CHAPTER FIVE - Waking Up
Phoebe woke up with a
start. Just as suddenly, both Piper and
Prue also sat up straight in their beds. Looking around her room, Phoebe noticed nothing out of the ordinary, it
all looked just the way it usually did, complete with books strewn across the
desk and a few socks peeking out from a dresser drawer. Rolling over, she grunted as something hard
dug into her side. She pulled a small
dark and rough rock from the floral coverlet as her two older sisters burst
into her room.
"So you…" Piper began.
"And we…" Prue continued.
"Yeah." Finished Phoebe.
The three sisters settled
down on the bed to deconstruct the recent events. "What's that?" Prue asked, seeing what Phoebe held in her hand.
"I think it must be the
Gibraltar rock that Annie was talking about." Phoebe said as she turned it over
in her palm. Then she added wryly, "It's what enabled an inexperienced teenager
to enter a dimension of collective dreams, and save the all powerful Charmed Ones. I definitely think we'll have to look up
Annie and Claudia. What do you think
about a fruit-basket for a good way to say 'Hey thanks for saving our butts
from a from a lifetime of dream voyeurism?'"
"Well everything looks normal." Piper said. "How's everything the same if Annie said
that we had been gone from the manor for a year?" Pointing at the bedside table, she went on. "Look, even Phoebe's peanut butter and jelly
sandwich is fresh enough--for having sat out awhile." She gave her little sister a pointed look, and Phoebe grimaced
and shifted in on the bed.
Giving them a sheepish
smile she just mumbled, "Well they call them midnight snacks for a reason…"
Prue spoke slowly, as the
gears in her mind turned. "Yeah, time
must move differently in the dream dimension. Even though a year had passed in the real world, in our perception of
the dream reality, only a day or two had gone by. Remember Piper, it felt like we had just gotten there."
Piper nodded and continued
the train of thought. "So, when we
broke Etremius's spell, and came back to our own dimension, it was like we were
all just waking up from a long nap, only just a day later than usual, not a
year later."
Phoebe furrowed her brow,
"Well strictly speaking, it wasn't a time loop, right? We did not go back or forward in time, we
just stepped out of this reality and into another one." The sisters nodded and Phoebe
continued, "That means all of those
things did happen, we just weren't here to witness it."
"But those things happened
*because* we weren't here to witness them. Now that we're back, they can't happen." Piper reasoned out with a smile on her face.
Nevertheless Prue blew out
her bangs in annoyance, "But if they *happened* because we *weren't* here--and
we have the proof that they happened because we have the Gibraltar rock--but
they also *didn't* happen because we vanquished Etremius and *are* here, how
did they happen?! And how do you explain--" She cut off as she saw the amused
looks on her two sister's faces.
"Oh forget it. I hate time
paradoxes." She sniffed, and the others collapsed in uproarious laughter.
THE END!
DISCLAIMER: This story
and the Halliwell characters and manor are based on the Spelling Productions
television show, "Charmed", created by Constance M. Burge. All other characters
and settings (Claudia Bentley, Sarta, Paul, Jonathan, Annie, Celia, Mikel,
Petra, Jared and Etremius) are mine. All comments to the author are welcome.
Copyright February 2001 AKA Ayla123, please contact me at swordhandler@yahoo.com.