Author's Notes: This story popped into my head while I was working on another story. Each chapter of Ripples and Repercussions will be a stand-alone story. Think of this as my version of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales, with each person describing how Chris's actions changed their lives, for good or ill.
A special thanks to my friends over at Television Without Pity's Charmed forums, whose lively time travel discussions inspired this story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing but any characters I create and my story. I do not own Charmed, its characters or the actors.
Chapter 1 – The Policeman
Officer Rico Santos was having a bad day. His day had started out fine: he'd kissed his wife Elena goodbye, dropped his daughter off at school and then headed toward work. Just like he did almost every day.
Near the end of his shift he'd heard the woman's cries, "Stop, thief!" It was dark out, but he'd seen a young kid with a cap on his head running away carrying a purse. Rico had chased the young suspect into the sewer – without calling for back-up. It had been a rookie mistake. And it was a mistake he'd pay for with his life.
The kid couldn't have been more than 13 years old. Young, scared… and armed with a semi-automatic.
No sooner had Rico called out "Stop, police!" than the boy turned and fired; the hitting Rico in the chest. He fell to the ground with an "Oof." The boy ran off, leaving Rico to die. He wasn't ready to die yet. Teresa needed her father still, she was only eight years old.
Rico was stunned when a beautiful dark-skinned woman wearing an odd costume stepped out of a swirling portal that had opened up in the sewer. "Huh. Not how I'd picture an angel would look like." Rico thought to himself.
"It's all right. You don't have to be afraid. You're a brave warrior. I'll take care of you." She said as she started to work towards Rico.
"I don't think so, Leysa, not this time." Rico heard another voice call out. Standing there was a young man, caucasian with dark hair and wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Probably in his early 20s.
"What are you doing here?" the woman asked the man.
"My plans have changed, unfortunately. The witches, they found Leo sooner than I would have liked." The young man replied.
"Angels in costumes? Witches? I must be hallucinating." Rico thought as he watched the two confront each other.
"That's not my problem. We kept our end of the deal." The woman said.
"I know ... and I'm forever grateful, but I can't risk them finding out what I'm up to. I'm truly sorry." The young man replied before holding up his hand and squeezing his fist. To Rico's surprise the woman gasped and clutched her chest, almost like the man was squeezing the life out of her. The woman falls to the ground, apparently dead. The young man knelt down beside her.
"Forgive me." He said as he ripped a necklace from around her neck. The young woman's body just vanished into thin air.
Though Rico had hoped with all his might that the young man would leave him alone, the man turned and looked at the fallen officer. The man walked over to Rico and knelt beside him, raising his hand again and starting to make a fist.
Rico looked resignedly up at the man. There was nothing he could do, he couldn't barely remain conscious, let alone move. Elena and Teresa would be left alone.
To Rico's surprise, the young man reached out his hand and picked up Rico's radio and said "Officer down. Eighth avenue sewer. We need an ambulance."
Rico could hear dispatch's response to all officers from his radio "We have an officer down. I repeat: we have an officer down." They would be coming soon. Maybe, just maybe, they would find him in time.
As Rico watched the young man backed away and then disappeared in blue and white lights that drifted upwards to the ceiling. Those beautiful lights were the last thing Rico's eyes saw before they rolled back in his head and he lost consciousness.
Rico wasn't awake when his fellow patrolmen found him in the sewer, bleeding and almost dead. He wasn't aware of them directing the paramedics to him or the ride to the hospital. It wasn't until he woke up in recovery that he learned how close he had come to dying. The doctors said that if they'd found him even a few minutes later he would have died. As it was, it had been close.
The police hadn't known he was in the sewer, wounded, until the call over the radio to dispatch had come in. They would never have found him in time to save him without that call to dispatch. The police assumed that the shooter had suffered some remorse and come back to call for help. Rico tried to tell them what really happened, but wasn't sure he believed it himself. The inspector who was handling the shooting, someone named Morris, had seemed very interested but had convinced Rico that he must have been hallucinating because of the pain and blood loss. Inspector Morris said that there could have been a young man and a woman in the sewer, who called for help but didn't stick around, but a murder without a body and no signs of foul-play? A woman murdered with a squeeze of a hand? It must have been a hallucination.
Rico looked down at the file on Inspector Morris's desk. It was opened to the mug shot of a young man. Rico knew that face, saw it in his dreams. The shaggy dark hair, the freckle on the nose, the unusual green eyes – it was the same young man who had saved his life months ago in the sewers off of 8th street. 'Christopher Perry' he read off of the arrest report. '1329 Prescott Street, San Francisco'. Finally Rico had a name to go with the face that had haunted his dreams, made him doubt his own sanity.
He'd been assigned to assist Inspector Morris in arresting an escaped prisoner. The young man had stolen a Porsche from a car dealership, been arrested, and then disappeared from his cell without a trace. 'Well, this Christopher Perry has great taste in cars' Rico thought. Rico wanted to speak to the young man, to finally find out just what happened that day in the sewer.
At the Halliwell's home, Rico and a fellow officer entered the house from the rear, while Inspector Morris entered through the front door.
As Rico and the other officer entered through the kitchen and passed through the living room, they could hear Inspector Morris talking with some people in the front of the house.
"I'm taking him back." Rico heard Inspector Morris say.
"What?" asked the suspect, the man who had haunted Rico's dreams for months. Rico was positive it was the same man. The hair style was slightly different, but the face was the same.
Although he primarily had his eyes on the young man, Rico looked around as he entered the foyer. It was an instinct to be familiar with his surroundings and the people in it – and instinct that had kept him alive for more than 30 years. In addition to Inspector Morris and the suspect, there were two women and another man.
"Wait. What's going on?" asked the woman with short dark hair who was standing next to the suspect.
"Take him back to County." Inspector Morris instructed.
Rico grabbed Christopher Perry's arms and put the handcuffs on him, preventing him from leaving.
"Hey, a little help here, please?" Chris asked the woman with the short dark hair who was standing at his side.
"What do you want me to do?" she asked him as Rico and the other officer began to remove Chris from the house.
"Chris, don't worry. We'll figure it out, I promise." Called out the other woman, the bathrobe-clad red head as Rico lead Chris out the door towards the squad car.
Rico walked quietly down the corridor lined with prisoner-filled cells, looking for one in particular. Christopher Perry was sitting dejectedly on the bottom bunk of the bed, his knees pulled up to his chest, his arms crossed across his knees, while he rested his head on his arms.
Rico looked around to make sure that they wouldn't be disturbed. "Do you remember me?" he asked Christopher Perry.
The young man looked up at him. "Yeah, you just arrested me." He said, and Rico could hear the 'Duh' even though the young man didn't say it.
"I mean from before." Rico asked.
Christopher Perry looked Rico over, confused. "Should I?" he asked.
"Does the 8th Street sewer ring a bell?" Rico asked.
The young man wiped his face clean of all expression, but not before Rico saw his eyes widen in surprise.
"Nope." The young man, Chris, said with his face carefully blank.
"Really? That's funny, because I remember you." Rico said.
"I don't know what you're talking about. You must have me confused with someone else." Chris said, as convincingly as he could.
"No, I'm sure I don't. I remember everything… you and the woman. What did you do to her?" Rico demanded to know.
"If you're accusing me of something, I'll have to ask for a lawyer." Chris replied.
"I'm not asking for the police, I'm asking for me. I need to know." Rico said.
"I wish I could help, but I don't know what you're talking about." Chris said, wishing he were anywhere but that cell.
"You were the one in the sewer, the one who called dispatch to tell them I'd been shot. I would have died down there if it weren't for you." Rico said, wishing he could shake the truth out of the man.
"You've got the wrong person, officer. But if you've gotten a second chance at life I suggest you enjoy it." Chris said.
"I intend to, but I need to know…" Rico began.
"Hey Santos, your wife is on the phone for you." Rico heard one of the guards call out.
"We'll finish this later. You aren't going anywhere." Rico said and walked away.
Rico returned to the cell a few minutes later only to discover that it was empty. Rico quickly sounded the alarm that the prisoner had escaped again.
Looking around the cell, Rico couldn't figure out how the man had gotten out. The door was still locked and there was no sign of forced entry. The other prisoners claimed they hadn't heard a thing. Not that he could trust them. Still, Chris Perry had vanished without a trace from the sewers and now he had escaped from jail twice in one day.
Then word had come down that the car dealership wasn't pressing charges. It seems that the dealer had "forgotten" that he'd lent the car to Chris. Inspector Morris had been annoyed about that, but the dealer refused to testify. Still, the man had escaped from jail twice – that was a crime all by itself, even with the grand theft auto charges dropped.
Rico sat in his car across the street from 1329 Prescott Avenue. Rico had kept an eye on the Halliwell house for years – ever since he had found out that Christopher Perry had lived here. He wasn't stalking the family, not really. He was just keeping an eye on them. A lot of weird things happened in that house. Unexplainable things. Christopher Perry had disappeared without a trace years ago, but Rico still kept up his vigil. It wasn't that he expected Chris Perry to return, he just felt that he owed the man something for saving his life. It was a feeling he couldn't explain, but he felt like he was meant to be here.
Rico watched two teenage boys carrying schoolbooks walk down the street towards the Halliwell house. Rico knew those boys well. They were Piper Halliwell's sons. The youngest Halliwell boy looked so much like the young man from the sewers: the hair, the features, even the freckle on the nose were similar. Rico often wondered if the boy, also named Christopher, was actually Christopher Perry's son, given their resemblance.
As Rico watched the two boys head towards the house, he thought about the past 15 years. Fifteen years he'd been given because of Christopher Perry. There had been happy and sad times in the past 15 years. He'd lost his wife to breast cancer eight years ago, but he'd been by her side the whole way. His beautiful daughter was now 23 years old and had been married just last week. She was on her honeymoon in Hawaii and wasn't due back for another week.
The boys entered the house, each good-naturedly jostling the other out of the way as the both tried to enter the door at the same time. Rico smiled at the sight. The smile was wiped from his face when moments later one of the boys, the older one, came flying out the living room window and landed on the grass.
Rico jumped out of his car, pulling his weapon out. Rico checked on the teenager unconscious on the lawn.
"Get the hell away from my son!" he heard a woman yell at someone.
Peaking in the now broken window, Rico saw a giant of a man holding Chris by the neck and Piper standing nearby, her hands outstretched.
Rico crept quietly towards the front door and entered the house. Someone flying through the window was definitely probable cause to enter without a warrant. Entering the house, Rico saw a "Happy Birthday, Chris!" banner in the foyer and balloons all over the house.
"Freeze! Drop the kid." Rico called out from the doorway, his gun pointed at the man holding Chris by the neck.
The man turned to look at Rico and snarled at him, tightening his grip on the boy.
"That sounds like a good idea." Rico heard Piper say as she flung her hands out.
In a blink of an eye, the man who'd been holding Chris was lying on the ground, bleeding and burned. Chris was nowhere to be seen.
Suddenly Chris and one of the sisters returned in the shower of blue and white lights. Rico recognized the lights from his dreams of the sewers all those years before.
"Mom! The aunts are under attack too. Aunt Paige stayed to finish off the one that attacked her." Chris called out to his mother.
"Piper! Are you okay? A brute demon came after me." Phoebe called to her sister.
"Phoebe, go check on Wyatt. The demon knocked him out the window." Piper said to her sister as she took her eyes of the brute demon in question.
The brute demon lying on the floor reached out at the distracted Piper and threw her against a wall, knocking her out.
"Mom!" Chris called out.
Rico didn't even think, he moved forward and grabbed Piper, knocking her out of the way as the brute demon swung his overly muscular arm at her with deadly intent.
Instead, the brute demon knocked Rico through the living room wall. Rico watched as Piper recited a bit of poetry and the attacker seemed to just screamed and burst into flame before disappearing forever. His vision was growing dim and it was difficult to breath. But he'd saved Piper and Chris from the attacker. He would die with that knowledge. Maybe he'd paid back the debt he owed the other Chris.
Piper and Chris ran towards the fallen officer. "Leo!" Rico heard Piper call out.
But instead of Leo, Rico saw a swirling vortex opened and a beautiful blonde woman stepped through.
"It's all right. You don't have to be afraid. You're a brave warrior. I'll take care of you." She said as she started to work towards Rico. The others in the room didn't seem to see her. Rico closed his eyes one last time.
Leo orbed in to find the living room destroyed. Seeing the fallen policeman, Leo tried to heal him, but it was too late. Phoebe helped an injured Wyatt into the room. Leo hurried to heal his son. Piper cried quietly at the policeman's side.
Chris knelt down by her side. "That demon nearly killed you, Mom. If that policeman hadn't gotten in the way…" Chris started.
"I'm fine, sweetie. I just wish we could have saved him." Piper said sadly.
"What a way to celebrate your 14th birthday, huh buddy?" Leo asked.
The End (of the Policeman's Tale)
Author's Note:
I realize that the officer who was shot and wounded in Valhalley of the Dolls wasn't one of the ones who came to the manor to arrest Chris in A Wrong Day's Journey into Right (aka Stormy Leather), but I took a little artistic license.