She'd fallen asleep, somehow having wound up next to Chris; he knew that he shouldn't wake her, it was obvious now that she wasn't wearing makeup that she'd never gotten much sleep. The bags under her eyes were a deep purple, but they hadn't begun to sink into her skull; even asleep, with nothing on her face, he still admired her.

Quietly, he crept away from the pink haired girl; turning into a spider (all thanks to the spider demon), he crawled through the vents and re-entered the main section of the house. Phoebe had begun to channel his anger toward Leo, causing Paige to point out his spider-form.

He crawled over to Piper, about to grab the cocooned witch, when his aunts rushed in to stop him. Easily, he webbed them against the wall, binding their hands to where they could not use their magic as well.

Leo rushed in, but Chris had pinned him against the wall by his throat.

The noise upstairs had caused the teen in the basement to wake up, her eyes wide and teary as she observed her surrounding. Where was Chris? Why was she alone in the basement? Paige wouldn't have let this happen - not after last time.

She ran to the door, her backpack not weighing much as she pounded on the basement door. "Chris! Anyone?! Chris!" She screamed, but did not receive an immediate response. She'd begun to hyperventilate, sinking to the ground as tears had threatened to spill from her eyes. "Please! Let me out of here!" She screamed once more, her vocal cords vibrating violently against her throat.

After webbing Leo to the wall, the four heard her screams. Paige widened her eyes, realizing what Chris had just done; she'd begun to struggle against the webbing, Phoebe and Leo listening sympathetically to her cries. Chris looked toward the basement door for a mere moment, his eyes flashing back to the jade green that Aurelia had begun to look forward to seeing, before flashing back to red and orbing the cocoon of Piper out of the manor.

Hours had passed, and exhausted wrecked the girl's body. The basement door had been locked, presumably by Chris, and it seemed as if the sisters either weren't home, or had forgotten her; she'd lost her voice within the first hour, and now all that left her lips were inaudible breaths of helplessness.

Aurelia's eyelids had begun to shut halfway, before she brought her gaze to her broken and bloodied nails and knuckles. She'd punched and scraped her hardest to get out of the dark, depressing, PTSD inducing basement, but it was no use. Her only choice, now, was to wait for the horrific clutches of sleep to grab her, and the sisters to free her.

Her 5'4.5" body fell limp against the basement stairs, rolling downward, and colliding her skull with the floor. She hadn't felt a thing, the painful confines of sleep already overpowering her senses, and slowly drifting her gaze completely shut.

...

Chris had webbed himself and Leo into the spider demon's layer, angrily turning toward his father. Leo backed up hastily, idiotically backing himself up against one of the stone tables. "Alright, Chris, can we talk about this for a minute?"

"A minute?" He asked, grasping his father by the throat once more, "We have the next hundred years."

He threw Leo across the ground, causing the Elder to groan in pain. "We may have the next hundred years, but Aurelia doesn't." He spoke, watching as Chris' eyes flashed back to normal for a brief moment at the mention of the girl.

The brunette threw him into a web, trapping him vertically so he can face him while he's talking. "Well, at least we'll have plenty of time to get to know each other. . . Dad."

"See, that's what I'm talking about. That's not the demon talking, that's you talking, Chris. It's not too late, you just have to fight it."

"Why fight it, when I've already won?"

"Aurelia Shade." Leo began, causing Chris to freeze and look into the distance of the cave. "She is, certainly, unique, isn't she?"

"What does she have to do with this?"

Leo sighed, "She's dying, Chris. She got locked in the basement when you snuck out, trapping the rest of us against the wall. Your name was the only one she yelled for, you know. . . don't let it be the last, too."

The brunette snapped, webbing his father's hands once more, trying to ignore his words. "He's lying," he thought, "he has to be."

"Tell me why you hate me so much, Chris. Huh? What'd I do to become such a bad dad?"

"It doesn't matter, anymore." He spoke, his tone full of anger and irritation, and the slightest hint of pain.

Leo rolled his eyes, "The hell it doesn't. Deep down, you hate my guts. Huh? Admit it." He egged on, only causing Chris to walk closer toward him. "Come on, admit it. What? Are you afraid?"

"I'm not afraid of you."

"No? Then why don't you tell me what I did to you, huh? What, did I, uh, miss a school play? Did I take away your favorite toy? Huh?" He mocked, "Did I play favorites with Wyatt?"

Chris released a roar, grasping Leo's shirt, and launching him across the cave; his back collided with the stone wall, before he landed face-first on the ground. He groaned in pain, but refused to give up his little game now.

...

"Is she gonna be okay?" Paige asked, tears welling in her eyes at her best friend's state. After they'd unlocked the door, they laid her on the couch for Leo to heal her; her vocal cords had ripped, and the teen had almost suffocated on her own blood. She should've helped her sooner, she should've prioritized the torture that was taking place right beneath her feet before orbing off to save Piper and Chris.

Despite the fact that they were her biological family, she still viewed Aurelia as a younger sister; she'd protected that girl from as much as she could, only to fail her when she needed her for the first time in years.

They were each other's family, whether it be blood or not, and they would never see each other as anything else. She couldn't take her eyes off of her, the tears blurring her vision as she tightly held her bloodied hand.

Leo nodded, taking a deep breath. "Yeah, she'll be fine. If you guys want, I can alter her memory, make her think it was just a really bad nightmare?"

"No." Paige spoke, cutting her sisters off before they'd even opened their mouths. "I don't want her thinking that her mind created a scenario so cruel, after all of these years of her barely sleeping; she'd never sleep again if she thought it was a nightmare."

"You really care about her, don't you?" Phoebe smiled sadly, rubbing her younger sister's shoulder with her hand.

"Yeah," the woman nodded. "Now that I know about magic, and stuff, I'd like to think that she was my first charge - even though she's not a witch. I did my best to protect her when we were kids, it crushes me that I didn't do it again, tonight."

...

"Protected her from what?" Chris whispered, entering the living room; Paige had refused to leave Aurelia's side, having even set up a sleeping back on the floor next to the couch. The woman looked at him confused, "Earlier, you said you protected her when you were kids. . . from what?"

Paige sighed, standing to her feet and approaching her newly-healed nephew. "Well, she, uh, wasn't necessarily raised in the best of foster homes."

"I kind of figured, after she told me what her biological parents were like. . . would you mind, I don't know, telling me about it?"

The brunette smiled softly, patting his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Chris, but those are her stories to tell. . . all I can say, is we all made the worst possible decision of sending her down there."

He looked back at the teen, his eyes twinkling with guilt and the sudden urge to protect her; he knew that she was unique, just like Leo had said to him in his spider-trip earlier that night. He felt awful, she almost died because of him.

Chris Halliwell took a deep breath, walking over and placing a gentle kiss on her forehead. "Sleep well, Freckles."

Her voice mumbled through the trance of sleep, and she'd managed to say, "Thank you, Shaggy."

He went to bed with a small smile at the thought.