Tying Loose Ends Is Never Simple

The family of four plus Leo gathered around the dining room table a few hours later. Victor had actually cooked. The kitchen was a mess but right now he was going to enjoy this meal with his girls. He couldn't stop thinking about how he had managed to save them and all he had to do was be their father. Leo glanced around the table at the Halliwells. He was concerned that he hadn't felt his charges in danger sooner. Of course the Elders had been keeping his attention averted from the girls all day.

"Piper, could you pass the green beans?" Victor asked, breaking the silence. Piper pushed the dish of beans towards her father, not looking at him. He tried to shrug it off as nothing. Phoebe looked at her sister, noticing she was staring off into space.

"Piper likes Leo," Phoebe whispered just loud enough for the rest of the room to hear. She giggled and started to say it louder. Piper glared at the five-year-old and kicked her in the shin under the table.

"Ow! Daddy, Piper kicked me," Phoebe squealed, rubbing her sore leg.

"Piper, don't kick your sister," Victor scolded.

"But she was making fun of me," Piper protested.

"That doesn't mean you can kick her," Victor replied. Piper just let out a very Prue-like huff and turned back to her food. Prue watched the interaction in silence. She was still very confused as to what happened and she wanted some answers, soon.

"Phoebe, Piper, apologize to each other," Victor ordered sternly. The two younger Halliwells turned and gave each other brief hugs with softly whispered "I'm sorries". The rest of the meal passed quickly and in silence. The girls placed their plates in the sink and headed for the front hallway to gather up backpacks and start on homework.

"Prue," Victor called up the stairs. She turned around and looked at him.

"Come get me when you are ready to do your math homework,' he reminded her.

"Ok," she muttered, disappearing up the landing and down the hall.

Victor walked down the few steps he'd gone up and found Leo in the kitchen starting on the dirty dishes. Victor grabbed a rag and began to dry the clean utensils and plates. Neither man said anything for what seemed like ages.

"So what happened earlier?" Leo finally asked. He didn't like feeling so vulnerable, not knowing what was happening with his charges.

"I'm not really sure exactly. I went to get the mail," Victor began, tossing silverware back into the drawer.

"I come back in and I find Piper sobbing on the floor. She's babbling about me leaving again," he continued, having to take a deep breath. That still bothered him.

"Then I found Phoebe crying in the living room. She was saying she thought I'd died. And Prue…I don't know what happened with Prue," Victor finished. He watched Leo's facial expression. Leo was trying to think what this could have possibly been. The elders hadn't mentioned any new threats on the horizon that the girls would have to worry about.

"I honestly don't know. It doesn't sound entirely demonic. I mean the girls just recently lost their grandmother and got you back. It could be residual shock and trauma," Leo explained.

"I may not be magical but I think after living with Patty for five years, I know when something magical is happening," Victor refuted.

"We should check the Book of Shadows and see if anything sticks out," Leo suggested. He turned and held his hands out over the rest of the dirty dishes. They miraculously cleaned themselves and put themselves away.

"That's a handy little trick," Victor commented as the two men headed upstairs. In their room, Phoebe and Piper were sitting on Piper's bed. They had school books out but neither was looking at them.

"Sorry I kicked you," Piper apologized again.

"Sorry too," Phoebe replied. They shared another sisterly hug.

"I'm scared," the five-year-old professed after a moment of quiet.

"Me too. I don't know what happened. But I thought Dad was leaving and not coming back again," Piper sighed, having to wipe a fresh tear from her eye.

"Daddy was dead and that lady was going to take us all away," Phoebe sniffled.

"I want Mommy," Phoebe whimpered.

"Me too," Piper agreed, once more pulling her baby sister into a hug.

In the next room, Prue was sitting cross-legged on her bed, staring at the wall. She didn't want to do her homework. She just wanted to sit and think. She didn't know much about magic yet but she could tell that this was somehow magical. She had to admit she didn't expect Victor to be there for her or her sisters. But he had. It had been his presence that had saved them all from whatever it was that had gotten to them. Sighing, Prue got up and wandered into her siblings' room.

"What are you two doing?" she asked softly.

"We want Mom," Piper managed to get out. Prue's heart ached for her mother too but she knew she had to be strong. She wrapped her arms around her sisters.

"I'm here for you. I'm never going to leave you. I promise," she breathed. It wasn't mom but it would have to do. Prue's ears suddenly pricked up as she heard footsteps on the stairs going up to the attic.

"Come on, let's see what they're doing," she said, dragging her sisters after the footsteps. They found Leo and Victor leaning over the Book of Shadows.

"What are you doing?" Piper asked; arms crossed over her chest.

"We're trying to figure out what might have attacked you," Leo explained.

Down in the Underworld, Ravus and Barbas were sitting in a cave. Ravus had his eyes closed, trying to see if he could sense the girls. Barbas was just watching him, boredom written all over his face. He'd scared the wits out of the Charmed Ones. He felt like he should be out taking advantage of the fact that he was out of Purgatory a couple decades early.

"What exactly are you doing?" he finally asked. Ravus opened his eye sand glared at the other demon.

"Trying to sense them," he snapped.

"Oh so you think you're a whitelighter now," Barbas sneered.

"Would you just keep your mouth shut so I can concentrate?" he snarled.

"So sorry," Barbas apologized in a mocking tone. He was about to leave when Ravus nearly erupted in fury.

"They're alive!" he howled.

"Impossible," Barbas remarked.

"Well they are alive. It seems that annoying father of theirs interfered," Ravus ground out.

"You didn't tell me anything about the father! You never told me he was nearby," Barbas accused. There was no way that he would be pinned for this mess up.

"Go back and kill them!" Ravus ordered.

"I don't kill. I let the fears do that. But I can't very well do that if people keep getting in my way," Barbas shot back and disappeared in flames. Ravus was livid. His plans kept falling apart. How was he supposed to gain a place of honor and respect with the Source and the rest of the Underworld if he couldn't take out the Charmed Ones?

Back in the Manor the girls had gathered around the book, watching pages flip as Leo held his hands over it. He was concentrating, trying to tap into the magical network that ran through all of nature.

"Anything?" Victor prodded.

"Nothing. Well there's one possibility but it's very unlikely," Leo answered.

"Well what's the possibility?" Victor wanted to know. He looked anxious.

"There's a demon….by the name of Barbas. He is the Demon of Fear. He makes your fears come to life and they ultimately kill you. But he is only released from Purgatory every thirteen hundred years. He won't be on our plane for another few decades," Leo explained.

"So…if it's not this Barbas guy then what could it have been?" Victor interrogated.

"I don't know. I'm going to check with my bosses and see if they know anything," Leo sighed and disappeared. Phoebe grew tired of standing on her tip toes and sat down on Grams' old trunk. As her hand brushed against the edge of the trunk, she was pulled into a premonition. She inhaled sharply as the vision hit her.

"Don't scream," the demon hissed, flashing her a set of pointy yellow teeth.

"What do you want?" Penny asked, losing her usual confidence around demons. All she could focus on was the girls upstairs. She had to protect them. They were more vulnerable now than they had ever been.

"What any demon wants witch," he snickered and sent her flying over the table. She pulled herself up and sent him flying into the nearby wall.

"You're attempts are pathetic," he hissed, advancing on her.

"You can't have them. They don't have their powers. They're of no use to you," Penny tried to argue.

"But they will have them…once you're out of the way," he cackled.

The image changed to show Grams trying to run up the stairs with the demon in toe. She'd seen this already. As quickly as the vision came, it was gone. She knew what had happened.

"We have to find the demon that killed Grams," she said, her voice more confident than it had been all day.

"Ok…but we don't know what it looks like," Prue replied. She would love to find the creature responsible for taking Grams away.

"I know. It's blue. It's what tried to kill Daddy," the youngest of the sisters explained, climbing up onto the book. She began flipping pages at random.

"Honey, here why don't I help you," Victor offered. He began to flip pages to the end of the book. When he found nothing that Phoebe recognized, they started at the front. Victor looked over at Prue and Piper. Prue was looking through the contents of Grams' trunk. She seemed to have discovered ritual implements; cloths, candles, ceremonial bowls. Piper on the other hand was standing off to the side, not looking at her father. here," he informed his second daughter. She looked up at the sound of his voice and obeyed.

"What's bothering you?" he asked, sitting down and pulling her into his lap.

"I thought you'd really left,' Piper whispered. Victor lifted her chin so their eyes met.

"I am never leaving you girls again. We're going to figure out what happened," he assured her.

"Daddy I found it!" Phoebe squealed. Both of her sisters rushed to see what she had stumbled upon.

"Ravus," Prue read aloud. She scanned the information the book gave on the demon. He was definitely ugly. She briefly remembered what Janice had looked like.

"There is a spell at the bottom," Piper noted.

"Maybe we say it and he goes away," Phoebe commented.

"I think we should wait to see what Leo has to say," Victor interjected. They wouldn't have enough time. Ravus had grown frustrated in trying to track down Barbas. He had had no luck so far and was going to give up when a plan hit him. He could just go and take the witches out himself. He could wound the father and the whitelighter and attack the girls before any of them knew what happened. With a sadistic smirk he shimmered out. He reappeared in the attic to find Victor and girls behind the book.

"Girls!" Victor shouted, catching their attention. They all looked up.

"Hello girlies," Ravus snarled. Prue immediately squinted at him, sending him stumbling back a few paces.

"Piper…freeze him," she ordered. Piper threw her hands out and Ravus froze mid-step.

"Now what do we do?" Phoebe asked in confusion. Ravus wasn't moving but he was still clearly a problem.

"We have to say the spell," Piper answered, grabbing Prue and Phoebe by the hands. They all looked at the spell in the book. It was kind of complicated and Prue wasn't sure that she knew all the words and what they meant but it didn't much matter. They had to say the spell quickly before Ravus unfroze.

"Evil is a faithful foe but good does battle best. With these words we waste this demon's evil zest," the three girls recited as best they could; stumbling over some of the words. Ravus unfroze and began to burn.

"Say it again girls," Victor urged.

"Evil is a faithful foe but good does battle best. With these words we waste this demon's evil zest," they repeated, this time more confidently. Ravus began to scream in pain as he was consumed completely with hellfire. Just as the girls began to recite the spell again, he burst into ash.

"We did it!" Prue exclaimed, jumping up and down.

"What did you do?" Leo asked, rematerializing.

"We killed the demon that killed Grams," Piper informed the whitelighter.

"Impressive," he responded.

"Well the Elders don't know anything about Barbas being released early. So we'll still have to look into what happened today. But I think right now you girls need to get back to your homework," Leo informed the family of four.

"Will you help me with my math?" Prue asked, addressing Victor.

"Of course," he answered, happy to be able to do something with Prue other than argue. They headed downstairs, Piper and Phoebe dragging Leo with them into their room.

"He's going to help us," Piper told her father as she shut the door. Victor just shook his head. This was certainly going to be an interesting experience.