Title: The Only Selfish Impulse

Canon: Charmed

Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed.

Genre: Drama/Romance

Characters: Chris, Bianca, Wyatt, etc…

Pairing: Bianca/Chris mainly

Timeline: AU in the changed future…

Summary: Afterward one shot. Chris has always been neurotic, never caring for himself. He had planned coming to the past and considered the reprocutions. His only selfish impulse has come to fruitation.
One shot. Finished.

He kneels in a white robe, his short hair newly cut. Like in a dress-up game, he the clothes he wears now are not of his usual attire. His dark brown hair spikes slightly, his stormy blue eyes meeting each object and going over what is necessary. The moon is high in the sky and the nearest clock reads 11:52. It's quite dark in this edge of the forest. The clearing was chosen because of the shape and the generally unused brush on the outskirts.

It was perfect for what he was doing, what they were doing.

He looks at his fiancé again, her long light hair contrasting against the exotic light brown of her skin. She is as uncomfortable as he in these robes, loose fitting and wavy. Both are fond of light clothing, but this is taking it to grand levels, and a little too far. They are used to leather on their bodies, tight fits to provide room for fighting and defending themselves. She meets his gaze with her violet eyes; her dark black robes making her look alight.

She smiles.

Both hated the decks they were dealt from, but it had led them to one another. And they had a right to have something good in their lives for all the good they had done.

They each lit a match with a fireball when the full moon was overhead and lit the small twine angled in a unity sign resembling the number eight, 8, where the loops surrounded them. Incense was spread on the twine beneath some flint so they would actually light up. A breeze blew by, spreading the scents of the forest and mind around both of them. They watched silently as the incense was all lit and the twine glowed with light flames.

A small pile of flint in-between them gave a sign like a small, glowing sun, simply glowing with their power and not with the fire from the matches.

And as one, they incanted…

My hand in yours… He took his right hand and held her left in a soft folding of fingers.

As armed with yours… His left hand and her right hand met over the flame, their fingers touching tips.

My heart with yours… A dagger flew out from the fire, a dagger of pure energy, and made a slice in the palm of each of the four hands, letting the dripping blood to flow into the energy eating it up like a black hole.

My soul to follow… They leaned forward and met above the fire for a passionate kiss that only lasted a few minutes before they sighed and leaned back to continue the ritual. They knew the other was their soul mate, but soul mates did not always find one another. With this ritual, it would no be so for them.

Now and forever… They placed their hands in the fire. It burned, but it wasn't normal fire. It was an ultimate test. If unworthy, they would be burned. If accepted correctly, a small symbol would appear on their cuts.

As I will it… White light splayed brightly from the small fire pit in-between the two lovers.

So mote it be… The infinity sign around them slowly began to light up, shooting sparks of light itself into the air around them so bright it hurt to look. They had to close their eyes to remain with the ability of sight. The light surrounded them then and began taking a look at their memories.

We are joined… The ritual was accepted when they felt tingling on their hands and fingers that began to flow through them, good and evil, for one moment, holding sway over neither. Both were inherently good, but darkness had a way through seeping through the most powerful of people. Look at Wyatt Matthew Halliwell.

For eternity… The light gave one last pulse before fading in to nothing. The small sacrifices of twigs of earth, incense, and blood had been accepted. Coming back to themselves, the man and woman looked at one another and met for another searing kiss, hands still joined over the earth. They would never be alone now.

They clean up and go back to their life of danger and darkness, he running the Resistance against his own brother, and she spying on his brother for him. Hands still clasped, they would not notice their little markings until later.

She's dead now. His brother killed her-however unintentionally. He loves Wyatt. The tall blonde man is his brother, and despite being the Source of All Evil, he will always be Chris's brother.

Brown hair and pained eyes watch the baby boy that is his older brother, tries to tell himself that he will succeed, that he will triumph over the darkness. But what if I don't. In the end, he does. But he dies too. It pains his family who have just become his family again, but truly it does not bother him.

He isn't the most active brother, and he doesn't talk as much as his siblings, nineteen year old Wyatt Matthew and fifteen year old Melinda Patricia. He isn't the best student but he keeps his grades with as and high Bs. Christopher Victor is special though. He holds the family together. He's the family shrink and the one who takes everyone's worries on his shoulders.

He's the quiet contemplative one. His neurosis is well-known and it causes him much teasing from his siblings and cousins. Chris doesn't let it bother him. He just has to make sure everyone is safe. So what if he has more recorded kills than his mother and aunts put together. So what if the Underworld is secretly more afraid of him than his Golden Boy brother. If they think he is dangerous enough, than maybe they will quit being so stupid as to try and kill his family more often.

But, well, he learned early that nothing is as it seems and that though he was powerful he was to let Wyatt handle the demons. He'd never really followed the stupid rules. What bothers him are the looks he gets from the generation before him. It doesn't happen all the time, and he likes to think that it means nothing. However, his mother's eyes, or even his aunts', will look at him as if they are searching for something. His father tries overly hard to love him and it just ends up freaking Christopher Victor Halliwell out a little.

He falls to the background of the family, but he's laid back enough to pretend it doesn't bother him. There has always been this feeling in his chest as if he is missing something, some sign or experience that has escaped his notice. It's part of the reason that he has never told anyone else about the… flashes. Chris has gotten them for as long as he could remember. Mostly they were nonsensical, but always they were about himself.

Alternate realities were tricky, he'd discovered, and he often found himself wishing that he could have had that life where his mother loved him with everything in her and Aunties P and Phoebes loved Piper's boys equally. It wasn't like no one loved him in this life-they really did. He even had a sister and a real father in this one. But in this life there is something in the air around him when he gets near his older family, like there is something else they want to say or know.

The flashes are usually pretty good, but there is something off there as well. Usually it centers around Wyatt and he can tell that only he and his other self can really tell that there is something off about the Golden Boy.

He's seventeen now though, and he dreams awful things when he sleeps. He doesn't cry out but feels that those dreams are important. And then one night, he sees her among the images of another world, a beautiful girl with light blonde/red hair and skin that isn't quite Caucasian. He doesn't know her name, or really hear he voice. But he can feel her kiss as if it is real, as if she is kissing him in this reality.

"My soul to follow…

…now and forever"

and he wakes.

Christopher knows something bad will happen to her eventually and he feels that it will kill him to actually see it. Knowing the basics –his brother was an evil Overlord and it was he (Chris himself) who had created from rubble the Resistance against his own flesh and blood- was pretty easy to ignore because he knew for a fact that it would not really happen. Wyatt was cocky and maybe a little power-high, but he had an aura of happiness and naivety that The second son of Piper Halliwell-Wyatt had never felt.

There were times when Chris regretted not being more like his happy siblings, but why should he change himself for the world?

It happened one day when Wyatt came home earlier than usual speaking of a party. Chris wasn't much of a partier-preferring to stay at Magic school a bit later than anyone normal and helping out those much younger than he. Or sometimes he would be kept late in his research of the demonic.

Piper knew that Chris probably had more of the library memorized than the librarian who had been there for thirty years did. It was her want for him to get out that had her mouthing to him about why he needed to grab his friends and go for a beer. Surreality hit him, and realizing that he'd never get a chance like this from his mother, he called up his only other friend in the world, Tess Reynolds (whom Wyatt was absolutely besotted with) and had gone for a party.

The bonfire on the beach was, err… 'happening'… as many may have put it fifty years ago. There were dancers in tacky Hawaiian shirts, and some with no shirts at all. Many of the young men were already drunk out of their minds and flirting outrageously with possibly interested females.

Personally, Christopher didn't really care for the scene, but would go with it on the insistence of his mother and brother. Tess met him on the edge of the crowd and he handed her a beer while he went for the bar. The canned stuff was just nasty.

He'd ordered up a shot of vodka and drowned it. On his second, he'd been distracted by… something. A hum on the air, some sort of signal that made him look over, had him running into a young woman his age with red/blonde long hair and a cute nose. She had old eyes like his and confusion in her eyes he had no idea mirrored his own.

He had never heard that name in his dreams but he'd known it as soon as they'd met gazes. Putting the undunked shot bag on the bar for a moment, he'd turned and offered his hand. She'd followed and they'd tried to introduce themselves.

"My hand in yours…

…as armed with yours…"

They hear it, and move on.

In tandem, they began, "I'm Bi-"

"I'm Chr-" and then they'd relaxed it with, "Oh, I know who y-"

"Oh, I know who y-" and then they'd lost their words. Sticking with someone who knew your ever detail was decidedly difficult as it was new for them.

"So," Chris began, tapping his arm back on his leg, "Do you wanna dance?" he asked, motioning with his eyes to the wild party.

She looked over and rolled her eyes as someone had to jump back. "DO you really wanna?" she asked, unsure.

"No." he replied with a shake of his head, one hundred different reasons coming to mind as to why he had no wish to be in that thriving mass of hormonal bodies.

"There's a playground off that way," she pointed behind the bar, and indeed there was. Looking past the busy bar tenders on the makeshift bar, Chris could see the dark looks of a climbing metallic structure beneath a dimming light and tall swings going unnoticed in the teenage party-goers.

"Want me to take your shoes?" he asked as he slipped his own off. She shook off her sandals and handed them to him. Chris could see they were black and soft. They must have been somewhat new.

"Race you there," she said and before he had time to retort, whether to deny or agree, she was off. He smiled to himself and ran after her.

Her playful speed was soon outrun by his hurried pace. "I'll get there first," he said loudly, and she screeched in outraged playfulness.

"As if!" and then she was trying to out match him. He threw one of her sandals to her and she stopped momentarily to catch it. He ran off faster and laughing this time and she chased after, throwing her black sandal at him. He stopped to catch it like a gentleman as she ran past him. Later, neither was sure who had gotten to the swings first, and they talked long into the dark high tide, the bonfire and mass of dancing bodies providing a nice bit of scenery.

The sound of the waves managed to drift most of the voices away. They acknowledged one another and it wasn't long before they had tentatively reflected on why they knew one another. Long into the night they got to know one another again. There was no doubt as to his meaning when he asked to meet her again at this little slip of sandy beach.

Neither dreamed overly much of the flashes they'd long grown used to. Bianca and Chris had no reason to. They'd found each other again, in this new life. Someday they would work out. It was just a matter of finding one another. The spell made in another world that doesn't really exist any longer assured them of that.

"Are you sure?" Piper has asked her second child after the good meet-my-girlfriend dinner Piper had prepared.

"Yeah," and he'd smiled. There had been such a look in his eyes that she'd had to ask nothing else. Some things were meant to be (she thought of her husband) and some weren't (she remembered the very few hints of things Chris Perry had let slip before she had known who he was). She'd do anything for her children even if she did not fully accept it.

In the years to come, the Charmed Ones would get used to having a demonic witch in the house, though they never confronted them, having never spoken a word of the 'Chris Perry, Whitelighter extraordinaire' that had come back to save their young son years back. He never confronted them about it or asked.

The secret stayed as such.

In 2024, Christopher Victor Halliwell asked Bianca Lynn Perry to marry him. She accepted and they were married on the beach they'd re-met on, the tide waving as the sun began to set and the swings not far into the distance. Chris had taken her on a honeymoon that went from Hawaii for one week over to Australia for four days, and then to Venice, Italy for five days. By the time they'd gotten back, she was ten days pregnant-having known from almost the moment of conception on the orb from Hawaii to Australia.

Both were ecstatic.

Bianca took her studies over the net, much of her time spent at Halliwell manor thanks to her mother-in-law's demanding though the Perry-Halliwells had a perfectly fine and warded flat with three bedrooms and a very nice kitchen. Chris had shot through college very easily and had already begun his job at a children's hospital. He'd always hated the fact that he had not gotten the full gift of healing, but his passive abilities allowed him to detect certain maladies, and as such he was a very successful doctor.

Wyatt married Tessa three years after his brother had 'jumped the broom' so to speak. At the time, two year old Prudence Amelia and Piper Lynn held on to their little one year old sister Penelope Savannah were hand-in-hand between their blissful parents while Bianca cupped her barely-extended belly with a their first son not yet five months conceived.

From her spot in the front, Piper Halliwell-Wyatt looked around at her loving family. Her three sisters (Prue having come down for all the special events finally), three children, six nieces/nephews, 3.5 grandchildren and such, she could admit that all of that magic destiny crap… that tit might have been worth it.

Bianca Lynn Perry-Halliwell is old and sitting in the living room of Halliwell Manor. She has one of her granddaughters (9 year old Piper Bianca in fact) perched on her right side. They're looking at the Book of Shadows. She still feels awed sometimes when she remembers that in another life she was hesitant to even see the book in a dark hollow.

The chime of an alarm clock comes and she knows that the other children will be home in an hour. Standing up, she leaves her youngest child's (out of nine children, her third son Pogue had been the youngest and first to die) youngest grand-daughter (he'd had two girls and a boy who each had three of their own) with the book.

"After all," she'd said, "it will be yours someday." Piper takes it as if it is a family album (there really are a few pages filled with hundreds of family pictures now) and watches her great-grandmother and great-grandfather exit the room.

Bianca's husband is leaning against the edge of the stairs, waiting for her. His white hair is not quite as light as her own, and they have both gotten lucky with only a few wrinkles in their faces-most of which are filled with happy lines and not those of worry due to the various demons that come around.

Helping his wife up the stairs, Chris glances at the hundreds of snapshots on the walls. There are some from before even his mother's time, and plenty of those of his own and then some. They are a legacy, he knows. And in one life he'd had to come back and erase everything.

"So mote it be…

…We are joined…

…For eternity…"

Quieting his thoughts, he walks his wife to their bedroom for a nap. The old couple know it had been worth it.

End.