Darryl stood back and surveyed the crime scene, the flashes of the Polaroid camera throwing the body into bright white relief for a split second before it whirred and spat the square photo out.
Forensics had donned white suits and rubber gloves to examine the scene so as not to contaminate the alley. Darryl's own hands were sweating inside his own pair as he stood just outside the taped off area.
White male, mid twenties, single stab-wound to the stomach. They didn't know how long he had been dead but they could work that out at the coroner's office. They could also establish the origins of the track marks and bruises from numerous needles on his arms. No shirt had been found on the body and examination by the coroner had revealed he had been bound with duct tape before he had been killed, the adhesive present on his wrists.
There was a pattern emerging. If this had been happening in young women and he was still on speaking terms with the Halliwells, he would have passed the case on to them. Young women, all being killed or going missing, pointed to witch hunts by demons or any other evil.
But he wasn't talking to the Halliwells anymore, not since he had nearly ended up dead because of them. Besides, it was young men... His mind flashed to Chris. He knew guys could be witches too and he sighed, pushing it out of his mind. This was normal, every day SFPD stuff. Nothing magical about it.
"Looks like we've got another one?" Sheridan said, ducking under the tape and pushing hair out of her face, breaking into his thoughts.
"I'm still waiting on the tox screen results," Darryl said, not looking at his partner. "Then we'll know if they're connected."
"You still think this was some gang drug war?" Sheridan asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.
"They've got the track marks, right? So they've been shooting heroin or something, using when they couldn't pay for it." Darryl shrugged, knowing it wasn't going to be as simple as that. It never was.
"That makes three males, all stabbed and found with needle marks on their arms. This isn't a coincidence, Morris," she stepped closer to him, pulling out a notepad. She grinned at him. "Oh, guess the location the first two were last seen alive?"
"There's a connection there, too?" Darryl asked, surprised. He hadn't seen the notes on the case yet.
"Yeah, they were all last seen at P3. A club owned by none other than Piper Halliwell, one of our favourite sisters. I think we might need to pay them a little visit..." She snapped the pad shut and put it into her pocket, pulling her gloves off as she walked towards their unmarked car.
The lieutenant groaned inwardly. This whole thing would have to involve the sisters, wouldn't it?
Learning to Tango
Paige orbed another load of splintered wood into the bin she was using to try and clear up the guest room. They would need a new door and a set of new doors for the wardrobe... The bedside table was still ok, but the lamp on it was obliterated. On the bed, Leo's hands hovered over Ben's shoulder, hands glowing gold.
Ben was refusing to look into the Elder's face as he was healed, finding the pattern on the bedspread engrossing. Chris was sitting cross-legged on the floor, already healed and with a crystal swinging over a map of San Francisco.
"I can't find her..." He muttered as Paige called for the shards of the lamp and orbed them into the trash on top of the wood and then orbing out with them to the trash.
She reappeared moments later, hands on hips, rolling her eyes. "I am so not telling Piper about this," she announced, sighing.
"Thanks," Ben said gruffly to Leo, moving his shoulder through a full rotation and not feeling any pain. "Well it's your choice. Do you tell her about Wyatt orbing to his Daddy or the guest room being wrecked?"
Wyatt was safe and sound, having appeared in Leo's arms as he was doing his duties Up There. Leo had come down to give his son back and had then immediately begun healing to everyone.
"Neither," Paige said smugly, reciting the object of objection spell and clearing up the room in a swirl of white lights.
"Got her!" Chris yelled triumphantly as the crystal fell to the map, startling everyone.
"Where?" Ben asked, getting off of the bed.
"Shit!" Chris's green eyes were wide with panic when he suddenly dissolved into a swirl of orbs.
"What? Chris!" Ben walked over to the map but the crystal had rolled off of the spot. "Dammit, he never tells me anything."
Learning to Tango
"Bridget!" Chris called over the wind and she whipped around to him, hair and gown flapping in the wind. Her eyes were narrowed and she was working hard to keep her balance in the buffeting gusts.
"What the hell are you doing here?" She demanded angrily, eyes blazing. Now was not the time. She didn't need the sad puppy dog look when she was working on jumping. He would make her stop, hell, he might even make her see sense...
"I don't want you to do anything stupid!" Chris stepped towards her, but she just stepped back, shaking her head. Chris dropped his hands to his side, hurt flashing in his eyes.
"No." She turned away from his advances, back out to the horizon.
"What?" Chris was confused. "Why?"
"I hurt everyone I'm near." The pain in her eyes was unchanged and Chris walked behind her, putting a hand on her shoulder. She angrily shrugged it away. He tried to calm her fears but he knew he couldn't. Damn Wyatt and the blocking potion. He really wished he had his 'Telempathy' as Ben had dubbed it. At least he could take away some of the burden.
"So you thought you would jump? Take the easy way out? So you're suddenly a mother and you've gone all soft on me? You don't want to jump, Bridget, come on! That's the simplest thing to do and, well, you're Bridget."
"I want this to be over." She huffed, smacking the metal. "And for your information I already did. Twice."
"What?" Chris whispered, his lips barely moving as he stared at her back. "How...?"
"I just keep flaming back to safety." She let out a loud, derisive laugh. "Our little bundle of joy doesn't want Mommy to die. Oh, God, I can't even kill myself properly, Chris. Do you know how low that makes me feel?" She turned to him, eyes wet with tears. "Don't you get it?" She asked softly. "There's nothing for me any more, there's nothing that I can do. It's over..."
"No, it's just beginning. We have a kid now, it's all beginning."
"No, Chris, everything's over. I'm their Queen. I used to kick their asses and now I'm their leader. Do you know how that makes me feel? It's all over and it would be over right now if I could just jump off of this damn BRIDGE!"
The fireball forced Chris to throw himself to the ground and blistered the paint, melting it and boiling it off of the metal behind him.
"You SEE? You see what I do with my powers?" She dragged a hand through her hair, her eyes wild and darting this way and that. What if she'd hurt him?
Why did this keep happening? Why was she so damn weak? She kept bursting into tears and demanding attention from anyone willing to comfort her, and she needed that person to be Chris... She promised herself that she wouldn't do this again to him. It wasn't fair.
"Sorry, Chris," she whispered, her eyes never leaving his as she stepped backwards off of the pillar.
"Bridget!" He jumped up and scrambled to the edge on his hands and knees, his heart thudding wildly in his ears and his breathing coming in short gasps. He saw a flutter of black hair far below him. She was too far down, even if he orbed...
He slowly scrambled backwards from the edge, horror in his eyes. Shouldn't she have flamed back by now? He could feel his heart beating and he breathed deeply to try and control it.
"See."
"You scared me to death!" He yelled suddenly, turning to her.
"When you know you're not gonna hit it's quite fun. Like the best ride you've ever been on. But you see? You see what I mean with all this involuntary flaming?"
Chris stood up. "Well I'll take you to Magic School." He suggested, coming over to her. "It's protected against demons, you can't use demonic powers there and there'll be someone to teach you, there will. Come on."
Bridget only hesitated a few moments before leaving, not in a ball of flame, but bright blue orbs.
Learning to Tango
"Oh, I am so late for work..." Paige mumbled, grabbing her purse from the foyer table.
"What? You've got to go to a temp job?" Ben asked, following her around the room.
"Yup. It's all go at the agency, never any time off." Paige shrugged on a jacket. "Although, if a family member dies, I get three hours off for the funeral." She pulled a face. "So I'm really looking forward to that. Any takers?"
"Don't look at me, I'm not related," Ben said flatly. "What if another demon attacks?"
"Hello? You're the one with all the powers, magnet guy."
"Ha ha." Ben said. "Have you got your cell?"
Paige tapped her head. "I'm using the cosmic cell. Very useful. Now I have to go so I will see you when I get back, ok?" She waved as she disappeared. "Buh-bye now, you kids have fun!"
"But-" Paige had already disappeared and Ben's shoulders slumped. He sighed, putting his head in his hands for a little whole before wandering thorough into the parlour. "Chris!" He yelled at the ceiling, practically collapsing on the couch. He was so damn tired, and sick of everything that was going on. He wanted it all to be over, just let him rest...
Where was Chris? And where was Bridget, was she all right? Chris hadn't come back after he had orbed after her, what did that mean? Had she blasted him like she had done him? Questions raced around his mind and he couldn't stop them, not even when he closed his eyes to try and grab a nap. He was interrupted when a loud crack and the noise of splintering wood echoed from the foyer and his eyes snapped open.
The witch immediately got to his feet and looked back to the front door to where he and Paige had been arguing only moments before. A piece of metal withdrew from the cracked lock and the door banged open, knocking it into the wall.
"Police, freeze!" Sheridan yelled, pointing her gun at his chest.
"Whoa! Hey!" Ben said, blinking and gathering his bearings. That was not what he had been expecting... "Who the hell are you?" He eventually demanded as Sheridan motioned for him to put his hands in the air. He pretended he didn't get what she meant. "You can't just-"
"Bust in here like this?" Sheridan finished for him and he rolled his eyes. With one hand still levelling her gun at him she fished into her pocket and pulled out a piece of paper, crossed the foyer and thrust it into Ben's chest so that he lost his balance and fell back onto the couch. "I've got a warrant," she said, smirking down into his face. "Watch me."
Ben didn't even read the piece of paper he held in his hand, just stared at Sheridan's smirking face. He looked behind her to where Darryl Morris was standing, his gun by his side.
"Darryl?" Ben asked incredulously, unable to help himself. This couldn't be Lieutenant Morris, could it? What was he doing working against the sisters and magic? How much had the timeline changed? He fought the urge to massage his temples.
"Do you know this kid, Morris?" The Inspector asked with a smile. "Pretty damn convenient, huh?" Sheridan asked over her shoulder.
Darryl didn't know what to say, and he looked so lost Ben jumped in to rescue him. "No, but I know him," the witch said, confusion clouding his mind. He barely knew what was going on with himself any more, and now he had the Police busting into the Manor. The Manor full of magical paraphernalia. He suddenly stood up, causing Darryl to finally raise his gun and forcing Sheridan to step backwards.
"Is there anyone else here?" The Inspector asked, looking to the ceiling.
"The baby, but I don't think he's respond to you pointing a gun at him," Ben told her, sucking in a deep breath.
No, he'd probably just orb your gun up your-
"Stay there," Sheridan told him. Darryl took his elbow and made him sit back down on the couch. Sheridan went off through the house, gun raised, looking suspicious and wary.
She'd probably picked up on his worry, and maybe his tiredness too. People like her always used your weaknesses against you.
"Jeez, stop that, will you?" Darryl demanded. Ben looked down into his lap to where his hands were nervously twitching around each other. "Do you know how nervous that makes me?"
"What? Are you afraid I might just-" Ben raised his hands and Darryl grabbed for his gun. Ben laughed and rolled his eyes, leaning his arms up on the back of the couch.
Darryl gritted his teeth. "I mean it. I've seen what the sisters can do with their hands and I don't know who the hell you are but if you're living here-"
"If I were you I'd be more worried about what I could do with my mouth," Ben said, the grin getting wider and Darryl got up and began backing away, his gun trained on Ben.
"Don't try it, I mean it!" He hissed, panic flaring in his eyes.
Ben flashed his eyebrows up and down.
"Freeze this house in place and time,
Hear these words, he-"
Darryl squeezed the trigger on his gun without even thinking about it, intending to fire a warning shot into the rug at Ben's feet. As the barrel exploded and the bullet shot out it slowed to a crawl and stopped, dropping to the floor with a metallic clink.
Darryl looked at Ben's palm, which was outstretched in his direction and swore under his breath, shaking his head.
"What's the matter, what's happening?" Sheridan demanded, coming around the corner from the conservatory and training her gun on Ben. "What was the gunshot?"
Ben's head was reeling and he couldn't look at or deal with both guns at once so he started muttering his spell under his breath.
"Freeze this house in place and time,
Hear these words, heed this rhyme."
Immediately the two cops froze in place. Darryl was shooting daggers at him with his eyes as he froze. The lieutenant had probably seen his lips moving.
The Manor was eerily quiet without its usual noses of clocks and creaking and Ben sighed slightly, closing his eyes for a beat. When he opened them he called Chris.
"What's up, is it Wyatt? Is Wyatt ok?" Chris asked, orbing in.
"Don't worry, I'm fine." Chris glared at him and he rolled his eyes for the umpteenth time that day. "Wyatt's napping. How's Bridget?"
"I took her to Magic School. Well, she orbed herself to Magic school and I frantically followed. Do you know how hard it is to sense people there? I mean all the magic in the air and everything..."
Ben blinked. "She orbed? She can?"
Chris nodded. "The baby is half mine after all." He grinned, obviously proud that the baby was showing a good side at last. "She can't use her demonic powers there, so she should be able to get back on track. Are we being raided?" Chris added, seeing the frozen cops.
"They have a warrant," Ben said dryly, throwing it down onto the couch. "It looks like we're busted."
"We can't get busted, not now. We can do this; we've been fooling people half our lives- Why are they frozen?"
Ben looked down at the bullet on the floor and kicked it under the couch with the heel of his sneaker. "No idea."
Chris rolled his eyes. "Unfreeze them, I'll be upstairs. We'll think of something." He orbed out.
Ben looked at the cops and narrowed his eyes in thought. "Uh... Easier said than done, Chris...
"Reverse the magic cast here...
Let the spell... disappear?"
Ben winced. A nine-year-old could have done better. However there was a small swirl of white lights and the house became animated again, the rush of sounds almost assaulting his ears.
At Darryl's continued glare, Ben shot him a grin that did nothing but make the lieutenant madder. He really didn't like this kid.
"What's going on here?" Sheridan repeated, looking from Darryl to Ben and narrowing her eyes. "I heard-"
"Whoa, company?" Chris asked, jogging down the stairs and coming to rest on the half-landing, breaking Sheridan out of the questioning as she swung her gun to point it at him.
"This is getting ridiculous," Sheridan said, looking up at Chris. "The sisters certainly like their boytoys, don't they? Is there a third one of you hanging around somewhere?" She paused, cocking her head. "You- you look like Phoebe's..." She told Chris eventually.
"What?" Chris paused, suddenly getting it as Ben pulled a face behind her back. "Ew."
Sheridan rolled her eyes. "Are the sisters home? I'd especially like to talk to Piper."
"Why? What's wrong?" Chris asked, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his jeans and coming down the rest of the stairs.
"We'd like her to help us with out investigation," Sheridan said shortly. "Do you know where she is?"
"She's in a meeting..." Chris said. "Are you just here to see her?"
"We have a warrant to search this house because we think they this family might be connected to a homicide."
"What?" Ben and Chris asked at the same time. That was completely unexpected.
"You think one of the sisters is going around killing people?" Ben asked, disbelieving.
"We don't know what to think, that's why we're here." Sheridan reached into the pocket of her jacket and pulled on some gloves. "We'll start in the kitchen." She strode of, flipping blonde hair over her shoulders.
Ben and Chris made to follow her but Darryl told them to stop. "You'd better just let her search, or she'll take you in for obstruction."
"What, so she can expose magic? You know what, Darryl? We nearly die every day and we don't just give up on the cause. I don't see why you should think differently." Chris stared at Darryl until the older man looked away and then walked off.
Darryl looked to the floor but then his resolve hardened. Chris had no idea, no idea of what nearly being executed had felt like. Having to say goodbye... He made another move to stop them, but he just missed them walking into the dining room, Ben backing in and wiggling his fingers in Darryl's direction, an amused smile playing across his lips.
Darryl's face hardened and his finger tightened on the trigger, but he saw Chris's hand flash out in the direction of the kitchen the way Piper's often did and he groaned, holstering the weapon and moving towards the kitchen.
Sheridan was frozen, using a pen to search through one of the drawers. He caught the end of what sounded like a spell and certain things began disappearing all around the kitchen in swirls of white lights.
"What the hell are you guys doin'?" Darryl asked, his eyes wide. They were destroying evidence, removing it... If they'd done that without magic he could have arrested them by now. No special treatment for witches anymore, things had to be done properly.
"Covering up our magical tracks. Apparently we're not getting help with that anymore."
"Don't you try that guilt thing with me," Darryl hissed, following the two young men back through into the dining room. "I've known the sisters six years and I have helped them so much but there is a line. I was nearly killed covering for them. I'm not-" Chris turned abruptly on his heel to face Darryl, nearly causing a collision.
"Huh... Ok, so we have two frozen cops. What are we gonna do with them?" Ben asked. Chris was about to answer when Wyatt started crying.
Chris rolled his eyes. "Uhhh Ok, I'll go deal with Wyatt, you call my Mom and let her know that the cops want to talk to her. While I'm up there I'll lock the attic."
"And then we've just gotta co-operate, right?"
"Looks like it," Chris replied glumly, orbing out.
Ben rubbed his eyes before reaching for the phone.
Learning to Tango
"Hey, Wyatt. What's up?" Chris asked, picking up the toddler and pulling a face, trying to ignore how weird this was. This was his older brother all... not so old. "You hungry? Well there's this bitch in the kitchen so you might have to wait."
"Bitz," Wyatt repeated.
"You got that right," he paused. "No, you don't have that right at all. That's bad. Why am I even teaching morals to you?" Dammit. Leo and Piper were going to kill him. Oh well, he could just blame it on his aunts. Paige had influenced his vocabulary most, the line, 'Well if they don't hear it here then they're just gonna hear it somewhere else...' was one of her favourites.
"So we're gonna wait? Ok, good." Chris put Wyatt down but the toddler, it seemed, didn't understand the term 'to wait' and began crying louder.
"Dammit, Wyatt..." Chris turned, exasperated, and spotted a box of Animal Crackers that someone had left up here. He reached for the box and pulled out two elephants and a hippo, handing them to Wyatt. "Knock yourself out, kiddo."
Wyatt began eating the crackers and as Chris left the room the whole box orbed into the toddler's hands.
Learning to Tango
"Your Mom wants to come home," Ben said, moving his mouth away from the phone.
"No, I don't want her turning up with all of this going on. Just... tell her to stay at the meeting and we'll sort everything out. I just wanted her to know about it."
"Stay put, Piper, we've got this one, ok?" Ben waited about five more seconds before hanging up. "She's not happy. In fact, she's really starting to remind me of Bridget. It's the kind of mad that leaves you waiting for the explosion."
"Well what else do you expect?" Chris replied absently. Ben rolled his eyes, deciding that his mom was right. Guys did like to go for girls like their moms. As Chris walked past Darryl he vaguely waved his hand in the cop's direction, unfreezing him.
"-doing this any - Wait, did you freeze me?" Darryl demanded, turning around to look at Chris.
"Maybe," Chris replied evasively, unfreezing Sheridan. She closed the drawer with a thump and looked up.
"What are you two doing there?"
"Watching you search the house?" Ben offered, leaning against the doorframe. Sheridan slammed the next drawer and moved to the cupboards.
"These cupboards are looking a bit on the empty side," she remarked, tapping for a false back or bottom.
"You're gonna arrest us for not going grocery shopping?" Ben asked as she moved to the next cupboard. "What are you looking for anyway? A murder weapon? Piper probably baked it in that cake she gave to the homeless shelter. She's smart like that."
Sheridan ground her teeth together. Ben only saw it as a sign to plough on as Sheridan bent to look under the sink.
Ben gave a mock gasp. "Don't go in there! That's where we hide all the evidence!"
"If you want to stand around making smart-ass comments, that's fine, just do it when you're not in my way!" She slammed the cupboard and strode into the dining room.
She examined the inside of the sideboard before moving to the fireplace. She picked up the fireside ornaments one by one.
"Damn, you caught us. We're secret poker smugglers."
"What's this?" Sheridan has her nose nearly on the iron as she examined what appeared to be dried blood on the surface of the poker. "Well, well, well, what have we here?"
"A poker," Ben said, frowning.
"There's blood on it," Sheridan said, waving it vaguely at him. "Want to explain that?"
"Sheridan, that's ridiculous. The autopsies said those guys were stabbed with a sharp, double bladed knife."
"We run people through with that poker on a daily basis. That's probably where the blood came from." Ben nodded, hopping up onto the dining room table.
"Morris, stop trying to protect them and put this in an evidence bag," Sheridan said, handing the implement to her partner. She turned to Chris and Ben. "We're gonna find out whose blood this is and then we're going to bust you for it." The smile was sickly sweet and Ben narrowed his eyes at her, picking his nails and the poker glowed white hot and melted the plastic evidence bag, searing the blood off of the iron tip. Darryl dropped it to the floor with a loud clang. The acrid smell of burning plastic hung in the air.
"What the hell was that?" Sheridan demanded, whirling around.
"Nothing. I missed the bag," Darryl said, glaring at Chris and Ben as he sealed the poker into a fresh bag. Ben only shrugged as Sheridan went through the door into the conservatory, wearily following her.
"Did you know this is poisonous?" She asked, breaking a piece of fern off and rolling it between her fingers.
"No, it's really not. Baby in the house, remember?" Chris said, rolling his eyes as she dropped it into another evidence bag.
"We'll run a tox screen, see if any of the poisons match."
"Match what? Wait, you think we're poisoning people? You thought we were stabbing them earlier!" Chris protested as she sealed the bag and handed it to Darryl.
From the baby monitor on the cabinet Wyatt's crying punctuated the air.
"I'll go..." Ben said as Sheridan opened the cabinet.
Learning to Tango
"Hey, Wyatt, what's wrong now?" Ben asked. There were crumbs scattered around the floor of his playpen and Ben moved to pick him up, but was suddenly encased in the child's force field.
"Um... O...k..." Ben turned, falling on his ass and out of the protective bubble as he backed away from the demon and tripped over a Thomas the Tank someone had left on the floor.
"Give me the child."
"If we're gonna do this can we do it quietly? Please?" Ben gestured with his hands but the demon threw an energy ball at him and when the powers met a concussive wave knocked over Wyatt's dresser with a loud thump and blasted the demon into the door. The wave shattered the glass of the lamp as well, the coloured shade and the bulb tinkling to the floor in shards. "Quietly?" Ben asked hopefully.
The demon threw an athame at him and Ben used his power to throw it back. It embedded itself in the wall outside of the door. Chris appeared in the doorway, his hands raised.
"What about Sheridan?" Ben asked, scrambling up, wondering why Chris wasn't with her.
"She came running up here when she heard the thumps. She saw it."
"Saw what?"
"Well, the athame flying out of the room..."
Ben groaned and cursed. "Would it kill us if something went our way for once? We should talk to Leo about it..." He paused, scratching his chin as he thought. "Ok. Chris, break the window."
"What? No! Mom'll kill me!"
"We've got to make it look like someone broke in..."
Chris reluctantly went over to the window and leant out, putting his elbow through one pane and then reaching through, breaking the catch so the window opened.
"Ok, Wyatt, you're ok, you're ok... Put your shield down..." Ben said gently, trying to coax the baby into being 'normal'. The child refused. "Oh, come on! Please? We'll kill the demon, ok? You wanna?" Wyatt blinked at him and Ben reached through the force field and picked him up, entering the shield. "Ok... Come on, it's ok..."
Wyatt let down the bubble and stared at the frozen demon, whimpering slightly. Chris stepped on broken glass from the lamp and Wyatt jumped at the noise.
"Ok, look. Count with me? One, two, three!" On three, the frozen demon burst into flames and died. "Good?" Ben asked Wyatt, putting him back down in his crib and throwing open the window. "How the hell are we going to pull this off?" Ben moaned, rubbing his head.
"We've got to... Should I get the babysitter?" Chris asked, looking at all the broken glass everywhere.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence. Do you even know how?" Ben asked, cocking an eyebrow.
"Uh..." Chris was stumped. When has he ever had to summon a nanny in his life? Oh well, he might as well get used to it.
"Figures." Ben said, laughing slightly and rolling his eyes.
"Wyatt's nanny come today,
If you're fast we'll... give you double pay"
"That was crap," Ben said, poking fun at his friend's shoddy rhyming.
"Oh, please. Like you could have come up with better?"
The elf nanny appeared in a swirl of golden orbs. "What'll it be today then?" She asked, looking over to Wyatt and she gasped. "Oh, would you look at that. A baby playing in with shards of glass. Oh, what is happening to the world? You just wait until I see his mother..." Tutting and muttering to herself she summoned an apron and tied it on, letting the side of the crib down and beginning to pick up the biggest pieces of glass.
"Yeah, hi. Uh, we need a favour..."
Learning to Tango
"What the hell is wrong with you?" Darryl demanded, gesturing angrily to the athame embedded in the wall. "You could have killed us! Why the hell were you throwing weapons around a baby anyways?"
"It wasn't me! He came through the window!" Ben said, pointing outside. Darryl crossed to the window and looked out.
"There's no one there."
"He threw the knife at me when I came in and then jumped out of the window and onto that tree... Then he disappeared..." Ben had never been good at acting. He should've been though, what with all the lying they had to do.
Although, that was usually Chris and Bridget. Bridget, who had to routinely sneak out to patrol at night and Chris, who had just been around it all his life. Ok, so he could lie, but he sucked at the acting part. He didn't think for a second he looked all that scared of someone breaking into the nursery to take Wyatt, mainly because if that ever did happen then the mortal would stand no chance in a house full of witches.
"Why would someone want to kidnap the kid?" Sheridan asked, lowering her gun around the toddler.
"I don't know. His mother owns a club; his aunt has her face on buses. They must figure the Halliwells are loaded or something..." Ben shrugged slightly.
"Are they? Loaded, I mean."
"I don't think that's any of your business," Chris replied coolly.
"Oh, trust me. I can make it my business." She walked out into the upstairs hall. Morris!" The Inspector called, examining the blade. "Sharp double-bladed weapon? Probably serrated?"
"You think whoever you're looking for is after Wyatt? Is he dangerous?" Chris asked, playing the part of the concerned... person.
"I don't think there's anyone after Wyatt," she wrenched the athame from the wall using one of her gloves and sealed it in an evidence bag. "I think you're covering for something."
"What?" Ben asked, folding his arms and leaning against the crib.
"Bang... He go bye..." Wyatt said, holding onto the top of the crib.
"Yeah, he did, didn't he? Out of the window."
"I'm arresting you on suspicion of murder."
"What?!" Ben stood up as if he has been electrocuted. Darryl and Chris looked equally stunned. "On what evidence?"
"On the evidence that you threw a knife at two members of the police force while they were searching your house, the same type of knife – if not exactly the same knife – that is being used in the killings we've been investigating."
"That wasn't me! You're kidding me, right?" Sheridan picked up her radio and muttered into it. Ben tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling and growled. How the hell was he going to get out of this mess?
Three armed officers appeared in the room and one grabbed Ben by his collar, cuffing his hands behind his back with speed and efficiency. The metal bit into his wrists and his newly-healed shoulder burned with pain.
"He didn't kill anyone." Chris said defiantly, looking into Sheridan's eyes.
"You'll have plenty of time to try and get your story straight when you're in jail," Sheridan said, smirking. "I'm arresting you on suspicion of being an accessory to murder. You do not have to say anything-"
"What?!" Chris said, disbelievingly. "This is some kind of joke, right?" Cold metal cuffs snapping around his wrists told him otherwise.
"Sheridan, seriously. You really think they did it?"
"I don't know what to think, Morris. It will be interesting to see if any killings happen when they're stuck in jail won't it?"
"Come on, Sheridan. What about Wyatt?"
"They should have thought of childcare arrangements before they tried to kill us." She relented, rolling her eyes. "Have a sitter on call?"
Chris looked down at the carpet and sighed, muttering bitterly, "She's in the room next door."
"Then it's settled. Take them to the station," Sheridan commanded, a smirk spreading across her features as they shot her death glares as they were frogmarched out of the room with an officer twisting their collars.
"I think we've just cracked this case, Morris. I told you the Halliwells were involves somehow, didn't I? Isn't this the only case in six years involving them that's been solved? There's something weird about them, and I intend to find out what."
Darryl shot one last look at Wyatt before following his partner out of the room, dread weighing heavily upon him.
Learning to Tango
As Always: - Alas, no, he doesn't. But he went the whole chapter without being knocked out, a huge plus, right? It only took me six days this time! Lol. Thanks for reviewing.
Charmed Amber: - It better bloody turn out alright. Otherwise I'll have to complain to whoever's steering this thing...
May-j: - Lol, ok. Thanks a lot.
Alexis Rose: - Lol, thanks. And Bridget's always cool! Heh, yeah. Thanks for your review.
Claddagh Ring: - Ok, you go off to bed. Charmed is just weird, it's the way things work, lol.
Dominique1: - Heh! Lol, thanks a lot for your reviews. They always amuse me. I only took six days this time! I think that needs some kind f reward...
There! Done again! Lol, thanks for all your reviews.