I don't own Charmed.
Personal Gain.
When she and her sisters were returned to their own time, Phoebe had decided to go for a long walk (avoiding the disgusting piles of dog poop scattered in front of the house was a challenge, but she managed it). She needed the fresh air. After being locked away in a cell for hours, although from what she had discovered the time was actually six months, Phoebe just wanted to get out of the house, and into the wide-open spaces of her home. She didn't plan on going far. She just planned on walking around the block for a bit before heading back.
The last year had been an eye-opener for her and her sisters. Discovering they were witches, that they were united by the Power of Three, learning their mother and grandmother had both been witches themselves, discovering demons and other supernatural entities were real had sent shockwaves through their lives, and they'd learnt quickly to be careful when they used magic for personal gain, but most especially for revenge because there was always a price to pay. And after what she'd been through from horrible premonitions to being burnt alive, Phoebe hoped never to go through anything like this ever again.
Earlier on - although it felt like a long time for Phoebe - she and her sisters had used magic to freeze a man whose dog constantly pooped outside their home and ignored their polite notices to not do it, that it was disgusting and unhygienic before Phoebe had decided enough was enough. She had opted to use magic on him, and while Prue didn't think it wise she'd participated with Piper and Phoebe, and it had worked.
But the price was something even Phoebe, in her worst nightmares, could have expected.
When she was flicking through the TV channels and saw the face of the baseball player, Cal Greene, she'd had a vision of herself being executed by fire while people looked on in delight. Phoebe, like her sisters, had studied enough of what mortals believed about magic and witchcraft to know women accused of witchcraft were burned at the stake. The whole scene of her being incinerated and people watching her reminded Phoebe of what she'd read in books, and it was so vivid and terrifying. But what made it worse was she could feel the heat of the flames as they licked her body.
Prue, Piper and herself had travelled into the future, finding themselves in their future selves bodies, and Phoebe had found herself in a cell, being harassed or left alone by the guards in the prison while Pratt gloated about fires and made threats while letting his fear and ignorance of magic bleed through - she had no idea what the long-term consequences of killing witches would be since many witches hunted and killed warlocks and demons. What would happen if they were gone?
Would they begin preying on ordinary human beings? Mortals would try to fight back, but without magic or a witch's powers, they would likely lose. What would that mean in the long term? She did not want to even consider it.
Phoebe frowned as she remembered the way Leo had shown her Greene's obituary article, the vision she'd had of herself killing him, no emotion on her face… somehow it had led to magic being revealed. Once more the witch hunts began. Phoebe had well and truly had her blinders knocked out; she now knew people living within the modern world hadn't let go of their fears of the unknown. Oh, they might say they had, but while some people might be okay with magic, the majority formed angry mobs, waving guns and cattle prods which replaced torches and pitchforks.
She'd had time to think in the aftermath before her sisters came for her. She realised the vision which began the whole mess, discovering the right spell to head into the future, arriving in the prison while her sisters appeared in their future selves lives, Leo's revelation… it was all part of a sick test to make her and Piper and Prue see the dangers of misusing magic. When Prue and Piper turned up shortly after Pratt had gloated, she was proud to make it clear she might be paying the price while he had to wait until he paid for his own, and he had ignored it in favour of once more making her out to be evil when she realised talking to him was a waste of time (at any other time, Phoebe would have been curious about what would make Prue dye her hair blonde, but not at that moment) she'd worked it out, and she'd realised that they could never return home and make it right if she went with them.
She had stopped Prue from throwing some spell, and the spark which told her this whole thing was a test to see if they really would fall grew into a flame when she stopped Prue and Piper from making a huge mistake. Phoebe had had a brief argument with her sisters over the morality of course, but she knew the only way to put things right was to burn.
She had told them they had been sent into the future wasn't to change it, but to understand what needed to be done. It was a harsh lesson and Phoebe wished it had come from another way, but she couldn't deny it had worked. But when she had felt the flames, the pain of the execution, all of it was just so vivid in its hideous detail, Phoebe knew she would never forget this lesson.
Ever.
When they'd returned to the present and they saw the dog walker, who turned out to be Pratt, which couldn't have been a coincidence that they would have problems understanding even now, once more letting his dog poo outside their home. Prue and Piper hadn't learnt their lesson while she had, using magic for revenge. It was a little thing, as Piper had argued, but Phoebe had come to realise when you broke the small rules it was only a matter of time before you started breaking the bigger ones. The all-important ones. Maybe that was where her future self went wrong. She and her sisters had gotten used to crossing the line, and they hadn't realised the dangers and seen what the consequences would be until it was far too late.
Phoebe sighed. She and her sisters would need to write this up in the Book of Shadows, as a warning and a lesson to those who came after her and Prue, and Piper of the dangers of misusing their gifts. She, Prue, and Piper had used their powers for revenge. What would happen if they did it again, using their powers to make them selves rich and causing problems for others, even harmful ones?
Phoebe hoped she never found out.
Author's note - What do you think?