The Fast and the Curious
Fourteenth episode in the Fourth Sister Series
Piper laid back on her bed trying to zip her pants up, but it was no use. She cried out in frustration, "I don't wanna get maternity clothes yet!"
"Honey, you really don't have much of a choice," Leo said as he reached in the closet and pulled out a pair of Piper's pants that had an elastic waistband. "You're three and a half months along. You're gonna have to make a wardrobe change."
"For the first time in my life, I do not want to go shopping," Piper said. She pulled off the pants she had been trying to zip and snatched the pair that Leo was holding out of his hand. "They never have good clothes for pregnant women. It's all mu-mus with big flowers and bright colors that say 'Hey! Look at me! I'm a house!' A really tacky house."
"You are not a house," Leo said, trying to encourage Piper.
"Not yet," she said as she slipped on the pants Leo had handed her. "Just wait. I'll take up the whole bed and you'll end up on the couch."
"Piper, you'll get bigger, but you won't get that big," Leo said. "And besides, you won't be worried about all that when our daughter is born."
"Yeah, in six months," Piper said. "That's half a year of mu-mus and back aches and weird appetites and sore feet and swollen ankles…"
"Piper, stop," Leo said. "It'll be okay. I will be with you every step of the way. I know it doesn't seem like much considering you're the one that's pregnant, but I promise you I will do everything I can to make this as easy for you as possible."
Piper sighed. "I know you will honey. Just understand that I'm going to be getting kind of cranky. There won't be much you can do about it."
He nodded his head, smiled and then kissed her. "All right, let's go shopping."
He took her hand and pulled her reluctantly off the bed. "Ugh! I wish I could just fast forward through the pregnancy!"
"So, this whole witch thing, you said you've got powers and stuff. I think I just need a little better explanation of how exactly it is that you do good and all," Puck said. He was having lunch with Price at the Manor and they were discussing her witchcraft. He was really starting to open up to it and he was getting really curious about it.
"Well, it's not too hard to understand," Price said as she picked at her salad. "There's all kinds of demons and warlocks that attack us. We vanquish them. That's how it works."
"But how?" he asked.
"We usually use spells, although sometimes Piper can blow them up or I can throw them and impale them on a sharp object or something."
"I see," Puck said thoughtfully. "Do you ever get scared?"
"Oh yeah," Price replied. "All the time. Like just recently this demon had these magicians kidnapping kids. Well we ended up where the magicians captured us. Phoebe almost died. She actually stopped breathing. And Piper could've been killed too. The one magician was throwing knives at her. And once, Phoebe turned evil…"
"Wait, Phoebe was evil?"
"Um, yeah, it was right after I got here and the Source…"
"The Source?"
"Of all evil. The evil head honcho, I guess you could say," Price explained. "Well, he captured Phoebe and tried to turn her evil, but it didn't work and we got her back." Price paused and smiled at Puck.
"What?"
"Oh, it's just so great to be able to talk to you about this," Price said. "You're so great about it."
"Well, I'm adjusting," he said. "I've always kinda believed in the supernatural. You know, ghosts and stuff. So I guess I'm really open to all this."
"I'm glad," Price said with a large grin. Puck just grinned back at her. Moments later the phone rang, interrupting their gaze. "Hello," Price answered. "Leena, what…? What are you talking about? I had the day off. What'd she say? Okay, I'll be there right away." Price hung up the phone and turned to Puck with an apologetic smile. "I've gotta go. One of my sources is kind of in a bind. I need to go meet her."
"Say no more. I know how it is," he said. He stood and followed her out to the front door. "Are we on for that double feature tonight?"
"Sure, as long as nothing else comes up," she replied. She raised up on her tip toes and gave him a quick kiss. "See you tonight."
"Bye." He walked out and Price paused a moment to watch him go, admiring the view. She smiled and then grabbed her coat to go meet Diane.
"All right, I need to stop for lunch or else I'm going to go insane," Piper said as Leo put the last of the shopping bags in the back of the Jeep.
"Where to?" he asked, even though he wasn't driving.
"I was thinking Quake," Piper replied. "It's only a block away and I haven't been there in a while."
"All right, sounds good to me," Leo said.
They arrived at Quake and were quickly seated. Piper noticed that it was kind of slow for lunch on a Friday. Business wasn't exactly booming at her former place of employment. She noticed a familiar face walk by and decided to say hi.
"Hey Doug," she called extending her left hand to wave to him. She was shocked when she inadvertently froze the entire restaurant. She looked around, wondering what had triggered her power to go off like that. She waved her right hand at Leo to unfreeze him, but he didn't budge. "What the hell is going on here?" She tried unfreezing the room, but nothing happened. She tried it several times and finally decided to leave the restaurant. Things would unfreeze on their own.
But when she went outside her jaw dropped at what she saw. Everything was frozen—birds in the air, people in cars, people on bikes, even a dog that was about to mark a fire hydrant. She couldn't explain it and she couldn't fix it. She decided she would have to go home and consult the Book of Shadows. She went back to the restaurant, which was still frozen, and grabbed her purse. Briefly worried about leaving Leo behind, she went back to the Jeep and headed home.
Leo nearly fell out of his seat when Piper suddenly disappeared from her seat. He had heard her say hi to someone named Doug and then she disappeared. He looked around, and found that luckily nobody else had noticed her disappear. Where Piper was, he wasn't sure. He knew he had to figure that out. He stood and quickly left the restaurant, heading straight for the Halliwell Manor.
Price met Diane in the same bar they had met in a week ago to discuss Maxwell the Magnificent. Diane was sitting in the same corner with a similar untouched martini. Why she ordered a martini again, Price didn't have a clue. She wasn't quite sure what the emergency was either. She sat across from Diane.
"Okay, what's going on? What's so urgent?"
"You tell me," Diane said. "Last night this guy showed up and said I led witches on to his master. Then he started talking about how witches killed Hasek and that I either tell him where to find these witches or he'd kill me. You're the one who asked me about Hasek. What's going on?"
"Um, well, that's really hard to explain," Price said. "Did this guy give you his name?"
"No," the nervous woman replied. "What the hell am I supposed to do? He wants to kill me."
"Um, describe him."
"Well, he was tall with pale skin," Diane described. "He had dark hair, dark clothes and really weird eyes. For a second I thought they were completely black, not even any white, but then they were regular brown when I looked again."
"All right, I'm going to give you two phone numbers," Price said. "Give me a half hour to let them know you'll be calling and then call. The first number is Agent Puck Wolfman with the FBI, and the second one is Inspector Darryl Morris with the San Francisco PD. I'll have them protect you until I can take care of the guy who's bothering you."
"What if he comes back?" Diane asked. Price continued writing on the slip of paper with the phone numbers.
"This is my address," Price said. "Give it to him." She handed the slip of paper to Diane.
"These guys are trustworthy?" Diane asked.
"They won't do anything to you legally," Price said. "They'll protect you and that's it. They know the value of informants."
"Right," Diane said. "Thanks."
"Sure. Give me a half hour," Price reminded her. She stood and left the bar, pulling her cellphone out of her purse. She saw she had a voice mail, but called Puck and Darryl first. After a lot of persuasion she got both of them to do as she asked. The voice mail was from Leo, and it sounded urgent. Price got in her car and hurried to the Manor.
Piper had been searching for days for an answer to her problem, but everything was still frozen. She had been through the Book of Shadows cover to cover and there was nothing that explained her situation. She had been back to Quake to check on Leo the day after everything had frozen and she found that he was at the door of the restaurant.
"How'd he get there?" she wondered aloud when she had seen him. She studied the restaurant and realized that things were slightly different than she had left it. Doug was by the bar, and when she went outside the dog that had been marking the fire hydrant was done and about to walk away. That made her realize that things weren't frozen after all.
'Is this a new power I can't control yet?' she wondered. The one thing she didn't understand was why she would want to slow things down instead of freeze them. It didn't seem to serve any better purpose than her freezing power.
She had researched. She had been to the grocery store and back. She simply worked out what she owed on her own and left it by the cashier. Afterall, she needed food, but she didn't want to become a thief.
She went up to the attic that fourth day after all this had started and she found Leo, Phoebe and Cole there. She looked at them puzzled. She had to figure this out, but she didn't know how. She resolved that she had to go to the Wicca shop and consult some books there. As she left she noted that Price had come home and was headed through the foyer. She was on her way upstairs. The world was moving in extreme slow motion. Piper didn't know why or how to fix it.
"Hey, I'm here," Price said as she joined the others in the attic. "What's the big emergency?"
"Piper disappeared," Phoebe said, not looking up from the Book of Shadows.
"What?"
"She and I were about to have lunch and she just disappeared. I didn't see anything suspicious before it happened," Leo explained. "I can sense her, though. She's been moving rapidly all over town. I'm not exactly sure what's going on. At first I thought blinking, but her movement isn't abrupt. It has a path like any normal movement, just extremely fast."
"Any clues about what's happened to her?" Price asked.
"Not yet," Cole replied.
"We've found nothing in the Book of Shadows to explain it," Phoebe said.
"That's because it's not there," a familiar voice said, startling everyone. White lights swirled and then the translucent image of Grams appeared in the middle of the attic.
"Grams? Do you know what's going on?" Phoebe asked.
"Yes, I do, and I really do regret not warning you all about this," she said.
"Warn us about what?" Leo asked. "What's happened to Piper?"
"She's in a state of temporal flux," Grams said.
"What do you mean?" Price asked.
"It's a magical disease that only occurs during pregnancy and can afflict witches with powers related to manipulating time," Grams explained. "The problem is that in the case of two consecutive generations of time freezing witches it has always skipped the second generation. I didn't think it would happen to Piper."
"It happened to mom though?" Phoebe asked.
"Almost," Grams replied. "When she was pregnant with Piper in fact. But I noticed the symptoms."
"What symptoms? Piper's been fine," Leo said.
"Well, the main signal is constant headaches. Patty had a headache she couldn't get rid of for over three days," Grams explained. "Piper had the symptoms, surely. She just didn't tell you. She probably thought they were normal for pregnancy. Patty did. But I knew about this disease and I made up a vaccine before it was full blown. It's almost impossible to reverse the effects after that point."
"So what exactly does it mean that she's in a state of temporal flux?" Cole asked.
"It means that Piper's body is accelerating through time faster than the rest of the world. To her it probably appears that the rest of the world is moving in extreme slow motion," Grams continued to explain. "What's worse is that it will accelerate faster and faster until the baby is born. If the baby is born before Piper is cured of this disease, the baby could die."
"Oh my God," Phoebe said. "Well, how do we stop it?"
"That's the problem," Grams said. "It never has been stopped."
"What?" Leo exclaimed. "Are you telling me my baby is going to die?"
"No, I'm not," Grams said. "Some babies have survived. I'm just telling you that it's a possibility."
"Why didn't you write the vaccine or a warning or something in the Book of Shadows?" Price asked.
"Because, like I said, I thought it would skip over Piper," Grams said. "I'll give you the recipe for the vaccine and you can work on adjusting it. The only problem is that you'll have a hard time catching Piper. Write a note to her right now explaining the situation to her. Tell her not to leave the Manor unless it's absolutely necessary. That way, hopefully, you'll be able to leave the cure for her and she'll be able to take it before the baby is born."
"Okay, we'll have to try that," Phoebe said. "Leo, you write the note while Price and I work on this cure."
Three months had passed for Piper while the world hardly seemed to move at all. She knew that five hours had passed in real time by periodically checking the clock in the Manor. After two hours in real time she found a note from Leo sitting on their bed. He explained the entire situation to her, and she found little comfort in it. The thought that their baby could die and that she would have to give birth to the baby without any preparation scared her beyond comprehension.
She was getting bigger by the second. It was harder for her to get around and she got tired faster. Since they had told her she should stay in the Manor unless it was absolutely necessary for her to leave, she spent most of her time lying down or sleeping. She was starting to go stir crazy. She couldn't listen to music, and she couldn't watch television. There was this unbearable silence in the Manor. She would talk to the baby to break the silence, and she would read to cure her boredom while she waited. The time ticked by but it didn't, and as the months went by for Piper she grew more and more worried. She believed that everyone was doing everything possible to help her, but she was worried that they wouldn't help her in time. She was worried that she would have to have this baby alone only to possibly lose her.
"Do you think this guy will come back?" Diane asked Darryl and Puck. The two men looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.
"If Price thought you needed protection, then she probably thinks he'll come back," Puck said glancing at Darryl. The three of them sat in silence and then Diane stood.
"Would you like anything? Coffee? Tea?"
"I'll have coffee," Puck said. Darryl waved her off and she went into the kitchen. Then Puck spoke in a hushed tone. "How exactly doesn Price expect us to hold off a demon?"
Darryl shrugged his shoulders. "Bullets don't kill these guys, but it hurts them a little. We just have to hope she finds an answer before he shows up."
"Does she even know what she's looking for?" Puck asked.
"I don't know," Darryl said. "But the Halliwells have beaten demons with less information than Price has on this one. They'll get it."
"I hope so," Puck said warily. Diane returned with two cups of coffee and sat down again.
"So, uh, how did you guys, uh, meet Price?" Diane asked, trying to make conversation.
Puck and Darryl looked at each other. Then they said at the same time, "Through her sisters."
Phoebe looked over the recipe Grams had given them and scrutinized the ingredients. "Well, chisandra root is preventative," she said. "So we should substitute that with something else."
"Ginger?" Price offered, glancing over at Grams who was nearby watching them work.
"It could work," Grams said. "The only problem is that you won't have time to test multiple potions."
"We'll do as many as it takes," Phoebe said. She looked over at Leo who was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting expectantly. "We'll fix this."
Piper stood in the kitchen and looked at the piece of paper in front of Phoebe. She noticed also that chisandra root would need to be substituted. She was their potions expert and knew exactly what to switch it with. She picked up the recipe and a pen, and she started writing.
"Woah!" Price exclaimed as the recipe and a pen disappeared and reappeared in less than three seconds. She looked over at Grams. "Piper, I presume?"
"Most likely. Anything she uses will accelerate through time with her until she's not touching it anymore," Grams answered. "She must have some suggestions about what you should put in the potion."
"It's really weird that we can't see her," Price said.
"She's moving so fast, that it's impossible for us to see her," Leo said.
Phoebe and Price looked at the recipe and smiled. They knew Piper was right and immediately continued with the potion as Piper had written
Four weeks later in her time, Piper entered the kitchen to find that the potion was almost done. She had been keeping track of her progress and knew that she was almost up to nine months pregnant. They were running out of time to fix this. She grabbed an apple off the counter and went out to the parlor. After that she read the current book she was reading. In real time she probably held the world record for most books read in a few hours. It had be eight hours since this whole things started in real time, and she had read about thirteen books. She was halfway through this book when she felt a pain unlike any she had felt since she had become pregnant. Not much later her water broke.
"Oh no," she said. "Not yet." She quickly went to the kitchen and wrote on the back of the potion recipe to tell everyone else what was happening.
Darryl turned from his postion by the window when the door crashed open. He and Puck both pulled their guns and moved toward Diane when they saw the demon in the apartment doorway.
"Where are the witches?" the demon shouted. He saw Puck and Darryl and laughed. "Those toys won't kill me."
"No, they won't," Darryl said. "But it'll sure as hell hurt when we shoot you."
"I could kill you all in minutes," the demon said. "Where are the witches?"
"Here," Diane said handing over the piece of paper that Price had given her. "That's their address."
The demon took and left quickly. Darryl and Puck finally lowered their guns. Puck looked over at Darryl. "Man, that was the first demon I've ever seen," he said.
"It won't be the last," Darryl commented as he pulled out his cellphone to call the Manor.
Everyone watched as the potion recipe and pen disappeared again. When it reappeared the paper was turned over and Piper had written on the back: MY WATER BROKE!
"Oh God, we don't have enough time," Price said. "Hurry Phoebe."
Phoebe poured the potion into a jar as quickly as possible and as soon as it was in the jar it disappeared from her hand.
In Piper's time many hours had passed and her contractions were very close together. 'Too close together,' she thought. Finally she saw that Phoebe had poured the potion into the jar. Piper grabbed it, ignoring the scalding of her mouth and throat as she quickly drank it all down. As she finished drinking it another contraction hit her. She closed her eyes and screamed in pain, not even seeing that everything had returned to normal.
"Piper!" Leo exclaimed. Everyone had jumped about a foot when Piper had appeared in the kitchen screaming.
"The baby's coming," Piper said through clenched teeth.
"We need to get you to a hospital," Phoebe said, grabbing Piper's arm. Piper shook her head.
"No time. And how would we explain it?" Piper said. "The baby's coming now. I can feel it."
"Okay, Piper, you need to lie down," Price said. She had once been stuck with a pregnant friend in her apartment during a blizzard and had had to deliver the baby while talking to the 911 operator.
"In the kitchen? She's gonna have the baby in the kitchen?" Leo asked.
"Yes, she is," Price said. Phoebe quickly went to the laundry and pulled out a blanket. She spread it on the floor next to the kitchen table and they had Piper lie down. Price looked at Phoebe and Cole. "Towels, warm water and something to cut the umbilical cord." They took that as an order and went to get the items. Leo knelt on the floor and held Piper in his arms, propping her up.
"Price, do you know what you're doing?" Leo asked.
"Yeah, I've done this before…once," Price said. Piper and Leo looked at her wide-eyed right before another contraction came. Piper cried out in pain and Leo held her trying to comfort her in any way possible. Price covered Piper up so she wasn't exposed to everyone and then she checked the progress. "Um, yeah, the baby's crowning."
"I'm not ready for this. Oh God, I can't do this," Piper said, tears streaming down her face. There was so much pain and she couldn't believe that she was already having her baby. All kinds of thoughts ran through her head. They hadn't prepared the house for the baby yet. They didn't have any baby clothes or a nursery or a crib. How would they explain this to everyone? People would need answers.
"Yes, you can do this, Piper," Leo said encouragingly. "I know you can."
Piper shook her head. Grams looked over at her. "Piper, dear, you really don't have much of a choice now. You're going to have to push soon."
The phone rang and they all looked up. Phoebe went to answer it. "Hello?"
"Phoebe, it's Darryl. There's a demon coming your way."
"What? How would you know?" she asked, confused. Price hadn't told the others about the situation with Diane.
"Price knows what it's about, but he's on his way to your place, now," Darryl explained. Phoebe hung up the phone.
"Price, that was Darryl," Phoebe said. "He said there's a demon coming here and you would know what it's coming for."
"Oh no, not now," Price said. "I'll explain it later, but you need to hold him off when he gets here."
"No, a demon can't attack now!" Piper said angrily.
"Don't worry, Piper," Price said. "It'll be okay."
"How?" Piper asked.
There was a crash at the front of the house at the same time as a contraction. Piper screamed in pain. "Phoebe! Can you handle it?"
"All right," Phoebe said. She and Cole went to the front of the house to see what they could do.
"Okay, Piper when I tell you to you need to push," Price said. Piper looked very scared, but she nodded her head. Leo tightened his grip of reassurance around her. "All right, Piper, push."
Piper pushed and when Price told her to stop, she did. Piper was really tired and she suddenly just wanted to go to sleep. Grams noticed this and gave her a reassuring smile.
"You're doing just fine, dear," she said. "It won't be much longer now."
Out in the front of the house, Phoebe and Cole were fighting with the demon. He tossed Cole across the parlor and Cole slumped to the floor. Phoebe sent kicks and punches flying, trying to hold the demon off as long as possible. Cole got up, picked up a fireplace poker and charged at the demon. But this attack was easily blocked. Cole dropped the poker and went flying to the floor again, this time unconscious. The demon grabbed Phoebe by the throat and lifted her off the floor.
"You killed my master," he said, sneering at her while he squeezed her neck.
"What are you talking about?" she managed to say. The demon looked in her eyes and saw that she wasn't the one that had killed Hasek. He tossed Phoebe into the wall and went to find who he was looking for.
"Okay, Piper, you just have the shoulders to go. Almost there," Price said. "Ready?"
Piper nodded her head, breathing heavily from exhaustion. Suddenly the demon appeared in the doorway.
"You!" he bellowed, pointing at Piper. "You killed my master."
Price turned and quickly threw him back with her power and then turned back to Piper. "Okay, Piper…"
Suddenly Piper thrust her hand up and Price heard an explosion behind her. She looked over her shoulder to see that the demon was no longer there. "That'll work," she said.
"All right," Price continued, turning back to Piper. "One, two, three, push!"
Phoebe and Cole returned together, looking dazed from the fight with the demon. They watched as Piper bore down. The baby was out moments later, and Price cleaned out the nose and mouth. The baby immediately started crying and everyone breathed a sigh of relief.
"Well, not like you didn't know already, but it's a girl," Price said. Then she looked over her shoulder at Phoebe and Cole.
They realized she wanted them to help and moved to do so. Phoebe grabbed a towel and Price set the baby in it. Cole grabbed scissors and handed them to Price.
"Um, well this is usually the father's job," Price said. She smiled at Leo and handed the scissors over. Leo took them and cut the cord. Then Price finished cleaning up the baby, whose wails sounded like music to Piper and Leo, assuring them that she was okay.
"What's her name?" Grams asked, smiling as she watched Price take care of her great-granddaughter.
Piper looked at Leo. "We hadn't even talked about that yet," Piper said.
"You said that when you went to the future her name was Melinda," Leo said.
"Yeah, but what about her middle name?" Piper asked.
Leo smiled, knowing exactly what Piper would want. "How about Prudence?"
Tears were in everyone's eyes as Price handed Piper her daughter. Piper said the name for everyone to hear and it sounded perfect, if not a little long. "Melinda Prudence Halliwell-Wyatt."
Price followed Cole and Phoebe, dragging Puck behind her. Darryl was behind them. Leo was with Piper in her hospital room. The group lined up along the viewing window for the hospital nursery: Cole, Phoebe, Price, Puck and Darryl. Price pointed to a baby in a pink blanket two rows away from the window.
"There's Melinda," she said excitedly. Everyone just stared at the beautiful little girl for a while.
"So, you delivered your niece…" Puck began, "…while a demon attacked?"
"Yeah, talk about intense," Phoebe said. "Nothing is boring at our house. You should've been at Piper and Leo's wedding."
Darryl, Phoebe and Cole all exchanged a look. Price knew she would hear the story eventually.
"So, you saw your first demon, Puck," Cole said, looking over the awestruck FBI agent. "What's your reaction?"
"Um, I don't know," he said. "I thought I'd be more scared."
"But…?" Price asked.
"But I wasn't," Puck said. "It was just like if I was facing a criminal."
"Well, this one didn't have a snake tongue," Darryl said, remembering the succubus.
Puck looked confused but then shrugged it off. He looked at Price and smiled. "You know, I really think I'm okay with all this."
Price smiled and put her arm around Puck. "You ain't seen nothing yet."
The others laughed while Puck looked worried. Then they all went back to looking at little Melinda, the beginning of the next generation of Warren witches.
"The child is born!" the Source bellowed in the cavern. The Oracle watched him pace in a rage. "You said that she would die at birth."
"The future is not always clear," the Oracle said.
"That child is my destruction. She must die," the Source said. "What does your crystal ball tell you about that?"
"That I cannot see," the Oracle said. "I can only see that times ahead will be turbulent. You will go to war with the Charmed Ones…personally."
"I will crush the Charmed Ones, the child," he said. "And anyone who stands in my way."
THE END