Charmed

Super-short drabble where Leo confronts Chris about his misdeeds. Early in season 6, before anyone knows that Chris is only a half Whitelighter.

I loved the chemistry of Leo and Chris. Leo had good reasons to be pissed and suspicious (although he offered the olive branch more than once) and Chris had all that simmering, mostly-hidden resentment and anger. I figured he'd be even more raw once he was witness to how Leo 'let down' his Mom.

Confrontation

"You put me in Valhalla!" Leo roared. "Do you have any idea what I had to do there? It almost destroyed me!"

Chris turned sharply, true fury shadowing his own eyes.

"Well that's better than you destroying Piper instead!" The Whitelighter yelled back, lips turned down in a furious scowl. "Yeah, I admit, I sent you to Valhalla. But it wasn't for any reason that you might think. It wasn't to get you out of the way. It was to stop you and your arrogance from ruining Piper for good!"

Leo blinked, still angry but utterly thrown.

"…What?" He asked incredulously.

Chris opened his mouth to answer, before closing it with a click and looking away, jaw flexing as he reeled himself in.

"Oh no, forget that, Chris. You tell me right now what the hell you're talking about."

The younger Whitelighter looked down for a moment, then back up again. His eyes were no longer furious, but they glimmered with barely-veiled disgust.

"After that scene with the Titans.. you took her pain, right?" He asked out of the blue.

Leo nodded silently, face set, waiting for answers.

"And you were gonna slowly feed it back to her." Chris pressed. "Little bits at a time, getting her used to it, so she could still feel that shattering grief and abandonment and agony, but just not go lashing out in blind pain next time, right?"

Leo blanched a little at hearing it described like that.

"That's not.." He started, but Chris cut him off angrily.

"That's not what, Leo? That's not what you meant to do? Because if you honestly think that then you're bullshitting yourself as well as me – and your wife. Rather than work it out, you were just gonna wave a hand and let her adjust to a miserable life, living only to take care of Wyatt, with just enough visits from you so she would always feel the fresh pain of what she's missing."

By now, Leo was almost slack-jawed. He'd had his doubts about Christopher several times, but the sheer, protective anger he was vibrating with now went a long way to prove himself.

"You don't get to deny it, Leo." Chris dropped his voice a little, struggling to get himself under control. "Because I've seen it happen. I know what kind of a woman Piper turns out to be. Brave, but broken. Ruined inside, even as she keeps strong on the outside for Wyatt and her sisters."

"So, what?" Leo asked, his own voice barely audible. "You sent me away to that place because.."

"Because I figured a Piper with no pain over you, was the best kind of Piper there could be. You aren't worth the agony you caused her and seeing as you were almost always absent in the future anyway, I figured you may as well stay that way. In a place where you couldn't hurt her any more."

The second he finished talking, the younger Whitelighter vanished in a stream of orbs.

Leo didn't even try to follow the trail.

End

Man, Chris is such a casual truth-twister, I don't think he even notices it anymore.