Chapter 13

Fights and flights

"What's up with you?"

Chris mumbled quietly and turned away from Wyatt, and pretended not to care and to stack crates, slamming them down.

"Little brother, you'll break something and then Mom'll kill us! You for doing it and me for letting you ...How long has it been?"

"I heard from her last week, but she didn't really tell me anything, it's been three weeks since I've seen her. I keep wanting to orb in but I don't know if that's the right thing to do, I know that she's grieving and she never actually answered when I asked her..."

Wyatt still couldn't see his younger brothers' face but he could feel the pain rising off of him.

"She'll be back dude, she risked her life for you, helped our family kill all those demons and as for the two of you having a strong enough bond to break the Thrall before you even knew you had one. She'll be back. Plus I forgot to tell you that she called the club yesterday, while you were at the wholesalers with Mom, to say she was getting in tomorrow, which would be today."

"Wyatt! Dammit! Did she happen to leave you a time that you could forget about too?"

"I think she said she was landing from Birmingham at about 6.30."

"Wyatt! It's already seven. Dammit, dammit, dammit..." Chris orbed out the sound of swearing hanging in the air in his wake.

"Don't you want to know the..." Wyatt called out as he watched the blue lights from his little brothers orb fade "...flight number?" he finished weakly.

Chris orbed into into the enormous airport and was suddenly very much aware that he had absolutely no idea where to find Kara.

"Dammit" he flinched inwardly, and wondered why that was his favourite word today, particularly when yelling was probably not the best way to find the person he was looking for. He sent out his thought, still wondering how exactly to control the volume on it. 'Kara, just call me and I'll find you.'

Meanwhile at the opposite end of the airport, at the baggage carousels, in 'Arrivals', Kara was knocked backwards as she was lifting one of her suitcases, by a man who shoulder barged her.

It had seemed deliberate, but in her many sojourns in airports over the last year, that airports often proved to be stressful places, where some of humanities worst traits often came to the fore.

"Sorry." the man said sounding not even slightly so. Kara turned to accept the apology, though she intended to do so in a thoroughly sarcastic manner, the kind that her father would have been proud of and she was shocked not so much by what she saw than by what she felt, when she looked at the man.

"I would say that was OK. I wouldn't have been very gracious about it, but I would have said it, but you aren't apologizing for banging into me are you?" she asked sharply "so what are you? I'm thinking shape shifter?"

"Man, you're good. They said that you weren't all that good yet but...I mean man!"

"Thank you" she said uncertainly "Who said?"

"The people who put a bounty on your head" the demon raised an energy ball which was camouflaged in a split second by his power.

"Hey! Exposure risk, much!"

"Lady, I'm a shape shifter what do I care?

Kara flinched did an inward 'Doh' and changed tactics, shouting at the top of her lungs "Help!... erm ... my angry, homicidal ex boyfriend's found me. I really NEED my friend CHRIS to help me STOP HIM. He's a REAL DEMON when he gets like he is NOW!"

Chris' head snapped up as his whitelighter powers responded to her call. He thought for a moment and then jogged back in the direction of the bathrooms, musing ruefully if this was how Superman felt about 'phone booths.

It's amazing how little attention a man can draw, when he disappears from one bathroom and reappears almost simultaneously in another one a mile away in a swirl of light in a busy airport.

Kara stood jammed into place by the crush of people around the baggage carousel. She might not have been able to see the energy ball masked as it was by the shape shifters' powers, but it was so close to her she could feel the heat of it on her face and the humming of the energy made her skin itch.

Chris elbowed his way closer and when he judged himself to be directly in line with Kara he yelled "Home!" as loud as his lungs would let him. The crowd lurched forward apparently unaware of the swirl of blue lights, though Chris was fairly sure he heard one guy say something about sparks coming from the baggage carousel.

He breathed a sigh of relief and jogged back toward the arrivals area bathroom in order to orb home.

Unfortunately when he got home he realised his gesture to take Kara back to the Manor, had been a little general. He arrived to a scene of chaos. His mother was blasting madly at the shape shifter, while Kara was engaged in desperate hand to hand combat with the demon between Piper's volleys.

"Chris" his mother turned on him, "Why? Why did you...?"

"Piper!" Kara called "Little help! Please!" An energy ball bounced off he wall behind Piper, closely followed by Kara herself as an energy ball hit her in the chest.

"Ow..." Kara dragged herself up and ran back at the demon. Piper turned back to her son.

"Go downstairs and help your aunts"

"What?"

"Go!"

Chris understood that tone brooked no argument and started down the stairs wondering what his aunts could be dealing with that was so important that they couldn't help with the shape shifter in the attic.

He soon saw the three mightily confused and fairly angry passengers in the living room.

Paige looked at her nephew "Never do the wave your hand and yell thing in a crowded place Christopher!"

Chris flinched at the use of his 'proper' name, that had rarely been trotted out since he was thirteen.

"You do it!" He knew it was a weak answer but it was the best he had right at that moment.

"Not often I don't Mister and I've been doing this a lot longer than you have" she turned and threw her hands up before letting them fall to her side with a resigned slap.

Phoebe now turned on her nephew "You are gonna have to talk fast with the Elders to get enough memory dust to fix this"

Chris opened his mouth to speak but barely managed to make a vowel sound before his eldest aunt cut him off "Nope, we're not doing it you are. And you're going to have to fetch what these people were going to pick up, we can't leave them all sleeping it off in the airport... And Kara's stuff too. From the sound of what's going on upstairs she isn't going to be in good enough shape to do it herself."

Chris opened his mouth to speak again but Paige cut him off "GO! Talk to the elders. NOW! Please."

Chris muttered under his breath "Everybody keeps telling me to go. What am I the messenger boy?"

His aunts turned to glare at him while the sounds of another explosion bounced off the walls above his head.

"OK! OK!" He orbed out, heading for the top of the Golden Gate Bridge to grovel to the Elders. 'Man I hate grovelling' he thought as he left.