In Love, Actually.

Chapter Three

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"You are soooo going down beeatch!"

"Oh I don't think so," said Chris, frantically pushing on the buttons on the remote in his hands.

He and Katie had been playing 'Halo Seventy Nine' for the past two hours on the 'X-Box 20' at her house, both of them permenantly engaged in battle with the other, only breaking their concentration to hurl insults. Suddenly the doorbell rang "Are you going to go get that?" asked Chris.

"Uh, no way am I moving now when I'm winning," said Katie. "You go get it."

"Why should I? It's your house!" complained Chris. "And besides I'm winning."

"I don't think so loser," she retorted, as the doorbell rang again.

"Fine, I'll get it," said Chris with a sigh. "IT'S OPEN!" he bellowed, his eyes never moving from the screen in front of him.

"Hey party people!" greeted Tom, as he entered the room with Benji not far behind.

"How many times have I told you guys that this is an open house?" asked Katie, irritated. "Don't bother with all of this polite knocking the door crap."

"Plenty of times, but I started ignoring you after that time I walked into your living room to find your parents quietly watching TV," said Benji. "They totally freaked out, told me to take whatever I wanted but warned me they would ring the cops after I left and give them a full despcription."

"That never happened," said Katie.

"I know but the thought that it would is enough to make me continue to ring the doorbell in all houses other than my own," said Benji. "Even my own sometimes cause no-one knows what my parents could be up to." He shuddered at this idea, then sat down on the nearest seat.

"So who's winning?" asked Tom.

"Me," said Chris and Katie and unison, causing the other two boys to laugh.

"Just hold on two secs so I can finish Chris off, then we can set up for all four of us to play. Then I can have the satisfaction of whipping all of your asses, at the same time and everything," said Katie, licking her lips in concentration . She began constantly pushing on one button yelling, "Die! Die!" in a shrill, evil tone before yelling "Yes!" and pumping her fist in the air. She jumped to her feet and began her victory dance in front of Chris, who put down his controller in defeat and watched her prance about the living room with an amused smile on his face.

"Fine, fine, you were better," he admitted. "May we forever all bow down to the greatness of Princess Kate."

"Hey! That's Queen Kate to you mister," she scolded him, as her phone started to ring. "Hold that thought while I answer this," she said as she went into the next room to pick up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Hey Katie, it's me," came Wyatt's voice from the other end of the phone. There was silence on Katie's end. Not to be discouraged, he started to say what he had planned to say anyway. "Look, I just rang to say I'm sorry about these last few days, I didn't mean to upset you."

"Well you did," said Katie, after a few moments.

"It's just that incase you haven't noticed, I'm kinda crazy about you and I just can't bare the thought of not seeing you for months at a time," he said.

"You think it's easy for me?" she asked, slightly irritated.

"No, that's not what I meant," said Wyatt, "It's just that I don't see why you wouldn't jump at the chance to spend all that extra time together."

"How can you still not get this?" demanded Katie.

"Oh-oh," said Chris, when the sounds of Katie yelling, at whom he assumed was his brother, were recognised in the living room.

"What's going on?" asked Benji.

"Lemme guess," said Tom. "Trouble in an already rocky paradise . . .again."

"Sort of," said Chris. "Wyatt wants to stay here and go to Golden Gate, for the sole reason of Katie."

"What is the dude thinking?" demanded Benji.

"Yeah, I mean has he met Katie?"

"I have wondered," said Chris. "They've been fighting about this for a couple of days now."

"Well no wonder she's pissed off," said Tom. "They have been going out for what? Almost five months and he still doesn't get her."

"Well to be fair she is a girl, Nature's greatest mystery," said Benji.

"I thought you said that Nature's greatest mystery was how you had managed to pass any of your exams last year," said Tom, confused.

"No that's the Universe's greatest mystery," explained Benji.

"Oh right," said Tom. "Wait, how is that different?"

"Shut up," said Benji, cheerfully. "The point is, that Katie is kind of hard to figure out sometimes, I mean give the guy some credit for sticking with her this long. Until now we were the only three who have managed it."

"Don't be blaming this on her!" protested Chris. "She's the one that's being rational. She just doesn't want him to throw his dream away for the sake of a hormone fueled teenage relationship. My brother is the idiot here, he doesn't deserve her."

"Ooh is little Christabella jealous?" asked Benji.

"Don't be ridiculous," said Chris, as normally as he could manage, trying not to give away that he had struck a nerve. "And don't call me that," he warned, through gritted teeth. He paused to think while letting out a tired sigh before continuing. "I just think he is being a little blindsighted about this. He's only thinking about the now insteading of the long term affects."

"Woah! Hold on here!" said Tom. "Since when has Chris Halliwell lived for anything other than the moment?"

'You'd be surprised,' thought Chris, but he kept this remark to himself, seeing as it involved talking about demons and revealing he was a witch with actual magical powers. "He hasn't. But Wyatt Halliwell usually does."

"Love makes you do messed up things," concluded Benji.

"Probably," mumbeled Chris. "Ugh, it doesn't matter anyway, he'll apologise, admit he was wrong, she'll eventually forgive them and they'll probably make up and get back together like they always do."

""Probably," agreed Tom, who couldn't help but notice the undertone of resentment in his friend's voice. He would have thought that Chris would be happy to know that his brother and best friend would patch things up. After all it must be uncomfortable for him when they were fighting, having to be in the middle of it all the time and put up with both sides of the story. Then again maybe Benji had hit the nail on the head with his jealousy comment, even if he had only said it to poke fun at Chris for his own amusement. Either way, Tom didn't know and he resigned himself to this fact, seeing as he just couldn't picture Chris lusting after Katie when he could date pretty much any other girl they knew.

"Uggghk!" came Katie's frustrated gargle as she re-entered the room after hanging up on Wyatt.

"Then again," Tom added with a grin.

"Your brother infuriates me," she told Chris with clenched teeth as she threw the cordless phone down with vigor and planted herself beside Chris on the floor.

"Welcome to my world."

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"Your best friend infuriates me!" exclaimed Wyatt Halliwell, as he threw his arms up in the air, in pure frustration.

"Welcome to my world," said Chris.

Chris had been lying on his bed, reading through a book about various potions that he had borrowed from the Magic School's library in preparation for their lesson with Piper later on in the evening when his brother had strode in to vent his frustrations on Chris. He had immediately closed the book with a sigh, knowing right and well that he wasn't going to get any work done while Wyatt was rhytmically pacing the room; back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in front of him.

"Dude, you are seriously going to wear a hole in the floor," cried Chris in protest to the pacing. "And I know that is just a saying, but in this house, normal sayings tend to have literal consequences so please sit down before you end up in the kitchen."

"What's it to you?" asked Wyatt, irked slightly. "I just assumed you'd enjoy the sight of me crashing through the floor and generally injuring myself."

"Damn right I would," said Chris. "It's just that I really don't want to get up in the middle of the night, still half asleep to go to the toilet, only to fall through the giant hole in the floor caused by you, end up in the sink and break all of my bones."

Too annoyed for the amusement his brother's long winded sarcastic comment had brought him to show on his face, Wyatt merely gave into Chris' request and sat himself down on the chair at the desk in their room. Still unable to sit still, he began constantly tapping on his thigh or drumming his fingers repeatedly on the desk, the sound of which annoyed his younger brother, but seeing as it wasn't a third as annoying as the pacing, he decided to let it go.

"So what's up?" asked Chris, half-sarcastically. "Did you and Katie have another fight?"

Chris was glad looks couldn't kill as Wyatt glared at him. "You know fine rightly we did. It's just that, the more I try to reason with her, and try to make her see that I really don't mind going to GGU, cause it's quite a good school and that it means we could be together the madder she gets!"

"And it hasn't occured to you to stop trying to reason with her . . . why exactly?" asked Chris, who already seemed to be bored with this conversation and what he viewed as his brother's stupidity.

"Cause this time I don't want to give in!" explained Wyatt. "I know that I am right here because I know what I am feeling."

"Have you ever stopped to think that maybe the problem here is that she doesn't feel the same?" asked Chris.

"WHAAAT!" roared Wyatt, leaping up from his seat and marching meanicingly towards Chris. "Has she said that to you!"

"Woah! Hold on there, Wy," said Chris, quickly, holding his hands out in front of his defensively. "I was only messing with you," he said, immediately regretting his teasing remark.

"Oh," said Wyat, deflating again and returning to his seat. "I'm sorry, I forgot you turned into an ass during tense situations and made non-stop supposedly mood lightening commments that are often misconstrued as serious remarks. I will warn you now, that it is neither the time nor the place and I'm certainly not in the right sort of disposition to put up with such parlance!"

"Wow, you use big words when you are mad," said Chris, slightly taken back at this outburst. "Have you ever thought about doing an English degree?"

"Oh why do I even bother to try and talk to you about these things?" Wyatt muttered to himself, although it was loud enough for Chris to hear, as he put his head in his hands.

"What?" asked Chris. "I was just saying! Besides I thought it was a reasonable idea, I mean after all, you've already got the poetry part down and . . ."

"Chris, I beg you! Stop, before I can no longer control the urge to make you my personal punching bag."

"Ok," said Chris quietly.

"It's just that I really, really like her Chris," said Wyatt, quietly. "I think about her all the time to the point where I just have to get up and go see her! I just don't know if I will be able to cope with not being able to spend time with her when I want. I'm just going to be stuck sitting thinking about her!" There was a short awkward silence in the room, and Wyatt shifted uncomfortably in his seat after revealing how he felt about Katie to Chris. Summoning up his courage, he forced himself to look up at his brother, desperately trying to force his embarrassment to the side. As he expected, Chris was grinning like an idiot at him. Wyatt smiled grimly, bracing himself for the teasing he just knew was coming.

"You have got it so bad, it isn't even funny," said Chris, shaking his head.

"Then why do you look so freaking amused?" snapped Wyatt.

"Cause I think it's funny that you don't know Katie well enough to realise you aren't going to win this one."

"I have to try! I mean she can't win all the time and if I just . . ."

"No, let me finish," requested Chris. He took a deep breath. As much as it pained him to do this, he couldn't bare to see Wyatt this high strung about something he could help with, and he was feeling guilty enough. "You need to know when to pick your battles with Katie. There are somethings you have a chance of winning but otherwise she is just going to beat you down and you need to lean to recognise the difference. She has such an independent streak and feels really strongly about you going off to USC. The idea that you are making a life changing decision, and using her as the deciding factor terrifies her like nothing ever has before. I am sure he feels the same way about you as you do about her, and don't you want what's best for her?"

"Yeah, but . . ."

"Then you see her point," said Chris, firmly. "I know it'll be difficult for you at first, but you'll adjust eventually and get completely absorbed in the college life. And I bet that as soon as it happens, you'll realise that Katie was right all along and what a jackass you are being now."

"When did you grow up?" asked Wyatt.

"Oh I haven't and don't plan to any time soon," Chris assured him. "It's just that Katie happens to be my speciality. All other girls will remain a mystery to me to the day I die I'm sure, but Katie has spent so much time trying to help me gain some insight into the female mind during one girlfriend crisis or another I've kind of picked up a few hints here and there about how she works at least."

Wyatt laughed. "Thanks man."

"No probs," said Chris, waving it off. "Though we should probably go do something many now like some basketball or something, cause that chat has left me feeling a little . . ."

"Pink?"

"Exactly."

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"Hey, what's going on?" asked Chris as he entered the attic. "Hey dad," he said, smiling at Leo who was sitting forward on the sofa. Piper, was flicking through the pages of the Book of Shadows while Polly was hanging the crystal over their map of San Franciso.

"Hey sweetie," said Piper. "The Elders want us to see what we can find out about two innocents that were murdered last night. Polly already checked the news and it said they both died from trauma to the abdomen, which was particularly burned."

"Energy ball," commented Chris to no-one in particular. "But wait, what do you mean, 'particularly burned'?"

"The officer that they interviewed said that the reason the victims haven't been identified yet is because every inch of their skin is covered in burns, blisters and boils of some sort."

"He said it looked like they had a strong acid poured over them," Polly informed him, who was still scrying for any demonic activity in the city that could possibly be connected to the demons they were after.

"What can I do to help?" asked Chris.

"Well I'm having trouble finding any acid spraying demons in the book, so I was wondering if you could . . . you know," said Piper, waving her hands about, unable to think of the right words. "Do your thing."

Chris chucked quietly, "Sure thing mom," he said, walking over to the book and placing his hands over it, wiggling his fingers and focusing on what he was looking for. Suddenly, the pages began flipping until finally remaining open at the desired page. Piper and Leo came over to join him at the book to read the open pages.

"Hmm, Brunghad demons," said Leo. "Can't say I'm familiar with them."

"Says here that they have poisionous fins on their arms, which if comes into contact with skin, causes it to corrode and almost burn away," said Piper.

"Sounds about right," said Chris. "Don't you think? It was the closest thing I could find to acid spraying demons."

"Well it's not exactly a common demon trait so you've probably got the right ones," said Leo, patting Chris reassuringly on the back.

"Hey got a hot spot over here!" announced Polly, as the crystal fell. She leaned in closer, peering at the place it had pinpointed for them. "It's a warehouse not far from where the victims were found."

"Good," said Piper. "Is there any potion or vanquishing spell?"

"No," said Chris, after double checking.

"Good, that means you guys will just be able to deal with them with your powers, right?" asked Leo.

"Yes, well that or there just isn't a known vanquishing method yet which means that after getting our asses kicked we are going to have to come back here and make something," said Chris.

"Always the pessimist," scolded Piper.

"I'm going to go back Up There and let them know we've identified the species of demon," said Leo. "See if we can establish any motive and determine wheter more of their kind willbe carrying out similar attacks."

"Well let's go," she said, taking Chris' hand, as Polly walked over to join them after pocketing a few exploding potions from the shelves.

"Wait a minute, shouldn't more than just the three of you go just in case?" asked Leo, concerned.

"Who?" asked Piper. "Phoebe and Jason are 'working', or more likely discussing baby plans, no point in disturbing them, Patricia is out with her friends, as is Petulia. Wyatt is over at Katie's making up . . ."

"Making out more like," said Chris.

" . . .And Paige and Adam are having a romantic lunch!" finished Piper, ignoring Chris' comment. "I've learnt to be flexible by now and know how to work with what I got. Besides, we can always call for someone if we need them!"

"Well, if you are sure," said Leo, hesitantly.

"I'm sure," she said. "Just go do your job and let me do mine," she said just before Chris orbed them out of the attic.

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Wyatt opened the door of the manor and quickly entered into the hall and pulled Katie in with him after not sensing any of his family in the house. She giggled as she shut the door behind her and Wyatt wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her closer to him as he kissed her. "Wyatt stop!" she muttered against his lips. "What if someone's in?"

"Hello? Anybody in?" called Wyatt in the empty manor to humor her as he walked into the living room, a secure grip still on her waist. "See, no-one here, we are all alone," he assured her. "Now where was I?" he asked grinning as him and Katie tumbled backwards on to the sofa.

"Perfect," she said, as she kissed him again. She pulled away a few moments later when they heard some noises coming from upstairs. "What the hell was that?" she asked, her eyeborws lowered.

"Oh Chris has probably just left his cd player on again," said Wyatt, getting up, knowing it was probably much more than this.

"Then how come it just started playing?"

"Bonus track?" suggested Wyatt, who was already halfway to the stairs. "But stay here, I'm going to go check it out just to be sure. Don't move," he reitterated, sprinting towards the attic once out of her sight.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he asked, an energy ball already ignited in his hand when he entered the room to find five demons chanting at the five points of the pentagram they had drawn around the Book of Shadows. He threw the energy ball at one of them which made it erupt in flames and leave a scorch mark on the floor. One of the demons threw an athame at him which he quickly froze before flicking his wrists at him in an attempt to make him explode.

"Oh-oh," said Wyatt when the demon remained unfazed and was in fact running towards him, after lifting the athame out of thin air. Meanwhile, two of the other demons threw fireballs at him while the third unsheated a sword with intricate markings along the blade. Wyatt, who had been freezing the fireballs, orbed across the attic just in time to avoid the demon with the athame, and over to the boulder which held Excalibur. He removed it from the stone, and conjured a large shield to help defend himself.

With a few swift swings of the sword he had decapitated one of the demons and found the time to blink at another, causing it to combust. While locked in battle with the demon who had an impressive sword of his own, Wyatt side-kicked the other remaining demon who had taken a run at him to the other side of the attic, knocking him out as he hit the wall.

Wyatt, struck out at the demon with his sword but it blocked the attack with it's own. Wyatt quickly moved his shield so the demon's next swing hit of it rather than him. Then Wyatt took the final, battle winning lunge at the demon in front of him. Breathing heavily, Wyatt remained tense, Excalibur raised in his firm grip and clutching his shield, just in case.

"Wyatt?"

Wyatt spun around to find Katie standing at the attic door with a confused look on her face.

"Wyatt what are those in the air and why do you have a, BEHIND YOU!" she frantically yelled.

Wyatt turned round to see the previously unconcious demon heading towards him with an athame he must have picked off the floor and he quickly unfroze the fireballs that were still hanging in the air and they flew forward with a jolt towards the demon. Most of them hit the attic wall but luckily, one hit the demon and vanquished him in an eruption of flames that turned him to dust.

His heart pumping like mad, he turned to Katie, "I can explain . . ." He stopped mid-sentance , dropping Excalibur and the shield on the floor, rushing over to her, to cushion her fall as she fainted onto the attic floor.

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A/N: I apologise once again for the spelling errors and typos due to lack of spell check! I think I got most of them but please let me know if you spot any so I can fix them!

I found it quite amusing, going through some reviews that so many people seem to have a preference to which brother they want Katie to end up with. I can't believe I write a story for which people can ship! So in a vote type thing when you are reviewing, would you mind adding in whether you support C/K or W/K? I'm just curious to know what you all think even though I know the way things will end up but I want to make sure I keep you guessing along the way!

Flephanie: Yes, actually, it is pretty sad that you are jealous of Katie if you must know. I mean for one thing, fictional, for another she came from the fiction of MY mind. That says wonders about your sanity levels! lol. Only (half) joking, after all your reasoning was good. (It was pretty much along the lines of Chris is Chris and Wyatt is Wyatt, right?) Thanks as ever for the long review!

Faith-Charmer: I'm glad you appreciate the humor. My favourite sister tends to be Piper cause she kicks so much ass, but I do have a soft spot for Paige on certain days. I do like Phoebe, but I know she's not my favourite. As for Bianca, I have nothing against her. She was only in the one episode and I thought she was a great character in it. Chris-Crossed was so cool cause you got some insight into Chris' life. Anyway, thanks for reviewing.

Also a big thanks to hazza123, Sparking Cherries (I LOVE it when ppl quote specific lines they like), rcaqua, Zeria, bec7012, maggie0, ChiaraStorm, ilovedrew88 and Little Miss-Spell-of-the-Week for their delightful and much appreciated reviews!