Disclaimer: I don't own anything that doesn't belong to me.

A/N: Originally part of a bigger story. Now a one-shot, a short piece on Chris on his fifteen birthday. Excuse the grammatical errors, which I will attribute to writer's license. Set in the original timeline, Wyatt is just starting to turn after his mother and cousin (Phoebe's daughter)are killed. Here's to hoping you'll enjoy it. (Flame or review :D)

I walk a lonely road

The only one that I have ever known

Don't know where it goes

But it's home to me and I walk alone.

- Boulevard of Broken Dreams (Green Day)

Fifteen

Fourteen, and he had died a year ago. There was nothing else to carry on now, just an empty shell of an empty human being going through the actions of life, eating and living mechanically, almost as though he was wired up as a droid and given the face of the son of an elder and a witch.

Sometimes, he didn't even notice what was going around him. Everything was so different, and so routine. Everyday was just a repeat of yesterday. A couple of demons. An A on his Physics test. It didn't mean anything to him anymore. Life was just a couple of words strung together.

Sleep. Eat. Work. Eat. Kill (demons, that is). Sleep.

It kind of summed up his life, in a vague kind of way. In his wilder, less mechanic moments, he liked to think that he had frozen up and the world was going on all around him, barely noticing that he didn't live anymore.

He knew survival well. He'd faced off a hordes of demons before. Living was a different thing altogether.

And of all the times of the day, he liked the night best.

It was when his dreams and nightmares came alive, but he stopped being afraid of them once in a while. Nine years old, and he dreamt that he was a knight in shining armour, killing dragons for a living and falling in love with the beautiful princess. Twelve years old and he was the strongest witch on Earth, helping those and everybody in need.

Fifteen, today, and his dreams continued, but they were simpler now. Just a birthday party, a caress on the cheek, a round of spin-the-bottle with friends his age, a hug and a kiss on his forehead. (So simple, so normal, so impossible.)

It was easier. He could laugh easily in his dreams, because he controlled them. No one was going to push him away. No one was going to forget that it was his birthday. No one was going to pretend that he never existed.

In the morning, it was the quiet, stoic smile that braved him through the day. Work took his mind off things, so he worked, studied through class and through lunch and through the afternoons because he had nothing better to do. Sometime, he'd grab the basketball and play one-on-one with an imaginary friend, but he never told anyone.

(Not that anyone wanted to know, or that anyone even cared.)

And when he was in one of those deep throes of despair of self-pity, he decided that he defined the word 'alone'.

Seven, and he thought his parents were gods, capable of anything.

Nine, and he and his brother swore to be friends forever and believed they could conquer the world.

Eleven, and the world would be safe, because there were the Charmed Ones to protect it.

Thirteen, two birthdays missed, parties dwindling, and reality hits hard in the face. (and maybe, a cake next year.)

Fourteen, and hope was crushed, his Mom dead, his Dad gone, his brother fading.

Fifteen, and hope was just a word, and alone was the only way to describe how he felt on his birthday, today, sitting atop the Golden Gate Bridge, watching the cars practically fly by in apparent haste, heedless to one young teenager, desperate and alone on a cold San Franciscan night.

Alone wasn't missing out Dad's attention for a second, but for year after year. It wasn't many things, but he had learnt what alone meant already. It was simpler, colder, more painful, an ache and a black hole that starts inside and yawns, growing larger and worse with each passing second, minute and day.

Alone was his world now. He saw so many people every day, pretended to smile at his 'friends' and basketball 'team-mates' at school as they followed him with admired gaze. He noted clearly the pity on everyone's faces, and that forced smile was now a part of him. ("Don't worry. I'm okay.") He used to see his parents all the time, but avoided them all the same, not wanting to hang around in case the opposite was true: that his parents avoided him too.

And to find solace for himself, a home to return to, some way to maybe take away the emptiness that refused to diminish. (It hurt, it did. He wanted Mom to take it all away.)

It never worked, but he'd figured out early on that life was a bitch and it would do everything against him, that it was the wind that held him back, the rain that poured down in torrents, the sun that blistered his skin. It was the stone in his path, the invisible wall between him and the rest of the world.

Fighting demons stopped being nightmares, because even when he died in those dreams, he always dreamt the perfect ending, his Mom and Dad over him, telling him how proud they were of him, begging him not to leave.

He didn't know if it would happen like that in the future.

He doubted it would.

The real nightmares were the ones with his parent's leering faces, the confirmation that he was a mistake, a nuisance, nothing better than thrash to be thrown into the garbage, dirt to be trampled upon. Other times, it was Mom again, in her last breath telling him to take care of Wyatt.

He would wake up then, lungs burning even though he knew he hadn't made a sound, remembering how Wyatt had walked in and called for Dad, and his father had finally come down in that instant, even though he, the second-born, had been calling since his Mom started to die.

It took some time, a spell or two, a soothsayer and a seer, to finally accept that the walls were invisible but still there, and he may never have the strength to tear it down. He didn't know why he pretended anymore. His mother was dead. His father was dead to him. Wyatt was always out of the house.

And on that day, he had died too. (and he blew out the candles and wished he wouldn't wake up tomorrow)

But that stopped being a nightmare too, when he figured out to just close his eyes and wake himself up. Most of the time, he was reduced to a blubbering, shivering mass, and he acknowledged that that was who he was, that despite the walls he'd built up, the multiple masks he wore, he was as human as anyone else.

Capable of being hurt, capable of feeling hurt, capable of hurting.

Sometimes, he wanted to be a demon, then maybe, the hurt would all go away.

Today, he was fifteen. He spent it on top the bridge, in school, coaching the new kids at basketball, tutoring his juniors in math and celebrating his birthday (alone) on the bridge.

Twenty-four hours, and being fifteen was old.

His dad didn't notice, caught up in a year-old grief. His aunt hadn't say a world to him all day, burying herself under work to bury the loss of a sister and her child.

He sat on the bridge, feeling the wind whip his brown locks, and wished that the day had been different. He wished that when he had woken up that morning, his cousins and brother had burst into the room, singing 'Happy Birthday'. He wanted his Mom, and his Aunts to still be alive. He wished that his Mom was there again to hug him tight and tell him what a little peanut he was, just like she did when he was just a little boy. He wanted his Aunts to bring him out shopping and promise to buy him every album he wanted.

He wanted his Dad to come down, say Hi, and maybe tell him how proud he was of him.

His lip curled in disgust, and looking down, he stubbed his toe against metal. (It stopped hurting a year ago.)

Dreams and wishes, stuff of fantasy, intangible to the last.

But he wanted, needed, and lived on them, all the same.

Fifteen, and the world went on.