of her hair and trying to stop herself going crazy. It was okay. There was air. There were cracks beneath her that, if they were just a little wider, would have been perfect to slip through somehow. They weren't, however, but they were wide enough to be letting the air in. It was fine. She could breathe, and would be able to continue to breathe. So why was her heart racing so much? She kept looking around the slick, white walls of their prison, trying to work out what it was that the demons were keeping them here for, and what it had done to Phoebe, just because it was easier than panicking because she was in an enclosed space.

They had no eyes — a distinguishing feature (or should that be lack of feature?) — but that wasn't really much to go on. Many demons were blind. These ones had had their eyes seemingly gouged out, though. That was probably something to go on. They were small too — really small, just like they were at the moment, but were strong for their size, as she had found out from being pushed around by them.

So, she had a good list of what was with them. Great. Now, all she needed to do was get to the Book, and that was something that wasn't going to happen any time soon. She's probably be squashed between the pages like a bug for all eternity. The thing was basically a giant flower press to her. Paper-thin Paige, splattered all over an entry for every future Halliwell to see was not an attractive prospect. Her heart began to beat faster again. It seemed to be getting hotter inside the mug, from the state of her clammy palms at least. She sucked a deep breath in through her nose and let it out through her mouth, releasing the soggy red strand of hair from her mouth and letting it fall, now heavier than the rest of it. She then knelt down beside her sisters. "How's she doing?" she asked, looking at Piper.

The eldest Charmed One wrinkled her brow concernedly and sighed, lightly stroking Phoebe's hair and looking more than a little lost in thought. "I wish I knew, Paige. She just lies there. I can't get her to wake up… I mean, she's not dead, but…"

Paige snaked an arm around her sister's shoulders. "She'll be fine. They probably just hit her over the head or something. And you know how thick our sister's skull can be, right? Seriously, there will be, like, no harm done."

Piper gave a small snort of laughter and nodded. "Yeah. She's going to be fine. I know that, I just wish she would wake up so I could be sure."

Paige took her sister's hand, and placed her other hand on Phoebe's arm. "Come on. I'll orb us out of here. If we can get back to the edge, maybe we can figure another way out. Or, you know, scream enough to get the attentions of our sucky whitelighters."

No sooner had they broken up into an orb cloud were they catapulted back into the dust on the floor. Piper was thrown against the slick, white ceramic wall hard enough so that she actually dragged the cup a little way, and Phoebe hit the floor face first, still unmoving.

Paige groaned; she had somehow managed to land upside down. "Well, I guess they're really into their force fields, huh?" she muttered, righting herself huffily and pushing hair out of her face.

Don't Look Under the Bed

Chris looked up, startled, a deer caught in the headlights. Leo looked a little stunned too — perhaps he hadn't expected the door to give so easily. Whatever. No time to care right now, Chris noted, slamming open the Book at around the halfway point, turning pages so that they were practically a blur. Wyatt's wailing reached a higher pitch, and Chris twisted his neck to look over his shoulder. They were both standing around Wyatt again. Chris flicked two fingers out and sent the playpen skidding across the floor. It knocked Kaden to the boards but sent Leo tumbling forward into it. The elder squirmed and landed on his side, the mesh walls of the pen bulging. Wyatt had stopped crying again, startled at what his father was doing, wondering, perhaps, if this was some kind of new game that was being played with him.

Chris looked around the room, his eyes alighting on a table lamp. He sent it flying at Kaden. The lamp stopped sharply in midair, jerking the shade from its position and letting it bounce on the floorboards. Chris opened his eyes wide. Kaden's palm was thrust towards him, the lamp actually edging its way back towards his head. Kaden was using telekinesis! How was this possible? Had the kid somehow drained his powers enough to be able to start using them?

Chris dropped his arm and ducked. The lamp flew over his head and shattered on the wall behind him. He resumed his looking in the Book of Shadows, hauling the tome up onto his knees and trying to remember whereabouts the page had been. Beginning? Middle? End? He let out a growl of frustration as a loud ripping sound announced Leo putting his foot through one side of the playpen. Kaden was coming towards him and, his mouth dry, he flipped ever in desperation until he felt the all-too-familiar tug of weakness at his heart. The Book slipped from his lap with loud clunk and he wobbled back and forth on his heels before finally falling face-first onto the carpet. The last thing he saw was two pairs of feet either side of his head before the unconsciousness that had been nagging at him all day finally consumed him.

Don't Look Under the Bed

Right now, I am so unbelievably tired. Seriously. It's like… blah. I'm really, really sorry that this took so long to get out. It could have been finished a month ago, but my weekends got too stupidly full. I can't write in the week because I'm too busy. Firstly, I went out on one Saturday and was too tired on the Sunday, then I had problems with my Internet and spent the weekend on the phone with them. Then I did a sponsored walk, and now I have nothing to do I'm writing and grovelling for you all to still be nice to me even after I made you wait. Pleeeeeeeeeeease?

Mizunderstood Writer: — Wallace? Hee. Okay. We'll find Wally and have a party together… Thanks for reviewing.

Claddagh Ring: — More of what Kaden's deal is here. It'll all be revealed later. Thank you for reviewing!

Chattypandagurl: — He might be. That would be telling. ;). Thank you!

DrewFullerFanLife: — Aren't all kids, though? Eh. Thank you!

Victorious Light: — HEH! No, I didn't end up flipping burgers for a living… yet. No, I'm still here. I didn't go to McDonald's level. Yet. There's time, trust me, there's time. Thank you for reading and thank you for reviewing!

Aldrea7: — Did you get another chapter of LTT? I think you might have done… I don't know. I'm tired… Oooh, a bug… Thank you, as well… The bug reminded me. It's blue.

Shoequeeny: — HEH! Love your username. Reminds me so much of my friend. She has a t-shirt saying something like that on. She's scarily shoe-crazy. Thank you for reviewing, sorry about the wait.

Altaira: — Thank you.

Mellaithwen: — Hee. Then you'll definitely like this chapter. More of it. My bed… It's got boxes under it and a giant Lord of the Rings poster that I was going to put up on the wall, but the frame was too heavy. Oh, and dust. Lots of dust, because it's so hard to get the vacuum cleaner under there.

hybrid88: — Heh. There is Phoebe! Voila! And other crazy foreign words to that effect! Thank you, you're really kind. I try my best.

Anon: — Yeah, the girls know. I just… Eh. Too lazy to do the timeline thing. Thank you for reviewing.

Whisper17: — I'm sorry it took so long for me to write! Heh. Thank you for reviewing — much appreciated.

Still With the Eternal Gratitude,

Twisted Flame.