The cord snaked across the floor and Piper whipped it after her irritably as it entwined itself with the dining room table. Yanking the cord a last time, she pushed the vacuum cleaner into the conservatory, its wheels clattering on the tiled floor. She blew hair out of her face and stabbed the off button, straightening with frustrated hands on her hips.
"God! This vacuuming seems to be going on forever."
"Piper, you're four months pregnant. Get someone else to do the damn cleaning for you," Bridget suggested, stretching luxuriously on the couch and flipping channels. The baby moved inside her again and she smiled until the cleaner started up its quotidian whine.
"I've got to," Piper said over the machine as Bridget stabbed the up button for the volume on the remote. "It's not as if anyone else is going to do it."
Bridget sat up slowly, swinging her legs over the edge of the couch and looking pityingly at the harassed, pregnant witch cleaning before her. If there was one thing she had learned about pregnancy it was that it was meant to be an easy ride. You were supporting another life — you should demand people wait on you hand and foot. She was going to be kind of sad when this whole thing was over in two months time.
A smile stretched across her face as she remembered the last time she had people waiting on her. Ben picking out her weapons, Chris having to carry her across large mud pits in the woods… that was the life. She certainly would have no objections to some prince coming in right now, slinging her across his horse and galloping away with her to be a princess. Just as long as she got servants and a pony. And a tiara.
And would a couple of palaces and people on their knees worshiping her carved golden image be too much to ask?
Piper was tugging at a large pot plant in a vain attempt to move it so she could clean underneath it. It was making several grating noises against the tiles but not really going anywhere except in a circle. When it wobbled dangerously and threatened to squash the Charmed One, Bridget got up from the couch (fighting a wicked twinge in her back to do so) and walked over to help, lifting the pot clear off the floor. She held it there so Piper could clean.
The leaves were tickling her nose and she blew out through her mouth, but the foliage just seemed to multiply in front of her face, growing greener and greener and more and more obtrusive.
Piper, however, didn't start the cleaner again. A small frown instead creased her forehead. "Bridget…" she began, posing the question delicately, licking her lips slightly. "Why is it exactly that you're so strong?"
Bridget set the large terracotta pot back down on the floor and the plant rustled appreciatively. She sighed and sat back down on the couch, trying to put together the entire story from the fragments she remembered. "Okay… Well, it goes something like this. In every generation there's a Chosen One. She alone will stand against the demons and the something-or-others. She's the Slayer."
"So you're this… Slayer? I thought you said Nixa was one too? How does that work? If there's only one in every generation?"
"Heh. No, I'm not the Slayer. I'm a Hunter."
Piper's frown deepened and the look made Bridget realise she was being rather vague. Unlike the Piper she had known in the future, this Piper didn't know about slayers or hunters or anything like that and wouldn't for a while. She sighed and tried to catch Piper up just a little bit to where she was used to Piper being. "See, that spiel up there isn't exactly correct. There were many potential Slayers born into a generation, but only one was meant to be active at any one time. Of course it got screwed up somewhere sometime because it's a magical system and magical systems do tend to screw up but still. Basically, there were all these girls with the potential to tap into their Slayer strength and powers; they just couldn't until they were called. You with me so far?"
"Uh, yeah, I think so…" Piper was sitting down now as well, her brown eyes interested.
"Well, there was a time when a great number of Slayers were needed to defeat this one great evil. They were being killed off left and right so they couldn't aid in the defeat of the big bad. So this insanely powerful goddess — at least I think she was a goddess (Nixa's knows — knew— this much better than me)... Anyway, this goddess who might not actually be a goddess made it to so that every single girl in the world who could be a Slayer would be a Slayer.
"So now every time a girl is born into this world with the potential to be a Slayer, they are a Slayer." Bridget laughed humourlessly. "I guess they didn't think about the effect the consequences of their actions would have on future generations, huh?" She smiled wryly, somewhat bitterly, out of the sunroom window for nearly a full two minutes before speaking again. "And then, because there had always, always been one Slayer singular – a Slayer, the Slayer, whatever – the name got changed. We're now Hunters. And we do that whole fighting demons thing pretty much from when we're old enough to realize that other girls can't pull sinks off the walls, whether it be accidentally or otherwise. You know the drill; a demon senses you and whether you're prepared to fight it or not, you gotta. It's you or the demon.
"The thing about being a Slayer was that no girl ever had her strength before she was called. The thing about being a Hunter – the new way – is that if you might be a Hunter, you are a Hunter. You're born one and you've gotta grow up thinking you're a freak until one day you pop up on the radar of..." She shook her head, blinking a couple of times. Flashes of the old warehouse in her mind. Being hunted down… "That's future consequences anyway. It doesn't have to matter."
"Sweetie…" Piper began, but she cut herself off. What could she say? How could she make a life so ruined by abilities better when her own was so plagued with them? If she could make things better then she would have done it long ago for herself, but she didn't know. She couldn't tell Bridget that it would all be okay, because it might not be.
"Hey, Piper? Everyone thinks I'm really into this whole bad ass gig. Don't tell them – please?"
"I won't. Now, a little assistance with the plant pot, please?"
Bridget scooped the plant up easily once more, letting it rest in her arms as Piper passed the Hoover underneath, cleaning up all the dirt and grit that had accumulated underneath it. Piper had just withdrawn the machine when Bridget gasped and let the plant fall. It thudded heavily against the floor but mercifully didn't break and the Hunter staggered backwards, as if reeling from an invisible force.
"Bridget?" Piper asked, her voice tinged with worry.
The Hunter put her hand to her head and flopped back down on the couch, drained. Bridget fanned herself with her hand, her face clammy. The colours in the windows were suddenly spinning around her in garish flashes, making her blink. "Yeah, sorry. Just felt a little weak and dizzy… Is it warm in here?"
Piper picked up the glass of iced tea on the end table. "Have some tea, you look a little flushed. Are you sure you're okay?"
"Yeah… Yeah, I'm fine, Piper, just a little… you know…"
Piper nodded, her second pregnancy well under way. But she didn't know, thought Bridget. She didn't know at all what it felt like to be in possession of strength one second, and suddenly have your muscles weaken and refuse to hold anything the next. Piper had no idea how it felt to feel so small and defenceless. How could she possibly know?
Learning to Tango
Ben sighed, tapping the Sharpie against his chin and frowning. In front of him, scrawled on a large piece of paper, were the names of demons, warlocks, darklighters, evil factions and cults and even some mortals. Many had red circles around them; others had thick black crosses through them. He drew a line between a group of warlocks and a darklighter tribe before thinking better of it and scribbling it out. After a couple more moments of consideration he redrew it, sensing a possible coalition in order to get to Wyatt before the demons. But then again… He spun, turning and clenching his fist around the pen to stop himself from hurling it across the room in frustration. Maybe they should look for a dry erase board.
All of this was getting them nowhere. Chris was squinting at two star charts, contemplating the distances between the planets and then comparing them to a calendar, trying to see if there were any particular alignments due any time before he was born. So far he had nothing and he sighed, turning to his own poster board full of demons.
Chris chewed on his bottom lip and ran a hand through his hair, relenting and lowering it to rub at his tired eyes. He stretched his eyes out with the fore and middle fingers of each hand and then went back to work, studying the board. He saw nothing and crossed to Ben's board, musing in front of that one.
"Any luck?" Ben asked hopefully, draping himself over an armchair and rubbing his eyes, popping the cap of the Sharpie off and then back on again with his thumb over and over, concentrating on a spot on the wall.
"Well…" Chris began slowly, drawing out the word even as the connection formed in his mind. "There's a whole darklighter cult here…" He gestured with his pen. "And this warlock schism here, which you've linked. I'm thinking that maybe they could get together and try to get one up on the demons where Wyatt's concerned, so…"
"We need to kill them, right?" Ben asked, snapping the cap back on a last time and tossing it onto the end table next to him.
"Right," Chris said, crossing to the Book of Shadows. "I think the warlocks will be the easiest. It should only take some potions and some athames." He frowned, flipping through the tome in front of him. "But…"
"Ah. A 'But'. Of course."
"I don't remember what was needed to vanquish the — " Chris paused absently as he looked over the names at the heads of the pages he was flipping through until he found the one he wanted. He finished definitively, " — Darklighters."
The book was now open at the entry for the darklighter cult in question and Ben walked around the stand to take a look at it. His eyes scanned the page and clouded with worry and confusion so that when he was done and he looked up to meet Chris's eyes, Chris definitely didn't like the look of them at all.
"Darklighters that need a Power of Three spell?" Ben asked uncertainly, re-reading the entry. "I didn't know there were any that powerful."
"This is, apparently, like some high priest darklighter. An old one that has killed more whitelighters than any other darklighter can claim. He's practically immortal — just like a whitelighter — and it looks like the only thing that's gonna kill him is a Power of Three spell."
Ben drummed a staccato beat on the crinkled page with his fingers. "I'd say on a hunch that the warlocks will send a minion first and fail. And then the Darklighter King will send someone and fail and then they'll find out that they should work together — "
" — And we don't know if we're strong enough to fend off an attack from both," Chris finished for him.
"Exactly. And more to the point, how the hell are we going to get Paige in there to say the spell without getting her skewered about a hundred times over?"
"We'll think of something," Chris said, determined. "Maybe we could summon him here and kill him?"
"But then won't that just lead to the house swarming with darklighters looking for their master?"
Chris sighed in slightly irritated defeat. "Well, we've gotta make it work somehow, right?"
Chris walked to the potion cabinet and began filling his arms with carefully selected potions from the shelves. Having nothing else to do for the past four months, he had spent a lot of time stockpiling the sisters' most powerful potion recipes, adding liberal dashes of future knowledge in between the pinches of cumin seeds and dashes of salamander blood.
The glass vials clinked together in his arms as he fished the last one out and left the cupboard open before emptying his arms onto the couch. They clattered down in a gentle, hard, translucent, multi-coloured rain and rolled, lying still when they were all piled against the back of the couch.
"Okay, this is enough to leave a crater in the world instead of the whole warlock faction," Ben said approvingly, stepping up behind Chris as the witch-whitelighter counted.
"Well, if we're right then we're only going to need a couple. I mean, they're not going to send all of them here, right? But it'll be a couple each. No one can go unprepared. I'll go give a few vials each to Mom and Bridget now. I think Paige is due home soon so she's going to need some, too. Whenever Phoebe comes home we'll ply her with them as well. Just get them to keep them to hand. It should be enough to stop most attackers."
Chris was distracted, counting the potion vials and forcing his brain to work out the simple calculations. Nothing was happening up there anymore, at least not at any type of speed. It was like his brain just got sick of the constant working and had just given up on him for the night. It was nearing seven p.m. now and the light in the attic was fading fast, but Chris couldn't be bothered to turn on the lights yet. He had a couple of bigger issues to try and work out. They could work this whole warlock thing. He just needed a couple of minutes to think away from all the stress and tension over the uncertainty of what was going to happen to his brother — to his future.
There was an explosion followed by the sound of splintering wood from downstairs, sending both Ben and Chris jumping up, suddenly alert. Chris immediately orbed out while Ben dived halfway across the room just in time to hitch a ride, managing to disappear as well.
They appeared in the foyer just in time for the living room doorframe to have a large chunk taken out of it in a spray of glowing woodchips. Ben threw his arm up and smouldering splinters blasted into his sleeve. Chris heard his mother curse. She was standing in the parlour with her hands raised, obviously having just deployed her power.
"What the — ?"
"Sh!" Bridget had come out from the sunroom with her eyes closed, waving her hands furiously at the two witches in the foyer. She kept her eyes closed, her breathing rhythmic as she whirled around, stabbing her finger at a space in front of the closet under the stairs. "There!"
The warlock blinked in a few metres to the left and Piper whirled, blowing the closet door inwards in a shower of splinters.
"Dammit!"
"But… but…" Bridget sat down heavily on the couch. "I was wrong… I'm never wrong…"
Your strength and abilities fading with each passing day… Soon you'll just be a mortal like the rest of them out there, running scared.
Ben flicked his wrists at the warlock, sending a blast of fire at him. The warlock blinked out and the banisters were annihilated. Bridget shrieked and threw herself down on the floor in front of the sofa, peering into the darkness underneath as flaming pieces of wood fluttered to the floor.
Come on, you know it's true. No one's going to save you and you're going to die all alone.
"Bridget, where's he going to be next? Bridget?"
Is the warlock coming closer? I think he is. One athame and that will be the end for you and baby… That would break boyfriend's heart now, wouldn't it?
Bridget was lying on the floor, trying to suck in deeper and deeper breaths in the hope the rising panic would go away. It wasn't. Her palms were clammy with sweat and she squeezed her eyes shut as another explosion rocked the room. Never had she felt such irrational and malapropos fear in her heart as she had now. It was just a warlock. One of the most lumpen of the evil she fought so often. Only a warlock and yet… Her heart was rattling against her ribcage, fluttering like a trapped bird. Adrenaline was drawing blood away from her skin and stomach, making her look pale and her stomach feel odd. Fight or flight — except for the first time she wanted to do the latter.
The warlock's going to get you… You're all alone, little girly.
Chris flung his arm out as the warlock reappeared in the living room, sending him crashing backwards into the piano. The instrument let out a loud, discordant clunk and slammed back into the wall.
Piper moved in from the parlour, Ben moved in from the foyer, and together they blasted the crumpled warlock, vanquishing him. His demise left a scorch-mark on the piano as Piper's hands slapped down.
"We just had that thing tuned," she muttered, quasi-whining before composing herself.
Suddenly Bridget screamed and the three witches turned and ran for the parlour. Another warlock was standing over her with an athame, the side of her couch redoubt that meant the piece of furniture couldn't protect her. She kicked him in the shins and struggled to pull herself up onto the sofa but the warlock was on her again. She drove her foot into his stomach, sending a shockwave up her leg into her hip. She yelped in pain, a small fireball appearing in her hand. She threw it at the warlock but he dodged it, taking two steps backwards and nearly tripping over the coffee table before righting himself, giving Bridget time to scramble over the back of the sofa and run for the foyer.
Chris opened his arms to receive her and she let him wrap them around her trembling frame. He kissed the top of her head lightly and she buried her face in his shirt, fighting back sobs and taking in gasping breaths. He shushed her gently, rocking side-to-side slightly in a vain attempt to pacify her. Her shaking was scaring him. What had happened to her to make her so frightened?
On the other side of the room, Ben's fireball blew a chunk out of the rug, and a second later, an explosion from Piper ripped through an end table, blowing its lamp against the wall and shattering the bulb and ceramic base.
The warlock reappeared at the foot of the stairs, taking out an athame and throwing it at the couple in the hall. Chris's eyes widened and he pushed Bridget to the floor without thinking. The Hunter shrieked and before she hit the rug she disappeared in a shower of orange, flaming orbs. Chris blinked in shock, nearly forgetting to dive out of the way. He rumpled the rug as he hit the floor and skidded well into the living room. The front door opened revealing a vulnerable Paige standing in the knife's path in his place.
Piper ran around the corner, her hands out to freeze the flying weapon but Paige called for it, the orbs tickling the end of her nose, and redirected it at the warlock. It hit him in the chest, vanquishing him.
"Is it too much to ask to give a girl a reception that doesn't involve weapons flying at her?" Paige asked, blowing hair out of her face and fanning at it. "Because yeesh, that one was a little close."
Learning to Tango
"Chris, she'll be fine. When have you ever known Bridget not to be able to take care of herself? She'll come florbing back in here any minute."
Paige looked up, a frown of confusion crossing her features as she flipped her hair out of her face with her hand. "Florbing?" The Charmed One asked, bending down again sweeping the fine pieces of glass from the broken bulb into a dustpan and dumping them in the trashcan in the centre of the parlour.
"Yeah, she's got this thing going on. Like orbing, only it's like someone put a match to it. Very cool and very Bridget."
Paige bent down to start sweeping up the ceramic base of the lamp. Chris was sitting on the couch with his eyes closed and head bowed, trying to sense Bridget.
"You don't get it," Chris said, looking up. "Bridget was different tonight. She… she wasn't herself…"
Ben rolled his eyes, tossing stakes of wood from the closet door into the trash and waving a vague hand at it, incinerating its contents to about an eighth of its original size. "Yeah, but—"
"Got her."
"See? She's fine and alive. Just like I said she would be, might I add?" Ben looked strangely at the doorknob he had retrieved from a pocket of one of the jackets and rolled his eyes, tossing it at the direction of the bin. It made a loud clanging sound, forcing Paige to clamp her hands over the metal sides to stop the vibrations before dumping in a dustpan full of shattered ceramic.
"Well, don't just sit there Chris," Piper said, wondering vaguely if they could somehow repair the end table with a couple of screws and three bottles of wood glue. "Go get the poor thing and bring her back here. I'll make some more iced tea."
She abandoned all thoughts of repairing the furniture as her heels clacked across the dining room floor and turned into the kitchen. Piper chose not to mention the strength problem Bridget had earlier, seeing as how her son was worried enough. Perhaps later.
"How come he gets to leave?" Ben pouted indignantly as his friend disappeared in a shower of orbs.
Paige tapped Ben on the shoulder and handed him the broom. "Sorry, buddy."
Ben looked down at the broom while Paige looked just as sourly down at her dustpan and then around at the mess of the foyer and parlour. They caught each other's eyes and smiled, Ben flicking his eyebrows up in a devilish way. Needing no further encouragement, Paige chanted away with a conspiratorial air.
"Let the object of objection become but a dream,
As I cause the seen to be unseen."
Little white lights floated around the room, buffeted on invisible air currents until the parlour and foyer were thankfully clear of debris. The two witches high-fived and flopped onto the couch.
"So what's on TV tonight?"
Learning to Tango
The concrete she was sitting on was white and rough and cool. It was just giving off the last of the Sun's heat even through it had set hours before. The top Bridget was wearing was thin and floaty at the sleeves and not exactly suitable for a San Francisco night without a jacket. She had to bunch the fabric in both fists to stop it tickling her arms.
San Francisco was pretty, spread out before her all blue-purple with night and yet twinkling with lights. And more than a couple of neon signs, which weren't so pretty but she could deal with them. A breeze smelling of the ocean rushed over her and she shivered, goosebumps rising on her arms.
There was water gushing behind her again, and she felt the tower vibrate with the sheer force as it whooshed through the pipes and down to the city. Probably to you know, bathe a baby or water some pretty plant.
Oh, who was she kidding? She was no optimist.
Orbs began to loudly coalesce into a human form and she looked up, watching Chris fully appear from them. Orbing was so pretty. Almost as pretty as the city out there.
"I've been sensing everywhere for you," Chris said, crouching down beside her. "Why didn't you call for me?"
Bridget shrugged, not meeting his eyes but gazing out over the city again. Another breeze blew. This one was warmer and she settled back against the concrete wall, letting it lull and caress her. It lifted her hair back from her face and she allowed herself to enjoy it before it was gone.
"It's nice up here. Good alone time place. You've got your bridge, so…"
Chris nodded in understanding, taking a seat next to her and admiring the view. "What are you thinking about?"
Again Bridget didn't answer, her eyes glittering as she looked towards the cars rushing across the Bay Bridge. Always traffic, always manic, whatever time of day. Red brake lights glared evilly at her and winking front headlights flashed towards her and the city.
"Just stuff. You know. It started out as a nice view and then I was gonna go back but I think the baby's asleep now. So I was kind of stuck here. And then it got me thinking how those people down there don't know that this city is going to be a pile of rubble and their families are going to be all broken and killed. And it makes me sad because I'm just so worried that we can't stop it from happening. I mean, if Wyatt's not going to do it then we have another powerful kid right here who could. What if I can't control the baby and he or she goes all Wyatt on us?
"And then I was thinking about how everyone down there is just one person. I mean, they're all part of the city but they're only really one anonymous person down there who really doesn't count for all that much. And, you know, I was wondering… what it was like."
"What it was like?"
"Yeah. What it was like to just be your own person and only have to think about you and maybe your family and not have to think about the whole world and junk like that. I mean, don't you ever wonder what it would have been like to be someone who doesn't matter, someone who is just in the crowd and isn't apart from it because it was destined so?"
Chris seemed momentarily startled at Bridget's confession as she sighed, rolling her eyes and looking back over the city. She hadn't really expected him to get it. Guys didn't do feelings all that well. That, plus the fact that Chris loved being a witch, loved standing apart from everyone else and having responsibilities. But her? She was sick of it. She wanted a normal life with a normal baby and a normal boyfriend in Chris. She wanted to blend back into the background. She only had vague memories of being normal. When she was eight she'd been officially called as a Hunter and from then on her life had just been one big fight. Constant battling, constant demon after demon, evil after evil, day after day…
And she was tired. So very, very tired.
And now? Now it was completely different. Now she couldn't protect herself anymore. Her strength had been ebbing. She had put it down to not using it, what with the baby and all. That would probably make sense. But now it was gone. Completely and utterly stripped from her and she had no idea where that power had gone. Talk about use 'em or lose 'em, she thought bitterly.
"Chris…" Bridget got up and stretched slightly, walking over to the guardrail that ran around the top of the water tower. She took some deep breaths in and grabbed one of the metal bars with a fist, tightening her grip on it.
"Bridget, what—?"
"Just let me show you." She squeezed her eyes closed and pulled as hard as she could. Her shoulder and elbow joints popped and cracked and sent flashes of pain up her nerves. Veins stood out in harsh relief against her pale arms and her body was shaking with the effort, her face screwed up.
Eventually she gasped out a deep breath and let her arm fall to her side. She rotated her shoulder in her socket a couple of times and looked at the bar. It was just where it had been moments ago. Not a kink or a bend spoiled the cold, grey metal and she sighed, sitting back down.
"See?"
Chris was confused and shuffled closer to Bridget. She hugged her knees tighter to herself and shifted away slightly, needing all of her clarity unclouded by intimacy and closeness.
"See what exactly?"
"The bar. Does it look bent to you?"
"No… But — Oh." Realisation hit him hard, but he didn't want her to know that. Instead he reached over and tucked a few errant strands of hair behind her ear. Softly, he asked, "What's happened to you?"
Bridget shrugged slowly, letting her shoulders fall in defeat. "I don't know."
She looked so small sitting there, hunched into herself. The city was drawing her gaze again, sparkling in her pupils.
"I think I do," Chris began. "The baby's feeling threatened by what's going on, right? And seeing as how it has such a powerful mommy, it's drawing strength from her. From you. You're not losing your strength; you've just… misplaced it."
Bridget thought over this answer, tiny wrinkles appearing on her forehead. "Well… I did get a little dizzy last time the baby moved in the sunroom… I dropped a plant…"
"See? The baby's using your own strength and powers to protect itself. It's fine."
Bridget sniffed and looked up, pulling herself slowly to her feet. Chris got up and held his hand out to her but she didn't take it, wobbling to her feet all by herself. "Let's go."
Learning to Tango
Bridget pulled a face as her spoon grated on something gritty at the bottom of the mug. The dark coffee in front of her swirled as she added creams on top of the half a reservoir Chris had made her put in it to dilute it. For the baby's sake. Ha! How did anyone expect this thing to be the future of all evil if it couldn't handle its caffeine? She reached for the sugar and dumped three packets into it before stirring again. Now the bottom of the cup felt even grittier as she scraped her spoon over it. She sighed, taking a sip anyway. Coffee was coffee after all.
It was a little weak and the grainy bits at the bottom had managed to float to the stop and stick to her tongue, but it was caffeine. She'd have to keep telling herself that. A lot. Chris was watching her drink from across the table, smiling slightly.
"What?"
"Nothing. I'm just wondering why we never managed to get you off caffeine before and suddenly you're pregnant and you drop practically all of it. Practically."
"That's because I was never carrying another life before." Bridget took another sip of her coffee, making a mental note to scrub her tongue later. "Oh, and I had a stash under my bed… And when I wasn't pregnant I could have kicked your ass to Mars for trying."
Chris didn't disagree with her. He whole-heartedly believed her, for one thing. Bridget was busy sorting the brown sugar from the white sugar as Chris frowned and asked, "You know that coffee is—"
Bridget shrugged. "Yeah, yeah. And I had some on the top shelf of the closet — Ooh!"
The waitress was passing and Bridget reached up and snatched a small plastic pack of children's puzzles and a small set of blue, green, red and brown crayons from the tray. She opened it and emptied it out on the table, catching the green without looking at it as it threatened to roll off the edge.
"Crap. They got brown." She wrinkled her nose, did a swift look around to make sure the waitress wasn't looking and knocked it onto the floor. "See?" She smiled brightly. "I knew there was a reason you brought me here."
Chris smiled at her over his own mug. "Bridget, they're puzzles for four-year-olds."
"Yeah, I know. I beat them every time. Suckers." She stuck her tongue between her teeth and began tracing one of the mass of lines in blue from Larry the Leprechaun to his pot of gold.
Chris peered over at it. "Oh yeah, that's a real leprechaun. Where's the shillelagh?"
Bridget was too absorbed in her task to answer and Chris went back to drinking his coffee. He pulled a face. Okay, this was bad coffee. It was an all night diner so he didn't really expect that much but still. Ugh. It practically tasted like dirt. And going by what was now burnt onto his tongue, it probably was. He craned his neck to the kitchen area, wondering where their batch of cheesy fries and burgers were before looking back at Bridget.
Bridget's hair had fallen into her face and the end was just tickling the tabletop. A pair of headlights whooshed past the window attached to a car, lighting her up from behind for a couple of seconds through the grimy plate glass window. She was leaning ever closer to that puzzle, so close that it looked like her tongue was about to get it wet. He smiled at her again. God, he loved her. She just… There was something about her that he didn't quite get but…
What would've happened to them if she hadn't run away when they were kids? They were on the verge of something before... the event... and then she was gone without a trace. Finding her again had been like trying to snatch smoke with your hand. Would he have become friends with Bianca after Wyatt went evil if Bridget had stayed? Would they have ever gotten together? Would she be the one that he had taken with him to the manor to travel back? The one he asked to marry?
But that didn't matter anymore. Bianca was gone and they were fixing the future, making it better. They would go back and he would make things right between them then, too. Try for something more. He already had the family thing going with her, after all.
Chris smiled, putting his mug down and reaching over, tucking Bridget's hair behind her ear before it could get stuck to some unidentifiable spill on the table.
Bridget looked up momentarily but Chris's hand was already back across the table and she didn't realize what he had done. Suddenly she sat back up straight, put the blue crayon down hard enough to snap it and waved the paper in the air with triumph.
"I found the pot of gold. Oh, yeah. I'd like to see a four-year-old do it that fast. I so win. In your face, munchkins!"
Chris gave her a wry smile as the waitress dropped their food off with an odd look at the chair-dancing girl across from him. He managed to snatch the paper from her fingertips to look at it, and it took her half a minute to realize that it had gone before she was reaching back across the table to try and get it back.
Chris turned the small maze the right way up and squinted, keeping the piece of paper out of Bridget's grasp. "Bridget? You found the bike… with two flat tyres… And you skipped over two lines to get there."
Bridget snatched it back and crammed it in her pocket. "Oh, like the toddlers are smart enough to know that. My maze. Get your own." She then proceeded to cram all of the crayons in there except for the brown one and then the packet and the other puzzle.
"I think they're meant to be given out free to CHILDREN," Chris said pointedly, smirking as Bridget snapped the red crayon trying to fit it into her pocket.
"See, that's your problem, Chris," Bridget told him conversationally, squirting some ketchup onto her order of fries. He would like to pretend that this was a pregnancy craving, but it was actually Bridget in real life. When she spoke again it was through a mouthful of meat and bread. "You're just not fun anymore."
"I am, too!"
Bridget chewed, putting the burger down on her plate and licking ketchup and mustard from her finger. "Oh, Chris. You're like all Mr. Responsibility with your demon hunting and your world saving," she teased, fully aware that she did the same thing. Just a little less responsibly. And she had more fun.
"Oh, yeah?"
Bridget took up her coffee mug again and spoke into it. "Uh-huh."
"Nuh-uh."
She grimaced and put the mug back on the table. "Oh, soooooo uh-huh."
"OW!" Chris rubbed his suddenly burning shin and Bridget smirked into her cup. "Why did you kick me?"
Bridget looked at him innocently. "You don't argue with the mother of your child. The gods will smite you for it. So consider yourself smote. I just saved the gods a job. I'm trying to get in on their good side." Chris opened his mouth but Bridget held up her hand, silencing him. "I know what you're going to say. And it was going to be something along the lines of what your dear friend Ben would say — By the way, I need to hit him. I should write that down…" She began yanking a crayon out of her pocket again and took a napkin from the holder to write on. "'Kill… Ben…'"
"I thought you said you were just going to hit him?"
Bridget pouted at her napkin and added the world 'nearly' at the top of her reminder. Chris smiled, satisfied, and Bridget tried to cram the crayon back into her pocket again.
"Who's paying for this?" she asked suddenly, with half the crayon out of her pocket and a mostly-devoured burger in her hand.
Chris sat bolt upright and sloshed his suddenly very expensive-seeming coffee over the table and his lap. "Crap! Money. I knew there was something I needed."
"I thought you were meant to be treating me?" Bridget asked, indignant.
Chris rolled his eyes. "Well, yeah, but…"
Bridget rolled her eyes right back at him, and Chris was momentarily perturbed. "What? I got sick of you doing it. Now you know what it feels like though, right?"
Chris fought another eye roll at the comment and continued to fret over the fact that they were going to have to make a run for it. When he looked up from the dark surface of his coffee, Bridget was reaching down into her bra and pulling out four one hundred dollar bills. Chris blinked slow and hard, thinking that perhaps he was imaging it. She placed them on the table and reached into the other cup, pulling out a wad of bills.
"Ten, twenty, seventy, ninety, one-ten… two-ten… Ooh… That one should be in the other pile… One-ten, one-twenty, one-forty, one-ninety, two-forty, two-eighty, three." She dug further down her top and pulled out another crumpled bill. "And a one thousand Yen note. Argh!"
Folded within the note were three aces. They sprang out onto the table and Bridget snatched them up, tucking them back down into her bra and clearing her throat. "Drink up. Coffee's on me."
"Bridget… You didn't rob a bank, did you?"
Bridget rescued a fry from Chris's plate, dragging a string of cheese after it and munching it thoughtfully. The rapidly-hardening trail of cheese stayed on the already-sticky tabletop "Ha! No. Were there any banks at Magic School? I don't think so," she cocked her head. "You know, Benjamin Franklin's kind of cute…"
"Okay, snap out of it." Her words actually processed and he scowled. "Wait, what? No, he's not… Is he? Would you rather go out with him than me?"
Bridget smiled graciously at the indignant and very paranoid young man in front of her. Oh, this was amusing. He generally thought she'd run off with someone else if she got a better offer. So she scoffed. "Of course not. Benjamin Franklin's dead." She smiled back at the money. "Aren't you, Benji? And after that episode we had with the zombies? No way am I dating any more dead guys… Even if that vampire was kind of cute… Shame he only wanted me for my looks, though…"
Chris blinked a little and just stared at her as she continued to fuss over the money. "Okay, Bridget? Firstly, the vampire wanted you for your blood, not your looks. And secondly? You're cooing over the fifty."
"Yeah, but it's Ben Franklin."
"Bridget, Franklin's on the — never mind." He shook his head, deciding to let Bridget be. He could give her an American History class later, the one she should have had in about the third grade. The witch-whitelighter made a grab for the money but she quickly pushed his hand away and he tucked his hands back around his coffee bug lest he incur her wrath. "So if you didn't rob a bank, where'd you get the money from?"
Bridget shuffled through the money, smiling and sorting the edges to ruler straightness. "Playing poker at magic school. Don't you love the way money is kinda green?"
"Playing… Bridget! They're not old enough to gamble!"
"And? Doesn't stop them thinking they can beat me." She winked at him, flexing her fingers. "But I got all the cards."
"Is that why there are three aces in your bra?"
Bridget shrugged. "Yeah. I figured they're safe seeing as how anyone who goes anywhere near there gets his hand pulverised to mush."
Chris smiled impishly at her as she flicked imaginary lint off 'Ben Franklin', who he knew perfectly well was actually seventeenth president Grant but like he'd said: the American history lesson was for later. "As I recall, you were the one turning to mush."
Bridget turned bright red and muttered something when Chris again felt a sharp pain in both shins and slopped coffee all down his shirt.
"Hey!"
"Sorry. My foot slipped."
"I love you, you know that?"
Bridget looked up in surprise from where she was smiling at her money. "Where did that come from?" she asked warily, wondering if what he said was true. "Did they put something in your coffee? If so, I'm having that mug. Hand it over."
She made a grab for Chris's mug but he held it out of her reach, not intending to give up any more coffee than he had done already to his clothes and the table top. Bridget had her own mug. The witch-whitelighter pushed a cheesy fry around the plate, scraping the last of the cheese onto the end of the last fry and eating it.
Bridget eyed half of the burger on his plate hungrily. "Are you going to eat that?"
Chris was about to tell her that yes, he was going to eat every last crumb, but then he looked into her face. He rolled his eyes and pushed the plate towards her. Before the piece of crockery had reached the centre of the table Bridget had taken the burger from it and had bitten into it, ketchup spattering to the worn, duct-tape-patched vinyl seats. She wolfed down another bite, demolishing the burger with the third.
They sat in the booth and made small talk for a while, skirting around the real issue of the big bad (or rather, several big bads) that was hovering over them and the way Bridget had reacted in the parlour. They were saved when the waitress came over and put the receipt down on the table. Chris picked it up and looked at it. It had come to a little less than fifteen bucks. Bridget snatched the receipt out of his hand and looked down the small list, scrutinising each item carefully. Pouting she ran her hand over the piles of banknotes in front of her, trying to choose the least cute one to give away.
It was an agonizing decision and she looked over each note before Chris snatched up a ten dollar bill, slammed it onto the counter and went back over to the booth, where Bridget had already crammed the money back into her bra.
"Nooooo!" She said as he took her firmly by the arm to lead her out of the diner. "That was Washington!"
Learning to Tango
Disclaimer: - I do not own any of Charmed. Any recognisable characters herein are property of the WB, Spelling TV etcetera, etcetera. Nor do I own the idea I used from Buffy the Vampire Slayer – that belongs to Joss Whedon and quite possibly the WB as well. No infringement intended. Blah, blah, blah these go on forever just don't sue me because I'll bite you, got it?
And there it is. I want to thank all of those patient people out there that waited for this. Patiently. Heh, go figure. Anyways that is that last you will hear on the matter of Buffy. I won't be mentioning it again and no characters will be appearing – I just got a little tired of ripping off such a good show.
Stony Angel: - Oh, I know you do, honey. And I'm really, really sorry. My life is HECTIC with all those caps right now. But thank you for reviewing. It means a lot to me.
Chattypandagurl: -Heh. Thank you! You're so kind.
mizunderstood writer: - Heh, no. I was on a 'Crap I forgot to sleep AGAIN' high. See? I'm like that now… But bed is soon. Reeeal soon. Thank you!
ilovedrew88: - It's a bumpy road ahead if you'll stick with me. We'll get there eventually. Thanks for your review.
minimonkey89: - Yeah? I liked it, too. Thank you!