Ish nodded and left again, mostly to warn the other peri that Gabriel was in town. That was not something he wanted to have surprise anyone.

Gabriel and Christine didn't come back until almost dinner time, carrying a few take-out bags. Because she was too tired now to cook.

"See, I returned her in almost perfect condition." Gabriel flashed Cal a smile that told him the auphling wasn't fooling anyone about his feelings towards the nephilim.

Cal just snorted and turned his attention to Christine.

"Takeout?" he asked, looking at the bags hopefully.

"Yeah." Christine grinned briefly. "I brought you food." She put the bags in the kitchen and got out plates. "You can serve yourselves, I'm tired."

"No problem," Cal said, taking a plate. He had no issues serving himself, and besides, Christine looked exhausted.

"I'll leave you three to get settled in." Gabriel vanished again.

Christine got a plate, dragged herself over to the couch, and flopped over into an almost-boneless heap.

Once Cal had his food, he went over to sit next on the couch as well.

"You alright?" he asked Christine.

"Yeah, just tired." Christine yawned briefly. "Gabriel put me through my paces earlier, basically."

"What do you mean?" Cal asked as he started on his dinner.

"I can do more than just listen in on angel radio." Christine grimaced. "And he handed me my ass multiple times when we were sword fighting."

Cal raised an eyebrow.

"Niko could have done that for you, if you wanted," he said. "He does it to me every morning." He cracked a grin at her.

Christine snorted. "Hey, maybe we should spar," she said, looking over at Niko.

"If you want." He looke more amused than anything. "You might be better than Cal, anyway."

Christine laughed at that.

Cal snorted.

"No kidding," he said. "I can't swing a sword well enough for Nik." He grinned. "But I'm damn good with a gun, so we're good."

Christine snorted at him. "I dunno, so far he's still scarier than you most days." She nodded to Nik, who just smirked.

Cal pouted rolled his eyes and just turned back to his takeout.

Niko looked at his brother for a few moments before he smiled faintly and looking back at his plate to make internal bets with himself as to how long it would take Cal to notice he liked Christine.

Cal was pointedly ignoring his brother, although he did glance around curiously when he heard a cell phone going off that wasn't his or Nik's.

Christine pulled out her phone and checked it before answering.

"Hey, what's up?" she asked, getting up with a grimace to move into another room.

"Chris?" It was Kali. "Chris, something's wrong. We don't know what happened, but--" She sounded panicked. "Something split us apart."

Christine froze at that. "What?" she asked, her eyebrows shooting up. "Something split you apart?"

"We don't know what happened!" Kali whimpered. "It feels so wrong, Chris, there is nothing right about this, I'm not supposed to be able to see my sisters like this."

"I know," Christine said. "It's okay. Take deep breaths. If something split you apart, it can probably put you back together. We just need to figure out what did it. Okay?"

"But we don't know what did it!" Kali said. "It just happened! One second everything was normal and the next we're all looking at each other and feeling empty and alone and unnatural!"

"Kali." Christine's voice was a little sharper now. "I know you didn't see what happened. We're going to figure it out, but hysterics won't help anything."

"But--But--!" Kali sputtered, still not quite calming down.