here is the next chapter of the story. Please review! Sorry for the long wait.
Chris frowned as Melinda left the room and looked that the young police officer that was standing at the foot of the bed. "Is everything ok?"
The young man scratched his nose and nodded jerkily, "Of course, just need to get your statement so we can clear all this up." He once again flipped through the pages of his notepad, this time going back to the beginning.
"We have on record that you and Zane Mikos were sent down the line to dig breaks, stamp out small fires and make sure that the back end didn't come back to life. That while you were alone with Mr. Mikos he attacked you and then was somehow consumed into the wildfire that you were fighting. Would you say that this is accurate?" Gavin looked up inquiringly at Chris, his pen was posed over the pad to add details or change the chain of events.
Chris adjusted himself on the bed, straightening the sheets and stalling for what to say. The truth that a demon had possessed his friend, attacked him, and was then hurled into the fire through telekinesis was not going to work. He had to walk the Halliwell line, as Wyatt called it, that fine line between truth and keeping the most important secret any of them had been entrusted with.
"That sounds pretty accurate, I have to be honest I don't know what happened to him after he hit me the second time, maybe he thought someone was coming? I just managed to crawl away and grab my radio for help. I wasn't told he was dead until we were here at the hospital and they were taking me into surgery. I really don't know what made him snap, he mentioned breaking up with his girlfriend, maybe that's it?" Chris shrugged his good shoulder and tried to look confused and bewildered. He didn't want any chance of the cops not believing him.
"We might be able to know more after looking through his things and speaking to his friends. But, Mr. Halliwell, are you returning to Montana this summer?"
Chris glanced toward the door, he knew that Melinda would be pissed if he left California again. But, he also did not want to go stay at the Manor with Phoebe's girls. They meant well, but could be a little too like his aunt at times.
"I'm not sure yet what the plan is. I guess I need to talk to Dr. Drake- Derrick about my recovery plan. I will probably need PT, what do you think?
"I would have to agree with you there. You got hit in two major parts of your body, two major joints, and that's going to require a great deal of therapy. I'm sure you could stay local with your sister and be kept aware of the investigation as well."
"Yeah," Chris mused aloud. "But, I don't want Mellie to get so caught up taking care of me that she doesn't take care of the club. The early weeks are the worst weeks for a nightclub in a smaller area like this." Chris scratched the side of his nose and looked out the window, clearly consumed in his thoughts. Both he and Gavin glanced over as the door to the room opened again admitting Melinda and Dr. Drake-Derrick.
"Hello Christopher," Libby walked over and picked up his chart. "I'm glad to see that you are conscious and talking, though I will admit I'm surprised that you're doing this well so soon after surgery. Normally our patients aren't awake and talking coherently."
"I've been hurt a lot, and I knew that if I wasn't doing well sooner that Mellie was going to kick my butt." Chris laughed and looked at his sister. Melinda gave a weak smile and sat back down in her chair.
"Well, you're here for a week at least, then PT and small movements for at least a month after that. Do you have any idea where you would like to do the PT? I can call the doctor and coordinate a care plan with them." Libby flipped through the chart and prepared to write down the next steps of the care plan. She had been bluntly honest with Melinda in the hall, that despite how good he was looking now, Chris had nearly died. Libby was honestly worried that he was doing too well now, and would have a set back if he attempted to move hospitals or go too far in a car for the PT and recovery.
"Well," Chris snuck a glance at his sister and trailed off. He had no clue what to say next.
Melinda sat up straighter and gave her brother a hard glance, "You should stay here. We both know that if you go back to San Francisco you will spend half your time calming down the girls and the other half taking care of everyone but yourself. You won't be able to help yourself." She turned and looked at Libby, "He will stay here for his recovery. Who is the best doctor to help with his injuries?" Libby had told her in the hall that there was a very good doctor here in Sea Haven, Melinda had every intention of bullying her brother into staying with her.
Melinda hoped that Chris wouldn't fight her on this, the "little girls" as they called their cousins weren't actually that much younger than her, but acted that way. They also loved to have their "big brother" do anything from changing lightbulbs and picking them up from bad dates to demon hunting with them. Melinda was determined to have Chris take a break and heal completely, they didn't have the luxury of calling a full whitelighter to come take care of him.
Libby smiled and pulled a business card out her jacket pocket. "This is my niece, Madison Drake, she does quite a bit with traumatic injuries. Or, if you want another name that I am not related to, I can look up some others." Libby passed Melinda the business card and tried to ignore her fidgety nephew.
"I can bring her by later so she can met you Christopher, and we can see how you both get along. The doctor patient relationship when it comes to PT needs to be a good one."
"I would appreciate that," Chris said gratefully. "I want to be able to jump next year and that will all be dependent on how my injuries heal." Chris smiled at Dr. Drake- Derrick and ignored the glare that Melinda was giving him. "How do my injuries look Doctor? I haven't been told anything yet."
Libby began to speak and noticed that Gavin was slowly inching his way to the door, studiously avoiding looking at anyone in the room. "Gavin, is there anywhere that you need to be?"
He froze in mid-step, "I was, uh, I am needed to… I'm going back to the station to update Uncle Jonas about the case and see what else to he needs me to do. I've got a lot to catch up on since I've been gone so long."
"Well, ok go on then. I'll see you at the family dinner tomorrow?" Libby turned back to her patient and dismissed him from her mind.
"Of course Aunt Libby. Have a good day everyone," Gavin waved in a half-hearted gesture and escaped.
He threw himself into his patrol car and gunned it out of the hospital lot, his one thought that he desperately needed to get home. He had been raised hearing all the stories of how his father and uncles found their soul mates, and while they had all ended happy there had been many bumps to get there. He was also scared to the bone that he had no idea who this girl was, all he knew was that once his eyes had met hers his palm had started itching.
Gavin sped down the coast road and parked in the wide lot in front of his parents' massive house. It had needed the 8 bedrooms to contain the 7 boys that had all grown up there. He glanced over and could just see the spires of Libby and Tyson's cliff house as well. Gavin signed and started up the walk to the front door. He had been raised surrounded by family and knowing that one day he would take the reins as the 7th son of the 7th son, and have 7 sons of his own, but he wasn't sure he was ready to do it now.
His footsteps echoed on the stone in the entry way as he walked through the house looking for his dad. He could faintly hear a guitar playing from the master bedroom and turned that way knowing his mother would know where his dad was.
He tapped on the partially open door and peeked in. Joley Drake Prakenskii was still a beautiful woman. Her hair was back to its natural blonde again, and her dark eyes were narrowed in concentration as she scribbled lyrics onto a pad set on the settee in front of her. She had been a multi-platinum recording artist since before any of his brothers had been born and had continued with the music industry after they had been born. If he had been asked Gavin would not have been able to separate his childhood from hearing his mother play and sing music. It was part of what made Joley, well Joley.
"Ma?" Gavin waited until she had stopped writing and looked over to him. Joley was also famous in the family for getting sucked in to writing her music and not noticing if someone was talking to her.
Her warm brown eyes sparkled as she saw her youngest son standing in the doorway. "Hey baby, what's going on? Aren't you on shift?"
"Yeah, I need to talk to Dad. Any idea where he is?" Gavin shifted his feet a little as his mom's eyes narrowed and she focused on him more intently.
"He's in the workout room, apparently Alexei was able to take his weapon from him recently and Ilya thinks that he needs more practice." Joley rolled her eyes as she set her guitar to the side and rose to her feet. "I'll walk up with you, I wanted to see what he wants to do for dinner anyway."
"Don't worry about that Ma, I'll ask him for you," Gavin quickly stepped into the doorway and blocked his mother's way. "It's a dude thing that I want to talk to him about, and well it's awkward."
"Gavin Maxim Prakenskii, what is going on here? You don't have 'dude things', and I was right there when your father gave you the sex talk. What in the world could possibly be more awkward to talk to him about?"
Gavin opened and closed his mouth a few times, and without thinking started rubbing at his left palm, right where it was itching when he thought of Melinda.
Gavin realized that he had blown it, when he saw his mother's eyes track down to his hands and her own fingers curl into her left palm. "I see," Joley said slowly. "Yes, I think that is a conversation that you and your father should have alone. It is always an intense time when you meet 'that girl' as your father and uncles can tell you." Joley waited until her son had walked away and sank down onto the settee that was behind her. She could easily remember when Ilya had first marked her palm.
They hadn't even been introduced really, and she had been mad at him when she sent power at his back to make him trip and instead he rebounded it to her. It was the first time any of them had been a man that had psychic gifts like her family had, and she had been terrified of him. Joley tried to think of who her son could have met today that could be the girl and faintly wished her luck. Whoever this girl was, she was going to need it.
Gavin walked to the gym at the back of the house. He was never quite sure what he dad had been and done before his parents had met, but he knew it was dangerous. As kids, no matter how quiet they had been or how much they had planned, they had never been able to sneak up on their dad or sneak anything by him.
He stepped into the room and saw his dad, who had to be approaching 60, pounding away on the heavy bag. Gavin walked further in and waited until his dad saw him, Ilya nodded at his son and dropped his arms breathing heavily. Gavin reached into the mini-fridge that was tucked into the wall and pulled out a bottle of water.
Tossing it to his dad, Gavin settled on the bench of the bench press and waited for his dad to take a drink and wipe his face.
Without much preamble Gavin decided to just launch into it. "I'm pretty sure I've found her."
Ilya froze for a moment and decided to sit like his son was, facing him dead on.
"That is a very big statement Gavin. Your soul mate is destined to be the next mother to the 7 sons of the Prakenskii family, that's not a responsibility to be taken lightly." Ilya rubbed more sweat from his face and drank a little more water to stall for time. "There's also the fact that our family has psychic gifts, that all of your sons will have them. Do you know this girl? How are you going to explain all this to her?"
Gavin looked at his dad and Ilya could almost see the stress and anxiety coming off him in waves. "I have no idea who she really is. I saw her at the hospital when I went to interview her brother and just knew." He pushed his hand through his hair in agitation, "How am I supposed to explain magic to a simple bar owner?"
Melinda swung into Speakeasy to Me and found Primrose sitting behind the bar flipping through the to-do list that Melinda had left behind.
"Hey," Melinda smiled at her cousin and walked up to her. They exchanged a long hug and sat down together.
"So, how is Christopher Robin?" Prim asked. She polished the bar glasses that were stacked at the end of the bar as they caught up on the last few days.
"Are we the only ones here?" Melinda asked, craning her neck to see the kitchen. She wanted to tell Prim everything that Chris had divulged once the doctors had left, but she also didn't want Camille to overhear.
"Yeah, why? Oh lord, it wasn't just a random attack was it?" Primrose put down the polishing rag and faced Melinda fully. "I just couldn't take the coincidence that a Halliwell was just randomly attacked by a randomly turned crazy person, who then just happened to die before anyone else could talk to him."
Melinda sighed and pushed a hand through her hair, "Yeah you're right. Chris says the guy had been taken by a Possessor Demon, a demon that claimed to have killed my mother." Melinda looked away from Primrose as the tears sprang back to her eyes again. She had sobbed when Chris had told her the entire taunt that the demon had leveled at him. It had been two days since he had told her and her mind was still reeling with the possible ramifications of it.
"The demon could be lying, Mellie. It wouldn't be the first time that a demon had claimed to be the one responsible for killing your mom." Primrose bit her lip and tried to think of what else she could say to her cousin.
Primrose knew that, despite what her mom and Aunt Paige had said immediately following Aunt Piper's death, Melinda and Chris blamed themselves for her death. Aunt Piper had been at home baking for Chris's birthday when she had been attacked by a demon, or possibly two, and when Chris and Melinda had come home from school Aunt Piper had been bleeding out on the kitchen floor. Chris and Melinda had both not yet been able to heal, and Leo for an unknown reason had not responded to their cries for help. In the end, Aunt Piper had died in Chris's arms with Melinda's screams echoing through the house. Wyatt had been on a class trip to the Grand Canyon and, per Aunt Piper's Rules, forbidden to come home via magic and therefore put his siblings on mute until he got back.
Any mention of the demon attack, or even Aunt Piper on a bad day, was liable to set Melinda to crying and Christopher off to sit on a bridge somewhere.
So Primrose took a deep breath before she continued speaking, "I just don't want either of you to react before we have time to research this and really think about it."
Melinda nodded and took a deep breath, Primrose was grateful to see that she wasn't crying. "I know. Chris and I talked before I left the hospital yesterday, and we decided to look the Book and make sure that there is no chance that it couldn't be true before we decide to act on it. But, we also don't know whether or not the demon survived the fire and we need to investigate that too. And, add in the fact that Chris is still so hurt and can't even get out of bed yet, so we can't act quickly anyways."
Melinda glanced around the club and tried to remind herself of the joy that she had felt just a few days ago when she had walked in. This was still her place, one demon attack was not going to change her mind or make her want to leave.
"If you need to get back to San Francisco and P3 I can take over from here, Prim." Melinda secretly hoped that Primrose would do just that, she needed some space to breathe before Chris got out of the hospital and moved in with her.
"I'm going to head back in a few days, Pepper is heading up here with Chris's clothes and some of his personal things that he didn't take to Montana. We will go home together," Primrose responded.
"Who is going to watch the club while Pepper is here?" Melinda questioned. She had been surprised that Primrose had allowed Pepper to take the reins while she had left to begin with. Pepper worked with their Uncle Coop at the matchmaking business and wasn't well known as the business centered mind.
"Oh," Primrose exclaimed, and started laughing. "No, Peppy was never watching the club for me! Oh lord, we would come back and she would have matched up all the waitstaff and bartenders with their soul mates, but the club would be closed or failing. HJ agreed to watch the club for me in exchange for me helping him with his detective's exam."
Melinda frowned and got up to walk around the bar. She held up a bottle of Jameson and some ginger ale and mixed two drinks at Primrose's nod. "I didn't realize that HJ was already able to take the detective's exam."
She placed the glass by Primrose and leaned against the bar as she swirled her drink. "Sometimes, I wonder what our moms and grandma, Grams would have thought of all of us. I mean, take a look at the current Halliwells. Wyatt is saving orphans and building wells or something in Africa, Chris is a fireman, we run bars, HJ is a policeman, the twins are in school getting master's degrees in social services, Pepper and Poppy are working in the wedding business. We are so stinking normal, I feel like all other Halliwells wouldn't believe it! We managed the normal, right?"
"Well," Primrose took a long sip of her drink and leaned back on her stool. She then reached over for the salt shaker and threw some over her shoulder, then knocked on the wood of the bar. "I feel like the other shoe is waiting to drop. We did just have a long conversation about a demon hunting the family, after all. But, yeah. We did manage to achieve what our parents wanted; career and lives that were not dictated by magic."
Melinda smiled and raised her glass to her cousin. "Amen to that, but I think we all know that magic will not leave the Halliwells far behind."
They both smiled and sat for some time debating various new bands that had sent in music and wanted to play at either club. Camille came in as they were listening to one band on the boombox.
"I don't know," Melinda was saying. She had her head cocked to one side as she tried to figure out the lyrics. "Drunk people already have issues understanding lyrics, this is going to be just too confusing."
Primrose wrinkled her nose and nodded, "They also can't promise to have a full set ready, so maybe as a warm-up band for a more popular group. But, for sure a weekday group. They are not strong enough for a weekend crowd."
"So this pile?" Melinda tossed the CD to the bigger of the two piles and smiled as Camille came over. "Hey, thanks for helping Primrose hold down the fort for the last few days. I had to set up my crafting room as a bedroom for Chris since he won't be able to get up the stairs at first."
"It's no problem," Camille said as she settled onto a bar stool. "Looking at new bands? That's how my aunt got started in the beginning of her music career."
"Joley Drake got started playing in bars?" Melinda asked skeptically.
"Wait, THE Joley Drake is your aunt?" Primrose interrupted, her face shining with excitement. "She is my favorite artist, I have all of her music and I've been to so many of her concerts!"
Camille laughed, "I had a feeling that one of you would be a fan. There's always at least one in a room. Anyway, how is Chris?"
"He's good," Melinda said. "Still in a lot of pain and it will take a lot of time to heal. Actually, your sister is going to be his PT when he's released from the hospital. He's not a good patient, you might want to warn her." Melinda laughed and pushed her hair out of her face. She hadn't been there when Chris had met with Madison Drake, but she had a feeling that Madison was not going to let Chris push her around.
"Maddie is a great doctor, she will have him on his feet in no time."
They all turned as there was a knock on the door and looked over to see Gavin come in.
"Hey, just wanted to check up on you ladies." Gavin awkwardly cleared his throat and ran his hand over his hair. He looked to Camille, and she nodded and grabbed her purse.
"Well," she said, "I'm going to head back to the kitchen and start prep. Primrose, can you come help me?"
Primrose gave her a weird look, but nodded when Camille gave a significant look to Gavin and then slid it over to Melinda. "Sure, I can wash and chop like a champ."
They both walked back to the kitchen and left Gavin and Melinda alone in the club.
Thanks for reading!