CHARMED
"Yes, Phoebe, there is a Utopia"
by shel
© december 2004
disclaimer: the charmed ones, cole, and leo, and the rest of the cast of characters we've come to know and love, belong to spelling television, inc. and possible other copyright holders. i intended no true infringement on their copyrights; i only wanted to borrow these marvelous characters for a short time in my own scenarios and hopefully return them no worse for wear; the only things i've gained from this story are the satisfaction and pleasure of having written it and in knowing that others may have enjoyed it too…
rating: pg-13
summary: fulfilling the avatars plan of a demon-free future requires help, understanding, and soul-searching…
timeline: immediately following the end of season 7's, 'witchness protection'…
archive: please don't without expressed permission…
notes: there is reference to events from season 7's 'a call to arms,' 'someone to witch over me,' 'charrrmed,' 'there's something about leo,' season 6's 'valhalley of the dolls,' and season 5's 'centennial charmed'…please let me know if you enjoyed my tale and why and, if not, why not…and, please, don't bother wasting your time or mine by sending any flames…
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Chapter One
Before the trio of Avatars could begin, Piper suddenly demanded, "Why'd you torture Leo?"
"Piper!"
"No, Leo," she glared at him, "I want to know. For months you thought you were hearing voices, voices that made you do things, and suddenly we're supposed to believe these voices were good?"
"I saw a vision," Phoebe added. "One that showed a future of peace. A future Leo says you are trying to make happen. How do we know it's true? Why should we believe you?"
"Because you saw the vision," the female Avatar responded. "That can be your future. That will be your future."
"If you help us," the younger male Avatar clarified.
"That doesn't answer their questions," the lead Avatar told his companions before either sister could speak. He turned to the sisters and nodded, "Given our introduction to Leo, I understand your reluctance to completely embrace our vision. In fact, I welcome your skepticism."
"You haven't answered our questions either," Piper pointedly mentioned.
He smiled back at her before he somberly replied, "It was a miscalculation to approach Leo in the manner we did. We should have anticipated his reaction but we needed to grab his attention."
"He needed to view the world of good and evil from a different perspective," the female Avatar said.
"Do you know what you caused him to do?" Piper angrily questioned.
"I wasn't thinking clearly," Leo told her, "because of what happened with Gideon."
"No!" she argued. "Because of them!"
"Unfortunate circumstance," the leader commented. "Nevertheless, Piper, it was for the best. You see, Avatars exist outside of time and space and we can see the future, many possible futures. And that Elder, the one Leo --"
"Don't say it," Piper warned, in case the Elders were listening.
He nodded in understanding and continued, "That Elder was fated to die a horrible death in each and every one of them. Leo actually spared him a tortured death at the hands of the new Source." Both sisters gasped and he confirmed their horror, "A new Source, more powerful than you can imagine, has risen and will embark on a new dynasty of death and destruction."
"That's impossible," Phoebe uttered as she recovered from the shock. "We'd've known. The Seer would've warned us."
"Unless she didn't know," Piper feared.
"Unless there hasn't been a coronation yet," Phoebe mused. "That's the final step in becoming Source. We might still have a chance to stop it."
"How, when we don't even know where to fi--" Piper began.
"This is why we need your help," the female urged. "Time is running out for all unless you can help us bring about the change."
"At least set things in motion," the younger male encouraged.
Phoebe eyed the trio suspiciously, "I still don't understand. If you know all possible futures and --"
"We never said all possible futures," he quickly corrected.
The lead Avatar nodded, "The future's in a state of constant fluctuation. Each choice made can unleash numerous possible consequences until the next choice made sets off a new chain reaction. Sometimes, how you get there is more important. But, sometimes, reaching the end goal outweighs any other concerns."
"Like now?" Piper asked. "This future Phoebe saw? It's that important that we ignore all else and join you?"
"If you can boost Leo's powers as an Elder the way you did, why do you even need us?" Phoebe wondered. "Why not take on the Source yourselves?"
"The same reason we did not take on the Source before," the younger Avatar offered. "We cannot directly interfere with the balance between good and evil."
"Didn't you do that by making Leo one of you?" Piper accused.
"We did not take away Leo's free will," the leader explained. "He was given a choice to join us. He could have turned down our offer."
At the expense of Piper's and Phoebe's lives, Leo thought. But he wasn't about to tell Piper about that yet. Regardless, he did feel he'd made the right choice. "Don't you see," he sighed, "we'll never have a normal life, never have peace, because the demons will always attack. Aren't you both tired of the sacrifices? Aren't you both tired of feeling that you're not making any difference because evil still manages to spoil even the smallest of victories?"
Piper stared at her husband in surprise, "You've never talked like this before. You're the one who's always so sure we're on the right path, that we are making a difference."
"What happened, Leo?" Phoebe quietly wondered.
"My sons happened!" he snapped. He placed his hands on Piper's shoulders and tried to keep the frustration from his tone, "All we wanted was to make the world a better, safer, place for our children and what happened? Chris came back to change history because all we succeeded in was allowing the world to be ruled by evil."
"That isn't true," Piper countered in a hushed tone. She didn't like thinking of future-Chris because it only reminded her how close she came to losing both him and Wyatt.
"What if it is?" Phoebe asked her sister to consider. "What if, just like the demons, we're caught in this never-ending loop? The demons come after us, we go after the demons. When will it end? Is our true destiny meant to be that we spend the rest of our lives finding only brief moments of peace?"
"You can have more than a brief moment," the female Avatar promised. "You can have utopia."
"Like in my vision?" Phoebe questioned. The Avatar nodded but Phoebe still couldn't allow herself to believe, "How do we know this isn't all part of your plan? Your real plan?"
"What real plan?" the younger male Avatar exclaimed. "We're only trying to save you, save everyone, and bring about peace."
The leader smiled at Phoebe, "You wonder whether we arranged for you to protect the Seer whose betrayal would bring about the return of the demon, Zankou."
"It was you," Piper exclaimed. "Leo didn't leave the photo shoot because the Elders called. He left because you called and told him we had to protect the Seer."
Phoebe kept her eyes on Leo and, even without her empathic powers, realized his lack of denial meant Piper hit on the truth, which meant it could still be a set-up with Leo as an innocent pawn. "Is Zankou the demon who killed the Seer? Is he the new Source?" At the leader's nod, she made a mental note of the demon's name in order to look it up in the Book later. "It was a bit convenient," she commented. "You would have known the Seer would show me a vision of the future. How do I know you didn't plant that vision in her mind in order to distract us?"
"How do we know you didn't want the new Source to come to power to destroy us?" Piper added.
"Why didn't Zankou stick around to attack you?" Leo countered. "If he's the Source, he had a golden opportunity to break the Charmed Ones for good."
"Because maybe we won't matter in the scheme of things," Phoebe guessed, "if he's got the Avatars on his side. We'd never hold our own against them."
"We're not evil," the male Avatar growled. "We're above all that."
"We don't know that," Phoebe hissed. "You caused Leo to see things. Even Piper and I saw you or your heads or whatever that was. You seem to be good at manipulation. All this could be just another act to get us to drop our defenses."
"Why Leo?" Piper suddenly asked. "Why him? Why not go to another Elder or witch or anyone else?"
The leader looked at Phoebe when he answered, "Leo was not our first choice. But, after some time, we realized he was available to us because Leo was now ready to believe."
"Believe in you?" Piper softly asked, casting a side-long glance to her husband.
"Believe in Utopia," the Avatar corrected. "We had needed time before we could approach Leo, or anyone else. We are not as powerful as you might believe. We can be weakened and we can be killed."
"There's a vanquish," Piper taunted, ignoring Phoebe's confusion. She hadn't had a chance to tell her sister about Paige's revelation. "What's to stop us from using it on you?"
"Nothing," the female Avatar acknowledged. "If you've discovered the potion, you have the power to cripple us."
"And then you'll set back our cause for hundreds, maybe thousands, of years," the young male fumed. "The peaceful fate of your world would be lost because of your refusal to believe in hope."
"They're not refusing," Leo defended, "because otherwise you'd have already been vanquished. You wanted them to listen. That's what they're doing."
"They will have the same choice you did, Leo," the leader assured him. "We are not here to threaten your family, or the Charmed Ones."
"We haven't decided that yet," Piper warned.
In order to calm his wife, Leo hoped to switch focus as he quietly admitted, "I've changed in the past few years. I think it started around the time I became an Elder, when Chris exiled me to Valhalla."
"We've been through so much and I know you were disillusioned," Piper conceded, lightly touching his arm, "but you worked through it and found your path again. You even found your way back to your family."
"Still," he confessed, "maybe that path was only temporary. I reached a breaking point, Piper. How many times has Wyatt been a target simply because of magic? Look at all that Gideon did in what he considered was the greater good. All I wanted for ourselves and our children was a world of peace but it seems no matter how many demons we take out, they just keep coming and coming."
"Sometimes it seems like a hopeless dream," Piper nodded before squeezing his hand, "but then you remember what we're fighting for. It isn't hopeless, Leo."
Proud of her for her faith when he'd been unsure, he hugged her, "I have a chance to make that dream a reality. A real chance to create a world we can be proud of. Think about it, Piper, a world we can create that will be everything we've ever dreamed of."
Leo's words suddenly clicked some sort of awareness within Phoebe. To create a world. Her eyes widened and she gasped, "You went to him first!"
The lead Avatar realized she'd made the connection and nodded, "He was the perfect choice. Powerful enough before the addition of our powers while also posessing the rare quality of truly understanding both good and evil."
"Then why'd you let him die?" she spat. "You knew he'd fail."
Unwilling to become involved in her unresolved feelings, he simply replied,"He was made aware of the consequences. He had free choice, something we do not take away from anyone we approach. He could join us or refuse our offer again."
"Again?" she questioned in surprise. How many times had they approached Cole? And when?
"It wasn't until he had nothing else left to lose," the leader honestly told her, "that he accepted our offer. Of course, we both knew he only accepted for one reason, and one reason only."
"What?" she whispered in fear of the answer.
"The same reason Leo accepted our offer," he replied. "Love."
Unwilling, unable, to hear anymore, Phoebe stuttered, "I have to get out of here." Pushing past her confused older sister, she ran from the room and flew down the stairs unsure where she was heading. She only knew she had to get out of the house.
After she threw open the front door and ran down to her car, she collided with Paige whose overnight bag was knocked to the ground.
Seeing the tears in her sister's eyes, Paige put aside her own frustrations and asked in concern, "Phoebe? What's wrong?"
Phoebe yanked open the door to her car and practically shouted, "At least I'd been in love with Cole for almost two years. What's your excuse?" She slammed the door as soon as she was in the driver's seat and peeled out of the driveway without even pausing to put on her seatbelt.
"Paige?"
Paige turned to find her older sister standing with Leo on the lawn. "What just happened?"
"I think you got a dose of your own medicine," Piper quietly said before asking, "Can you come inside? We have some things to tell you."
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