Together Broken
Canon: Charmed
Disclaimer: I don't own Charmed. The song is Broken by Seether.
Genre: Drama/Supernatural
Characters: Chris, Bianca, etc…
Pairing: Chris/Bianca mainly…
Timeline: Pretty much before the changed timeline…
Summary: A song fic vignette on their trials that we did not see or understand… for a brother fighting for his brother and a witch fighting for what is right… for two fighting for only each other…
I wanted you to know I love the way you laugh
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain away
Chris was fifteen and orphaned. Living with his grandfather was great but he'd had to grow up. He could no longer savor the things he had as a child. He was not innocent, had not been in a long time. One year and twenty days ago he had turned from thirteen to fourteen and all had been lost for him. His brother, sister, cousins, and aunts… all dead now; they're all lost to him.
He refuses to speak to Leo again, not that the Elder ever cared for him anyways. Sometimes he thinks of his life as one of those spinning twirls children do. He is standing in the middle of the foyer, spinning and spinning as the dizziness begins to set in. His brother and sister are spinning also and occasionally they run into one another.
When he finally falls, he laughs and looks up, expecting his big brother to be in a similar position, their little sister falling first. But neither sibling is on the floor laughing as he is. Wyatt holds Melinda in his arms and she's bloody and pale and Wyatt just looks at him with something he does not understand in his eyes.
He turned around and trusted everyone, just to find he was all alone. NO one was there to catch him, but Chris had long learned that he needed to know how to catch himself. He just never thought he'd ever have to use that knowledge. His brother was his brother and both would protect their little sister. Chris doesn't know when his brother disappeared when his back was turned.
They'd met on a Tuesday morning. The smog of San Francisco was nearly choking him in the alley. There were better cities but this was his home. He'd had to move out of the manor but he wouldn't leave the city. Grandpa still owned it, but neither wanted to move into those empty halls filled with the echoes of blood and painful memories.
She had shown up to kill him, and she was known for a young resourceful hunter.
Of course, she hadn't expected Chris's strength, his ability to defend himself with a smile. Bianca Perry believes that he restored her soul when he smiled and gave her the first shot.
I keep your photograph, I know it serves me well
I wanna hold you high and steal your pain
She hadn't known why she did it, accepted his idea to talk. Both had been cocky, self assured that they could handle the situation. She pinned him to the wall with a knife at his throat within a few minutes but he hadn't really tried to get away. He'd smiled the whole time they were dueling for the upper hand, as if there was something that amused him greatly.
He'd had that silly grin the whole time, a cocky smirk that made him look both younger and older, with experience and naiveté. She didn't know how wrong that thought was, but it didn't really matter.
"Don't you want to talk about this?" he'd asked, the grin still visibly there and in his voice. The knife began to press into his back. She glared at him and fought to kill him but he held her still. She glared at him then, willing him to just die with dignity.
"We should talk," he'd said, perfectly calm as if they weren't there battling to the death for blood and money. And then he'd turned the tables and flipped their positions to where she was startling his knee, her back against the brick wall. One hand held her by the waist, while the other held both her arms above her head in a submissive position.
And when Bianca Perry realized she could not move her legs because he had crossed them and blocked the movement with his foot, she had snarled and felt a butterfly in her belly. She was in serious trouble, she knew. Bianca wondered why he didn't kill her and though he held her still he did not cause her actual harm. He was strong. He could have killed her and she felt furious with herself for being outmatched.
"So talk."
'Cause I'm broken when I'm open
And I don't feel like I am strong enough
When the war between the Halliwell brothers erupted into battles between actual sides, they had been seeing each other for over a year. They wouldn't really call the other a boyfriend or girlfriend-it was more than that, above petty childly ways. She didn't like Wyatt, didn't trust him. She'd heard plenty from his brother.
But as a Phoenix, she was sworn to her Coven and had no way out of it. As Wyatt stood over a helpless child and killed her for a laugh from his closest underlings, she'd realized how special Chris really was, how far apart the brothers had become. It was about that time that Bianca realized that she was in love with Christopher Victor Halliwell; she thanked whatever gods were listening that Wyatt could not get in to her mind. It was a technique Chris had developed and passed to her so she could clear out her emotions when in battle.
Plus, it helped for telepathic links when they were apart for a while.
She'd always been a witch with average powers, just another witch in her Coven. Yet, Chris taught her things she'd never even heard about. She had asked once if he had learned this at magic school or with his family and regretted it. His eyes had closed up in pain and she remembered what he had lost. He taught her a lot of things no one had heard about, and eventually he had told her that he had not been taught any of it. He'd had to depend on himself when things fell apart.
Wyatt used her for her powers. She could go out and kill a few demons. She was just a minion.
Chris used her for herself. She understood the downsides of reality but still understood what it was they were fighting for. She was there to remind him that he had a reason on this side. She kept him from going to his brother and breaking down. He became hard like her until the only thing either really understood was each other.
'Cause I'm broken when I'm lonesome
And I don't feel right when you're gone away
He kissed her. "I love you, I love you, I love you…" he'd repeated under his breath whether to assure her or himself it didn't really matter. He hugged her shorter frame to him and kissed her forehead before passionately kissing her on the lips. She returned his advance but both knew they could not go further. Go now. They had to do the mission, to save everything.
She'd pushed her nose into his shirt and jacket and taken in his scent: pure male with a hint of potions destiny that her whimper was lost in everything. He pulled her tighter and she ignored that he'd felt her, preferring to remember him always in this moment as he had with his cocky smile.
He didn't give that smile much anymore unless they were alone in their passions or in a fight where he could wind up his attackers. She looked up, still in his arms, and he kissed her again. Just a moment later they parted for breath and he knew what it was she was looking for. He smirked down and her serious face brightened a little. He knew what he was doing, knew what he had to do. She was an assassin of the highest order working as an underling. But he could see everything else about her like that too, reminding each of their first encounter where one was pinned. Where bother were pinned…
He jumps through and leaves her behind.
She stands in the room after taking care of her attacker, killing him. She stands still in the room, closes her eyes, and breathes in the scent of the family. It's faded, faded with the strangers coming in to the museum and faded with time where the family has not been there.
But still, Bianca Perry thinks that it smells just like Christopher does, with a scent of family and hope and determination and something more that she will never understand. And there is something more to Chris that she will never be able to isolate.
She knows she will never get the chance to marry him-something will happen and never give them that chance. But she loves the idea of it, knows he thinks the same things. Bianca wishes she could have become a Halliwell. She knows she loves him and tries not to entertain a daydream where her own little children run wild in their family home, practicing magic like it was meant to be, as she looks around at the pieces of the room.
The worst is over now and we can breathe again
I wanna hold you high, you steal my pain away
There's so much left to learn, and no one left to fight
"You too…" he says to his father who is changing for the better. And then he feels himself floating away and all he can do is be immensely happy that he did it and it is done; finished, over, complete. He never had a destiny really, despite what everyone had assured him. Chris had followed his morals and done what had to be done.
Wyatt is saved and the world along with him. He looks up and the sky is never ending, full of white light and a blue tone that does not exist on Earth of the living. He's in a garden, a flower bed. A hand slips into his and he is smiling happily before he even looks over, slowly rolling his head to the left to meet a smiling beautiful woman.
"Hey," he says. She says nothing back, just grinning happily and rolling over on to him for a kiss.
The world had broken them but they were okay now. They had each other. Chris was done with his mission and could let himself rest now. They could rest together. Breathing in his scent again, she looks up to Chris's cocky smile. She smirks back and understands…
END.