Important - Please read
Whether you noticed it or not I have been on sabbatical since around December the eleventh. There were many reasons behind it, most of which are either too long or personal to go into now, but there was a lot of pressure and something had to give.
My writing had made a nosedive. It was awful and I hated it and I don't know if anyone realized just how bad it was, but I sure did. I needed to break away from everything, to find the fun in writing again because I write best when I'm having fun and it's not a chore.
I'm hoping to go back to writing some Season Six-ish that's not got my original characters in and I hope you all look out for that. Season Seven… Well let's just say it's given me no plot bunnies and leave it at that.
It took me a more than a month, a lot of music and too many unrelated pieces to count to get to the eighth chapter. I don't want things to take this long again, but I might leave longer between updates in the future, I don't know. I kept trashing and scrapping pieces of this and rewriting others to get it the way I want. It's still not perfect, and I have no intention of saying that my sabbatical made me perfect and fixed my writing because in many ways it didn't, but I guess that doesn't matter because here is the chapter done to the best of my ability in the way which I want and in my kind of timeframe. I'm just happy I can write and post again, and I hope to come back refreshed and with new ideas.
Learning to Tango could spin out into something quite long. There will be ups and downs, with the writing quality as well as the characters and plot, but I'm hoping that I will be able to keep it to a level that I feel comfortable posting. I want to take this fic on a ride and see where it will take me, and then write something completely different. If this fic is well-received that maybe I'll write a series of fics on the gangs' backgrounds. It's all up to you. I'm going to leave that in the hands of you and the review button. I like constructive criticism as well as compliments, don't ever forget that when reviewing. I'm a very hard person to offend, trust me.
I'm going to leave you now to get on with the fic. I have it on excellent authority that there is a chapter somewherebelow this drivel. Go find it and enjoy reading it as much as I have writing it.
Take care,
Twisted Flame.
"It's not like Piper to disappear without saying anything…" Phoebe mused, checking a watch with an impossibly tiny face on her wrist. A small frown snaked her eyebrows downwards. "I thought she was going to get drinks or something…" She stood up; the heels on her feet adding nowhere near enough height to allow her to see through the crowd at the bar. And she was not going on tiptoe in these shoes.
"Maybe she's found herself a way to get over Leo," Paige stated, flicking up her eyebrows and frowning when Phoebe turned to look at her. "What? Let her have a little fun once in a while! Just because her marriage is ending doesn't mean she has to become a nun."
"There will be no getting over of Leo until Chris comes along," Phoebe said determinedly, but turning away from Paige, who pulled a face and rolled her eyes. "Oh, this is ridiculous… Where is she?"
It wasn't that the middle sister was particularly worried about Piper's safety. This was a woman who could blow things to pieces. Moreover it wasn't her job to be worried. Piper was the born worrier and now the oldest sister and it would be Piper that paid for it with grey hair and wrinkles. Piper could, most definitely, take care of herself, that went without saying. Phoebe was not going to go into Piper-style neurosis over this, because she knew that it would do her no good. She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth, with every intention to sit back down and go on with the evening.
But still…
"Paige, do you think you could sense if they were in trouble?" Phoebe asked, turning to her sister. She couldn't fully relax until she knew that Piper was okay. She walked back into the alcove and sat at Paige's side.
"I guess I could give it a whirl…" Paige said with a shrug, closing her eyes and scrunching up her nose, trying to block out the noise and lights of the club. She opened her eyes with a shake of her head. "It's no good, I can't concen-" Paige looked up in surprise, her eyes flicking from side to side and a suspicious pout on her lips. "What's going on?"
The music had cut out. For a few seconds the club was strangely quiet, with only the buzz of chatter to fill the gap that the music had left. Then the crowd on the dance floor started clapping and the sound of a hundred hands clapping in unison filled the air, demanding that the band begin playing again.
"Technical glitch I guess…" Phoebe said with a shrug, jumping involuntarily when a gunshot shattered the clapping. It happened so suddenly, hitting a light and throwing part of the stage go into darkness. The sound of falling glass was lost in the screams and the stampeding of the audience, every man and woman was suddenly for themselves as the crowed unified into one mass. A wave of people surged towards the exits and as they did Phoebe's vision cleared and she saw people disappear under the mass of trampling feet. They didn't come back up.
Another gunshot and she heard Paige give a surprised squeak next to her as another bullet was launched searing from the gun into a man's leg. He yelled and disappeared under the melee and she wasn't sure in the sudden intake of breath was hers or Paige's.
A woman with a crazed mass of blonde hair stepped up onto the stage, the gun held by her side. With her other hand she snatched up one of the cordless microphones from the stage and made herself heard over the speakers.
"Stop running! Stop it!" She screamed, her hair falling in her face. She either didn't notice or didn't care. The last of the band members jumped off of the stage – the first had gone when she started ascending the steps towards them. But slowly as she gained more attention she got down from the stage and walked towards the bar, the crowd hushing and parting around her in fear. Very few other things besides a gun could command and hold that much power over people.
'Please don't let her see me… Please…' Lindsey begged silently, crouched behind the bar on the cordless phone, her breath hitching and some of her words indistinguishable from sobs. Her hands were trembling and she could hear the earpiece vibrating against her earring as the 911 operator told her to remain calm. How could she be calm? She shrunk lower into herself as the woman began kicking the bar, as if testing it for some kind of quality. Her mouth was dry and she let out another sob of fear, not daring to talk to the operator. The operator kept telling her to talk but then she would be heard… She began praying to a God she didn't believe in, her eyes screwed tight shut. 'I'm going to die… Please don't let me die… Please, God…'
The operator suddenly stopped talking and her eyes flew open, just as there was a loud clatter above her. The base belonging to the handset in her clammy grasp had been thrown into the stacks of dirty glasses above her head, sending them down off of the island's counter and onto the floor, shattering around her. She squeaked and dropped the phone, covering her head and face with her arms.
"Stop it! You're helping the witches!" Her voice screamed over P3's speaker system and her eyes were so wild and alight that no one dare meet them. There was spit flying from her lips as she aimed the gun. "They don't deserve to be helped!" The very club seemed to vibrate as her voice rumbled through it, magnified by the mic.
The shot fired into Lindsey's head was magnified too.
It rang out through the club in a horrifying wave of noise as a mist of red spattered against the side of the bar. People screamed and most ducked, lest the shot have been meant for them. Some people were in hysterics, sobbing and crying. A few just stared, numb. Others were clutching the hands of the ones who had fallen into the crush, with only the fragile rising and falling of their chests to betray the fact that they were indeed still alive, despite crushed and shattered bones.
"Witches…" Phoebe whispered in horror from the alcove, her eyes wide and fearful. Her blood ran with ice as the woman set back off towards the stage.
A man not eight feet away was choking and gasping, each breath coming as a burble. Crimson blood was pouring from his nose and welling up against his lips, bubbling as he tried to breathe through it. Phoebe ran to him, jumping a fallen table, her worries about her heels forgotten. She turned him on his side and the blood flowed from his mouth and she felt him take shaky breaths again. He was trembling, she realized. She could feel it through her fingertips. Or was that her? Adrenaline was coursing through her veins, so it could well be…
"Paige! We could really do with getting a hold of that gun!" Phoebe said, twisting her upper body and hinting heavily at the younger sister.
"Right, right…" Paige held out her hand but the woman was out of sight.
The club was packed to well less than half capacity now. The fire exit doors were swinging in the cool and damp night air, almost serenely as the air currents buffeted them any way they chose. The locks had been busted clean off with whatever came to hand. The floor was littered with fallen people, some prone and still, lifeless stares chilling Paige into shudders. Others were coughing or groaning or barely breathing, most had people holding their hands looking lost and desperate. There were a lot of tears. Paige saw one woman's tears sparkle blue and green alternately as her face was blasted with the slow strobe light before it moved on. The band was still there, crouched by the stage. One of them was still clutching his guitar, seemingly in shock.
Paige looked down at her hands, not having any idea what to do. Tears of frustration threatened to overwhelm her but she fought them away, knowing she was stronger than that. If only she could heal… She debated calling for Leo, but she doubted the Elders would let him help in a mortal situation. In the space of a few seconds the club had gone from packed and rocking to still, silent and empty.
It was the silence that bothered Paige most. Never had she heard P3 this quiet. It was eerie. The lights were all still on, flashing and flaring and whirling away, throwing patches into a bombardment of colours before fading and moving on. There was no music to accompany the lights, no talking or noise except for the odd cough or a sob, which would rack the air. Paige could feel the silence pressing on her ears and it wasn't until it was broken by the woman returning that she felt any kind of strange relief.
"There are those among us who think that they can do what they like because they have special powers," the woman spat at last. "But they're not special! They're scum!" The sound became muffled as the woman put the microphone of the bar and leaned on it, reaching over the bar, eventually straightening with a bottle of Jack Daniels in her hand. She twisted the cap off as if it had personally offended her and, holding it by the neck, took two deep swigs from the bottle, oblivious to the burning in her throat. When she spoke again her words were slightly slurred. "And all they ever do," she began, without the microphone. She picked it up before continuing, "is TAKE! They live among us and they're bad, bad people… They'll kill you, oh yes they will. And you're children! They'll kill you all…" And, clutching the bottle by the neck still she staggered off back towards the stage.
Learning to Tango
A soft moan escaped Ben's lips and his eyelids fluttered. His head throbbed dully and powerfully and he reached up to rub his eyes. His mouth had a bitter taste in it and when he opened his eyes the world was unfocused and moving his head made him want to throw up.
"Ben?" There was a voice above him calling his name. It hurt to listen, though. He wanted to go back to sleep… His mouth tasted funny, bitter somehow, and his memories seemed to be fragmented, distorted like a watercolour left out in the rain. He vaguely remembered needing to do something with Chris, but he didn't remember what it was. "Ben!" The voice was sharper this time and he groaned again. That didn't sound like Chris… That sounded more like Piper…
He forced his eyes open and all he could see were shapes above him, heaving like a ship on the sea and he blinked slow and hard, trying to adjust, willing himself not to be sick. Once he was sure he wasn't going to throw up he scrambled to sit up, and what he assumed was Piper's face withdrew suddenly out of his path.
"Well it's about time," Chris observed sarcastically from a little way away. Ben noticed that his friend was holding a reddening cotton pad to his shoulder and frowned. "I got shot," Chris explained with a humourless laugh, seeing Ben looking.
"Oh…" Ben blinked, looking past Chris. The room they were in was not every wide but it was long. He could not see the end of it, and dark, fuzzy shapes loomed out of the darkness at points along the walls. The concrete floor underneath him was cold enough to be felt through the black dress pants that came with the bartending job that he was wearing. "Where are we?"
"Behind the stage," Piper said, leaning against the wall. She sounded nervous but then said, "Oh, I am going to kill that woman…" Her eyes kept flicking towards the door as if she expected someone to burst through any minute.
"Okay… I guess I missed a lot here. What happened?"
"Well what's the last thing you remember?"
"Uh…" Ben paused, frowning. The last thing he remembered with any clarity was the broken lava lamp. There were other images but they were fragmented and he couldn't trust them enough to be sure. "A broken lava lamp…" He shook his head. The harder her tried to remember the more slipped through his grasp.
"That's it?" Chris asked. "Nothing else?" His friend only shrugged. "Okay, Cliff Notes version?" He shifted the cotton pad so he could look at the wound on his shoulder before talking again. "There's a woman with a gun that wants you and me dead because we're witches. She's willing to make a public spectacle of what is, by the looks of it, going to be our very messy deaths."
"Oh… Well now my life is complete," Ben rolled his eyes. "So-"
"Don't move!" Ben looked towards the door and saw a woman with dyed blonde hair. The speakers began to shriek with interference from the cordless mic and everyone except the woman threw their hands over the ears.
Suddenly images of this woman's eyes flashed across Ben's mind and he realized that they had been one of the fragments. She grabbed a handful of Piper's hair and Chris threw out his hands.
"No!"
Nothing happened. Chris threw his hands forward again but nothing happen and he felt the first tingling of fear creep into him. What was wrong with his powers? With his throat dry he tried again, but the woman reached into her mint green blouse and pulled out a hefty chunk of something that glinted in the dim light. In the middle of it something winked the same colour as her eyes. She began to laugh as it twisted on its chain.
"This is something my Daddy gave to me before he was killed. It absorbs a power used on me so you can't use it again. Don't think I don't know, because I do. I know all about you and your powers…"
Chris swallowed hard. He couldn't protect his mother, and his mother couldn't protect herself. He looked down at his hands uselessly and then threw out his arm, but it had no effect on the woman. Then he remembered that he had tried that earlier. What else could he do? Levitate her to death?
The screeching of the speakers halted as the woman yanked out a length of cord from a socket and tore it from the wall at the other end and began tying Piper's wrists together with it. With each know Piper flinched as the electrical cord cut deeper into her flesh but she kept her brown eyes fixed on the woman's green ones, filled with hatred.
Ben shifted so that when he used his power he wouldn't hit Piper and had raised his hands when the gun went off. He dimly heard Piper cry out and knock the gun before pain shot throw his lower left arm as blood began running across the surface of the skin. He snatched his arm back to his chest in a gut reaction, staring numbly at it even as pain ran through him.
Chris got up, the pad sliding to the floor with the sudden surge of movement. If his powers couldn't help her, then he would have to save his mother physically the mortal way.
"What's the matter," Psycho Lady asked, her eyes glinting with triumph, "afraid she might get hurt? Aw, poor baby…" She mocked and Chris's anger grew.
Chris started forward as Psycho Lady took a drink from her bottle, bubbles burbling through the amber liquid. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, made awkward by the gun, and the tilting of the bottle sloshed some onto Piper's shirt.
"She's… She's not a witch. Just let her go…" The way the woman was staring at him was unnerving. She silently watched as Chris worked out what his next move would be. On the floor Ben hissed in pain as he probed his wound. "She hasn't done anything to you…"
"I DON'T CARE!" The woman threw the bottle in her hand and by sheer dumb luck it hit Chris above the eye. He only stumbled backwards about three paces but he tripped over Ben's legs and fell as blood began to dribble into his eye. He swiped it away and sat up quickly, but when he looked up again, Piper and the woman were gone.
"Are you okay?" Ben asked. He looked a little pale and clammy as he handed Chris the now-dirtied cotton pad that had fallen to the dusty floor.
"I've fucked everything up…" Chris muttered, suddenly twisting his upper body and punching the wall. He barely felt the pain as blood began to crawl sluggishly from his knuckles but it was welcome to him.
"Oh, come on, Chris. This isn't your fault. It's not like you knew this was going to happen, right?" He paused. "You're not getting premonitions, are you?"
A ghost of a smile flitted across Chris's face before it faded. "I could have done something, though…" Chris shook his head, trying to find the right words. "There's always something you can do…" What sort of son was he? He couldn't even manage to help his own mother… He couldn't do a thing… Bitterness began settling on him in a weight. He was tempted to orb to his mother, but he knew that doing so could get her shot. She didn't deserve to suffer because of him. And there were a lot of things that could get her shot right now, but behaving for this bitch wasn't one of them. He decided to stay put. He put his head in his hands and inadvertently jabbed a fingernail into the new cut on his forehead. Swearing he withdrew his hands.
"One of these days you're going to have to stop blaming yourself. Not everything is your fault. You are a good person. There's not always something you can do to stop it. You can't save every innocent, you can't kill every demon. And you definitely can't stop some woman like that without any foreknowledge. But it's the way the world is. And it sucks. I'm not going to say anything else. It really sucks." He broke off and shrugged. "Look, the only way you could deal with Wyatt was by coming back twenty years. Without telling me, by the way. Thanks for that. But the only way you could save Wyatt was by starting from scratch. There was nothing you could do short of throwing yourself two decades backward in time."
"There's always something," Chris protested stubbornly. "There's always something you can do…" Chris refused to see that they were stuck, at least for now. "Think!"
"Okay, well… When she comes in I'll throw an ice ball at her and you…" he looked around for inspiration. His eyes landed on a bright red fire extinguisher gleaming in the gloom. "You-"
"What will he do? Huh? What will he do to me? You're going to come with me. SCUM!" She punctuated the last word by hitting Ben across the face with the gun. His head snapped to one side and she grabbed a handful of his shirt. Ben, too stunned to move for a while, felt the material rip under her tugging, exposing his collarbone and some of his shoulder. "Be nice and I won't hurt the woman. The other one. Yes. Poor, poor lady… It's a shame that you killed her…"
Something about this woman screamed insanity. It was all Ben could think of as he scrambled to get up and obey her. He couldn't even tell who she was talking to half of the time.
Chris was quickly on his feet as well. Anything to appease this woman and perhaps stop her killing Piper was worth it right now. He just had to try and talk to her… Do something to make it so they could have more time… He frowned slightly, trying to work out how many bullets this woman had left in her gun.
Learning to Tango
Learning to Tango
More people had fled the club now, and Paige could hear sirens and the screech of brakes in the parking lot outside. The fire exit doors were still swinging in the breeze and through the open exits red and blue lights were spilling in, the flashing enough to give Paige a headache. There was noise out there, radios and the sound of engines running. She could hear doors and trunks being slammed and then a car pulled right up in the view of the door. A cop quickly got out, crouching behind his cruiser's door.
As soon as the woman with the gun had disappeared the band had left too. It was just the mass of injured people and the ones staying with them, as well as the people who were too hysterical, brave or stupid to move. Paige noted a couple of them that were all three. Some were in shock, pale as ghosts. Others were under the illusion that they could actually do something. Maybe they were drunk.
The lights still glared down from the ceiling, the strobe light sending a slow pulse throughout the club. Paige squinted as it was blasted into her eyes for a few seconds, and reached over the bar to the switches on the other sid.
A leg and a pool of blood was all that could be seen from this side of the reservation and Paige, her stomach churning, flipped on the overhead strip lights. They flickered on, throwing the place into bright white relief and by the improved light she could make out the rest of the switches and turned the other lights off.
As the coloured strobes and stage lights faded and were replaced with the brightness of the overhead bulbs Paige looked around and saw that the club was a mess. Overturned tables littered the floor and shattered glass and spilled liquids crunched and sloshed under the witch-whitelighter's shoes. The box of straws had been knocked from the bar, its contents strewn all over the floor and squashed flat. Swizzle sticks also lay broken on the floor, kicked to form a trail towards one of the fire exits by many terrified feet.
People's injuries were now better visible and, therefore, more horrible. Paige wasn't sure how many people were even alive anymore. Some you could see were breathing, others… Paige didn't know and couldn't tell. Phoebe and herself had been lucky – not only were they slightly screened by the curtained VIP alcove but they had had the sense not to join the crush trying to pour out of the club. Looking at the wounded lying on the floor Paige realized that it was the fact that they had been faced with so much danger in their lives that they hadn't been among the trampled.
But the police were here… Piper was sitting on the bar, looking murderous. Paige could see the cord binding her sister's wrists.
"I swear, if she hurts them…" Piper said, trailing off, unable to find something bad enough. Paige had seen Piper angry and it really wouldn't be pretty. A man came up to the bar and took a stack of napkins from it and knelt down beside one of the fallen, pressing the padding to their bleeding wounds.
"It'll be okay, Piper. The cops are here… And besides aren't they a little old to be this worried over? Soon you'll be packing them lunches…" Paige said, rolling her eyes.
"That woman has a gun, Paige. And it's very real and very dangerous. If she hurts either of them anymore she is going to be one big pile of dust, and I don't care about the consequences!"
She gestured wildly with her bound hands and Paige waited for something to blow up and when nothing did she continued. "Come on, Piper. Chris can freeze time. Like she'd be able to get near them if he didn't want her to. Besides, shouldn't you be more worried about yourself?" Paige gestured to her sister's predicament.
"That's just the thing. Freezing time doesn't work on her anymore." She saw Paige about to ask a question. "Long story, don't ask."
There were several loud thumps and a string of curse words as Ben tumbled down the steps up to the stage. Chris descended more carefully, off balance with his hands tied behind his back. Ben got up awkwardly and Piper realized that his hands, too, were bound behind his back. This was going to take a lot to fix the speakers after tonight… To top it all off the woman had decided to wreck her club's sound system as well.
"You're scum! You're all scum! Demonic scum! Now get up!"
Ben noticed that very few people were watching as he walked towards Piper, but then his vision exploded into stars as the gun hit the back of his head. He lurched forward and managed to catch himself awkwardly in a kneeling position next to the bar. He heard and felt rather that saw Chris fall next to him but Chris didn't catch himself in time and fell to the floor.
Ben felt his heart beating in his mouth as she readied the gun for a shot. He began twisting his hands, willing them free. Piper slid off of the bar but Psycho Lady elbowed her in the face and she went down, hitting her head on the bar. She landed on the floor out cold.
"This is for all of you out there who think Satan is your friend!"
Chris felt himself being dragged up by his shirt and he began tried turning to duck and face her, but he couldn't. She's tied to many knots on his wrists… He couldn't even use any of his powers against her…
Chris hadn't seen Phoebe, who was behind the bar creeping forward so when she vaulted over the bar and used the momentum to kick Psycho Lady in the face it surprised him. His captor landed on her back, the gun skittering away across the dance floor and coming to rest half-concealed behind a fallen table.
"You don't know what you've done! I've got to kill them!" She got up and lunged halfway across the floor for the gun. Phoebe tried to stop her but tripped over the skirt she was wearing against the San Francisco fog outside and fell.
"Note to self: Don't go fighting in a skirt and heels," Phoebe muttered as the Psycho Lady picked up her gun again just as Phoebe was getting up. She aimed her gun at Phoebe but the man that had been shot in the leg groaned, rolled over and used the last of his strength to grab her ankle, yanking it backwards. She kicked him off but he surged forward again, sinking his teeth into her calf.
She howled in pain and staggered forward, hitting the fallen man in the nose with the heel of her sneaker and with a nasty crack he let go. When she turned back to Phoebe the witch had taken her opportunity to get out of the line of fire and start trying to untie Piper.
"None of you move!" Chris's breath hitched as he felt the cold of the gun against his temple and he squeezed his eyes closed, about to summon his orbing power, when a single gunshot rang throughout the club.
Learning to Tango
"WHY THE HELL DIDN'T YOU IDIOTS KNOCK HER ASS OUT?!" Bridget yelled. She was on her feet but, being quite a bit shorter than both Ben and Chris, they didn't find the height intimidating. Even though they were sitting down the extra inches that standing brought over them weren't all that scary. What they did find intimidating was the way her eyes were blazing and the way her voice had risen to a shriek.
Ben winced and stared down into his lap, picking his fingernails with the thumbnail on the same hand and hoping to be able to ride out the storm of Bridget's temper this time. The white of the bandage on his arm peeked out of the long-sleeved top he was wearing and sighed, moving to pull a thread from it. It wasn't that he wasn't used to Bridget being mad at him, quite the opposite, it's just that Bridget was scary by herself, without being fuelled by hormones and today… Well heads were definitely going to roll.
"I mean how long have you been fighting demons? And some bitch with a poor dye job nearly kills you? With a gun no less?!" She began pacing in front of them, gesticulating wildly in her anger. "I mean, are you trying to send me into premature labour here? Because you're doing a great job so far! Another stunt like this and I might just drop this thing right out on the floor!"
Ben winced again, although this time it was at the imagery. They were not pretty pictures, not at all… He moved to picking the nails on his other hand, hoping that if he kept his head down Bridget might just rant herself out without him having to listen to much of it.
"And you!" Bridget shrieked, pointing a ringed finger at him. Uh-oh. Busted. He looked up gingerly, preparing himself for the fusillade that was about to come his way.
"Yes?" He asked, although it wasn't as if she needed much prompting.
"You don't take drinks from strangers! You know that! I mean, has everything completely slipped your mind? What if that was a potion in there and not some weird drug? I mean, jeez, how dumb can you get?!" She paused and Ben almost sagged in relief. However a tiny corner of his brain was telling him that it wasn't over yet and he had thought right. Bridget had only paused for breath. "You can create magnetic fields. And what is a gun made of?"
She seemed to want an answer, and sheer duh smacked into Ben like a train. "Metal?" He tried, knowing that it was the right answer.
"Oh, well done. And what does a magnetic field attract? Metal! Plus the fact you could have iced that bitch's ass, cremated her or astralled for help! Did you not think? I mean, where was your brain? Did you leave it at home?" She seemed completely exasperated with what she saw as utter stupidity.
She turned to Chris and Ben could tell that she was done with him for a while and he sunk back into the chair in relief. He nearly let out an audible sigh but thought against it at the last second, knowing it would only provoke Bridget and internalized his reaction.
"Look, Bridget…" Chris began, his hands raised palms towards her, attempting to pacify her. Perhaps if he could placate her, distract her for long enough she would let the whole thing blow over. "Nothing happened. The cops shot her as she was about to shoot me."
That was true. Sheridan had smirked herself stupid as she took statements from the both of them. As if the whole thing was their fault. She had even ended the interview by telling them not to forget that they were on bail. Thank God the doctors had told her to get out after a while, because Chris could have strangled her.
Chris's arm was in a sling until the wound healed and he found in awkward and cumbersome. But he was not surprised that Leo hadn't answered his calls last night. He was surprised, however, that the Elder hasn't answered the call of the sisters, especially Piper. Maybe he was just somewhere where he couldn't be reached. He had thought he had been getting on relatively well with his father, considering, but he guessed he had thought wrong. He didn't even know why he'd thought that in the first place. Leo was always going to be Leo in any time.
"Don't try it!" Bridget snapped and Chris felt silent, lowering his hands. He really needed some new tricks… He was all too aware of the many pairs of teenage eyes watching him getting chewed out by the very pregnant Bridget and the many teenage mouths smirking at it. He fought away an embarrassed flush that was creeping up his neck, rubbing it absently with his hand and clearing his throat.
"It's not our fault…"
"Oh, no of course not. You put yourselves in a stupid situation! I mean, do you WANT this baby to grow up fatherless?!" On the word 'want' Bridget's voice rose even higher in pitch to a level that Chris hadn't thought possible. He realized that he may never live down the students' snickering in the background. Bridget seemed oblivious because he knew that if she heard them they would probably be dead by now. He almost expected to see sparks flying from her angry eyes, or perhaps her fingertips. He probably would be if they weren't within the sanctuary and demonic-power-free zone of Magic School. He silently thanked Fortune.
He wanted to orb out but he knew Ben would kill him for leaving him to deal with Bridget and then even if he took Ben Bridget would find a way to bring him back so she could kill him over again for leaving her mid-rant so he sat their and let his mind wander.
God, when she was mad her face took on a new shade and her eyes gleamed… He gave himself a mental shake. No. When she was mad she was pissed. Very, very dangerous and pissed. He forced himself to focus on something else and it wasn't until he looked closely that he saw that behind Bridget's façade of anger there was fear. He could see it in her eyes, worming its way through her even as she tried to hide it. She was scared that she would be left alone, that she would end up the last one of them alive in this timeline and she would have to have the baby on her own… Chris's heart went out to her and he tried to apologize with his eyes but he knew that Bridget wasn't particularly perceptive to things like that and it would take a lot more to make it up to her than just a simple look.
Bridget flicked hair out of her face and swept it angrily behind her ears, but the moment she leant forward to yell again it fell back down and tickled her cheek. Not the image she wanted, particularly. She was going for severe. Her hand flashed out and looped the offending hair fiercely behind her ears in a blur of movement and got ready for another barrage.
How could they have been so stupid? They could have died… And then there would be no father for the baby and… And the past had already claimed Nixa. How many more of them did it need to take – or try to take – before it was satisfied? She balled her fists but her anger faded. She was not angry with the two guys sitting in front of her. Anything but. She was just angry with the whole set up they had going here, angry at the world as well.
And she didn't want to lose anymore friends. Not that she'd ever tell them that. It was better that they think she was pissed rather than have them think that hormones or something were turning her into a soft mother-type. That would definitely freak them out even more than the yelling and someone had to be the sensible person here because otherwise who would? So no words came when she tried to rant again. Her mouth opened and closed uselessly a couple of times before she flung herself backwards into the armchair behind her and covered her face with her hands.
"I just don't know what to say," she mumbled from behind her palms, stretching and massaging her closed eyes with her fingertips. "I don't have a right to yell, do I? It's just…" she remembered that they would freak if they saw the emotional side of her and continued with, "…just that you two were so dumb and it was only luck that saved you."
"Well we're sorry."
Chris's voice made her jump and she withdrew her hands from her face and saw him sitting on the arm of the chair stroking her hair. He looked so sincere, so serious and she immediately believed him. A lot had changed in Chris since Wyatt had turned. A lot. She inclined her head so it was leaning on his upper arm until her moved it, snaking it around her back. Great. She'd probably looked like a vulnerable, weak girly girl. She fought the urge to pout.
"Well… Don't do it again, you got that?" She finally said, hating herself for sounding so much like a child.
"Well you know us. We'll do our best."
"I knew you'd have to have the last word," Bridget said, narrowing her eyes playfully at Ben as he sat on the free arm of the chair and put his arm around her shoulders.
Now all they needed was Nixa and they'd be perfect.
The three friends sat there for a while, their smiles fading as the seconds ticked past as realization hit them and pain showed in their eyes. This was how it was meant to be – nearly – friends forever no matter what. Families may be hard to come by in the future but with a friendship like theirs they were sure it could stand anything and still be all the family they could ever need.
"While she's all docile are you going to tell her?" Ben asked, the first to break the trance. He sat up straighter on the arm of the chair and looked at Chris he was looking down worriedly at Bridget.
"Uh… Why me?"
"Because when she explodes you can freeze her as we run for it?" Ben suggested unhelpfully and Bridget smacked him in the stomach. He winced and she smirked.
"What?" The Hunter asked suspiciously, looking from one to the other. "Am I going to have to get mad again? Because if so I'm going to need help getting up…"
"You're not gonna be mad…" Chris said, rolling his eyes and getting up off of the chair. "We just think we've got a lead on who turns Wyatt and we're going to follow it up…" he paused, hoping she wouldn't blow up and give them another lecture.
"Well… That's… good, right?"
Ben got up as well and walked over to Chris, inspecting her suspiciously. "What, that's it? No, 'Take a sweater,' or 'Be back by curfew,' or 'Bring me back a piece,'?" Is the real Bridget even in there?"
Bridget narrowed her eyes and gave a short, false, dangerous laugh. "I'm not either of your mothers. Which is good, because I've had enough of pitying myself for a while. Now I suggest you orb before I find the energy to get up." As if the emphasize her point she braced herself against the arms of the chair.
"We're gone." And then they were, in a swirl of bright blue lights that faded into nothing.
Bridget slumped back into her chair and sighed, staring at the spot where her friends had been not so long before. "Just be careful, okay?" She murmured softly before turning herself to planning how she was going to occupy herself for the day. There had to be some pimply pubescent teenaged boy that she hadn't threatened with nose-breaking should he look at her ass as she walked past again. It was just a matter of finding him.
She was just about to finish heaving herself out of the chair when she heard heels approaching her. Seeing as none of the female teachers here wore heels because they were impractical for being on their feet all day and none of the students did because – although they were far too young to have a sensible fear of blisters – they didn't want to break a heel in something like levitation class, she looked around interested. Perhaps the threatening part of her day wouldn't be the highlight after all…
She mentally paused. Ben was right. Was she even herself today?
"Did I just see the boys orb off?" The voice asked as the heels clack-clacked nearer.
Bridget turned her body to peer around the side of the chair and discovered Piper coming towards her. As if she hadn't recognized the voice. She rolled her eyes at herself, straightened her top and smiled. "Hey, Piper," she greeted, getting out of the chair. "Yeah, they said they had a lead on the Wyatt situation," she paused, "how did you get here anyway?"
"I had Paige orb me," the witch replied, gesturing vaguely over her shoulder. Paige had got distracted by something in the corridor and had said to Piper that she would catch her up.
"So is this a social call?" Bridget asked, clearing her throat. She didn't know why she felt so awkward. It was suddenly as if Piper had become a complete stranger to her.
But then this Piper was a complete stranger to her. This Piper didn't know her or her ways at all. Which meant that this Piper thought of her as a whore for sleeping with her son? Probably. Oh joy…
Piper took a deep nervous breath, smiling a little too widely. "Well I gave Wyatt to Leo for the day and Phoebe finished her column on time for what has to be like the first time ever and Paige isn't actually doing anything except fuming because the kindergarten she was doing her temp job at as a nursery assistant found someone permanent before her magical cosmic reason for being there showed up so..." she trailed off to breathe. She seemed to be getting to the real point. "So we were going shopping and seeing as how you only have the one set of clothes and the stuff you've borrowed from Phoebe won't give if you can a pound let alone a baby, I was wondering if you would like to come?"
There, that hadn't been so hard, had it? This was obviously the woman her son loved and if she was going to be a mother and be part of Chris's life then she should start by accepting Bridget. There was a pause, and Piper's nerves interpreted it as a rejection. A tiny hope flared and she realized that she might have spoken a little fast for Bridget to grasp what she'd been saying. Please say she wants to come…
Bridget blinked at the sudden onslaught of information as he brain cleared a backlog of words. "Uh… Sure…" She gave a small laugh and smiled.
"Hey!" Paige orbed in in front of them, smiling.
"What's wrong with walking?" Piper asked, jumping.
"Why walk when you can orb?" Paige asked, waggling her eyebrows. "Besides, I was late enough because I had to yell at some kids for snickering at Bridget here."
"Still? Even after I threatened to bitch slap them into the real world where the stupid magic won't protect them?" Bridget started to rise but Paige shook her head.
"No, no, no. Don't worry. They may be laughing now but they won't be when a demon throws a fireball at them. So, are we shopping or not?"
Bridget got out of her chair then and as the orbs began covering her body she said, "You know it's a shame the guys aren't here. They make excellent pack mules."