In A Most Unusual Way

Chapter Ten: They Did The Time Warp. Again.

There were ten seconds of complete silence before Prue spoke.

"Who are you and why did you bring us here?"

"I'm your sister!" Paige exclaimed. "And you guys weren't supposed to come here!"

"Where is 'here'?" asked Piper.

"Minnesota. 2007." Paige paused. "What year are you guys from?"

"2001," Phoebe answered.

That was the last thing Paige heard before she fainted dead away.

XXX

"So if C equals...uh...ten, that what does B equal?"

"Seven," drawled Jenna Frampson, the lone freshman in geometry class.

"And how do you know that?" Cole asked.

"Because the formula is A plus B equals C, and it says that A is three, so three plus ten is seven." Jenna rolled her eyes. "I think we covered this in seventh grade."

"Actually," Johanna piped up, "I read that this is a very sophisticated new type being developed by the Board of Transcontinental Education, Subgroup Sampsonite."

"The who?"

Johanna shrugged. "My brother's on the committee."

"Brother?" Cole repeated. "You don't have a--"

"I have a question about the slope intercept formula," Johanna said hurriedly, shooting him a surreptitious glare.

"Hey," Jenna said. "What's your name?"

"Johanna."

"Not you." She pointed to Cole. "Your name."

"I'm Mr. Turn...what?" Cole asked Johanna, who was making frantic gestures. She shook her head pointedly. "No? Okay. I'm Mr. McMah--"

Johanna coughed loudly.

"I'm Mr. Tr--"

The coughing turned to hacking.

"Mr. von D-"

Wheezing.

"Are you all right?"

"This is Mr. Hansen," Johanna said through gasps. "He's got some memory problems."

"Hansen?" Cole looked at her strangely. "Where's that from?"

"Hey, about the assignment from yesterday," said Rex Niles, "did we actually have to have it done? Because mine's kinda at my grandmother's house in Minneapolis."

Cole didn't get a chance to answer that question, because the bell rang and the room cleared out faster than it would have if a bomb was set off.

"Nice going, Mr. Amnesia," Johanna growled.

"No one would have recognized 'Turner.'"

"Oh yeah? I know for a fact one-fourth of these people watch Charmed. Let's not get too caught up in the hick Midwestern village thing."

"Mr. Turner?" a voice crowed from the loudspeaker. "You have a phone call on pickup sixty-one."

He picked up the phone on the desk. "Hello?"

Phoebe's voice came through the phone lines shrilly. "Cole? You and Johanna have gotta get home now."

"Why? What happened?"

"I'll explain when you get here. Let's just say that Paige is never ever going to make a potion again."

"For the last time," a voice that sounded suspiciously like Phoebe's, "who is Paige?"

"You get that?" Phoebe asked Cole. "Get here. Fast."

Cole hung up and turned to Johanna."Can you turn your coughing into a full-blown cold?"

XXX

Johanna pushed the door open to the house. "All right. This had better be good, because I'm gonna miss a killer chem test and a voice lesson and oh my God, what have you done?"

In her kitchen, there were two Phoebes, two Pipers, another Cole, a Prue, and a very pale Paige. "One month ago this home had no charming people and now it has..." She counted. "Eight?"

"I can fix it," Paige promised. "I was making a potion and added the wrong stuff and then...wham." She gestured to the younger version of the Charmed Ones.

"This is nuts," said the older Piper. "Now we have to send all of us back to two different places. And where the hell are we all gonna sleep?"

"Are you stuck on horomonal?" the older Phoebe questioned. "I swear, you're like the tempermental Italian grandmother I never wanted."

"I don't think the baby likes the new universe. It's making me all wonky."

"Baby?" repeated the younger Piper. "You're--I'm--we're pregnant? Why didn't anybody tell me this?"

"Are you blind?"

Both Coles stuck their fingers in their mouths and whistled. All six Halliwell sisters clamped their hands over their ears.

"Thank you," the older Cole said. "Now. For matters of simplicity, we have to work out what to call everyone. Piper, are you married yet?"

"Duh."

"Not you."

"Ever since a couple of weeks ago," the other Piper responded, casting a fearful glance at herself

"Then we'll call you Mrs. Wyatt."

The newly christened matron wrinkled her nose. "Why's the other me get to keep her name?"

"Because I'm older than you," said Piper.

"You're not calling me Mrs. Wyatt. That makes absolutely no sense. I'll be..."

"Pipita," Johanna said. "Like they called Eva Peron Evita: 'little Eva.' She'll be 'little Piper.'"

"Works for me," both Pipers said.

"We'll call the other me Belthazor. And Phoebe..."

"I've got one for the younger Phoebe!" Johanna raised her hand. "Toby."

"That's a little out there," said Paige.

"It stands for Tolerable Phoebe."

Phoebe snorted. "That's nice."

"And you're Mother Theresa."

"May I ask why future me wasn't included in this little spell of yours?" Prue asked Paige.

Everyone exchanged glances. Had this been a musical, the words Future Consequences would have been spelled out in neon script and a chorus line would have sang a catchy little tune about leaving the past in peace as not to impede the present and screw up the future. But even Johanna's life wasn't that weird.

"I was ranting," Paige began slowly, "and only the people in the rant got caught up. You weren't, so you didn't do the time warp. Sorry."

"No biggie. I don't think one universe could handle one of me."

Crisis averted, Johanna said to herself. Sadly.

Johanna's cat sniffed at the visitors with extreme caution. The look on her face suggested that she hadn't even gotten used to the first round of guests and that she was definitely leery of more.

"If that thing makes a move for me," Toby began, "it's gonna lose a life. I've lost my trust in felines, thank you very much."

"Ooh," said Johanna. "This is good. We've gotta figure out where these guys are from. Prue, what are the seven deadly sins?"

She furrowed her eyebrows. "Isn't that a Catholic thing?"

"And what happens if a familiar doesn't rid itself of all of its' lives before the next new moon?"

"It becomes invanquishable," Prue, Pipita, and Toby said together.

"Well, at least we know where in time you're from."

"Right." Piper nodded. "I'll make a list of things not to talk about."

The door to the kitchen creaked open and John stuck his head in. "What's going on out here?"

Johanna coughed once again. "I'm sick," she said.

"Shouldn't you be in bed, then?"

"I'm getting there."

John looked at the group that had congregated. "How many of you were there before?"

"Don't think about it too hard," Prue said. "It'll make your head hurt."

"I should just move out to the farm," John muttered as he pushed past everyone to leave the house. "It'd be a lot less crowded."

XXX

Major Events Not To Mention (written by the quintet of Phoebe, Paige, Piper, Cole, and Johanna)

The Brotherhood.

Shax.

Ding, dong, the witch is dead.

"Cole! That is so not funny."

The Source of All Evil.

The Fiancee of All Evil.

The Husband of All Evil.

The Father of All Evil.

The Spawn of--

"All right, Paige. I get it."

Any of Cole's vanquishes except for the one Phoebe faked. Actually, let's be safe and not mention Cole at all.

What and who Paige is.

"We could lock her in the basement to avoid the temptation of asking."

"Cole, I'm gonna lock you in the basement as soon as I finish cleansing it of evil spirits."

"Afraid of the Woogyman?"

"He was probably your imaginary friend."

XXX

At about ten o'clock that night, after a quick hello-and-goodbye to Marilyn and four frozen pizzas, the nine launched into a difficult discussion that Pipita triggered with a "So who's sleeping where?" Toby quickly volunteered to share a bed with Belthazor, which caused Johanna to spend five minutes singing "I love season three!" and tap dancing from the dining room to the living room and then back again. Then Paige suggested that she share a room with Prue, which was vetoed by Phoebe, Piper, and Cole in quick succession.

Finally, after fifteen minutes of getting nowhere, Johanna went over to the organ and played a loud barrage of notes to silence the crowd. "The Phantom of the Living Room Antique calls for silence." She opened a hymnal that had somehow made its' way from Vast Western to her home and uncapped a pen. "For those of you that don't know, there are two open bedrooms upstairs, three if you don't mind sharing with me. I'd choose Cole, as I've said no less than ninety-seven times. And if worse comes to worst, somebody can sleep on the couch down here. Make a decision before I draw names out of a hat." She paused. "Now there's an idea."

"My Cole and I will be together," Toby said. "And the other me and the other Cole can go somewhere."

"I wish," said Johanna. "Wait. The Coles and Phoebes can have a room together."

That was shot down faster than Paige's suggestion was.

By eleven o'clock, the council had reached a verdict.

Who Sleeps Where (And With Who). Written by the loyal scribe, Johanna, on the margin of a page she'll probably need someday.

The Green Room

Piper and Pipita

The Orange Room

Phoebe and Paige

The Downstairs Room That Was My Grandmother's Before She Died

Toby and Belthazor

My Room

Prue and...

...wait for it...

COLE.

I love my life.