A Halloween Story
Written by: Shan (aka CharmedGrl4Ever)
Disclaimer: We don't own the Charmed Ones, Wyatt, Chris, Leo, Coop, Henry, Charlotte, Melinda, Eva, Sally, Cole, or any other characters I forgot to mention. We do, however, own Patricia, Paris, Parker, and Prue (and any others I neglected to mention here that are written in this fic) and would appreciate it if you didn't steal our characters without (A) asking our permission and (B) giving us the credit for them. Thank you!
This fanfic is a sidestory to go along with the virtual Charmed Sons' show Dark Destiny. The link for the site can be found on the profile page for this account.
"Settle down, everyone," Piper called to the kids scrambling in every which way. "So who's hungry from some specially baked ghost cookies?"
There was a chorus of "Me"s from just about every corner in the house, and the eldest Charmed One shook her head with an amused grin. Four kids tumbled over each other in their excitement to get to the platter of cookies Piper had places on the coffee table in the living room.
"Ah-ah," she said as Wyatt reached out to snatch a cookie off the plate. "Not yet, Wyatt, not until we're all settled down for the story."
"Story?" Chris echoed with a confused frown that wrinkled his features into an adorable expression. "What's the story about?"
"Now, if I told you," she replied, ruffling his hair affectionately, "it wouldn't be a surprise, would it?"
He shrugged with a mumbled, "I s'pose not," and sank onto the couch with his arms crossed to wait. He wanted those cookies as much as Wyatt did, and he wasn't in a very patient, generous mood. Plus, he knew Mommy wouldn't let him eat any of his candy tonight anyway; and he was tempted beyond anything to just go sneak into the cupboard where it was stored and take one or two of those luscious-looking sucking candies. But Mommy would figure it out; she always did.
In the meantime he attempted to wriggle out of his pirate costume, which was beginning to itch around the neck. Somewhere on his "Trick or Treat" trek, he'd lost his eye patch. Wyatt had teased him that a pirate without an eye patch wasn't much of a pirate at all because what pirates did anyone know who hadn't been in a huge fight that got their eye poked out?
"Oh really?" his Aunt Phoebe had smirked at his matter-of-fact words, remembering a time when she and her older sister had to go up against a whole crew of pirates to save their youngest sister from her looming death. She was about to die of old age when she was still in her twenties.
"Good," Piper stated as Wyatt, too, tore off his devil costume and flopped down on the sofa beside his younger brother. The two looked completely worn out after the long night they'd had.
Patricia and Prue waddled into the room, playing their duck costumes to perfection. Paige and Piper decided to dress them alike, wondering if anyone might mistake them for twins. They were together so often that Piper was starting to believe it herself.
"Mommy!" Prue squealed, dropping the "duck" act and running straight into her mother's open arms. "Mommy, me an' Patricia got lots an' lots of candy!"
"Oh, you did, did you?" When Patricia gave an energetic nod in agreement, Piper chuckled lightly and hugged her daughter to her chest. "How exciting." Standing, she held out a hand to Patricia, who took it, following her aunt and cousin to the couch. "Now, everyone, sit on the floor," she said.
With a frown, she turned to Leo, who was leaning against the doorframe that led to the stairs. "Where is everyone?" she wondered, and he could only shrug.
"Phoebe's in the bathroom, and Paige is changing Paris. That's all I know," he replied apologetically.
"Phoebe isn't in the bathroom," Phoebe stated as she waddled into the room, looking more like a duck than either of her nieces had. Her pregnant stomach protruded in front of her, forcing her to walk so strangely that Wyatt and Chris burst into fits of giggles every time they saw her. This time was no different.
"Hey, watch it," she warned the boys jokingly. "Don't forget, Christmas is just around the corner. I happen to have met Santa, and he wouldn't be too happy if I told him you boys were on the 'naughty' list this year."
Wyatt rolled his eyes at the overused threat, but Chris's eyes widened, having only heard it a few rare times before. He looked genuinely worried, and the laugh died on his lips.
"Sorry," he said, abashed.
"I'm kidding, Chris," she chuckled. "Relax." She plopped down onto the couch, wriggling in between in two nephews. They voiced their protests as she squashed each of them beneath her, but she pretended not to hear them.
"Aunt Phoebe!" Chris yelled, laughing furiously, "Aunt Phoebe, you're—sitting—on—us!"
She looked down at her nephew, eyes wide in mock surprise, and innocently asked, "Did you say something, Chris?"
By then the two boys were too far into their world of giggles and laughter to reply. Blinded by tears and left breathless from laughs, all Chris could do was vainly try to shove her off of him, a feat which quickly proved impossible.
"Phoebe," Piper sighed with a smile, "would you please stop squashing my boys with your daughter?"
"Yes, Mom," Phoebe joked, standing up and letting the boys breathe. She winked at Wyatt, who attempted to wink back but ended up blinking forcefully instead. She laughed aloud, and he blushed with that mischievous, little grin he always seemed to wear so confidently.
Coop entered the room just then, wrapping his arms around Phoebe's shoulders and pulling her into a passionate kiss.
Chris clapped his hands over his eyes and screamed, "Ah, it burns!" while Wyatt ducked his head and agreed. What was worse than an aunt and uncle making out right in front of their faces? Nothing, that was what.
'Except for Mom and Dad making out in front of us,' Chris pointed out telepathically to his older brother. Wyatt absentmindedly nodded in agreement, not even noticing that Chris hadn't spoken aloud. They were so used to speaking in each other's head that it was stranger to hear the other's voice when it wasn't telepathically. Chris had barely started speaking three years ago, and he was still much more fluent when speaking mentally as opposed to out loud.
"Good point," Wyatt replied, scrunching his nose in disgust at the thought. "But I so didn't need that mental image, Chris," he complained. Chris snickered.
The four adults exchanged glances but said nothing. With all the peculiarities that had been through, this was still odd to them. It was hard for them to accept that the boys could have (and were having, apparently) an entire conversation without anyone realizing. It was better than being able to speak a language no one else understood; at least then you knew they were talking. Here – unless one of them would respond aloud like Wyatt had just done – no one would ever notice a thing.
"All right, where's Paige? The cookies taste the best when they're right out of the oven. Paige!" she called, her eyes raised to the ceiling. "Get your butt downstairs or we'll start without you!"
"Coming!" came Paige's response. A few moments later she tiptoed into the room, two babies slung over her shoulder. One – Parker – was already asleep, but Paris was steadfastly refusing to let his dreams overtake him. Paige bounced him on one hip as she handed Parker to Coop.
"Thanks," she murmured gratefully, obviously exhausted. "One's enough for me to handle at once." She shook her head and transferred the boy to her other arm, trying to work out the knots that had already developed. "Especially when that one is Paris," she added as an afterthought. "I swear, Parker is an angel; she falls asleep without a problem. Everything that Parker isn't, though, Paris makes up for by having that trait tenfold."
"So," she said, her eyes glimmering with mirth, "where are those cookies?"
Even the ten-month-old baby in her arms understood the meaning of cookie, and his ears perked up at the word. He looked up at Paige hopefully and mimicked with a high-pitched, "Cookie?"
"Oh, all right," she laughed. "It's only fair – it being Halloween and all." As Piper handed her a cookie, she offered it to Paris, who snatched it up instantly and slobbered all over it like the messy, little child he was. She chuckled, shaking her head at his antics.
"Okay, one cookie until everyone's sitting down," Piper said, caving as two little boys and two girls hopped around her in excitement. If she was giving the baby, who was younger than the four of them, they proclaimed, she also had to give them. It was only fair, after all.
There was a unanimous, "Yay!" as seven small hands (Patricia, just like her father Henry, had big enough hands already that she could grab enough cookies with one hand to satisfy her cravings) reached out to grab as many cookies as they could.
"Hey!" Piper protested, pulling the plate out of their reach, "I said one!"
"Aw, Piper," Phoebe laughed, "Give it up. You're not going to have order on Halloween night."
Resigned to her fate, Piper shook her head in exasperation but replaced the platter of cookies on the table so that everyone could take – or, more accurately, grab – some. The moment she did so, the four cousins sank to the floor in front of the coffee table, hands darting out to grab a cookie every once in a while. They turned attentively to their Aunt Phoebe, who was sitting in front of them on the couch.
"Is everyone ready to listen?" Phoebe wondered, pondering seemingly to herself. Chris's head nodded vigorously, his long, dark locks bouncing on top of his head. He hated surprises to the point where he would probably merely walk out of the room if suddenly everyone yelled, "Surprise!"
Whenever he mentioned hating surprises, Paige would roll her eyes in disbelief and moan, "Where did Piper go wrong with you, Chris?" Piper would snatch a dishtowel off the kitchen rack and swat her sister with it, claiming there was nothing wrong with her middle child. He was unique, and that was just fine with her – thank you very much.
"Well, I guess Chris is your spokesperson, then?" she guessed with a laugh. "All right. Now, I want you to imagine us all about… Oh, say, ten years ago."
"But, Aunt Phoebe," Prue interrupted. "I wasn't borned ten years ago!"
"Yeah, and I wasn't borned ten years ago either!" Patricia realized in despair. Would she still be allowed to listen to the story?
"None of us were, stupid," Wyatt mocked his little sister. She bit her lip, tears springing to her eyes.
"Wyatt!" Piper admonished, and Wyatt immediately hung his head, blushing. The pallid, crimson flush spread across his face, staining his cheeks.
"Sorry," he mumbled, knowing his mother expected that of him.
"Anyway," Phoebe interjected before the group could get more rowdy and out of hand, "I meant picture me and both your mommies ten years ago. We used to fight demons all the time —"
"You still do," Chris pointed out dubiously. Always the skeptical one, he wondered where she was getting at; what was the point in this little "exercise." Chris thought everything was about training and practice.
"Shoosh," she hushed him. "I'm trying to tell a story here. And I know we still fight demons, but back then we fought more than we fight now!" There was a collective gasp of shock. More demons than they fought now? Was that even possible?
She heard Paige chuckle across the room and shot her an amused glance to show that she, too, found their innocence adorable.
"Anyway," she continued for the second time. "Aunt Piper and I —"
"But Mommy —"
"Patricia!" Paige scolded in disbelief. Were they ever going to get this story told? "I'm not in this story, all right? I wasn't there that day." Which was true, she mentally excused. "Now listen to the story or I'll take you upstairs to bed."
Immediately, Patricia fell silent.
"All right," Phoebe muttered in exasperation. "Is everyone ready to listen now?" Four heads nodded contritely, their lips tightly pursed together as if to stop anymore words at their formation.
"Anyway." She paused to see if anyone else would interrupt, but the kids were now silent – besides for Paris, who was busy gurgling delightfully to himself, his mind still on the soggy cookie in his hands. "We used to have another sister named Prue." The unspoken question of What happened to her? hung in the air, but no one dared interrupt again. "It was Halloween, and we were all dressed up in the best costumes you could possibly imagine."
From her seat beside Leo Piper smirked. Oh yeah – the best, she thought. Phoebe wore a costume that would make her unrecognizable to the growing baby inside of her, and she herself had worn a fairy costume, something that her daughter at this age would want to wear! Memorable. Definitely memorable.
"Now, we had killed these two demons a while before – Grimlocks, they're called. The thing is on Halloween, a demon that knows how can come back from the dead. And they knew how. So…"
"You mean… they came back?" Wyatt gasped in wonder, momentarily forgetting to be silent. "So does that mean any demon can come back tonight?"
"Oh, no," Piper quickly assured. "We used a 'Power of Three' spell to seal off that realm about five years ago."
Wyatt heaved a huge sigh of relief. Still, he glanced around the room a bit nervously – in case one could have slipped through the cracks of the incantation. After all, there were never guarantees, even with magic.
"So they came and attacked. And do you know how Grimlocks attack?"
Chris's hand shot up into the air as if he were sitting in a classroom. He knew absolutely everything there was to magic (so he claimed anyway); he prided himself in that fact. "I know!" he exclaimed. "They may your eyes broke and use your eyesight to look for good people and kill 'em!"
"That's right," Phoebe said proudly, while Piper – his mother – raised an eyebrow. She knew he could do that, but it was still weird to hear a six-year-old boy (her six-year-old boy) spew information not unlike a textbook. "And they were pissed —"
After an incredulous, angry gasp of, "Phoebe!" from Piper, she quickly amended, "Mad. They were mad at us for killing them off obviously. So they knocked on the door —"
"Since when do demons use doors?" Wyatt snorted.
"Okay, you know what?" Paige said irritably. "We're reenacting that no talking rule."
Phoebe let out a small laugh and continued, "Yes, I know it's strange; but they did knock on the door. I think I answered it?"—here she shot a questioning glance at Piper, who shrugged—"And they attacked. Piper froze them… What, Prue?" She shook her head, a smile tugging at her lips, as she noticed Prue's hand waving impatiently in the air. At this rate they'd finish the story next Halloween.
"Why didn't Mommy just blow them up?" she asked inquisitively.
"Mommy didn't have that power yet, sweetie," Phoebe explained gently. "She couldn't blow things up until a few months or weeks later. I forget how long." She simply shrugged, brushing away the confusion with a flippant flick of her wrist.
"She froze them, and then all of a sudden a giant portal opened. It was humongoginormous, and it sucked us into it like… like a black hole or something."
"Excuse me," Leo interrupted, sounding highly affronted. "I'll have you know, I tried to warn you. Remember? I orbed in and then the portal appeared, but I did try."
"Uh huh," Paige laughed. "I'm sure you did, Leo. Unfortunately, it's not necessarily the thought that counts in this family."
"Well, sometimes it is," Piper reminded with a chuckle, referring to Wyatt and Chris's odd tendency to speak to each other in their heads. Wyatt spoke aloud more often that Chris did because that was the "language" he used before Chris was even born, but they both used it pretty often now.
Paige rolled her eyes, immediately understanding Piper's meaning in the way she tilted her head slightly to her two sons, who were lying flat on their stomachs beside each other. Their heads were slanted in the exact same position to stare at Phoebe eagerly, and Piper couldn't help but think, I need to get a camera.
"Excuse me!" Phoebe proclaimed hotly. "If you guys don't be quiet while I'm talking, how do you expect them to stay quiet?"
"Simple," Paige explained, an impish glint in her eyes. "It's a known fact that all parents are hypocrites." She laughed at her own, lame joke and said, "If you'd grown up with someone other than Grams, you would have figured that out long ago."
"Right," came the amused yet dubious reply. "Can we get back to the history lesson, please?" Piper cast a worried glance at Wyatt, who absolutely hated history with every fiber of his being, and hoped he wouldn't decide not to listen anymore.
However, the oldest child of the Charmed lineage was enraptured with the story and would no more decide not to listen than he would stop eating those cookies he now held clenched in one fist.
"Getting back," Phoebe said for the umpteenth time that night. She stared at Leo pointedly as she resumed, "Leo started to warn us"—he nodded in satisfaction—"but was too late, and we got sucked into this huge portal."
Wyatt's eyes widened as he whispered, "Where did it take you?"
"To the past," Phoebe responded with a smile, enjoying her hold on her oldest nephew. She gently rested an arm over her protruding stomach and continued, "Of course, we didn't know that until later. All of sudden, these people on giant horses"—she waved her hands wildly to emphasize her point—"came out of nowhere —"
"You mean like the Headless Horseman?" Chris asked curiously, remembering reading in a book somewhere that the Headless Horseman being able to make itself appear anywhere.
"No," Phoebe corrected apologetically. "They didn't 'appear out of nowhere' in that sort of way. I just meant that we weren't expecting them. It wasn't magical, though." She glanced at her older sister.
Piper's eyes – dancing with laughter – seemed to say, Watch the expressions you use because most of them will be taken literally. Not for the first time Phoebe wondered if perhaps she and her sisters held the same telepathic link that Wyatt and Chris possessed – albeit subconscious.
"So they chased after us, calling us witches." She stopped this time, anticipating the next interruption.
This time it was Patricia who cried, "You used magic 'front of mortals!" The Charmed Ones had seemingly just broken the Halliwells' cardinal rules, rules that had been engrained in each of the children's minds since before they could even talk: No exposing magic.
"No," Phoebe patiently explained, "I don't know how they knew about us. They just did, I guess. They knew all about magic back in the past."
"Right," Chris enthusiastically added. "Like during the witch trials!"
"Exactly," Phoebe replied, not telling him how accurate he actually was. "The first thing we did, of course, was run like— was run away as fast as we could so that they wouldn't catch us. Because – do you know what they used to do to witches that they caught in those days?"
"Phoebe, don't —" Piper warned, not wanting her children (especially little Prue) to hear this at such a young, untainted age.
However, she was cut off with Chris's excited, knowledgeable exclamation of, "They stuck their heads in a rope and killed them!"
Leave it to a boy like Chris to get so excited over gory death. No doubt Wyatt influenced him in that respect because Piper and Leo both knew Chris was one of the most kind and sensitive boys they'd ever had the pleasure to meet (and raise).
Patricia scrunched up her nose and muttered, "That's so gross, Chris!"
"It's true!" he protested indignantly as if that were some sort of consolation to her.
"Right," Phoebe said quickly off of Piper's livid expression. This wasn't going as planned. "Well, we didn't want that to happen to us, so —"
"Hey, Aunt Phoebe," Prue interrupted again, and Phoebe heaved a loud sigh. This was never going to end, was it? "Why didn't Mommy just freeze them?"
Phoebe's brow furrowed at the thought. "Good question," she murmured, staring directly at Piper as she spoke her next words. "Why didn't you?"
Piper rolled her eyes incredulously and said, "Are you kidding? You expect me to remember why I didn't freeze a bunch of horses over ten years ago? I don't know – I panicked. You remember how I used to be back then; I'd freak out over the slightest, little thing."
A laugh emitted from Paige's throat, though she tried to cover it up with a fake cough. "You panicked?" she enquired in disbelief. "I'd have paid to see that."
Rolling her eyes at her baby sister's complete and utter immaturity, she lobbed a throw pillow at her. Paige simply flicked her wrist, and the small, fluffy pillow orbed sideways, smacking Phoebe in the side of the head instead.
"Excuse me!" Phoebe admonished in disbelief. How old were her sisters again? Even Prue and Patricia were more mature than they were acting at the moment. "No magic fights allowed in the manor. Now – can we please get back to the story again?"
"Right," Paige mumbled, blushing despite herself. Patricia giggled at her mommy's reaction, and Prue laughed quietly along with her. Aunt Paige could be so silly at times.
"Okay, so we ran and hid behind some bushes or something"—Wyatt flashed Chris a significant look, and Chris snickered (Phoebe wished she could hear what Wyatt had said)—"and Aunt Prue figured that we were probably in the past."
"You mean you didn't know?" Wyatt murmured in wonder. "Why didn't you just… I don't know – ask?"
"Right," Phoebe could help but snort. "'Hi, mister, before you kill me, could you just tell me what year we're in?' Because that wouldn't be suspicious." Chris smirked but said nothing – at least nothing out loud. "But we knew basically what year we were in based on the clothes the witch-hunters were wearing.
"We were discussing our next move when this guy came out of the bushes," she continued, eyes alight and cheerful. "His name was Micah, I think; and he was one of the witch-hunters."
"Did you vanquish him?" Wyatt asked breathlessly.
Phoebe shook her head. "No, Prue stopped Piper from freezing him; and then he saved our lives – twice as a matter of fact."
"Yeah," Piper acquiesced, her eyes twinkling, "Prue had a little crush on him."
Chris snickered and mockingly teased, "Like Prue and Jeremiah."
"Do not!" Prue cried in horror, her cheeks flushing a dark shade of red. "I do not!"
"Guys, guys," Piper sighed. And who was this Jeremiah Chris mentioned anyway? "Let's not do this now, all right? Phoebe, continue."
"So we were about to try to find the portal to take us home when someone covered our heads with bags! All we heard was a young woman tell us not to worry and that they wouldn't hurt us if we weren't evil."
"Evil?" Wyatt laughed. "Didn't they know you were the Charmed Ones?"
"No, Wyatt, we were in the past. Remember? It was even before there was a prophecy about us even existing. They weren't sure if we could be trusted or not."
"Although," Piper muttered grumpily, "you'd think – since they were the ones who summoned us…" Her voice trailed off, and Phoebe rolled her eyes. She'd have thought that after ten years Piper would have gotten over whatever grudge she held against those witches.
"Yeah, well," Phoebe shot back, "they probably saved our lives. They took us in when we had no clue what we were doing." Her eyes strayed to the four, curious children; and she quickly said, "But that's completely off topic. They took off the bags when we got there, and a witch named Eva explained what was going on. You see that stuff hanging over the door?" she asked, pointing to the front door.
Since as long as anyone (but possibly Wyatt and Chris) could remember, the different assortments of flowers had dangled just above the doorway. It wasn't as much as Eva's had been, but there were a few powerful sprigs suspended from the top. Aunt Piper had always said it protected them from evil. Wyatt had refused to believe it, even after Chris proved it as fact from some giant, magical encyclopedia of sorts.
"That's a combination of cinquefoil, nettle, periwinkle, and some pimpernel flowers, too. Those are all for protection," Phoebe explained. After many long, exhausting years of Piper pounding the information into her head in every spare moment ("Potions are important!" she would cry to justify her actions), Phoebe wouldn't easily forget the uses for many plants and herbs. "Eva taught us about that."
"Yeah, and that handy, little doorway has saved us from countless demons trying to sweet-talk their way into this house," Paige quipped, gently rocking Paris, who was just beginning to fall asleep.
Finally, she thought, heaving a mental sigh.
"She taught us how to tap into the magic of nature, the magic that's always around us no matter where we are." Phoebe's expression and tone dropped a note, becoming serious, as she repeated the lesson. "Remember that, you guys. If you ever – for whatever reason – lose your magic, don't forget that there's still magic around you. There's still magic everywhere that you can feed off of, that you can use to aid you."
They nodded solemnly, but inside Chris's head Wyatt smirked. 'I'm too powerful to lose my powers,' he laughed, and Chris had to agree. After all, Wyatt was the most powerful Witchlighter (or Whitelighter or witch for that matter) Chris had ever known, rivaling even the Charmed One's powers.
All right, perhaps he wasn't that powerful… yet. However, Chris had no doubt that, with time, his brother would become the most powerful being to walk the face of the earth.
"Where was I?" Phoebe questioned, her mind racing to catch up to where everyone had carried it. "Oh, right," she absently remarked. "So they took the bags off our head once we got past their doorway, and Eva was standing there smiling like… like Halloween came early or something." She grinned just thinking about Eva's elated expression, which she would never forget even after all these years. She looked relieved and in awe at the same time. Her saviors had come!
"She gave us a change of clothes since"—Phoebe snorted—"well, it was kind of hard to fit in wearing our Halloween costumes. Since we were all dressed up as witches and fairies and stuff, she thought that witches didn't have to hide their true colors in the future.
"When I asked, she told us we were in the year 1670"—Chris let out an amazed, "Wow!"—"and then we asked her why we were there, what they needed our help for, you know? She said she needed us to help save a baby who was supposed to be born that night, and Piper made some crack about being powerless —"
"I did not make a 'crack about being powerless,' Phoebe," Piper protested in indignation, halfway through reaching for a cookie from the plate.
"Oh no?" Phoebe snickered, "What would you call it, then?"
"All I did was ask – if they could bring us back in time – why couldn't they save one teensy weensy little baby without us? I figured they'd have enough power to do that if they could bring us through time, but she told us it was just the power of All Hallow's Eve that brought us back —"
"Who's telling the story here?" Phoebe grumbled. Paige rolled her eyes as her sisters bickered, deciding it was best not to cut in and just let it ride itself out. Besides, she was pretty sure they weren't arguing angrily.
"All Hallow's Eve?" Chris wondered in confusion, his voice breaking past the older sisters' squabbling. Ever the curious, little learner, he asked, "What's that?"
As Piper opened her mouth, Phoebe shot her an intense glare, effectively silencing her older sister. Smugly, she answered, "Actually, Halloween is really called All Hallow's Eve. It's the most special day for any witch; it's the day we can tap into the source of all power and use it to its full potential." Her eyes were ablaze and excited as she retold what she and her sisters had long ago learned. This was why she wanted children – to be able to pass on the information she was taught. Gently and lovingly, she touched the palm of her hand to her stomach, attempting to feel her baby wriggle inside of her.
"We got really freaked out, of course, when Eva said she couldn't send us back."
"If she couldn't send you back," Wyatt demanded almost in annoyance, "why did they summon you in the first place? That was very fair."
"They assumed that we could," Piper replied, knowingly quoting her exact words from long ago. Her tone didn't still hold the same sarcasm and disbelief it did back then, though. Now a touch of amusement was laced through it instead.
"Right. Anyway, Piper checked her watch to tell Prue what time it was, and Eva became even surer that we had such powerful magic."
"Why?" Chris chuckled, "Did you use magic to buy the watch, Mom?"
"No, but they thought I made it through magic because they didn't have watches in those days." She smiled, remembering her response to Eva's amazement and fervent believe that she must possess great magic: Just a good credit card.
"Yeah," Phoebe added, her mind obviously moving along the same line as her sister's, "and they didn't have credit cards either."
This forced a gasp out of Prue and Patricia, while Wyatt and Chris merely rolled their eyes. 'Girls,' they simultaneously muttered inside each other's head.
"They told us the mother of the baby was taken captive," Phoebe continued, not noticing the twin smirks on her nephews' faces. "She gave us a potion to put the guards to sleep and then took us to the place the mother was being kept.
"We tried to go to the building, but the talismans —"
"Talismans?" Patricia inquired. "What are those?"
"We don't really use them anymore, sweetie," Paige explained, "Because they really don't hold that much power nowadays." She spoke in a hushed tone as she gently lowered herself onto the chair beside her sister's, never stopping her rocking motion as her little baby began to snore.
Coop, who had been silent thus far, quietly murmured, "Uh, Phoebe… There's an emergency…" He didn't need to elaborate; it wasn't her business to know who's love life was about to go up in smoke, and she didn't have any interest in finding out. Although she was disappointed he wouldn't be able to stay to see the kids off to bed, she knew his job was important.
As he stood up and handed a sleeping Parker to her other uncle, Phoebe blew Coop a kiss, smiling at him lovingly. He patted Wyatt and Chris's heads as he walked by them and said, "You all be quiet and listen to Aunt Phoebe finish the story, okay?"
"Okay," chorused the only four still awake. Their attention returned to their aunt when Coop vanished in a large plume of pinkish purplish smoke. Patricia sighed in delight, and Prue – despite growing up with two brothers – also thought the sight was beautiful. Prue had many different facets to her, the largest one being her tomboy side. However, when with her cousin Patricia, who was a girly as anyone could get, she reverted to her girlish side, the side she never showed when "getting down and dirty" with her brothers.
As she watched Coop go, Paige sighed, thinking of her own husband, who was on duty tonight. She wished he were here with them, but she knew not to interfere with his job just as he didn't meddle when she was busy trying to save the world from demons every other day. He was saving the world in a different way, and she had to respect that.
"Now where were we?" Phoebe questioned, having a hard time continuously losing her place in the story.
Piper helped her out. "Talismans," she supplied helpfully, absently caressing her youngest niece's soft, baby head as Leo rocked her back and forth in his arms.
"Thanks. Anyway, the people there saw that we were blocked and started going crazy that there were witches amongst them. All that prejudice. The witch-hunters were coming towards us. Prue and Piper both tried to use their powers, but nothing happened. Apparently, we had lost our powers on the way back."
"And you didn't know it before," Wyatt realized, "because Mom didn't try to freeze that guy back there."
"That's right," Phoebe replied, eyes twinkling. "Eva got shot in the arm, and we had to run for it."
"She must have been pissed that your powers didn't work," Chris mused.
"Chris," Piper chided. "Language."
Chris rolled his eyes, ignoring her ('like she never says stuff like that,' he told Wyatt).
"Exactly," Phoebe remarked. "She called us 'powerless frauds,' if memory serves."
'Which it usually doesn't,' Wyatt impishly informed his younger brother. 'You know, with her being so old and forgetting stuff all the time and all that.'
Chris burst out laughing, and Leo frowned. He didn't want to know what one of them had just said. "Chris…" he started warningly, but Chris protested. Instead, Leo turned to his other son, eyebrows raised. "What did you say, Wyatt?" he demanded seriously.
"Me?" Wyatt asked, the picture of innocence. His parents didn't buy his 'it wasn't me' act for a single moment; but they didn't want to waste time pressing the issue.
"Just watch your mouth, young man," Piper warned her boy threateningly. "Otherwise it's off to bed for you."
Wyatt dropped the act and nodded contritely, though he winked at Chris – who stifled a giggle – when Piper and Leo looked away.
"We convinced her not to give up on us yet and told her that if she could help us find our powers, we'd be able to save the baby and its mother."
"But how do you find your powers when, technically, they weren't really lost in the first place?" Chris questioned skeptically. "They were just… gone."
"Maybe, but they still existed. Powers don't just vanish; they always have to go somewhere. In this case since we traveled to a time where we weren't born yet, they went into the cosmos. We could get them back… if we knew how."
"So she taught you how?" Prue asked, and Phoebe nodded.
"She was a very smart lady," Patricia observed.
Again, Phoebe nodded, chuckling at her niece's obvious comment. "To put it mildly," she responded. "Anyway, we tapped into all of magic through nature. She showed us so many different techniques, techniques we'll teach you when the time comes to do so."
"She taught us about flying broomsticks," Piper smirked, and Paige laughed outright at the mere thought. What a strange story this was turning out to be; she was just as intrigued as the children, having never heard this before.
Simply rolling her eyes, Phoebe ignored the jab – it wasn't her fault she'd asked about the stereotype; what was she supposed to think? "Well, it turned out that a flying broomstick saved our lives, right? So can we stop laughing at the empath, please?"
Piper snickered.
"So – a witch named Sally took us back to the place where Charlotte was kept —"
"Was that the baby's name?" Prue asked.
"Oh, sorry, no – that was the mommy's name. Sally took us back there, and she gave us some tips on how to stop the talismans. When we were there, we were found out again —"
"Thanks to Phoebe and her Cole obsession," Piper muttered in an undertone. Suddenly, Phoebe wasn't too feeling too bad that Coop was here; in fact, she was downright grateful. Sure, being a Cupid, he knew all of her past loves; but she still didn't exactly like to bring it up in front of him. She loved him now and had no regrets about marrying him. She never did.
"Yeah, well," she mumbled, burning with embarrassment. "I was young and stupid, okay? But that's besides the point. We were caught and hanged —"
In a flash Prue was in tears, sobbing her heart out at the mere reference. Aunt Paige had once mentioned witches being hanged, and Prue couldn't bear the thought of some of her ancestors dying in such a painful manner.
Shocked at the harsh reaction, Piper jumped up from her chair and pulled little Prue onto her lap, whispering comforting words in her ear. "It's all right, honey. We were fine; let Aunt Phoebe go on with the story – you'll see. Everything turned out okay in the end. We're still here, aren't we?"
"N-not Aunt P-Prue!" the girl bawled.
"She didn't die there either, though," Piper assured, raising an eyebrow at Paige. Shrugging, the youngest Charmed One blushed, indicating that it had been she who put terrible ideas into the toddler's head.
It took a few moments for Prue to calm down, and by that time Patricia was lying on her stomach, eyelids fluttering up and down as she fought hard to remain awake. Prue cuddled into her mother's arms, drying her tears on her shirt, and turned back to watch Aunt Phoebe.
"You okay, honey?" she asked, and Prue nodded, sniffling. "Good." She gave her niece an encouraging smile before continuing. "The good news is," she said cheerfully, "a man saved us. Micah. Do you remember we told you about him?"
"So he really was good?" Wyatt said in amazement. "That's awesome."
"Yeah, and he cut us down and let us go." She purposely neglected to mention the fact that Micah was caught in the end and murdered in front of everyone. They still had no idea how he'd been found out, especially since all the other witch hunters had already ridden ahead before he returned to their aid. It was still a mystery to them, one they would never be able to solve.
"Since they thought we were dead, we were able to find Charlotte without them knowing," Phoebe added. "First we had to convince her that we really were there to help her, and then we got her out of there as fast as we could.
"Halfway back to Eva's hidden cave, her water broke —"
Innocently, Patricia wondered, "Did you buy her a new one?"
Unable to control themselves, Piper and Phoebe cracked up, laughing so hard their sides cramped. Paige grinned, too, but had enough self control not to embarrass her daughter further. "That means she was going to have her baby," she patiently explained, thinking Patricia was way too young to be hearing about any of this yet.
"We couldn't get back in time and had to deliver the baby right there on the grass."
Both Wyatt and Chris's face contorted into disgusted expressions, but neither of theirs even came close to matching Piper's. Her face was twisted into the most obscene expression as she muttered, "Yeah, and you both decided I would get to deliver the baby just because I was going to have a daughter in future years." She hugged her baby girl tighter in her arms, squeezing her close as she spoke.
"Well… it was true, wasn't it? And I'd say you did a pretty good job if you ask me," Phoebe defended as Paige wrinkled her nose. Thinking of Piper trying to deliver a baby was just not something within her abilities. The eldest Charmed One was certainly no doctor.
"The witch hunters were coming after us, though," Phoebe hissed, her excitement growing as she came to the climax of her story. "We had no way of protecting ourselves or Charlotte from their bullets. So I decided to use a little stereotype to scare them. I took a broom and flew through the sky to scare them off." Her arm shot across her chest to prove her point, and Prue gasped. Her aunt had flown on a broomstick; how cool was that?
"The baby was a healthy, beautiful, baby girl; and she was… It was just amazing," Phoebe breathed, and even Piper – who had seen the blood and gore of the birth – had to agree. It was nothing short of a tiny, bundled miracle.
"When we got back to Eva, the baby was wrapped up tight and given back to her mother." Phoebe smiled and finished, "Charlotte said, 'We'll always be grateful. Won't we, Melinda?'"
She paused dramatically, waiting for the penny to drop so to speak. It didn't take long for Wyatt and Chris's glittering eyes to light up in recognition. "You mean —" the both started at the same exact time.
"Yup," she finished triumphantly, "We helped deliver our ancestor and the start of our line, Melinda Warren."
There was a collective, "Whoa," from the four children as their eyes widened. Even Patricia, who had been rubbing her tired eyes all night, seemed to forget her fatigue as she leaned forward, eyes wide open.
As Phoebe climbed to her feet, she grunted and staggered over to her sisters. "All right," she sighed, "I think it's time for everyone to go to bed."
There were cries of protest all around, but Piper and Paige rounded up their children and put them to sleep on by one. Wyatt and Chris were sharing a room so that the twins could sleep in Chris's room for the time being. Patricia was sharing a room with Prue, who was sleeping on the mattress dragged up from the basement. Paige and Phoebe would share the guest room since neither of their husbands seemed to be coming home that night.
Wyatt and Chris lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. Neither of them was talking, and neither needed to. Each knew what the other was thinking, even without their special link.
Finally, unsure, Chris thought, 'Hey, Wy…'
Already half asleep, Wyatt murmured, "Yeah?"
'Do you think that story was true? I mean Aunt Phoebe made it sound like it was, but…' The thought trailed off, and he wondered whether Wyatt had heard or if he had already fallen asleep.
'Nah,' Wyatt whispered, laughing quietly out loud. 'It was too crazy to be true – even for this family.'
Chris nodded wearily as he drifted off to sleep. 'Yeah. Yeah – too crazy,' he echoed. Soon, they were both sound asleep, dreaming of witches and witch hunts and babies and broomsticks.
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