Speeding up the Process

Cady sighed trying to dry off her damp hair after her…shower…with Chris. Her head filled with all sorts of ideas, scenes, and fears when Chris asked her to shower with him. She'd been terrified…she didn't know what to do. Chris laughed at her reaction, calming her by promising that he wouldn't think of trying to take advantage of her or pressure her to do something she wasn't ready for.

The only problem was that she was ready…and that's what scared her.

All her life boys had never given her a second look…well, at least not the demonic boys, they were far too interested in trying to singe her hair and light her clothes on fire. She had quite a few burns and scars on her back, wishing that she had developed her power to reverse demonic affects before the development of the shaming scars…

Boys above ground were no better. They always called her weird or made fun of her. She never really went to an above ground school, her mother refused. In fact, her mother refused her so much of the surface world. She kept Cady in the underworld as long as possible, often leaving her alone as she went out on a mission or slaying or just didn't want to look at her. Cady had learned the hard way how to defend herself, but her father always knew when she was in over her head. Every time she was close to being off-ed by one demon or another, her dad would summon her to his apartment and have his whitelighter, Simon, heal her.

Cady smiled softly in remembrance, those were truly her best memories, seeing her dad and her aunt once more, spending time on the surface world. Her mother never bothered to notice if she was almost dead, but as soon as she noticed that Cady wasn't in the underworld she'd shimmer up and take her back. That usually took a week except for the one time when it took her mother a month to realize that Cady was above ground.

Every time she saw her dad, he'd take her to the bookstore. Even though she didn't go to school, she was very bright and read through as many books as she could. Her father was a high school teacher when he wasn't minding his Wiccan duties, so he had numerous books all over the house on just about every subject.

One time she was summoned to her fathers, she was very nearly dead. It took Simon longer than ever to heal her then. It really scared her father and aunt. That was when they enrolled her in a weeklong self defense program, knowing that Cady's mother would be up not long after she'd finish, to claim her. Her aunt would teach her stretching and some flips and splits, things she could use to throw her opponent off guard or duck a fireball.

Over time she had learned to fend for herself, seeing less and less of her father as her survival and defense skills grew. She remembered the last time she saw her father…when he died…at her mother's hands…all because of Wyatt…That was when she decided to become the Tra…

Her thoughts were cut off by an odd sensation on her head. She glanced up to see Chris brushing her hair. Chris didn't really own a hairbrush, but in the future…after he lost his family…he grabbed a few keepsakes, things of his mother and aunts', his mother's hairbrush being one of them.

This brought Cady back to her first thoughts, she knew she was ready to be with Chris, but for a girl who had only been kissed…and what a kiss it was…for the first time a day ago when she met him…that was something that scared her. She smiled at Chris, he was so gentle, understanding, she knew that he'd wait till she was ready. But she knew, that if he kept it up, the way he cared for her and was so affectionate and protective around her, he wouldn't have to wait long.

Her smile grew as she realized he was only wearing a long pair of pajama pants, showing off his chiseled chest. You'd never know, just by looking at him, just how toned he was…but if Cady had any doubts, they were cleared now. She stood, wrapping her arms around him, hugging him in silent thanks, one that he returned as well. Together they laid down on the bed and drifted off to their second peaceful sleep…

The next day would find Phoebe working from home, sitting on the couch in the living room, laptop on the china table, finishing up her column. She had gotten up quite early for some reason and decided to get to work on her column, she was nearly done too. In about an hour she expected to be entirely finished and head out to lunch. Piper had taken Wyatt to go looking for some more maternity clothes since her old ones were covered in demon blood or burned and Paige was out getting some groceries.

Phoebe sat back in the couch, wondering where the whitelighter and his…guest…were. Wondering if they were even up.

At that very moment Chris entered the small guest room, a small pile of clothes in his hand watching as Cady tidied up the room. He smiled, neither of them could stand much messiness, they both liked things mostly neat and organized. His laugh made her turn around eyeing the clothes in his hand.

"I went to find a spell to remove all the slime." He tossed her her clean clothes, knowing that she wasn't too comfortable with going up to the sisters and asking to borrow clothes.

"Thanks," she said making a break for the bathroom, shutting the door just before Chris could follow her to…help…

He smiled, laughing at the door before hurriedly getting changed himself.

A laugh from the bathroom doorway caught his attention as he looked up to see Cady leaning against the door way wearing a red long sleeved zip up hoodie sweater, cut to show her toned stomach with long baggy black cargo pants.

"What?" Chris asked.

"Have you noticed that we seem to match?" She replied with a question of her own. Chris looked down to his own long sleeved red tee shirt and baggy black jeans. He laughed, taking her hand in his, leading her out of the room to head down to the kitchen for a quick bite of lunch before they made the connection.

The sound of people tromping down the stairs alerted Phoebe to the presence of Chris and Cady. She turned as they reached the end of the stairs, arguing playfully about whether or not to eat.

"Come on Cady," Chris whined, "Please, a little bit to eat…"

"Chris," Cady replied sadly, "We don't really know what we'll see or how bad it'll be…or even how the other one will react to it. I know I'd rather have an empty stomach than one that ends up in that potted plant over there."

Chris sighed, "You're right…"

"I know," she replied happily taking his hand in hers as he leaned down to kiss her.

"Who will see what?" Phoebe asked gaining their attention.

Their lips had almost touched when Phoebe spoke, Chris sighed not finishing the kiss to turn to face his ignorant Aunt.

"We're going to form a magical connection," He said, "To speed up the soul mate process." Seeing her confused look he decided to elaborate. "We were talking this morning about how…out of character we've been acting. I told you that when you meet your soul mate you just want to spend time with them, but we both agreed that my time here to keep Wyatt from turning evil is limited, we need as much of it as we can get. So, we decided to speed up the process so we won't be 'making out all over the house' as you guys like to say and distracting ourselves."

"You can do that?" Phoebe asked in awe.

"Yes," Cady replied quietly, "Since we're both a magical being we can, if we were both human we'd have to wait it out."

Phoebe made an 'o' of understanding before shutting off her laptop to avoid unnecessary noise.

Chris smiled in thanks before sitting cross-legged on the floor with Cady doing the same across from him. They both closed their eyes and placed their hands palm up over the others before them. Slowly but surely, Phoebe started to notice a glow growing in intensity around the two of them. Chris' was a whitish silvery glow while Cady's was a dark color, Phoebe wasn't sure if it was just a really dark blue or black.

They stayed that way for a while when Chris started to lift his hands away from Cady's and place them on either side of Cady's head. Cady's eyes snapped open, completely pupiless, only white could be seen. They remained in that position for quite some time when Phoebe started to get restless. She went to the kitchen to make herself some lunch, making a few extra sandwiches for when Cady and Chris snapped out of it. An hour later Phoebe returned to the living room when she heard the front door open.

Paige walked in with two bags of groceries, dropping them upon the sight before her. She was about to yell at the two sitting on the floor doing magic where anyone could walk in when she saw Phoebe with her finger to her lips in a shhh message. Paige shook her head, picking up the bags and going into the kitchen where Phoebe started to explain what was going on to her.

"So let me get this straight," Paige whispered leaning against the doorway to the living room with Phoebe standing next to her, "They're speeding up the soul mate process so they can focus on saving Wyatt?"

"Yup," Phoebe said watching intently as Chris lowered his hands and Cady closed her eyes once more. Phoebe was thankful for that, only seeing the whites of someone's eyes really creeped her out.

Cady lifted her hands to Chris' head and his eyes snapped open revealing only black eyes, much like that of a demon.

Phoebe shuddered, she didn't know what was worse, seeing white eyes like a grimlock victim or the black eyes that reminded her so much of Beltazor.

The two stood there for near an hour watching the emotions flicker through Chris' face. When he had connected with Cady, near the end, Cady had started to twitch her head and scrunch her face in something reminiscent of pain. That's what Chris had been doing for the last half hour now.

"What the hell?" a voice called from the foyer. Piper walked in bag in hand, holding Wyatt's had with the other. She dropped the bag and went to blow up the demon currently trying to brainwash or turn Chris, just as her sisters called a warning not to.

It was too late, Piper's hands were up…but nothing happened… She tried again, and still nothing happened. Fearing that her powers were on the fritz she tried to blow up a small pillow on the couch. Well, that worked, leaving Piper to wonder why it hadn't before.

She threw a questioning glance at her sisters when Chris went flying across the room effectively snapping the two out of their connection. Cady shook her head to clear her thoughts before quickly getting up and running over to Chris. She helped him sit up, making sure he was ok.

"Sorry…" she muttered. Her memories were a little powerful.

"No, it's okay…" Chris said looking at her.

"Would someone like to tell me what the hell is going on around here?" Piper asked, hands on her hips.

Phoebe made to answer the question but her attention was drawn to the two who were looking at each other almost with new eyes. "You're the Traitor?" Chris whispered to her.

Cady nodded, "You're the Leader?" she asked.

Chris nodded and was about to ask her something else when he noticed Phoebe looking at them, "Let's talk about this upstairs." He said. She nodded and shimmered them out.

"I'm gonna go check on them," Phoebe said heading for the stairs, "Paige can you tell Piper what happened?"

"Sure," Paige said watching Phoebe walk up the stairs, "Cause it's not like I know the whole story either…"

Phoebe crept along the halls as quietly as she could till she was right out side Chris' room. She pressed her ear gently against the door, listening to what was being said on the inside.

"I can't believe you're the Traitor," Chris said in awe, completely contrary to what other would have expected you to sound like when dealing with a traitor. "I mean going up against the demons, against Wyatt. You've taken out more of his loyal demons than my entire system put together."

Cady smiled sadly at that, "I'm sure it wasn't more than the Resistance, you have a lot of people working with you, my numbers probably are miniscule."

"But still," Chris said pacing the room, "You're half demon, the demons are your family. I just, can't believe you were able to go against them with out them finding out."

"And what about you Mr. Protector? The leader of the resistance against Lord Wyatt?" she asked, laughing a little. "I can't believe you're the leader of the resistance, going against Wyatt."

There was a silence for a while as Chris sat down on a chair. Cady stepped behind him and draped her arms around his neck.

"You should tell them Chris," she said seriously, "They deserve to know the truth."

Chris laughed bitterly, "You saw what the did, how they reacted, they wouldn't believe me."

"Maybe they would." She said, massaging his shoulders, "You managed to convince them that you were telling the truth about Wyatt becoming evil. You can tell them that you're his…"

"Don't." he said cutting her off, "Don't. I haven't been his little brother for three years, he hasn't been my older brother for five."

Phoebe gasped…

Unfortunately it was just loud enough for Cady to hear. She walked over to the door, opening it to reveal Phoebe standing there mouth open.

"Phoebe!" Chris shouted, standing, "How much did you hear?" he asked as Cady led her into the room and shut the door.

"You…you're…you're Wyatt's little brother?"

A/N – So…I'll leave it there for now. The next chappy will include a discussion with Phoebe where she learns the truth about Cady, Chris, and the future. It also might have another connection made between Chris and Cady.