Phoebe opened her car door. Paige looked over and, quickly, grabbed her arm.
"What do you think you're doing?" Paige asked Phoebe.
"What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to stop them." Phoebe tried to get out of the car, but Paige pulled her back in.
"Are you crazy? You can't just walk up to them and tell them to stop kissing or else. All that will do is make Piper angry at us."
"So what? This is wrong." Phoebe made another motion to get out of the car, but Paige pulled her back in again.
"What do you mean 'this is wrong'?"
"What do you mean 'what do I mean'? Piper and Leo--"
"—are not together any longer. He left her, Phoebe. He left her to go fulfill some higher calling. So not only are Piper and Leo divorced—"
"They're not divorced yet," Phoebe replied, stubbornly, "because Piper can't remember him long enough to divorce him."
"Whatever. What I mean is… nothing is going to change, whether Piper can remember Leo or not. Don't you think she deserves a little happiness after all she's been through? Do you really want to ruin what she and Dan could have together?"
Phoebe glared at Paige. "Piper and Leo belong together, Paige. Plus, we all know that Dan would never be able to handle the fact that we are all witches."
"So what? She should just give up on love entirely unless it's a warlock or another whitelighter? Things change. He could've changed."
"Why do you care so much about Piper and Dan being together?"
Paige sighed. "Phoebe, just look at them."
Phoebe gazed at Piper and Dan, who had now stopped kissing long just to gaze into each other's eyes.
"I can't believe this is happening," Piper said, happily.
"I know. I thought you would have gotten over me by now."
Piper laughed. "I thought I was over you, too. I guess we were both wrong, huh?"
"This time, I don't mind being wrong." He grinned and leaned in for another kiss.
In the car, Paige turned back to Phoebe. "When's the last time you saw Piper look that happy? Well, other than when she was engaged to Mr. Warlock Dude, of course."
Phoebe stared at Piper and Dan, a sinking feeling in her chest. Of course she wanted to see Piper happy. But was her being with Dan the way to go about it?
When Phoebe didn't reply, Paige nodded, satisfied. "That's what I thought."
Phoebe still didn't say anything. Paige turned around and saw Dan heading down the steps towards his car which was parked behind the sisters' car. "Quick!" Paige said. "Duck!"
"What? Why? We live--" But Paige pulled her down before she could finish.
Dan passed by their car. He stopped for a moment, glanced toward the sisters' car, smiled, then walked off to his own car. As soon as his car had disappeared down the road, Paige slowly sat up and looked towards the house. "Piper must have gone inside," Paige commented since Piper was no longer standing on the steps. "Come on, let's go in now."
"Where have you guys been?"
Phoebe and Paige had just entered the manor into the front hall where Piper had, apparently, been waiting for them.
"Well, uh," Phoebe replied, "we did a little demon-investigating."
"A little demon-investigating, huh?" Piper repeated, tapping her foot on the floor. "And what exactly did you find out?"
"Uh..." Phoebe and Paige glanced at each other. For some reason, Piper seemed a bit upset with them. "Well, we didn't really find out anything more. Nothing that we didn't already know."
"Oh," Piper replied. "So then you guys came on home, then, right?"
"Uh, yeah," Paige answered, slowly.
"And you guys decided to sit in the car and watch me and Dan rather than come out and at least make up a plausible excuse for not staying the entire evening?"
Phoebe and Paige glanced towards each other again. Phoebe began, "Well, Piper--"
"Dan saw you guys, too. He knows our car, I don't think ducking down would have changed anything." But Piper couldn't resist a smile as she recalled her sisters' futile attempt to hide themselves.
Paige smiled, also, although Phoebe did not. "We didn't want to ruin yours and Dan's special time."
Piper reassured them. "Don't worry. You didn't,"
There was a few moments of silence before Phoebe said, "So... you and Dan, huh?"
"Yeah," Piper responded, as she turned and started heading towards the parlor, with her sisters following behind her. "One moment he was telling me that he still had feelings for me... and, the next moment, we were kissing on the steps."
"Well, we know he's not a demon or a warlock, right?" Paige asked, sitting down on one of the chairs.
Piper grinned and took another seat near, while Phoebe remained standing, hands in the pocket of her coat. "I'm pretty sure that he isn't."
"Um, Piper," Phoebe started, as the sisters sat down at the kitchen table, "I'm not trying to be negative or anything, but we've seen how Dan handled learning our secret. Do you really think he's changed?"
Piper's grin faded off her face. "Um, I really don't know. I'm hoping that he has. I mean, the last time he found out, it wasn't the best possible way. Right now, I'm just taking it one step at a time. I don't want to have to worry about that yet." Piper yawned. "Well, I think I'm going to go to bed now. I'll see you guys tomorrow." Piper got up and started heading up the stairs.
"Good night," Paige called behind her.
Phoebe sighed and took Piper's vacant seat. She leaned back in her seat and closed her eyes. "Oh," she groaned, "this day has been way too long."
Paige smiled at her weary sister. "I totally agree. Which is why I think I'm going to go to bed, too." Paige stood up. "Good--"
Just then, a loud crash sounded from upstairs. Phoebe and Paige looked quickly at each other.
"What was that?" Paige asked. Another crash suddenly sounded.
Phoebe didn't bother responding; she took off running up the stairs, with Paige following closely behind her.
"Piper!" Phoebe called as she and Paige ran up the stairs. "Piper!"
Piper was standing in front of her room in the upstairs hallway, staring at the stairs that led to the attic. "It came from the attic," she told her sisters.
The sisters all turned their attention to the attic where several other crashes and sounds could be heard.
"Do you think it's a demon?" Paige questioned.
Piper commented, "Well, if it's just looking for the book, it's making an awful lot of noise."
"Well, let's go see. Come on." Phoebe grabbed Piper's and Paige's hand and, together, the sisters walked up the stairs that led to the attic.
When they got to the door, the sisters released each others' hands. "Okay," Piper said, "hands at the ready."
Paige slowly lowered her hand onto the attic doorknob. She hesitated as they listened to the continuing crashes from inside, then, quickly, opened the door.
The attic was so dark that the it took the sisters awhile for their eyes to adjust and notice what had state the attic was in.
There were papers all over the floor. Chairs and tables had been overturned. The Book of Shadows and the stand it rested on both lay on the floor, untouched. In the corner, a tall, cloaked demon knelt, sorting through a bundle of papers and other objects. It appeared to be looking for something.
Phoebe gasped. "That's the demon from my premonition!" she told her sisters
The demon jerked its cloaked head up, startled, to look at the sisters. He stood up quickly, then, froze.
Piper raised up her hands to attempt to blow up the demon, but before she could, the demon issued a terrible, loud moan from the inside of its hood, which caused the sisters to all cover their ears. It was like nothing the girls had ever heard before.
"What the hell was that?" Paige yelled, as the moaning continued.
Piper released her ears to try to blow up the demon again, but Phoebe put her hand up to stop her. "Wait," Phoebe shouted. "Look at what he's doing." The demon was making a series of different moans and gesturing with his hands. "I think he's trying to communicate with us." Phoebe began to walk closer to the demon.
"Phoebe!" Piper shouted. She grabbed Phoebe's arm. "What are you doing?"
"Just wait." Phoebe continued to inch her way closer to where the demon stood. As she made her way closer, the demon stopped the moaning.
"There we go," Phoebe said in relief. Phoebe turned back to her sisters, a what do I do now? look on her face. Piper and Paige shrugged.
Phoebe faced the demon again. "Uh," she started, a bit too loudly. "What are you looking for?"
The demon began to moan again. Phoebe put up her hands quickly, which silenced the demon.
"No, no, no. No need to talk," Phoebe said.
"Uh, Pheebs?" Piper began. "I don't think he has any idea what the hell you're saying."
Paige suggested, "Maybe we oughta call Chris." Piper and Phoebe both looked at Paige. "Well, whitelighters can speak all these languages to communicate with all their charges, right? Maybe Chris will know demon-speak."
Whitelighters can speak different languages. I knew that... but how did I know? Piper was starting to get annoyed by the constant feeling of déjà vu. Now, more than ever, she had the strongest feeling that she was not remembering something. I could speak French... because I switched bodies with--
"Piper? What do you think?" Phoebe asked.
Piper immediately snapped out of it and looked at her sisters. "Uh, yeah. Call him."
Paige nodded and called, "Chris! We need you!"
There was a moment of waiting before the recognizable blue lights appeared in front of Piper and Paige. "What is it?" Chris asked.
"We need a little help decoding some demon-language," Piper answered. She pointed towards Phoebe and the demon. "Look behind you."
Chris turned and jumped back a little as he saw the demon. "Um, what's this?"
"This is the demon from my premonition," Phoebe informed Chris. "We think he's trying to tell us something, but we can't understand him."
"And we were hoping you could," Paige added.
"Why would you think I could?" Chris questioned.
"Well, whitelighters can understand other languages, can't they? I mean, Le--" Paige glanced quickly at Piper, "uh, other, whitelighters could."
"Well, I can't."
"Why not?" Paige asked.
"Well, can you?" Chris retorted.
"No, but I'm only half-whitelighter. You're a full whitelighter... aren't you?"
But before Chris could respond, out of nowhere, the demon came hurtling towards Chris, knocking Phoebe down as he went.
"Oomph!" Phoebe said as she fell on the floor.
Chris yelled as the demon tackled Chris, and both crashed onto the floor. The demon's long, skeletal fingers closed around Chris' neck, as if trying to strangle him.
"Chris!" Paige yelled.
"A little help here, please!" Chris managed to gasp out.
Paige ran over to the struggling duo, but before she could attempt anything, she was instantly thrown back into the attic wall.
"Paige!" Piper ran over to Paige's unconscious body, and knelt down to make sure Paige's pulse was alright. When she had affirmed that Paige was okay, Piper turned back to the demon and Chris. "Okay. That's it." Piper blew up the demon.
Chris lay panting on the floor. Paige sat up, slowly, rubbing her head. "Uhhh," she moaned. "What the hell happened?"
Phoebe placed her hands on her hips. "What did you do that for?" she asked Piper, angrily. "The demon had something important to tell us."
"We don't know that," Piper responded. "It could have easily been calling its demon friends to come here and eat our flesh. Besides, it's pretty much a good idea to not trust tall demons in black cloaks; they're never up to any good."
"Well, I think the demon just proved that by trying to kill me for, might I add, no apparent reason!" Chris added, standing up. "Piper was right. We couldn't trust it."
"Not to interrupt the discussion," Paige stated, also standing up, "but could I get some healing over here, Chris, please?"
"Not now, Paige. I have to report this to the Elders." And with that, he orbed out of the room.
Piper sighed. "Figures. Come on, Paige. I'm sure ice and a band-aid will help." Paige followed Piper out the doorway.
Phoebe was about to follow her sisters out the door when she a bright sparkle caught the corner of her eye. Phoebe went over to investigate. She gasped as she picked up the shiny item that she had last seen in her premonition.
How'd this get here? Then it dawned on her. Either Chris or the demon must have dropped it. And Phoebe had the sinking suspicion that she knew which one.
Okay, this is one point in the whole "Chris is evil" category... if the object is evil. None of the sisters knew anything about it. After the ordeal with Kevin, Phoebe had scoured the Book of Shadows, looking for some tiny tidbit of information of both Kevin and his object, but nothing had turned up.
Still, why would Chris hide this from us? He had to have picked it up after Evelyn dropped it. The whole thing didn't make any sense.
Phoebe shook her head, in an attempt to clear her thoughts. What I need to do now, she thought, as she put the artifact into her coat pocket, is talk to Piper and Paige, and figure out what to do together.
"Phoebe," Chris's voice sounded from behind her.
Phoebe jumped, startled, and turned around. She hadn't even heard Chris orb in from behind her.
"Sorry to startle you," he apologized. "Um, I was just wondering... you didn't happen to see anything, uh, suspicious lying around here, did you?"
"Suspicious?" Phoebe repeated, slowly. "Well, like what?"
"Just anything that, you know, didn't belong here."
Phoebe stared blankly at Chris, as if she had absolutely no idea what Chris was talking about. She hoped that Chris would not suspect anything.
"Well, the Elders seem to think that this demon might have been carrying something of a very powerful nature, something that could do a lot of damage in the wrong hands."
For a moment, Phoebe wanted to believe him. He sounded like he was telling the truth. Plus, it had belonged to Kevin before who was a powerful warlock. Maybe I should tell him...
"Well, I can assure you that we haven't seen anything suspicious around here, but you can look around if you want," Phoebe responded."Maybe you'll see something." Phoebe headed towards the doorway, and, without waiting for a response, said, "I'm gonna go to bed. Goodnight."
"Goodnight," Chris replied, quietly, after Phoebe had already left the room.
END OF ACT IV