Sadly, I don't own Charmed.
Surprising Ice-Cream.
As the Halliwell sisters and their estranged father and Leo watched as the new Ice-Cream man got into the van to start work, all of them were confused by the recent events and revelations, to say nothing of the mistakes made by Phoebe and Prue. Not only had their mistake freed three dangerous demonic children - children? They had never once imagined they would come across demon kids, but they guessed it made some degree of sense; if adults could be dangerous and vicious, why not kids as well? - from the van who were being vanquished by the magical Nothing, but they had gotten a man who was on the same side of them to pay the price.
Piper turned questioningly on their Whitelighter. "Leo, why do I get the feeling there's nothing we need to know about the Ice-Cream man?"
Leo sighed. "Ice-Cream men like that are all over the world. They are mortals because a demon would see through anything magical, like a Whitelighter, and so mortals were given special vans to vanquish demon kids."
"I guess that makes sense," Victor said, sending the other man a few looks, "mortal ordinary humans are everywhere, and demons likely have ways of telling when someone is magical or not."
"Quite, that's why the Elders set it up," Leo nodded, but Prue and Phoebe caught a questioning glance between Piper and Victor. They didn't know if Piper had shown Leo pictures of their father, but it was possible.
"But an Ice-Cream van?" Victor pointed out.
Leo shrugged. "It seems innocent. I And besides, it does work."
"That's certainly true. But years ago when Prue was young she heard the song from the van; how did that happen?" Victor went on.
Leo shrugged. "Some witches can hear the song, but nobody knows why."
Prue shivered at the now resurfaced memories of the mysterious and terrifying event from her past which she was relegating to the back of her mind, including the vague memory of meeting herself and her sisters as they were now during that chaotic mess where they'd travelled back in time to find out why their mother would promise a demon their powers, and the one where their mother had been killed by that demon in the lake.
"Well, from now on, if I never see or hear from this van again, I won't be sorry," she declared.
"Yeah, but I feel awful about the Ice-Cream man,"Phoebe's eyes were troubled, "I mean, he gave up his life and job to save us from those demon kids just to save us."
"I wish we'd known about him beforehand," Piper added before turning to Leo. "I don't suppose you'll tell us if there are other demon slayers besides us, and now Caleb, eh Leo?"
Leo chuckled although the Whitelighter was unsure about how long it would take. "Piper, there are hundreds of witches who fight off demons, not to mention other forces of evil. But their scope is limited compared to yours. They are usually alone, you are not. On top of that, the three of you are more powerful on your own, even without the Power of Three."
"You're the girl's Whitelighter, aren't you?" Victor suddenly said.
Leo licked his lips. He knew there was no denying it, especially since he had arrived with Caleb and he had a knowledge of magic far beyond the girl's own knowledge. They had to learn as they went. But at the same time he hoped the subject of Sam, Patty Halliwell's own Whitelighter didn't crop up; there was no doubt in Leo's mind Victor knew about that and how it turned out in the long term with that tragic mess at the lake. "Yes, I am," he said defensively although he hid it behind a layer of mildness.
But Victor smiled. "Thanks for looking out for my daughters; I always struggled with the reality of the girls' turning out to be witches. It was a world I barely understood, although I picked up enough from Penny and Patty about it. And when I heard news that Patty had….died," Victor suddenly took a deep breath and he appeared much older than he had a moment before as he remembered hearing the news of his ex-wife's tragic death, but the look in his face and the pain that was there told the girls that despite everything that happened, he had loved their mother more than anything in the world, "well, it only widened the gulf, and I made a deal with demons to take that Book out of the manor. I only had the best of intentions, but I learnt quickly it was the worst thing I could have done. Some of the worst things imaginable have been done with the best of intentions. But a part of me wishes I had Caleb's job," he added, surprising the girls who looked at him in surprise; they had never heard him wish that he fought demons everyday before.
"Dad, you wish you were doing this?" Phoebe asked in confusion.
"Why?" Piper added.
Victor sighed. "It would have given me a greater perspective of what you girls have to face on a daily basis. But will he be alright? I mean, after what happened to the last Ice-Cream man…?" He asked Leo.
"He'll be fine; he has a long career ahead of him before its his time to retire," Leo replied.
Victor nodded, but Piper frowned as she caught something Leo and Caleb had mentioned earlier. "Hold on. The Elders brought Caleb here very quickly, they knew what was going to happen?"
"That's right. They exist outside linear time; they can pretty much see everything that's going to happen. They knew the Ice-Cream van would….die today, so they prepared for it."
Phoebe shuddered as she remembered meeting the injured Ice-Cream man who'd suffered terrible burns to his hands after he'd tried to stop the demon kids from getting out of his van. "Why didn't they try to stop it?" She asked desperately. "They have that power- oh!" She suddenly said, her eyes wide as the memory of herself burning in that alternate world came back to haunt her.
Leo seemed to realise it too. "Like you, and every other witch, cupid, demon and Whitelighter, the Elders have to obey laws of their own; their enormous power and knowledge makes it all the more important they don't misuse their gifts, the consequences will be too great. That's why they showed you what could happen if you crossed the line. The Elders believe that if the rules are good enough for them, its good enough for all."
"What do you mean the Elders showed you what could happen if you crossed the line?" Victor demanded, seeing his daughters flinch while Phoebe herself looked like she was trying not to collapse.
"Last year, a dog walker kept letting his dog poo outside our home. We tried everything to stop him from doing it, but nothing worked. In the end we decided to use magic to get revenge. Piper froze him while I….flicked the poo at him," Prue said, grimacing at the memory.
Victor grimaced himself. He had encountered more than enough dog shit in his life, but he couldn't help but grin and chuckle at what his girls had done. But his smile faded when the sisters, knowing what was making him smile, carried on. And he was not smiling after that.
"After we did that, I was flicking through the TV channels when I saw the face of a baseball player and I got a premonition of me being burned alive, and it was so vivid and real I may as well have been there instead of seeing it in a daydream," Phoebe said quickly, deciding the sooner she got it out of the way, the better.
Victor gazed at his youngest child in horror. "What?"
"Yeah, we were terrified. When we went upstairs, we found the pages of the Book of Shadows had been flicked through," Piper sent Leo a brief look, which had the Whitelighter hold his hands up, but Leo wasn't saying a word and neither was Victor; he remembered what Sam had been like and he remembered how that one had sometimes been ordered to do things by the Elders and he guessed this was no different, "to a time travel spell. We used it, jumping to 2009. When we got there, I found I was in the middle of a nasty divorce, Prue was successful and a busy loner while Phoebe," suddenly the middle sister was looking awkwardly at Phoebe who looked like she had just wandered into a haunted house but discovered it wasn't anymore scary than being attacked in a dark alley by a demon, "well…"
"Well, what?" Victor asked hesitantly.
"I was in prison, daddy. I was going to be executed for murdering someone with magic. That baseball player which sparked the whole thing off murdered a friend of mine, and this version of me was furious when he was let off, so that me killed him. But it wasn't until the Leo of that world came to me and I saw what I did that I finally understood it was a test for us to see what we can and can't do," Phoebe's voice was so solemn Victor wondered if it was the same usually bubbly girl he was used to dealing with.
"What do you mean?" Victor asked.
"I realised the only way to get out of there was if I went through with the execution and I realised that a part of me could be forced to kill an innocent. The whole thing was a test - the sudden premonition, the time-travel spell, ending up in our future selves bodies and then dealing with all the hate to magic, but when we came back and that dog walker was back and Piper used her magic to freeze time again, I realised that was what set it off in the first place. I realised the smallest things we did with magic used like that, and then it could move onto bigger things," Phoebe went on.
"Like murder," Victor looked down so the girls wouldn't see the horror and grief in his eyes at what could happen to his children if they weren't careful. "I think I understand now, and I am so sorry you had to go through with that; Penny and Patty always played by the rules even if there were moments they wished they didn't. But now I can understand why there have to be rules since anything can happen."
The sisters looked at each other, very well believing that their father must have seen their mother and grandmother come close to the line they'd discovered during that mess they'd described.
Prue, desperate to get the subject back the way it was, nodded towards the van. It was still there. "Will Caleb be okay, Leo?" She asked.
Leo, surprised by the sudden shift, nodded. "He will be. But how does it feel to know you've got another ally in the fight against demons?"
"Leo, we do know there are people out there who fight demons, but we weren't expecting one using an Ice-Cream van," Phoebe rolled her eyes; now the subject of the alternate world she'd nearly been burnt in was no longer being discussed, she felt more or less back to normal.
"Or demon kids?"
"Well, your grandma told me once there were demons of all physical ages. Besides it sounds like someone's got to be there to stop them going far," Victor commented.
"How much did mum and Grams tell you?" Prue asked.
"Only a few bits here and there, nothing substantial," Victor replied. "But what I don't understand is why the demons don't do anything about this, surely they know what the Ice-Cream man is doing?"
"Oh, they know alright, but the problem is how do you find a specific van when there are thousands like it?" Leo pointed out.
"Fair enough. Look, can we get out of here before anything else happens?" Victor asked.
"Yeah, you're right," Prue agreed.
A moment later as they left the yard, Prue looked awkwardly at her father. "Listen, I know I haven't been fair to you…"
"No, you have every right to feel the way you have, Prue. All of you do. I walked away. I wasn't there. I could have helped you and your siblings, but I had had enough of being in a world I barely understood. It was selfish of me and I've been feeling terrible about it for years, especially after seeing you in action," Victor interrupted, looking down at his feet. "Prue, Phoebe…told me about what happened at the lake where your mother, where Patty died."
"Oh?" Prue could only say although she wondered what else he'd told her father, he hadn't known about that trip to the future.
Victor nodded and then he looked up at her. "I think your mother would be terrified that you would have gone there, but at the same time I think she would have been proud of what you three have done. I might not understand or agree with everything you've done because I don't have magic, but I am proud of the strong and good people my daughters are."
Prue was almost ashamed of the tears and the emotion bubbling underneath them, but she felt her father pull her into a hug and she felt the barriers she'd put up to deal with the pain he'd caused her all those years ago when he'd left start to crumble - she found it hard to forgive all of his mistakes, but Prue couldn't help it.
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