Path of Phoenix: Whispers
Canon: Charmed
Disclaimer: No, Charmed and co are not mine. If they were… then there would be no need for the show as everything would be perfect. Lyrics from various things.
Characters: Melinda Prudence, OCs, Bianca, Lynn, Chris, Phoebe, others…
Timeline: Years into the changed future.
Pairings: Chris/Bianca centered with Chris-Melinda and mentions of Piper/Leo and some others.
Genre: Drama/Supernatural I guess.
Rating: M for Mature just in case.
Warnings: Magic, Family neglect, bullying, violence, demon kick-ass, and other things mentioned…
Summary: Melinda Halliwell was born into a world powerful in threes; where she was alone save for the midnight music of her secret ghost. As her powers develop, she realizes that she hasn't been so alone after all. [Chris.Bianca [One-shot. Completed.
A/N: Companion to Path of Phoenix: "Plan".
2019
Since before Melinda could remember, she has been surrounded by magic. And she loves it. She is ten years old now, but Magic has, however, had its downsides. Unlike her mother, Melinda Prudence Halliwell hadn't regretted not living as a full mortal in her early years. She has loved the daily demon fights and her family at Death's door… really.
No.
What she has is a family that ignores her for her fifteen-year-old brother and their own children. What she has is a life of half-neglect and a question about something she cannot name. What Melinda Prudence Amelia Halliwell has is the seconds at the end of the day when the clocks will all stop ticking and she can hear the something she cannot name, someone she does not remember, some time that does not exist.
And she lives for it.
On this particular night, she is soothed by the sounds of a signing voice, a voice she recognizes as singing to her. Melinda has no way to know who is singing to her but her heart aches for the recognition, for the love and the feeling it gives her-as if she has a place in one in a heart somewhere. The witchlighter wishes she could find it.
She fades into quiet dreams as she always does when the voice loves her.
They don't love the child, don't see the child, don't notice the child. Dark brown hair and a heart worn on the right sleeve, the witchlighter is given nothing but the leftover feelings. It is the older child, Wyatt Matthew Halliwell, whom is given attention while this younger one is starved.
No more. The child whimpers, no more, no more, no more. When the child gets the chance, an orb takes the child away into a new life and a new place filled with love and affection. A new place where Wyatt Halliwell is not top of the food chain.
She awakes with the chill of longing for something she will never name aloud and the knowledge that the wishing has gotten ahead of her.
Why won't Mother love her? Why won't father look at her with anything else but annoyance? Why wont' the Aunts nurture?
She watches Penny, Patty and Paris, Aunt Paige's children with the husband who died after they were all born. They are all loved and equal and laugh without care. She watches Benjy, Melinsa, and Patrice, Aunt Phoebe and Uncle Cole's children as they address their mother with all of the love in the world. Uncle Cole is long dead-killed by demons soon after she herself was born and leaving Paris with the unknowing Phoebe.
She watches Wyatt with all of his attention and love, with all of his over-power and everything he takes for granted. Melinda looks at him and sees what he will become; powerful, King, happiness and laughter and daisies.
But nobody sees her. Nobody sees what is in store for Her.
/Nobody but me./
Nobody remembers her. As she steps out the door without a backwards glance, she follows in another's footsteps. Melinda no longer cares, only feeling the bitterness in her heart for those that do not love her.
/Cry little sister.../
She finds an abandoned warehouse all alone and she breaks down and cries. She will accept her lonliness if only not to accept the leftovers of should-be love.
/Come home to your brother.../
But she does not know where to look. She closes her eyes and takes a deep breath and at midnight, a phoenix finds her, a siren in the deepest of desires. Love of a Halliwell is now that of a Perry. And he carries her home to her new mother and sister who love her for who she is now. The only downside?
Nothing.
Her name is Melinda Allynda Prudence Perry and she is a Phoenix assassin. Her mother is a single house-wife within a secret organization that specializes in taking care of problems. Like her mother had made clear to the Elder assassins, her three children will choose their work, know their work, and get the job done.
So what if once she was Melinda Prudence Halliwell. So what if she had the blood of good witches and the blood of an Elder, in her veins. So what if that same blood that flows in her runs through the feared Twice-Blessed. All that know are the ones whose same blood runs into her and also through a Phoenix mark and her new mother and sister.
Mel knows the money and the attitude; it is a great perk as her first blood family had done this without pay and with plenty hurt on the path. She doesn't kill innocents or mortals but will kill those who do harm them or dare harm her loved ones. Her brother taught her that.
Brother. She could never really have thought of Wyatt Matthew in that way. Now she knows what had been missing, what she had seen in her dreams where she had left. She begins to lose the old dreams of a Time-That-Wasn't where her brothers were both her eager protectors and they were all loved by the great family, where they were all hunted to extinction in the end until the oldest took Ultimate Power.
She loses the eagerness to protect every single person, even if they will always hate her; and in turn gains love. There is nothing in the past that will help her save the lesson to never take for granted Love.
A true romantic at heart, she can watch as the Love that has always Been between her truest brother and her newest sister Becomes. Mother takes her hand as they watch the Love Bloom wide between the young Phoenix assassins and at fourteen she witnesses the joining.
She thinks that, just maybe, she is whole.
"Demon!" Paige screams as she orbs Phoebe away before she could be fire-balled. The red orb hits the will and disintegrates upward, leaving a dark circular mark on the wall. Well, there's another job for the paint sprayer, the witchlighter thinks. It had become necessary to keep such an instrument and gallons of paint for the touchups the walls always seemed to need with all of the demon activity.
She blew a strand of dark black hair –she'd gone back to her natural color when she first found out she was pregnant- when another fireball had almost caught her. Piper came rushing in wearing her chili apron with 'P3' emblazoned in bold purple over the dark dog-toothed pattern. A stream of sauce was spewing from her mouth suggesting that she'd been equating something when the announcement came. In fact, she'd just made one of her brands of chili.
True to thought, the eldest Charmed sister blew the demon to bits leaving only a trail of destruction and no tail to track from. Phoebe heard her curse and mentally joined her. She hated this part. With a sigh the sister of Premonition stood and began to pick of some of the trash.
Piper left her to it as she went to finish dinner. The smell of the Asian bread made into garlic toast was water-mouth worthy and again Phoebe thanked whoever was in charge that Piper had been gifted with that ability, unlike Paige who was only slightly better than herself at burning toast though she could make a potion fine.
She got to the clock and began scraping the glass away with a large wooden shrapnel about the size and length of a drummer's stick. The side of her hand touched the wood of the clock face…. And every… thing… be..gan… to…. Tu..rn……
Grey.
With a gasp, Phoebe was plumaged into another state of being. Everything in the world turned grey and her eyes got sluggish. Her body felt as if it was wading through something more solid than water, as if she was encased in something. Trapped her body, Phoebe knew things she probably should not have. She knew she was in a different time. She knew it was only in the past by a few years. She knew her husband was dead here, and that her past real self was in one of the rooms upstairs asleep in her room.
The face, not controlled by the spirit, looked at the clock. At was almost 11:55 pm. The color outside surely showed how late it was but everything she could see perfectly as if encased in an iridescent colorless glow.
But Phoebe wasn't thinking of things like that. All she could do was half-panic and follow the movements of this uncontrollable ghost body. Phoebe knew it wasn't even close to her own. It was taller, newer, and the most primal part of her recognized it as a male body. It wasn't, however, something she was thinking.
In what could have been hours but was truly only minutes, the body that she was trapped in walked up through a familiar path of the stairs, until turning to a less familiar way. For a moment, Phoebe mentally gasped. Maybe someone had taken Melinda! For years they had though she had run away like someone else that was never mentioned. But now, maybe there was hope about getting Melinda back.
Phoebe felt none of the guilt that she should have, knowing they had only looked for a little while before giving it up because of the similarities of the disappearances of Piper and Leo's youngest children.
The body stops at a plain white door with no furnishings as the others around the house had, and a hand is placed on the door. Phoebe sees nothing of the hand, does not actually know it is not one of her own. The mouth that is not her own mouth opens and begins to sing.
/"Last fire will rise
Behind those eyes"/
The music is mostly silent and she hardly hears the words. A tune seems to play throughout the body that is not her's, and Phoebe's soul image seems to rack in tune right along with it.
/"Black house will rock
Blind boys don't lie"/
The song picks up and Phoebe Halliwell-Turner hears the words now. She wonders, way inside of her, why her past self has not awakened to the music.
/"Immortal fear
That voice so clear"/
Hearing the words now, something in her hurts but she does not recognize it as guilt, does not recognize it at all. But Phoebe knows it is a pain and it is beginning to swallow her.
/"Through broken walls
That scream I hear"/
And with an unpronounced scream, she is pulled back from the vision with a gasp. Shuddering and taking in air she hadn't been able to breathe, she sits back and ends up cutting her hand on a glass. A little bit of blood makes its way to the hard wood floor and the remnants of the experience she had just seen is forgotten as she goes to the kitchen to clean her wound on her hand.
Denial, they say, is one of the greatest forces a human mind can conceive. It has become something the Charmed Ones are good at. Phoebe denies that she had seen the eyes of a young man who had looked up at her and (I love you Aunt Phoebe… Can you hand me a cookie… 'Oh my God-where is my nephew?!') looked so much like another she had hardly ever known (why won't you help me… why can't you just listen to me… '…save Wyatt from becoming evil!').
Yes, Denial of the whispers is strong.
End of Whispers.